The Alien Franchise

Original Alien animatronic creator Carlo Rambaldi dies, aged 86

Animatronics pioneer Carlo Rambaldi has died at the age of 86, after a long illness.

Rambaldi, who was born in north-east Italy attended Bologna’s Fine Arts academy, before entering Italy’s film industry. Uber-producer Dino De Laurentiis who spotted Rambaldi’s talent and employed him to work on his remake of King Kong. While the movie was a failure, Rambaldi won an Oscar for his work, and and was soon part of Hollywood effects royalty.

He is perhaps best know for his work on Steven Spielberg’s ET, but for real fans of sci-fi and horror, Rambaldi’s name will be forever linked with the first Alien movie. While HR Giger’s designs broke new ground in creature design, it was Rambaldi’s animatronics that brought the creature’s face to horrible, disturbing life, again winning him an Oscar.

Read the BBFC’s original 1979 rating report on Alien

With all the recent chatter around what rating Prometheus would be receiving, in a staggering coincidence (!), the BBFC have raided their archives to bring us their original examiner’s report which shows the thoughts behind the film’s 1979 ‘X’ rating.

As with all their ‘From the Archives’ articles, this is a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the organisation, which is now working hard – and successfully – to shake off their traditionally secretive image.

There was a time when no one had seen a facehugger, or a chestburster, or had heard the phrase ‘In Space No One Can Hear You Scream’. Alien first appeared in 1979 and since then HR Giger’s biomechanical nightmare has never really left our screens, appearing in six motion pictures (or seven if you count Predator 2) and countless comic books and video games.

With Ridley Scott revisiting the Alien universe this month in Prometheus, we take a look at what the BBFC made of Alien when it first came to the Board.

Examiners found themselves weighing up whether to pass the film ‘AA’, which would have made the film available to those aged 14 and up or ‘X’ for 18 years and over. In the end the film was passed ‘X’ in line with other horror films of the time such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers. However some comparisons were drawn between Alien and Jaws and there was discussion as to whether younger viewers would be able handle Alien or whether the level of fear generated and the dark tone were too much.

You can download the archive, in PDF format, directly from here.

Is there a new Alien themed game coming to consoles?

Nope, not the upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines (being covered in great detail on AvP Galaxy).

A new Alien universe game is in development for current AND next-gen consoles, according to Gamerzines, who spotted a job posting on developer The Creative Assembly’s website:

“We are seeking an experienced programmer with proven skills in the area of gameplay and multi-player games. The successful applicant will be working on a AAA multi-platform title on current and future generation consoles set in the Alien universe.”

With the resurgence of interest in the Alien universe surrounding the release of Prometheus, it seems a great opportunity to allow gamers to explore it. As long as they don’t bugger it up of course…

Thanks to AvP Dot Net’s Twitter feed for the tip off!

Ever fancied building your own Alien costume? You’re not the first

This may well be old news to many of you, but browsing around we found this work of genius – a home-made costume, named Abe T. Alien, by Alien fan Gareth Ellner.

You can see the story of Abe’s construction here, and some photos here. The site hasn’t been updated in a while, but there is an active Twitter feed here.