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Inside Alien Vault
Empire looks behind the scenes of a sci-fi masterpiece

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Thirty-two years old and officially enshrined as a sci-fi masterpiece, Alien is still the scariest night in this side of the galaxy. Thanks to Ridley Scott's meticulous collection of Alien artefacts and Empire's own Ian Nathan, a world-leading xenomorphologist, the film's rich universe has been brought to glorious, detailed life in a new book, Alien Vault. There's enough riches in here for Clive Owen to hide amongst - from Dan O'Bannon's facehugger concept art to a glorious array of rarities and unseen photos to schematics of the USCSS Nostromo (yes, you can rebuild it yourself, should you so desire).

With Alien Vault out now, Ridley Scott has dipped into his treasure trove to share ten on-set pics, designs and stills. Nathan takes up the story...

WORDS PHIL DE SEMLYEN
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Inside Alien Vault | Ridley Scott gives acting tips to Ian Holm’s Ash
Ridley Scott gives acting tips to Ian Holm’s Ash

Ash was the point of much debate before and during the shoot. Scott was intrigued by how much he was aware of: did he already know about the creature? And thus, did The Company already know of its existence? Did Ash sleep? And if he didn’t, did he wonder the Nostromo while the others reclined in hypersleep? Indeed, Scott wondered if Ash had a penis (he attempts to ‘rape’ Ripley with a rolled up magazine). Did Ash know he was a android? “He does in this instance,” was the director’s conclusion to this, “then he goes through the theatre of pretending to be who he was…”

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Your Comments

1 The 'D' in Weyland-Yutani
The funny thing was, is that I actually had the Nostromo blueprints as Weylan-Yutani for a while. When I was asked if I was interested in including the blueprints in Alien Vault, the blu-rays had just come out, and of course everywhere on the blu-ray disc menus, including ALIEN, was the Aliens style 'W' symbol and 'Weyland-Yutani' wording. So, I opted to include the 'D'. That's basically what happened with the additional 'D' on the prints. Weylan-Yutani or Weyland-Yutani; still a great ship and a great movie that hasn't dated whatsoever after 32 years. - Graham J Langridge More

Posted by Space_Jockey on Wednesday September 21, 2011, 02:48

2 Free Range Alien Eggs
I believe Ash would shut down when the others were in hypersleep and that he was hooked into Mother, the ship's computer, which would reawaken him with the others. He wouldn't be much value to the company if the crew figured out he wasn't human straight away. He was the Weyland-Yutani's eyes and ears on that ship. As for the Space Jockeys being the focus of Prometheus, sounds like they're going to "explain" these creatures and ruin their mystique. More

Posted by BenTramer on Tuesday September 20, 2011, 05:51

3
Well the thing is. You are in space. What do you expect to find? Earthlings? Aliens of course. What else? or monkeys... More

Posted by smakris04 on Friday September 16, 2011, 12:24

4
Fascinating set of images, thank you. More

Posted by Schnorbitz on Wednesday September 14, 2011, 18:30

5
'wonder the Nostromo': really? More

Posted by Revstar on Wednesday September 14, 2011, 12:47


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