Influential films that are a bit rubs really

[buzby]

That's the equivalent of saying Alien was "influenced" by Star Wars. Star Wars simply made it easier for the writers to get their script accepted at that time.

Scott has stated that Alien was inspired by Star Wars, specifically in his foreword for The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. He was in LA showing The Duellists and met up with David Puttnam, who said he could get tickets to see Star Wars at Grauman's Chinese Theater. Scott went with him and by the end of the film was so impressed he decided to scrap his next project (Tristran and Isolde) and find a Sci-Fi script to work on. Twenty two hours after landing in LA he had met with O'Bannon and signed up to direct Alien.

While Scott was filming The Duellists at Paramount in LA some of the art department crew had worked on Star Wars in London. Scott had heard about it and asked them what it was like. they showed him copies of some of the production design sketches and he was intrigued by the mix of retro and futuristic elements, which went on to be a major influence on the aesthetic for the human side in Alien. This also influenced Scott's choice of Roger Christian as production designer, having won an Oscar for his set decoration on Star Wars.

Dan O'Bannon had originally been approached to head up the Star Wars SFX department by Gary Kurtz, but they couldn't match the salary he had been offered to work on Jodorowsky's version of Dune and John Dykstra got the job. That film famously fell through, and O'Bannon was broke, living on Ron Shusett's couch and they were writing the script for Alien when a year later Kurtz called him again. George had been impressed by the ship's displays he had produced for Dark Star, and asked if he could do the animated displays and maps for Star Wars. O'Bannon supervised  the animation of all the 'computer graphics' (though most wer hand-animated) displays and maps, including the targeting computer animations used in the Death Star trench run .

In the aftermath of the success of Star Wars, Fox and all the other studios were casting around for another Sci-Fi property to work on. they had finished the script for Alien and started shopping it round the studios the month after Star Wars was released. and Brandywine and Fox snapped it up. The production design was started by O'Bannon before they had a director signed up, and he got the studio to get Ron Cobb, Chris Foss and H.R. Giger on board, who had all worked with him on Dune (this is something Scott has taken credit for since)

Cobb and Foss designed the human ships and equipment (though none of Foss's designs for the Nostromo ended up being used - the SFX supervisor Brian Johnson built it using elements from a load of different Cobb and Foss designs he had grabbed when nobody would decide which should get built), and Giger the Alien, Space Jockey and the Derelict. When Scott came on board, he brought in Moebius (he was a big fan of Metal Hurlant, and Moebius had also worked with O'Bannon on Dune), to produce the human costume designs, most notably the Nostromo's environmental suits

[Funcrusher]

Caught its sequel Be Cool on Netflix a few weeks back.  I wish it worked.  Can vaguely remember the book being alright when I read it on a Leonard spree (along with about 30 others) in a couple of weeks.  But it does'ne.  It does'ne at all.  It's a movie consisting entirely of smug cameos from QT refugees and self-referential allusions to sequels, with nothing else to chew on at all.  Even The Rock with his hair grown out does nothing for it.

I totally love Elmore Leonard, but 'Be Cool' is one of only maybe a couple of his books that really fall flat. It just reads like he wrote another Chilli Palmer book to order with no real inspiration or enthusiasm for the thing. And the music business stuff really doesn't work for the most part. Still arguably the greatest crime writer of all time when he was on his game, which was almost always.

Citizen Kane.  Big ol' newsreel of a film, which skips straight to the most sentimental scenes in this Hearst-alike's life without ever warranting the audience's emotion by showing the in-between moments.  Feels very much like a work of juvenilia, where this young dude had to prove he was a real grown-up man by cramming in everything he knew into this one piece, without the grace and space to pull it off.

Mate.

[Sin Agog]

At least we got all of those killer Val Lewton movies out of it, after R.K.O. brought him on board to produce a bunch of zero budget quickie horrors to recoup some of the money they lost bankrolling Welles.

[Sin Agog]

Jim Carter of Ghosts of Mars.

[itsfredtitmus]

You forgot midnight chimes

[idunnosomename]

He's history's greatest monster

[NoSleep]

Although I do think there was some back and forth between Starwars and Scott's sci fi films of that era in terms of visuals, the 77 film really introducing the idea of a used dirty space age which Alien furthered.

What about Dark Star (1974); written by and starring Dan O'Bannon, writer of Alien?

[NoSleep]

Scott has stated that Alien was inspired by Star Wars, specifically in his foreword for The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. He was in LA showing The Duellists and met up with David Puttnam, who said he could get tickets to see Star Wars at Grauman's Chinese Theater. Scott went with him and by the end of the film was so impressed he decided to scrap his next project (Tristran and Isolde) and find a Sci-Fi script to work on. Twenty two hours after landing in LA he had met with O'Bannon and signed up to direct Alien.

While Scott was filming The Duellists at Paramount in LA some of the art department crew had worked on Star Wars in London. Scott had heard about it and asked them what it was like. they showed him copies of some of the production design sketches and he was intrigued by the mix of retro and futuristic elements, which went on to be a major influence on the aesthetic for the human side in Alien. This also influenced Scott's choice of Roger Christian as production designer, having won an Oscar for his set decoration on Star Wars.

Dan O'Bannon had originally been approached to head up the Star Wars SFX department by Gary Kurtz, but they couldn't match the salary he had been offered to work on Jodorowsky's version of Dune and John Dykstra got the job. That film famously fell through, and O'Bannon was broke, living on Ron Shusett's couch and they were writing the script for Alien when a year later Kurtz called him again. George had been impressed by the ship's displays he had produced for Dark Star, and asked if he could do the animated displays and maps for Star Wars. O'Bannon supervised  the animation of all the 'computer graphics' (though most wer hand-animated) displays and maps, including the targeting computer animations used in the Death Star trench run .

In the aftermath of the success of Star Wars, Fox and all the other studios were casting around for another Sci-Fi property to work on. they had finished the script for Alien and started shopping it round the studios the month after Star Wars was released. and Brandywine and Fox snapped it up. The production design was started by O'Bannon before they had a director signed up, and he got the studio to get Ron Cobb, Chris Foss and H.R. Giger on board, who had all worked with him on Dune (this is something Scott has taken credit for since)

Cobb and Foss designed the human ships and equipment (though none of Foss's designs for the Nostromo ended up being used - the SFX supervisor Brian Johnson built it using elements from a load of different Cobb and Foss designs he had grabbed when nobody would decide which should get built), and Giger the Alien, Space Jockey and the Derelict. When Scott came on board, he brought in Moebius (he was a big fan of Metal Hurlant, and Moebius had also worked with O'Bannon on Dune), to produce the human costume designs, most notably the Nostromo's environmental suits

As your post attests, Alien was well under way before Star Wars came along and made it easy to get a decent budget for a "space" film because of its success. Again, it appears that Dark Star is the film that influenced the others. Certainly in its time there was nothing like it.

[Kane Jones]

What about Dark Star (1974); written by and starring Dan O'Bannon, writer of Alien?

Directed by Jim Carter no less.

[Dr Rock]

The Godfather and Scarface are boring and a bit daft respectively. Has The Godfather been obviously influential? Or Scarface?

[NoSleep]

Haven't seen Godfather in ages but remember liking it a whole lot (and liking 2 even more). Maybe it isn't directed and edited to modern tastes, but it tells a tale well. I think it influenced almost every gangster film that followed, with its peek into the dynamics of a crime family. Scorcese's Mean Streets followed the year after and gangster films were never the same.

[itsfredtitmus]

You never hear of Godfather nowadays

[neveragain]

Citizen Kane.  Big ol' newsreel of a film, which skips straight to the most sentimental scenes in this Hearst-alike's life without ever warranting the audience's emotion by showing the in-between moments.  Feels very much like a work of juvenilia

Lack of emotion is very much the point. We don't see the real Charles Foster Kane until the end.

[Sin Agog]

You could also say that the reason why only the big scenes were shown was because it's told from the perspective of a journalist rifling through this guy's life and skipping straight to the juicy stuff.  The movie mayn't have been emotional, but it was still very sentimental, and as James Joyce said, 'sentiment is unearned emotion'.  Nothing feels earnt in that movie (as opposed to, say, a good Douglas Sirk film).  Could be it just isn't my style.  I tend to need a character piece to have little microcosmic tells, small gestures that give away their inner lives, but Citizen Kane was designed to be a grandiose opera by someone not particularly innerested in that kinda shit at that point in his life.  It all feels so self-consciously important in the least organic way.  Like a first novel. Also, being prole scum, I get dead squirmy when I'm told to humanise billionaires.

[Brundle-Fly]

I shan't contribute to an iconoclastic thread that has the word 'rubs' in its thread title and an OP suggesting the northern bloke who plays the butler in Downton Abbey directed one of the finest slasher movies of all time.

I shan't!

[Sebastian Cobb]

The Godfather and Scarface are boring and a bit daft respectively. Has The Godfather been obviously influential? Or Scarface?

I actually keep meaning to see the original Scarface as it looks like an interesting (pre-code), well shot gangster film, and at worst I only have 90 minutes of my life to lose.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I don't think Assault on Precinct 13 would have the rep it did if Jim Carter wasn't playing the keyboard on it.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I actually keep meaning to see the original Scarface as it looks like an interesting (pre-code), well shot gangster film, and at worst I only have 90 minutes of my life to lose.

Go for it, it's good

[Blumf]

I'll second that. It'll be 90 minutes well spent.

[dontrunyoullfall]

The Godfather and Scarface are boring and a bit daft respectively. Has The Godfather been obviously influential? Or Scarface?

The Godfather is quoted in Sleepless in Seattle, so yes.

[mothman]

Sure you're not mixing that up with You've Got Mail? Because Hanks def went on about it in YGM.

[Z]

Was Easy Rider actually influential, or was it just loved by a whole bunch of boomers that wound up voting for Reagan?

I mean, at the very least it was influential in that it led to Jack Nicholson's amazing 70s run, at least?

[Funcrusher]

I don't think Assault on Precinct 13 would have the rep it did if Jim Carter wasn't playing the keyboard on it.

That is certainly a part of its greatness, but Jim's many other talents are working full force in it as well.

[EOLAN]

I actually keep meaning to see the original Scarface as it looks like an interesting (pre-code), well shot gangster film, and at worst I only have 90 minutes of my life to lose.

I would say give it a go but Howard Hawks is one of my favourite directors. Tis a very unlike Hawksian film though.
Also; probably best to know before you go in; while it is Pre-Hays there are some scenes that were required to be inserted before released; to reduce the glorification of violence. These scenes stick out like a sore thumb with Hawks refusing to direct so just some standard B Director did them and are inserted in. Kind of funny to spot them.

Also I did get a bit addicted to coin-flipping for a while after it.

[Gregory Torso]

I'd like to nominate John Craven's Nightmare On Elm Street, which is fuckin' rabs. I'm having a nightmare, ah, it's killing me. Shite. Next.

Apocalypse Now. Giles Brandreth is SHIT in this. Lying on a bed talking some bollocks about a snail? Thanks for that, bloke who directed it. I'll stick with Platoon I think. Darren Stone really knew how to direct a film. War is hell, Daz, isn't it?

Oh God. 2001 A Space Odyssey. Fucking hell. Andy Kubrick should've stuck to his patented amusing cube puzzles, and not forced me to spend FIVE YEARS watching a piece of wood fall through the sky and a computer playing chess. JESUS. Absolute rabbits, mate.

[dontrunyoullfall]

Sure you're not mixing that up with You've Got Mail? Because Hanks def went on about it in YGM.

Weren't they the same film, just re-released with a different title?

[mothman]

I guess in a sense they are. I prefer the latter iteration, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure watch, whereas SiS always struck me as hopelessly mawkish.

In the interim, Tom Hanks' career has progressed to the point he's a global national treasure, whereas the last anyone remembers of Meg Ryan was her getting her kit off in that movie nobody remembers. Perhaps they need to do another romantic comedy together. There's a market for Old People Having Sex romantic comedies, so...

[Mister Six]

I totally love Elmore Leonard, but 'Be Cool' is one of only maybe a couple of his books that really fall flat. It just reads like he wrote another Chilli Palmer book to order with no real inspiration or enthusiasm for the thing. And the music business stuff really doesn't work for the most part.

Yeah. Get Shorty reads like it was written by someone who'd spent a few years on the fringes of the movie industry and had some observations to make and a story to tell (presumably because it was). Be Cool reads like it was written by someone who's being lent on by his publisher to make a new Chili Palmer novel and picked the music biz because he knows a few people in it and they can lend some anecdotes. Don't Aerosmith turn up for a cameo at one point?

I haven't gotten around to reading the Raylan Givens book he put out  while Justified was on the air. Hopefully it's not the same thing. Although I prefer TV Raylan to book Raylan anyway.

[Mister Six]

And yeah, the original Star Wars isn't much cop. Lovely ideas and stunning visuals but hamstrung by dismal direction and awkward editing (I assume the latter is due to the former, given that the editor - Lucas's wife, IIRC - won an Oscar for her work on another film).

[Funcrusher]

Yeah. Get Shorty reads like it was written by someone who'd spent a few years on the fringes of the movie industry and had some observations to make and a story to tell (presumably because it was). Be Cool reads like it was written by someone who's being lent on by his publisher to make a new Chili Palmer novel and picked the music biz because he knows a few people in it and they can lend some anecdotes. Don't Aerosmith turn up for a cameo at one point?

I haven't gotten around to reading the Raylan Givens book he put out  while Justified was on the air. Hopefully it's not the same thing. Although I prefer TV Raylan to book Raylan anyway.

I think to some degree my problems with 'Be Cool' are that music is something that I'm interested in to some extent so the false notes really jar. Getting a fictional depiction of the music biz right has defeated loads of writers, the bad far outnumbers the good. The original idea was for Chilli Palmer to get involved in the fashion industry and hang out at runway shows, and I wish he'd gone with that instead. Then after the real life Chilli Palmer tried to sue him that was the end for any further sequels.

I remember the Raylan book feeling a little disjointed, some plot ideas that didn't quite slot together, but he was really old by that point to be fair and once it got going it was pretty enjoyable, the usual good dialogue, better than 'Djibouti'. The Raylan is more TV Raylan as I recall.