I have been working on a 1 hour radio show that will air on local radio but have attempted to make it generic enough for anyone to use. I will figure out a way to get the audio available to all later.
Text of script as follows:
Good Day everyone. Today we are going to cover the history of Aliens and the aliens/predator universe circumstances surrounding their rise in popularity and why it occurred. We will also briefly cover some history on the development of technology leading up to making these awesome films cultural icons. We will be covering substantial swaths of information here in each of the three segments and everything will be available on alienslegacy.com for your listening pleasure later or if you miss a part or all of a segment.
A little history on the progression of gaming/electronics and why Aliens and Predator are icons amongst things. In perspective the 70s and 80s was a hotbed of electronic and cinematic development. In 1962 Spacewar was developed as the first video game and a clone of it was made by two students at Stanford on a pdp-11-based machine. On July 11, 1962 Telestar 1 was launched relaying phone and video through space. Also on 1962 Philips release the compact cassette (cassette tape) Planet of the Apes is released on March 27, 1968. In 1969 a crew from Bell Labs developed UNIX on the PDP-7. In 1972 Pong comes out from Atari and the first arcade sports video game. In 1972 the VCR was brought to market. In 1974 Taito releases SpeedRacer featuring sprite graphics and a racing wheel controller. In 1975 Midway MFG releases Gun Fight, the first arcade video game to use a microprocessor or allowing for improved animation and graphics. In 1976 Sega releases Moto-Cross which featured Haptic Feedback causing handlebars to vibrate during collisions. On April 1 1976 Apple Computers, Inc was founded. In 1977 Cinematronics releases Space Wars, the first vector graphics arcade game. Star Wars was released May 25th, 1977. In 1978 Taito releases Space Invaders, the first blockbuster arcade video game, responsible for starting the golden age of video arcade games and sets the template for the shoot’em-up genre. In 1979 Atari releases Lunar Landor, the best-selling Atari game of all time. In 1980: Data Ease releases DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform; Williams Electronics releases Defender using 5 buttons and a joystick. In 1981 Atari releases Tempest, the first color vector arcade game. In 1982 Namco releases Pole Position, the first game to feature a 16-bit CPU. On Feb of 1982 Intel released the 80286(286) processor for use in AT computers. In 1985 Atari’s last arcade title The Empire Strikes Back is released to the arcades. On July 15 1983 the NES and SG-1000 were released starting the console wars. In 1986 Chiller by Exidy is released, notable for blood and gore. In 1988 NARC by Williams released and is first commercial game to use a 32-bit processor; Namco releases Splatterhouse which was first game to get a parental advisory disclaimer. 1990 Nam-1975 released by SNK and is first arcade to run on Neo Geo hardware that became the standard platform through-out the 90s to early 2000s. The Aliens (1990) (4 years after release of Aliens) arcade boasted a Celeron processor and a VGA output connector. Aliens Armegeddon (1993) boasted a Pentium IV processor. Aliens Vs. Predator (1994) was built for the CPS-2 arcade game system. In 1998 Konami releases Dance Dance Revolution(DDR), creating many sequels and spinoffs (Karaoke and its variants really took off in the 80s with the advent of the Compact Disc (CD.))
Up until the 90s a set standard for connecting buttons and accessories did not exist for the 1000s of arcade titles on the market to date. This left arcade managers in a bit of a pickle with older under-performing games and no way to replace or upgrade them if something breaks or they need something new. There are literally a 100 or so different types of system boards used in arcades since 1972. Then came Japan and their JAMMA standard. Jamma stands for Japan Amusement Machine and Marketing Association. JAMMA introduced a connection wiring standard in 1985 and by the 1990s most new arcade games were built to JAMMA specifications. The only exception were gun games which required some extra connections to interface the guns as a controller via a light sensor on the arcade screen. To this need the JAMMA Video Standard (JVS) was created and became a mainstay standard in most all 90s era arcades.
Worth noting here is that until the mid 80s gore and violence was so fake and unreal that it was never a concern, but as processors and video resolutions became vastly improved, things achieved a level of realism that it caused alarms and concern amongst parents and various groups with calls to ban video games. The best answer is for parents to read the ESRB game ratings and not provide a rated M for mature game to a 6 year old. Parental involvement in entertainment choice and play is always a best policy. Please research the game your child wants to play before you let them play it, what you find and learn may surprise you.
The 80s was the era of games and movie merchandising and this movie genre was not too terribly different. Some of the 80s style arcades for Aliens and Alien are sought after items and can easily sell for 10000 USD for some of the newer cabinets (Aliens Extermination) as they are great attractions in retro arcades which are starting to make a huge come back as some younger folks are discovering that maybe our childhoods were not quite so boring after all. Arcade titles included: Aliens (1990), Alien 3: The Gun (1993), Aliens: Armageddon (2014), Aliens Extermination (2006), Aliens vs Predator (1993). There were numerous console titles as well along with PC games, and a few new IOS/Android titles as well. Many of the titles released are now available in retro game consoles.
Aliens also has a slew of merchandise you can buy from Etsy, Kenner, NECA (National Entertainment Collectibles Association), ebay, Bigbadtoystore, and other fellow collectors and artists. In 1979 Kenner released a 2 foot poseable alien doll that bombed as it was complained by parents to be too scary. Kenner did a re-release of toys in 1992 lasting for 3 years with a total of 27 figures and 4 vehicles being released in series 1 – 4. In 1997 Toys R’Us had a 2 pack of aliens vs predator sold as the aliens & predator 10th anniversary giftset. Kay-Bee in 1997-1998 produced a 2 pack of Aliens vs. Corp. Hicks which was so successful that in 1999 5 new packs were created of aliens vs marines. They also released a whole new Alien Hive Wars line. Kenner in 1999 released 6 figures of Aliens and Predators that were not produced in the original line.
Why are there so many collectibles now a days? First let us go back to 1969 where Bernard Loomis working with mattel developed the 30 minute show hot wheels as a means to promote the toys. In reviewing things the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined that it needed to be treated as advertising forcing the show to be taken off the air. He then later moved to the Kenner division of General Mills. Reading about the upcoming Star Wars films he positioned the company to produce movie based toys, introducing the term “toyetic” to Spielberg. They made over 100 million USD in annual toy sales following the release of the film (5/25/1977). In the 1980s the FCC changed rules on children’s programming allowing cartoons and shows to market toys through characters and props/items in the show. Top examples of this were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Batman & Robin, and Star Wars. There is a good note here regarding Star Wars. George Lucas insisted that he would keep the merchandising rights before the first film was released and 20th century fox underestimating the film allowed George to do so, and the film turned out to be a toyetic phenomenon. This toyetic phenomenom almost spelled disaster for LEGO in the early 2000s when they mis judged the market for star wars between film year releases and in light of that they built their own movie/cartoon brands including Ninjago, Lego City, and Bionicle.
In 1988 Dark horse released a serialized series of comics and continued to periodically release titles in the aliens and predators universe. Dark Horse was known to run licensed properties based off of movie franchises and had comic serialisations incuding Aliens, Predator, terminator, and other great sci-fi hits. There have been numerous cross over comics including: batman, superman, Judge Dredd, and even Archie.
Right now there is a re-serialisation of the original alien3 script that covers what happened to the Sulaco, Newt, and Hicks.
There are also numerous novels set in the universe of Aliens and predator. Unfortunately with creativity as it were not all the books would fit into the canon of the universe so some will sometimes list books as outside of the canon, ignore them completely, or create a separate list for Aliens, Predator, and AvP.
Aliens and Predator always sells so there will always be more figures, movies, comics, books, fan films, cult references to come out.
If you throw in the comic books serialized by Dark Horse in the 80s, 90s, 2000s and beyond along with the books, Terminator and Predator are connected as well. Look for the Omnibus volumes if you are wanting all the prints in the series in one nice big book.
See attached for list of films and game references -12 minutes, break
Welcome back everyone. This is segment two of our Aliens and Predator universe. So far we have covered the development of electronics and film and the toyetic phenomonom that sky rocketed during the 80s and 90s. Now lets go over the film universe of Aliens/Predator.
Scott Ridley first started with the movie Dark Star (1974) trying to make people laugh and failing that he said if I can not make them laugh I will make them scream and to follow that the movie Alien (1979) was born with the help of the art of HR Geiger (see the book Necronomicon to see some of his work.) This film was Sigourney Weaver’s first big role and actually propelled her acting career as she was the first female hero to have the big showdown against the bad guy. Her next big role was in the iconic film, Ghostbusters released in June 8, 1984. Alien is considered one of the best films of all time and in 2002 the Library of Congress selected it as culturally historically or aesthetically signifigant and added it to the national film registry. The most memorable tag line coined from this film came from copywriter Barbara Gips: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”
Alien’s sequel a few years later, Aliens (1986) was a crowning achievement with the work of Scott Ridley and James Cameron (writer and director) in a cult classic. Empire magazine voted it the “greatest Film Sequel Of All Time”. It won two Oscars: Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. Entertainment Weekly described it as the “greatest pure action movie ever.” Cameron had just finished his production of Terminator (1984). Fox had actually waited for him to direct Aliens as they liked his script so much that he wrote while actually tied up waiting (9 months) on Arnold to finish up Conan the Destroyer before he could work in Termnator. Fox loved his script so much they actually waited for him to be free to direct the film, note that this does not normally happen. Cameron sought in the creation of a polymorphic enemy, the Xenomorph, to mimic the ever-changing tactics seen in the Vietnam War, and arguably the whole movie is an allegory to the Vietnam war as that was still fresh in everyone’s mind. To this effort we can be thankful as it cemented a plot and enemy that will forever captivate an audience. Not to mention the ingenuity in common every-day items used to build all of the awesome special effects and props seen in the film. Although some of the props did not actually function they looked like they did. The art work of H.R. Giger assisted greatly in making a terrifying enemy and movie as it was literally from his nightmares. Full metal Jacket was also being shot at Pinewood Studios and Frank Oz’s Little Shop of horrors was in an adjoining studio (noted when James Remar, initially cast as Hicks accidentally shot live ammo damaging the set next door, with the remark from Al Matthews (Apone) “where the fuck did you get live ammo?” Filming took place in an abandoned power station in London, England (Acton Power, also used in the movie Batman where they found signifigant portions of the hive still intact.) One of Cameron’s first fights at Pinewood Studios was that he was used to non-union film crews and the Pinewood Studios crew were union and there were issues with the 10AM and 2PM tea breaks and the belief by staff you get to the top by your dues and putting in your time. Note that the quality the artisans on set did was outstanding work. Note that this was before craft services was a big thing on movie sets so those times were the only times folks got to eat. This created substantial strife as there were fighting personalities and cultures as Cameron had a very tight 75 day shooting schedule, blowing up to a near mutiny with Cameron having a meeting with the whole crew to have them air their grievances and the acceptance that they could have their 2 times for tea. The delays with the clash in cultures although settled down eventually made for some very tight productions schedules. The strife, tight schedules and drama with set staff created the opportunity with Cameron’s hard work to make a film for the ages.
Predator (1987) was just as iconic and arguably one of the best performances seen with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Dutch.) This film set the stage for science fiction and is argued to be one of the best action movies ever committed to film. It was also the only movie that opened starting out in a helicopter. Stan Winston created the iconic predator suit for 1.5 million USD after a different company failed to make a good suit everyone was happy with(This was to be worn by Jean Claude Van Dam as it was felt his martial art acrobatics would add to the realism of the predator). This Stan Winston suit was worn by Kevin Peter Hall who was 7’2” and the Stan Winston suit was 8.5 feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds requiring a bungie rig to move believably. In perspective me standing at 5’10” tall weighing a lean 180, I was called a baby predator in comparison at Fanboy. The film had the second biggest opening weekend of 1987 losing out to Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). As was the case with Aliens there were issues during production, but this time they were of the natural kind. Venemous snakes and scorpians invaded the set during filming, and water purification issues at the hotel being used causing dysentery for everyone. Plus during the filming Arnold marries Maria Shriver, and after the wedding she spent a couple of days on the set in Mexico, the crew decided to prank the newlyweds by placing frogs in their shower.
In Predator Dutch (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) was the template for the terminators and was put on ice some time after the movies. In Predators he had a daughter that was snatched by the predators and taken off world to be hunted (we know how that ended for the Yautja.) Cyberdine Systems got rebranded and was renamed as Hyperdyne systems that we discover about in Aliens (that is the employer for the character Brook.) In the new Predator film that just came out they did not cover the partnership that the humans and predators had that also sheds light on how the movie predators came to be with all the humans on an alien world. Much of this is brought to light in the director cuts of Alien 3, Aliens, and the comics.
Predator 2 (1990) had mixed reviews but tried to capture the same emotional and human element the other films had thanks in part to Danny Glover (Mike Harrigan). Arnold said no to this movie as he did not like the script or the director, stating that shooting in the city was a bad idea. The sequel was not planned but after the success of the Predator comic book series, Fox was easily convinced to greenlight the movie. Ironically this set the stage for the Marvel franchise and other comic films to get released in the following years and decades as studios tried to cash in on the fandom interest and audience.
Alien 3 (1992), showed how adaptable the xenomorphs were and actually led to Alien resurrection where Weylend used Ripley’s corpse as a base for genetic experimentation. Worth noting is that the poor fan reception of Alien 3 almost ended the career of producer David Fincher and he was so strained on the production that he was the only movie director in the 4 movie franchise to decline to do a Directors cut and commentary (fox proceeded anyway and made an assembly cut instead on alien 3.) In all the chaos and production issues, a film was created that did not garner as much fan interest as was hoped. Also worth noting here was that the original script followed what happened to the sulaco and hicks/newt was not used and instead it only followed what happened to ripley, but this back story is currently being serialized in comics and may lead to another film with some of the rumors flying around since Disney’s acquisition of Fox.
Alien Resurrection (1997). Sigourney initially refused to do the fourth film until the studio drove a figurative dump truck of money in to her house (11 Million USD). Winona Ryder was another actress cast in this film and was very eager as she was a big fan on Alien and could work alongside her idol Sigourney Weaver. Due to costs the final scene of the film could not be shot in an Earth based scene and was shot in the Betty instead. This was also the only Alien film shot outside of the UK as Sigourney insisted on not leaving California for shooting as she wanted to be near her daughter. Another notable was that in the Special Edition when number 8 refers to the company she is told that Weyland-Yutani corporation had been bought out by Wal-Mart. It was not as popular with fans as it re-opened a story line closed in Alien 3.
Aliens vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator Requiem (2007) showed us the hunt and games the Yautja (predator) has with their Xenomorph foe and how we are just distractions to their core mission.
Predators (2010) captured the hunt and showed us what happens to the daughter Dutch eventually has. The film was shot in 53 days. The film was intended to be part of the Predator franchise. This was written by Alex Litvak, the original predators script by Robert Rodriquez was turned down due to costs, but was resurfaced as Fox searched to redo the franchise.
Alien 5: This was cancelled to make way for the release of Alien Covenant in a franchise reboot. There are some fan hopes that it will be revived at some point in the future, unlike Alien resurrection was. Rumors have been abounding about this getting new life, but, until you see production stills, it is only speculation and hype.
Prequel, Prometheus (2012) Was hoped to be one of three films that were meant to be prequels leading to the movie Alien. This was the last film that H.R. Giger worked on as he died of fall related injuries in 2014 (not from this film.) It cast Michael Fassbender as David the android prototype upon which all future androids are based that is explained in Alien Covenant. It gave us a good look at what the engineers and space jockey from Alien actually, looked like and what they were doing transporting biological weapons. Giger’s work really showed on the look of the Engineer facility that they explore, and, gives us a peek of a neomorph. The film also explored the evolution of the monster into a xenomorph and gave a good back story on how long the search for this monster has been going on.
Alien Covenant (2017) Showed us what happens to David and Doctor Shaw. What we did not see was where they discovered the engineer planet and David in an act of love sterilized the engineer home planet. David again experiments and we have a good view of the evolution of the aliens. Due to the buyout of Fox, there are questions on whether the trilogy will be completed as the movie did not perform as well as could have been hoped.
The Predator (2018) was meant as a reboot for the franchise and tried to recreate the energy the original predator had. There were a few alternate endings one including Ellen Ripley in stasis and another Dutch. There were also some cut scenes that included the underground base where humans were working with yautja that would have given a better picture on the origin of Predators and why the fugitive Predator acted the way that he did.
12 minutes, break.
Welcome back everyone. This is our third segment. We have already covered the development of electronics, toys, and the movies. Now we are going to cover the fandom of cosplay and the fan group known as Aliens Legacy.
In perspective dial-up internet access was king until the late 1990s. Starting around 2000 high speed internet came into play giving a whole area of growth for websites and around 2000 social media websites started to supplant forum and bulletin board based (BBS) websites (in use since the 1980s) like what we use here. AOL instant messenger launched in 1997 and quickly replaced IRC (created in 1988) along with other instant messaging services such as Yahoo messenger, msn messenger and others. Myspace launched in 2003 followed by Facebook in 2004 and reddit in 2005 (source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_social_media.) AOL shut down their messenger platform as has yahoo in late 2018. Right now, there is a lot of debate going on over who is going to replace Facebook as there is an exodus away from the platform some would argue and multiple platforms are popping up to fill the need and desire. with a slow trend away from social media and there is a rise in folks moving back to using forum-based websites that encourage information sharing and discourse without censorship.
Forum websites that have stayed around throughout the entire rise and ebb of social media giants and continue to be a thriving community for discussions on a myriad of topics. The sites that remain since the beginning have continued to have a strong core following and active contributors with top notch admin teams running them.
From the captivated fan audience was born the United Kingdom Colonial Marines costuming group. This was founded in part by Paul Maitland and he established the beginning part of the USCM in the United States when he emigrated to the USA. Sometime around the 90s Almeyer’s Folly cosplay group with Spat Oktan building some armor sets for some fans and the United States Colonial Marines eventually formed who still have a large presence at Dragon con every year, and other parts of the fan group attend conventions in costume the world over. We are always trying to grow the group so new members will always be welcome and will always have help available for costume questions.
The forum site we use was first founded by Dan in the late 90s as he was running it as an Aliensarchive to document his collection and builds and was taken over by Tony a few years later as he lost available time to maintain and grow the site. Around 9/7/03 We had our first major revision to the website by Mike Rush and has remained unchanged since then. We have always had great administration on the site and we try to contribute on the facebook page with anything in the related universes of predator and Aliens when and where possible.
Our forums are at:
http://alienslegacy.com, and our Facebook for the Americas are at:
http://facebook.com/theuscm Now you also can not say Aliens and not bring up Terry English who made the iconic armor you see in the film. You may remember him from another film where he made the armor: Excalibur (1981.) His armor sets are highly sought-after and a full set of reproduction made by him sells for about 3000 USD. To put things in perspective, an accurate civil war costume with all the accessories can set you back 6000 USD at a minimum.
Spat Oktan of Spatcave also makes a slew of replica props for aliens fans and you can order his online at spatcave.com. Master Chief is also another purveyor of props with his site on chefscreations.co.uk. Those are the best sites we have found for props. There are other sites such as golden armor, but substantial post processing work is required to finish purchases from them. Nickatron props was another source but he has since retired from the trade.
As far as building your own props is concerned we have multiple resources on the forums at alienslegacy.com. Common every day items were used and incorporated into the building of props from a Kanco 423 drill body for the motion tracker, to a german mg42 for the m56a smartgun to a Thompson with an under barrell shotgun for the pulse rifle.
We are similar to the 501st in some ways. Those are the star wars folks you see in costume at conventions all the time. Due to the wider breadth of films and roles the costumes requirements entirely depend upon the nature of the event and what the venue would require (A movie premiere might have specific requirements versus a general convention that would not have many, if any, restrictions.) Above all else we support individualism, harmony, and diversity, a theme, that echoed throughout the Alien/Predator franchise.
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