Alien (film) disguise imaginative poverty". In a 1980 episode of "Sneak Previews" discussing science fiction films of the 1950s and 1970s, critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were critical of "Alien". Ebert called it "basically just an intergalactic haunted house thriller set inside a spaceship" and one of several science fiction pictures that were "real disappointments" compared to "Star Wars", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and "", though he did compliment the early scene of the "Nostromo" crew exploring the alien planet as showing "real imagination". However, the film later made it onto Ebert's "Great Movies" list, where he gave it
Alien (creature in Alien franchise) O'Bannon said in an interview, "when suddenly, that word "alien" just came out of the typewriter at me. "Alien". It's a noun and it's an adjective." The word "alien" subsequently became the title of the film and, by extension, the name of the creature itself. Prior to writing the script to "Alien", O'Bannon had been working in France for Chilean cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky's planned adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic science-fiction novel "Dune". Also hired for the project was Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger. Giger showed O'Bannon his nightmarish, monochromatic artwork, which left O'Bannon deeply disturbed. "I had never