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 (film) 1977 the studio's interest in the genre rose substantially. According to Carroll: "When "Star Wars" came out and was the extraordinary hit that it was, suddenly science fiction became the hot genre." O'Bannon recalled that "They wanted to follow through on "Star Wars", and they wanted to follow through fast, and the only spaceship script they had sitting on their desk was "Alien"". "Alien" was greenlit by 20th Century Fox, with an initial budget of $4.2 million. "Alien" was funded by North Americans, but made by 20th Century-Fox's British production subsidiary. O'Bannon had originally assumed that he would direct "Alien",