Speaker 1: Warning warning, deep space sirens are going because this episode
Speaker 1: contains spoilers for Ridley Scott's nineteen seventy nine sci fi
Speaker 1: classic Alien.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: My name is Rosie Knight and I'm Carmen Laurent and
Speaker 3: welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where we
Speaker 3: dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 3: Welcome to another installment of xenomorph Week, a full week
Speaker 3: of alien focused episodes leading up to the release of
Speaker 3: Alien Romulus. Carmen is one of our wonderful producers here
Speaker 3: at x ray Vision and is also an Alien super fan.
Speaker 3: So today we'll be co hosting this very fun omnibus with.
Speaker 4: Me, and then after we talk Alien, we'll hear from
Speaker 4: our friend James F. Wright about Belaji Bedejo, the man
Speaker 4: behind the original Alien suit. Rosie, I'm a huge fan
Speaker 4: of the Alien franchise. Now, have we already gotten your
Speaker 4: alien backstory before?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I don't think I've shared my
Speaker 3: alien origin story.
Speaker 4: Tell us about your alien origin story, Rosie.
Speaker 3: Okay, so my alien origin story is very specific and
Speaker 3: very terrifying to me personally. When I was a little kid,
Speaker 3: I got to go to Disney World with my mom
Speaker 3: and a family that she cleaned their house and they
Speaker 3: invited us and said, come to Disney World. And I
Speaker 3: went on a ride that they had at what was
Speaker 3: at the time called MGM Studios, and it was a
Speaker 3: ride that went through the history of Hollywood, but randomly
Speaker 3: just after you know, going through the Western World and
Speaker 3: the Wizard of Oz. They just had a room where
Speaker 3: you were on the Nostromo and his zenomorph came out. Oh,
Speaker 3: that's no joke. It was like, legit, one of the
Speaker 3: scariest moments of my life. But then, of course, because
Speaker 3: I was a morbid child with a taste in the
Speaker 3: dark side, I then became obsessed with the alien and
Speaker 3: had to know what it was, and I learned about
Speaker 3: the movie. And I don't know about you, but one
Speaker 3: of the first ways that I really got into horrorism,
Speaker 3: just like reading the backs of vhs or DVDs in
Speaker 3: like the video shop. I'm old, but I would definitely
Speaker 3: be reading all of the kind of backs like oh
Speaker 3: what happens in Alien? And then that was definitely where
Speaker 3: my interest and love for the franchise began.
Speaker 4: Wow, well, that is definitely a lot cooler than my story.
Speaker 4: You got to go to Disney World and see the
Speaker 4: Nostromo in person. That's pretty cool. I am also a
Speaker 4: child of morbid curiosity, was a child with morbid curiosity.
Speaker 4: I was definitely attracted to the dark side. You'd call
Speaker 4: me like I was a little goth baby at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have that.
Speaker 4: So we have that same shared backstory there. And my
Speaker 4: dad had a huge, massive DVD collection, oh wow.
Speaker 2: And prior to that it was VHS.
Speaker 4: But then, of course the age of DVD came in
Speaker 4: and my dad was always at the pawn shop and
Speaker 4: he would come home like maybe once a week with
Speaker 4: like a brown paper bag filled with bootleg DVDs from
Speaker 4: a pawnshop.
Speaker 2: I love that. And he had he had like.
Speaker 4: Literally like two thousand something DVDs, and at one point
Speaker 4: in my childhood I had to catalog all of them
Speaker 4: and everything and put them in alphabetical order and everything too.
Speaker 4: But he had the Alien VHS box set with the
Speaker 4: first three movies as well as a box set with
Speaker 4: I believe it was all four of the movies at
Speaker 4: that point, with Alien Resurrection included. And I was one
Speaker 4: of those kids that was very into box art and
Speaker 4: definitely judge books by the cover because I saw that
Speaker 4: egg with the green neon blue coming out of it,
Speaker 4: and it fascinated me, so I, I, you know, got
Speaker 4: to sat down and watch it with my dad, and
Speaker 4: the rest is history from them.
Speaker 3: I love that we both had dads who definitely showed
Speaker 3: us horror movies too early. I definitely I have a
Speaker 3: really distinct memory of watching Scream two on VHS with
Speaker 3: my dad and my sister, who's like four years younger
Speaker 3: than me, and we would definitely like, no, I don't
Speaker 3: I'd watch slasher movies at that point. But Imber, my sister,
Speaker 3: still has very unfond memories of that.
Speaker 2: Gosh, yeah, that's that's a lot, a lot for a
Speaker 2: little kid.
Speaker 4: I think the youngest scary movie I ever watched was Leprechaun,
Speaker 4: and that absolutely free me out as a child.
Speaker 3: The power of imagination is truly a terrifying thing.
Speaker 2: It is, it is.
Speaker 4: But we're not here today to talk about the traumas
Speaker 4: of horror movies that we faced as a child.
Speaker 3: That's for a different episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's for a different episode.
Speaker 4: We're here to talk today about how the first alien
Speaker 4: movie was made. And I wanted to ask you before
Speaker 4: I get into it, Rosie, do you know anything about
Speaker 4: this origin story of the first Alien movie.
Speaker 3: I was a fan of reading a lot of Empire
Speaker 3: magazine and movie stuff, so I've definitely heard the general story,
Speaker 3: and I do know a lot about the production art
Speaker 3: because it was done by some of my favorite people.
Speaker 3: But I want you to tell the people and to
Speaker 3: refresh me. I'm going to get to be on this
Speaker 3: journey of alien origin with you.
Speaker 4: Okay, awesome. Well, I'm really excited to get into it
Speaker 4: with you today. Before we can even talk about how
Speaker 4: we got the first Alien movie, we have to first
Speaker 4: talk about a movie that was never made, and that
Speaker 4: was Alejandro Hodorowski's Dune movie.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yes, one of the most famous unmade movies of
Speaker 3: all time.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely. Alejandro Hodorowski, famous for his films The Holy
Speaker 4: Mountain in nineteen seventy three and also Santa Sandre in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty nine. He wanted to make this very very
Speaker 4: ambitious adaptation of the of the Dune books, which had
Speaker 4: never been made into a movie at this point, and
Speaker 4: it is one of those movies that we lost to
Speaker 4: production hell because the production phase never ended and they
Speaker 4: were unable to find adequate funding to produce this mega
Speaker 4: movie that they had cooked up. Apparently it was supposed
Speaker 4: to be like a fourteen hour movie. Originally sounds very Jodorowski.
Speaker 2: Yes, very very Geniowski.
Speaker 4: Oh and before I get into this, I do want
Speaker 4: to call out that there are two documentary films that
Speaker 4: kind of touch on this, and one of those being
Speaker 4: it's literally a movie you can find in HBO Max
Speaker 4: it's called Hodorowski's Dune. And then there's another movie which
Speaker 4: is harder to find on streaming, but it's called Memory
Speaker 4: and it's the origin of the first alien movie. And
Speaker 4: both of those documentaries explore this topic pretty in depth.
Speaker 4: But the first Dune movie that was never made. Production
Speaker 4: of that started in nineteen seventy one, and he had
Speaker 4: this huge, amazing cast of collaborators that he pulled together
Speaker 4: to make the movie. He had big prog rock bands
Speaker 4: of the day, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, and Magma, and
Speaker 4: he eventually landed on Pink Floyd as being the band
Speaker 4: that was going to do the soundtrack for this movie.
Speaker 3: Evenly already the most famous band out of the three,
Speaker 3: even though I will say Tangerine Dream they have done
Speaker 3: some truly fantastic film soundtracks. I believe they did one
Speaker 3: of the Legend soundtracks. There's two different versions for Legend,
Speaker 3: another Ridley Scott movie. Yeah, and yeah, they are wonderful.
Speaker 3: But I mean, Pink Floyd, you're talking about heavy his
Speaker 3: right there.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely. I mean, already we're off to a great
Speaker 4: start here with some amazing bands of the day. But
Speaker 4: then he pulls in set and character designers hr Geeger,
Speaker 4: who we hadn't really heard much. He wasn't really like
Speaker 4: very well known at this point, and Mobius aka Jean
Speaker 4: Gureaux with special effects by Dan O'Bannon. Now Dan O'Bannon
Speaker 4: will come into play later on. Now that already already
Speaker 4: a really fantastic group of collaborators right there. Then we
Speaker 4: get into the cast of characters who was set to
Speaker 4: play in this Dune movie. So we have surrealist painter
Speaker 4: Salvador Dali just casually, yeah, just casually in there, or
Speaker 4: author and director Orson Wells, old Hollywood starlett Gloria Swanson,
Speaker 4: David Carradine, which you know from Kill Bill, one of
Speaker 4: the Rolling Stones, the Big Rolling Stone, Micjagger, the Biggest Hello,
Speaker 4: German actor Udo Kier oh wow. And then my favorite
Speaker 4: and the reason why I wish we could have seen
Speaker 4: this movie come to life, is that the disco queen
Speaker 4: herself A Mandelaer, is set to play daughter of Salbad
Speaker 4: Dolly's character, who is remind me that character's name again?
Speaker 4: He was he going to be the emperor, Yes, he
Speaker 4: was going to be the emperor. Yes, I don't want
Speaker 4: to say Emperor Palpatine and piss off them. But Amandelayer
Speaker 4: was set to play the princess. And it's important to
Speaker 4: note that Amandelayer at that time in the in the
Speaker 4: seventies was the muse to Salvador Dolly. So the two
Speaker 4: of them together on screen is just absolutely mind blowing.
Speaker 4: The concept of that is mind blowing to me. And
Speaker 4: then the role of Paula Trds was set to be
Speaker 4: played by how Owski's twelve year old son. Now this
Speaker 4: obviously never happened. Yes, So, as I mentioned before, Dan
Speaker 4: O'Bannon would come into play later on. He is the
Speaker 4: writer of the film Alien, but he was chosen for
Speaker 4: this project for this Dune that never happened because he
Speaker 4: was co writing and directing special effects for the John
Speaker 4: Carpenter film Dark Star, which.
Speaker 3: I love that movie before. Yes, Yes, originally John Coppener's
Speaker 3: student film.
Speaker 4: I saw that when I was watching the movie, right.
Speaker 3: It's really cool, totally great, weird, low key sci fi
Speaker 3: that I think you can really see that how someone
Speaker 3: who worked on that could go and create something like Alien.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Yeah, So if you haven't seen Dark Star, check
Speaker 4: that out. Definitely an essential watch to help you kind
Speaker 4: of gear up for Alien Romulus. But this iteration of
Speaker 4: Dune never happened. We're really sad about it.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, rip.
Speaker 4: To that version, the fourteen hour movie that never happened.
Speaker 4: This also left the special effects director Dan O'Bannon without
Speaker 4: a job. Now. While he was jobless and also homeless,
Speaker 4: sleeping on a friend's couch, he worked on a spec
Speaker 4: script called Memory to sell to studios. It was bought
Speaker 4: by twentieth Century Fox, and Ridley Scott picked up the
Speaker 4: movie to direct. Now Dan O'Bannon having worked with hr
Speaker 4: Geeger and Chris Foss for six months on Houtrowski's failed
Speaker 4: attempt to make Dune, he pulled in those two artists
Speaker 4: to collaborate with him on this new venture, which would
Speaker 4: become the film Alien. Memory was the original title that
Speaker 4: was going to be used for the film, but then
Speaker 4: they landed on Alien, which I think is a lot
Speaker 4: more of a ominous and spooky name.
Speaker 3: Correct, And I also think like the simplicity is probably
Speaker 3: part of why it's so iconic and why we're still
Speaker 3: talking about it. I mean, we could in a different
Speaker 3: time be talking about the Me refranchise, but it's giving cats. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like I feel like Alien they made the
Speaker 3: right choice.
Speaker 2: They really did.
Speaker 4: They really did make the right choice, because then you
Speaker 4: can have a sequel called Aliens, you know, incredible, incredible,
Speaker 4: I mean just amazing sequel naming there. So this movie
Speaker 4: Alien would become the greatest sci fi horrory yet. And
Speaker 4: it really is, like I just want to take a
Speaker 4: moment to talk about how a movie from nineteen seventy
Speaker 4: nine is still able to stand up to the test
Speaker 4: of time today and you watch it today in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, and it still feels fresh, It still feels
Speaker 4: like completely like ahead of its time. It just it's
Speaker 4: it's an amazing movie and it's great storytelling. Can't say
Speaker 4: enough about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree, And also as well, just the
Speaker 3: visual effects, the fact that they were able to create
Speaker 3: something that was so terrifying and unique, and that still
Speaker 3: to this day feels scared. I mean they still show
Speaker 3: Alien in LA probably every couple of months, I would say, so, yeah,
Speaker 3: they do seventy milimis screenings of it here, And I
Speaker 3: think it is because it's not one of those movies
Speaker 3: you go and see for nostalgia. It's one of those
Speaker 3: movies you go to experience because it is still that scary.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's one of the Yeah, like if somebody watched
Speaker 4: it for the first time in twenty twenty four, they
Speaker 4: would still be as amazed as the person watching it
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 4: Many of the designs that ended up becoming such like
Speaker 4: an iconic part of that Alien film were from the
Speaker 4: designs that hr Geeger had made when he was designing
Speaker 4: stuff for the film Doune that never happened. So many
Speaker 4: of those designs were recycled and they ended up being
Speaker 4: used on the Alien set. Now the design itself for
Speaker 4: the Xenomorph. Dan O'Bannon made many attempts himself to design
Speaker 4: the Xenomorph, but he couldn't land on something that felt
Speaker 4: both alien and scary and out of this world and
Speaker 4: unimaginable until the crew saw the nineteen seventy six painting
Speaker 4: that Giger created called the Necronomicon four. And so that
Speaker 4: is where the design from the Alien comes from. The Xenomorph,
Speaker 4: which at the time when the movie came out in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy nine, nobody was calling it a xenomorph.
Speaker 3: They were just calling it an alien.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely an alien. But yeah, that is the kind
Speaker 4: of short and abridged version story of how the failed
Speaker 4: Dune project would lead to the creation of the film Alien.
Speaker 4: And that was just eight years later.
Speaker 3: Wow, that was so delightful. Common, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for telling us that story, and thank you all for listening.
Speaker 3: It's very expensive to make a failed fourteen hour movie,
Speaker 3: so if you could support us by understanding that. Now
Speaker 3: we have some messages from us, boss, and we're back.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the back Matter, where, just like the last
Speaker 3: pages of your favorite comics, we explore one specific moment, matter,
Speaker 3: or theme from a fan fay franchise. And today Common
Speaker 3: has put together something really cool, a look at some
Speaker 3: of the most interesting thematic moments and easter eggs throughout
Speaker 3: the first Alien movie.
Speaker 4: Yes, and there's actually a lot of really cool Easter
Speaker 4: eggs in this movie. We'll get to which one of
Speaker 4: them is my favorite in just a moment. But starting
Speaker 4: right out, the entire film, in the entire franchise, contains
Speaker 4: a lot of symbolism and references to the concept of motherhood, pregnancy,
Speaker 4: bodily autonomy, you know, stuff like that. You of course
Speaker 4: have the AI computer system on board the Nostromo. Her
Speaker 4: name is Yes.
Speaker 5: He was very he said, this is text, this is subtext,
Speaker 5: absolutely absolutely so we're literally taking commands from mother and
Speaker 5: she's in control and even has like some secret plans
Speaker 5: of her sleeve, which is even spookier.
Speaker 4: And also, of course, in order for an alien to
Speaker 4: be born, it requires reproduction using a host, so we
Speaker 4: know the face hugger. It attaches to the face of
Speaker 4: the host and the host is forced to become pregnant
Speaker 4: with the chest burster.
Speaker 3: Terrifying.
Speaker 4: That is terrifying. Now, Dan O'Bannon could have easily made
Speaker 4: that part of the story something that affected one of
Speaker 4: the female characters in the movie, Ripley or Joan Lambert,
Speaker 4: but instead he specifically wanted one of the male characters
Speaker 4: in the movie to experience this because he wanted to
Speaker 4: make men who are seeing the movie feel the same
Speaker 4: exact kind of and all of that that the women
Speaker 4: in the audience would be experiencing, which I love.
Speaker 3: I love that too, And I do absolutely think that
Speaker 3: if that scene had not been given to the John
Speaker 3: Hut character, if it had not been a man, I
Speaker 3: do not know if Hollywood would hold this film in
Speaker 3: the same high regard in regards to how much it
Speaker 3: terrified people at the time. So I really loved that choice,
Speaker 3: and I think it's the beginning of the seeds of
Speaker 3: how subversive this franchise is.
Speaker 4: Absolutely Yeah, and we find out later on in the
Speaker 4: franchise that if a female host is used by a
Speaker 4: face hugger, then they give birth to a queen's an
Speaker 4: a morph. But we're not there yet and the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that's, you know, one of the big easter eggs
Speaker 4: and kind of like the subtext of the movie. But
Speaker 4: then there are some parts of it that are a
Speaker 4: little more obvious. Now, I just want to take a
Speaker 4: moment to talk about one of my absolute favorite characters
Speaker 4: in sci fi. This is a different easter egg. That
Speaker 4: is the character Joan Lambert. Now Joan Lambert is played
Speaker 4: by the amazing actress Veronica Cartwright, which I just want
Speaker 4: to take a moment to talk about kind of her
Speaker 4: legacy and the sci fi genre. So if you're a
Speaker 4: big sci fi fan like me, you've seen her before
Speaker 4: in the nineteen seventies version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
Speaker 4: which is kind of a similar theme and kind of
Speaker 4: a similar concept to what's going on in Alien but
Speaker 4: taken to another level. And she also has a recurring
Speaker 4: role in the X Files franchise, which I I haven't
Speaker 4: talked about this before, but I'm a huge X Files head,
Speaker 4: so I immediately connected with that part of the movie. But
Speaker 4: she is a multiple alien abductee in the X Files franchise. Now,
Speaker 4: the cool part about her character Joan Lambert that I
Speaker 4: love is that she is noted as a trans woman
Speaker 4: in her on screen bio that is displayed of her.
Speaker 4: So there's like a scene that is in one of
Speaker 4: the cuts of the films that features the bio of
Speaker 4: the crew mates behind them while Alan Ripley is talking,
Speaker 4: and you can see in Joan Lambert's bio that it says, quote,
Speaker 4: subject is a despin convert at birth male to female.
Speaker 4: So far no indication of suppressed trauma related to gender alteration. Now,
Speaker 4: as a trans woman myself, I absolutely love the fact
Speaker 4: that we have a trans female character in a movie
Speaker 4: who is literally we only know that by a little
Speaker 4: easter egg. We don't know that because characters aren't talking
Speaker 4: about it. She's not taught.
Speaker 2: It's it's just one of those things that that is.
Speaker 3: And it's like and also she's doing great, even the
Speaker 3: SI Ship's like, she's doing fine.
Speaker 2: She's doing fine.
Speaker 4: She does great with these missions where we you know,
Speaker 4: put her in hyper sleep and all of that, so no.
Speaker 2: Need to worry about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So for me, I think that this is one
Speaker 4: of the first times that I've ever seen a trans
Speaker 4: character featured in a movie where it's not made a
Speaker 4: big deal.
Speaker 2: It's just.
Speaker 3: Nine yes, in one of the best horror sci fis
Speaker 3: of all time.
Speaker 4: That's pretty incredible. Yeah, And so that's my personal favorite
Speaker 4: easter egg in the movie. I also love as somebody
Speaker 4: who loves the Blade Runner franchise as it is now
Speaker 4: A Francis's really cool. Yes, I love the hint that
Speaker 4: Blade Runner and Alien take place in the same universe.
Speaker 4: So towards the end of Alien, when Ripley makes it
Speaker 4: into her escape pod. She starts up the engines by
Speaker 4: turning the blue screen on the computer into a red
Speaker 4: purge screen. So later in the movie Blade Runner, we
Speaker 4: see that exact same startup sequence when Officer Gaff enters
Speaker 4: his flying vehicle and leaves. Ridley Scott has confirmed himself
Speaker 4: that the two movies are indeed in the same universe. However,
Speaker 4: Blade Runner takes place in the year twenty nineteen, an
Speaker 4: Alien takes place in the year two thousand, one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty two, so that's like one hundred years they're
Speaker 4: still using the same computer.
Speaker 3: It is, but I'm seeing I could see like a
Speaker 3: replicant alien crossover coming in our crossover obsessed times.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely, and I believe there's also like a novelization
Speaker 4: or a extra like Easter Egg scene. On one of
Speaker 4: the DVDs they talk about how Dallas actually takes a
Speaker 4: paycheck from the Tyrell Corporation, which is another little crossover
Speaker 4: into those two franchises.
Speaker 3: Common thank you so much for joining me to take
Speaker 3: us on this journey. This was absolutely delightful.
Speaker 4: It was it was so much fun, and I'm so
Speaker 4: freaking excited.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited for Alien.
Speaker 2: Yes, I am so excited.
Speaker 4: Rosie and I have been seeing each other alien memes.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's the one who told me about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, we still need to get our Alien popcorn buckets.
Speaker 3: Cinemak put one aside for us.
Speaker 4: Yes, please, yes, well thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a joy.
Speaker 4: That was a fun peek behind the scenes on how
Speaker 4: the first Alien film was made. And now we're going
Speaker 4: to switch gears and we're going to be speaking with
Speaker 4: our friend James F. Wright on Bilagie Thedeho, the man
Speaker 4: in the Xenomorph suit, bom Bomb Bomb. But first a
Speaker 4: message from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 3: With me today is award winning comic book writer James F. Wright.
Speaker 3: He is also Mapal and he is joined today to
Speaker 3: tell us all about Belagie Bidejo, the Man in the
Speaker 3: Xenomorph Suit. James, could you just start by introducing yourself
Speaker 3: to our listeners.
Speaker 6: Hi, I'm James F. Wright. I am a writer. I
Speaker 6: work in video games. I'm also I wrote comments on
Speaker 6: a Swayna Rosie, and I'm a big Alien fan, predominantly
Speaker 6: exclusively the first Alien movie. I will see every Alien movie,
Speaker 6: but Alien is the one that, especially with my heart. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think about that movie at least once a week.
Speaker 6: Something new I learned about Yes, thank you, I learned
Speaker 6: something new about that movie seems like every week, and
Speaker 6: so it comes up in in my thoughts a lot.
Speaker 6: So happy to be here.
Speaker 3: Thank you, amazing. I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 3: As soon as we knew that we were going to
Speaker 3: do an episode about the Man in the Suit, I
Speaker 3: was like, James, I hit you up and I was like,
Speaker 3: this is one of your favorite topics. Okay, So first
Speaker 3: of all, what's your first memory of Alien? Like, how
Speaker 3: did you get introduced to it? What was the first
Speaker 3: time you saw it.
Speaker 6: I was much older than my peers when I saw Alien.
Speaker 6: I was in my twenty twenty one. I was steting
Speaker 6: abroad in Japan and the local video store had a
Speaker 6: bunch of movies, obviously, and I've never seen Alien. I
Speaker 6: was like twenty one, which is old, and so I
Speaker 6: watched it and I was like, this movie is incredible.
Speaker 6: It just like like I knew about the chest burster
Speaker 6: scene because of Spaceballs.
Speaker 3: But I wait to find out.
Speaker 6: So I knew it was gonna happen, but it just
Speaker 6: like the atmosphere, the characters, the story, so much of
Speaker 6: that that movie just feels like like a miracle that
Speaker 6: it exists. And so I revisited later and just saw
Speaker 6: like the deeper themes emerging. It's not just a horror movie.
Speaker 6: Is a lot more than that. And I live in
Speaker 6: LA and so now anytime it's screening, I try to
Speaker 6: let go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's a seven emilimeter alien screening, you will
Speaker 3: be there.
Speaker 6: I will be there. I'll be there, and it's it's again.
Speaker 6: All the actors I sort of knew from other films,
Speaker 6: other stories of other TV shows and so on, but
Speaker 6: in that movie, you know, at the time, none of
Speaker 6: them weren't your household names and kind of they almost
Speaker 6: all of them went on to be you know, bigger stars,
Speaker 6: which is incredible to Yeah, so like I just kind
Speaker 6: of got it to sootz into me from that from
Speaker 6: the first viewing. I mean, the again an atmosphere, the opening,
Speaker 6: the title sequence even is like is unsettling, just the
Speaker 6: way that the test fades in, and I was, you know,
Speaker 6: you see got til and moves and so on, and
Speaker 6: you you know, you know, there's like a man in
Speaker 6: a suit, but you don't think about who that is, yeah,
Speaker 6: or if you ever know who that is? And then
Speaker 6: when I found out like that once again changed the
Speaker 6: game room me.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I was going to say, it's kind of
Speaker 3: you talked about how the movie feels like a miracle.
Speaker 3: It's a working class horror movie. It's a horror about
Speaker 3: workers trying not to get exploited. It's a horror movie
Speaker 3: that has Yaffet Koto and Sigourney Weaver and all these
Speaker 3: incredible actors in it. And then you find out, well,
Speaker 3: the guy in the suit was a Nigerian graphic artist
Speaker 3: who was twenty five. He was he was a baby
Speaker 3: and he was six feet ten inches tall. And they
Speaker 3: discovered him in a pub, yes, because they saw his
Speaker 3: very long legs and they were like, uh, we need
Speaker 3: someone with long legs. So when did you find out
Speaker 3: who Bilagie?
Speaker 6: But Dejo was Oh boy, oh my gosh, it must
Speaker 6: have been. It's like the twenty ten's. I think I
Speaker 6: don't actually have a year because it's kind of passing
Speaker 6: on in my head. The time is time is fake.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I had seen a picture of him, and
Speaker 6: then I think it was in court in conjunction with
Speaker 6: with something from Alien. I saw a picture of him.
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, is that the guy? And then
Speaker 6: someone had posted a link to YouTube and there's the
Speaker 6: screen test of him walking through the mock up of
Speaker 6: the Nostromo set and he's he's got he's got the
Speaker 6: head on, but he's like he doesn't have the full suit.
Speaker 6: Don't think he met the full suit on. But he's
Speaker 6: walking through like the halls, and it's like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: this is like this is him, this is him, you know.
Speaker 6: And then seeing like how tall he was, six foot ten,
Speaker 6: you know he was I want to say he was
Speaker 6: like playing with the wrong raptors. But that's the wrongs
Speaker 6: me more friends.
Speaker 3: He definitely has Like he definitely has the h he
Speaker 3: was twenty five and six foot ten. Put a ball
Speaker 3: in that.
Speaker 6: Guy, I'm saying.
Speaker 3: In a more mask, Like give that basketball.
Speaker 6: He was playing with the wrong rockets. That's the But yeah,
Speaker 6: I just I was so I wasn't surprised to you know,
Speaker 6: see that. Like and again, like Alien is a film
Speaker 6: that has you know, like Yafakoto has a named black actor,
Speaker 6: you know whose character doesn't die first, doesn't die second,
Speaker 6: that's a third he you know, he survives almost at
Speaker 6: the end of the film, and then to learn that
Speaker 6: like also the guy in the suit, you know, was
Speaker 6: as a black performer, and I this may have been
Speaker 6: his only role, which is incredible to think about.
Speaker 3: That's his only role, which is mind blowing because if
Speaker 3: you think about someone like Doug Jones, they play a
Speaker 3: monster and they create a role for their whole life
Speaker 3: as a creature actor. But Bilagi played one of the
Speaker 3: most famous, if not the most famous on screen monster
Speaker 3: of the last kind of few decades and this was
Speaker 3: the only time he did it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, That's that's the thing I think about too, is
Speaker 6: I'm glad you bring up Doug Jones because, like I
Speaker 6: joked before that like Beliji Bidejo, you know, Walks or
Speaker 6: Doug Jones could run not just the creature feature, but
Speaker 6: like this tall, skinny actor who has this like physy
Speaker 6: that allows them to sort of you know, portray different
Speaker 6: kinds of creatures. And when I said before, like this
Speaker 6: this film feels like a miracle knowing that they were
Speaker 6: able to take okay, hr gigers, weird creepy like art
Speaker 6: and then find a person who could fit into like
Speaker 6: a costume, built a design around that a creature design
Speaker 6: around is just like, again I don't know how you
Speaker 6: do it. And again that's obviously like the work of casting,
Speaker 6: directions and so on to find, you know, the people
Speaker 6: who fit these these roles. But just the fact that again,
Speaker 6: like you said, like they've made him in a pub
Speaker 6: and he was just he was a student you know,
Speaker 6: in the UK, and yeah, this is our guy, and
Speaker 6: like that, Like if that was me, I'd go, oh
Speaker 6: my god, like this is this is this is why.
Speaker 3: Break I love so that on set he's filming in
Speaker 3: the fifteen piece xenomorph suit and it's incredibly hot and
Speaker 3: he's you know, wearing it for like fifteen to twenty
Speaker 3: minutes before it's just soaked in sweat. And it was
Speaker 3: a four month shoot, So this I think it was
Speaker 3: pretty grueling, is my impression. Because he did actually get
Speaker 3: offered the role of this animal for Aliens, but declined,
Speaker 3: and that's why they created kind of the puppet. And
Speaker 3: then you get Tom Woodriff Junr who ends up being
Speaker 3: in it an Alien three and stuff. But he really
Speaker 3: did originate it, and he did it on this unexpected
Speaker 3: kind of low budget movie that would go on to
Speaker 3: change all science fiction films.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I think too that like the idea that again
Speaker 6: that this role that sort of like changed type of
Speaker 6: films is important to note too, because this is a
Speaker 6: film that's coming. It's in production or at least like
Speaker 6: the script group of pre Star Wars, and in Star
Speaker 6: Wars is a huge hit. And then you know, Fox
Speaker 6: is like, Okay, what do we have any sci fi things?
Speaker 6: And you know they sort of I think it was
Speaker 6: starbast At one point they name the change a few
Speaker 6: times with.
Speaker 3: An alien catchy name.
Speaker 6: Starby's Starby Sounds dope, though Starby Sounds is more heavy.
Speaker 6: This is a B movie. An alien sort of like
Speaker 6: pushes against the B movie tropes and stuff. But it
Speaker 6: was impressive to see that, like because Star Wars is
Speaker 6: there's no real dangerous alien. It's like they're all like
Speaker 6: cute little guys or our friends.
Speaker 3: Or whatever, cute little guys.
Speaker 6: And then you know with alien it's like what if
Speaker 6: space was scary again?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like Jaws for space.
Speaker 6: It very much is. And so like the nature of Asia,
Speaker 6: like his his size, because he does have this like
Speaker 6: angular quality to it that like feels not that he
Speaker 6: feels alien, but you know what I mean that there's
Speaker 6: just like, yeah.
Speaker 3: There's something to him that well, the alien movies don't
Speaker 3: exist without him. And I think that's why it was
Speaker 3: so important for us to do an episode, because the
Speaker 3: Xenomorph was a game changer, because, as you say, at
Speaker 3: this point, everyone's used to cute little guys. If there
Speaker 3: is a baddie, it's more of a kind of campy,
Speaker 3: old school villain like Darth Vader, who's a human in
Speaker 3: a suit, very obviously a human. And our vision of
Speaker 3: what aliens were in you know, American culture, in Western
Speaker 3: culture was like the little gray men with the little
Speaker 3: circular heads, and they look kind of like us. I mean,
Speaker 3: the Xenomorph looks nothing like anything they've ever seen. It's
Speaker 3: straight out of a nightmare. And Beilagi is a big
Speaker 3: part of that because he took tai chi classes so
Speaker 3: that he could learn how to move like a praying mantis.
Speaker 3: And when he's not look I love all the alien movies,
Speaker 3: but I am like you, I'm a die hard alien fan.
Speaker 3: I feel like when it's not him, you can absolutely tell,
Speaker 3: especially when you start getting to the later movies and
Speaker 3: they're using like the glove hands that are coming down
Speaker 3: that are always getting memed. He really brought it together
Speaker 3: to life in a way that was so unique and
Speaker 3: singular that it almost makes sense that he only did
Speaker 3: it for one film.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeah, it's it is that sort of I think
Speaker 6: in a way about John Cazell Junior, who played Yeah
Speaker 6: Fredo in The Godfather, was in five movies and they're
Speaker 6: all nominated for Best Picture. That's sort of like, you know,
Speaker 6: perfect record or Blodge Vodajos in one film.
Speaker 7: And it seems like you knows, yeah, one hundred percent,
Speaker 7: attack betting one thousand, and I think about like just
Speaker 7: doing that and then but also I think I think
Speaker 7: having to like understanding to like turn down aliens for
Speaker 7: that role.
Speaker 6: Like Okay, I did it and like it was grueling,
Speaker 6: I don't do it again.
Speaker 3: I think that is it's made something fantastic. It's done.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's impressive.
Speaker 3: I think that's really special. And also there's some great
Speaker 3: stories from his family, like his brother Boyega said that
Speaker 3: he never told them about being in the film, like
Speaker 3: until it was getting released, and he was just this
Speaker 3: really humble, sweet guy, and because they were all over
Speaker 3: the world, they couldn't watch it together. But Boyeger did
Speaker 3: get to go to the premiere with his brother with Bilagie,
Speaker 3: and that was, like he said, it was very cool
Speaker 3: times and I imagine that it was cool.
Speaker 6: Oh hey, by the way, I'm in a movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm in a movie. Oh, by the way, it's
Speaker 3: going to be like one of the most famous sci
Speaker 3: fi fictions of all time. And uh yeah, I calm
Speaker 3: and pulled a really cool piece of trivia that I
Speaker 3: didn't know, which is that the Blagie Imperial cigarettes that
Speaker 3: the crew of the Nostromo smoke. That was in reference
Speaker 3: to Billagi little way of shouting at.
Speaker 2: How good is that?
Speaker 6: That's so good? That's so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really interesting to just.
Speaker 6: Yeah, some years ago they had one of the auctions. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: they have the film Membor of real auctions. They had
Speaker 6: Yafakoto's jacket. Wow, I wanted it. But if they were
Speaker 6: someone who did, if they had the set production design
Speaker 6: of the CETA cigarettes, I would absolutely.
Speaker 3: We don't smoke, but those are the things that we
Speaker 3: would tape. Yeah, And we kind of talked about how
Speaker 3: this was, you know, this was his first movie. It
Speaker 3: was kind of his only movie, and then nobody really
Speaker 3: knew what happened to him for a long time, but
Speaker 3: it was revealed kind of in a twenty fourteen article
Speaker 3: which I think is really where we all started to
Speaker 3: get to know about him, called the Life of Bilagi Pideo,
Speaker 3: was that he had actually just moved back to Nigeria
Speaker 3: and opened an art gallery, so he got to live
Speaker 3: his you know, his graphics resign dream life. And sadly,
Speaker 3: it was in this article that we discovered that he
Speaker 3: passed away at thirty nine from complications related to sick
Speaker 3: or salemnemia. So I mean, talk about a life that
Speaker 3: was so impactful in such a short period of time.
Speaker 6: And that that's like, you know, was just heartbreaking. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, because he didn't again, like the impact that
Speaker 6: he made was so huge and again like being able
Speaker 6: to like leave Hollywood behind in a way, like you know,
Speaker 6: he didn't go because like yeah, because he if you
Speaker 6: think about like seventy nine, you know, when Alien comes out,
Speaker 6: he turns down Aliens obviously, but like there are a
Speaker 6: lot of films he could have been in, you know,
Speaker 6: like Spielberg could have used him in something like there's
Speaker 6: a lot of because again, like the way he's built
Speaker 6: and he just sort of like took that role and
Speaker 6: made it his own, a enomorphe. And so I think
Speaker 6: that like like he could have kept doing you know,
Speaker 6: he could have gone the dug up Doug Juons route, right,
Speaker 6: but he chose to go back home and he got
Speaker 6: to like you said, he got to live out that
Speaker 6: dream of having art gallery. And I think that's really
Speaker 6: incredible that like like to do the thing and then
Speaker 6: like you know what I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 6: walk away from it. I think that's you know, I mean,
Speaker 6: like you don't like this isn't this isn't for me,
Speaker 6: but like I have other dreams and like this was
Speaker 6: a fun thing to do, but like you know, it's
Speaker 6: not enough have to do it.
Speaker 3: For that Yeah, you know they picked me out of
Speaker 3: a pub and I just said, yeah, I'll take the money.
Speaker 3: I'll wear this suit for four months. And now, actually no,
Speaker 3: I'm a I'm a graphic artist, and I want to
Speaker 3: make sure that I get to pursue that passion and
Speaker 3: you know, go back to Nigeria because I was only
Speaker 3: here studying and he studied in the US, studied in London,
Speaker 3: and then he's like, pow, I'm going back to own
Speaker 3: an art gallery. I think that is really powerful. And
Speaker 3: also I think that it's something that we talk about
Speaker 3: a lot in comics, someone like Mike mcnola, who years
Speaker 3: ago said I'm finishing Hellboy the main series and I'm
Speaker 3: just doing it and everyone was like, WHOA, you can
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: You can just you.
Speaker 3: Can finish something on your own terms and say like
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 2: Like that.
Speaker 3: That's really powerful because a lot of times, especially with Aliens,
Speaker 3: which there was kind of a you know, change over
Speaker 3: from Ridley Scott to James Cameron, and there were kind
Speaker 3: of controversies about that with Geiger and stuff, It's really
Speaker 3: interesting that he was actually recognized for what he did
Speaker 3: and they offered it to him and he made that
Speaker 3: choice to say no, yeah, I don't want to be
Speaker 3: in that suit again, which honestly, yeah, before I let
Speaker 3: you go, could you just kind of talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about this is something that you has been like
Speaker 3: a passion of yours, someone you've been impacted by. And
Speaker 3: now thanks to the Internet and memes, I feel like
Speaker 3: Blagie story is getting better known and we get see
Speaker 3: photos of him. What's it been like to kind of
Speaker 3: see that recognition finally getting there.
Speaker 6: It's a joy and we're seeing, and I think we're
Speaker 6: seeing more like people know who the men and the
Speaker 6: Brezela suits were. There's a famous picture of like three
Speaker 6: of them, like walking down the street in the post
Speaker 6: and I think that like sort of you know, there's
Speaker 6: a asking Blije, Butjejo allows us to see him, you know,
Speaker 6: as he was not just in the suit, but as
Speaker 6: a man, as a person, and it's important to me,
Speaker 6: I think, because what's great about Alien is there's so
Speaker 6: many set photos. There's so many set photos that like
Speaker 6: they knew what they were going to they ruin making
Speaker 6: some special away and so because again he was in
Speaker 6: one film and then you know he sort of he
Speaker 6: ended up going back home, there's not a lot of
Speaker 6: images of him. And so seeing the ones we do
Speaker 6: have where he's like with the crew or he's kind
Speaker 6: of hanging out on set in this cool leather jacket
Speaker 6: or his cool shoes, like he's very stylish, and I
Speaker 6: think that's like, again, he's an artist, so I can
Speaker 6: get a sense of that. And so seeing like there's
Speaker 6: one picture that doesn't exist where he was walking in
Speaker 6: the sound stage from the studio with one of the
Speaker 6: other people from one of the other production crew members.
Speaker 6: I can't remember who it was, but like, she is
Speaker 6: like five foot one and he's six foot ten to
Speaker 6: walking side by side, and he's wearing like a pair
Speaker 6: of like Converse sneakers, and I want that picture. You know,
Speaker 6: it doesn't exist, but I want, Yeah, I want to
Speaker 6: see like the so like, yeah, I think, like you know,
Speaker 6: the handful of images that we do have allows us
Speaker 6: to kind of help better understand who he was. You know,
Speaker 6: he's not just the guy in the suit. He sees
Speaker 6: more than that. I think that's important.
Speaker 3: So I totally agree. Well, James, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for joining me on this special edition of Extra Vision.
Speaker 3: Where can people find you? Where can they find your?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 3: What do you have to plug?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I am on Instagram, Black Bull Speaks. I'm also
Speaker 6: on a Blue sky as Chuck Spear. You search for me.
Speaker 6: I use a bunch of different aliases, hilarious puns, I
Speaker 6: write comments. I have an itch site. It's James F.
Speaker 6: Wright's wri t S. I don't know what the urel is,
Speaker 6: but it's for ch I you can find my work there,
Speaker 6: comics and so on. So yeah, thank you, Rosie, thank
Speaker 6: you everyone, of.
Speaker 3: Course, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow, we'll be wrapping up our Xenomorph week with a
Speaker 4: special preview of the upcoming movie Alien Romulus Jason and Joel.
Speaker 4: We'll be breaking down the trailers, the promotional material, and
Speaker 4: what we can expect from director Fidi Alvarez's filmography and
Speaker 4: Ridley Scott's legacy. And then Friday, super producer Joel is
Speaker 4: back with Rosie as we sink our teeth into another
Speaker 4: very fang forward franchise. That's the episode. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 8: Bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kenseepsion and
Speaker 8: Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our
Speaker 8: executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising
Speaker 8: producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent
Speaker 8: and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 3: and Heidi Our discord moderata