Dan O’Bannon, writer of ‘Alien’ and ‘Total Recall,’ dies at 63
Dennis McLellan, the fine obituary writer for the Los Angeles Times, has some sad news for fans of “Alien” and “Total Recall”…
Dan O’Bannon
O’Bannon, whose credits include co-writing “Blue Thunder” and “Total Recall,” died Thursday at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica after losing his 30-year battle with Crohn’s disease, said his wife, Diane.
His career began with the low-budget 1974 sci-fi film “Dark Star,” a dark comedy directed by John Carpenter that began as a USC student project and was co-written by O’Bannon and Carpenter from their original story. (O’Bannon himself played what has been described as a “reluctant, flunky astronaut.”)
He went on to write the script for “Alien,” director Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi classic about a spaceship terrorized by a hideous alien being. It was based on O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett’s story.
O’Bannon said in a 2003 interview that he modeled the alien’s behavior after the life cycle of parasitic microorganisms.
“One thing I realized hadn’t been exploited in science fiction movies were the physical aspects,” he told the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. “The real world offered many examples which were extremely loathsome and I thought, if it’s good enough for Mother Nature, maybe it will work on an audience.
“One review said that watching this movie was like turning over a rock and finding something disgusting. That was a pretty good description of what I was going after…”
THERE’S MORE, READ THE REST
– Dennis McLellan
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Photo: Dan O’Bannon in 1985; Credit: Los Angeles Times
