Comparing Alien to Star Wars?

[Surtur]

I've never understood why people would try to claim Alien rips Star Wars off.

They would say stuff like "Star Wars was made before Alien".

Both movies have nothing in common.

They aren't even the same kind of movies. Alien was supposed to be more a sci fi/horror film and Star Wars was definitely not meant to be that. Unless you include the horror in hindsight you have once you learn Luke and Leia are related, but kissed.

[Cyke]

Well it was from the Gamefaqs movie board.

So it was a thread where no one spent more than 2 minutes trying to connect the flimsiest of points, send them to an editor for critical analysis, and publish it as a story on a website. Gotcha. Meanwhile, these guys are in neither in the Alien nor Star Wars franchises, but they'd still like to weigh in:

[Flash Gordon]

ALIEN has nothing to do with STAR WARS. I love ALIEN, I could careless for STAR WARS.

[simbob4000]

From what I remember, some would claim both have futuristic technology making them too much alike.

Ridley Scott specifically points to the used-future look of Star Wars as a visual influence on Alien...which I can only guess is what you're talking about.

[Carabas]

ALIEN has nothing to do with STAR WARS. I love ALIEN, I could careless for STAR WARS.

Couldn't care less...
If you could care less then you are saying you do care.

[Conch22]

Both of the villains have an armored, black appearance with an inhuman looking facemask?
British robots (alien technically has an android/ biloid)
An evil empire.
John Hurt is the Obi Wan of Alien.
This is about as far as I can go with this, these are very dissimilar movies

[Crimson Knight]

Both of the villains have an armored, black appearance with an inhuman looking facemask?
British robots (alien technically has an android/ biloid)
An evil empire.
John Hurt is the Obi Wan of Alien.
This is about as far as I can go with this, these are very dissimilar movies

Wouldn't Weyland-Yutani be more of an evil corporation than an evil empire though?

[Conch22]

Corporations are frequently referred to as empires, but that is a fair point

[ChrisIII]

Star Wars is often compared to Star Trek, which I find kind of odd. It's probably just because they both have "Star" in the title. Star Wars is more kind of a fantasy epic set in a mythic past; Trek is set in a semi-utopian future and is mainly about exploration and the human (and to a degree, alien) condition.


Granted, the two have sort of inspired each other, as we've seen with the Abrams films; and even Star Trek's movies from the beginning have been influenced by SW success ( Originally The Motion Picture was going to be a TV pilot for a new Trek TV series, but it ended up becoming a movie at almost the last minute once Star Wars became a big hit). I'd even say that TWOK had some influence from ESB, both of which took the characters in surprising new directions and took some creative risks.

[CSTowle]

Futuristic? Star Wars is se in the past!!

This made me smile.

[ChrisIII]

Both of the villains have an armored, black appearance with an inhuman looking facemask?

It's kind of interesting that in both cases this was the influence of the concept artist. ALIEN was originally going to have a more generic monster space alien, but H.R Giger's work changed it into the creature we're all familiar with.

Likewise, Vader originally was going to be some sort of unmasked character, but Ralph Mcquarrie designed the opening sequence with Vader in a space suit where he would get into the rebel ship (before the final movie settled on the docking with the Star Destroyer).
Eventually this-with some further samurai influences-evolved into Vader being in a suit all the time because George liked the look.