ALIEN SEED: Event Horizon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IySbhJGqo6s

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“I’ve been waiting to do a movie with Aliens in it since I was at school, since the first Alien movie came out, since I fell in love with Sigourney Weaver and since the Alien scared the hell out of me. I’ve been obsessed with Aliens for a while.”
Paul Anderson, Joblo, 2002.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997) has attained a sort of cult appeal since its release... (...)

Much of Event Horizon’s appeal, even its most ardent fans will admit, lies in what it liberally borrows from other movies — the story cribs from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) and its imagery and even some dialogue derive from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987). There are entire shots lifted directly from Alien, The Shining, and Stargate. The film’s flashlights emulate the look of the Alien derelict’s laser ‘net’; the Gravity Drive even feels, not to its detriment, like Event Horizon’s very own Space Jockey chamber set-piece. Not to mention a variety of production similarities: the film’s cinematographer, Adrian Biddle, started out as a focus puller for Alien before serving as Aliens’ cinematographer after a recommendation from Ridley Scott, leading to his turn on Anderson’s film.

When designing the Event Horizon ship itself, models designer David Sharpe explained that “What we did was to scan elements of Notre Dame Cathedral into the computer, so the thruster pods at the side were actually towers from Notre Dame … when you pull back, you see the crucifix hanging above Neptune.” Likewise, Alien conceptual artist Ron Cobb explained that “Ridley saw the [Nostromo] very much as a metaphor for a Gothic castle, or a WWII submarine.” Ridley himself commented that he had drawn the Nostromo’s rig with “the vague idea that it would resemble a floating inverted cathedral.” Event Horizon‘s filmmakers were not shy about the aesthetic similarities between their film and Scott’s: the DVD commentary features producer Jeremy Bolt observing his film’s ship and commenting, “It’s not completely pristine, it’s kinda like the ship in Alien,” with Anderson also admitting that “Yeah, we were obviously very influenced by the look of the Nostromo when it came to designing this, you know, like that grubby realistic view of the future.”

“If you’re going into outer space you’ve got to have a very specific, exciting design concept. You can’t be sub-standard Alien or sub-standard Blade Runner.”
~ Paul W.S. Anderson.

Anderson also explained that his film’s threat was, unlike Alien’s, supernatural as well as psychological – the evil didn’t exist as a concrete physical entity, but rather emanated from the Gravity Drive to possess the ship. According to the director, Event Horizon’s shell was admittedly very Alien, but the engine was more akin to classic haunting movies. “For me, what makes the movie really original is that you’re expecting another monster movie,” Anderson told Starlog in 1997, “another variation of Alien, and that’s not what you get at all. Instead, you get a very scary psychological horror movie.”

After Event Horizon’s cult success and Anderson’s reputation with genre work was cemented, he was given what one interviewer called “the poisoned chalice” that was 2003’s Alien vs Predator. Anderson approached the project with much enthusiasm and a bag of ideas, pitching the plot to Fox executives and securing wrting and directing duties. “It’s the coolest cinema franchise out there,” Anderson told Joblo.com in 2002, “and Predator is the baddest hunter in the universe. So the idea of combining the two of them is just phenomenal! It will be a stand-alone franchise. It will not be a continuation of the Alien franchise.”

Anderson’s AVP was followed in 2007 by Aliens vs Predator: Requiem, directed by the Brothers Strause. “That movie showed what a good job we’d done with the first movie,” Anderson told Grantland in 2014. “It’s like, OK, you can pick apart my AVP, but take a look at that one and then maybe watch my movie again and you’ll have a new appreciation for it.”

Taken from: https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/alien-seed-event-horizon/