This just occured to me: ALIEN & Outland...did they live in the same world?

[dascoyne]

No.
When Outland was released the general sense was that its visual design was just heavily influenced by Alien which came out a couple of years earlier. It's not surprising because Alien was such a strong visual statement.
It's like how Blade Runner influenced almost every depiction of dystopian future on film since.

 

[Bryancd]

Watching the opening credits sequence just now ... I noticed some similarities between it and Alien.
1. The spooky sound-effect/drone sound as the title slowly lights up
2. The letters seen in silhouette and backlit ... and then get fully lit from behind and eclipsed by light
3. I think the composer for the score was the same, too.

Or am I just imagining all this?

This answers a lot of your questions...

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

 

[taimdala]

Re: This just occured to me: ALIEN & Outland...did they live in the same world?

No.
When Outland was released the general sense was that its visual design was just heavily influenced by Alien which came out a couple of years earlier. It's not surprising because Alien was such a strong visual statement.
It's like how Blade Runner influenced almost every depiction of dystopian future on film since.

You're right. Alien has strong visuals/ideas that stick with me today. I loved the costumes from the show, for instance, and how sweaty and grimy everything is. It was one of the few movies--if not only movie--that I remember has a *cat* as part of the crew. It was claustrophobic, dark, drippy ... a great little world. Very believable. It's impossible to keep anything squeaky clean for long--especially if it's a working space with people living in it. Ask anyone tasked with keeping the family home clean FOR TEN MINUTES. It's impossible. I know. I've tried. (House, not spaceship ... more's the pity.)

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Ooh! Video? How delightful! Thank you! I'll watch it.

 

[CB2001]

Well, if Alien and Blade Runner are in the same universe, then the movie Soldier may very well be as well (since you see a Spinner amongst some of the junk on the planet when Kurt Russell's character passes by. Not to mention, the script for the film was written by David Peoples, who co-written the script for Blade Runner, and Tannhauser Gate is also referenced in the film).

And Edward James Olmos, who starred in Blade Runner, said that if you were to watch Blade Runner after the end of the RIS Battlestar Galactica, it's like the story continues on (and if that's the case, then I guess that could also tie to Alien as well).

 

[gobler]

Well, if Alien and Blade Runner are in the same universe, then the movie Soldier may very well be as well (since you see a Spinner amongst some of the junk on the planet when Kurt Russell's character passes by. Not to mention, the script for the film was written by David Peoples, who co-written the script for Blade Runner, and Tannhauser Gate is also referenced in the film).

And Edward James Olmos, who starred in Blade Runner, said that if you were to watch Blade Runner after the end of the RIS Battlestar Galactica, it's like the story continues on (and if that's the case, then I guess that could also tie to Alien as well).

The directors commentary noted it was indeed the same universe as Blade Runner..


Sent from somewhere in time & space...

 

[CB2001]

I may have found another one that may be a bit subtle, or just possibly a simple call out. Not sure if it is the same universe or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were. A while ago, Ridley Scott and Tony Scott were producers on the film The Grey with Liam Neeson (it was talked about here at the forums a while ago). I was checking some info over at TV Tropes and found a detail that was surprising. In the film there's a character named Talget that works for an oil company, and he wears a baseball cap throughout the film. Here's a link to the picture of the hat: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bAzliHAk5Us/UFpjb6jmV_I/AAAAAAAAGHI/9ddGYCPga2o/s1600/talget.png

Notice the letters? How about the coloring? Could it be a simple call back, or could it be possible that The Grey is also within the Alien universe, but in the much earlier years of the company. Before anyone says it's just a coincidence, think about this: there's another character who has a jacket that has the same patch. Not to mention, the company deals with place far out of the way for resources (in fact, one could draw a comparison to the small outpost that the oil company in the film runs to something like LV-426). Not to mention, a plane crashes in Alaska and the entire survives die out running from creatures after them (seriously, where was help at? With a big oil company, you'd think they would have quite a lot of search vehicles looking for the crash site and survivors). Seems quite eerily similar to Weyland-Yutani, but circa early 2010s.

Of course, I'm just speculating a possibility. I know that The Grey isn't set in the future, nor shares any themes in common, but you never know.

 

[Raza Crew]

Wasn't there some connection between Blade Runner and the Michael Douglas movie Black Rain?

 

[CB2001]

Wasn't there some connection between Blade Runner and the Michael Douglas movie Black Rain?

Someone a while ago pointed out a series of visual connections between the film, including some props/set pieces: http://www.therpf.com/f47/black-rain-why-all-blade-runner-references-139433/

 

[Jonesythecat]

I don't know if I already wrote this before but I once interviewed Tiny Nichols over the phone (actually twice) and since I remembered this "question" from either this forum or the IMDb boards, I asked Nichols the very same question.
The answer is that there was not a connection, not a planned one anyway, it was just the way they (costumiers, set designer etc) imagined the future in those years, add the fact that a few of the same people worked on both films and you get fuel for fan-imagination where the two movies MIGHT co-exist in the same universe. Weylan might be a competitor of Con-Am.
But it wasn't in the idea of the movie-makers.

 

[airair]

Either way, the set designs for these movies were brilliant. You don't get quality like that these days unless its a director who really cares about his work!

 

[Jonesythecat]

Not to be snobbish but British craftsmen made a huge difference in 70s and 80s science fiction. The average UK costumier had a lot more care put into his/her work than the average Hollywood costumier.

Before Noel Howard died he was working on a historical film and, me being Italian and knowing each other quite a bit at that point, he asked me if I could find any picture of prisoners clothing in Italian colony of Tripoli from early 1900 because it was impossible for him to find any from the UK. Luckily I found an old footage in a documentary so he could finally design his costumes. A research effort that was a symbol of professionalism. Anyone else could have just said "who cares! Put them in any old-fashion prisoner attire" while for Noel it was a big problem that he hadn't found a historical source yet and he was running out of time.