Explore The Wooden Planet of Alien 3 And My First Blog Award

A is for Alien 3
First, here is some awesome concept art from an early version of Alien 3 that shows the wooden planet the monks were supposed to live in. Monks? Wooden planet? Yes, the version by Vincent Ward was supposed to be very different from the final film.

All images are by Stephen Ellis and Mike Worrall and the text is from the excellent article on the film by Empire Online.

"We open in a wooden cathedral. We think it's the Middle Ages. There are monks working behind the scenes, going upstairs through alcoves, then up ladders through attics and lofts. We follow one monk, who emerges through a gantry and looks out through a trap door across the encrusted surface of this environment, a little plain that curves, with a lagoon and a shallow atmosphere. The monk sees a star in the East. It gets closer and closer.

Other monks come up the ladders and more people join them over a period of days and weeks. And the star gets closer, until it smashes into the lagoon. The monks believe it is some sort of omen, that it is going to save them in some way. Of course, we know it is something quite different."

 "The monk we first see, John, goes over to the crashed spaceship in a coracle, this ancient little vessel made of hide. Everything is destroyed inside. He and the other monks find bedchambers with the glass broken. They find trails of blood. There's no sign of Newt, and they find Ripley. She's asleep, but the shield to her sleeping chamber is broken. They take her by coracle and by ladder down to where the senior bishop is. He's kind of a real reactionary, and rules with an iron rod. The bishop and the monks interrogate her, and she only has one ally, this monk John, who's a little more open than the rest. There's a weird physical frisson between him and Ripley. Then things start going wrong."

"There are these monastic toilets. Six or eight long-drop toilets with dividers between each closet. Here the monks catch up on the local gossip. But the Alien - which has come from the spaceship and then down into this wooden vessel - is circling through their sewage system. One guy is in the middle of a conversation, then whoosh! The Alien gets him from below. One by one, the Alien sucks them down into the sewerage."

"The monks become frightened. Ripley, as a woman, has become to them a kind of evil presence. She is sent down to a cell, where she starts to hallucinate. It's a kind of morning sickness. She has been impregnated by the Alien. The hallucinations are very much like Bosch visions, apocalyptic visions of fire and death. The Alien attempts to taunt her, and they achieve this strange intimacy. And Ripley can't tell what's real and what's not real."

"It's a year or two later. The flames have been put out. The wheatfields have grown back. You see a line of monks, wearing their cowls and habits, and they're working away, stripping the plants for the wheat. We move down the line and you see one face, and then another, and then you realise that one of the monks is now Ripley. You just see this lean face that has been through all these things. And she has finally found her own sense of community through these men and this isolated place. She's found her own sense of peace."  

You can see more of Stephen Ellis' work at http://www.hyperactiveart.com and Mike Worrall at http://www.mikeworrall.com.

Second, I was given the versatile blogger award by M. Hufstader! Thanks so much.

So cool.

Here are the instructions if you receive it:
1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.
2. In the same post, add the Versatile Blogger Award.
3. In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog.
4. In the same post, share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself.
5. In the same post, include this set of rules.
6. Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs.

7 Random Things About Me:

1. I wear contact lenses.
2. I learned to juggle after a frustrating summer. It taught me that anything is possible with perseverance. Now, if I can just remember that.
3. My favorite color is royal blue.
4. Till my brother had a son, I thought kids were annoying. When my son was born I learned kids are great.
5. I used to watch the moon with a telescope and imagine I was running on it.
6. My childhood hero was Lou Ferrigno from The Incredible Hulk TV show. I thought he was that strong in real life.
7. I cried when Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets died.

And now for the 15 people. Some are my blogger buddies and others are from the list of people signed up for the A-Z challenge starting this month. It's a great blogfest. If you haven't signed up and you have a blog give it a look-see.

And the award goes to...

1. Geeky Daddy
2. Geeky Tendencies
3. Vibrant Oxymoron - Star Trek and Doctor Who
4. Calling Shotgun
5. Sweet On Geek
6. Dreamers Lovers and Star Voyagers
7. Most Wanted Monsters
8. All Things X
9. New Yuk Times
10. Monkey Migraine Mountain
11. Space1970
12. Blogktor Who
13. The Semi-Retired Gamer
14. Geek Girl Rambling
15. The Geek in a Chair

Make sure you visit these guys because I can guarantee a good time.

This post is part of the month long "A-Z Challenge." For the next 27 days, we'll be choosing a letter from the alphabet and crafting a post around it. To read more of the posts in the series click here here. To find out more about the challenge go here.

Hosts: Arlee Bird at Tossing it Out, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Jenny Pearson at Pearson Report, Matthew McNish at The QQQE, Tina Downey atLife is Good, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Elizabeth Mueller, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Karen Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain, and Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small. Check the Facebook page and the Twitter hashtag is #AtoZChallenge.