Scripts

The script for Alien, like those for most other movies, went through many changes during the production process.

 

If you have never read the different versions of the story, beginning with Dan O’Bannon’s treatment, you might enjoy a browse below.

add O’Bannon’s treatment

The Nostromo Files script collection currently contains six scripts.

  1. ALIEN by Walter Hill and David Giler.  Story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. (undated)Alien script 1
  2. ALIEN.  Story by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett.  Screenplay by Dan O’Bannon. (undated)Alien script 2
  3. Three
  4. ALIEN.  Revised Final Draft by Walter Hill and David Giler.  Based on screenplay by Dan O’Bannon.  Story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.  June 1978.  (Terry Rawlings copy).Alien script 4
  5. ALIEN.  A Screenplay by Dan O’Bannon.  Story by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett. FIRST DRAFT. 5 August 1978.Alien script 5
  6. “ALIEN” by Walter Hill and David Giler.  REVISED FINAL JUNE 1978. Rev. thru Oct. 4, 1978.Alien script 6

For more information, see these articles at Alien Explorations and Strange Shapes:

Alien: Conceiving the story, by wmmvrrvrrmm (March, 1979)

Writing Alien, by Valaquen (March 5, 2013)

Alien: the 1978 Scripts, by Valaquen (July 27, 2016)

Thanks to my friends at Aliens vs Predator Galaxy and Strange Shapes for posting these and for helping arrange them in something approximating chronological order.