Yet Another Crazy Fangirl Blog

@sunny-bexster ‘s request of “Skutters dressing up”

i'd never seen red dwarf and knew nothing about it. and then on a whim i read the two grant naylor books. and then something sick and evil happened to me. and now i'm midway through season 4.

He has no concept of care for his own well being. Hell, Lister mentions he's fuckin up for 36 hours with a broken arm (which he still hasn't taken care of), fresh off of Cats surgery, and he's teaching Kryten to play the piano.

I did not know there was an observation dome scene in Alien that was deleted, but considering Dan O'Bannon wrote it and co-wrote Dark Star I can totally see the connection 👀

Also, do you have any more facts about Dark Star, even ones that didn't influence Red Dwarf?

Mind? I was waiting for this moment! Thank you! :D

I actually watched it after, yeah - thing is, when people talk about Alien they mostly talk about, y'know, the alien and not about the used future cyberpunk "corporate sucks ass" setting, so I kinda never knew before? About that either? If I knew I'd be there waaay faster. To be fair probably nobody hears of Dark Star first, it's not even heavily mentioned in the Alien documentaries themselves.

Yeah, it's the O'Bannon connection, as I call it. Funny to me that the guys decided to get that one part from there too, the dome scene in DS is also pretty melancholic.

Now, to ramble off - okay so you know about DS. But do you know that a huge part of cyberpunk's aesthetic can be traced back to a little comic drawn by O'Bannon and then re-drawn by Jean Giraud (and published in Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal) that came up when they were both on the set of Jodorowsky's Dune (that never came out) in like, 1975? It's called The Long Tomorrow. The author of Neuromancer directly cited it as a huge inspiration on how he imagined the novel would look like. And y'know, Ridley Scott was literally inspired by the same and he directed Alien first, so take that Bladerunner! If you look at it, Dark Star is like the proto space cyberpunk! Which ties in very neatly into the Dwarf's worldbuilding as well. Oh, and that comic is literally basically just the opening of the Fifth Element.

I have too many random facts I know. Out of the ones connected to RD, recently relistened to some interviews and the guys were saying that Pinback actually being a random guy who's not even meant to be on the ship stuck out to them especially.

It's a shame that Dark Star doesn't really get acknowledged for its huge influence on sci-fi. I've always loved Alien for it's setting - I find truckers in space to be more compelling than, say, the military. They're more relatable to me. There's very little chance of most people in a sci-fi future of being stereotypical heroes like that, more just what we do now, just in space, which includes being screwed over by capitalism. I found out about Dark Star from a video talking about John Carpenter's filmography and did a double take at the clips shown, did some research and found out I was correct in thinking Red Dwarf was similar to it.

Seems like Alien really is the spiritual successor to Dark Star then, also, I'm going to use the O'Bannon connection when I talk about this subject from now on.

Ah, the infamous uncompleted Dune adaptation. I am aware of it but I didn't know of O'Bannon's involvement with the project, let alone that he collaborated with Moebius! I knew about The Incal, which also was created as a result of Jodorowsky's Dune and had Moebius as it's illustrator, but the fact that the project spawned two comics which influenced Cyberpunk is amazing to me! I believe there's a documentry all about the uncompleted film that I'm going to have to check out now.

I did find as I was watching Dark Star that Pinback stood out as an obvious influence, especially on Rimmer, with him acting like he knew best when actually he's completely incompetent at the job (also how both crews are addressed by their surnames). I do also have a strong suspicion that the scene of him lounging on an sun lounger in a tropical shirt and shorts was an influence on Lister and especially on the cover of the book of Better Than Life.

Not just O'bannon then! This is the stuff I love, making connections between media and finding what influenced the next piece in a genre; it's all connected!

About there being a lack of space cyberpunk focused on regular joe workers, I have three other examples I can think of atm that you may want to check out:

Outland (1981) is a sci-fi thriller set on a mining facility on the Jupiter moon of Io, and is about a new marshall to the facility uncovering a deadly conspiracy being pulled by the management. It is basically a space western remake of High Noon and I'd bet good money that Grant Naylor had at least heard, if not seen, this. It's models and pratical effects are so detailed and worn, fans online have even joked that the film takes place in the same universe as Alien due to how similar the two films look.

Mouthwashing (2024) is a more modern piece (and a game) but it's developers have stated that Alien was a huge influence on the game's aesthetic and the graphics being made to look like an old PS1 game really does sell the worn, lived in environments. It's a non-linear first person horror which focuses on the crew of the Tulpar, a long-haul delivery vessel, after a crash leaves them stranded with diminsiing supplies and the relations between them slowly deteriorate. I won't say much more as I really do think the game needs to be played blind but narratively a big part of the story is how negligent corporations lead to needless suffering. It's one of my favourite games.