I actually really like the minimalist title art for the original Alien, which famously fades in, slowly and methodically, line by line, in the movie's eerie opening shot. It's an elegant treatment for an elegant film, and jibes with the subtle tone established by director Ridley Scott.
I bring this up because We Are Mutants just debuted an unused title treatment for Alien by illustrator Michael Doret and Todd Schorr that is beautiful and exciting to look at and also, I think, better in isolation than it would have been in the context of the film. As cool as the treatment is, it would have given viewers the wrong idea about the movie they were about to watch — less sophisticated monster movie than pulpy creature feature.
“The title treatment I designed for Ridley Scott”s Alien never made it into the public arena,” Doret — who later designed the title treatments for such films as the 1981 werewolf movie Wolfen and 2012's Wreck-It Ralph, among others — told We Are Mutants. “It had some small promotional uses before it was run over by the Bill Gold Advertising machine and relegated to the back burner. At any rate, this was great fun to have worked on-the more so since I was able to work on it with my friend (the now famous 'pop-surrealist') Todd Schorr. I designed and drew the forms based on the 'bio-mechanical' forms I saw in some publicity stills from the production, and Todd painted the absolutely gorgeous finished art.”
It is, indeed, gorgeous. Take a look below.
[via Bloody Disgusting]
