Book excerpt: A comprehensive and definitive volume telling the complete story of how Alien was made, featuring new interviews with Ridley Scott and other production crew, and including many rarely-seen photos and illustrations from the Fox archives. In 1979 a movie legend was born, as Twentieth Century-Fox and director Ridley Scott unleashed Alien - and gave audiences around the world the scare of their lives. To celebrate the movie's fortieth anniversary, author J.W. Rinzler (The Making of Star Wars) tells the whole fascinating story of how Alien evolved from a simple idea in the mind of writer Dan O'Bannon into one of the most memorable sci-fi horror thrillers of all time. With brand new interviews with Ridley Scott and other key members of the original production crew, and featuring many never-before-seen photographs and artworks from the archives, The Making of Alien is the definitive work on this masterpiece of popular cinema.