In Space, No One Can Hear Your Score

Films are often recut after the scoring process has begun. Generally a soundtrack release will betray this by containing cues in a longer form than what is in the film, or occasionally a track which is not represented in the film whatsoever. What must 1979 consumers have thought, then, when the soundtrack album for Alien contained almost no music used in the film? The film’s composer, Jerry Goldsmith, was none too happy. Not with the music that was in the album, but the music that accompanied the film itself during its theatrical tour. The music on the album was taken from his own scoring sessions; what accompanied the film was an amalgam created by editor Terry Rawlings and director Ridley Scott. However, a listen-through of Goldsmith’s complete score doesn’t reveal much relation to the final edit. Under the original score lied a very different edit, one which, despite having full visual effects, was a very different beast.
Deleted sequences have always been a point of interest for fans of Alien. Since the Heavy Metal magazine version contained many sequences missing from the theatrical edit, and publications like Cinefantastique or Fangoria were publishing sensational headlines about an unseen X-rated version of the cult hit, many fans could only dream at the content of this version. However, this kind of ravenous attitude led to much misinformation, which was in many ways worsened with the actual publication of some of this footage in 1994 on the laserdisc extras for Alien. Sequences like the scene where Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) has his head crushed by the creature, or Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) discovers him and the captain (Tom Skerrit) entombed in a horrifying cocoon were of such repute that when given the chance to create an alternate cut for DVD in 2003, both of these sequences received new edits for inclusion in this cut… Though this meant they edged out sequences which had been rescued from the cutting room floor.