Loads More From Jon Favreau and Bob Orci On Cowboys & Aliens!

Here are parts from an interview with Screen Rant with Cowboys & Aliens director Jon Favreau and producer Bob Orci

Favreau on the alien technology used in the film:

“We tried to look at – you know, there was that first photograph of a spaceship was from I think the 1870s, not far from here… And you know, they had the first shot of a UFO was like a cigar-shaped silver thing in the air. And there have been certain recurring themes and sightings and – and then the way film has treated them, UFOs.”

“I’m more of a fan of the alien movies from – you know, I guess I grew up around the time of “Close Encounters”, “E.T.” and then “Alien” I like a lot, and “Predator”. So we’re definitely going for more of the horror side of the alien movies – and although we have quite a bit of CG – I like the way they told stories before – before you could show everything with CG. And it was a real unveiling of the creature, little by little, and using lighting and camera work and music to make it a very subjective experience. And so we tried to preserve that here, even though we have ILM and we could show everything from the beginning, it’s nice to let things unfold, in a way – especially because you’re seeing through the eyes of these people in this Western milieu.”

“I’m more of a fan of the alien movies from – you know, I guess I grew up around the time of “Close Encounters”, “E.T.” and then “Alien” I like a lot, and “Predator”. So we’re definitely going for more of the horror side of the alien movies – and although we have quite a bit of CG – I like the way they told stories before – before you could show everything with CG. And it was a real unveiling of the creature, little by little, and using lighting and camera work and music to make it a very subjective experience. And so we tried to preserve that here, even though we have ILM and we could show everything from the beginning, it’s nice to let things unfold, in a way – especially because you’re seeing through the eyes of these people in this Western milieu.”

“They do. I mean, we have an internal logic to it. But definitely, in again, the movies that I like, it’s not like you’re going to be cutting to the bridge of the alien ship like in the ‘Treehouse of Horror.’ It’s more like you can infer certain things. Again, to me once of the best examples is ‘Alien.’ There was a logic to it, but the way it unfolded, you didn’t really know it. And there was enough logic to it that you could accept it. But all I knew when I watched it is, ‘Oh, my God, what’s that? There’s eggs; it’s on his face. It’s coming out of his stomach… And they’re all over the place, you can’t kill them; they have acid blood.’ Those were things that were pulled together, saying what they were colonizing. But I really liked the experience, and how the actors, and how Sigourney Weaver was going through it, and how much it was affecting her – the nightmares she was having. And then as you – and the more I learned about the aliens, the less I enjoyed them.”

“It is to figure out what the resources are here. They are – someone said the other day – I hadn’t made this connection – but they are like a modern day multi-national corporation. They study the resources of whatever new place they find, to find out what’s exploitable, what’s usable, what’s conquerable, and what’s returnable to their planet.”