The handsome man who was the Alien

June 17, 2012 4:54 PM

Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Bolaji Badejo, aka the Alien.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (34 comments total)

Huh. I was totally confusing him with Kevin Peter Hall and didn't realize he was still alive.
posted by elizardbits at 4:58 PM on June 17, 2012

Wow, just the screen test with the head mockup is frightening. His movements are insanely perfect.
posted by xingcat at 5:00 PM on June 17, 2012

The article tries to critique Ridley's film (where this actor played the "Alien") and confuses the first two films. He or she should have probably just stuck to gushing about the actor and playing the "where is he now game."
posted by clvrmnky at 5:07 PM on June 17, 2012

Here's an interview piece with Mr. Badejo from Cinefantastique magazine, Autumn 1979.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 5:17 PM on June 17, 2012

Which is linked in the FPP under Bolaji.

I am an advanced AI.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 5:20 PM on June 17, 2012

He is a handsome dude for sure.
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:21 PM on June 17, 2012

For the record, the Swedish article linked from Tumblr quotes a VFX artist who worked on the Nostromo model as saying that he read in Screen International that Badejo committed suicide soon after returning to Nigeria. He adds that the news hit him hard at the time, especially as Badejo was the one cast member they never got to know; he was kept apart from the other actors to make him feel more scary and alien.
posted by martinrebas at 5:26 PM on June 17, 2012

Dude is Slender Man in the flesh. O_O
posted by Decimask at 5:27 PM on June 17, 2012

I don't understand the last link - is it supposed to go to a specific tumblr? Linking the tag just brings up the same pictures multiple times.
posted by desjardins at 5:32 PM on June 17, 2012

Swedish article linked from Tumblr quotes a VFX artist who worked on the Nostromo model as saying that he read in Screen International that Badejo committed suicide soon after returning to Nigeria

There are also numerous forum posts all over the place discussing this rumor and not finding any evidence. It would be great for MeFi to put an end to the mystery, though. Anyone got some facts?
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 5:33 PM on June 17, 2012

I don't understand the last link - is it supposed to go to a specific tumblr? Linking the tag just brings up the same pictures multiple times.

"Hidden" among the posts of that same photo are numerous others photos of Badejo.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:46 PM on June 17, 2012

For the record, the Swedish article linked from Tumblr quotes a VFX artist who worked on the Nostromo model as saying that he read in Screen International that Badejo committed suicide soon after returning to Nigeria.

To be honest, that does have a certain urban legend-y ring to it of the sort that often arises around minor, mysterious celebrities (a la "the nerd from The Wonder Years grew up to be Marilyn Manson"). On the other hand, you would think he might do more to capitalize on his notoriety if he were still with us, so.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:37 PM on June 17, 2012

For the record, the Swedish article linked from Tumblr quotes a VFX artist who worked on the Nostromo model as saying that he read in Screen International that Badejo committed suicide soon after returning to Nigeria. He adds that the news hit him hard at the time, especially as Badejo was the one cast member they never got to know; he was kept apart from the other actors to make him feel more scary and alien.

The comments in the racialicious article indicate that that he died several years ago from sickle-cell anemia.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:05 PM on June 17, 2012

The space jockey from the Prometheus prologue is a dashing white gent.
posted by Monochrome at 8:45 PM on June 17, 2012

I am always faintly annoyed when stuntpeople/costume-hidden people turn out to be wildly good-looking (as they do often): "Now I have to spend two movie hours not able to see you and wanting to!" Like Alan Tudyk digitally replaced in I, Robot, BOO.

Anyway, WOW Badejo is gorgeous, and if he has in fact died I am sad he never got to at least assume his rightful place as crown prince of the scifi con circuit.
posted by nicebookrack at 9:15 PM on June 17, 2012

I really liked Ambrosia Voyeur's comment on Badejo in an earlier thread.
posted by painquale at 5:09 AM on June 18, 2012

saying that he read in Screen International that Badejo committed suicide soon after returning to Nigeria

Surely the back issues of something from the 1980s have not yet vanished in the midst of time? Any librarians or Hollywood folks in the house?
posted by Meatbomb at 5:30 AM on June 18, 2012

This article has an...odd reading of Aliens.

the second film basically made it a weirdly racialized Mommy War, with Weaver protecting the orphaned white child as her real reason for getting all gun-happy with the dark-skinned creature–I found my empathies with the Aliens.

The Mommy War thing I get, because you'd have to be completely oblivious not to. I'm pretty sure the reason for shooting at the "dark-skinned creature", though, is not so much a thinly-veiled racial subtext as the fact that it is a twenty-foot-high wall of shrieking spiky chitin-plated acid-blooded death that wants to gestate its murderous babies in people's torsos and has already killed a couple of hundred people doing so. The movie would have played out exactly the same if the aliens had been light-skinned.

Also, this:

On the real, Weaver’s crew rolls up on their territory (and if I recall the movies correctly, this is on purpose) and they are protecting and trying to feed their offspring.

1.) Okay, I'm being a pedantic nerd here, but LV-426 isn't the aliens' territory. In both movies, the aliens are just inert eggs on a crashed starship until someone messes with them. They even say it in Aliens--there's no indigenous life on the planet.

2.) Wasps are just trying to protect and feed their young, too. It doesn't mean I'm going to let them invade my house, sting the hell out of me, and try to lay eggs in my flesh.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:52 AM on June 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

her real reason for getting all gun-happy with the dark-skinned creature–I found my empathies with the Aliens.

Alien and Aliens as Zulu?

That's a creative misreading, but not as awful as Ridley's sudden inclination to shoehorn Chariots of the Gods and Star Trek V into the Alien franchise.

(Also, a document that looks like Jon Spaight's Alien Harvest script.)
posted by vhsiv at 7:10 AM on June 18, 2012

He is a handsome dude for sure.
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 8:21 PM on June 17 [+] [!]

[Blush]Why, thank you.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:12 AM on June 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

mists, dammit.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:34 AM on June 18, 2012

Also, in Aliens, where do all the xenomorphs come from? When the Sulaco arrives at LV-426, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of xenomorphs. And yet, the movie shows that the colonists of Hadley's Hope are still alive, cocooned beneath the main cooling towers at the proccessing station. So where did the xenos come from?
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 7:41 AM on June 18, 2012

The planet they land on in Alien is the same one that Aliens takes place on. The xenos were already there (since the events of the first movie) lying dormant or whatever. Then humans colonized it and disturbed the xeno lair in the crashed ship, then the xenos fucked up the colony.

Presumably the xenos were accidentally or not picked up on some other planet by the owners of the crashed ship (space jockeys) from Alien. I don't think we're meant to know exactly where they came from. Maybe this is what Prometheus is about, but I get mixed information.
posted by TheRedArmy at 9:02 AM on June 18, 2012

And yet, the movie shows that the colonists of Hadley's Hope are still alive...

No, it showed where their implanted locater beacons were. I don't think that indicated that all the colonists were alive, though at least one was by the time the Marines arrived.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:02 AM on June 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I just rewatched that part (special edition if it matters), and it's not clear if they are all alive still or not. We only see the one live cocooned woman who asks to be killed and is then is immediately chestburst and set on fire. The other cocooned bodies don't appear to have been chestburst, but then they don't appear to be alive, either. So, if you want to play this game, the number of xenos is tied to the number of colonists in Hadley's Hope, of which there were 158. Subtracting Newt and the cocooned woman beneath the cooling tower, that leaves us with a maximum potential of 156 xenos. I suppose that could be plausible. We never really know how many are in the Zerg rush against the sentry guns, but I always got the sense that there were hundreds & hundreds of xenos on LV-426 in Aliens. A lot more than 156, anyway. The potential is there, surely, with what appear to be tons of eggs aboard The Derelict, but they have to have a host to gestate in.

I'm now going to see if perhaps the cocooned woman is played by the same actress that plays Newt's mom in the special edition. That would be pretty interesting if it was Newt's mom down there.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 9:47 AM on June 18, 2012

And upon googling, Holly De Jong played Newt's mom in the special edition, and the cocooned woman is identified in the film credits as Barbara Coles.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 9:55 AM on June 18, 2012

I watched Aliens a while back and kept wondering how a species would develop to have this ability to gestate in a human stomach (or chest). How would this work evolution-wise, or am I being a pedantic dick and should just STFU and enjoy the sci-fi?
posted by marienbad at 11:23 AM on June 18, 2012

It's been speculated that the xenomorph is a biological weapon, engineered to dispose of living things.

How the designers of these weapons dispose of the xenomorph, after it does its work, is a question for another day.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:39 AM on June 18, 2012

It's been speculated that the xenomorph is a biological weapon, engineered to dispose of living things.

This is acknowledged as canon.

How the designers of these weapons dispose of the xenomorph, after it does its work, is a question for another day.

Predators! (not necessarily canon)
posted by FatherDagon at 1:44 PM on June 18, 2012

This is acknowledged as canon.

Just curious: where?
posted by painquale at 1:49 PM on June 18, 2012

Ridley Scott mentions it in his 1997 commentary.
posted by Monochrome at 6:16 PM on June 18, 2012

> I watched Aliens a while back and kept wondering how a species would develop to have this ability to gestate in a human stomach (or chest).

Ask a tapeworm. In fact, that reminds me of The Worm Within.
posted by Monochrome at 6:19 PM on June 18, 2012

I don't really consider that canon, or even Scott's well-considered view on the matter, given the way he talks about it on the commentary. (I discuss why here.) I was wondering whether there are any other sources of evidence for the theory.
posted by painquale at 8:11 PM on June 18, 2012

Can we not have spoilers here
posted by desjardins at 9:26 PM on June 18, 2012