"People were either taken by it or felt it was the Antichrist."
September 1, 2014 2:32 PM   Subscribe

Consider an arthouse, darker, noir version of Men in Black with secretive alien refugees trapped in Manhattan, tentacle sex and concept art by H. R. Giger. Clair Noto's The Tourist could have been transformed into a great movie in the right hands. Instead, it has languished in permanent development hell since the 1980's. Some call it "the greatest scifi screenplay never produced" (Article, part 1 and 2.) Decide for yourself and read Noto's original screenplay.

Per io9, a copy of the screenplay is also on SendSpace.

Tumblr: H.R. Giger concept art and a quote from the script.

Lee McGeorge produced a "fan fiction" novelization under a Creative Commons license earlier this year (without Noto or Universal's permission) and is offering it as a free ebook download on his website. Alt link.
posted by zarq (18 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some call it "the greatest scifi screenplay never produced"

*cough **Jodorowsky's Dune** cough*

Though this is not to belittle this particular work, I'm just saying, that Jodorowsky's masterpiece should not be forgotten.
posted by Fizz at 2:55 PM on September 1, 2014 [7 favorites]


Oh, yes. Definitely. Jodorowsky's vision was epic. 12 hours long, starring Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and David Carradine....
posted by zarq at 2:59 PM on September 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Man, downloading this is a real pain in the ass. I'm struggling valiantly, though.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:04 PM on September 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


The novelization is something I'm going to have to fight through, just to see where the story goes. Some of these lines are contenders for Worst Sex Descriptions In Literature Award: " She wondered what he would think if he knew the truth, that she was actually a six foot long black slug from another planet, with six vaginas and a penis and that the dust on his lips was part of her sexual discharge." I mean, yeeeesh ...
posted by jpolchlopek at 3:04 PM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


The SendSpace download triggered an antivirus thing for me. And the Scribd wants you to sign in through Facebook. Does this script just exist somewhere in some readily accessible form?

ETA: It did download through SendSpace, but again, my antivirus software blocked something in the process.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:08 PM on September 1, 2014


Oh, yes. Definitely. Jodorowsky's vision was epic. 12 hours long, starring Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and David Carradine....

Apologies for the derail, but if the legalities of the copyright, etc. ever gets settled for the book version of Jodorowsky's Dune. I will take out a second mortgage if needed to purchase his hardcover masterpiece.
posted by Fizz at 3:08 PM on September 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


The plot synopsis basically reads like one of those softcore SF alien/sex things that get made occasionally (ex: Species), but with a dash of existential angst.
posted by papercake at 3:09 PM on September 1, 2014


This is some freaky chilly-people-having-sex-in-Manhattan-in-the-1980s stuff. It could have made a good David Cronenberg movie, but what if the studio had instead marketed it as the tentacle version of this?
posted by johngoren at 3:16 PM on September 1, 2014


Kittens, sorry you're having trouble. The scribd Facebook thing is a popup. Click the big x on the upper right to close. At least, that's how it worked on my desktop and tablet.

No idea why you got a virus warning on send space, though. It's a PDF, and was clean when I downloaded and scanned it.
posted by zarq at 3:35 PM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


what if the studio had instead marketed it as the tentacle version of this?

Sorry I keep on getting sidetracked from this discussion, but what is the font for that poster? It was very common in the late 80s & early 90s?
posted by Fizz at 3:36 PM on September 1, 2014


Yikes. It gets worse: "It was the best sexual experience either of them had ever known. It was weird alien sex and it was out of this world!"

Thanks for clarifying that, buddy ...
posted by jpolchlopek at 3:50 PM on September 1, 2014


Oh cool- the synopsis reminds me a little of Possession and/or Liquid Sky. And not to sidetrack/derail the thread again, but it reminded me to look for a downloadable copy of Shane Carruth's unproduced screenplay A Topiary to read as well.
posted by Merzbau at 3:50 PM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Would love to know if there exists a PDF somewhere of a studio rewrite of Clair Noto's movie in which her work has been perverted into a Making Mr. Right-esque comedy about modern New York women having to deal with sex, city life...and being from outer space. Or at least just a misguided attempt to make it a hip mainstream drama about New Wave aliens.

The H.R. Giger site has some pretty amazing stuff placing the whole thing in the context of Francis Ford Coppola's dysfunctional Zoetrope Studio and people getting into fistfights.

Yeah, the Topiary script is really interesting...
posted by johngoren at 4:08 PM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Zarq, thanks for posting this, despite my initial difficulty! I remember reading a long article about The Tourist in some sci-fi film magazine probably twenty years ago, at which time it was already being lamented as a great film that would never be made. There was a detailed synopsis included, but little or none of the actual screenplay. It turns out that the script is almost nothing like what I had imagined, but I think it would have been quite a film, and with some tweaks could still be made now. I have a feeling it would have seemed much more original in the early '80s -- as someone noted above, the Species series seems to have run with some of the general concepts -- and yeah, the Videodrome-era Cronenberg would have done something interesting with it (he probably would have cast Debbie Harry as Grace, for one thing).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:44 PM on September 1, 2014


Eh, this is just reminding me that Giger is dead. :(
posted by Zarkonnen at 11:20 PM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


" *cough **Jodorowsky's Dune** cough*"

As long as we can all agree that all the best stuff that never happened involved fucked up Giger concept art.

Also all the best stuff that did happen.
posted by dgaicun at 5:19 AM on September 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Grace Ripley, a beautiful corporate executive who happens to be an alien in disguise, seeks a way to get back to her home planet while being drawn into the bizarre world of the Corridor.

Any relation to Ellen?
posted by pashdown at 7:00 AM on September 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Eh, this is just reminding me that Giger is dead. :(

Don't worry, he'll live on forever, in the smile of every child that has glistening fish scales instead of teeth, and in the bottomless hunger of every phallus-worm.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 8:12 AM on September 2, 2014 [2 favorites]


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