Alien: The Blueprints

by Graham Langridge

Technical drawings of all the major ships and vehicles from the Alien movies, presented in incredible detail. Includes iconic spacecraft like the Nostromo, the Sulaco and the Covenant.

Alien: The Blueprints is a collection of brand new blueprints of all the major vehicles, ships and technology of the Alien movie universe. Artist Graham Langridge delves deep into the concept art, set designs and photography to recreate full and accurate blueprints of the drop ship, the Sulaco, the Nostromo and many more. Covering all the movies including Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, this is a must-have for any Alien fan.

* Large-format pages reveal these technical drawings in breathtaking detail.
* Gatefold pages allow for large vessels like the Sulaco and the Covenant to be shown at a greater size.
* Includes the Covenant, the lander and the cargo lifter from Alien: Covenant

Genres: Science Fiction, Reference, Media Tie In

156 pages, Hardcover

Published September 24, 2019

Reviews

[Jonathan Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

For hardcore alien fans, and of course everyone else who wants to see cool ships.

I highly recommend it - Graham J. Langridge must be a pro at this style because each drawing is incredible - I highly recommend it!

[Koen Crolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why does a 66,000-ton, 1,095-foot space-to-space tugboat meant to tow a 6,322-foot ore refinery need to devote most of the bulk of its engine nacelles to VTOL thruster ports, especially when it also has a dropship big enough to haul its entire crew a few times over? Why is its central body so big? To haul cargo as well? That would explain the massive docking module on top, if it's meant to enable quick movement of bulky loads, but its four cargo holds are absolutely tiny. Most of the space in the central body of the Nostromo is just pointless corridors, laid out like they're carved out of stone.

Anyway, the blueprints are fine, though they could use a lot more explicit measurements and a lot less noisy page filler. The text tying them together reads too much like advertising copy, but that's what books like these are, I guess; it's not a concept art or making-of book, so it was to be expected that it would be light on behind-the-scenes information. The four original movies and the two prequels are covered; Aliens had the most rational vehicle designs, Prometheus the ugliest.

[C.J. Bunce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published October 7, 2019, at BORG.com:

Review by C.J. Bunce

Typically a sci-fi movie's tech manual is a compilation of spec designs and blueprints used in a film's production, from designs and drawings, model making and miniature effects, drafting, and set building. Graham J. Langridge′s new book turns that around. Alien: The Blueprints is the culmination of more than a decade of side projects by Langridge, an architectural student when he began creating ship drawings for the franchise, and now he's the artist and designer of an expansive set of blueprints based on the ships and sets from the franchise. It's all timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror classic, the original 1979 film Alien, which sees a return to theaters this month as part of the Fathom Events series.

Similar to tech manuals you may have seen from other series and intended to be read in conjunction with the 1995 book Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual, this month's follow-up work Alien: The Blueprints discusses the creative work behind the ships of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, and Alien: Covenant. But the bulk of its 156 over-sized (10.5-inch by 14.6-inch) pages consists of detailed, newly-created engineering drawings. These are the key ships and creations anyone who has seen the films will be familiar with: the Nostromo (with ten pages of detailed drawings), the Narcissus, and refinery from Alien, the Sulaco (with 11 pages of drawings), the alien ship, space jockey, armored personnel carrier, dropship (10 pages of drawings), powerloader, Hadley's Hope (16 pages of drawings), and tractor from Aliens, the escape vehicle and penal colony facility from Alien 3, the Betty and Auriga from Alien Resurrection, and the Prometheus and Covenant (10 pages of drawings) from the latest films, and a lot more.

Along with an afterword by the author explaining his process, a section on each film discusses the film designers, with contemporary quotes and reference information from Roger Christian, Ron Cobb, Martin Bower, Syd Mead, H. R. Giger, Norman Reynolds, George Gibbs, Nigel Phelps, Sylvain Despretz, Steve Burg, and Chris Seagers. A few close-up photographs of models of the actual ship props and original concept artwork fill out each chapter. As a bonus, the Suloco and Covenant ships get full pull-out, double-page spreads for their design drawings. The entirety is an end-to-end compilation of finely detailed artwork for the diehard Alien fan. And each page is printed on thick, glossy paper, making them ideal for framing.

Just in time for the original film's 40th anniversary, Alien: The Blueprints is available this month for the first time.

[Terrence Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

For what it provides, it's a great resource. You can clean and concise diagrams for all of the Alien franchise films to date (from Alien to Covenant). For Alien there is a ton of brand new content never before seen, including an exhaustive set of diagrams for the Nostromo; both the outside of the ship and all of the levels inside. Also comprehensive diagrams of the shuttle Narcissus and excellent details on the refinery they were pulling.

Aliens has the most content of any of the films in here, including all of the vehicles (including the Power Loader and Diahotai tractor from the Director's Cut), the layout of Hadley's Hope, details on the atmosphere processor and even some insights into the alien derelict spaceship. While much of this information has already been published, some of the diagrams to point out things not previously shown. Plus you are getting a fair amount of exclusive content here.

Once you get past the first two movies, the information provided starts to nosedive sharply. For Alien 3 you do get some excellent, if not fully comprehensive, details and diagrams for the EEV. The Penal Colony blueprints are sparse, and only seem to just show set pieces rather than an actual layout of the facility. Alien: Resurrection has some great exterior diagrams of The Betty, and hardly anything else. The Auriga, probably the one spaceship in the franchise that desperately screams to be looked into, gets nothing more than some external drawings with zero technical details.

Prometheus and Covenant fare better than the last two movies, but are still greatly lacking when compared to the content this book gave for the first two movies. Prometheus provides almost exclusively external drawings with very little technical details given for the titular spaceship. The vehicles fare a little better, however they leave out technical data that I know exists. Covenant gets exhaustive blueprints for the title ship, lander and cargo lifter. Again... very little technical data compared to what's given from the first two films.

In spite of my complaints, it really is an excellent collection. I just wished they would have given the extra effort to make it an absolute must-have.

[Zac · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably wouldn't have bought this if I didn't manage to get it for quite cheap, but it turned out to be a pretty worthwhile pickup. The bulk of the book is made up of blueprints of the different vehicles and some of the buildings depicted in the 6 films of the Alien franchise. There is a lot of detail and extensive notes within the blueprints - actually, more notes than I could ever be bothered reading, but this doesn't detract from the book at all as the illustrations are very pleasing to look at, particularly the ones involving interior designs. The book is split into sections by film, and there is an interesting 2-page introduction at the beginning of each section that explains some of the reasoning behind the designs. I'm sure that some of this info, and many of the images, can be found within other texts (such as the excellent Alien: The Archive) but it's still nice to have all this info in a book dedicated to just the technology of the Alien universe. The afterword explains the author's approach to creating the blueprints, and this is a welcome addition for anybody who may doubt Langridge's dedication to the authenticity and functionality of the designs. I only noticed a tiny amount of in-character writing in the form of notes from colonists on LV-426, and it would've been cool to see more of this, but that really wasn't what this book was about.

A nice addition to anyone's set of Alien coffee-table books.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of the Alien franchise, so when a friend saw this slightly pricey book available in a comic order he was placing anyway he got it for me. It is exactly what you'd think - a detailed reference of placed and vehicles from all Alien movies. My only gripe is some are done really, really well (the ship and shuttle from the first movie), while others are not covered in as much detail (Prometheus vehicles). I'm a sucker for blue prints, floor plans, deck plans. There aren't quite as many of these here as you might expect.

Still, recommended for fans of the movies.

[Ryan La Fleur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book. As a huge Aliens fan it is always fun to see into the detail the production team had and the dedication of other fans to develop the universe within which the the stories reside.

[Eric Winter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much text, but fun to peruse for little tidbits and trivia.

[Jefferson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful detailed schematics of the ships and vehicles of the Alien series, with the majority of the material coming from the first two films.

[Christopher Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a MUST for any ALIEN/ALIENS fan. It is pure eye-candy for us hardware lovers who want to study the technology of the ALIEN/ALIENS universe.

[Michał Steier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a few interesting insights, some trivia and miscelenea. I expected much more.

[ink drinking lady · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so expensive but it’s so friggin cool

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

For superfans of the Alienverse like me, this is probably a must have. Scads of cool CAD drawing of the main crafts and vehicles of note in the main run of films to date of publication; heavy on the first two of course. If you are of my ilk, you will pore through the drawings envisioning the locations where movie scenes took place. You will note the room where Ripley and Newt are locked in with the face-hugger at Hadley's Hope, revel in the location in the Narcissus where the ALIEN stowed itself away for the launch, pinpoint the airlock on the Sulaco that snorted out the Queen and most of the untethered cargo in the dropship bay, and imagine the atmosphere in the lunch room that witnessed the famous chest burster scene on the Nostromo.

If you are of my ilk, you should just get it. Just don't expect full sets of documents. These are cherrypicked from what one would assume to be a massive amount of future digital cadwork. Same draftsman through the centuries interestingly enough. Must have been an artificial person, haha.