10 Films Whose Novelisations Took On A Life Of Their Own

Novelisations are "work for hire," said Alien author Allan Dean Foster, who also adapted Star Wars. "If the owner wants a house painted bright orange, you're painting it bright orange."

Foster has had a long career creating work for hires based on the scantest material. Star Wars was written with input from Lucas (who took credit), however since the film was incomplete, there was no sense of how the Trench Run fight would play out onscreen. According to fans, Foster nailed it.

He had to do the same for Alien, whose script by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shushett underwent a lot of rewrites before it turned into the classic we know.

But those searching for a beat-for-beat description of the notorious ending in which the Xenomorph decapitated Ripley before mimicking her voice, you're in for a disappointment. By the time Foster started writing, they had at least worked out the film's ending.

What they didn't work out, however, was just what the Xenomorph would look like, so Foster was forced to work off brief, vague descriptions to approximate the terror onscreen.

By all accounts, it's surprisingly effective, and numerous other deleted scenes once thought lost are expertly laid out. Moreover, he has a ball exploring the stasis chambers.

Foster would handle the novelisation to Alien 3, however one would be much more satisfied tracking down the comic adaptation of William Gibson's draft.