Hey folks, Harry here - here's the update on Dan O'Bannon. It seems that he was finally brought down by a battle he'd been waging with Crohn's Disease since before ALIEN. Complications brought about the worst, and now he's gone. The silver lining, if there is one to be found in these dark times, is from his wife, Diane. Here's the letter I received from David Fein, updating us all.

Hi Harry...

Thanks for the prompt post, the outpouring of love and respect is getting back to the family. I know I only had a few minutes last night, so here's a little more information.

Dan died at 6 PM last night of complications from his 33 year fight with Crohn’s Disease (Giger's Agent and friend of the O'Bannon family, Les Barany speculated that his stomach disease might have been an inspiration for the chestburster).

Dan put up a great fight all of these years and is finally at peace.

His wife Diane has stated that she has plans to publish much of his unpublished work, and soon we'll all get a chance to appreciate more of his creativity in his absence.

Thanks again for helping to get the word out.

David

Hey folks, Harry here with sad news. We have had a run of famous deaths recently, in and around the time of BNAT... Gene Barry, Roy Disney... Both tragic deaths. In particular, I had always wanted to meet Roy, he was the familial face of Disney - and someone that fought especially hard to see Eisner go.

But just a few moments ago, I received a call from David Fein, you may know him as the amazing producer behind Robert Wise's STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE director's edition. BNATTERS would know that Fein was who secured Wise's special introduction of ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (great film btw). So what does he have to do with Dan O'Bannon? Well, Fein was also the amazing producer behind that stunning ALIEN LEGACY dvd set - that had all that great doc work, thanks to David.

Well, David called to tell me Dan O'Bannon had just passed away. Dan had been in the hospital this past week fighting to hang on, but lost the battle not too long ago - and David wanted to alert the world of the passing of one of Geek's great creators.

Dan O'Bannon was a great geek creator. He provided the screenplay and served as the Special Effects Supervisor on John Carpenter's first masterpiece, DARK STAR. And it is a science fiction masterpiece. I love DARK STAR and its sentient bomb and bean bag monster like very few things in this world. Dan worked on the computer animation and displays on a tiny film called STAR WARS after that. Remember that animation blueprint on how to blow up the Death Star... ie, the rebel plans? O'Bannon had a hand in that!

Then... he was the lead screenwriter on Ridley Scott's little film called ALIEN. Before Dan, there was a blank page. Afterwards we had Ellen Ripley, the Nostromo and the entire legend of the ALIEN. He was responsible for the B-17 sequence of HEAVY METAL, the awesome Helicopter film BLUE THUNDER, the wonderful satire of Romero's Zombie series called THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, my third fave film from Tobe Hooper - LIFE FORCE, the pretty damn fine remake of INVADERS FROM MARS, he got our ass to Mars with TOTAL RECALL... And the number of unmade solid scripts this guy was a part of is legendary.

Dan was one of the key creative talents behind 'our' generations' Science Fiction / Horror mythologies. And we all know his name.

I really do feel a great sense of loss over Dan's passing. He was someone who was continuing to work, continuing to give people advice and encouragement. He was a helluva guy - and one we'll miss greatly.