With the new Alien movie coming out recently (and all my friends raving about how good it is), I figured I should go back and watch the original. And, no surprise, it’s really good! But what really stood out to me when I was watching it was the set design. Long industrial corridors, cramped control rooms; it was pretty much the perfect combination of a factory, office building, and spaceship to nail that feeling of a semi in space. Now, all of that’s for nothing if the characters don’t interact with the space they’re in (like you see on modern shows using LED walls for every back drop), so this brings me to what the most important part of the set design is: THE BUTTONS.

And Alien, it should go without saying has some fantastic buttons. I get it, it sounds silly, but think about it. If you’re a big fan of sci-fi movies, odds are you’ve fantasized about being in those stories before. Who hasn’t sat in a cardboard box as a kid pretending they’re on board the Millenium Falcon?

The sort of tactile feedback you get from that stuff is what makes it feel real! Anyways, this is all to say that I’ve ordered a bunch of switches online that I’m going to be soldering on to anything I can find.