They say the screenwriters never get the credit that they're due, and Dan O'Bannon, who wrote the scripts for Alien and Total Recall, movies that were big hits and helped launch the careers of directors, never got much of the credit he deserved. Instead Dan O'Bannon remained in the horror ghetto writing movies like Lifeforce and working on Heavy Metal, for work that was famous in genre, but not out of it. In this O'Bannon's career paralleled that of his classmate John Carpenter, both embraced the dark side, without aspiring to any great cinematic legitimacy. Dan O'Bannon's passing now leaves him to be remembered mainly for Alien, but you can't help but wonder whether if the original widely hailed Alejandro Jodorowsky version of Dune had ever taken place, O'Bannon might have finally broken out of the narrow ghetto.