Dan O'Bannon, writer of ALIEN and TOTAL RECALL and creator of the Death Star plans, has passed away

Dan O'Bannon stands as one of the most influential minds of the modern era of filmmaking. His script for Dark Star helped launch John Carpenter's career. A few years later O'Bannon did animation work on what was then simply titled Star Wars. Remember General Dodonna's PowerPoint presentation on how to hit the Death Star's exhaust port? You can credit Dan O'Bannon for that.

But not long after that O'Bannon turned in a screenplay for a Ridley Scott-directed project called Alien. That would have been more than enough to have Dan O'Bannon's name emblazoned forevermor into movie legend.

He didn't stop there. Some years later O'Bannon wrote the script for Total Recall: another masterpiece of science fiction. Word is he was still working on a number of other screenplays.

And now the sad news has come out of Los Angeles that Dan O'Bannon has passed away at the age of 63.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this morning.