Alien Thunder

Its original screenplay was written by W.O. Mitchell but Mitchell removed his name from the final release due to changes that were made.

Alien Thunder
Video cover
Directed by	Claude Fournier
Written by	George Malko
Produced by	Marie-José Raymond
Starring	Donald Sutherland Gordon Tootoosis Chief Dan George Kevin McCarthy Jean Duceppe
Cinematography	Claude Fournier
Edited by	Yves Langlois
Music by	Georges Delerue
Production company	Onyx Films
Distributed by	Ambassador Film Distributors (Canada) American International Pictures (USA release) Cinerama Releasing Corporation
Release date	22 February 1974
Running time	93 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English
Budget	$1,500,000

Set in 1890s Saskatchewan after the North-West Rebellion, Alien Thunder is based on a true story about a Woods Cree (Gordon Tootoosis in his first film role) who kills a North-West Mounted Police sergeant (Kevin McCarthy) under desperate circumstances. Hunted for two years by the sergeant's resolute partner (Donald Sutherland), the ending brings tragedy for all those involved.

Alien Thunder was filmed in Saskatchewan's Battleford, Duck Lake, and Saskatoon.

The RCMP, which had originally seen the film as a centrepiece of its 1973 centennial celebrations, withdrew its backing. Donald Sutherland called Mr. Fournier’s direction of the project “wretched".

The film was not a financial success. "Suspense is lacking and characters are generally underdeveloped, as is the tension between the Mounties and the Indians.", stated Natalie Edwards for Cinema Canada.^{[page needed]}

An article in Luma found that "Though it laudably uses Indigenous (and principally Cree) actors and some of the Cree language, Alien Thunder is ultimately a film about Mounties and settlers; as sympathetic as it may be to the Cree, they are, as the native peoples of the Americas tend to be in Westerns, reduced to supporting players in their own story. "