The entire Alien movie is basically an extended (and, ahem, perhaps slightly darker?) remake of the Pinback vs the beach ball creature scene. My favorite piece of movie trivia. I wonder if anyone stumbled into the theatrical release of Alien knowing about that connection?
Regarding "used space", I'd say that the trend was already present in Silent Running (1972) which happens to link both the clinically clean 2001 and dirty Star Wars in terms of FX crew.