a.i) Back to the drawing board
So
it went that because of the failure of Dicken's puppet, Ridley and the
other decided to go back to the drawing board and re-examine the various
illustrations and ideas and come up with something that they thought
would be frightening.
a.ii) A biological link with the adult
a.ii) A biological link with the adult
Ridley wanted to show more of a biological link
between the baby which is what they were trying to design and what the
final creature would look like.
a.iii) A puppet based upon Giger's artwork
a.iii) A puppet based upon Giger's artwork
The earlier monster that Dicken had created
based on Giger's artwork was wrinkled and ancient looking like a
malevolent Muppet, but what Ridley wanted now was something
that was a smooth object and when it came out looked very rude and
totally carnivorous. (See: Alien: HR Giger's chestburster concept)
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| Roger Dicken's earlier chestburster Gordon Carroll standing in the background (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
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| Roger Dicken's earlier chestburster. Facehugger to the right (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
b) Conceiving the final chestburster
b.i) Demanding direct orders from Ridley
One day, Dicken was chatting with Ridley, he said to Ridley that he was getting heartily sick of so many people chipping in their pennies worth, and getting nowhere.
So he told Ridley “You tell me what you want, and I’ll
go away and do it"
b.ii) Ridley's thumbnail sketch
b.ii) Ridley's thumbnail sketch
With that, Ridley put together a very rough thumbnail sketch of what he felt the creature should look like, a sort of snake-like thing, with the elongated head that they decided that the big alien would have.
It might seem that he was also shown Necronom IV,
b.iii) Heading back to Maidenhead
With that, he went away and created this thing, adding all the texture and detail himself.
Ridley would come out to Maidenhead, to his studio from time to time, to as it were sanction the thing, but other than that, he was left alone.
c) Removal of the eyes
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| exploring the tail and head concept (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
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| exploring the tail and head concept (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
c.i) We'll have no eyes on it
He got to work trying the creature out with all sorts of
variations without eyes, with eyes, with tails. Ridley suggest to him "We'll have no eyes on it" to which Dicken responded " Yeah, I’ll go with that."
and took the eyes away.
c.ii) Fiddling around with the creature
c.ii) Fiddling around with the creature
Dicken fiddled around
with sticking the tail on the head, trying it without arms, with legs,
eventually coming up with something the producers liked.
With that, he
also recalled that Giger eventually drew his fully-rendered version of
the same thing, (and that drawing would be something that we haven't seen that)
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| Roger Dicken's chestburster with black eyes and small arms (Source: H.R.Giger's Alien Diaries) |
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| Roger Dicken's chestburster without the black eyes and from another angle |
d) Removal of limbs
d.i) Ridley drove over to Roger's house
Ridley drove over to Roger's house one day to have a
look at it.
It had a head that was pretty much a miniature version of
the big one, and kind of an elaborate body with legs - like little
dinosaur legs.
It was just in clay at that point.
It was just in clay at that point.
d.ii) Pulling a leg off
Ridley looked it
over a bit and then reached out and pulled off its legs and so off came
the legs as well,
Then he wadded up little pieces of clay like dolphin
flippers and stuck them either side behind the head and appeared as
spastic-like lumps.
He then said "There - that's it"
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| exploring the tail and head concept (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
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| exploring the tail and head concept (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
e) To tilt upwards or downwards
e.i) Obscenity in the way the head is tilted
They also decided this
creature would have a head either titled down or tilted back because it
seemed as Ridley would describe it, more obscene that way, more
reptilian , more phallic.
e.ii) Product of several people
That final beast would have been a product of
several people. Giger, Dicken, Ridley and even a little bit of Gordon
Carroll.
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| Roger Dicken with chestburster at the table, and Ivor Powell in the background admiring the alien sculpture (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
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| exploring the tail and head concept (from www.mauvais-genre.com) |
Source quotes
- Dicken was beginning to have misgivings about the collaborative nature of his Alien involvement, but nevertheless plunged into the revised chest-burster in mid-April. (Cinefex 1, p44)
- Ridley Scott "We went back and re-examined various illustrations and ideas, and tried to come up with something we thought would be the most frightening, I wanted more of a biological link between the baby which is what we were really designing, and what the final creature would look like. And I wanted it to be a very smooth object. The other was all wrinkled and ancient looking like a malevolent Muppet. And when it came out , I wanted it to look very rude - and totally carnivorous. So to be honest, that beast was very much the product of several people - Giger, Dicken and me, and even a bit of Gordon Carroll."(Cinefex 1, p43)
- Dan O'Bannon: "Ridley ran over to Roger's house one day to have a look at it, It
had a head that was pretty much a miniature version of the big one, and
kind of an elaborate body with legs - like little dinosaur legs. It was
just in clay at that point, and Ridley looked it over a bit and then
reached out and pulled off its legs. Then he wadded up little pieces of
clay like dolphin flippers and stuck them either side behind the head,
and said, "There - that's it"" (Cinefex 1, p44)
- Roger Dicken: Anyway, one day, I was chatting to Ridley, and I told him that I was
getting heartily sick of so many people chipping their penn’orth in, and
getting nowhere. I just told him: “You tell me what you want, and I’ll
go away and do it”. So, he put together a very rough thumbnail sketch of
what he felt it should look like, a sort-of snake-like thing, with the
elongated head they had decided that the big alien would have.
Roger Dicken:“I went away and created this thing, adding all the texture and the detail myself. Ridley and the others would come out to Maidenhead, to my studio, from time to time, to sanction the thing, but, other than that, I was left alone. One time, he suggested: We’ll have no eyes on it. I said: Yeah, I’ll go with that. I took the eyes away, and that was pretty much it. And then, eventually, Giger drew his fully-rendered version of the same thing. But originally it had been a turkey - a fanged, veined, bald turkey!”
Cellulord: So, do you do your own paper drawings to get the ball rolling?
Roger Dicken: I am literally useless with a pencil. I can’t do storyboards or designs or anything like that, so I work up three-dimensional models, in Plasticine. I’ve never been in an art school in my life, it’s just an ability I was born with. I’m a very fast modeler, so I just get stuck in and create these things on an armature, very, very quickly - just to get the basic form. Then, once the form is sanctioned, I go to town in putting on the detail. That’s when the natural creativity takes over and I think Oh, this’ll look good, or That’ll look good and pretty much improvise as I’m going along.
Roger Dicken: I don’t need to sketch these things, I wouldn’t want to sit there sketching, I want to get my sleeves rolled up and get stuck in because then the image comes straight out of my head and straight into the Plasticine. (http://cellulord.blogspot.com/2009/10/a30-alien-30-pt-5.html) - Ridley Scott: "We decided that the big chap, in embryo form, would have a head either tilted down or titled back. We tilted it back because it seemed more obscene that way, more reptilian, more phallic. " (Starlog, September 1979, p25)
- The secondary alien form, the "chestburster." which explodes from Kane's body was built by Dicken from a design suggested to him by Ripley Scott. "Ridley decided the 'chest-burster' should look something like the Giger drawing with the elongated head. " said Dicken. The creature was tried with all sorts of variations without eyes,, with eyes, with tails. Dickem fiddled around with sticking the tail on the head, trying it without arms, with legs, eventually coming up with something the producers liked. Its arms came off, and Scott wanted the body to have spastic-like lumps; also to make it look as lifelike as possible. "I made it breathe by installing gills and a chest that was inflated up and down." As the large alien came equipped with those huge metallic teeth, Dicken had to fashion some chromium dentures for the smaller version, which were snapped onto the monster's porpoise-like face. (Cinefantastique vol 9 # 1)
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| Gordon and Ridley in "the Witch House" with Roger to the right. Ridley takes a look at Giger's Necronomicon while Gordon looks over his shoulder at Giger's painting The Spell I |
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