October 2015

Leading from

Wednesday 14th October 2015
1) Continued to develop the page The story so far on Dali's Soft Construction with boiled beans (Premonition of civil war) with full understanding that about 99.999% of people with an interest in Alien would absolutely have no idea what it has to do with anything to do with Alien, but I have just come to realise that the strange construction may as well be a plough. which would be quite a resonable thing for him to transform like this.

Tuesday 13th October 2015
1) Added " Goya's "Unos á otros" also inspire the shape of the buttocks in Dali's painting" to Goya etchings inspired Salvador Dali's "Soft construction with boiled beans (premonition of civil war) " ? 
2) Added image of Tree of Life as seen in the Mayan Dresden Codex to the page about Ron Cobb's birth temple for Alien. This tree of life looks as if it is a tentacled monster coming out of the human victim, and there is something similar in Cobb's artwork.
3) Created a main page for Salvador Dali's "Soft construction with boiled beans (premonition of civil war)" which links to other pages dealing with the various subjects about the painting 


Monday 12th October 2015
1) Added William Gibson on Alien 3
2) Changed "Salvador Dali's  "Soft Construction With Boiled Beans (Premonition of civil war) inspired by Francisco Goya's "Subir y bajar"to "Salvador Dali's  "Soft Construction With Boiled Beans (Premonition of civil war) inspired by Francisco Goya's "Subir y bajar" to
with the discovery of another Goya etching Goya's "Todos caerán"(All Will Fall) that  inspired the form of the buttocks in the named Dali painting  that has now been added to the page
Goya etchings inspired Salvador Dali's "Soft construction with boiled beans (premonition of civil war) " ? 


Saturday 10th October 2015
1) Added Blade Runner: The City talking about the ideas for the city in Blade Runner generally coming from the minds of Ridley Scott and Syd Mead and also something to point out would be that when William Gibson started thinking about an idea for Alien 3, he wanted to have it set in a Blade Runner type sey, but this was seen as being too expensive. This article will be expanded on more and more


Wednesday 7th October 2015
1) Updated Reaching "Alien: Paradise Lost" (Prometheus 2) with information from awardscampaign.com/2015/10/07/ridley-scott-teases-new-group-of-travelers-in-prometheus-sequel-alien-paradise-lost/  
 


Tuesday 6th October 2015
1) Updated Carl Sagan and Alien with information from ( https://www.yahoo.com/movies/Ridley Scott on Bringing 'The Martian' to Life and How He's Reviving 'Blade Runner' )


Saturday 2nd October 2015
1) Further alterations to The Thing (2011)


Friday 1st October 2015
1) Added Derelict scenario for The Thing (2011) but now it is turning into an article about The Thing (2011) going beyond the simple need to talk about the background scenario. Indeed this blog seems to want to talk about the whole genre of films connected with the Alien franchise

2) Added Kuiper's Monster concept for John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

Alien: Chris Foss' Leviathan Sketch No.3

leading from
Chris Foss' early Nostromo concepts


a) Sketch no 3 suggests by its number that it may be a continued development of Sketch No. 2 although No2 was a near finished illustration.
 

 Chris Foss' Sketch of Leviathan, no.3 (courtesy of Charles Lippincott at Facebook, 1  and 2 )

from Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss



b) Mike Jackiw at Charles Lippincott's Facebook page offers a comparison between the 
design of this vessel that is the Earth Defense Flagship Andromeda from mid 1970s 
Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamoto, and this can also be said about Chris Voss'
Sketch No. 2
Flagship Andromeda from 1974-75 anime series Space Battleship Yamoto

Alien : HR Giger's Egg silo exterior

leading from

a) Giger's Painting 
 
a.i)  In the original script, the eggs were found in a silo-like pryamid, with hieroglyphics on the wall. But they found that it was too close in concept to Earth's own Egyptian culture and not unearthly enough. So they designed another silo
 
a.ii) In Giger's painting, in the rock formations, suggestions of perhaps long fossilized life forms. Perhaps the  rock sticking out of the lower ground to the left of the building is a half formed impression of Cthulhu type entity with its tentacled face and thick claw. Giger had brought his designs at the time over to Shepperton for approval on March 30th of 1978. Although they were met with general approval, he is told that his egg silo would be too expensive to build.

Quote source
  1. HR Giger: The designs I brought with me meet general approval. The eggsilo (plate 378) can't be built because it would be too expensive. Pity! (March 30th of 1978, Giger's Alien, p14)
  2. HR Giger: Oh. yes. In the original script the eggs were found in a silo-like pyramid, with hieroglyphics on the walls. But we found that it was too close in concept to our own Egyptian culture and not unearthly enough. So we designed another silo. But then the budget wasn't big enough to include this structure so we combined the eggs and the derelict. (Warren Presents Alien Magazine, p34)
  3. Giger's final version of the egg chamber featured curved sides like a small breast (Book of Alien by Scanlon and Gross )

a.ii) Egg Silo exterior (work 378) (1978) by  HR Giger (uploaded by me, taken from Giger's Alien) 
 





b) Where Ridley had been going
Ridley Scott had been experimenting with the idea of an egg silo inspired by the Castle Harkonnen,
 
 

b.ii) See: Moebius' derelict ship exterior

 
 
 
b.iii) Then Ridley had been exploring the idea of a giant rocket capsule shaped derelict ship with Moebius before he left.

(see: Ridley Scotts Early Egg Silo Exterior )
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
c) Egg silo in Ridley's earlier storyboards

Ridleygram of structures on the planetoid (image from weyland-yutaniarchives)


 
 
d) What Giger drew
 
d.i) HR Giger designed a breast shaped building called the Egg Silo, a hundred and fifty metres tall and two hundred metres in diameter.  Perhaps he borrowed the shape from Ridley's early idea for a derelict ship that he work on with Moebius. The silo also included ideas from Giger's painting Dune I which showed an entrance to the Castle Harkonnen.


Egg Silo exterior (uploaded by me, taken from Giger's Alien)



d.ii) Egg Silo exterior (uploaded by me, taken from Giger's Alien) 

 

 

d.iii) Egg Silo exterior (uploaded by me, taken from Giger's Alien)

Giger's Dune I (Entrance to Castle Harkonnen), 1976

 

 

d.iv) Ridleygram of explorer climbing up the side of the egg silo  




 
 

curious detail from 378: Egg Silo exterior


Alien : HR Giger's Egg Silo Interior version I

 leading from


a) Reaching the first version
By 19th July, 1978, Giger's concept for an Egg Silo interior had evolved.

This became version 1.
 
The egg wagons that had scooped up the eggs and transported them along a rail to the pipes had disappeared, along with their monorails, they had now been transformed into big pregnant capsules on the wall of the silo which Giger had decided were symbols of fertility.

Above the capsules were entrance tubes coming down at the side rather than in the centre of a circular buildings, and a space for the hieroglyphics painting to be seen.

(see also : Placement of Life Cycle Tableau )

Work 386 Egg Silo version I

b) References a Chris Foss derelict?

https://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2020/07/alien-hr-gigers-egg-silo-interior.html



c) See: References the page from The Eternals vol1 #9 (Published Mar 1977) by Jack Kirby featuring Eson the Celestial?

 https://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2020/07/egg-silo-interior-work-386-1978-by-hr.html

  1. HRGiger:19th July 1978, Shepperton Studios. Luckily the wretched idea of only having six eggs has been dropped. Scott somehow managed to persuade O'Bannon, or else he's simply acted on his own authority. The victory is followed by another defeat. During my absence someone has attacked me in the rear and had decided to do away with the big "pregnant" capsules (plate 386), the symbol of fertility in this set. The reason: ' They're superfluous." Superfluous? When Voysey, who has to be working in five places at once, has prepared a scale mdoel in meticulous detail (plates 386d and e)? I suppose I shall never master the secret of how such decisions are taken. It is getting clear to me that my creative capacity is slowly but surely being numbed. I'm still convinced that the best critic of an artist's work is the artist himself. (Giger's Alien, p44)
drawing with another variation of the egg silo interior
with pregnant capsule to the side of the entrance shafts
from Giger's Alien Diaries
 
 
 
 
Egg silo interior version 2 unfinished (work 389) (1978)
by HR Giger showing the other variation with of the egg silo
  interior with pregnant capsule to the side of the entrance shafts
 
 
 
 
 
sketch from Giger's Alien
 
 
sketch from Giger's Alien
 
 
sketch from Giger's Alien
 
 
from Giger's Alien Diaries


 


 
 
d) Voysey creates miniature
Peter Voysey had been busy created a 1/25th scale model of the silo interior, however despite his work on this,  in Giger's absence the pregnant capsules were declared superfluous and the entrance tubes disappeared as well 

Segment of 1/25th Model of egg silo

1/25th egg silo version 1 model from Alien Legacy documentary

1/25th egg silo version 1 model from Alien Legacy documentary

1/25th Model of egg silo

Alien: Chris Foss' Alien Temple Interior

leading from

"Original Chris Foss concept sketch of the
Derelict Ship interior for Alien. The image
depicts a member of the Nostromo landing
party descending into a vast and ornate
sepulcher. The sketch shows Foss’ celebrated
skill while markedly devoid of the later influence
of H.R. Giger. Accomplished in pencil, ink and
gouache on 29 x 18 in. artist leaf. Handwritten
notations “Centre of the Tombe”, “Alien” and
“Chris Foss F 77” at the lower border. Verso
features a sticker in the upper left reading
 “Chris Foss – 7. Centre of the Tombe”. "
(http://www.sciencefictionarchives.com/)
a) The vast temple interior created by Chris Foss had the look of something that was created for giants. The explorer lowers himself from the shaft above above a plinth that might be as large as a three or four story building and perhaps it looks as if it could easily be an oven with a kitchen chimney above it.

Chris Foss pyramid birth temple interior (this copy of the image was taken from http://io9.com/)
b) Vast shaft entrances on the side of the plinth might be the air intakes of huge long engines for airborne craft , the left might secretly be a representation of a strange creature with wide open maws and eyes on top of stalks that seem like siamese twin versions of military ships radar antennae. and long fins or wings sticking out of the back.

 Chris Foss' Alien Birth Temple (courtesy of Charles Lippincott at Facebook)


Chris Foss' Alien Birth Temple


c) See "Centre of the tombe" for Alien by Chris Foss (1977) references the Betty Hill star map and the cover of the Inspector comic book #10



Marc Caro and Alien

leading from

Still collating

a)  News of the Alien production
When Marc Caro did comic book stories for Metal Hurlant (the predecessor to Heavy Metal) a big subject of discussion would have been the Alexandro Jodorowsky's Dune project that involved Chris Foss, Giger, Druillet and Moebius, the latter two being amongst the Metal Hurlant illustrators, but soon this production fell apart and later the Alien film came along which involved once again Giger, Foss and Moebius.

Mark Caro being interviewed by Dennis Lowe
b)  Seeing the Alien film
He was a fan of Tarkovsky films such as Solaris, and he had an interest in George Lucas' film THX 1138. When he saw Star Wars, he felt it was a children's film and he was someone in his twenties. He was impatient to see Alien, he already had a sense of the environments in the film, they were familiar to him. When he actually saw the film he found it very much to his liking and it would become one of the films that would continue to influence him.


c)  Points of interest
He liked the way there that the characters were credible even though they were in outerspace. He liked the grease on the shirt and the fact that they were eating and talking about their problems such as money etc. He found that when one builds a different universe, the more one had to put in some really concrete stuff to make it believable. He liked the idea of perceptual narrativity. For him, Alien was a horror movie in space and so he liked the the use of darkness and light, and things such as the use of the cat. It was also as if all the things that were going to be in Jodorowsky's Dune were reappearing in another way in the Alien movie, with it's unusual production dsign.

  1. Marc Caro (rough transcription): I thought er, in the review in Metal Hurlant, it's well known in Anglo-Saxon country like Heavy Metal, and in this, it's a scifi comics review, and er all the people who worked there, er, you were happy after that, er, Aliens, you know, because, er, before Aliens, it was a very big project in France,  directed, project, direct by Alejandro Jodorowsky, on er, it's an adaptation of Dune, you know, and he make it work, er Christopher Foss, he make it with Druillet, er, Gigers and er Moebius, and we find, er Moebius made all the storyboards, it's a very wonderful work, and er, all this things er reappeared in of course another way in Aliens movie for me, you know. So, er, I was, er, very impatient to see the movies, but er all the environment, all the visual environment was very well known for me, you know.

    I work my own stories and I draw it. I came also from animation, you know I begin er to sculpt puppets for the first movie of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, short movies, and er, er, and er, I made some music too. You know, I, I always, I came from the draw, you know, for, from the sketch but a, it's always missing something to me, you know, oh oh it's good, but it's still, you know, it doesn't move so I made animation for that, and r oh okay it's good but er, that doesn't speak, it doesn't, life, so you know, so I use real person. For me it's more of a, a evocative process than a career

    And er, my kind of movie er before Alien is of course Tarkovsky movie, you know, Solaris and  er the first er er George Lucas movie er THX 11...er...38 and er, for me I see it before Alien, I see it of course Star Wars but it's not my taste you know, maybe because I'm too old
    I am in twenties or something like that, er it's too for children for me, but er Alien, it's  er my taste of course. Its influence me in the way the character, even, if they are in er outer space, are very credible and er real, you know, they have er some er grease on the shirt and they eat, everything , it's really ,and there are some problems to speak about, the, the money and everything, you know, er and that's something er influenced me er quite because I think the more you, you built a very different universe, you know, on screen, the more you have to put and er input some really concrete stuff to make it believable you know.

    We did something in er City of Lost Children, to show how we work on a move, you know, at the moment you have a two twin sisters, they make cooking and er one give some salt, one some onions, and it's a kind of thing like that you work in, when we worked together you know, and the other thing what you speak is before, it's erm, I was very proud, somebody at the first screening of the movie say, "Oh, you, you came on my place, no? Because these girl for Delicatessen, these characters live just behind my flat, you know" and it was very funny because, of course, we never go there.

    Every, you know, er all the movie is storyboarded, each, each shot er, I have a book like that each shot and er, sometimes it's very very close sometimes of course, er, we have some er change but er, it's , it's really really precise, you know, and er the main ideas for me as er art director on er Delicatessen, you know I love 'Doisnos" (?)  all the French movie for Carné and "Prevert" (?), things like that

    But all this movie have been seen in black and white and I try to er to get back the feeling I have when I see this kind of movie but in colour, but with the the same er attention to the matters you know, because when we see Brassai or all this this old photography er before the war you know, er, it's er,. the impressions print on the on the shoot and everything are very very erm, er contrasted,  very deep and I try in another way of course to er, to give to the audiences this kind of er feeling 'cause I think er, er,  people , er go to the matters and thinks there is a truth, it's a truth you know, very kind of perceptual narrativity I try to do and er the other er movie I did after that, I, I try to push this kind of er perceptual narrativity, er, with sound, with a, the darkness and some light, you know, we have to and of course in the horror movie, but Alien, it's er an horror movie in space, you play with this kind of also er perceptual and er sensitive, you know the, the black, and you have the cat, its a well known process, you you have to involve the audience you know in your story by this er perceptual stuff. so maybe it's kind of like influence, but it's not the the only one, because er a lot of people like er Kubriks and er lot of people, David Lynch and everything work on this kind of stuff too.

    You know, a movie is er, it's erm, a process between the, the creator and the audience, because, er, the movie, exists only if the audience could take it and er, you have some resonance inside him and if the audience could project something from him in the movie, and so you have to to give, to give the audience some part of er of some place to er, in the black, in the things not too strange you know, there was a the audience could go there, you know. I think its er, some er, something I have inside and I have to, I'm obliged to to go out, to go out, I have get out. I feel I have to show to the audience it's there.
    (http://www.zen171398.zen.co.uk/)

Alien: HR Giger's Preliminary Egg Silo interior

leading from Alien: The Egg silo


egg wagons (1)

a) Segmented Circular Container
Drawn on the 19th April 1978, early in the production, HR Giger's first drawing for the egg silo, was a circular container, divided into segments of equal size by rods running from the top of the wall to the mid-point of the floor, and each segment was filled with eggs


Egg Wagons (2)

b) Entrance Tube
An entrance tube made from a membrane hangs down from the ceiling, with tubes down the the side. Perhaps an egg is seen to fall from the central tube in the first picture. 

c) Egg Wagons
Little egg wagons with scooper like devices run along a monorail made from the dividing rods and up to the ceiling along the partitions in the building.The wagon swivels around, and a tongue like device extends from it, picking up the eggs and holds its within a container before running up along the wall and up along the arch of the ceiling to deposit it in an opening at the top of an egg tube.

Source quote
  1. HR Giger: The interior of the eggsilo which now forms a circular container, is divided into segments of equal size by rods running from the top of the wall to the mid-point of the floor, each segment is filled with eggs. (Giger's Alien, 6th July 1978, p42)
Egg Silo interior showing egg tube and egg wagon (uploaded by me, taken from Giger's Alien)

Egg Silo interior, uploaded by me, taken from Giger's Alien

Alien: The Egg Silo

illustration by Peter Till for the Risk Business (For Wednesday, 24th October, 1979, in the Radio Times)

Alien: When Michael Fassbender first saw Alien





When Michael Fassbender first saw the movie Alien, he was still a child. His parents would allow him to watch certain films above his age bracket and so with Alien, they allowed him to watch it. The chestburster scene would be engrained into his memory.
  1. Michael Goodier : And then you mentioned Ridley Scott, Alien Covenant comes out next August, and who knew from that first film that they could keep those alien stories this long but I'm really glad they have. Do you remember the first Alien film
    Michael Fassbender: Yes,

    Michael Goodier : Because I, I mean that scared me absolutely witless. Tough to keep the scare and the stories good as it was in the very beginning

    Michael Fassbender: Totally. I remember very clearly at the first time I saw it, my parents would allow me to watch certain films that were above my age bracket but with Alien, they allowed me to watch it, but I remember the scene where the neomorph or whatever that creature is burst out of John Hurt's stomach. I mean it's just, yes, ingrained in my memory, and so I think what Ridley has done with this one is take elements of the first Alien for sure, sort of that horror and then has merged it with the scale of Prometheus. So yeah, I'm really excited to see it. (Steve `Wright in the afternoon, 20th October 2016)

Alien: Brett's cargo pants

leading from

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)



thepropgallery: An original pair of cargo pants from the production of the 1979 science fiction classic Alien directed by Ridley Scott with design from legendary Swiss surrealist H. R. Giger.

These cargo pants were custom made for production by Bermans and Nathans for use by Harry Dean Stanton as Brett, they are labelled 'HARRY DENE STANTON' (sic) 'THE ALIENS', an early working title for the movie, in addition Stanton's initials H.D.S are written in the back in black pen.

The pants remain in good condition with some production distressing and exhibit traces of studio blood, many years ago the right shin pocket was signed by John Hurt, this is now extremely faded and does not detract from the piece.

An exceptionally rare wardrobe piece from this Academy Award winning masterpiece which is considered among the greatest science fiction movies of all time.
(http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)

(Source http://www.thepropgallery.com/brett-harry-dean-stanton-cargo-pants)