Independence Day: Likely sources of reference for the ID4 alien exoskeleton suits

leading from
Independence-Day's biomechanical suit

Toy version of ID4 alien invaders exoskeleton

a) Comparison to Alien and Predator 

The final suit has a head with a face that resembles the mask of the extra-terrestrial hunters from the movie Predator and the way the head stretches back in a narrow form makes it also resemble the creature from Alien, although the back of the head fans out like the fins of some tropical sea creature and this head is a pod for a another extra-terrestrial creature.  

For Patrick Tatopoulos, nothing was more scarier to him that something that doesn't have eyes because one don't see any emotion in the thing and so the finest example is Giger's original Alien and the Predator before he is unmasked - one does not see their eyes. One don't know what these creatures feel. One don't know if they're scared. The main alien in Independence Day has very small gaps where the eyes would be, but one doesn't see them, which means one doesn't see emotion: and he found that scary.

See also Comparisons to H R Giger

Giger's Alien with pipes sprouting out of the back

photograph from the original Predator movie

 

 

b) Comparison to War of the World's Martian War Machines

b.i) The creature from Alien has tubes and a short tentacle sprouting from its back, one could never quite make say what these were for other than to balance out the form of the creature as a screen image, but the extra-terrestrial's suit has fully developed long tentacles sprouting from it's back in a roughly similar way, however one could then make the claim that the suit is a semi-humanoid and very much scaled down version of a Martian War Machine from the War of the Worlds novel which has Martians traveling around in pods that walk around on three legs and have a multitude of tentacles sprouting from the side. 

b.ii) Curiously enough Steven Spielberg made his own version of War of the Worlds and inside the Martian War Machines were extra-terrestrial occupants that looked as if they could have been inspired by Patrick Tatopoulos' alien creatures from Independence Day

b.iii) Then we have the idea that the look of the Martian War Machine described by HG Wells in his original novel might well have been loosely based on the Henu Barque as seen in the Papyrus of Ani since it might have been a curiosity that caught Well's imagination, and we have this curious lineage of art from this same Henu Barque that I've been exploring, which Tatopoulos' alien suit design fits nicely into.

 Martian War Machines with tentacles

c)  Comparison to Marvel's Doc Ock

A much more obvious association to make about about the tentacles sprouting from the back of the suit is the Spiderman man villain Doc Ock who has four mechanical tentacles that come from his back.

Doc Ock, a villain from Marvel's Spiderman comic books

 

Quote sources:

1. Patrick Tatopoulos: Nothing is scarier to me than something that doesn't have eyes because you don't see any emotion. The finest example is the creature in the original Alien or the Predator [before he is unmasked] - you don't see their eyes. You don't know what these creatures feel. You don't know if they're scared. The main alien in Independence Day has very small gaps where the eyes would be, but you don't see them, which means you don't see emotion: that's scary. (Scifi Now 118. 2016, p122)
2. Patrick Tatopoulos: We looked at films like Close Encounters and Aliens, but we were genuinely trying to bring something fresh. (Scifi Now 118. 2016, p122)