Alien Covenant: Plaza full of the remains of black mummified engineers references HR Giger's Egg Silo exterior painting (work 378) (1978) for Alien?

 

 

leading from  

Alien : HR Giger's Egg silo exterior

and   

Alien: Covenant

 

HR Giger's Egg Silo exterior painting (work 378) (1978)

 

 

a) Remains of a lost civilisation in Giger's painting

a.i) If one looks at HR Giger's Egg Silo exterior painting (work 378) (1978) for Alien as if before this breast shaped building,  one can look at the rock formations and see how HR Giger had incorporated suggestions of figures merged with the magma rock, as if these were abstract fossilised remains of people of a long gone civilisation caught dancing around before now half buried Cthulhu like idol on the left

a.ii) These fossilised figures may not have been intended to be one thing or another really other than something to put in a painting to make it interesting and relate to ideas that he liked, with the idea of Ridley could see what he liked about it and they could take it further. The silo was never used but of course the painting was still there to stir some ideas.

a.iii) During the Alien production, Ridley Scott did appear to find some interest in transforming the landscape into suggestions of fossilised remains at least in storyboards, even if it didn't quite show up that way in the final film (See: Storyboard of skeleton in the rock 1978 by Ridley Scott)

 

Fossilised remnants of a long gone people

 

 

 

b.) Into the Engineer's city

b.i) In the film Alien Covenant, we encounter this city on a far distant planet where a species of humanoid named the Engineers live, and once David the android had reached there with Elizabeth Shaw in the Juggernaut space craft, he dropped the cargo of urns containing black goo upon the welcoming party.

Alien Covenant: Many engineer corpses litter the plaza, some are still upright in death

 

 

 

 

 

 

b.ii) Of course as the goo rained down upon them,  this caused a strange biological reaction and they all died as if suddenly becoming suddenly mummified in the place where they stood, leaving their remains littered around the grounds of the plaza.

Alien Covenant: David approaches the stairway with Engineer corpses on either side

 

b.iii) In the film we see David the android leading the crew of the Covenant across the plaza full of Engineer corpses.

 

Alien Covenant: Plaza with corpses, some still nearly standing before the great domed building.

b.iv) In that scene, in the background the there is the large domed building that might have been created as an alternative to this egg silo and the crowds of black mummified figures replace these curiously fossilized ones.

 

 

Alien Covenant: David leads the Covenant crew across the Engineer filled plaza