Alien Covenant: The xenomorph a stripped-down killing machine: The fat, sugar and salt situation

leading from

Alien Covenant: The xenomorph 

 - a stripped-down killing machine

 

Alien:Covenant concept art xenomorph image by Leandre Lagrange

a)  The fat, sugar and salt situation

 
Conor O'Sullivan would compare the creation of the design of the alien beast to a situation with fat, sugar and salt , that if one combines them in the right quantities, it becomes an irresistible combination but if one ate them on their own, one would be sick. 

Alien:Covenant concept art xenomorph image by Leandre
Lagrange, Ravi Bansal and Mark Tompkins.

 

b) Different point of view

When it came to designing the alien, he understood that others would see it as erotic looking, and quite beautiful, but it's also horrifying, disgusting and terrifying 

1. Conor O'Sullivan: Ridley wants to shoot things for real, even if they’ll be replaced. He believes, and I agree with him, that it looks better in the end if you’ve got a real reference for the CG guys to copy,” (https://www.inverse.com/article/31921-alien-covenant-interview-conor-o-sullivan-xenomorph-latex-silicon)
2. Conor O'Sullivan: Nobody ever said it, but Ridley definitely didn't want any mechanical aspect to the aliens or any of the creatures in this film that we made, They were all completely organic. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/alien-covenant-alien-types-xenomorph-continues-horrify-audiences-1004459 May 18th 2017)
3. Conor O'Sullivan: When you combine fat, sugar and salt together, it becomes an irresistible combination that if you ate them on their own, you'd be sick. With the alien creature, it'll be erotic. You'll [see it] as erotic-looking. It's quite beautiful, but it's also horrifying and disgusting and terrifying. So it's almost like the fat, sugar and salt situation. Individually they're all horrible on their own, but when they're combined in the right quantities, then it's almost irresistible. That's what I wanted to achieve.(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/alien-covenant-alien-types-xenomorph-continues-horrify-audiences-1004459 May 18th 2017)
4. Den of Geek: Was that
   
   Conor O'Sullivan: Was that something you saw potential doing varied
   
   Den of Geek: Something you can sink your teeth into, doing that sort of a varied xxxxxx
   
   Conor O'Sullivan: Well the baggage came with that, that's where the baggage came, because everybody who works for me is generally, they are the fans who, they probably started in the business that was do because of the alien franchise, the Alien films
   
   Den of Geek: yeah,
   
   Conor O'Sullivan: And they were dedicated to the idea of the, the er the alien being quite true to what they thought was Giger's sort of legacy.
   
   Den of Geek: Yeah,
   
   Conor O'Sullivan: Um, and when I presented , you know, showed them the sort of reference that Ridley was wanting and er we were working out with Colin Shulver and erm, er, Bradley Simmons, he used to work here in Tussauds, er, what, where we were heading they were, some of them got quite agitated. They wanted pipes and tubes and there, you know, really, Ridley was going back to an original piece of artwork that Giger had done in Necronomicon and he erm, he kept referencing that and that's what he wanted in the end. (Den of Geek Interview at Madame Tussauds)