Alien: HR Giger's chestburster concept

leading from

Alien: The Chestburster
and
The development of Giger's art

Giger's Alien Stage II,chestburster concept painting (work 368)

a) Giger's bloody plucked supermarket turkey

 

 

a.i)  Getting down to designing the thing

Giger's first design for the chestburster based on this had more than one mouth. 

The mouth was the most important thing because it had to come out of the human body, to chew and claw its way out suddenly and unerringly. 

a.ii) Dissatisfaction with results

He thought that the creatures in his painting looked like chickens without feathers and wasn't happy with them . He then he tried to build the thing.

Giger's painting was his interpretation of a Francis Bacon type thing and it looked very hideous indeed. 

It was covered in blood and hand a large underhung jaw with some really lethal teeth on it, Ridley found it totally obscene and very frightening.

(See: References Francis Bacon Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion c.1944?)

a.iii) See also: References "World of Sport" photos from TV Times, july 1969?

H R Giger's sculpture for his chestburster design.
(Source: H.R.Giger's film design)

H R Giger's sculpture for his chestburster design.
(Source: H.R.Giger's Alien Diaries)

H R Giger's sculpture for his chestburster design

H R Giger's sculpture for his chestburster design

 

 

 

 

b) See: Alien: Hand puppet created by Roger Dicken based on HR Giger's early chestburster design

 

Chestburster hand puppet (source Memory :The origins of Alien dvd

 

c) Giger never gives up

c.i) Despite the fact that Dicken had nearly finished the smaller Alien forms, Giger still wished to create his own versions to make sure that everything looked the way he wanted

 

He would do this while he was working on the big alien, 

 

On his work bench were his versions of the facehugger and the chestburster. 

 

c.ii) Dan's preference for Giger's design

 

What was seen there, Dan O'Bannon indeed thought that they were better than what was used on the film, especially the Chestburster. 

It was much larger in proportion to the rest of the body and the teeth were like oversized fangs, fully extended, a set on both top and the bottom, and it was certainly something design for biting its way out. 

Dan could imagine those fangs going through a piece of steel.


Source quote

1. HR Giger: The chestburster, that was a very heavy scene, l think the strongest thing in the whole film. The idea came from a painting from Francis Bacon. Ridley Scott told me about this painting of '46 - it's just a crucifixion - and one of the members has just teeth and rats flesh... He liked to have the chestburster like that. l did some designs. They looked like chickens. Something like chickens without feathers, but l was not happy with them. And then l built up the thing, and it looked like a small dinosaur. That was awful. l said ''Cut the legs.'' So finally we only had the head and a tail, and that was enough. (Alien documentary on Alien Quadrilogy)
2. HR Giger: "My first design of the chestburster had more than one mouth. The mouth was the most important thing because it had to eat out of his body. But we made it smaller and Roger Dicken built the small alien".  (Alien Collectors edition, p32) 
3. Cinefex: Once established on the Shepperton lot. Giger made a unilateral bid to reaffirm the intergrity of his highly personal vision by commencing to sculpt his own versions of the two smaller forms as well. - this despite the fact that Roger Dicken's renderings of both were virtually complete.  "He was trying to do all of them ," Dan O'Bannon affirmed. "He was, of course, working on the big one: but on his workbench he was also well underway on both the face-hugger and the chest-burster. They were exquisite pieces of sculpture, too. Better, I think, than that were used in the film. Especially the chestburster. Giger really gave that thing a nasty mouth. It was much larger in proportion to the rest of the body, and the teeth were like oversized fangs, fully extended - a set on both top and the bottom. I mean he was building something designed for biting its way out - those fangs looked like they would go through a piece of steel" (Cinefex 1, p47)
4. Diane O'Bannon: Dan's chickens! (Response to posting Giger's painting on Charles Lippincott's Facebook page December 10th, 2018)
5. Diane O'Bannon: he has a chicken in all his movies, in some for or other.  (Response to posting Giger's painting on Charles Lippincott's Facebook page, December 10th, 2018)