Alien 3: cocoons

leading from

Alien 3

and

ADI's Alien Life Forms

 

 

Image of the cocoons being sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

a) Meat Locker?

In Giger's drawings during August of 1990, he drew the meat locker with the human prisoners on meathooks and the alien in one instance is hanging the monks on the hooks while in another instance creature is simply sitting in the kitchen while it eats the monks.

It seems rather different in light of what went on in the previous Alien movies if one wants to think about the humans in the hive waiting to give birth to chestbursters in Aliens or the cut cocoon scene from Alien which has the victims slowly being eaten away and absorbed into this spore producing goo, unless one wants to consider what happened to Lambert as her corpse is left hanging from a hook in Alien or even.

Did Giger just get the work done as scripted or was he going along with what Fincher discussed with him at the time?

 

Alien 3 sketch  published in Aliens  (comic book magazine #12, June 1993 , "The Giger Sanction"

 

 

 

 

On  18/12/90 Hill &Giler draft of Alien 3, The Assembly Hall has been transformed into an Alien cocoon chamber.

Walls and ceiling encrusted with Alien mucous.

Hives built around rotting corpses.

They hear low moaning and find dozens of semi-transparent pods, inside each, a prisoner's body

Morse states "They're not dead"

Dillon making an assumption, responds "This is the meat locker" and then Andrews is found still alive calling "Help", he is cocooned.

Image of the cocoons being sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

Morse starts forwards and then Dillon stops in. In the mist present in the chamber there is a narrow membrane of like a cross section of laser light encircling the cocoon chamber, which would have been like the membrane of light in the derelict ship.

Somehow Dillon knows that it's like an alarm, if they step in there, the alien beast would know they're there.

It was too late to save Andrews and he begs to be killed just as Dallas did in the original alien, Dillon sets fire to the alien web and Andrews is engulfed.

They watch him as he is burnt to a crisp.

The scene in an earlier version of the script by Hill and Giler, Oct 10, 1990 shows that Dillon has replaced Ripley in this scene with Aaron replacing Morse, and the alien nest can be found at the glassworks before it became a leadworks. (A brief description of the scene can be found at alienseries.wordpress.com. I have not seen the script personally)

Aaron says "They're not dead. What the fuck is this?"

Ripley replies "This is the meat locker. It'll feed the new queen."

Because of the lack of information in Giler and Hill's 18/12/90 version might ask if in this place,  people were being cocooned in the way they were either in Aliens or Alien.

In Aliens they were just wrapped up waiting to be facehugged and in Alien, they were being eaten alive by the alien life form that developed into the spore

Image of the cocoons being
sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

b) Cocooning sequence 
In the script, Ripley decides it's a meat locker to feed the queen, which might be presumptious
and then Dillon who wouldn't know about the queen decides that it must be a "meat locker" for the creature,  going by his own common sense.

Going by the reports from Cinefex, it appears that Fincher wanted to go back to directly back to the sequence which had been cut from the original Alien, Fincher early on intended to feature the discovery of partially devoured victims being transformed into alien spores through a metamorphical cocooning process.

This would have provided some rationale for the creature's disturbingly pseudo-intelligent malevolence. Fincher's decision to incorporate  the James Cameron concept of an egg laying matriarch , however, rendered the cocoons antiethical.

(See : Alien: Human to Spore Stage)

 

Image of the cocoons being
sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

c) Fincher In The Shell

ADI were going to end up making about twenty of these cocoons, all vacuformed and stapled up.

They started on two, and then the plug was pulled because Fincher's idea was that the creature simply killed to eat.

 

For a Cinefex interview, they spun the idea that because Fincher liked it so much, they finished off one for him.

In that idea, he had it on set with him and would occasionally climb into it for inspiration. and he would called it his "Thinking Shell" 

 

In 2021, they would reveal to AVPGalaxy podcast that actually this to be a fib.

 

Image of the cocoons being
sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

d) Golic , ensconced in fluid
It might be presumed that David Fincher would base his intended cocooning scene on the 18/12/90 Hill&Giler draft , because we can find that in Rex Picket's January 5, 1991 later rewrite, Ripley,

Dillon, Aaron and Morse venture into the abbatoir and find two murdered human bodies, one man babbling away to himself in the corner and further in Golic is found cocooned and ensconced in fluid.
Presumably, he was cocooned by the alien in a way we might assume from either Alien or Aliens, but there is nothing more said about the cocooning and it features only one cocooned victim.

 

Later in January 2021, ADI reveal that the plan to reinvinsion the cocoons involved the idea of having a living victim trapped in a liquid filled casting of a sculpt which would be shot horizontally but composited as if vertical

Image of the cocoons being
sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

Mark Coulier working on a cocoon. Source: https://www.instagram.com

Mark Coulier working on a cocoon.  https://z-p42.www.instagram.com/p/CKh0izGjMjW/

Image of cocoon being sculpted. Source: https://www.instagram.com/

1. Cinefex: Borrowing from a sequence which had been cut from the original Alien, Fincher early on intended to feature the discovery of partially-devoured victims being transformed into alien spores through a metamorphical cocooning process. This would have provided some rationale for the creature's disturbingly pseudo-intelligent malevolence. Fincher's decision to incorporate the James Cameron concept of an egg laying matriarch, however rendered the cocoons antithetical (Cinefex #50/Alien The Special Effects Book)
2. Tom Woodruff Jr: They were begin and killed half way through. We were going to end up making about twenty of these cocoons, all vacuformed and stapled up.  We started on two, and then the plug was pulled because Fincher's idea was that the creature simply kills to eat.  Actually we did finish one off for Fincher because he liked it so much.  He had it on set with him and would occasionally climb into it for inspiration.  He called it his 'thinking shell'" (Cinefex #50/Alien The Special Effects Book)Rewrite by Rex Pickett
3. The Assembly Hall has been transformed into an Alien cocoon chamber.
   Walls and ceiling encrusted with Alien mucous.
   Hives built around rotting corpses.
   A sound...
   Moaning.
   Low moaning.
   MORSE
   They're not dead...
   
   THE COCOONS
   Dozens of semitransparent pods - inside each, a prisoner's body.
   
   DILLON
   This is the meat locker.
   
   ANDREWS (O/S)
   Help...
   
   They turn -
   Their torches illuminate -
   ANDREWS
   Cocooned.
   
   MORSE - DILLON
   Both gazing upward-
   
   MORSE
   Fuck me...
   
   He starts forward...
   Dillon stops him.
   In the fine mist of the chamber a narrow MEMBRANE - like a cross section of laser light - encircles the cocoon chamber.
   
   DILLON
   It's like an alarm.  Step in there and it knows we're here.
   
   MORSE
   What about Andrews?
   
   DILLON
   Too late.
   
   ANDREWS
   Please.  Kill me.  Please.
   
   Dillon steps forward - touches the flame from his torch to the Alien web...
   Andrews' cocoon is engulfed...
   Dillon and Morse watch as he is burnt to a crisp.
   
   DILLON
   We burn it.  All of it.
   ( Alien 3, 18/12/90 Hill&Giler draft ) 
4. Aaron:
   They're not dead: What the fuck is this?
   Ripley
   This is the meat locker. It'll feed the new Queen
   Andrews (O/S)
   Help  ( Alien 3 Hill and Giler, Oct 10, 1990, snippet as found on https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/the-meat-locker/))
5. 98    INT. ABATTOIR
   
       The scene of the carnage.
       Ripley, Dillon, Aaron and Morse are walking slowly through the
       abattoir.
       The murdered bodies of Gregor and William lay sprawled in pools of
       blood.
       Eric is sitting in a corner, hands over his head, blubbering like a
       fool.
   
                       AARON
               Jesus Christ.
   
       Ripley pays particular attention to the ox whose chest has exploded
       open.
   
                       RIPLEY
               This is where it started.
   
       Morse looks down at the body of William.
   
                       MORSE
               Golic's work.
   
       Moving deeper into the abattoir, Dillon finds:
   
       GOLIC
   
       cocooned, ensconced in fluid, and still alive!
       He appears to be trying to say something.
       Morse leans forward and listens.
       Then he turns to Dillon:
   
                       MORSE
               He's saying 'I'm sorry, sir.'
   
       Dillon just looks at Golic, shaking his head.
       The others all stand behind him, looking.
       Eric continues babbling inanely in the background.
   (ALIEN III Rewrite by Rex Pickett, Based on Walter Hill/David Giler draft 12-18-90) 1ST Draft (Revised)
   January 5, 1991. Found at http://www.alien.it/cop3e.txt through http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml and http://home.online.no/~bhundlan/scripts/alien3/pickett.txt 
6. alec_gillis: Ever sent these photos? For a brief moment on ALIEN3, there were cocooned humans. I really liked these sculptures and I was sad to see them cut. We never made it past the sculpture phase but @mcoulier and @lonerganbrendan nailed them. One thing I can’t remember is why there is a Coke can in the picture. I think maybe we glued it on to the sculpting base as a joke? Maybe @lonerganbrendan remembers? (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj1CutyA2E8/?taken-by=alec_gillis)
7. andyfilmsIf you had gone past sculpting, what would have been next? What kind of mold and material were they going to be?
8. alec_gillis@andyfilms prolly fiberglass negative. At the time urethane positive tho i have a vague memory of Pinewood having a 4 x 5 vacuuform machine so maybe we would have used that?
9. Aaron Percival: So talking about that hive sequence… We know you guys started building cocoons for the sequence and that Fincher had you finish one for his own purposes. The “thinking shell” I think he called it.  But we’ve never seen pictures of the completed cocoons and I always thought that they looked like -from the work in progress stuff that you’ve shown – I always thought it looked like you were taking inspiration from the original egg morphing scene from Alien rather than Aliens’ hive. Was that the direction you’ve been going in?
   Alec Gillis: This is funny…
   Tom Woodruff: Alec, don’t say anything!  Don’t say it! I’m shutting down! Where’s my turn off button?!
   Alec Gillis: So first of all, Tom totally made up the Fincher ‘thinking shell’ thing. There was a period there where we were having such a great time with David Fincher because it was fun. We’re all about the same age and we thought it would be funny if we made stuff up. Where we did interviews and then he would read it later and go “what the hell?”  So Tom had a few good ones.
   Tom Woodruff: Yeah it was like early, early interviews we said “Yeah, David Fincher is a funny guy! He would direct, but he would direct from sitting up in his chair wearing a cowboy hat. He just wouldn’t take the cowboy hat off! Ever!”
   Alec Gillis: Tom told somebody, Cinefantastique or somebody, that we made David Fincher an Alien suit and he would direct in an Alien suit with a cowboy hat on. And then the ‘thinking shell’… Come to think of it Tom, I think I was just laughing while you were doing all this stuff. The ‘thinking shell’ we made him looked good, and he sat in this cocoon, but the truth is none of the cocoons ever even got molded.
   We did sculpt them in clay but we never got to this point of molding them. And yes, you are correct Aaron, we were looking more at the kind of stuff that was going on in the deleted scenes of Alien than some of the other ones. You guys this is a scoop! This is the first! No one has ever busted us on on those [fibs].  We were actually kind of disappointed that they didn’t get noticed more.
   Tom Woodruff:  Yeah, nobody ran with them.
   Alec Gillis: Is Hollywood that weird that you can make things up like that and it will be believable? (https://www.avpgalaxy.net/2021/04/17/studioadis-alec-gillis-tom-woodruff-talk-alien-3s-deleted-hive-scene-telling-fibs/)
10. In the 10 months that the crew worked on the film some ideas went by the wayside as the script developed. One such idea was a reinvisioning of the xenomorph cocoon. There was to be a living victim trapped in a liquid filled transparent casting of a sculpt which would be shot horizontally but composited as if vertical.
    Swipe to see future Oscar winner @mcoulier Mark Coulier at work, before the axe fell on the concept.
    ALIEN3 helped ADI establish its reputation for quality and was an early job for @h2originals Yuri Everson who became the Studio Foreman not long after.  (https://z-p42.www.instagram.com/p/CKh0izGjMjW/)