Alien Explorations: Alien 3: HR Giger's Carl Saganalien?

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a) Hunt for the Carl Saganalien?

Ridley Scott has talked about how he first met Carl Sagan at the planetarium in Pasadena and so Carl Sagan attended the premiere of the film Alien. Perhaps Giger might have taken note of this astronomer's presence as well.

Carl Sagan came to prominance with his TV series in 1980 named Cosmos, which of course would have been the year after Alien came out in the cinema. Vangelis wrote the themetune for the series.His music would also feature in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner that came out two year later.

In the later part of 2024, since Giger appears to have done Alien beast forms inspired by a caricature of Stanley Kubrick (which I refer to as the Kubrickalien) and a photograph of JG Ballard (which I refer to as the Ballardalien), I began to wonder if he had done one inspired by the late leading American astronomer named Carl Sagan? It would have been a fun idea to pursue as Carl had captured so much attention over the years with his ideas and speculations. He was an internationally well known celebrity. Even today in the 21st century his TV Cosmos, is something that I watch repeatedly, although Mr Sagan himself unfortunately died from cancer back in 1996.

While sitting in the Bar Italia in Soho, London, drinking coffee in October, I thought about it again. It would have been too early for Giger to do one during the Alien production, but what about Alien 3 that went into production ten years later in 1990? So I looked at the picture of the Alien beast drawing 91 for Alien 3 by HR Giger and decided that this had to be it as the leg in the background began to remind me of one of Carl Sagan's eyebrows, and then saw quickly how this drawing could be inspired by the features of a face.

b) Carl Sagan in a publicity still for his 1980 TV series Cosm

Which photo might it have been used? There have been many photos taken of Carl Sagan but I soon gravitated towards a well known publicity photo of the man for the series Cosmos, and decided that this would be the one or at least a prime example of one that Giger could have been able to get hold of easily

c) Drawing 91for David Fincher's Alien 3 by HR Giger

d) Comparable part of the Carl Sagan photo and Alien 3 drawing no.91

One can loosely pick out what would be what as if it's based on the left side of a picture of a face

I admit it's a little hard to tell but the thought would be that if Giger had turned pictures of the alien beasts into loose phantasms of famous people, he ought to have done one with Carl Sagan and this one fits well enough from what I can tell. Perhaps someone else from around then had done something similar using the photo.