Alien Explorations

Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen references Salvador Dali's The Painter's Eye (1942)?

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Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen

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Salvador Dali's The Painters Eye (1942)

storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen

Salvador Dali's “The Painter’s Eye” (1942)

You might notice that in the conception of the idea of the Alien queen, various references to things resembling a cyclops in one form or another might be noticed, and here is a significant one, but what there is to note is how the character's outstretched arms have become the alien queen's upper legs and the hanging skin beneath the eye has become the ribbed pipes and the connecting part to the egg sack

details from Salvador Dali's “The Painter’s Eye” (1942)
and the storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen

Salvador Dali's “The Painter’s Eye” (1942)

a) The Henu Barque trail through the 20th century.

b) The henu barque trail: The Hergé - Salvador Dali passage

c) The Jacques Louis David's Death of Socrates route

d) See: Dali's “The Painter’s Eye” (1942) references the Henu Barque, and also Joan Miro's "Figures in the Night Guided by the Phosphorescent Tracks" from 1940?

e) See: Cover of The Inspector #4 references “The Painter’s Eye” (1942) by Salvador Dali?

f) See: Referenced in Bed station I (work 329) (1976) by HR Giger?

g) See: Referenced in a storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen for Aliens (film released 1986)

h) See: Referenced in Alien Queen with backwards knee joints and only two arms, with the puppeteer's legs in the upper part of the queen's legs for Aliens (1986) by Stan Winston?

i) See: Referenced in alien exoskeleton suits for the movie Independence day (1996)?

Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen references "Atavistic ruins after the rain" (1934) by Salvador Dali?

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Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen

storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen

a) Comparison to "Atavistic ruins after the rain" (1934) by Salvador Dali

This is a well known Dali painting from 1934 and the idea of drawing Newt and Ripley this way might almost be humorous for those who know Dali's work.

Perhaps the vast white shape dominating Dali's painting might be perceived as being a little like the shape of an egg sack.

The child with its father in this day dream world walking around this abstract thing become as Newt and Ripley about to encounter alien queen with her vast egg sack.

"Atavistic ruins after the rain" (1934) by Salvador Dali

b) Looking at the images of the figures side by side

Images of the figures, side by side

Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen references Rothko's Gesthemane (1944)?

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Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen
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Gethsemane by Mark Rothko (1944)

a) Storyboard showing Newt and Ripley encountering the Alien Queen Egg Layer

b) Mark Rothko's Gesthemane painted in 1944. One can look at the painting while trying to interpret its various possible meanings, to me it more or less resembles a washing line on a windy day and one of the garments out to dry is being blown away. Meanwhile a hawk like head dominates the right side of the painting

Gesthemane (1944) by Mark Rothko

c) The relevant parts of Rothko's painting next to the Alien Queen Egg Layer Storyboard

d) The central elements

d. i) Pentagonal shape with red dot in the centre, and its equivalent in the alien queen's head with these angled lines

d.ii) Tear drop shape and part where the Alien Queen's egg sack connects with the body

e) In relation to Rothko's painting, the upper left parts are transformed into the arm and leg

f) In relation to Rothko's painting, the area with the hanging shadowy forms is perhaps transformed into the Newt and Ripley figures

Aliens: storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen references HR Giger's Alien III stage III view of face (work 373) (1978) ?

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Aliens :storyboard showing Ripley and Newt first encountering the Alien Queen

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Alien: Alien Stage 3 , version III, Side view (work 372) and front view (work 373) (1978) by HR Giger

a) The head of Giger's alien beast along with the shoulder fins have been turned into the crouching alien queen form suspended in the air, with the front of the dome becoming her head and the shoulder fins becoming her legs, while the ribcage becomes the front of her egg laying sack.

b) What we might also notice is just as Giger painted the right side of the ribcage and the right shoulder, so Cameron transformed the right side of the chest and right arm into the egg laying sack