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Alien Film Series Alien Aliens Alien 3 Alien Resurrection Alien vs. Predator Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Predator 2 Prometheus Alien: Covenant

The document discusses the concept and creation of the Alien species from the Alien film franchise. It describes how artist H.R. Giger's nightmarish artwork inspired the design of the Alien. Giger designed the adult Alien, egg, and chestburster forms based on his earlier artwork Necronom IV. The Alien lacks intelligence and exists only to propagate its species through violent implantation of its eggs inside living hosts.

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77 views3 pages

Alien Film Series Alien Aliens Alien 3 Alien Resurrection Alien vs. Predator Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Predator 2 Prometheus Alien: Covenant

The document discusses the concept and creation of the Alien species from the Alien film franchise. It describes how artist H.R. Giger's nightmarish artwork inspired the design of the Alien. Giger designed the adult Alien, egg, and chestburster forms based on his earlier artwork Necronom IV. The Alien lacks intelligence and exists only to propagate its species through violent implantation of its eggs inside living hosts.

Uploaded by

Alexadner
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Alien (also known as a Xenomorph XX121 or Internecivus raptus)[1][2][3][4] is a

fictional endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species that is the antagonist of the Alien film series. The


species made its debut in the film Alien (1979) and reappeared in the sequels Aliens (1986), Alien
3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997). It also featured in the crossover films Alien vs.
Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), with the skull of one of the creatures
appearing briefly in Predator 2 (1990). Similar creatures of slightly different designs such as the
"Deacon" make a brief appearance in the Ridley Scott film Prometheus (2012) along with the
"Neomorph" and a variation of the Xenomorph which appear in the sequel Alien: Covenant (2017). In
addition, the Alien appears in various literature and video game spin-offs from the franchises.
The Alien design is credited to Swiss surrealist and artist H. R. Giger, originating in
a lithograph titled Necronom IV and refined for the series's first film, Alien. The practical effects for
the Alien's head were designed and constructed by Italian special effects designer Carlo Rambaldi.
The species's design and life cycle have been extensively augmented, sometimes inconsistently,
throughout each film.
Unlike many other extraterrestrial races in science fiction (such as
the Daleks and Cybermen in Doctor Who, or the Klingons and Borg in Star Trek), the Aliens are
not sapient tool-makers: They lack a technological civilization of any kind, and are instead
primal, predatory creatures with no higher goals than the propagation and self-preservation of their
own species, including the elimination of other lifeforms that may pose a threat to their existence.
Like wasps or termites, Aliens are eusocial, with a single fertile queen breeding a caste of warriors,
workers, or other specialist strains. The Aliens' biological life cycle involves traumatic implantation
of endoparasitoid larvae inside living hosts; these "chestburster" larvae erupt from the host's body
after a short incubation period, rapidly mature from juvenile into adulthood within hours, and seek out
more hosts for implantation.

Contents

 1Concept and creation


o 1.1Name
 2Characteristics
o 2.1Appearance
o 2.2Physiology
o 2.3Intelligence
o 2.4Life cycle
 2.4.1Queen
 2.4.2Egg
 2.4.3Facehugger
 2.4.4Chestburster
o 2.5Alternative forms
 2.5.1"Dragon"
 2.5.2Newborn
 2.5.3Predalien
 2.5.4Deacon
 2.5.5Neomorph
 3See also
 4Notes
 5References
 6Further reading
 7External links

Concept and creation[edit]

Necronom IV, Giger's 1976 surrealist print that formed the basis for the Alien's design

The script for the 1979 film Alien was initially drafted by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. Dan
O'Bannon drafted an opening in which the crew of a mining ship are sent to investigate a mysterious
message on an alien planet. He eventually settled on the threat being an alien creature; however, he
could not conceive of an interesting way for it to get onto the ship. Inspired after waking from a
dream, Shusett said, "I have an idea: the monster screws one of them", planting its egg in his body,
and then bursting out of his chest. Both realized the idea had never been done before, and it
subsequently became the core of the film.[5] "This is a movie about alien interspecies rape,"
O'Bannon said in the documentary Alien Evolution. "That's scary because it hits all of our
buttons."[6] O'Bannon felt that the symbolism of "homosexual oral rape" was an effective means of
discomforting male viewers.[7]

Giger's Alien design, inspired by his earlier print Necronom IV, for the film Alien

The title of the film was decided late in the script's development. O'Bannon had quickly dropped the
film's original title, Star Beast, but could not think of a name to replace it. "I was running through
titles, and they all stank", O'Bannon said in an interview, "when suddenly, that word alien just came
out of the typewriter at me. Alien. It's a noun and it's an adjective."[5] The word alien subsequently
became the title of the film and, by extension, the name of the creature itself.
Prior to writing the script to Alien, O'Bannon had been working in France for Chilean cult
director Alejandro Jodorowsky's planned adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic science-fiction
novel Dune. Also hired for the project was Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger. Giger showed
O'Bannon his nightmarish, monochromatic artwork, which left O'Bannon deeply disturbed. "I had
never seen anything that was quite as horrible and at the same time as beautiful as his work" he
remembered later.[8] The Dune film collapsed, but O'Bannon would remember Giger when Alien was
greenlit, and suggested to director Ridley Scott that he be brought on to design the Alien, saying that
if he were to design a monster, it would be truly original.[5]

Carlo Rambaldi, the creator of the mechanical head-effects for the creature, was most famous for designing the
title character of the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

After O'Bannon handed him a copy of Giger's book Necronomicon, Scott immediately saw the
potential for Giger's designs, and chose Necronom IV, a print Giger completed in 1976, as the basis
for the Alien's design, citing its beauty and strong sexual overtones. That the creature could just as
easily have been male or female was also a strong factor in the decision to use it. "It could just as
easily fuck you before it killed you," said line producer Ivor Powell, "[which] made it all the more
disconcerting."[6] Fox Studios were initially wary of allowing Giger onto the project, saying that his
works would be too disturbing for audiences, but eventually relented. Giger initially offered to
completely design the Alien from scratch, but Scott mandated that he base his work on Necronom
IV, saying that to start over from the beginning would be too time-consuming. Giger signed on to
design the adult, egg and chestburster forms, but ultimately also designed the alien planetoid LV-
426 and the Space J

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