Alien 3 cocoons

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Alien 3

1. Cinefex: Borrowing from a sequence which had been cut from the original Alien, Fincher early one 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)

Images of the cocoons being sculpted from Alien 3 sculpting BTS

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Renny Harlin Alien 3

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Alien 3

Post Nightmare on Elm Street 4
Renny Harlon was only 28 and he had just made Nightmare on Elm Street 4 which got a very good critical reception and a huge box office reception and then all of a sudden the day after that came out, he got a call from Steven Spielberg and they met up to start developing something together which unfortunately didn''t out. He was getting calls from everybody else in Hollywood. He was a huge fan of Ridley Scott and James Cameron, and he was suddenly offered Alien 3, he thought this was a fantastic opportunity and an incredible honour.

Renny gets an office on the Fox studio lot in Hollywood, he is very amazed by his situation and then again very scared because he found himself dealing with a group of people who were asking him to make a film like Aliens with the same kind of guns but a different place.Surely he thought, if he made a movie that was just a copy of the previous one and just added more fire power or some such things, he would be considered a laughing stock. He would be compared to the previous directors but they would say that he was an idiot. He felt a great pressure to do something smart. Renny's response to them was "We can't have another movie where you have more machine guns and more flame-throwers and again the aliens are attacking a place. "

William Gibson
Renny Harlin was introduced to cyberpunk author William Gibson who had been writing a script for Giler and Hill which they didn't like, but they weren't ready to give up on him so they suggested that Gibson undertake a rewrite with Harlin. Gibson declined citing various other commitments

Alien Origin Story
For a few months, he worked on developing an idea which was that the movie was going to take place on the planet where the aliens are actually from, with Ripley and a team of scientists and soldiers, and they find out what they really are. They are ants and somewhere is the ant hill and now they were going to travel to the anthill to find out really what they were all about. What are they? Why did nature create these things? Are they really bad? Do we just view them as something bad because of the environment that we've experienced them in? Are they evil horrible killing machines who are taking over the world? And who knows,. they might not really be evil to begin with, but just demonstrating a survival mechanism.  That was one way he wanted to do the movie. He thought it would be interesting, and it would be an action packed thriller, but the real interest for him would have been to go to their origins and make an alien origin story. But the studios rejected that saying that people don't want to see that. He didn't understand why they didn't buy it. He tried to have writers work on a script with what he had in mind but no one could crack that in a script.

Cornfields of Kansas plot
Harlin's second idea was about the aliens coming to Earth, and it would be like a Middle America, Kansas cornfield, and aliens going through the cornfield towards the farmhouse, and you realise the aliens have come to Earth.

"Just show the poster to the audience, it's the biggest movie ever" Renny said to them.
The studios response was "Eh, no people wont like it, it's a science fiction movie, it has to take place in outer space. People wont buy it if it comes to Earth. We don't like it."
Renny became more and more depressed because they didn't like his ideas.

The other part of the story was that following Gibson's departure, Harlin recommended hiring Eric Red, scriptwriter of The Hitcher and Near Dark, to rewrite the script, and the producers agreed. But the collaboration was troubled from the start. The Red had Hill and Giler's original story and Gibson's script as a foundtion, he felt that he had been tossed into a 'creative drink without a life preserver'. The basic problem was when he was involved, for five weeks, they didn't know what they wanted, and the didn't want Sigourney back, and they had to go through a whole series of new characters. He churned out a complete draft with new subplots, themes and characters in less than two months, which he considered to be a piece of junk was a product of a few weeks of intense, hysterical story conferences  turning it in on February 7th, 1989.

The writer had charted a different and ambitious course, and he understood that the film needed a new alien and he suggested doing genetic experiments on one of them and as far as he see, Hill and Giler had no treatment had no treatment or plan. Hill and Giler were unhappy with the result because they felt that he had strayed too far from the original story, Renny Harlin also found it to be uninspiring himself. 

Prison Ship Story
Then they came up with an idea. They wanted to tell the story about a big prison spaceship where the aliens come. And they says it's contained and that's how it should be.
Renny did like it and responds "I don't get it. Who cares about a prison ship?The audience isn't going to relate to a bunch of prisoners, They're prisoners, they're all bad guys and no matter what you do it's just going to be this dark story and what's so great about the previous ones, is that the first one was basically a bunch of blue collar guys and women who could be truck drivers and the second one it's these soldiers with Ripley going to battle these aliens ,there there's a little girl who represents humanity there, it's like a mission movie. So again, it's very relatable. But if you do Aliens in prison, it’s like “who cares about the prisoners, let them die”"

Renny Quits For the Better
They continue to go back and forth with these ideas, and finally when they had this script of a prison ship and aliens, Renny looked at it and said “I’m sorry, I can’t do this”.  he realised now that he was 29 years old, he was dealing with a huge studio which was his dream and said to them "You know, I honestly can't make a good movie"
And so, he quit and it was a scary thing for him to do after having worked on it for about a year and he had no idea what he was going to do with his future or who was going to hire him, he just had to go and trust his gut instinct. The following day Fox offered him Ford Fairlane, rock and roll detectives seemed heaven stent after the dark creepy world of Alien 3 that  shone no light for him, and they were so impressed by the dailies for Ford Fairlane that they subsequently offered him Die Hard 2.

1. CraveOnline: Fair enough. You were on Alien 3 for a really long time.
   Renny Harlin: Yeah.
   CraveOnline: And you left because it wasn’t what you wanted. What did you want from Alien 3. I’ve always been curious about this.
   Renny Harlin: Okay, that’s a good question. And I think you can imagine how, as a young filmmaker, I’m only 28 years old, I had made Nightmare on Elm Street 4, which got a very good critical reception and a huge box office reception, and all of a sudden I’m being offered movies by Spielberg and everybody in town. And I’m a huge fan of course of Ridley Scott and James Cameron, and then I’m offered Alien 3. And I think, this is a fantastic opportunity. I get my office on the Fox lot in Hollywood, and there I am, and I literally have to pinch myself when I’m sitting in my office. I’m on a studio lot, I’m 28 and I’m making this giant movie. I can’t believe. And at the same time I’m really scared, because I feel that if I make a movie that is just a copy of the previous ones and just adds a little firepower or something, I’m going to be a laughing stock. I’m just going to be compared to the previous directors and they’re going to say that I’m an idiot. So I feel huge pressure [to do] something smart. And so I work on it for a few months, and I develop first one idea which was that this movie was going to take place on the planet where the aliens are actually from. So basically my pitch to the studio was, let’s look at aliens like ants. They are ants, and somewhere is the anthill. And now we’re going to travel to the anthill to find out, really, what are they all about? And who knows? Maybe they’re not really evil to begin with. Maybe it’s just a mechanism of survival that they are demonstrating. It would be really interesting – and obviously you’d have an action-packed thriller – but it would be really interesting to me to go to their origins and make this alien origin story. And then they reject that and say people don’t want to see that…
   CraveOnline: I would have wanted to see that.
   Renny Harlin: Me too! I don’t understand to this day why they didn’t buy it. And the second one was, I know you remember that we’re talking like ’88, ’89, so this is before Jurassic Park and movies like that, so I say… Okay, then I have another idea. Let the aliens come on Earth. Picture Middle America, a cornfield, and the aliens are going through the cornfield toward the farmhouse. And they’re just like, “Eh, no, people won’t like it. It’s a science fiction movie, it has to take place in outer space. People won’t buy it if they come to Earth. We don’t like it.” So I just get more and ore depressed because they don’t like my ideas, and then they come up with this idea… And none of these people work at the studio anymore […] so there’s no one to really blame… They want to tell the story about a prison spaceship where the aliens come. And they say it’s contained, and that’s how it should be, and I say, I don’t get it. The audience isn’t going to relate to a bunch of prisons. They’re prisoners, they’re all bad guys, and no matter what you do it’s just going to be this dark story, and what’s so great about the previous ones, is that the first one was basically about truck drivers and the second one there’s a little kid and so on, it’s like a mission movie. So go back and forth, and finally they are adamant about it, and one day I just look at it and say, “You know, I honestly can’t make this because I don’t believe in it. I don’t think I’m going to make a good movie.” And I quit, and it was a scary thing to do, after having worked on it for at least a year, but I had no idea what my future was going to be and who was going to hire me, and I just had to trust my gut instinct. Do I quit? And then the next day, the same studio, Fox, offered me [The Adventures of] Ford Fairlane and subsequently Die Hard 2, and all those things happened. But it was a tricky time in my life, and then the interesting thing was that then David Fincher was hired to do it, and they did the prison planet, and while David Fincher was a genius filmmaker, even he couldn’t squeeze out a movie that would satisfy people, and the franchise took a real hit at the point. And David Fincher took a real hit, and it wasn’t until he went on to do Seven that he sort of got out of that situation. But it’s just one of those things where you just gotta follow your instincts. And sometimes, to be honest, I wish that I had done that more in my career. Sometimes you [just] want to work, you’re frustrated because you can’t get a project off the ground, and you end up doing something that is maybe not the perfect thing for you to. (www.craveonline.com)
2. Den Of Geek: Thinking back over your career, you were attached to over Alien 3 for over a year. Can you tell us what happened there?
   Renny Harlin: I had done Nightmare On Elm Street 4, which just completely changed my life. All of a sudden I was meeting with Spielberg and meeting with the studios, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. And when the idea of Alien 3 came to me I felt that it was an incredible honour. I felt like Ridley Scott had made a masterpiece with Alien. Jim Cameron had made a masterpiece with Aliens. And I felt, okay if I can take it to another level, then maybe I have a chance of making a masterpiece as well. And so I eagerly took the challenge, and I had offices on the Fox lot and I felt very excited. But then, as were developing the script, opinions between the studio and I were completely different. They basically wanted to make a movie that was just like Aliens – same kind of guns, just different place.
   And they, for some reason, had this idea that they wanted it to take place on a big prison ship. And I didn’t get it. I said, “who cares about a prison ship?”. The whole basic idea of the Alien movies is that in the first one, it is a bunch of blue collar guys and women who could be truck drivers. It’s totally relatable. And in the second one, it’s a war movie, and it’s these soldiers with Ripley going to battle these aliens, and there’s this little girl who represents humanity there. So again, very relatable. But if you do Aliens in prison, it’s like “who cares about the prisoners, let them die”.
   
   Den Of Geek:What was it you wanted to do?
   
   Renny Harlin: My first concept was we go to the planet where the aliens come from, with Ripley and a team of scientists and soldiers, and we find out what they really are. Are they evil, horrible killing machines who are taking over the world? Or are they just animals with a survival mechanism? That’s one way that I wanted to do the movie.
   Second way, I said “aliens come to Earth”. I pitched this idea where we are in a Kansas cornfield, and you just see these things going through the cornfield and you just realise the aliens have come to Earth. I said “just show the poster to the audience – it’s the biggest movie ever”. And they were like, “nah we don’t think so, it should just be outer space”.
   So for about a year we just went back and forth with these ideas and finally when we had this script of a prison ship and aliens, I said “I’m sorry, I can’t do this”. And it was a very crazy and scary thing to do. I was 29 years old, I was dealing with a huge studio, which was my dream, and I quit. But I went on to make other movies with Fox, and David Fincher ended up doing Alien 3, and of course he’s now doing fantastic. But not necessarily because of Alien 3.: (http://www.denofgeek.com)
3. Renny Harlin: I have another example, actually, that happened between Nightmare and Die Hard 2. Before Die Hard 2, I was hired by Fox, right after Nightmare, to do Alien 3. I worked on Alien 3, with Walter Hill, for a year at Fox, and had several writers work on the script. I quit that project because I was so mortified by the idea that I was following in Ridley Scott¿s and James Cameron¿s footsteps, and I'm not going to be able to do something different or improve on it.  
   IGNFF: Was it internal pressure that was pushing you in that direction? 
   HARLIN: Yes. It was just my own ego. I just felt that my career would be over if I made a movie that was less good and less successful; I worked on it very hard. My take on Alien 3 was that I wanted to go to the planet where they come from. I said, "We can't have another movie where you have more machine guns and more flame-throwers and again the aliens are attacking a place. I want to go to the original planet and find out, "What are they? Why did nature create these things? Are they really bad? Do we just view them as something bad because of the environment that we've experienced them in?" That was my goal, but nobody could crack that in a script, and I finally quit. I said, "I really sorry, but I can't figure this out."
   
   IGNFF: Did you have any fear that quitting that project would set your career back? 
   HARLIN: Yes. I thought that would ruin my career just when I was about to get somewhere. The same day I quit Alien 3, and I thought that everybody would be really pissed off at me , I was offered Ford Fairlane by Fox. I was so tired of the dark, dark creepy world of Aliens by that moment, that a rock & roll detective seemed heaven sent ¿ so I jumped right into that. While I was shooting that, Fox liked the dailies so much that they offered me Die Hard 2. I said, "How can I do these movies back-to-back like that?: They said, "We'll make it all happen." I ended up shooting them back-to-back, editing them simultaneously, and they actually came out one week apart.  
   IGNFF: So leaving Alien 3 was one of the best things you ever did?
   HARLIN: Yes. Yes it was. (http://uk.ign.com/ April 27th 2001
4. Empire: Before we wrap up, I wondered how you look back at the time when you made Nightmare On Elm Street 4 and Alien³ suddenly fell into your lap. Do you have any regrets about the way that period worked out?
   Renny Harlin: No, no. On the contrary, it worked out really well because I was being honest to myself. I got a call from Steven Spielberg the day after Nightmare On Elm Street came out, and I met him and we start developing something together. Unfortunately it didn’t pan out, but the next thing was the Alien³. Of course, I was very excited and it was a great honour to be following in the footsteps of Ridley Scott and James Cameron, but after developing the project for a year, I just felt it wasn’t going where I wanted it to go and I was really afraid of making a movie that would just look like a bad copy of what Jim Cameron, for example, had done. So I took a huge risk, I really wrestled with myself. Here I am, 29 years old, I have an office on the Fox lot and I’m doing this movie. So for me to go to Fox and say “I quit”, it felt crazy. It was like, “How could I do that?” 
   Empire: Do you remember that meeting?
   Renny Harlin: I remember it very well. I was scared shitless. I said to myself, “I’ve gotta be honest to myself - I don’t believe in this anymore, I don’t believe I can make a good movie, and I had no knowledge of another movie or if I would work again.” And I just quit. (www.empireonline.com)
5. Eric Red: The basic problem when I was involved, for five weeks, was they didn't know what they wanted. They went through a real waste of talent because of that...As for the producers [Hill and Giler], they simply weren't involved. I think it's the responsibility of the producer or creative entity to have a creative concept or to make sure it's moving forward efficiently. But these guys were aloof. I only met once with each of them. (Cinefantastique 1992)
6. Movie Hole: And while on the topic of unproduced scripts, there’s a rumour you wrote a draft of “Alien 3”?
   Eric Red: That’s the one script I completely disown because it was not “my script.” It was the rushed product of too many story conferences and interference with no time to write, and turned out utter crap.(moviehole.net/)
7. Eric Red: In the third film, you needed a new alien, I suggested doing genetic experiments on the alien. They had no story or treatment or any real plan for the picture (Premiere May 1993, p65)
8. Following Gibson's departure, Harlin recommended hiring Eric Red (The Hitcher, Near Dark) to rewrite the script, and the producers agreed. But the collaboration was troubled from the start. Though he had Hill and Giler's script as as a foundation, Red felt he had been tossed into the creative drink without a life preserver. "The basic problem when I was involved, for five weeks, was they didn't know what they wanted. " Red has said "They really wasted talent because of that. Another major problem was that they didn't want Sigourney [Weaver] back, so I had to go through a whole series of new characters." Red churned out a complete draft with new subplots, themes and characters in less than two months, turning it in on February 9, 1989. The writer had clearly charted his own ambitious course, which included creating a new breed of alien. But Hill and Giler were unhappy with the result. They felt that Red had strayed too far from their original story, and they rejected the script - a decision that rankled Red. "In the third, you needed new alien, so I suggested doing genetic experiments with one of them," the writer said," [Hill and Giler] had no story or treatment or any real plan for the picture. They were very disorganized and irresponsible." Though Red aimed his vitriol at the two Brandywine producers, Renny Harlin also found the work of his hand-picked writer uninspiring. In addition, Sigourney concurred with David Giler's appraisal that "it was a real disaster, absolutely dreadful" "(Bald Ambition". Cinescape. November 1997. by Douglas Perry)
9. Arrow In The Head: I heard you were also commissioned to write an "Alien 3" script?
   Eric Red: Yeah, Alien 3 the script that unfortunately circulated…I don’t even look at it as my script. The piece of junk was a product of a few weeks of intense, hysterical story conferences with the studio to rush to get the picture into production and it turned out completely awful.
   Arrow In The Head: Did you wind up seeing "Alien 3"?
   Eric Red: Yeah and I didn’t care for the picture, they didn’t end up with very much either. (www.joblo.com/)
10. They introduced the novelist to their director, a young Finn named Renny Harlin who had made a splash in Hollywood with A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. Hill and Giler suggested that Gibson undertake a rewrite with Harlin, but the writer - exasperated by what he considered foot-dragging on the producers' part - declined, citing various other commitments. (Carolco had asked him to adapt his stories Burning Chrome and Johnny Mnemonic for the screen.) Alien 3 had lost its first screenwriter. (Bald Ambition". Cinescape. November 1997. by Douglas Perry)
    

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Giger's Alien 3 beast version 1

David Fincher wanted an Alien that was faster and more graceful, he also wanted it to look like a Jaguar or a Puma, taking the idea of a clip he directed for Madonna. Giger welcomed the opportunity to make improvements to his original design. He had a go at drawing the creature that Fincher wanted, but the resulting beast Fincher thought looked too much like a lion, in the notes Giger wrote that it may be too fat, but Fincher decided to keep the new idea for the head.

an earlier sketch (source:gigercollector/)

Alien 3 sketch (31st July 1990)

earlier design for Alien 3 beast

earlier design for Alien 3 beast

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ADI's ALien 3 dog alien

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Alien 3


continuing to collate and develop article

a) Hopes for a new direction
Early on in the design process, Gillis and Woodruff felt that they should take the alien in a different direction. Their idea was that the creature was constantly mutating to adapt to whatever the environment,  and it gave them a reason to have an alien that was considerably different from the adult aliens in either Alien or Aliens. But , ultimately, David Fincher decided that he wanted to remin with what have been seen in the first film

b) Tom Woodruff's interpretation of the biomechanical style
Tom Woodruff's belief was that ever since Alien came out, people have misinterpreted the Biomechanical style. He thought that the alien is a monster with tubes and cardboard stuck all over it and that, so he said, was the only construction technique that Giger used when he sculpted for the first Alien movie. Gillis and Woodruff had access to many pieces of the original Alien creature suit and head for reference on Aliens, and it literally had plastic parts upon which one could read the catalogue numbers along with valves and plumbing pieces . The idea for the alien of Alien 3 was that the creatures were growing into a mechanical being, and one might wonder what to make of that

c) Moving away from Giger's vision
Their idea was that not even Alien was completely true to Giger's vision, his own suit wasn't accurate to his paintings. Their idea was to sculpt Giger's designs into repeating organic textures, almost like dear antlers. They also put more colour into the Alien, which was originally just black and sepia. Since the effects of Alien 3 wouldn't have the spectacle of the last film, they wanted to make this creature into a believable organism and its biomechanics would be achieved in a different way

d) Still Giger's Alien
Despite all the changes that they were making, their idea was that this was still Giger's Alien, and they had done very little to change it. They claimed that they went as far as to draw inspiration from Necronomicon at the finishing stages, since his monster would be scrutinized more than ever and it looked as if they went even as far as Giger's New York City series not in the book

e) New alien doglike
They were keen to point out that the earlier alien was insect like and now the new alien was more dog like having gestated inside a Rottweiler. The Alien's picked up the dogs instincts and took on its characteristics, and so they wound up with an alien that was more of a quadruped and could run around on all fours, while still being able to stand up on two legs

f) ADI's Bambi-Burster
They found the most conceptually interesting stage to be the 'Bambi Burster, a puppy like creature that jumps out of the Rottweiler's chest and scampers across the floor. David Fincher thought it would be more sleek if the monster came out of a dog, and the Rottweiler is a pretty brutal animal to start with.  Originally for the Bambi Burster, they planned to have a Whippet dog in a suit, but it wouldn't perform on set. They couldn't even get it to trot down the hall, which was all it had to do! So they ended up sliding the dog into shot.

g) Fincher's needs
David Fincher needed something that could walk and be photographed from every angle, which made him think about putting a dog in a suit to supplement a cable-controlled puppet. At first Gillis and Woodruff didn't like the idea but the more they thought about it, the better this idea sounded to them and this resulted in an alien creature that sometimes looked like a man in a suit and other times a puppet and never did the two look as if they were the same entity. The final creature they decided was David Fincher's baby and incorporated what Fincher was looking for in terms of the way it moved around and in terms of the body design were incorporated into the sculpture

Sources Quotes

1. Tom Woodruff: Early on in the design process, we felt that we should take the alien in a different direction. The idea was that the creature would be constantly mutating to adapt to whatever the environment was, which gave us a reason to have an alien that was considerably different from the alien warrior in any of the other films. But, ultimately, Fincher decided that he wanted to remain with what we'd seen in the first film. Supposedly the creature takes on characteristics of the host's body that it gestates in. So this time we wound up with an alien that was more of a quadruped and could run very fast on all fours, while still being able to stand up on two legs.(Cinefex #55/ Alien The Special Effects)
2. Tom Woodruff: You're working with set parameters on a sequel, so there isn't a whole lot of flexing your design muscles, But ever since Alien came out, people have misinterpreted the 'Biomechanical' style. They think it's a monster with tubes and cardboard stuck all over it. That's only a construction technique that Giger used when he sculpted for the first movie. We even had one of this original creatures for references on Aliens, and it literally had plastic parts that you could read the catalogue numbers off of! We wanted the monsters in Alien 3 to look like they were growing into a mechanical being. (Fangoria # 114)
3. Tom Woodruff: The Alien was so well known that there wasn't a lot we could do with it except try to make it look even more alien than in the first two films. Most of our changes were stylistic, because we really wanted to go back to the original paintings and designs for Giger, which hadn't been fully realised (Imagi-Movies Spring 1994, p18)
4. Alec Gillis: Giger's paintings tap into something that's frightening an at the same time very fascinating. Things like car parts and mechanical features are integrated looksely into his original designs for the Alien, and I think this weird combination of human, machine, and bone is one of the things that makes it so unique and terrifying. We tried to suggest these same shapes, but in a very organic way. (Imagi-Movies Spring 1994, p18)
5. Strangeshapes: The Alien in the third movie traded in many biomechanical details for a different aesthetic; you once said that you aimed for “an organic, sculptural feel.” Can you talk about what you tried to do to make this Alien look different from those that came before? (I believe you mentioned looking at Giger’s original paintings and drawings?)
   Tom Woodruff: I think people throw around the term “biomechanical” without really understanding what it means. It was a term manufactured to describe Giger’s amazing and fresh style of art. It was his theme in a lot of his work. What changed was the method in which it was achieved. During the build on Aliens, Fox provided us with many pieces of the original Alien creature suit and head. Within those pieces, you could actually see castings of mechanical bits; valves and plumbing pieces, some with catalogue numbers visible that had been etched into the pieces that were molded. (source: alienseries.wordpress.com)
6. Alec Gillis: Even Alien wasn't completely true to Giger's vision, I don't mean to be pompous, but his own suit wasn't accurate to his paintings. Our goal was to sculpt Giger's designs into repeating organic textures, almost like dear antlers. We also put more colour into the Alien, which was originally just black and sepia. Since the effects of Alien 3 wouldn't have the spectacle of the last film, we wanted to make this creature into a believable organism. (Fangoria # 114 and Horrorzone Magazine, Issue #1 (August 1992).)
7. Tom Woodruff: This is still Giger's Alien, and we've done very little to change it. In fact, we were breaking out his Necronomicon at the finishing stages, since his monster would be scrutinized more than ever. Aliens' theatrical lighting turned them into moving textures. This beast is animalistic instead of insectlike, since it's gestated inside a Rottweiler. The Alien's picked up the dogs instincts, and can run around on all fours. (Fangoria # 114)
8. Alec Gillis: Fox never had a problem with coming back and saying 'Sorry guys. We know you built these things, but theres a new direction, and we're not going to use them'. We had to keep ourselves and the crew orally afloat, because people but their blood, sweat and tears into the stuff, and have a tendency to get upset when an effect's cancelled. There were six stages of Aliens, count em! But we're not griping about the script changes, because any story should constantly be honed. That only shows us the film's getting better, and if the effect doesn't serve the ploy, then there's no reason for it. (Fangoria # 114)\
9. Tom Woodruff: The most conceptually interesting stage is the 'Bambi Burster', a puppy like creature that jumps out of the Rottweiler's chest and scampers across the floor. David Fincher thought it would be more sleek if the monster came out of a dog, and the Rottweiler is a pretty brutal animal to start with. David needed something that could walk and be photographed from every angle, which made him think about putting a dog in a suit to supplement a cable-controlled puppet. That seemed like a pretty dumb notion at first, but the more we thought about it, the better this idea sounded. (Fangoria # 114)
10. Tom Woodruff: The Whippet looked great, but it wouldn't perform on set, We couldn't even get it to trot down the hall, which was all it had to do! So i ended up sliding the dog into shot. (Fangoria # 114)
11. Tom Woodruff: The images were then transferred to video, so the effect would be like looking through Sigourney Weaver's body, We even had her heart pumping at one stage. The embryo was made out of translucent urethane, and lit from behind gave it a glow that revealed the creature's nervous system, including it's beating heart. We took the chestburster's design and worked backwards, accentuating the head while making the arms and legs smaller. (Fangoria # 114)
12. Alec Gillis: This beautiful sculpture is the dog alien from Alien 3 and it is from the molds from our sculpture that we did back in 1990 for David Fincher. It was intended as the rod puppet version because we knew that we wanted to create an alien that would be very spindly in proportions and Tom was playing the creature in the man in a suit version, so this was much more drawn out, you can see how delicate and long thin the limbs are
    
    Tom Woodruff: This allowed us to attach rods to the actual puppet on set so the puppeteers would move the limbs, all we had to do was remove those rods in post production so that the alien existed on its own.
    
    Alec Gillis : The design on the face of this one was very much influenced in David Fincher's mind by Michel Pfeiffer. He wanted it to have her lips, so that's what we gave it in sculptural form. This was nice that we were able to work with HR Giger on that. We had several phone conversations with him and he was sending us sketches, and it was fun to be able to interpret what he envisioned for the next iteration of it, but really I have to say that this is really David Fincher's baby here. A lot of the things that David Fincher was looking for in terms of the way it moved and in terms of the body design are incorporated into this sculpture. The Dog Alien from Alien 3   (Sideshow collectibles podcast)  
13. Tom Woodruff: We had a couple of phone calls where we actually spoke we Giger, and at the time he told us he was working on a sculpture, he was working on a full size maquette of... of the alien in his studio, so he invited us to come to Switzerland, invited Alec and I to come to Switzerland, and at the time we were so under the gun schedule wise that we you know, respectfully said "you know, we can't do that right now, " and that is the one thing I always regret to have, to have had the invitation, you know and just kind of put it off for now and say, maybe when the film is done, maybe afterwards, and then of course by the time the film is done, he wasn't involved at all and the offer was no longer there and and I think things were strained by the... between... between Giger and Fox and unfortunately we became, to Giger we became part of the enemy, you know, ironically our best interests were "How can we present Giger's work in a way that is respectful of Giger's work", but... but by the end, I know, subsequently the years since then... he's... he's just not responded favourably to.. to ah... to what we've done, you know in terms of how we've looked at the alien.  (The Making Of Alien 3, xeno-erotic)
14. Anne Zladovic: Vous n'êtes jamais allé sur le tournage d'Alien 3?
    You've never been on the set of Alien 3? 
    HR Giger: Non. Un jour, je leur ai demandé l'autorisation d'aller faire des photos. Ils m'ont répondu :« On va vous en envoyer. Ce n'est vraiment pas la peine de venir! »
    En réalité, j'ignore complèment si la créature d'Alien 3 ressemblera à celle que j'ai dessinée. De par mon contrat, je n'ai pas un droit de regard sur son apparence définitive à l'écran. Il est vrai que ce serait terrible pour eux que je puisse interrompre le tournage. D'un autre côté. vous leur soumettez vos idées les plus originales et ils peuvent en faire qu'ils veulent.
    No. One day, I asked permission to go take pictures. They replied: "We will send you. This is really not the time to come! "In fact, I do not know further if the creature from Alien 3 will resemble the one that I designed. From my contract, I do not have a right to inspect its final appearance on the screen . It is true that it would be terrible for them that I can stop shooting. On the other side. you submit to them your most original ideas and they can do what they want.Yet you had helped to build it yourself you first alien...
    Anne Zladovic: Vous aviez pourtant aidé à construire vous vous-même le premier alien...Yet you yourself had helped to build the first alien ...  HR Giger: Oui, mais, cette fois-ci c'est l'équipe d'Aliens, le retour de James Cameron qui a construit la créature. J'espère en tout cas qu'ils n'ont pas utilisé à nouveau les accessoires de ce film. C'est dommage que je n'ai pas pu participer davantage à Alien 3. J'ai en effet construit avec des amis une créature dans mon propre sous-sol que je proposais de leur envoyer en Angleterre (ndlr où a eu lieu une partie du tournage). Ils ont refusé, allez savoir pourquoi... J'ai  de bonnes idées, mais probablement sont-elles trop coûteuses à réaliser. D'après ce que j'ai compris, la plus grande partie du budget a été consacrée à Ripley, interprétée par Sigourney Weaver
    Yes, but this time it is the Aliens team, the return of James Cameron who built the creature. I hope in any case that they have not used new accessories for this film. It's a shame I could not be more involved in Alien 3. Indeed, I built a creature with friends in my own basement that I proposed to send them in England (note that there was a part shooting). They refused, for some reason ... I have good ideas, but they are probably too expensive to produce. From what I understand, most of the budget was devoted to Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver.(Oxygen, March 92, no 5)

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