GIGER'S SECOND LETTER TO: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FROM: H.R.GIGER December 19, 1997 However Twentieth Century Fox is maneuvering its way through the legal issues in order to keep HR Giger far away from proper credit and profit, one thing is certain: the Biomechanical style of HR Giger in any Alien sequel is obvious to everyone. No future Alien copyist or imitator will be able to hide that fact. The Alien Lifeforms, environments, the whole Alien world is created and copyrighted under the law by HR Giger. This is confirmed in the Academy Award of 1980 for "Best Achievement for Visual Effects." I reserve all rights to my own intellectual property. The copyrights granted to Fox are only for the uses which have been contracted and paid for. In regards to the new Alien development called the Newborn, it is just another Giger design, which you will realize when you look beneath the shell of the adult Alien head, as seen in the photos on page 60 of my book. The human skull under the face has been exposed and the creature's sinewy body has been contaminated by deformed features. Fox, however, tries to deny HR Giger's influence. No objection was ever voiced to the title of the book named after its mentor "HR Giger's Alien", published by Sphinx in Basel and Big O in London. It would have been wise for Fox to add my name into the main and final credits, immediately, five weeks ago. For every day that passes without this embarassing wrong-doing being fixed the damage grows. Since Fox refused my request for a screen credit, I have received hundreds of e-mail messages from Alien fans, all of them stating what an outrage it is that hundreds of million dollars are made on Giger's Alien but that his name could not be mentioned among the several hundred other names, even in the credits. Tom Woodruff's Alien design style is simply "HR Giger's Biomechanical". Woodruff, an excellent effect specialist, said about his "Alien Viper's Nest" : "It is like an HR Giger's painting come to life." Yes it is. It has been newly stolen from my book "Necronomicon". As photographed from above, you will see that it is a section of my painting "Passagen-Tempel / Eingangspartie" (Passage Temple / entrance section) Work # 262. This painting existed three years before the first Alien movie had even started to be filmed. During my participation on the first Alien, Fox was permitted to use my books as a guide and my book "Necronomicon" was Ridley Scott's bible. There can be no Alien sequel, not even in the future, that is not influenced by H R Giger's Biomechanical style. (at present the only source for me for this letter is http://jingleheimerschmidtj.tripod.com/giger.html)
Wednesday, December 10, 1997
TO: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FROM: H.R.GIGER November 13, 1997 The Alien Quartet has, from the very beginning, contained my unique and personal style. For the first film ALIEN, I was awarded an Oscar for "Best Achievement for Visual Effects". In ALIENS, a film I was not asked to work on, I still received a screen credit for "Original Alien Design". On ALIEN 3, I was cheated out of the Oscar nomination received by that film because 20th Century Fox gave me the credit, "Original Alien Design" again, instead of "Alien 3 Creature Design", as it was my rightful title in accordance to my contract and the work I had performed on the film. In 1976 I had completed two paintings, "Necronom IV" and "Necronom V", in which two long-headed creatures appeared. In 1977 these paintings, were published in my book, NECRONOMICON, by Sphinx Verlag, Basel, in German. It was in this version of the book that Ridley Scott, in his search for a credible Alien creature, came across these two paintings and decided, on them for the full-grown Alien, using the words "That's it!" The statement has been graciously repeated by Ridley Scott in almost every interview about his work on ALIEN. The creatures in ALIEN:RESURRECTION are even closer to my original Alien designs than the ones which appear in ALIENS and ALIEN 3. The film also resurrects my original designs for the other stages of the creature's life-cycle, the Eggs, the Facehugger and the Chestburster. ALIEN:RESURRECTION is an excellent film. What would it look like without my Alien life-forms? In all likelihood, all the sequels to ALIEN would not even exist! The designs and my credit have been stolen from me, since I alone have designed the Alien. So why does not Fox give me the credit I rightfully earned? As for those responsible for this conspiracy: All I can wish them is an Alien breeding inside their chests, which might just remind them that the "Alien Father" is H.R.Giger. (at present the only source for me for this letter is http://jingleheimerschmidtj.tripod.com/giger.html)
Sunday, September 21, 1997
leading from
a) In the 1997 film Alien Resurrection, an armed soldier who was a black man aboard the Auriga goes to investigate the acid eaten hole in the floor in the cell where Dr Gediman has been pulled down through by the aliens. One he is in there, the aliens push the button to spray his with liquid nitrogen gas and his skin and flesh freezes, his arm sticks to the wall, his arm breaks in half and he is left with an arm stump. The cinematography as we know was by Darius Khondji
b) Two years later in 1999, Chris Cunningham, one of the star concept designers for Alien Resurrection who was also a famous music video director at the time directed a video for the track "Africa Shox" Left Field with Africa Bambaata, and on this video collaborated with Darius Kondji. The video featured an ill looking black man reaching out for help, and then he his arm falls off and is revealed to be hollow and brittle and so he is left with a hollow stump , then he shatters a foot and is left with a hollow leg stump, and later falls over, soon he hops onto the road and is then hit by a car and is smashed into pieces.
c) Having seen the scene where the soldier with his arm breaking off due to being sprayed with liquid nitrogen in Alien Resurrection, it seems obvious where the seed of the idea for the Afrix Shox video came from.
1. Stills from Alien Resurrection (1997)
2. "Africa Shox" music video by Chris Cunningham (1999)
3. Stills from the "Africa Shox" music video by Chris Cunningham (1999)
Tuesday, September 16, 1997
leading from
a) In Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movie Alien Resurrection, after the character Ripley 8 has surgery to remove that Alien Queen and she is then placed in a cell wrapped in a shroud like garment in which the Ripley 8 character is symbolically being born. If we then think about British cinema since the 1970s, one interesting film filled with strange visual images was a movie about the film composer Gustave Mahler in which a woman in a cocoon is seen across the rocks by the sea and then she emerges from the cocoon to be able to crawl across the rocks to kiss a sculpture of the face of Mahler
b) Ripley 8 breaking out from a cocoon that is her surgical gown from Alien Resurrection.
c) Scene from Ken Russell's Mahler of a woman emerging from a cocoon
Monday, September 15, 1997
leading from
- Empire: A lifelong fan of both horror and science fiction, Anderson jumped at the chance to combine his two favourite genres. Following his successful video game adaptation of Mortal Kombat (number one at the US box office for three weeks), the young director actively sought scripts with an effects slant. This led to discussions about directing the Alien Resurrection script (Empire , p75)
- Paul Anderson: It's got what you want from an Alien movie; guns and lots of Aliens running around. (Empire , p75)
- Empire: Yet he bowed out over scheduling problems (Empire , p75)
- Paul Anderson: In a way , it would have been a great movie to do because I love Alien movies. But I've grown up with Alien. I saw 20 years ago what the Alien could do and it still does the same thing. I think that's the problem with a lot of monster movies - how do you scare people with it? (Empire , p75)
Friday, September 12, 1997
- Steve Wang: This is the "failed" Ripley clone. I sculpted it entirely in Waterclay with an aluminum armature. (source: www.myspace.com/stevewangfx)
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| failed ripley clone (source: www.myspace.com/stevewangfx) |
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| failed ripley clone (source: www.myspace.com/stevewangfx) |
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| failed ripley clone (source: www.myspace.com/stevewangfx) |
Leading from
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| Alien Resurrection concept drawing by Jordu Schell (source :http://schellstudio.com) |
Images below are extracted from ADI's video "
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| Jordu Schell working on alien qarrior maquette (source: SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p32 &33, (UK version)) |
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| Jordu Schell working on alien qarrior maquette (source:"The Making of Alien Resurrection", p122) |
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| Jordu Schell working on alien qarrior maquette (source: http://schellstudio.com/) |
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| Alien warrior maquette (source: http://schellstudio.com) |
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| Alien warrior maquette (source: http://schellstudio.com/) |
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| Alien Warrior maquette from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray |
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| Alien Warrior maquette from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray |
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| Alien Warrior maquette from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray |
Wednesday, September 10, 1997
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| Ripley lying lying on the living landscape |
a) Various tentacles and protuberances
This was one of the scenes that they had to fight for in order to save it from being scrapped for budget purposes. Sigourney Weaver remembered when she first saw the set, she was amazed by this landscape of alien parts with various tentacles and protuberances, designed by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff.
This was one of the scenes that they had to fight for in order to save it from being scrapped for budget purposes. Sigourney Weaver remembered when she first saw the set, she was amazed by this landscape of alien parts with various tentacles and protuberances, designed by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff.
"What are those things?" she asked Alec Gillis
"You don't want to know" he replied with a smile "But we call the area where you're sucked down, the Sphincter "
Johnathan Leahy, was in charge of spread 55 gallons of Methocel slime to everything including Sigourney
Sigourney crawls over this dark, squiggly, curiously prickly set and lies down
"Open the sphincter" calls Alec
Sigourney closes her eyes and what is beneath her comes alive. Large greasy tails flick at her cheeks, limbs and members nudge and squeeze her.
As she gingerly arranged her tall, lean frame into a slimy cavity full of flailing tentacles, it was as if the cosmic destiny of it all revealed itself. "
Sigourney joked "This has been my goal, Everything I've done in my career has built to this.'
As she gingerly arranged her tall, lean frame into a slimy cavity full of flailing tentacles, it was as if the cosmic destiny of it all revealed itself. "
Sigourney joked "This has been my goal, Everything I've done in my career has built to this.'
After a few moments, the platform beneath her sinks and the rubber sphincter indeed sucks her down until she disappears beneath the stage. And then she opens her slime encrusted eyes and sees the beaming faces of the puppeteers.
During the scene, somehow a tail always ends up between her legs. This is of course very sexual, sometimes it is good and something it looks a bit strange, but on purpose they want to tread that line.
"Who's on that particular tail?" Sigourney asks Alec
"I am" he replies
"You're a sick puppy" she says
Alec then instructs another member of the team to be more intimate with his alien body part, but the puppeteer's response is "This is difficult for me. I'm married"
b) The Viper's Pit / Nest
ADI created a set piece known as the Viper's Pit or indeed the Viper's Nest, a living landscape that also serves as an entrance to the Queen's chamber. Ripley is pulled in through the gap in the floor in the corridor and she lands she lands on this living carpet before passing through its central sphincter. In the film itself, it was not easy to make out the details that made up the piece. It was a scene that they had to fight for because they were being told they couldn't have it and one reason was because they didn't want to see Ripley calling into an sphincter. It was designed to be one of these abstract scenes that not everyone was going to immediately understand but it was a sort of sensuous , sinuous world of parts and Ripley was surrendering to this strange thing. Sigourney, it might have been something that Giger and Ridley Scott would have wanted to out in the film.
c) Intended impact on the viewer
In terms of this film, it was ideally the sort of odd thing that might have made people ask questions about exactly what they were looking at and what it was supposed to be, maybe in the manner of how everything about the Space Jockey in Alien was a big question.
d) Borrowed from HR Giger without giving credit
While ADI created this set, once the photos of the piece were published in the British scifi magazine SFX, it was obvious to Giger himself who had seen the article and indeed some others who knew Giger's work very well that it was based on Giger's painting The Passage Temple Entrance and at the time of the movie , no direct credit was given and nothing was said about its direct origins in the interview but acknowledgement was given to inspiration from Giger's work at least. As far as I noticed from the article immediately at the time, ADI had obviously based it on the section of the painting rearranging the details, the very same part of the painting that Ridley Scott chose for the underbelly of the Facehugger in Alien (See also: The facehuggers sculpted underbelly)
While ADI created this set, once the photos of the piece were published in the British scifi magazine SFX, it was obvious to Giger himself who had seen the article and indeed some others who knew Giger's work very well that it was based on Giger's painting The Passage Temple Entrance and at the time of the movie , no direct credit was given and nothing was said about its direct origins in the interview but acknowledgement was given to inspiration from Giger's work at least. As far as I noticed from the article immediately at the time, ADI had obviously based it on the section of the painting rearranging the details, the very same part of the painting that Ridley Scott chose for the underbelly of the Facehugger in Alien (See also: The facehuggers sculpted underbelly)
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| source: image from SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p32, (UK version) merged with same photo printed in from SFX Special Editions no.67, 2014) |
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| source: SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p31, (UK version) |
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| single segment from Vipers Nest |
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| section from Giger's Passage Temple entrance painting |
.jpg) | |
| "Passagen-Tempel / Eingangspartie" (Passage Temple / entrance section) Work # 262 |
- The key to the consistency of all the creatures in Alien Resurrection was to keep within the boundaries already set by H R Giger. Although the artist was not approached to add his own signature to Jeunet's film, his influence was still an important factor to the new to the new film's creature designs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the nightmarish location of the Aliens' lair, or the Viper's Nest as it's been affectionately labeled. (SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p30, (UK version)
- The Viper's Nest is one of the biggest things ADI have ever had to create for any film. (SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p33, (UK version))
- Tom Woodruff: I'm really looking forwards to this sequence. It's a scene where Ripley is abducted and taken to the Viper's Nest, what we called our living landscape, with Sigourney nested back into all these writhing pieces of Alien. It's like an H R Giger painting come to life, and it's enveloping her. It's going to be a startling moment when you realise how all encompassing the aliens are to Ripley. It's such a literal expression of the Alien all completely engulfing her to the point where the Queen gives birth to the bitter end, which of course, we can't talk about. (SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p30, (UK version)
- Woodruff, an excellent effect specialist, said about his "Alien Viper's Nest" : "It is like an HR Giger's painting come to life." Yes it is. It has been newly stolen from my book "Necronomicon". As photographed from above, you will see that it is a section of my painting "Passagen-Tempel / Eingangspartie" (Passage Temple / entrance section) Work # 262. This painting existed three years before the first Alien movie had even started to be filmed. (letter to 20th Century Fox by H R Giger, December 19th, 1997)
- Giger: The fact is, I saw in Alien 4 for example they didn't only use the Alien, they also used for example, parts of the passage temple: the entry section was used for the viper's nest, like where Ripley lies in that nest and so on, (report from raw Giger interview for Alien Evolution)
- Interviewer: There is a sequence in which Ripley descends into the coils of the Alien. What do you think is going on in that scene
Sigourney Weaver: Again, this scene is one we had to fight for. They did not want Ripley descending into the sphincter of the alien world which is what Alec Gillis Special Effects used to call it and to me it was everything Giger, Ridley, everybody would have wanted, this sort of sensuous, sinuous world of parts and god help you if you're there. And yet, at the same time there's a great... there's sort of that thing of how she wants to sort of surrender to it, to me it was, you know, all about life. It's horrifying and you can't... you know you're attracted to it. It's fabulous stuff. But we had to fight of course for that scene because it was not an action scene, it was all sort of this subliminal erotic stuff.(reported from Alien Evolution documentary 2001 interviews) - Sigourney Weaver: Today we shoot the scene where the alien pulls me down into the Viper Pit and carries me off. (Premiere: December 1997, p147)
- Sigourney Weaver: Later that day, we move onto the most amazing shot in the picture - Ripley in the Viper Pit. Tom and his partner in creature effects, Alec Gillis, have designed a monstrous landscape of alien parts: writing tails and undulating limbs. When I arrive on the set, I am knocked out. It is a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare of tentacles and protuberances.
"What are those things?' I ask Alec
"You don't want to know," he says, "But we call the area where you're sucked down the Sphincter. " He smiles.
Jonathan Leahey, the slime meister does his spiderwebby thing, applying over 55 gallons of Methocel to everything, including me,
I crawl over this dark, squiggly, curiously prickly set and lie down. "Open the sphincter," Alec calls. I close my eyes and what's beneath me shudders and comes alive. Large greasy tails flick at my cheek, limbs and members nudge and squeeze me. After a few moments, the platform beneath me sinks and the rubber sphincter does indeed suck me down until I disappear underneath the stage. I open my slime encrusted eyes and see the beaming faces of the puppeteers. Somehow a tail always ends up between my legs. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it looks a bit strange. We just want to tread that line.
"Who's on that particular tail?" I ask Alec.
"I am" he says.
"You're a sick puppy." I say.
Alec instructs another member of the team to be more intimate with his alien body part.
"This is difficult for me," says the puppeteer. "I'm married."
"Nice guys," says Alec, turning to me," need to be pushed to perversion"(Premiere: December 1997, p148) - SIGOURNEY WEAVER HAD A MINOR epiphany. She was hard at work on the set of "Alien Resurrection,'' having her fourth go-round as Ripley, the alien-busting heroine of science-fiction-film lore. A giant alien nest called the Viper Pit loomed above her. Technicians liberally applied a gross, gooey gel to her entire body, from her hair weave to her dominatrix-style combat boots. As she gingerly arranged her tall, lean frame into a slimy cavity full of flailing tentacles, the cosmic destiny of it all revealed itself. "This has been my goal,'' she joked. "Everything I've done in my career has built to this." (http://www.newsweek.com/you-say-you-want-resurrection-done-173498)
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