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Ridley Scott's Alien Monster
Ridley Scott's Alien Monster
The spores would be fondly referred to as "Organic Footballs: by HR Giger
- Giger calls them "Organic Footballs" (Book of Alien, Scanlon & Gross)
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| Dan O'Bannon's sketch for Giger |
a) Initial Egg Design
For Dan O'Bannon, H R Giger painted the egg design for the painting Alien I which showed the cross(2ft 6 inches egg) A hollow plaster egg is made for Giger in the plasters shop from his mould and this would be used as a modelling base for the opening and the construction. Later, in Zurich, he changed this picture to give the egg a more organic look. He then got to the point where he would prepare a full-size mould for the 80cm high egg
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| Giger's earlier egg design for Dan O'Bannon. Work 363i -Cross section through the alien egg (VI) |
b) Inspection of the egg with the vaginal opening
Ridley Scott, Les Dilley, and Ivor Powell come to inspect his work just as he stated to apply texture. The lid of the egg which in O'Bannon's sketch sprang open like a jack in a box, Giger transformed into an organic vaginal like opening. When he takes the plastic sheets in which his work is draped, there is a howl of laughter from the whole group. He had lovingly endowed the egg with an inner and outer vulva us made from clay covered in sausage skins layer around the pink
aperture.
c) The Boardroom Meeting
In a meeting in the boardroom upstairs at Bray Studios, Nicky Allder recalled that after Ridley had seen the egg, someone said "what do you think of the egg?"
Ridley's exact response was "I think it's fucking obscene" and there was a deadly hush and everybody looked at each other
Gordon Carroll said "Ridley, what do you mean by "the egg looks obscene?"
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| vaginal opening of the original spore design |
Ridley responded "well, it looks like some great fanny" ("fanny" is an English term for "vagina")
There was another hush in the room before Gordon Carroll said in a voice that sounded like perfect Queen's English "Ridley, you have an alien running around with a three foot penis on his head, the alien spaceship has got three fifteen foot tall vaginas that the space people are walking through and you call the egg obscene!?"
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| Giger's work 363, Alien egg version II |
Giger is then told that Ridley thinks that it is too good and Gordon Carroll admits that it is too specific, he is afraid that it will get them into trouble especially in the catholic countries. Les Dilley has an idea about having something more like a flower opening and so H R Giger takes this and decided to double the bud effect, laying the two slits across each other and seen from above this would form a cross that the Catholic people are known to be fond of looking at. Seem from above, the opening would have the shape of a starfish. He was able to satisfy himself, the producers and the public at home and abroad all at once.
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| Giger painting the final eggs |
Source quotes
- SPORE PODS. These leathery, egg-shaped objects about one meter tall, which contain the larva of the Alien. They have a small "lid" in the top, which can pop off, when a victim approaches (Dan O'Bannon's letter to Giger, Giger's Alien, p10, )
- HR Giger: In O'Bannon's script, the top of the egg wasn't organic, but completely mechanical. I didn't like it that way. (Cinefantastique vol 9, no 1, p35)
- H.R.Giger (2nd August 1978, Shepperton Studios Car Park) First, for O'Bannon, I painted the egg of Alien I, the Facehugger in cross-section. Later, in Zürich, I changed this picture giving the egg a more organic looking. Now I've reached the point of preparing a full-size mould for the 80-cm-high (2ft 6in) egg. A hollow plaster egg is to be made for me in the plasterers' shop from this mould, to use as a modelling base for the opening and the construction. (Giger's Alien, p46)
- H.R.Giger (1st September 1978, Shepperton Studios) Scott, Carroll, Dilley and Powell appear to inspect my work, I had just started to apply a texture. The lid of the egg which in O'Bannon's sketch sprang up at a touch, I changed it into an organic, vaginal like opening. When I take off the plastic cloths in which my work is draped, there is a howl of laughter from the whole group. I had lovingly endowed this egg with an inner and outer vulva. To make it all look more organic, I filled some more preservatives with clay and arranged these semi-transparent little sausages on the pink aperture. (Giger's Alien, p46)
Giger's work 381; Alien Egg version III - H.R.Giger: So I build up this egg with a top like a vagina. But when the producers turned up in my studio, they exclaimed, "Oh that's too specific! We can't show such things in Catholic countries. Can't you change the egg just a little bit?" So to satisfy Catholic audiences, I modified the egg, and made the opening a cross on the top. (Cinefantastique vol 9, no 1, p35)
- Nick Allder: (33:14) They used to have, we used to have these meetings in Bray studios in one of the board rooms upstairs at the end of a shoot, we had er, it was Alan Ladd Jr who was the head of Fox at the time, one of the producers, lovely quiet American guy called Gordon Carroll, a real American gentleman if you want to put it that way, very soft spoken, beautifully spoken, Ivor Powell, Peter Beale was head of Fox UK and all that lot and we'd be sitting up, sitting up in the office in this board room and we'd be going through like a walk-round at Ridley's scene because we shot, while we were shooting the models, we also shot lots of inserts stuff for the rest of the main movie like for example the egg, and the egg, and Peter Voysey was a terrific sculptor, he'd actually sculpted the egg and they were making the egg for the very first time and they moulded it and done everything with it and the original egg and it opened up like that and anyway, Ridley had seen it, and we were sitting there having this meeting and er I think, I can't remember who it was, somebody said "what do you think of the egg?" And Ridley's exact words, "I think it's fucking obscene" and there was this deadly hush and every body looked around at each other and er Gordon Carroll said "Ridley, what do you mean, by the, the er, the egg is… looks obscene?", he said "well it looks like some great fanny". Well to English people a fanny is a… is a… is a woman's vagina, in the states a fanny is somebody's backside, it's referred to as totally different things but, so American people would understand it, to really get down to it, it's a woman's private parts (35:00). So it was this little hush that went around and then Gordon Carroll said "Ridley, you have the alien running around with a three foot penis on his head, " he said " the alien spaceship has got three fifteen foot tall vaginas that the space people are walking through and you call the egg obscene." I mean and that just cracked everybody up, it was the way he said it, it was a beautiful quiet kind of English spoken, perfect English, Oxford almost English, not American, it was the accent that disappeared as he came out with this you know three foot penis on his head and the the fifteen foot vaginas, anyway if you've noticed to this day that egg has got four, four quarters to it, and er, you know, that's how that, that's how that came about, but that happened to be a true story, but that was a bit of Ridley (Alien Makers IV)
the original alien egg with a single slit vagina shaped opening, finally seen
to be enclosing the body of Brett in the cocoon seen reinstalled and very
briefly seen in the Directors Cut of Alien - H.R.Giger (1st September 1978, Shepperton Studios) When the gentlemen are beginning to get over it, I allow myself to ask whether they like it. Scott thinks it's too good, and Carroll too specific. He's afraid it will get them into trouble, especially in the Catholic countries. Dilley would rather have something more like a flower opening. This suggestion gives me the idea of doubling the bud effect and laying the two, one across the other. Seen from above, they would form the cross that people in the Catholic countries are so fond of looking at. Once again I can satisfy the producers, myself and the public at home and abroad.(Giger's Alien, p46)
- H R Giger (1st September 1st 1979): In the plaster shop, I change the egg once more. Seen from above, the opening has the shape of a starfish. (Giger's Alien Diaries p523 )
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| spore with cross opening |
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