Foss' Derelict

Leading From :

The Design Of The Derelict
and

Early Alien Artwork

a). Chris Foss's Derelict Ship. Foss possessed a colorful and flamboyant style O'Bannon considered ideal for the derelict ship and its benign aliens. His design actually bears a resemblance to the description given in Dan O'Bannon's original script which was something comparable to a titanic lobster and happened to be the one that Dan approved of the most.

concept for derelict by Chris Foss, no.1

"Through billowing dust-clouds, a huge SHAPE appears. The dust clears, and THEY SEE:

A GROTESQUE  CRAFT, nose down in the sand like some titanic lobster"

(1)Dan O'Bannon's DVD version of the early Alien script.

concept for derelict by Chris Foss no.2

b). Pictures number 1 and 2 both have the same front, one can see nearly the whole body of the 1st resting upon the sand,  and the 2nd like the 3rd is half buried in the sand, (perhaps both would come across as concepts easier to put on screen than the 1st.)  The 2nd also has a fin like structure poking out of the sand behind it roughly similar to the third one. The 3rd one can also be seen to be a reinterpretation of Chris Foss' design for a Harkonnen Flagship from Jodorowsky's Dune ill fated Dune project in 1975. Both ships have a main central body vertical with arms branching to down the side ending vast bauble like engines

1) Visit Chriss Foss's website: ChrisFossArt.com
2) Read about the Unseen Dune at the the Dune Info website: DuneInfo.com

derelict no.3

1. Foss possessed a colorful and flamboyant style O'Bannon considered ideal for the derelict ship and its benign aliens. (Cinefex 1, p36)
2. Dan O'Bannon "I conceptualised the derelict as a gnome's castle - colorful and interesting and bizarre as hell, but not morbid. Chris Foss did a wonderful painting of the ship, which is still my favourite, bronzed lobster like thing sitting in the sand, very technological, very odd looking, very difficult to work out how it would fly" (Cinefex 1, p64)

Foss's unused 1975
Harkonnen Flagship design

earlier sketch of unused 1975 
Harkonnen Flagship design

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Foss' derelict pt B

leading from 

Foss' Derelict pt B

Chris Foss' derelict no.3 
(no number has been given by the artist)

First draft storyboards for special photographic effects displays images of a Chris Foss's derelict ship no.3.  The storyboards presented in the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set released in 2010 were put together by Ron Cobb and Chris Foss

A question that arises is whether or not the image is based on the painting that O'Bannon finally settled on from Foss design of the derelict?

a) The first image here shows a silhouette of the derelict  in the storm 

b) The second shows the derelict after the clouds have cleared and a side entrance is seen. 

c) The third shows a high angle shot looking over the top of the derelict down onto the men approaching, 

d) The fourth shows a low angle close up of the top and the curved arms bridging across , the men's point of view as the approach the vessel. 

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Cobb's concepts

From:

The Design Of The Derelict
and 
Early Alien Artwork

a) Cobb's problem as an alien spaceship designer.

1. Dan O'Bannon: "The only problem was that he was a rationalist. I noticed this when we first started designing the picture. All these different things he as doing were coming out so well that I decided to have him  take a crack at the derelict spaceship. But when I asked him to come up with an irrational shape he got very disturbed. He couldn't handle that. He kept coming up with convincing technology for a flying saucer or some other kind of UFO." (Cinefex 1, p43)

b)  Ron Cobb created two paintings that featured his designs for derelict space crafts.

Alien derelict

b i) An alien derelict:
A design for the alien derelict space craft made up from curved shapes that could easily contain the space jockey design that he created.

1. Future life #23 in an article about Ron Cobb mentions briefly that craft was to be destroyed, without any further word about this.

Manmade derelict -"Black Ship and Cylinder"

b ii)) "Black Ship and Cylinder"
A concept painting showing the remains of a manmade ship and a cylindrical tower with human explorers wandering around shining their torches.

1. The Book of Alien says about this picture that the searchers find a lost Earth base where previous travelers fought a losing battle with aliens.
2. In Starburst 14, 1979,  John Brosnan was handed a script by the publisher of the Alien novelisation and he mistakingly believed it was the original script but it was instead was a rewrite by Giler and Hill . His words about it were:"The original script reveals that the eggs are a part of a genetic engineering experiment being carried out by the same Earth company that employs the crew of the Nostromo. The company is illegally involved in a project to create a perfect killing machine - the "alien" of the title. Unknown to the crew of the Nostromo the ship has been programmed to pick up one of the eggs, activate it and return the resulting creature to the company headquarters. The crew themselves  are merely expendable guineau pigs being used to see just how effective the company's deadly creation is. But the crew or some of them, learn the truth when they discover that one of their number is actually a robot working under the direct orders of the company."
3. At the bottom of the painting as shown in the Alien from the Quadrilogy DVD set released in 2003, there is a copy of the picture and presents at the bottom of the picture the ominous words "Black ship and cylinder". This painting was a concept for a different version of the script than the final one.
4. A copy of a script featuring the black ship and the cylinder enters my hands on 31st January, 2011 (many thanks to Valaquen of Strange Shapes). The description of the alien derelict has been made much simpler, into the form of a human built space craft. The black ship is a new version of an L-52 craft, perhaps named after the B-52 bomber. In this scenario, the old L-52 craft is known to generally go with a compliment of seven people. The disfigured remains of one dead human astronaut are discovered. So it is revealed that in this script, the egg silo is replaced by a concrete cylinder, is said in the script to be a government model 503, with the silo beneath the ground. When Dallas arrives at the top, he discovers a wheel recessed into contiguous pillbox with spokes shaped to accept clutching hands. When turned, a few meters away an opening appears in the Cylinder's surface. Down below he finds the egg silo, with a plinth on the ground upon which are rows of the leathery urns, the spores

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Ridley's Criteria

From

The Design Of The Derelict

Chris Foss's lobster derelict ship

When Ridley joined the project, Chris Voss's lobster derelict had been the design that O'Bannon wanted, however it didn't satisfy Ridley and he then went through a number of different ideas for the ancient derelict ship before he settled on the concept that finally interested him that we see in the final movie. 

1. Fantastic Films: "What are the criterian for credibility in the design of alien spacecraft?"
   Ridley Scott : "I have come to accept a wide variety of possibilities. And strangely enough, the more mundane something is, the more it can sometimes stagger people. Simplicity can be more powerful than you think. Take a UFO for example. How do you design it so people believe it? One of the best UFO shots is one from the thirties with the portholes. It looks like an inverted plate with a sort of cap on it . And oddly enough it's rather archaic, it appeals to me as a solution, rather than an incredibly refined, sleek spacecraft. I like the idea of a spaceship where you've got no idea what kind of energy drives it and you've never seen anything quite like it before. "
   
   
   
   Fantastic Films: "Like Giger's instead of the Foss conceptions?"
   
   Ridley Scott : "Foss' ideas were interesting but they tended to all look alike. Giger's craft was definitely not of this world"  (Fantastic Films (UK)# 3, (US) No.12, p27)

Ridley was probably talking about George Adamski's photographs of flying saucers such as the 
Venusian Scoutship that were taken in the early 1950s. See photograph of flying saucer on the right).

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Moebius' concept

From

The Design Of The Derelict

a) When Moebius arrived on the project and stayed for a short time, Ridley had him design a derelict ship and Moebius came up with a view of the vessel in the distance on a landscape and a closeup of the vessel's observation dome. The shape of it might be comparable to a space rocket capsule or an inverted spinning top.

Moebius's derelict ship

Moebius' derelict with
observation dome

a.ii)  Addition derelict concept sketches for Alien

b) In the Ridleygram of the derelict being revealed,  Ridley drew more than one of Moebius' derelict and connects the pods with long bridge tunnels. He told Fantastic Films in an interview that it was Moebius's design. The way that Ridley drew the derelict closer up makes it look organic as if it has been slight Gigerised and because of the shape resembles Giger's egg silo. At this stage, Ridley's own design for the egg silo was based on Giger's Castle Harkonen from Dune shown in Giger's Necronomicon.

Ridlegram: Derelict is revealed

c) Giger's breast shaped egg silo was initially a pyramid that soon undergone an extreme transformation in design to something more organic looking.

Giger's Egg silo design, work378

d) In the Ridleygram showing the exterior of the derelict, is the hole an entrance or an observation dome hole. In Moebius' derelict ship, on the side there is an observation bubble where the pilot seat faces towards.

Ridleygram: Exterior Of Derelict

e) In the Ridleygram of the derelict entrance, in the distance, out through the entrance, on the side of the pod in the distance we see the side of the observation dome.

Ridleygram: Derelict Entrance

f) Ridley told Fantastic Films magazine that this pod was his interpretation of Moebius design, but also we know that he has been using the Giger's Necronomicon as a bible. Ridley Scott was not satisfied with these ideas, and he thought that Moebius design looked too Victorian so he was keen to take it a step in new direction.

1. Ridley Scott: This was a Moebius idea of the derelict. It's actually rather nice and slightly archaic and feintly Victorian for some reason or other. I quite liked it but we finally decided, it simply wasn't strange enough - not unearthly enough. It was too normal, so therefore Giger came up at a much later stage and did another one (p28, Fantastic Films (GB) #2/(US) No.12)

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Moebius concept ii

Leading from: Moebius' concept

Moebius concept sketch for Ridley Scott, both are ideas for the Alien derelict ships, the second definitely in the vein of Chris Foss' concept designs for the derelict ship. If the upper drawing turns out to be a concept for the Nostromo rather than a derelict ship, that's not for me to say. However while it may be Foss inspired one can also make a comparison to the Eagle Transporter from the hit TV series Space 1999 originally aired from 1975-1977.
See comparison to Space 1999's Eagle Transporter

Moebius concept sketch for ridley scotts Alien
(source: http://theairtightgarage.tumblr.com)

detail1

detail2

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From Giger's Necronomicon

From

The Design Of The Derelict

Giger had drawn something up
that looked almost like a musical
instrument(Work 280: Mordor IV)

 Morder IV detail, 4 valves lower centre

If we look at the picture Mordor IV to the right, the central face at the top appears to be putting it's mouth to the opening of a croissant shaped thing, so I take this to be the picture and upon this structure are a series of four valves, which could easily be seen as the entrances to the derelict interior but Ridley decided to reduce the number of entrances to three (and then the number three appeared to come through as a repeating theme all over the alien pilot's chair and the body of the alien monster itself)

origins of wreck entrance design

Giger wanted to do some research for the alien ship and Ridley Scott realised that he had too much to do as it was, so he took it onto himself to find something in Giger's Necronomicon that was going to serve as the basis for the design of a ship that he wanted, and so he studied one of the paintings and found something like a musical instrument such as a saxaphone, he drew around it and as he recalls, said "What about this, it looks like a giant croissant" and then perhaps it looks like a boomerang. This was to be the basis of derelict ship that Giger would further develop. He first came up with a design that resembled a saxophone and Ridley Scott recalls that his response was "No, this one goes a little too far in the unusual." So a second version of the design was accomplished which Ridley accepted.

source quotes

1. Ridley Scott:" Au départ, Giger voulait se lancer dans des recherches de designs pour le vaisseau étranger, mais je lui ai dit “Non, tu es déjà beaucoup trop occupé par tout ce que tu as à faire. Si tu ajoutes cela au rest, tu ne finirais jamais ton travail à temps!“ J’ai décidé d’y réfléchir de mon côté. J’ai repris son album Necronomicon , et je me suis attaché à scruter les détails de ses grands dessins pour y trouver une forme basique qui pourrait être celle du vaisseau. J’ai pensé que c’etait une démarche logique, car elle nous permettrait de rester dans son universe graphique. J’ai déniché un détail intéressant que j’ai soumis à Giger et à mon équipe de décorateurs, et au début, ils m’ont présenté quelque chose qui avait le form d’un saxophone! Je leur ai dit “Non, là on va un peu trop loin dans l’insolite“. Ce n’est que dans un second temps qu’ils ont conçu ce superbe objet courbe. Une fois que cet aspect a été finalisé, j’ai donné au vaisseau étranger le surnom de “cuirassé“, parce qu’il a l’aspect d’un bateau de guerre."(Ecran Fantastique Hors-Serie #29, p13)
   Translation
   Ridley Scott: "Initially, Giger wanted to go into research designs for the alien ship , but I told him "No, you're already too busy with all that you do. If you add this to the rest, you never finish your work on time "I decided to reflect on my side. I picked up the album Necronomicon, and I am attached to scrutinize the details of his large drawings to find a basic form which could be that of the vessel. I thought it was a logical step, as it would allow us to stay in his graphic universe. I found a interesting detail that I submitted to Giger and my team of designers, and at first they showed me something that had the form of a saxophone! I said "No, this one goes a little too far in the unusual."It is only in a second time they have designed this beautiful curved object. Once this has been finalized, I gave the foreign vessel the nickname "battleship", because it has the appearance of a warship"
2. Ridley Scott : "I took the drawing of the space ship off a section of one of Giger's Necronomicon, and he'd drawn something up that almost looked like a musical instrument, so I kind of drew around that, and said "what about this? it looks like a giant croissant", but actually it worked, like a boomerang. paintings, 'cause we couldn't work out what the hell the spaceship was going to look like, and so I was staring at his book, the... " (Alien DVD commentary)

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