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)
Wednesday, December 10, 1997
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
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