The "Independence Day" biomechanical suit

Leading from
 The "Space Jockey as a suit" question
and
Origins of Carlos Huantes babyhead
and
Patrick Tatopoulos

a) The concept of an extra terrestrials inside a suit

1. Roland Emmerich: I wanted them to follow the mythology of what people expect aliens to look like. There's a certain kind of popular image that everybody constantly draws and I wanted to stick to that. But on the other hand I thought, that's terribly boring. The first image of the alien is not what you think they typically look like. You later discover, in a surprise, that they're exactly how we think they should appear. We simply disguised them first and then slowly revealed their true appearance. (The Making of Independence day. p86)
2. S.F.X.: Comment s’est déroulée la création des extra-terrestres?
   Patrick Tatopoulos: Une fois que Roland m’a ré-orienté vers un design plus classique, j’ai
   

   conçu  deux versions différentes des créatures. Il les a étudiées toutes les
   deux, mais n’a pas pu me dire laquelle il préférait. C’est alors qu’a germé
   dans son esprit l’idée qu’il pourrait y avoir deux extra-terrestres dans le
   film, l’un se situant à l’interieur de l’autre. Il a présenté ça comme une
   sort de carapace organique qui donnerait une force colossale à une être au
   physique frêle. Mes deux concepts figurent donc dans le film.(SFX Octobre 1996, p30)
   
   
   A fusion of translations by Googletranslate and Babelfish of the above:
   SFX: How did the creation of extra-terrestrials take place?
   Patrick Tatopoulos: Once Roland got re-orientated to a more conventional design, I designed two different versions of the creatures. He studied both, but could not tell me which he preferred. It was then the idea germinated in his mind that there could be two aliens in the movie, one located inside the other. He presented it as an organic shell that would give a colossal force to a being that was physically frail. My two concepts appear in the film.
3. Patrick Tatopoulos: I tried to avoid a H.R. Giger look; I wanted the aliens to look like locusts with a reminiscence of a human. They were designed as living exoskeletons, like an oyster, with the pearl, or small alien, inside.(www.vfxhq.com, June 1998)

b) The Giger-esque nature of the design of the suit

1. Patrick Tatopoulos: Every time I draw something bio-organic, I hear, "That's very Giger." Ah, fuck! Giger has been so influential on me. And Giger defined biomechanical. Whenever you do it, you are screwed because it will look like Giger. That's the power of an incredible artist." (DeathRay, Jun/Jul 2009, p87)

c) The final suit has a head with a face that resembles the mask of the extra-terrestrial hunters from the movie Predator and the way the head stretches back in a narrow form makes it also resemble the creature from Alien, although the back of the head fans out like the fins of some tropical sea creature and this head is a pod for a another extra-terrestrial creature. The creature from Alien has tubes and a short tentacle sprouting from its back, one could never quite make say what these were for other than to balance out the form of the creature as a screen image, but the extra-terrestrial's suit has fully develiped long tentacles sprouting from it's back in a roughly similar way, however one could then make the claim that the suit is a semi-humanoid and very much scaled down version of a Martian War Machine from the War of the Worlds novel which has Martians traveling around in pods that walk around on three legs and have a multitude of tentacles sprouting from the side. (see images at the bottom of the page) Curiously enough Steven Spielberg made his own version of War of the Worlds and inside the Martian War Machines were extra-terrestrial occupants that looked as if they could have been inspired by Patrick Tatopoulos' alien creatures from Independence Day

Patrick Tatopoulos standing before his
sculpture of the biomechanical suit (source: SFX Octobre 1996, p28)

earlier sketch of the Independence Day 
Alien (The Suit) by Patrick Tatopoulos (source Internet)

biomechanical suit from "Independence Day" (source: SFX Octobre 1996, p29)

biomechanical suit from "Independence Day" (source Internet)

biomechanical suit from "Independence Day" (source Internet)

Tatopoulos prepares the alien for a scene in the Area 51 Laboratory
(source:S.F.X magazine #34 (UK Version) Jan1998, p86)

Independence Day alien coming out from inside the suit 
(source Internet)

Independence Day alien coming out from inside the suit (source Internet)

concept art by Patrick Tatopoulos

concept drawings for the extra-terrestrial invaders 
(source: SFX Octobre 1996, p30)

 maquette of an extra-terrestrial invader (source: SFX Octobre 1996, p30)

bodies aliens in of Independence Day preserved floating in tubes

A urethane rod and cable puppet of the invading alien species 
from Independence Day (20th Century Fox, 1996). This 14-inch-tall 
puppet is mounted on a brass rod with cables being fed through into the 
torso and limbs. Likely used in scenes showing the nuclear missile being 
fired into the heart of the mothership by Captain Hiller, played by 
Will Smith, and David Levinson, played by Jeff Goldblum. The 
puppet shows signs of production wear and age. Accompanied by a 
copy of  the film. Length, 39 inches  (source: http://www.julienslive.com/)

Independence Day Alien (The Suit) 
sketch by Patrick Tatopoulos  
(source: SFX Octobre 1996, p29)

detail of Independence Day Alien 
(The Suit) sketch by Patrick Tatopoulos
(source:S.F.X magazine #34 (UK Version) Jan1998, p86) 

side view of suit sketch by Patrick Tatopoulos  
(source:S.F.X magazine #34 (UK Version) Jan1998, p85)

plan for marionette of the alien suit by Patrick Tatopoulos 
(source: SFX Octobre 1996, p30)

toy version of alien suit

Influences

 Martian War Machines with tentacles

photograph from the original Predator movie

Giger's Alien with pipes sprouting out of the back

fan like form similar to fan like patterns on the side of the suit's head 
 (detail from Giger's Biomechanical Landscape 2 (work 319)

fan formation on suit head for comparison

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Josh Nizzi's Biomechanoid Predators/Predalien style designs for Transformers 3

Leading from

The Evolution of the Predalien

a) Back in 2007, the "live action" Transformers movie was released which featured the giant Transformer robots fighting their adversaries the Decepticons. In their natural form, the Transformers and Decepticons had a somewhat technoorganic form that could be perceived as loosely evolved from the style associated with art nouveau like technoorganic style Giger's art.

b) Once Alien Vs Predator: Requiem was unleashed onto the public, I myself started to wonder what could be done to design a Predalien that was better than the one from that film because I wanted to imagine something better. Then Transformers came out that year and I started to ask myself what could be done to design something in the style of the new techno-organic style that was starting to crop up in Transformers.

c) As it happens, for 2011's second sequel in the series I noticed that, Josh Nizzi, concept designer for Transformer 3 started designing Decepticons with dreadlocks, gothicky looking bodies and faces loosely similar to Predators and also exploring directions that designs for a Predalien might loosely go. The first of the images here, of Hooligan, appears to be the most prominent in this way.

d) Visit Joe Nizzi's Site

Hooligan

Dirtbag

 

Dread Wind

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Selling the script

leading from 
Alien

Stopped in the street

Script through the window  

Alan Ladd's Weekend Read 

Hunt for the director

Ridley receives the Alien script

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Michael Broom's "Pedator fighting an Alien/Predator hybrid in a Predator Cemetery"

leading from 

predators concept art by Michael Broom

Around the time of the release of Predators following on from his artwork for the movie, Michael Broom shared a new drawing of an Predator fighting an Alien/ Predator Hybrid in a Predator Cemetery and as soon as it was finished he shared the work with the AVPGalaxy Forum.

See other works by Michael Broom related to the Alien Mythos.

Pedator fighting an Alien/Predator hybrid in a Predator Cemetery" Shared with AVPGalaxy on August 1st 2010)

Michael Broom's preliminary sketch Shared with AVPGalaxy on August 1st 2010

Source quotes

1. Michael Broom: For those interested, Here's my initial sketch..you can see how rough and loose I started, and some of the notes i made to myself before starting. Then I just scanned this image into photoshop andd started to over lay colors and textures that I liked. I really had a tonal feel and atmoshere that I was going for...I wanted the thing stepping through the fog towards the character in the foreground (Which i almost darkened and blurred to obscure him totally).(AVPGalaxy, August 1st 2010)
2. Michael Broom:  As far as the Predator not having armor and such, i just didnt feel like drawing it.... Besides, there's nothing that i can think of that would be more intimidating than to be facing a big-ass monster with nothing but a spear. It was also kinda Inspired by all of those old Frazetta Conan images, and that dude NEVER painted clothes, haha 
3. Michael Broom: Well, it's not supposed to be completely a Giger alien, (but it does have some elements of that)...Perhaps a hybris of three different life-forms. Sorry, Fellahs... i'm no good at following rules.. I just like to make em up and come up with cool stuff i havent seen before. (AVPGalaxy, August 1st 2010)
4. Michael Broom:Why is it so big and have eyes though? -it's big Because I wanted it to feel imposing, and it has four eyes becuase i like lotsa eyes. (liking the concept or not is kind of a personal preference...I'd assumed it would be unpopular, there seems to be a pre-conceived notion of what a hybrid SHOULD or should not look like.) More than anything, i was trying to get an 'atmosphere' of a thing coming through the fog, and i liked the idea of a Predator cemetery.  (AVPGalaxy, August 1st 2010)

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Predators Concept Art by Michael Broom

Leading from :

Michael Broom

a) During his time with concept work for the movie Predators, Michael Broom drew another Alien-Predator hybrid.

Alien-Predator Hybrid "Predalien"

b) After the work for Predators was completed. Michael Broom drew painted another illustration of a Predalien this time fighting with a Predator which he shared with the forum of AVPGalaxy.com on August 1st 2010. click here for more about the piece.

"Pedator fighting an Alien/Predator hybrid in a Predator Cemetery" 
Shared with AVPGalaxy on August 1st 2010

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Jean Giraud/ Moebius' homage to the face on Mars

leading from  

Jean Giraud / Moebius 

 

a) In Moebius return to the world of Arzach with "Arzach L'Arpenteur" released in 2010 . At the top of a citadel, Moebius draws a crumbling mask like face staring up into the sky which Arzach discovers is the remains of a graverobbed mausoleum..

The cover of Moebius' "Arzach L'Arpenteur" 2010

b) This chinless face looking up to the sky from the top of a piece of architecture reflects the very much the idea of the face like structure in the Cydonia area of mars. The face had been first noticed in photographs taken by the Viking orbiter in 1976.  If the face on Mars is indeed a face, it is not completely like a human as we would know it, perhaps it displays simion qualities, maybe the two halves of the face are not supposed to be symmetrical and perhaps we are only seeing a severely damaged ruin if it is one.

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Predators concept work by Alex Toader

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