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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Gary Larson and the Deacon's pointed head

Posted on 6:42 AM by thoms

a) Dalekman61 at the AVPGalaxy forum came up with an image that's rather worrying in terms of Prometheus' Deacon. The shape of the head with the back point looks very similar to a Gary Larson's Alien Family Dinner cartoon featuring the Aliens from 10-5-1986.

b) Gary Larson was an American cartoonist, the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to over 900 newspapers for 15 years. The series ended with Larson's retirement on January 1, 1995

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Max Headroom as a running theme ?

Posted on 4:11 AM by thoms
leading from
Prometheus Afterthoughts



a) Arthur Max's team designed the mysterious chamber known at some point as "The Ampule Room" and also as "Steve Messing" was able to mention, "The Head Room". One might take the "Head Room" and Arthur Max's surname, connect them together and get "Max Head Room" and wonder what sort of a connection Arthur Max might have felt towards this semi-computer generated character. Numerous people were making the connection with Max Headroom seeing the head dominating the room since Max Headroom was such a popular character.


b) By 14th November 2013, on Facebook, I noticed that a certain Tracey B came to ask without this knowledge why David the android in Prometheus looked remarkably like Max Headroom.


c) I took another look at Arthur Max's background and found that back in June 1st 2012, Brendon Connelly of www.bleedingcool.com was able to trace Ridley Scott and Arthur Max's first meeting to when they made a Max Headroom Coca Cola commercial in the mid eighties. On his page he has a link to the commercial

Arthur Max,  Production designer of Prometheus


source quotes
  1. Arthur Max : My relationship with Ridley is one that began about 27 years ago, working on a commercial in London and it set the tone for our way of working together. It was probably the only other science fiction project I’ve done in my whole career. It was for Coca Cola and set in a dystopic future. I had to create a universe on location, a dark vision of a city, with vehicles. On that project I began to learn how he works and what his priorities were and very much the same sort of ideas have continued through every project we’ve worked on since. Ideas of how to use the light, and he’s particularly interested in the camera. He’s a painter and so he’s interested in composition. Then he likes to operate the camera himself so he likes to consider how he’s going to move it through the set. All of these elements have remained unchanged throughout our working relationship, no matter what the genre. (Arthur Max to Brendon Connelly. bleedingcool.com, June 1st 2012)
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Sunday, November 11, 2012

Holographic Universe a theme in Prometheus?

Posted on 5:47 AM by thoms
leading from
Prometheus Afterthoughts


a) Once I had seen the cover for Cinefex 130 released in June 2012, an emotional light shone from it in terms of what lay at the heart centre of Prometheus to say what it was really all about , the idea of this hologram of an orrery with representations of star systems and galaxies floating around, and as a vision of wonder, it subjectively asked me if the universe that we live in is a hologram and if so the discoveries in Prometheus that seemed out of context with Alien might in some way have their place if we take a look at the idea of a holographic universe and the other possibilities that might arise because of that.

b) Later in March 2013, Magictorch the illustrator created an illustration for BBC's Focus magazine that dealt with science and technology,  proclaiming the same idea "The Universe You Live In is a Hologram" with artwork inspired by the scene of the holographic orrery from Prometheus. The article was about the Fermilab holometer that would soon be used to find out if "the Universe is actually a hologram, - a 3D representation of an underling 2D reality. It would mean that we - and the planet on which we are - are holograms."



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Sunday, October 7, 2012

Carlos Huante

Posted on 7:04 AM by thoms
Ridley Scott with Carlos Huante

 1)  Carlos Huante's facehugger centipede

2) victim's cranial transformation concept

3) Carlos Huante's Babyhead

4) Origins of Carlos Huante's Babyhead

5) Carlos Huante's Pilot (not completely directed related to Alien) 
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Carlos Huante's Prometheus Notes

Posted on 4:53 PM by thoms

1. Dissection of a Space Jockey

2 . Facehugger - blob like molusc floats on a string of mucus (+ lympits)

3. Nothing from Alien 1 in this movie.

4. All structures are encrusted with abalone shell texture

5. Engineers - Spartans + giant furniture + xxxxxxxx


6. Scarabs - They Swarm in - Hit the face mask like this,  - when they are squished - they bleed acid

7. Ultramorph


polished abalone shell


Facehugger centipede - to show that this design worked but was an experiment and elements were used for this "Facehugger"

The Ultramorph - unlike the "Alien" from the first Alien which were covered / or had a exoskeleton, the Ultramorph should still be covered with skin as genetically

(Transcribers note: N.B. I first thought that the word "genetically" was "centrally" but it's makes sense if Carlos wrote "genetically""

it is still "New"... and its host are the engineers. it would be an evil variant of the (ANGELS) Engineers. Ultramorphs should still have a regal Quality about them as that quality has been inspired by their host.

So, to carry the "No Bones" motif.

- Sand  Dollars are very interesting. They are organic but look engineered.
I think this interior to the Alien Ship should look like Sand Dollars.

A sand dollar related to the sea biscuit and the sea urchin.


Okay, so instead of the Ultramorphs being clean and skin covered, after some discussion with Ridley and what needs to happen sequentially with the story of how we end up with this "Alien" in the first film. I'm thinking that what if the engineer technology is all that ribbing and boney architecture that's  all over the ship  and the "Alien" itself. So... the "Aliens" that come out or are born out of the humans should be clean and the skin covered because they are not saturated with ----------

the Genetic material of the source (Engineers) yet. So, they are more human looking, the "Ultramorphs" should be the first we see of the boney Exoskeleton on a creature.

The engineer tech should form as water (Milky Liquid) that pours unnaturally upward and over them (The Engineers) to form boney plating or ribs, and architectural surfaces. Like they control it at a molecular level.

- 2 Different chestbursters

- The Ultramorph chest burster should start to reminisce the chestburster from the first movie.

- The Xenomorph chestburster is the four limbed octopus looking "Burster"

- I was thinking that the Xenomorphs in this film should not have the ejecting mouth/tongue. These grandfather morphs should have completely unhinged mandibles. The pallette and the jaw should be something like a goblin shark mouth/ like an architeuthis beak.


storyboard sketches from notebook


I was also thinking that they could, in place of the ejecting tongue, produce and "Acid Ball" that they "spit" at the victims.

- after meeting-

- Today Ridley loved his open mouth and Acid Ball for the "Bishop".

- The Baby Head Shwa alien is in, transformation also. To show growth cycle.

(transcribers note Huante writes Shwa whatever that means, and he uses this word again in the labeling for this creature design image on his website)

-The four tailed chestburster is now a creature in the Love Scene Blood Bath-
( For a Better Tomorrow) ésque

-Maybe no Ultramorph.

The trogs I was thinking should look like a xxxx octopus. The face of it, or belly could be smooth with the beak of an architeuthis that Ridley likes.

The back should look like the back of a man, like it should have a spine with multiple shoulder blades. It would really be cool if it looked or felt like the back of a man.

beak of an architeuthus squid
goblin-shark mouth

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Engineer's Technology

Posted on 4:36 PM by thoms
Leading from 
The Engineers


There was the idea that the people who inhabited the planet that they visit in Prometheus have technology is beyond anything that we're able to or understand, but the design team had to make it visually interesting.

source quotes
  1.  L'Ecran Fantastique: À propos, les space jockeys ont-ils un vrai nom

    Ben Procter: Nous avons fini par les appeler "les ingénieurs", parce qu'ils ont implanté des  formes de vies humanoides dans toute la galaxy (L'Ecran Fantastique Hors Série no 16. p31)

    Googletranslate
    : Ecran Fantastique: About the space jockeys do they have a real name?

    Ben Procter: We ended up calling them "engineers" because they have implemented humanoid lifeforms throughout the galaxy
  2. Arthur Max:  “The people who inhabit this planet, called the Engineers, and their technology, is beyond anything we’re able to know or understand, but it has to be visually interesting. ” (Source: spotlightreport.net, 18th April 2012)
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As Revealed In The Film

Posted on 4:26 PM by thoms
Leading from 
The Engineers

In the film's story, when Elizabeth Shaw and Holloway conceived the mission to find the engineers, their expectations was that they were on their way to Paradise and would discover a benevolent species that might provide answers to some of humanity's greatest mysteries. In other words, they were hoping to meet god, but these being prove to be anything but compassionate.

Instead they are a dangerous race of superbeings and their destination was a dark, twisted and frightening world, a way station to these beings. The cold and implacable environment is more like hell than heaven.

  1. Executive producer Michael Ellenberg: When Shaw and Holloway conceived the mission, their expectation was they would discover a benevolent species that might provide answers to some of our greatest mysteries, In other words they were hoping to meet gods.  But these beings prove to be anything but compassionate.  They are a dangerous race of superbeings. (screenslam April 21, 2012)  
  2.  Jon Spaihts: The crew of the Prometheus thinks they’re headed to paradise to discover answers to the ultimate questions.  But what they find is a dark and twisted and frightening world – a way station for these beings. The cold and implacable environment is more like hell than heaven.  (screenslam April 21, 2012)
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