This post will be very different than part I because part I was about two almost identical designs and shedding a light on the minutia differences between the two while mostly showcasing how identical they are (See HERE). In Alien 3, the Alien got a complete redesign, as it should, since it was to be a different type of a creature, but that design will define alien look for many movies to come
Alien 3 was also the first time the Alien creature has been stripped of all of its biomechanicality, which would never fully return to the creature ever again, leaving only the first two films with biomechanoid Aliens.
The creature in Alien 3 was always suppose to be coming out of an animal and be different than the ones in the first two movies, which was a fantastic idea to do something different but not different too much - it's simply another alien, but this time more ferocious and different looking because it comes out of an animal, and the aliens draw from their host's DNA (an idea going back all the way to the 70's). Originally it was all suppose to be all animatronic, or at least that's what David Fincher told Giger, but that later changed to a man-in-a-suit again combined with predominantly a pasted-in rod puppet.
H.R. Giger himself was contacted again to come back to the mythology and design the Creature for Alien 3 which he did, but his designs were scrapped and some vague ideas were incorporated by people who actually designed the new Alien and created it for the screen - a brand new Studio ADI, helmed by 2 young guys who quit Winston Studios to start their own.
Below, H.R.Giger's design for the alien in Alien 3
Now, there was a very bad blood between Giger and the young ADI guys who were eager and tried to jump start their careers, because of them not using Giger's designs and them pompously stating in the press that they made a better Alien than Giger, criticizing his original suit. I'm not gonna go into all that and it's all covered well HERE and HERE ), however I will address the lack of biomechanicality and the reason behind it.
To be honest, I also thought, like David Fincher or ADI, whoever made the call to discard Giger's designs, that his designs were a little too out there and too removed from the original and despite ADI's pompous attitude, I love their design and think it's perfect for the film (I can separate personalities from their work). Alien 3 is brutal, dirty, cruel. Just like the artistic expressionist, backlit style of the first movies wouldn't be a good fit for the third movie, just the same a walking nightmarish art sculpture wouldn't fit the movie either. It was the 90's, it was grunge. So just like the characters and environments in the movie were filthy and depressing, the new Alien, called The Runner, would be a disgusting, fleshy monster. The aliens in the first two films were scary but beautiful to look at. The Runner is plain repulsive and nasty, and I think that fit the film
For the comparisons, I'll be only using photos of the actual suits and props from the movie - photos of the screen-used props from official confirmed auctions, museums and set/workshop photography from the production. There are many figures and replicas and busts, and they're never 100% accurate, so we'll be using only photos of the real thing.
I. BIOMECHANICS TRADE FOR ORGANIC
Making a more typical monster out of Alien by stripping him of the biomechanicality wasn't a grand design however, and was only due to ADI guys not understanding what biomechanicality is, which they proved in multiple interviews when often asked about getting rid of it for all the movies that they worked on. They gained access to the original suit and were surprised by the fact that the original alien suit actually had tools and mechanical parts, assuming it was all Giger had to work with, and they vowed to "improve it" and make it organic looking. But they missed the point that it was always his style to fuse mechanical parts with bones. The plumbing ribbed tubes appear unaltered in his paintings, it wasn't a lack of material or experience.
Tom Woodruff of ADI:"Fox provided us with many pieces of the original Alien creature suit and head. Within those pieces, you could actually see castings of mechanical bits; valves and plumbing pieces, some with catalogue numbers visible that had been etched into the pieces that were molded." (Strange Shapes blog interview) " Some of the things he (Giger) had done in the first film were completely serendipitous" (meaning success by accident. Quote source: Cinefex magazine)
Here's a screen used head from the original which shows the above mentioned serial numbers on the actual parts.
Still, Giger always meant to have an actual parts as part of his art. That was intentional. Look at his painting Erotomechanics for example, not only it contains an actual ribbed tube, but metal diverter which was also on the original alien
H.R.Giger: "My style of painting is a combination of art and technical stuff. I call it biomechanics - kind of a surrealist mixture of biology and technology and I wanted the Alien to have those same qualities"
Here's another example of mechanical parts in a work-in-progress head of Giger for the original movie
So the "mechanics" in biomechanics went away for good. The suit however, would be built like the original, which means highly detailed “hero” suit. The aliens in the second film were made out of simple materials such as spandex and plastic because they were always meant to be shot as silhouettes or appear in a flash. The alien in the third movie would be more visible in lingering shots, like the original. The suit was made in foam latex
Tom Woodruff of ADI"“We tried to give it an organic, sculptural feel"(Cinefex magazine)
"We tried to suggest these (Giger's) same shapes, but in a very organic way" (ImagiMovies magazine)
Alec Gillis of ADI added: "Our goal was to sculpt Giger’s designs into repeating organic textures(...) we wanted to make this creature into a believable organism.”
David Fincher: "[Alien 3's] Alien is not as elegant a creature as it was before, but it's more vicious"
To see the result, you can compare how the mechanical parts in the head, the only part of the body fairly similar to the original, turned into organic elements
The neck has been redone completely to resemble an organic, disgusting (in a good way) monster neck with warts
II. HEAD
The head (excluding the front) was one of only few vague similarities to the original (the other one being shoulder appendages and hands). It still had the penis look and the side designs (although in fleshy version), but it was much shorter. The giant neck made the head seem even shorter than it was
It was a different shape however. The Runner's head is a single shape, while the original was almost a two-piece in shape, something that's more visible from the top. There are indents on the original where the long head joins with the skull piece in the original. The Runner's head is one shape
The back of the head is also different. It doesn't have that split design the alien had in the first two films.
Another similarity of course is the return of the dome, although what was under has been completely redesigned - the head underneath had a pattern of overlapping ridges or flaps, which are vaguely similar to the design Giger did for Alien 3. The dome was also transluscent in certain scenes, like in the original. It was barely visible, but one completely clear dome was made for Clemens' death scene in order to create a specific shadow.
The head is also much slimmer than the original, and has female lips, which was also in Giger's Alien 3 designs, however, while this may fit perfectly into Giger's art style, it was Fincher's idea originally. The translucent lips are gone and would be gone for decades to come
Better look at the lips
The Runner head as it appears today
II. BODY
The body itself is completely different, as it should be, since it's a movie of a very different feel and look, and the creature comes out of an animal
The shoulder appendages were turned into something that resembles a cancerous growth, and they're grown into the arms with a flesh mass. On one hand you can say oh, from Giger's art to monstrosity but again, that design, that approach fit this particular movie so much better.
You can see the muscle that connect the shoulder appendage with an arm being sculpted below
Also, since the creature runs on all fours and the head would have to be almost against the back, the backs had been clear of all the designs - the exhaust pipes and the fishtail.
ADI said that Giger told them he never liked the back tubes on the original and did them only to break from human form (which wouldn't be accurate because the tubes are present in the Necronom IV painting which was the first inspiration for Alien). Still, apparently he indeed felt that way, but it's perfectly normal for an artist to be critical of his work years later, wishing to do some things differently. He started to criticize nearly everything about the original Alien design in 1992 (hands, pipes, tail, ribcage). Again, a typical behavior towards an older art piece from an artist.
III. HANDS
What also made a comeback along the smooth head, was the 6 digit hand with two thumbs, although of much different design than the original
And also this time, another trait was added that would be a mainstay of alien design for decades - the alien got digitigrade legs. The human-legs were gone forever since Alien 3. Below, a comparison of the original with Alien 3 rod puppet, since the rod puppet was the primary alien on the screen and the official Dog Alien design.
But if you wish to see the suit's legs, here they are. But again, they were never suppose to be seen onscreen
The digitigrade legs made all the sense in the world, considering the fact that this specific alien came out of an animal. But again, it might not have been a reason behind that design, even if obvious, and Studio ADI might have just really like this type of leg design - they included it in all of their alien designs in subsequent movies. One of their first creatures, Pumpkinhead, also had digitigrade legs.
V. TAIL
While generally similar, the tail has been redesigned as well, just like everything in the Runner. The tip is the most noticeable change. The aliens in the first two movies had a small blade, like a tribal knife. The Runner has a sword at the end of its tail, an idea taken from Giger's design for the Alien 3
and also for the first time placed more traditionally, as coming out of the tail bone rather than anus like the original
VI. SKIN
Several works of Giger had been referenced in the Runner's design. The back draws from Giger's designs for Poltergeist II, the ribbed look, the large shoulder blades (fact noticed by Alien Explorations)
The Runner's design, being that of a fleshy monster, may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the one area of its design which is undisputedly art is the paint job. They studied Giger's paintings to paint the whole body, bottoms of the feet included, in Giger's style, and I think their work is jaw dropping
Tom Woodruff: "We really wanted to go back to the original paintings and designs for Giger, which hadn’t been fully realized.(...) [We tried to] remain truer to his [Giger’s] concepts than even he had been." (Cinefex magazine). "We relied heavily on images of Giger’s work from his own Necronomicon as the guide, seeking to replicate the organic life of that creature in more specific “Giger” detail than what was represented in the work of both Alien and Aliens. (Strange Shapes Interview)
Alec Gillis of ADI: "“Even Alien wasn’t completely true to Giger’s vision. I don’t mean to be pompous, but his own suit wasn’t accurate to his paintings."
Pompous comments that infuriated Giger aside, they did indeed clearly studied Giger's airbrushing style very well. Some examples (examples of Giger art from Alien Explorations)
Even the paintjob under the feet is even impressive and reminiscent of Giger's work Look at the thighs, the legs - fantastic airbrush work, and I'd be fooled myself into thinking it was done by Giger himself.
The result was actually quite a piece of airbrush art which actually never makes the film becuase its been covered by flesh. For the first time, the alien was not 99% bones. The ADI guys also insisted on portraying the alien themselves
However, they decided to add organic finish to to all, and add a sloughing skin which continued the process of making the alien into a more biological, organic creature. Pity the airbrushing got lost in it all, however all the original detail was retained in the rod puppet. Also note the hip bones - it was the first design that included them, and they stayed with Alien design from then on
The grey as oppose to black worked well for the film's color theme. The first two movies had cold colors, lots of blues, and a completely different style, lots of german expressionism. That was different, that was a "modern" 90's style, copying the popular color tone of the time, going into completely different direction - contemporary look and warm colors, lots of yellows, orange and browns. It was a popular look for music videos of the first few years of the 1990's, and coincidentally David Fincher was a music video director. (Below, music videos from Nirvana, Chesney Hawkes, The Cranberries from the early 90's)
The Runner was the first Alien with no biomech features, animal legs and flesh, but it still retained the most recognizable features of the alien like the sexually suggestive head. Even that element would be gone in next films and I have no sympathy and absolutely no defense for the future designs from the subsequent 4 films featuring the alien. But the Runner I felt fit the film’s look and tone and just about made it.
Below, the only released shot from a promotional Photoshoot of the Runner. It was used as a cover for Cinefex magazine and Alien Special Effects Book
So what did H.R.Giger thought of the design of the Runner? He did like the head, but disliked everything else
H.R.Giger: ""In the end, it was just a slimy creature"(ImagiMovies magazine)
" It was worse than anything I had seen. Only the head was very well done" (French magazine)
“I like the Alien head very much, that was nicely done, but not the neck … "
"The thing I don’t like really is when [the Alien] opened its mouth and the silly tongue comes out. I never liked this tongue. I always wanted to eliminate it, but Ridley Scott wanted it. It was okay in [Alien] because it [shot out]. But in the third it comes out slowly like false teeth.”
All this stuff is great for us geeks and diehard fans, but I hope it's gonna be an interesting read for passive fans as well. For the new generation of fans, I hope to shed some light on the terrific designs and details that just aren't visible in the film (and rightfully so - the Alien trilogy is the only set of Alien movies in which the Alien is kept in the shadows or some terrific, artistic lighting). But those great designs need to have a spotlight. And it's unfair to point out to the current generation, when I was getting a bit more into those movies as a teenager, even though I owned them and watched them few times, I never knew at that point how the alien's torso looks like, and didn't know much about its design other than the head. And I didn't even know that there was something under the cowl. I'm assuming passive fans would also think "Oh, smooth head, Alien 3 is closer to the original" while it's actually the first one that radically departed from the original design, paving a road for future designs that went even much further away. That's why so many fanarts mix those things up - the fanarts that are suppose to be for original Alien movie often use the design from AvP where even the head completely different and of a different shape even. And that's fine, just inaccurate. The current generation is less about digging into the mythologies. That's a thing for us, slightly older folks, so we can't roll our eyes when they mix things up or don't know facts that for us seem like common knowledge. And again, many people who really love these movies and can quote them don't know much about the alien design because you only see impression of it in the first films. They wouldn't know there were any changes made to the designs in any of the films. So I hope those articles will be enjoyable for them and the elder, know-all diehards, who will simply (hopefully) appreciate them for good visual comparisons and maybe they'll find a thing or two they didn't know about
Signing off
Shout out to Alien Explorations and Monsterlegacy blogs. And be sure to check out the absolute best Alien fact source , the Strange Shapes blog HERE.
Go back to http://jamescamerononline.com/ALIENTRILOGY.htm
