The original design of the Alien, as well as the painting that inspired it, Necronom IV, is pure
BIOMECHANICS: a visual approach invented by the late and beloved Swiss artist H.R. Giger.
Necronom IV, 1976.Final Alien Monster III concept, 1978.The term "biomechanics" does not define every mix of organic and mechanics, it is unlike the robots wrapped in living tissue of
The Terminator (1984) or the raw mix you can see in Virus (1999) for example. Biomechanics imply
a seamless and elegant mix of the living and the dead, a seemingly functional, elegant, purposeful creature with intricate details.
Besides the biological and the biomechanical, Giger's biomechanics predominantly integrate:
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Overtly sexual elements: mostly penis, testicles, breast, clitoris and vagina
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Firearm elements: Giger worked in the military and firearms factory and integrates such patterns to the general structure
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Bone shapes and textures: skulls are common, as are ribcages and patellas
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Mythological, liturgal elements: the anatomy, postures, composition evoke the legends, beliefs and practices of ancient civilizations on a regular basis. Textbook example: some of Giger's
preliminary designs for the facehugger integrated an ancient Egyptian funerary tool to the morphology of the parasitoid, a variation of plier designed to open the mouth of the corpse
- A search for the
functional and the
aerodynamicIn the seventies, biomechanics became H.R. Giger's dominant style, and he came to celebrate it for the rest of his life. He created countless drawings, sculptures and painting in this style. He brought biomechanical creatures to multiple movies, the most significant one besides the initial Alien being Sil in
Species. He built biomechanical architectures, machines, pieces of furniture now admired all over the world. In the end, Giger's very tombstone now displays biomechanical patterns.
H.R. Giger's statue of Sil. The design integrates an unused concept for the Alien: transparency.A fashionable biomechanical seat.HR Giger Bar in Gruyères.Biomechanics would come to inspire a large part of our modern visual culture. Science fiction, cinema, comic books, video games, even the toy industry were forever changed by Giger's approach. The strange shapes echo in a myriad of elements as soon as the eighties (see Cronenberg's body horror) and give birth to stranger and stranger things.
The video game Scorn is one of the most respectful homages to Giger's work.
In the case of the Alien universe, biomechanics informed not only the adult Alien, but also the Space Jockey and the Derelict ship. It makes for large part of the success and impact of the movie.
The problem is
the Alien became gradually more organic, drifting away from biomechanics.
It starts out subtly enough. The Alien Queen in AlienS, an all-new Big Jim/Stan Winston design (Giger was kept out of the production by James Cameron), is already a little more fleshy, displaying more of a traditional insect-inspired carapace, but she is still generally biomechanical (and, as a new creature, the comparison with the original is complicated). The Dragon in Alien 3 is largely beautiful biomechanics, but displays a few more fleshy detail (mostly in the neck).
The Dragon, or Runner, was the last "true biomechanical" Alien cinema would see for a long time.Then things take a dire turn with Alien: Resurrection. Following both Jean-Pierre Jeunet's visual obsession with dirty meat and corpses and Joss Whedon's screenplay indicating a new strain of creatures more deeply mixed with human DNA, the Cloned became the first FLESHMORPHS.
The Cloned redesign created for Alien: Resurrection.The surface is muddy. Muscle and sinews are everywhere. The palette and texture are evocative of reptiles, amphibians, insects and squids, drifting away from machines and skeletons. The shoulders are no longer bony/robotic pivots, but membranous masses tied to the collar tubes. Hands have turned into amorphous palms with tentacle-like fingers. The feet have morphed into dinosaur feet. The profile is less bulbous, more feral.
This, to many adorers of Kane's Son, is the point of no return. This is no longer our beloved child of the void. This is the advent of the
FLESHMORPH.
The Fleshmorph would then become the face of the Alien franchise for
over two decades.
The overused Alien vs. Predator Fleshmorph.The AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem Fleshmorph.The extremely fleshy "Chet" Predalien, still in AVPR.The Prometheus Deacon entirely renounces any semblance of mechanics...... as does its cousin the Neomorph in Alien: Covenant.Finally, the iconified Praetomorph in the same movie is a full Fleshmorph: below the head, almost every aspect of the body is a human écorché coloured black.You do not have to hate the Fleshmorphs. A lot of people don't. They were, for a start, entirely logical in their first appearance, for the Cloned had been mixed with Ripley's DNA.
It's also worth noting that to most people, the phallic head with a translucent dome, the ribcage, some fluting and tubes and a spiky tail are enough to make an Alien.
Also, if Fleshmorphs are detestable to you, please avoid becoming negative towards the artists (sculptors, designers, animatronics geniuses) behind these monsters. They do their best, and merely follow the vision of the directors and producers. And they also have the right to offer their own interpretation of the emblematic creature, fleshy or not.
Alien: Romulus, this year, gave us a proper biomechanical xenomorph for the first time since 32 years. A much celebrated rebirth. Long live biomechanics!
(Thanks to the websites Strange Shapes, Alien Explorations, AVP Galaxy and Monster Legacy which provided most of the pictures for this post.)