Long before i saw the movie i was seeing the posters and toys as a kid. I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing, but i knew there was no way my parents would take me to see it.
It was so good its ridiculous now because there's too much to choose from..HR Giger was our Michelangelo. He was more than we knew what was beautiful.
7 месяцев назад+53
Well, some cgi is used to extend or fix sets but mainly has to do with the cleaness of modern productions, mostly when they shoot Digitally, everything is so sharp now that looks fake unless the filmmaker goes for a gritty look, like "The Batman" film.
@ Straight out of camera there is plenty of noise, but the workflows for effects etc in post that are used are mostly applied after a de-noise stage, often with a sharpen added. Nothing stops people from using wider/softer DoF and leaving the sensor noise as-is, in particular when shooting raw. But yeah if you shoot everything razor sharp with 8k cameras and then de-noise, sharpen and smooth transients, then color even and bin to 4K and watch on a 4k TV... It'll look like CGI perfect no matter what it is. People look like wax dolls, plants like plastic etc. Like a subtler version of the 80-90s rom com soft filter craze but sharp edges to it. Something like that, it gives a CGI-like feel to real shots, fine if that's the desired look, but it goes too far in a lot of stuff. Things look like props on a stage, with a fresh coat of paint...
Nice try Micheal Parks, I considered the original “Alien” one of the best films ever made and cinematic art before you considered the original “Alien” one of the best films ever made and cinematic art.
as someone who understands giger's sleepless mania induced creativity on a personal level that statement felt so damn good to hear much of my best work happens when i lie awake in bed for an hour or two and finally have to jump up and make it happen just to get it out of my head
hard to put in context now as we've been saturated in decades of Gigeresque imagery, but I still recall when the movie first came out. I was gobsmacked. I went out and bought "Giger's Alien" the artist's book on the project. I showed it to my art teacher and he was blown away. The derelict sequence is one of the creepiest, most convincing, best edited and best designed sequences in science fiction cinema. And to think the studio heads wanted Scott to ditch the Space Jockey scene based on cost! Scott stuck to his guns and we can all be thankful for that.
Let's also remember the incredible soundtrack that in no small part contributed to that! :) Absolutely unique sounds and composition were chosen to amplify this feeling of seeming decay and emptiness, with something of malice lurking within
I was born in the nineties so I was already well exposed to this sort of imagery by the time I watched Alien, but that didn't diminish the experience for me. But yeah, that was precisely what I was thinking while watching this video, how incredible it must have been for the audiences at the time. I think these kind sof videos are important to get a full appreciation for some movies that are trully innovative. The story of how they arrived at the final derelict design really puts it into perspective in my opinion. Nowadays you could reach out to hundreds of artists who've grown up with Giger's art and all other artists inspired by him, and they'd be able to come up with very similar designs conceptually, or even weirder things. But the story behind the design really puts into perspective how, at the time, Giger was such a different visionary, and how banal and kitsche the other artists' designs were, despite being completely appropriate for the human ships. Back then you didn't have the proliferation of images that the internet provides us now. So getting a visionary such as Giger onboard was really quite a catch.
@@BathroomTile Credit really goes to Salvador Dali for introducing Giger to Jodorowsky, then to Jodorowsky for introducing Giger to Dan O'Bannon....in fact the road to Alien is a story in itself!
Imagine designing something so alien and out of this world, that people had a hard time actually building it physically. Giger's mind was one of a kind.
I've always thought his art was the definition of otherworldly.. what must it be like to have an imagination that conjurs up the stuff of nightmares I wonder how terrible his nightmares were
Having HR Giger design all things that were “Alien” made it so convincing. The Alien architecture fascinated me at the time and still does. It was terrible and beautiful.
If you’ve not already checked it out, I’d suggest looking into the game scorn. The developers took Geiger’s biomechanical design and ran with it! They based the entire game on his concepts even incorporating puzzle elements using one’s own body as the key. Really fascinating but can be rather graphic. If playing is not your bag, Curious Archive has a fabulous video discussing these facets of the game.
It's really fascinating how big of an impact Jodorowsky's failed Dune project had on Hollywood in the late 70's and 80's. Even though the movie was never made, it created bonds between people, concepts and ideas that would permeate Sci-Fi movies for over a decade. There is a high likelihood that we never would have seen this version of the Alien if O'Bannon and Geiger hadn't met while working on the Dune concept.
Am saving for later, a nice reward. :) When I saw ALIEN opening week, the Derelict scene was the moment when everyone in the theater just bought the whole movie. All around me, I heard the adult viewers saying, "The Fu....?" "What is that?" It was a stroke of genius of Scott's to first show it to us at a remove, like we were watching something happening live on TV. Then Lambert says what the audience was thinking: "Let's get outta here," people were nervously muttering in the audience, and the kid me thought, "Yeah, lets..." But of course we had to go on...
I was 15 and a buddy of mine & I snuck into a drive-in in San Antonio, TX to see it in the 1st run. That movie was a turning point in my life (and not just because Sigourney Weaver ruint me.) It was one hell of a film.
So you expect us to believe you could hear "the adults" all saying "WTF is that etc etc" during the movie and all the loud wind noise. Why do people invent these lame stories?
@@CraigAPenningtonoh yes and let's guess you and your 'wife' also saw The Exorcist when you were 4, like all the other troll liars? All of you also say you "snuck in" because you think that sounds gangster, right?
Interesting behind the scenes video. Back in the 90's, I worked for Derek van Lint, the cinematographer for "Alien". It's his lighting that makes the alien landscapes, the dark corridors, and the Alien itself work - revealing enough for the audience to be scared while hiding all the seams and rough spots. In normal light, the Alien looked exactly like what it was - an actor in a rubber suit. I don't think Derek and Ridley Scott got along. "Alien" was Derek's ticket to Hollywood, but it didn't quite work out. He had considerable success in commercial production, with its ups and down, but he always came back. "Alien" has all the hallmarks of Derek's best work. He did like his smoke! An artifact from "Alien" that we had at the studio was the hot-head crane he had made for the movie. It was a complete pig to move which was always heavier after a long day of shooting.
I've always wondered why he only shot ALIEN and DRAGONSLAYER (unless I've missed something). Both look amazing, and show variety in approach, too. It seems with those two credits alone he could've gone on. Scott liked his smoke, too, and diffusion--look at his ads and THE DUELLISTS. Plus I believe in the UK a director is allowed to operate, too, whereas that's against union rules in the US.
@@JohnInTheShelter Apparently, Derek was on the shortlist for "The Empire Strikes Back". And if the story was told about it is true, I understand why he didn't get it. (It was very Derek van Lint.) He did shoot and direct "The Spreading Ground" in 2000. He's credited as Derek Vanlint. Maybe I've got the spelling wrong. It's been a while since I had write it. I'm pretty sure on the company trucks it was "van Lint" or "Van Lint".
@@felixmustar7386 There really isn't much you can do about the lighting in space if you've got a yellow star. It's going to be high contrast and bright, showing every flaw.
Wasn’t the lighting for the derelict interior floor borrowed from Pink Floyd’s equipment at the soundstage Nextdoor? I’ve heard this in another alien filming lore documentary. I was hoping to hear it compounded in this one but it just missed. I hope that’s a real fact, just too cool
The found footage quality of the set up shots that introduce the Derelict are so unsettling. Entire modern films use the FF concept as a premise but Scott stumbled on it here. A true master.
Artists like Giger are something we desperately need more of in this world. Artists who truly trust their own vision and spirit to manifest something beautiful, meaningful and mysterious
Problem is that prudish zoomers and conservatives would never let someone as perpetually horny as Giger reach mainstream presence today. I mean... I trust you're familiar with his work, right? It's like 75% penises.
Giger was a very special case. More than just trusting his own vision it was more like he couldn't escape it, he had terrifying nightmares constantly and he said that painting them and letting those thoughts and images flow through his airbrush was his only way of dealing with them.
I love this movie to death. And it's worth recognizing how bad and cheesy it could have turned out if all of these things hadn't happened to come together, all these different ideas and talents merging. There are obvious predecessors and influences that I also love like Mario Bava's 1965 Planet of the Vampires, John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's 1974 Dark Star, and of course Lucas's Star Wars, but Alien avoids all that cheesiness, and in so doing it just feels legendary. There's probably an editor that deserves a lot of credit for that too. Loving this series!
ALIEN's editor was the late, great, Terry Rawlings. His work on the film is, as you pointed out, legendary. He also worked on BLADE RUNNER too, so that's two SF classics he worked on!
But Dark Star's "cheesiness" helps make it was it is, i.e. beachball for the alien space pet that led to the 'Alien' and Dan O'Bannon being on the ground floor of the making of this movie. It was O'Bannon that bought in the talent and H.R. Geiger to begin with. Thank a dollar store beach ball for all of that.
@@vincentgoupil180 "Darkstar " is truly one of the funniest movies I have ever seen "....you said the ship needed a mascot "...referring to the beach ball alien ! Too funny!
@@michaelparks6120 Agree, "Dark Star" is a funny movie (first saw it overseas on a Marine base which made it all the more ironic at the time). O'Bannon mentioned the beach ball inspired the Alien concept. Believe the Cinema Tyler seies acknowledges "Dark Star" was a precursor to "Alien" and "Bladerunner" with O'Bannon, Moebius and other creative individuals working off and on together. Now if Tyler would review "The Fifth Element" :) Ha, kinda amusing, there's another "Dark Star" movie, "Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World" a 2014 documentary. Gee, wonder if there are any beachballs in that one, scary ...
Yeah, I saw it as more of a medical kinda thing with the skeleton being examined or something. It didn't make sense at the time, but did later on when the alien popped out.
@@SamuelBlack84 I remember watching the "making of" tape on VHS in the late 90's and they kept referring to Giger's style a "bio-mechanical", so I interpreted the design of the pilot as him actually being part of the ship, or maybe the same entity as the ship, so the thing going down into his face was just allowing him to steer it in some way, maybe mentally.
I love the space jockey. That room looks like a tomb but I got the impression that was how it looked when he was alive anyway. They just walked in there so that meant it was open to the vacuum of space when the ship was in flight. And whatever information he got from those weird instruments, it was invisible to us.
It doesn't mean it was open to the vacuum of space in flight at all. The ship was ancient. It was likely damaged and had long since lost any seal it had from the outside.
Some aspects of the derelict seemed in some small way electronic as in the scene where Kane is trying to look into the egg, you can see a flashing light on the wall behind him
Concerning the space jockey. Seeing the first Alien movie the space jockey skeleton always reminded me of an elephant. It wasn't explained in the first Alien. Thats why I like Prometheus, despite its flaws. It's about deitis, in this case the Hindu ones.
The space jockey scene is on my top 3 list of all time favorite sci-fi scenes. I was intrigued and curious for years about the idea of another, different alien species. When they explained it in Prometheus, I was very disappointed, it seemed contrived.
@@Dudderlyful - For me, everything after the first film has been another universe. As much as I enjoyed many of them, not a single one ever tapped into the same vein.
What? you guys got no imagination, the Engineer’s from Prometheus, were the most interesting thing about the alien universe since the xenomorphs. Really a, alien genetically grown out of the chair is boring. That means the classic space jockey isn’t really a living being. But a artificial genetic being. If that was the case, the space jockey, couldn’t be the species to actual build the derelict space ship. FYI, the space jockey, looks a lot like quato from Star Wars esp 1, not very frightening.
@@johnnyflores5954 - Okay, so… no need to be insulting. We feel differently than you about this topic. With all due respect, chances are that my imagination is fully up to snuff. I’m not looking to pass judgment on you for enjoying something about PROMETHEUS, so don’t go looking to undercut my intelligence because I was heartbroken by Ridley Scott’s return to the subject. If you think we’re wrong, then just keep scrolling.
Practical effects had such a wonderful effect on movies. As well as animation and creative multimedia tactics. Modern CGI just comes off like bland disconnected green screens.. Just look at Beetlejuice, Spawn, The Thing, The Fly, Pee wee Hermans big adventure, Dinosaurs, Hook, James & the giant peach, space jam, etc. There is just something so special about practical effects, animation, multimedia formats. I wish movies and shows could bring it all back. I never would have thought these things would have basically disappeared. When they were all over the place during my childhood through out the 90's
Even the blends of certain practical and cgi effects in the 90s and early 2000 like jurassic park, starship troopers and the matrix are miles better than what's out today.
I'm fascinated by Giger and Giger's artwork. we take it for granted now but his style is truly something unique and out of this world. I can still see his influence in movies that came after alien like The Matrix and the new Dune movies. he changed sci fi.
I remember seeing the movie first as a kid the space jockey scene got me in such a way Never again happened to me since… It was a revelation. It was like withnessing people actually making contact with an extraterrestrial species. So ancient and derelict still incredibly high tech we can’t comprehend. I wandered for years about the unknown past of the derelict spaceship and the space jokey. I tought it was kind of a telescope which scanned deep space. The jockey must have an unfathomable knowledge of space and technology. He was trying to fly home when this brutal species of Alien which is a primitive still deadly being just prayed this poor wise thing. Back then mistery had bigger value than today.
Go watch 'Planet of the Vampires' (1965) by Mario Bava. There's a sequence in there that is very similar to the "Space Jockey" scene in Alien which has also been sited as inspiration for the scene.
@user-je5dojn2f thank you both Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott and The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter are both my all time favorite sci-fi horror movies and it's because both of them are all horror and no action in both of them as well:).
2:25 THAT is a brilliance. Like a great move in chess. All those prev designs honestly sucked because they looked like something a child would design for a space ship. Bright colors! cmon man... That dark gray, weird horseshoe shape... it is iconic and the moral is let people do what they do best. Giger's stuff was already dark and biomech and alien. Great decision.
As a screenwriter I can tell you the final Alien shooting script is the leanest most visual script you’ll ever read. Ridley had a great guide but you can see he made the vision his own of course with the help of hundreds of great artists and a great cast that delivered.
The derelict whole sequence is one of the greatest triumphs of horror and thriller magic ever created. I mean, the "space jockey" is eerie as fuck! And the derelict spaceship also looks truly alien, and one of the most beautiful spaceships I've ever seen.
"Polystyrene, which is kind of like styrofoam" - Well, styrofoam is one of trademarked names for a type of polysturene. It would be like saying "Lemonade, which is kind of like Sprite"
@@poindextertunes Yeah, I meant it as an example, similar to "A truck, which is something like a Hilux". It sounds funny to me, who is not a native English speaker and we call all these materials simply "polystyrene", the word "styrofoam" is not used, unless we talk about a specific company brand name. On the other hand, we have the same problem here with Autoclaved aerated concrete which everyone thinks is called "Ytong", but that's just one brandname.
Both have their good and bad moments. Anyone who says practical effects is superior is living in the past. Anyone who says CGI is superior doesn't yet have a full appreciation for art in its entirety
Great video, Tyler. If you don’t already have it, I strongly recommend getting the HR Giger diary that was released a while back. It’s hundreds of pages from his personal diary during the Alien production. It’s a fascinating first hand account of the design and production of the film.
@@poindextertunesit is. Last I checked it was kind of expensive, but well worth it. It’s also filled with hundreds of his sketches, and photos from the production. He actually sounded mildly annoyed by the whole process. Lol.
@nhmooytis7058 I envy that experience. It's an experience we don't get often in modern cinema. The experience of presentation cinema is lost in streaming post 2020 world. Its truly magical to see work on the big screen uninterruptrd and focused. Let's the magic come in
@@HumanHamCube I was lucky enough being born in 1952 to see such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Bonnie & Clyde, The Godfather (on opening day!), Blade Runner, Das Boot, in the theater.
The Nostromo interior and exterior was and still is the pinnacle of most possible realistic approach to ship design. Truly gorgeous.everyone. Acted like theyd been operatiing such machines as just a regular ol job most their lives, the sequence for self destruct was so fucking cool at the end. No ones done anything even close. This film really nailed the environment and the feel that just realistic feel inside their vessel. I wish this wouldve been a trend at least for a short while but uts ok cos the uniqueness of this film is the nostromo and its operation. Truly amazing work
I love how thorough and informative your videos are! I've watched all of the behind-the-scenes content from my old Alien DVD, and your content remains fresh and thoughtful. Bravo!
1965's Planet of the Vampires is likely a big influence on the Derelict & Space Jockey, with its own derelict ship on a similar planet & giant alien skeleton crew
Tony Scott was the real artist in the family. Ridley reminds me of Kubrick..great cast and beautiful sets/cinematography, but his storytelling/plots are lackluster. They rarely give the audience what it wants to see.
I always thought that the Space Jockey's story was, that he crash landed on the planet, then while waiting for help spent his time exploring and star gazing( I thought that thing he was sitting in was a giant telescope), then he either got attacked by a queen, or he found an egg and got infected, then he just rotted into his chair over the years.
@SmartCookie2022 cool anyway Alien (1979) and The Thing (1982) both of them are my childhood and both of them are my favorite sci-fi horror movies ever created as well:).
This is a great video. Scotts brilliant insight was recognising immediately what Giger could bring visually. Without Giger Alien would probably only have been a very good scifi horror instead of also being a seminal piece of art.
Ron Cobb is so interesting . I love that he just couldn't make something weird due to his engineering mind....even with all of the drugs he used to take!
Cobb used to be, among many other things, a political cartoonist, his work often appearing in the late, great L.A. Free Press. My parents had a number of his cartoons pinned up in our living room during the late Sixties.
1:53 it would be neat if someone tried to create a 3D model out of Cobb's Derelict. 7:07 in *Giger's Alien,* the Derelict is a representation of 666, the sign of the Beast (Giger recalled how his grandmother would occasionally flash "the sign of the beast" at him when he was a kid, ie sticking your pinky and index finger out, while curling your middle and ring finger into your hand, with your thumb holding them down). The left leg is the hand sign on it's side (6), the ship itself from atop is another sign (6) and the right leg is the fingers spread out (6). 8:02 it was even better than that. In Cinefantastique, while Carrol and Giger were arguing, Scott broke out a little ball of clay and a little plastic airliner, and dunked the airliner into the ball of clay without saying a word. Carrol decided that Giger's design was probably for the best. 15:58 interesting that you mention herbivorous. If you look at the Space Jockey skull, it holds a lot of similarities to an elephant. I always thought it would be interesting if someone recreated a model of the Jockey skull (from *Alien,* not Prometheus) and had a facial reconstruction done just to see what you would come up with. 23:15 Giger came up with the idea. He created the extra flap to create a Christian cross (to appease the ones who might be offended). The original 2 lipped egg was used for the "Cocoon" scene, as Brett's corpse was put into it and set into the inside of one of the landing legs.
Oh dear, Giger's grandmother was a headbanger ? :) Holding the middle and ring finger down with the thumb while extending the index and pinky fingers is the sign of the horns, amulet sign to ward off an evil eye ... or rock on. Touching the index finger to the thumb while extending the middle, ring and pinky fingers can mean six-six-six. Any plan views of the derelict craft available ? Then again, maybe Giger's grandmother was also Ronnie James Dio's, interesting. (Just giving u a hard time *:)* 5:54 derelict craft end reminiscent of the tail end of the downed bomber in "Apocalypse Now" the river patrol boat going under it. 16:34 Or, a tau cross. Wouldn't doubt Giger's space jockey is suggestive of Michelangelo 's Pieta sculpture considering his friend Serguis Golowin introduced him to H.P. Lovecraft and other occult writers and imagers, i.e. Giger's fictional 'Necronomicon' of Abdul Alhazred and identifying with Lovecraft's 'Richard Upton Pickman'. Agree, Space Jockey appears elephant like. 16:23 sketch, Giger's self-portrait, also 2:25 face in center of drawing. His description of the development of the jockey sounds autobiographical.
@TheRealNormanBates There are models of Giger's Derelict online. Haven't looked for a Cobb model. A top down plan view of the Derelict looks like the Egyptian/Hebrew letter *Tet* (Teth) meaning a cross (pictogram of a cross within a circle), fertility and the Gematria 9 and 6 (Tet being the ninth letter when turned upside down like a vessel) symbolic of the potential of man for good and bad. H.R. Giger was into the Egyptian Mysteries so the Derelict is a fertility temple for birthing or cross hybridization. This goes along with Giger depicting the sky fertilty Goddess Nut in his tableau at the shaft (fallopian tube) base. The Derelict represents the female reproductive system. Sounds like Giger's work. The Tet is also seen as a staff, a tau head cross with a snake on top. In the movie this would be the hammer head Alien, a creature or servant of their creator. Weylan-Yutani ? Their company logo is the Egyptian sun disc with wings. * * thro', to me anyway the loosely stretched logo in the tableau by Giger looks like the orginal beachball prop with large feet/hands (facehugger) from Dan O'Bannon's imagination in "Dark Star". He probably ripped that off from Opus of the "Bloom County" cartoon strip. Poor Opus, an example of the six becoming a nine, Alien. Good penguin gone rabid. Sad. =:0 > 0:::=
Btw For *fun* , aligning the movies Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" taking place at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, and Werner Herzog's "Aquirre, the Wrath of God", Machu Picchu, Peru (inspiration for Apocalypse Now), they're antipodal meaning directly opposite each other on the globe. Now drawing one leyline between these two places the Pyramids of Giza is on that line. Giza representing the Egyptian Mysteries Giger was interested in. The orginal Derelict was to be a pyramid. Three movies aligned. Now, if the Space Jockey was taken from the Henu Barque (bark/barge) of the Egyptian funerary God Sokar* which traveled the dead in the underworld then ... there is a H.P. Lovecraft-ian sewerage line between these movies where Giger draws his inspiration ? Just kidding but, then, the surname Giger, an anglicized Giza ? nah :)
Everything in this movie is pure perfection of moviemaking including visuals, design, sound, casting, screenplay, editing etc. One of the best movies ever made. In fact for me it is The movie!
@@dnr2089 He he glad to hear it. Every time I feel nostalgic or get a bit tipsy 😏 I watch Alien, Aliens and Predator (1987)! Watched them more then 100 times each!
I feel the same. Prometheus had its problems. But I hated how they took the mystery out of the Space Jockey. And turned them into Giant Humanoid Engineers in Space Suits. (They should have left it alone) I think in the new Aliens Films. They may forget the aspect of those movies. And re write the Jockey into the mystery it once was..
A scene considered but not filmed was one of the derelict space craft crew that escaped crash and died near the ship. When Dallas and others were walking to the derelict they walked right by the engineers fossilized body without noticing it because it blended in with the lava rock landscape. Notice at 13:56 of this video the middle of three escape ports the door hatch cover is just outside on ground.
Brilliant, thanks for taking the time to put this together. Just when I think I have heard all the stories and seen all the good photos from the production there always seems to be more 👏👏👏
And of course, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES dealt with a spaceship that picks up a signal being transmitted from an unknown planet, which the crew lands on. They roam through a densely foggy landscape and come upon a strange-looking alien derelict long abandoned, and, upon probing its depths come across the giant skeletal ramins of an alien being poised at what appears to be some strange control instruments. Of course, I am not the first to pint this out as this has been pretty obvious to anyone who grew up in the 50's/60's and saww this film, along with QUEEN OF BLOOD, IT THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE and/or NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (with its alien-impregnated male astronaut).. ALIEN ran with a lot of these influences and , with the help of greatly enlarged monies behind the effoort, greatly improved upon them and embellished them in novel ways.
Great stuff. I’ve long felt that the derelict miniature may be the single greatest piece of production design of any science fiction film. It looks like it was built by beings who inhabit a completely different perceptual universe from us.
It both appears as something technical and intelligently designed and at the same time utterly Alien and unfathomable… it looks ancient yet potent and powerful…. Something we compare very inferiorly to as earthbound mammals. Oumuamua comes to mind these days
14:33 You need to watch Planet Of The Vampires. O Bannon admits this movie was his prime inspiration and contains the weird derelict and a gigantic skeletal alien pilot.
@@randallbesch2424 O'Bannon cited "It The Terror From Beyond Space", "Planet of the Vampires" and his own movie "Dark Star" as the three prime inspirations for the Alien plot.
I never thought the navigator was crewing a gun, he's called the navigator! He was plotting a tragectory, perhaps into a nearby sun to kill the eggs, when he was killed and the ship crashed
OBannon has stated the derelict plot was influence from the excellent 60s Italian scifi horror film Planet of the Vampires. It’s likely that the Star Trek episode stole its plot from that.
Always appreciate when People take the time to look up Pronunciation of Names. You wouldn't believe how many times one hears "GEIGER" instead of Giger. Even the Rudi you pronounced (mostly) right! EDIT: I should also mention how well researched and put together the Video is!
@@ThePowerofYeti Thanks for reply. Was just wondering if Switzerland being a smaller area than the countries surrounding it, Giger or variations of that common surname can be compared to, say, Smith or Jones, in America. Or, attaching the maternal surname last is an accepted practice in Europe ? Btw, appreciate the link to Vox's "Color Patterns ... " video as I am interested in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's colour theory.
@@vincentgoupil180 As with everything, there might be a Link somewhere in history. But I see no apparent connection in meaning other than it could refer to Violins in both cases. I feel that's a stretch though. And don't get confused by the Hyphen. The second Name could be his Wife's or Mother's last Name. I'm not sure where the Meier comes from.
@@ThePowerofYeti Gige, geige, 11/12th century for violin. Mell Giger-Meier was his mother's maiden name according to online sources including the Giger Museum. Hans Richard Giger his father's name. In the ironically titled movie "Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World" on his father's pharmacy store window was painted "H.R. Giger-Meier". * I was just curious how the European naming convention works, if any, i.e. one of Giger's favorite authors was Gustave Meyrink a pen name for Gustave Meier then Meyer. Yes, potato, potatoe, tomato, tomato, tomahto, tomayto ... I know :) At least Taylor's pronunciation of Giger was correct regardless of some posters who write before reading what other commentators have already wrote. * Also in "Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World" ar 4:25 to 5:00 Giger explains how Ciba-Geigy send his a father a skull he tied to a string and walked around with (guess he didn't have his taxidermied cat yet) at six years old. Giger was born 1940 so that would have been around 1946. Except Ciba-Geigy AG was founded in 1971. So if Giger was confused regarding dates and names, possibly due to a stroke, so am I. Reccomend the movie free on RUclips now.
Another great episode! Love these! Always neat to see Giger's work; must have been unreal to have him personally working on the film set. I also found it fascinating that Ridley used an early camcorder, onto a tv, being filmed; that's basically the retro 80s "aesthetic" that everyone loves these days.
" ... the mystery that is created heightens the terror surrounding the monster." And then Prometheus came along and ruined it all by revealing the Space Jockey to be nothing more than a big, bald, albino humanoid in a suit. What an absolute waste of a mystery.
The Space Jockey is definitely inspired by a movie called Planet of the Vampires (1965). Despite the stupid title, it's actually an extremely moody and atmospheric sci-fi that has creepy Alien vibes all over it. But there's a sequence where the team of astronauts are exploring an extremely foggy alien landscape (that was clearly built on a set rather than the typical approach of filming in a forest or something, which adds to the similarities with Alien) and they discover an alien derelict. Inside, they discover the giant, fossilized remains of its alien pilot slumped over the controls.
Not slumped over as he is part of the mechanics of the chair. Leaning back wtih a out burst hole in him. I wondered how that came about unless he had been gotten to first before strapping in.
I wish we did this more often. Then again, people used to be able to name a favorite artist. Recently I can't think of a single artist from the past couple decades that has really stood out to me.
I love that there was such an emphasis on the alien world in the movie. It’s such an immense and atmospheric experience. The (relatively) short experience of the alien world felt like such a long and tense exploratory mission like the crew members would have felt about it because of just the sheer size and slowness of them trekking across the land. Truly masterful work, a beautiful and surreal experience that is rarely only caught in sketches but was somehow turned into a medium like cinema.
I never realised Geiger was so young…. I always figured (not sure why) that he was a generation or two prior and his work was adapted. I have even more respect for him and his work having seen this. His work almost betrays a sense that he’d be some edgy and aloof Bohemian prodigy who’s quasi conservative offended at Hollywood misappropriating his works He seemed to be genuinely appreciative of the opportunity and the acknowledgment (by extension) of his rare talent: I like how he went about it. He seemed genuinely engaged and committed toward creating a vision that people could who could see Worlds through his eyes might seem immersive. We hear so many stories on YT about Primal Donnas with less talent throwing epic tantrums for less,
Ridley Scott's "Covenent" is a mess and arguably ruined the mystery of the Derelict Ship and more. The ghostly elephantine pilot became a nonsensical costume or suit for the human lifeforms, the Aliens were "created" by an android and the Derelict ship looked like a flying donut with a bite out of it. He pulled a Star Wars "midochlorian" crap-the-bed moment and destroyed all his earlier work!
If you watch Jodorowski's Dune, and you have a chance to learn a bit more where things really came from, you'll realize that Ridley Scott is quite talentless, hence why only his first films were successful....because he actually stole the production from somewhere else. The artists and production team working on the first films were not even his, but what early Hollywood handed him after dismantling other productions they were at. And more than one old schooler in the industry says that R.Scott is quite of an a-hole....
On behalf of many annoyed Giger fans like myself... thank you for pronouncing his name correctly in this video. I can't tell you how many times people have told me what big fans they are of "GUY-ger". :)
I love your videos! The first Alien movie will always be my favorite of the franchise. I knew Giger designed the alien but didn't know he designed the ship and so much more.
In a time of reproductions, established formulas, lackluster stories, copies and tropes; Giger's originality and unique vision shines through more than ever. Creativity is seen as a risk, visionaries stand little to no chance. The 70's through to the 90's especially was a unique period of original stories, visions and concepts.
Space Jockey > Engineer. also 3:30, the Space Jockey fossil is right there in the landscape. look at the center image then trail left a smidge. You'll see it. It was originally thought that they could put the body in the landscape as if it had escaped from the craft but died due to the organism having exited the suit it was wearing as protection from the elements, bursting from the chest. Also the reason the camera malfunctions is because of the signal emitted from the craft and its bio-mechanical composition.
So many great artists working and building towards an amazing film. Once again, it shows that amazing practical effects stand the test of time while bad cgi does not.
Practical effects can be achieved only by allowing the true vision to be seen there will always be complications, but in those complications we get beauty. I like to call it imperfect beauty.
Thanks for this very thorough treatise on Ridley Scott's 1979 gift to the world! Scott, O'Bannon, Geiger et al, came together to produce a masterpiece that will never be duplicated! IMHO, all those involved had some decades earlier lived through the horror of WWII, and that experience must have had a profound effect on their psyches. This enabled them to collectively envision and produce a film that encompassed all the horrors they had witnessed. A true work of art that will never be duplicated. The status Alien has attained in the decades since demonstrate that this movie is an outlier, produced by individuals who had just 30+ years earlier had experienced a fight for survival that only they could appreciate. Definitely one of the genres top films ever!! Thanks for posting! Memories of seeing this in a theater are fading, but this triggered them yet again! Much praise!!
There is another insperation for ALIEN, the 1965 Italian Sci-fi movie "Planet of the Vampire" by Mario Bava. Here the crew of crash Space Ship, finds other alien spaceship with gigant skeleton of it crew.
Wonderful comprehensive idea on this Tyler, I’m learning so much and seeing new footage of one of my favorite films! Incredible and great work that you and your team are doing, this deserve to be in the special features in a re-release
Watching this and thought it would be great to have a connection to the movie. I wish😊 Jus remembered I worked with John Hurt , and Sigourney (who is really tall btw) queued up behind me in LAX. She was so polite. Lucky me. I never worked on anything as successful as this but I can relate to the process. It really is astonishing
@@yvonnesanders4308 I just walked in with a friend of mine acting older. But the theater was crowded and we had to sit in different seats. So I had to keep my screams to myself.
Excellent. 👍 So much work to make amazing models and sets, then even more work to make everything dark, moody, mysterious and almost impossible to see!😩
Giger created something so timeless it‘s incredible
Same with Blade Runner.
Demonic, literally without a body, literally differently timed
It kind of taps in to some Primal Fears, which for better or worse do Not Change.
Long before i saw the movie i was seeing the posters and toys as a kid. I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing, but i knew there was no way my parents would take me to see it.
the derelict was biomechanics, was it a life form? I believe that space jockey and that derelict is one organism
Funny how the Iceland locations in Prometheus feel like CG, but the Giger's Derelict landscape set/paintings feel so grounded and real.
One is trying to bring real life into fantasy, the other is bringing fantasy to real life.
Because there was CGI used a bit
It was so good its ridiculous now because there's too much to choose from..HR Giger was our Michelangelo. He was more than we knew what was beautiful.
Well, some cgi is used to extend or fix sets but mainly has to do with the cleaness of modern productions, mostly when they shoot Digitally, everything is so sharp now that looks fake unless the filmmaker goes for a gritty look, like "The Batman" film.
@ Straight out of camera there is plenty of noise, but the workflows for effects etc in post that are used are mostly applied after a de-noise stage, often with a sharpen added. Nothing stops people from using wider/softer DoF and leaving the sensor noise as-is, in particular when shooting raw. But yeah if you shoot everything razor sharp with 8k cameras and then de-noise, sharpen and smooth transients, then color even and bin to 4K and watch on a 4k TV... It'll look like CGI perfect no matter what it is. People look like wax dolls, plants like plastic etc. Like a subtler version of the 80-90s rom com soft filter craze but sharp edges to it. Something like that, it gives a CGI-like feel to real shots, fine if that's the desired look, but it goes too far in a lot of stuff. Things look like props on a stage, with a fresh coat of paint...
I truly consider the original "Alien" one of the best films ever made and cinematic art.
...of the highest order.
True
100% agree.
Nice try Micheal Parks, I considered the original “Alien” one of the best films ever made and cinematic art before you considered the original “Alien” one of the best films ever made and cinematic art.
@@raFael-ge6ge well, that is what I said.....lol ...
I agree.
"Giger is a special case. When something is that good you have to recognize it and leave it alone." He understands something that is lost on many.
Talent is so rare in hollywood...
the derelict being closedly resembled a Dero if you noticed
as someone who understands giger's sleepless mania induced creativity on a personal level that statement felt so damn good to hear
much of my best work happens when i lie awake in bed for an hour or two and finally have to jump up and make it happen just to get it out of my head
I love that artist.
@@iWhisperASMRokay?? How is this helpful to the conversation at all. It's just negative for no reason
hard to put in context now as we've been saturated in decades of Gigeresque imagery, but I still recall when the movie first came out. I was gobsmacked. I went out and bought "Giger's Alien" the artist's book on the project. I showed it to my art teacher and he was blown away.
The derelict sequence is one of the creepiest, most convincing, best edited and best designed sequences in science fiction cinema. And to think the studio heads wanted Scott to ditch the Space Jockey scene based on cost! Scott stuck to his guns and we can all be thankful for that.
Let's also remember the incredible soundtrack that in no small part contributed to that! :) Absolutely unique sounds and composition were chosen to amplify this feeling of seeming decay and emptiness, with something of malice lurking within
I was born in the nineties so I was already well exposed to this sort of imagery by the time I watched Alien, but that didn't diminish the experience for me. But yeah, that was precisely what I was thinking while watching this video, how incredible it must have been for the audiences at the time. I think these kind sof videos are important to get a full appreciation for some movies that are trully innovative. The story of how they arrived at the final derelict design really puts it into perspective in my opinion. Nowadays you could reach out to hundreds of artists who've grown up with Giger's art and all other artists inspired by him, and they'd be able to come up with very similar designs conceptually, or even weirder things. But the story behind the design really puts into perspective how, at the time, Giger was such a different visionary, and how banal and kitsche the other artists' designs were, despite being completely appropriate for the human ships. Back then you didn't have the proliferation of images that the internet provides us now. So getting a visionary such as Giger onboard was really quite a catch.
@@BathroomTile Credit really goes to Salvador Dali for introducing Giger to Jodorowsky, then to Jodorowsky for introducing Giger to Dan O'Bannon....in fact the road to Alien is a story in itself!
@@Li_Tobler yep the soundtrack is superb especially the opening theme, so creepy and haunting.
Scott showed great instinct for all the art - not only - in this movie
Imagine designing something so alien and out of this world, that people had a hard time actually building it physically. Giger's mind was one of a kind.
I've always thought his art was the definition of otherworldly..
what must it be like to have an imagination that conjurs up the stuff of nightmares
I wonder how terrible his nightmares were
? What are you talking about that happens all the time.
Try building a stable bridge
He brought back participants in his nightmares to the physical world.
Actually he came with his art style after being split roasted by two trans girls while in acid
Having HR Giger design all things that were “Alien” made it so convincing. The Alien architecture fascinated me at the time and still does. It was terrible and beautiful.
If you’ve not already checked it out, I’d suggest looking into the game scorn. The developers took Geiger’s biomechanical design and ran with it! They based the entire game on his concepts even incorporating puzzle elements using one’s own body as the key. Really fascinating but can be rather graphic. If playing is not your bag, Curious Archive has a fabulous video discussing these facets of the game.
It's really fascinating how big of an impact Jodorowsky's failed Dune project had on Hollywood in the late 70's and 80's.
Even though the movie was never made, it created bonds between people, concepts and ideas that would permeate Sci-Fi movies for over a decade.
There is a high likelihood that we never would have seen this version of the Alien if O'Bannon and Geiger hadn't met while working on the Dune concept.
Am saving for later, a nice reward. :) When I saw ALIEN opening week, the Derelict scene was the moment when everyone in the theater just bought the whole movie.
All around me, I heard the adult viewers saying, "The Fu....?" "What is that?"
It was a stroke of genius of Scott's to first show it to us at a remove, like we were watching something happening live on TV.
Then Lambert says what the audience was thinking: "Let's get outta here," people were nervously muttering in the audience, and the kid me thought, "Yeah, lets..." But of course we had to go on...
I was 15 and a buddy of mine & I snuck into a drive-in in San Antonio, TX to see it in the 1st run. That movie was a turning point in my life (and not just because Sigourney Weaver ruint me.) It was one hell of a film.
So you expect us to believe you could hear "the adults" all saying "WTF is that etc etc" during the movie and all the loud wind noise. Why do people invent these lame stories?
@@CraigAPenningtonoh yes and let's guess you and your 'wife' also saw The Exorcist when you were 4, like all the other troll liars? All of you also say you "snuck in" because you think that sounds gangster, right?
@@papalaz4444244Be careful.... Your ignorance is showing.....
"We must go on... we have to go on..." famous last words
Interesting behind the scenes video. Back in the 90's, I worked for Derek van Lint, the cinematographer for "Alien". It's his lighting that makes the alien landscapes, the dark corridors, and the Alien itself work - revealing enough for the audience to be scared while hiding all the seams and rough spots. In normal light, the Alien looked exactly like what it was - an actor in a rubber suit. I don't think Derek and Ridley Scott got along.
"Alien" was Derek's ticket to Hollywood, but it didn't quite work out. He had considerable success in commercial production, with its ups and down, but he always came back. "Alien" has all the hallmarks of Derek's best work. He did like his smoke! An artifact from "Alien" that we had at the studio was the hot-head crane he had made for the movie. It was a complete pig to move which was always heavier after a long day of shooting.
I've always wondered why he only shot ALIEN and DRAGONSLAYER (unless I've missed something). Both look amazing, and show variety in approach, too. It seems with those two credits alone he could've gone on.
Scott liked his smoke, too, and diffusion--look at his ads and THE DUELLISTS. Plus I believe in the UK a director is allowed to operate, too, whereas that's against union rules in the US.
@@JohnInTheShelter Apparently, Derek was on the shortlist for "The Empire Strikes Back". And if the story was told about it is true, I understand why he didn't get it. (It was very Derek van Lint.) He did shoot and direct "The Spreading Ground" in 2000. He's credited as Derek Vanlint. Maybe I've got the spelling wrong. It's been a while since I had write it. I'm pretty sure on the company trucks it was "van Lint" or "Van Lint".
the last scene with the alien bumbling through space wasnt lit by him then ^^
@@felixmustar7386 There really isn't much you can do about the lighting in space if you've got a yellow star. It's going to be high contrast and bright, showing every flaw.
Wasn’t the lighting for the derelict interior floor borrowed from Pink Floyd’s equipment at the soundstage Nextdoor? I’ve heard this in another alien filming lore documentary. I was hoping to hear it compounded in this one but it just missed. I hope that’s a real fact, just too cool
Isn't it crazy how every great film has a bunch of executives trying to take out the best parts of it? Makes you think executives are never right
Yup, execs ruining movies since the dawn of cinema.
The found footage quality of the set up shots that introduce the Derelict are so unsettling. Entire modern films use the FF concept as a premise but Scott stumbled on it here. A true master.
Artists like Giger are something we desperately need more of in this world. Artists who truly trust their own vision and spirit to manifest something beautiful, meaningful and mysterious
Problem is that prudish zoomers and conservatives would never let someone as perpetually horny as Giger reach mainstream presence today.
I mean... I trust you're familiar with his work, right? It's like 75% penises.
You can say that again. Instead we get "Banksy" and are just expected to call it art.
welp usually people are asleep and don’t recognize the greatness until the artist’s gone
Giger was a very special case. More than just trusting his own vision it was more like he couldn't escape it, he had terrifying nightmares constantly and he said that painting them and letting those thoughts and images flow through his airbrush was his only way of dealing with them.
@@MechanicalRabbits dark visions
Giger looks like Carl Sagan's evil twin brother.
I love this movie to death. And it's worth recognizing how bad and cheesy it could have turned out if all of these things hadn't happened to come together, all these different ideas and talents merging. There are obvious predecessors and influences that I also love like Mario Bava's 1965 Planet of the Vampires, John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's 1974 Dark Star, and of course Lucas's Star Wars, but Alien avoids all that cheesiness, and in so doing it just feels legendary. There's probably an editor that deserves a lot of credit for that too. Loving this series!
ALIEN's editor was the late, great, Terry Rawlings. His work on the film is, as you pointed out, legendary. He also worked on BLADE RUNNER too, so that's two SF classics he worked on!
But Dark Star's "cheesiness" helps make it was it is, i.e. beachball for the alien space pet that led to the 'Alien' and Dan O'Bannon being on the ground floor of the making of this movie. It was O'Bannon that bought in the talent and H.R. Geiger to begin with.
Thank a dollar store beach ball for all of that.
@@vincentgoupil180 "Darkstar " is truly one of the funniest movies I have ever seen "....you said the ship needed a mascot "...referring to the beach ball alien ! Too funny!
@@michaelparks6120
Agree, "Dark Star" is a funny movie (first saw it overseas on a Marine base which made it all the more ironic at the time).
O'Bannon mentioned the beach ball inspired the Alien concept. Believe the Cinema Tyler seies acknowledges "Dark Star" was a precursor to "Alien" and "Bladerunner" with O'Bannon, Moebius and other creative individuals working off and on together. Now if Tyler would review "The Fifth Element" :)
Ha, kinda amusing, there's another "Dark Star" movie, "Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World" a 2014 documentary.
Gee, wonder if there are any beachballs in that one, scary ...
@@vincentgoupil180 a beachball with Creature from the Black Lagoon hands.
It doesnt make sense that it’s a gun. What’s it supposed to do shoot inside the ship? I always thought it was a navigation instrument or something.
Yeah, I saw it as more of a medical kinda thing with the skeleton being examined or something. It didn't make sense at the time, but did later on when the alien popped out.
I always pictured it as something like a periscope in a submarine
It’s a navigational instrument/ pilot chair in Prometheus. Maybe Gigers original intention was it being a telescope of sorts.
stop trying to use your puny human mind to make sense of it !!!
@@SamuelBlack84 I remember watching the "making of" tape on VHS in the late 90's and they kept referring to Giger's style a "bio-mechanical", so I interpreted the design of the pilot as him actually being part of the ship, or maybe the same entity as the ship, so the thing going down into his face was just allowing him to steer it in some way, maybe mentally.
An excellent video. Giger was a true Rembrandt of our time. I have many of his books and his work is often imitated, but will never be matched. RIP
true dat
His art is one of a kind, for sure.
My sentiments exactly 👍
@jimurrata6785 Almost, Hieronymus Bosch was Dutch, Hans Rudolf Giger was Swiss.
@@jimurrata6785 oops
I love the space jockey. That room looks like a tomb but I got the impression that was how it looked when he was alive anyway. They just walked in there so that meant it was open to the vacuum of space when the ship was in flight. And whatever information he got from those weird instruments, it was invisible to us.
It doesn't mean it was open to the vacuum of space in flight at all. The ship was ancient. It was likely damaged and had long since lost any seal it had from the outside.
Some aspects of the derelict seemed in some small way electronic as in the scene where Kane is trying to look into the egg, you can see a flashing light on the wall behind him
Concerning the space jockey. Seeing the first Alien movie the space jockey skeleton always reminded me of an elephant. It wasn't explained in the first Alien. Thats why I like Prometheus, despite its flaws. It's about deitis, in this case the Hindu ones.
@@morphinlounge101 prometheus absolutely destroyed the space jockey
@@ReinersBlauerHodenCouldn’t agree more. The original space jockey was a true mystery.
Prometheus turned it into a joke.
The space jockey scene is on my top 3 list of all time favorite sci-fi scenes. I was intrigued and curious for years about the idea of another, different alien species. When they explained it in Prometheus, I was very disappointed, it seemed contrived.
Prometheus was a heartbreaking abomination.
It doesn't explain anything, Prometheus doesn't get it. As fun of a fun it was, it was not in the alien universe to me
@@Dudderlyful - For me, everything after the first film has been another universe.
As much as I enjoyed many of them, not a single one ever tapped into the same vein.
What? you guys got no imagination, the Engineer’s from Prometheus, were the most interesting thing about the alien universe since the xenomorphs. Really a, alien genetically grown out of the chair is boring. That means the classic space jockey isn’t really a living being. But a artificial genetic being. If that was the case, the space jockey, couldn’t be the species to actual build the derelict space ship. FYI, the space jockey, looks a lot like quato from Star Wars esp 1, not very frightening.
@@johnnyflores5954 - Okay, so… no need to be insulting. We feel differently than you about this topic. With all due respect, chances are that my imagination is fully up to snuff.
I’m not looking to pass judgment on you for enjoying something about PROMETHEUS, so don’t go looking to undercut my intelligence because I was heartbroken by Ridley Scott’s return to the subject.
If you think we’re wrong, then just keep scrolling.
Practical effects had such a wonderful effect on movies. As well as animation and creative multimedia tactics. Modern CGI just comes off like bland disconnected green screens.. Just look at Beetlejuice, Spawn, The Thing, The Fly, Pee wee Hermans big adventure, Dinosaurs, Hook, James & the giant peach, space jam, etc. There is just something so special about practical effects, animation, multimedia formats. I wish movies and shows could bring it all back. I never would have thought these things would have basically disappeared. When they were all over the place during my childhood through out the 90's
Even the blends of certain practical and cgi effects in the 90s and early 2000 like jurassic park, starship troopers and the matrix are miles better than what's out today.
To bring it all back we'd have to do ourselves.. or beseech producers to get back to doing it for the sake of everything quality
It blows my mind that he came up with this stuff back in the 70s. His designs are TIMELESS.
I liked Aliens, but I loved Alien. As a kid I was totally blown away by how well the movie was visualized. It’s a masterpiece.
I'm fascinated by Giger and Giger's artwork. we take it for granted now but his style is truly something unique and out of this world. I can still see his influence in movies that came after alien like The Matrix and the new Dune movies. he changed sci fi.
7:44 I think the fact that it takes you a second to understand what it might be, is the best thing about the design!
Hey i have seen you before you are a quite the weirdo
@@edwinve4112 what?
I remember seeing the movie first as a kid the space jockey scene got me in such a way Never again happened to me since… It was a revelation. It was like withnessing people actually making contact with an extraterrestrial species. So ancient and derelict still incredibly high tech we can’t comprehend. I wandered for years about the unknown past of the derelict spaceship and the space jokey. I tought it was kind of a telescope which scanned deep space. The jockey must have an unfathomable knowledge of space and technology. He was trying to fly home when this brutal species of Alien which is a primitive still deadly being just prayed this poor wise thing. Back then mistery had bigger value than today.
Go watch 'Planet of the Vampires' (1965) by Mario Bava. There's a sequence in there that is very similar to the "Space Jockey" scene in Alien which has also been sited as inspiration for the scene.
Alien and The Thing are my 2 favorite sci-fi movies of all time.
@user-je5dojn2f thank you both Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott and The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter are both my all time favorite sci-fi horror movies and it's because both of them are all horror and no action in both of them as well:).
2:25 THAT is a brilliance. Like a great move in chess. All those prev designs honestly sucked because they looked like something a child would design for a space ship. Bright colors! cmon man... That dark gray, weird horseshoe shape... it is iconic and the moral is let people do what they do best. Giger's stuff was already dark and biomech and alien. Great decision.
As a screenwriter I can tell you the final Alien shooting script is the leanest most visual script you’ll ever read. Ridley had a great guide but you can see he made the vision his own of course with the help of hundreds of great artists and a great cast that delivered.
When I was 13 me and my friends snuck into the theater to watch this
I wish I could see it again for the first time.
What an experience!
I watched it for the first time when I was in college three years ago. Instant top five movie for me. Still holds up today
The derelict whole sequence is one of the greatest triumphs of horror and thriller magic ever created. I mean, the "space jockey" is eerie as fuck! And the derelict spaceship also looks truly alien, and one of the most beautiful spaceships I've ever seen.
"Polystyrene, which is kind of like styrofoam" - Well, styrofoam is one of trademarked names for a type of polysturene. It would be like saying "Lemonade, which is kind of like Sprite"
well I mean Sprite Lymonade does exist 😅 but I get your point. maybe just a poor choice of analogy lol
@@poindextertunes Yeah, I meant it as an example, similar to "A truck, which is something like a Hilux". It sounds funny to me, who is not a native English speaker and we call all these materials simply "polystyrene", the word "styrofoam" is not used, unless we talk about a specific company brand name. On the other hand, we have the same problem here with Autoclaved aerated concrete which everyone thinks is called "Ytong", but that's just one brandname.
did you perhaps mean styrofoam is a trademarked type of *polystyrene* ?
@@pralinesouffle Yes, of course, thanks for the correction.
The “space jockey” is by far my favorite part of the film.
H.R.Giger did all that Artwork with a tiny little Airbrush! Sooo much work!!!!😮
As fascinating as the Giger designs are, it's easy to forget just how cool the space suits look.
Ridley Scott's designs of the props and set have a unique style to them as appearing both technologically advanced and ancient and archaic
Wow................... I just discovered from this video my favorite movie ever "Alien" was filmed just 2-3 miles up the road from me in Shepperton
Practical Effects and Models > CGI
Amen!
Whatever works best for the scene > arbitrarily choosing one over the other out of a sense of purism and snobbery
Both have their good and bad moments. Anyone who says practical effects is superior is living in the past. Anyone who says CGI is superior doesn't yet have a full appreciation for art in its entirety
1 problem.
Working hard is harder than pushing the work off onto a bunch of nerds.
Great video, Tyler. If you don’t already have it, I strongly recommend getting the HR Giger diary that was released a while back. It’s hundreds of pages from his personal diary during the Alien production. It’s a fascinating first hand account of the design and production of the film.
that sounds very cool
@@poindextertunesit is. Last I checked it was kind of expensive, but well worth it. It’s also filled with hundreds of his sketches, and photos from the production. He actually sounded mildly annoyed by the whole process. Lol.
I've been an Alien fan for 30 years and always learn something new from your videos. Well done! Cheers
Saw it in the theater when it came out, blew the audience away!
@nhmooytis7058 I envy that experience. It's an experience we don't get often in modern cinema. The experience of presentation cinema is lost in streaming post 2020 world. Its truly magical to see work on the big screen uninterruptrd and focused. Let's the magic come in
@@HumanHamCube I was lucky enough being born in 1952 to see such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Bonnie & Clyde, The Godfather (on opening day!), Blade Runner, Das Boot, in the theater.
The Nostromo interior and exterior was and still is the pinnacle of most possible realistic approach to ship design. Truly gorgeous.everyone. Acted like theyd been operatiing such machines as just a regular ol job most their lives, the sequence for self destruct was so fucking cool at the end. No ones done anything even close. This film really nailed the environment and the feel that just realistic feel inside their vessel. I wish this wouldve been a trend at least for a short while but uts ok cos the uniqueness of this film is the nostromo and its operation. Truly amazing work
I love how thorough and informative your videos are! I've watched all of the behind-the-scenes content from my old Alien DVD, and your content remains fresh and thoughtful. Bravo!
Thanks so much!
1965's Planet of the Vampires is likely a big influence on the Derelict & Space Jockey, with its own derelict ship on a similar planet & giant alien skeleton crew
Talent borrows
Genius steals
*How tragic that the director appears to have spent the rest of his career vandalizing this moment*
H.R.Giger died 2 years after prometheus... 🤔 jumping off a roof.
@@jamesday1295He fell down the stairs in his home
Tony Scott was the real artist in the family. Ridley reminds me of Kubrick..great cast and beautiful sets/cinematography, but his storytelling/plots are lackluster. They rarely give the audience what it wants to see.
Begs the question how much this "moment" was Scott's doing in the first place...
I always thought that the Space Jockey's story was, that he crash landed on the planet, then while waiting for help spent his time exploring and star gazing( I thought that thing he was sitting in was a giant telescope), then he either got attacked by a queen, or he found an egg and got infected, then he just rotted into his chair over the years.
Still the best damn sci-fi movie of all time. Often copied, never bettered. Everyone who worked on this movie should've gotten an Oscar.
@SmartCookie2022 cool anyway Alien (1979) and The Thing (1982) both of them are my childhood and both of them are my favorite sci-fi horror movies ever created as well:).
This is a great video. Scotts brilliant insight was recognising immediately what Giger could bring visually. Without Giger Alien would probably only have been a very good scifi horror instead of also being a seminal piece of art.
14:10 No mention at all of Brava's 1965 "Planet of the Vampires" (Terrore nello Spazio)? An obvious source of inspiration for "Alien."
I had heard the Space Jockey was inspired from Planet of the Vampires. That one had huge alien skeletons in it as well.
Ron Cobb is so interesting . I love that he just couldn't make something weird due to his engineering mind....even with all of the drugs he used to take!
Cobb used to be, among many other things, a political cartoonist, his work often appearing in the late, great L.A. Free Press. My parents had a number of his cartoons pinned up in our living room during the late Sixties.
@@michaelhall2709 rad! i've seen a few of these cartoons in Documentaries. They're so great.
@@michaelhall2709im going to look up LA Free Press. sounds interesting.
1:53 it would be neat if someone tried to create a 3D model out of Cobb's Derelict.
7:07 in *Giger's Alien,* the Derelict is a representation of 666, the sign of the Beast (Giger recalled how his grandmother would occasionally flash "the sign of the beast" at him when he was a kid, ie sticking your pinky and index finger out, while curling your middle and ring finger into your hand, with your thumb holding them down). The left leg is the hand sign on it's side (6), the ship itself from atop is another sign (6) and the right leg is the fingers spread out (6).
8:02 it was even better than that. In Cinefantastique, while Carrol and Giger were arguing, Scott broke out a little ball of clay and a little plastic airliner, and dunked the airliner into the ball of clay without saying a word. Carrol decided that Giger's design was probably for the best.
15:58 interesting that you mention herbivorous. If you look at the Space Jockey skull, it holds a lot of similarities to an elephant. I always thought it would be interesting if someone recreated a model of the Jockey skull (from *Alien,* not Prometheus) and had a facial reconstruction done just to see what you would come up with.
23:15 Giger came up with the idea. He created the extra flap to create a Christian cross (to appease the ones who might be offended). The original 2 lipped egg was used for the "Cocoon" scene, as Brett's corpse was put into it and set into the inside of one of the landing legs.
Awesome info! Thanks!
Oh dear, Giger's grandmother was a headbanger ? :)
Holding the middle and ring finger down with the thumb while extending the index and pinky fingers is the sign of the horns, amulet sign to ward off an evil eye ... or rock on.
Touching the index finger to the thumb while extending the middle, ring and pinky fingers can mean six-six-six. Any plan views of the derelict craft available ?
Then again, maybe Giger's grandmother was also Ronnie James Dio's, interesting.
(Just giving u a hard time *:)*
5:54 derelict craft end reminiscent of the tail end of the downed bomber in "Apocalypse Now" the river patrol boat going under it. 16:34 Or, a tau cross. Wouldn't doubt Giger's space jockey is suggestive of Michelangelo 's Pieta sculpture considering his friend Serguis Golowin introduced him to H.P. Lovecraft and other occult writers and imagers, i.e. Giger's fictional 'Necronomicon' of Abdul Alhazred and identifying with Lovecraft's 'Richard Upton Pickman'.
Agree, Space Jockey appears elephant like. 16:23 sketch, Giger's self-portrait, also 2:25 face in center of drawing. His description of the development of the jockey sounds autobiographical.
"666" is the number of Man, "616" number of the beast.
@TheRealNormanBates
There are models of Giger's Derelict online. Haven't looked for a Cobb model.
A top down plan view of the Derelict looks like the Egyptian/Hebrew letter *Tet* (Teth) meaning a cross (pictogram of a cross within a circle), fertility and the Gematria 9 and 6 (Tet being the ninth letter when turned upside down like a vessel) symbolic of the potential of man for good and bad.
H.R. Giger was into the Egyptian Mysteries so the Derelict is a fertility temple for birthing or cross hybridization. This goes along with Giger depicting the sky fertilty Goddess Nut in his tableau at the shaft (fallopian tube) base. The Derelict represents the female reproductive system.
Sounds like Giger's work.
The Tet is also seen as a staff, a tau head cross with a snake on top. In the movie this would be the hammer head Alien, a creature or servant of their creator. Weylan-Yutani ? Their company logo is the Egyptian sun disc with wings. *
* thro', to me anyway the loosely stretched logo in the tableau by Giger looks like the orginal beachball prop with large feet/hands (facehugger) from Dan O'Bannon's imagination in "Dark Star". He probably ripped that off from Opus of the "Bloom County" cartoon strip. Poor Opus, an example of the six becoming a nine, Alien. Good penguin gone rabid. Sad.
=:0 > 0:::=
Btw
For *fun* , aligning the movies Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" taking place at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, and Werner Herzog's "Aquirre, the Wrath of God", Machu Picchu, Peru (inspiration for Apocalypse Now), they're antipodal meaning directly opposite each other on the globe.
Now drawing one leyline between these two places the Pyramids of Giza is on that line. Giza representing the Egyptian Mysteries Giger was interested in. The orginal Derelict was to be a pyramid.
Three movies aligned.
Now, if the Space Jockey was taken from the Henu Barque (bark/barge) of the Egyptian funerary God Sokar* which traveled the dead in the underworld then ...
there is a H.P. Lovecraft-ian sewerage line between these movies where Giger draws his inspiration ?
Just kidding
but, then, the surname Giger, an anglicized Giza ? nah :)
Everything in this movie is pure perfection of moviemaking including visuals, design, sound, casting, screenplay, editing etc. One of the best movies ever made. In fact for me it is The movie!
Yes, my favourite movie ever!😊
@@dnr2089 He he glad to hear it. Every time I feel nostalgic or get a bit tipsy 😏
I watch Alien, Aliens and Predator (1987)! Watched them more then 100 times each!
Without Giger, this movie would've basically been a darker version of Star Wars with an R rating.
It’s interesting how much Jodorowski’s failed Dune adaptation was responsible for Alien turning out the way it did.
Brilliant video mate, well written, great quality, very much enjoyed watching that!
I hated when they turned to Space Jockey into an Engineer space suit. The mystery of the space jockey was the best part and they ruined it.
I feel the same. Prometheus had its problems. But I hated how they took the mystery out of the Space Jockey. And turned them into Giant Humanoid Engineers in Space Suits. (They should have left it alone) I think in the new Aliens Films. They may forget the aspect of those movies. And re write the Jockey into the mystery it once was..
YES
A scene considered but not filmed was one of the derelict space craft crew that escaped crash and died near the ship. When Dallas and others were walking to the derelict they walked right by the engineers fossilized body without noticing it because it blended in with the lava rock landscape. Notice at 13:56 of this video the middle of three escape ports the door hatch cover is just outside on ground.
Brilliant, thanks for taking the time to put this together. Just when I think I have heard all the stories and seen all the good photos from the production there always seems to be more 👏👏👏
And of course, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES dealt with a spaceship that picks up a signal being transmitted from an unknown planet, which the crew lands on. They roam through a densely foggy landscape and come upon a strange-looking alien derelict long abandoned, and, upon probing its depths come across the giant skeletal ramins of an alien being poised at what appears to be some strange control instruments. Of course, I am not the first to pint this out as this has been pretty obvious to anyone who grew up in the 50's/60's and saww this film, along with QUEEN OF BLOOD, IT THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE and/or NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (with its alien-impregnated male astronaut).. ALIEN ran with a lot of these influences and , with the help of greatly enlarged monies behind the effoort, greatly improved upon them and embellished them in novel ways.
There is something awesome about the molded models from the 70s/80s, something that pure CGI can not replicate
Here after watching the 45 anniversary on the big screen. This movie is such a classic and the music is hauntingZ
Great stuff. I’ve long felt that the derelict miniature may be the single greatest piece of production design of any science fiction film.
It looks like it was built by beings who inhabit a completely different perceptual universe from us.
It both appears as something technical and intelligently designed and at the same time utterly Alien and unfathomable… it looks ancient yet potent and powerful…. Something we compare very inferiorly to as earthbound mammals. Oumuamua comes to mind these days
14:33 You need to watch Planet Of The Vampires. O Bannon admits this movie was his prime inspiration and contains the weird derelict and a gigantic skeletal alien pilot.
See also "It, Terror from beyond" for an alien loose on a ship in transit.
@@randallbesch2424 O'Bannon cited "It The Terror From Beyond Space", "Planet of the Vampires" and his own movie "Dark Star" as the three prime inspirations for the Alien plot.
thank you for doing such a great job of showing references. wish more people did that
I never thought the navigator was crewing a gun, he's called the navigator! He was plotting a tragectory, perhaps into a nearby sun to kill the eggs, when he was killed and the ship crashed
This movie would be nothing without Giger
It probably wouldn’t exist
OBannon has stated the derelict plot was influence from the excellent 60s Italian scifi horror film Planet of the Vampires. It’s likely that the Star Trek episode stole its plot from that.
wow finally someone who pronounces his name correctly lol
If you ever happen to be in Gruyeres, Switzerland, visit Giger museum. Trust me is an experience. Dont bring kids with you.
Always appreciate when People take the time to look up Pronunciation of Names. You wouldn't believe how many times one hears "GEIGER" instead of Giger. Even the Rudi you pronounced (mostly) right!
EDIT: I should also mention how well researched and put together the Video is!
Any relationships between the Giger and Geigy families ?
i.e. Hans Reudi Giger-Meier sounds similiar to Johann Rudolf Geigy-Merian (1830-1917).
@@vincentgoupil180 Probably not. Never heard of that one
@@ThePowerofYeti
Thanks for reply.
Was just wondering if Switzerland being a smaller area than the countries surrounding it, Giger or variations of that common surname can be compared to, say, Smith or Jones, in America. Or, attaching the maternal surname last is an accepted practice in Europe ?
Btw, appreciate the link to Vox's "Color Patterns ... " video as I am interested in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's colour theory.
@@vincentgoupil180
As with everything, there might be a Link somewhere in history. But I see no apparent connection in meaning other than it could refer to Violins in both cases. I feel that's a stretch though.
And don't get confused by the Hyphen. The second Name could be his Wife's or Mother's last Name. I'm not sure where the Meier comes from.
@@ThePowerofYeti
Gige, geige, 11/12th century for violin.
Mell Giger-Meier was his mother's maiden name according to online sources including the Giger Museum. Hans Richard Giger his father's name.
In the ironically titled movie "Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World" on his father's pharmacy store window was painted "H.R. Giger-Meier". *
I was just curious how the European naming convention works, if any, i.e. one of Giger's favorite authors was Gustave Meyrink a pen name for Gustave Meier then Meyer.
Yes, potato, potatoe, tomato, tomato, tomahto, tomayto ... I know :) At least Taylor's pronunciation of Giger was correct regardless of some posters who write before reading what other commentators have already wrote.
* Also in "Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World" ar 4:25 to 5:00 Giger explains how Ciba-Geigy send his a father a skull he tied to a string and walked around with (guess he didn't have his taxidermied cat yet) at six years old. Giger was born 1940 so that would have been around 1946. Except Ciba-Geigy AG was founded in 1971. So if Giger was confused regarding dates and names, possibly due to a stroke, so am I.
Reccomend the movie free on RUclips now.
Planet of The Vampires (1965) is also noteworthy for a giant 'space jockey' skeleton seated on a derelict alien spacecraft.
Another great episode! Love these! Always neat to see Giger's work; must have been unreal to have him personally working on the film set. I also found it fascinating that Ridley used an early camcorder, onto a tv, being filmed; that's basically the retro 80s "aesthetic" that everyone loves these days.
Giger
What a dark genius.
Brilliant film as well. I was 12 in late 1979 when I saw Alien and Phantasm in a drive in double feature. Good times.
" ... the mystery that is created heightens the terror surrounding the monster." And then Prometheus came along and ruined it all by revealing the Space Jockey to be nothing more than a big, bald, albino humanoid in a suit. What an absolute waste of a mystery.
The Space Jockey is definitely inspired by a movie called Planet of the Vampires (1965). Despite the stupid title, it's actually an extremely moody and atmospheric sci-fi that has creepy Alien vibes all over it. But there's a sequence where the team of astronauts are exploring an extremely foggy alien landscape (that was clearly built on a set rather than the typical approach of filming in a forest or something, which adds to the similarities with Alien) and they discover an alien derelict. Inside, they discover the giant, fossilized remains of its alien pilot slumped over the controls.
Not slumped over as he is part of the mechanics of the chair. Leaning back wtih a out burst hole in him. I wondered how that came about unless he had been gotten to first before strapping in.
Alien is one of the best films ever made, and it's nice to see new artwork I have only read about. Good vid.
Treating Moebius as "some french artist" actually hurt me haha
Great video nonetheless
I wish we did this more often.
Then again, people used to be able to name a favorite artist. Recently I can't think of a single artist from the past couple decades that has really stood out to me.
That says more about you than about the state of art in the last couple decades. It's not like there's a lack of brilliant artists.
This. Twitter has found several incredible horror artists for me.
Ken Currie comes quite close
He's a Scottish artist who paints very bleak and grim paintings of people and animals
Im gonna comment before watching, like the weird people.
I love that there was such an emphasis on the alien world in the movie. It’s such an immense and atmospheric experience. The (relatively) short experience of the alien world felt like such a long and tense exploratory mission like the crew members would have felt about it because of just the sheer size and slowness of them trekking across the land. Truly masterful work, a beautiful and surreal experience that is rarely only caught in sketches but was somehow turned into a medium like cinema.
I never realised Geiger was so young…. I always figured (not sure why) that he was a generation or two prior and his work was adapted.
I have even more respect for him and his work having seen this.
His work almost betrays a sense that he’d be some edgy and aloof Bohemian prodigy who’s quasi conservative offended at Hollywood misappropriating his works
He seemed to be genuinely appreciative of the opportunity and the acknowledgment (by extension) of his rare talent:
I like how he went about it.
He seemed genuinely engaged and committed toward creating a vision that people could who could see Worlds through his eyes might seem immersive.
We hear so many stories on YT about Primal Donnas with less talent throwing epic tantrums for less,
Ridley Scott's "Covenent" is a mess and arguably ruined the mystery of the Derelict Ship and more. The ghostly elephantine pilot became a nonsensical costume or suit for the human lifeforms, the Aliens were "created" by an android and the Derelict ship looked like a flying donut with a bite out of it. He pulled a Star Wars "midochlorian" crap-the-bed moment and destroyed all his earlier work!
If you watch Jodorowski's Dune, and you have a chance to learn a bit more where things really came from, you'll realize that Ridley Scott is quite talentless, hence why only his first films were successful....because he actually stole the production from somewhere else. The artists and production team working on the first films were not even his, but what early Hollywood handed him after dismantling other productions they were at. And more than one old schooler in the industry says that R.Scott is quite of an a-hole....
On behalf of many annoyed Giger fans like myself... thank you for pronouncing his name correctly in this video. I can't tell you how many times people have told me what big fans they are of "GUY-ger". :)
Aw, poor lil buddy.
@@roachdoggjr69 Aw, poor lil troll.
I love your videos! The first Alien movie will always be my favorite of the franchise. I knew Giger designed the alien but didn't know he designed the ship and so much more.
In a time of reproductions, established formulas, lackluster stories, copies and tropes; Giger's originality and unique vision shines through more than ever.
Creativity is seen as a risk, visionaries stand little to no chance. The 70's through to the 90's especially was a unique period of original stories, visions and concepts.
Space Jockey > Engineer. also 3:30, the Space Jockey fossil is right there in the landscape. look at the center image then trail left a smidge. You'll see it. It was originally thought that they could put the body in the landscape as if it had escaped from the craft but died due to the organism having exited the suit it was wearing as protection from the elements, bursting from the chest. Also the reason the camera malfunctions is because of the signal emitted from the craft and its bio-mechanical composition.
You mean 3:30 - 3:35 ?
( *stationary* 3:29 looks like a railroad terminal yard)
@@vincentgoupil180 Thank you for the correction. Yes, 3:30. Dead center and a smidge to the left. Jockey corpse.
So many great artists working and building towards an amazing film. Once again, it shows that amazing practical effects stand the test of time while bad cgi does not.
Practical effects can be achieved only by allowing the true vision to be seen there will always be complications, but in those complications we get beauty. I like to call it imperfect beauty.
Man..Aliens(Aliens2)..is up there too with the orig.
Thanks for this very thorough treatise on Ridley Scott's 1979 gift to the world!
Scott, O'Bannon, Geiger et al, came together to produce a masterpiece that will never be duplicated!
IMHO, all those involved had some decades earlier lived through the horror of WWII, and that experience must have had a profound effect on their psyches. This enabled them to collectively envision and produce a film that encompassed all the horrors they had witnessed.
A true work of art that will never be duplicated.
The status Alien has attained in the decades since demonstrate that this movie is an outlier, produced by individuals who had just 30+ years earlier had experienced a fight for survival that only they could appreciate.
Definitely one of the genres top films ever!!
Thanks for posting!
Memories of seeing this in a theater are fading, but this triggered them yet again! Much praise!!
There is another insperation for ALIEN, the 1965 Italian Sci-fi movie "Planet of the Vampire" by Mario Bava.
Here the crew of crash Space Ship, finds other alien spaceship with gigant skeleton of it crew.
Insane documentary. Thank you for sharing man!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@CinemaTyler I just realized Adam Savage is one of your patreons, that must be so amazing!
Ridley Scott should've directed A.I. instead of Spielberg.
Wonderful comprehensive idea on this Tyler, I’m learning so much and seeing new footage of one of my favorite films! Incredible and great work that you and your team are doing, this deserve to be in the special features in a re-release
Thanks!
Watching this and thought it would be great to have a connection to the movie. I wish😊 Jus remembered I worked with John Hurt , and Sigourney (who is really tall btw) queued up behind me in LAX. She was so polite. Lucky me. I never worked on anything as successful as this but I can relate to the process. It really is astonishing
I saw this movie as a 11 year old by myself at the movie theater. Afterwards I was always looking under my bed for Aliens
How did you get in a movie theatre to see this at 11
@@yvonnesanders4308
I just walked in with a friend of mine acting older. But the theater was crowded and we had to sit in different seats. So I had to keep my screams to myself.
Did you ever find any aliens under your bed?
@@Aceface007 no just dirty clothes
It is the best film ever made IMO and Giger was a big part of that.
Excellent. 👍 So much work to make amazing models and sets, then even more work to make everything dark, moody, mysterious and almost impossible to see!😩
I always thought Planet of the Vampires was the inspiration for the jockey
Dan O'Bannon *_may_* have seen _Planet of the Vampires_ once.
It's a bloody masterpiece, innit! If only the ones he made subsequently, bloody were! Bloody noice video as usual CT. Thanks a bloody lot!
You English?🇬🇧🤔
Geiger's designs are flawlessly uncomfortable, great discussion!