#tl;dr - it was a really fantastic and meaningful concept but then Straight Male Directors ruined it

[fischotterkunst]

mokamagica replied to your post: i’m in a ‘yelling about alien designs’ mood so...

Xenomorphs?

THE QUEEN. THE CLASSIC. oh my god their designs make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever BUT THERE’S AN ARTISTIC REASON FOR THAT WHICH I CAN APPRECIATE SO I LOVE THEM ANYWAY

the original design for The Alien was inspired by this original print by Swedish surrealist H.R. Geiger (Necronom IV, 1976):

Ridley Scott saw this print and tapped Geiger to flesh out the design for the creature in his script. Geiger came back with this:

(continued below cut; brief tw for homophobia and The Alien being The Alien sooo uhhh. highly-glossed-over suggestions of noncon.)

the concept was a humanoid being in full armor (throwback to that post i mentioned about cyborgs being perceived as separated from humanity because of their mechanical parts? same idea. btw, this was the literal origin and creation of the biomechanical aesthetic. Giger conceived the aesthetic, and the Xenomorph was the embodiment). the phallic suggestions are deliberate, as it was meant to be sexually threatening due to its role in the film, and specifically to appear thus to men as well due to what Scott considered homosexual implications. (hence the mention of potential homophobia. don’t get me started on rape as a horror trope, but then adding ‘homosexual’ context?? i don’t want to dissect this here and now but i am aware its Not Great and i hate it very much.)

so uh. fantastic example of surrealism as an exploration of our fears about the boundaries of our own humanity. and a straight guy wiped his ass on it decided to make it about his own bigotry. 

ANYHOO. the in-film costume that came from these artworks was. A HELL OF A LOT SCARIER LOOKING in the actual film than in this shot of the full costume on display:

definitely one of those potential lovers who looks better in low lighting. i mentioned in a previous post that i grant a lot of forgiveness to pre-2000 sci fi for not having the special effects we have today. and like i said at the beginning of this post, this is meant as a surrealist concept - it’s not meant to be physiologically realistic because it’s not supposed to look ‘real’. tbh, even though Xenomorphs are extraterrestrials, i really think of them more as monsters than aliens, since monsters to me are defined by being more conceptual. so i’m not gonna go into the physiology/behavior at all because its literally all stupid and nonsensical from a zoological perspective BUT it’s not supposed to be realistic. 

but then James Cameron (yes, the Avatar and Titanic guy), whom i dislike, decided to try to make them look more like actual aliens, and im not about to sit here and not take an opportunity to criticize James ‘Pocahontas But In Blue’ Cameron. 

there is not one single good or realistic thing about this fuckin thing whatsoever. i love her because she’s the Queen but design-wise she’s a trainwreck. she looks like parts of four or five monsters haphazardly jammed together like Sid’s toys from the og Toy Story. i see elements of dinosaur skeletons, grasshoppers, ungulates (specifically goats), and fuck knows what else. its a wreck. fuck you, James Cameron. 

but believe it or not, it got worse from there. 

its an even more horrid amalgamation of random-ass animals and its just...like i said, a trainwreck. i honestly don’t find it even remotely unsettling anymore, since the vaguely humanoid body and bipedal pose combined with the other surrealist elements are what made it a successful monster in the first place. they’ve totally lost track of the original intention and at this point are clearly just using the nostalgia for the franchise as an easy cash-grabber.

but i will admit the most recent design is. kinda sexy.