He fell down the stairs in his castle, that's all about details..Originally Posted by rcarlberg
He fell down the stairs in his castle, that's all about details..
In the museum in Gruyeres Switzerland, there was also a bar with seats that had his biomechanical forms (think the inside of the alien space ship in Alien). Always made me wonder exactly what I was drinking.
RIP Hans Ruedi
I believe there is a bar with Giger's design in Chur as well.
I wonder how many years it'll take for someone to start buzzing about a biopic or something on him and Li Tobler.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Giger as portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman!
Oh bummer.
Ya, I bought the album when it came out...I believe the original painting was called Penis Landscape.
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Check out my solo project progressive doom metal band, WytchCrypt at https://wytchcrypt.bandcamp.com/
Yes, Penis Landscape was the title...
Best music/image fit: The Island album (as many quoted before) and Celtic Frost's "To Mega Therion".
RIP. He was one of the best artists associated with album covers imo but then again he was so much more than that. RIP HR Giger.
While i'll always remember Giger, of course, for his contributions to album cover art, for me, frankly, it'll be more for his own art books - one, based around that iconic creature he designed for Alien, the other, a broader (if you could call the narrow but supremely warped space he inhabited artistically broad) book of his other works. Both books shamefully out of print now....who knows...maybe his passing will inspire someone to being them back into print.
But more than Brain Salad Surgery, it's the creature of Alien, in all the horrific variations of its maturity from "chest-burster" to full-grown "adult," that will be, at least for me - and, I suspect, a larger number of people around the world - the imagery for which he will be best remembered.
It's one heckuva legacy (anyone who's seen the books will know exactly what I mean), but it's certainly a distinct legacy that nobody has been able to touch; even the Alien films that didn't directly involve Giger, while doing their best to emulate him, never managed to ever quite copy him.
RIP Giger. Given the nightmare-inducing, sexually warped nature of his art, I suspect it's truer than most to say "we hardly knew ye."
Would have to agree...The 1st Alien film did not have the biggest budget of the series, but it had Giger. Even though he wasn't entirely pleased w/ the product, his involvement brought something visually more powerful, haunting and intoxicating than anything I saw in the later films.
Well... and Ridley Scott, who hired Giger. And Appreciated Kubrick.
Ya know, another really weird aspect of the Alien franchise was that when that first movie came out, I forget which toy company it was, but it was decided a good way to cash in would be to put out a Xenomorph action figure. It was around 12" tall, with a mechanism that caused the secondary mouth to shoot out when you a lever (kinda like GI Joe's "kung fu grip"). I remember seeing the commercial on TV at the time the movie came out, I must have been like 6 years old, but I absolutely wanted one. I could have sworn Sears carried it in that year's Wish Book, but we were never able to find a store that had it.
I saw a documentary a couple decades later, that nobody wanted to stock I guess either because it's kind of disturbing looking to begin with, or perhaps they figured a toy based on an R rated horror movie was going to go down well with kids who probably wouldn't have been allowed to see the movie in the first place. Or something like that. Hence, the action figure was a flop and I imagine not many were actually produced. I bet they go for four or five figures today. (shrug)
Alien is my favorite horror/science fiction movie. The first time I saw it in the theater when it came out was intense. Thanks HR.
Yes, those 12" Alien figures do go for a fair amount of money, if in an unopened box. I used to have one, but back then people played with their toys, instead of leaving them in the box. I do remember the plastic piece that fit over the head, becoming quite discoloured.
A great artist, with a truly unique vision.
neil
Yeah I walked out of the theater trembling. I had to buy a fifth of brandy or some other alcoholic beverage to calm down. It really was an intense film. I'm not a fan of horror but I love sci-fi so this film caught me by surprise. I read that when they filmed that scene where the Alien burst out of the guys chest and blood started spraying everywhere the actors were caught off guard, and all those looks of shock and horror are real (unless it's just an urban myth). Great film. No sequel bettered it (imo). Aliens (the sequel) was good but it was more action-flick with every cliche and the kitchen sink thrown in.
Not an urban legend. At least not according to Veronica Cartwright. Apparently, they had some kind of high pressure system to simulate the effect of the thing bursting out of John Hurt's chest. The way she tells it, they were told there'd be a little bit of blood, but nothing too intense. I don't know about "blood spraying everywhere", but the way she tells it, she was most definitely not expecting to get hit in the face. So that brief shot of her where that happens, and her subsequent verbal reaction, she's not exactly "acting".
Raspberry juice for the win!
Nobody on the set knew except for Hurt (lying under the dummy/table), Scott, and the FX techs operating the chestburster/dummy Kane effect. Everyone else was not acting. It's "And Then There Were None" - but in deep space.
Giger messed-up everyone's heads with one single film. A+
At a Sci-Fi convention in 1980, I bought a used one without a box. I walked around with it perched on my shoulder. I still have it (and a few of HRG's books).
I also bought some stuff from Matt Howarth. He was doing these record sleeves with faux records inside.
I don't recall if I got any of his Nash the Slash suff, then, but I did get a NtS comic last year.
KENNER toy company.
Well, at least they sorta got the typeface right.
I'm actually a big fan of Alien 3, David Fincher's big film debut. The "director's cut" (with which Fincher had no involvement, they pieced it together without him) I actually like even more, with there being a good explanation for why these incarnations of the Alien were so different. And, once again, Giger was involved (though I seem to recall he wasn't happy with that experience either; anyone else recall?).
It was a strange movie; the whole concept of taking place on a prison planet with little in the way of weaponry made for a nice contrast to Aliens - which, for me, was a bit odd. In the first film, the Alien was damn near indestructible; here, they were blowing them away left and right.
So count me a big fan of Alien 3. Alien Resurrection had its moments, more towards the beginning, where Brad Dourif plays the most warped scientist you could imagine; but the idea of Ripley being a clone that was somewhere between human and Alien, and ultimately the mother of that weird bastard child Alien at the end was just too much to allow for suspension of disbelief. Shame, as I like the director.....
Another super cool Giger thing is his version of Lovecraft's "The Necronomicon". Saw it in a bookstore years ago and didn't buy it...now a new hardcover version goes for $650. Apparently this came out in 1977 and was given to Ridley Scott who then hired Giger for The Alien based on his artwork in this book
Check out my solo project prog band, Mutiny in Jonestown at https://mutinyinjonestown.bandcamp.com/
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I remember being told back in the late 90's that Species (another reason I hate CGI) was the only movie where Giger had full artistic control and which his designs were followed 100%. I'm not sure about the first Alien but with Aliens, I believe he had committed himself to working on Poltergeist II (if you can believe that) when he learned that there plans to make an Alien sequel. I recall reading in one book where Giger said he realized he was "working on the wrong sequel".
Not sure how he felt about the other Alien movies, or what his involvement was. I imagine there has to be a documentary on one of the DVD's (wasn't there a big boxset of all four movies, with a mother frelling dren load of bonus stuff) that explains it more clearly.
I've never seen any of the alternate versions that exist of the Alien movies. I know there's supposed to be footage in the alternate Aliens that shows Newt's family, leading up to when they were ambushed, as well as footage of Ripley with her daughter (who is a grown woman, because Ripley's been drifting in space for 50 years or whatever it was).
One thing about Aliens that I found slightly hard to swallow was Paul Reiser as a bad guy. I can maybe see him as a sleazy but mostly harmless night club owner or something like that, but casting him as the slime ball who's ready to throw everyone else under the bus is a bit like casting Scott Baio as a DA (oh, wait a minute, that's right...).
Alien Resurrection I thought was alright. I kinda cried when they killed the creature at the end. The look on it's face was heart breaking.
Anyone seen either of the Alien Vs. Predator movies? I got the first on one DVR, waiting for me to find 2 hours in my life some night, where I can sit down and watch it. I believe I've read that there's another movie that somehow relates to the Alien universe, which I believe shows the "space jockey" species, you know, the large creature whose corpse is found at the beginning of the first movie.
(points) That's it! That's the TV advert I remember seeing! And that was apparently the only evidence at the time that the damn thing even existed, because none of the stores near us had the damn thing. This was when we still lived at Fort Leonard Wood, and naturally, the PX didn't have it. There were one or two towns not too far from us that we theoretically could have checked...I think when we needed to go to JC Penney or Sears, we went to either Rolla or Springfield Ohio, but I don't think my parents particularly wanted to chase all over half of Missouri (that's the way they would have perceived it, anyway) just for some damn toy. So it was written off as "Sorry, we can't get it".
The first Alien vs, Predator movie is pure shit. I hated it.
Are you talking about Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which shows the Space Jockeys? I loved it, but it certainly has mixed reviews.
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