Giger's Alien

by H.R. Giger

Text and photographs trace the design and construction of the alien creature, and other special effects, from the motion picture.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Horror, Film, Aliens, Reference, Art and Photography

76 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Hans Ruedi Giger (1940 - 2014) was an Academy Award-winning Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer best known for his design work on the film Alien.

Reviews

[Sleepy Boy]

Must have for any Alien fan. Chock full of original art, sketches, movie stills, and behind the scenes creation of the props and backdrops/settings of the iconic and mack daddy of all Sci-Fi horror, Alien.

Text itself is great with excellent insights from Giger and the crew.

[Gerhard]

Seat-of-the-pants production diary that showcases how much of Giger's original ideas were reduced or omitted due to budget and time constraints, like the alien habitat pyramids. It is legend that the chestburster scene was a single take where the actors were completely blindsided. Giger reveals it was filmed three times, with the cast changing blood spattered costumes each time. Also, nothing about the 'live animal parts' Scott wanted added to the alien eggs? Bizarrely, Giger's original vulva egg opening was deemed to have a crucifix shape that would have upset Catholics. Why Catholics? Giger's original sketches are the real star here. The text is frustratingly diary-like and perfunctory, with little insight into the integrated production design approach. Clearly, a lot of the mystery surrounding the Space Jockey would have been resolved if all of Giger's logical ideas had ended up in the screenplay and filmed.

[Lesley Brennan]

An excellent look into Giger's input to the design of both the set and the monsters that made Alien such a success. Giger gives an honest account of the business matters between filmmakers and artists and his frustrations surrounding this.
The book is presented in chapters that correspond to the order in which Giger's designs where created. Within each chapter original designs are presented alongside 3D models, film scenes and Giger's personal notes.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that likes Giger's work or enjoyed Alien

[Liviu]

Not much of a read, it's more pictures than text, but what there is is solid and endearing. This is probably Giger's (otherwise rare anyway) writing that comes closest to what people imagine he was like: sullen and grumpy, but that's due to the pressures of working under the constraints of movies' time & budget restrictions. He really was a lovely guy otherwise; in this book he's at his most stressed out, and you can tell.

It's pretty laconic for a diary, but the tidbits of behind the scenes info are great if you're a Giger and / or Alien fan. I loved it, and I'm saving up to buy the expensive (and expansive - 660 pages!) but probably totes worth it Alien Diaries.

Giger's probably the artist I've been a fan of for the longest, since early high school, and that love has only grown stronger with time. He's pretty much my exact opposite as an artist - always dreary, monochromatic and unwavering in his instantly recognizable style- but I adore him still. One of the creators I regret never having had the opportunity to shake the hand of.

[Anthony Ryan]

The genesis of perhaps the most iconic monster in movie history told through the medium of HR Giger's production sketches and finished art for Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic. Giger's diary also provides a welcome and illuminating insight into the making of the movie. Simply put, the birth of a legendary nightmare that still gives me chills.

[Nikola Lindenberg]

Absolutely incredible! Riveting. Alien is a behind-the-scenes diary about the artistic vision and painstaking craft behind the creation of the sets, props, and other visuals for Alien (1979), a film which features of one of the most breathtaking creatures that have ever appeared on film.

Written by H.R. Giger, who can surely be considered to be among the most imaginative artists ever, it is a journey through the unearthly nature of Alien as a film, the world Giger created within it, and the artist's reflection on his own creation.

[Jason Pettus]

2021 reads, #103. A recent rewatch of Prometheus had me looking up the Wikipedia page for the alien race featured in all the Alien movies; and while it was a surprise at first to find that the page was the length and depth of the biography of some major figure in world history, upon reflection I realized that that shouldn't really be a surprise at all, after having the race featured in one slightly different form or another through a dozen feature films and hundreds of comic book issues. That got me thinking again about Swiss artist H.R. Giger, whose legitimately unsettling yet simultaneously metal-album-cover cheesy "biomecha" paintings in the 1970s (some of the first in the fine-art world to be painted with airbrushes, along with more entrenched gallery people like Ed Paschke) provided the first inspiration for the aliens in this franchise, and who was eventually hired by director Ridley Scott to come to London to design and build many of the first film's most iconic setpieces, for which he won an Oscar and forever changed the world of dark sci-fi (not to mention metal album covers).

On an impulse, I checked out the two books on him the Chicago Public Library has, 1977's Necronomicon -- Giger's debut publication, the book that made it into Salvador Dali's hands by way of a mutual friend, who gave it to Alejandro Jodorowsky, who hired Giger to work on concept paintings for his ultimately doomed production of Dune, which is how he came to the attention of fellow staffer Dan O'Brannon, who soon afterward successfully pitched his Alien spec script to 20th Century Fox, which is how it is that Giger did all the alien design for that movie -- and then a book made out of Giger's concept art from Alien itself, first published in 1979 right after the movie came out. Or, at least I thought this was just going to be a book of concept paintings; but it instead turned out to be a much more interesting thing, which is those paintings combined with an extremely candid journal Giger kept at the time about the entire experience, and the copious still photos he took on the sets and inside the effects workshops where he and his buddies worked.

It's fascinating, I have to admit, which is why I thought it was worth writing about here at Goodreads, even though I won't be doing any such write-up for the more traditional exhibit-catalogue-style Necronomicon; fully of snotty opinionated rants from the uncompromising Giger about all the details of the production that drove him crazy, it has the same "fuck these California normies" vibe as Charles Bukowski has in Hollywood, his memoir of adapting his story Barfly into a movie starring Mickey Rourke as a fictionalized version of Bukowski himself. That's being kind of unfair, though; Giger in fact has all kinds of complimentary things to say about the various hardworking production designers and special-effects bottom-rung employees that brought his nightmarish airbrushed visions to full three-dimensional life, plus he pretty rightly gives a lot of credit to Scott himself for having the singular vision of the film he did, and being Giger's quiet champion at various points when it seemed no one else would. It's this unfiltered look at how the sausage is made (literally in this case), combined with the nerd-amazing production photos, combined with the flabbergasting paintings Giger originally made, that makes this such a spectacular book, and comes recommended to an audience way beyond the fanboys who just like gawking at his robot-squid vagina-penis monstrosities.

[Dimi Tsioubris]

What a rare genius, most of the times you need more than one or two concept artists to help with pre-production of a film even at the times the Alien was made (at least on the very essential parts) late seventies, but Giger took everything and did it on his own, the creature the landscapes etc, the whole production actually was based on his artwork, he did it on his own and he succeded, what more to be said!

[Zac]

Quite interesting, and full of unintentionally hilarious insights from grumpy Giger. Seeing how much work went into the sets and designs was very impressive, and it seemed like some of the abandoned ideas may have eventually found their way into later films. A fairly short read though - twice the length (read: amount of photos) would have made me much happier.

[Barbi Faye (The Book Fae)]

Giger's "Alien" is written by the artist behind the massively famous alien in the popular film. It is noted that his nightmares have inspired the monster, it is a personal diary as well. He was on set and designed and illustrated throughout the movies. There are incredible full color sketches, paintings, pictures from the film and from behind the scenes. A perfect book for any rabid horror buff!.

[kimlikesbooks]

No ones hates dinosaurs as much as as Giger does.

[Oscar]

More! I want more! These collected diary entries and sketches are such a great insight into the intense schedule and work that went into the jewel that is Alien. It also shows some of the (justified) anger and frustration that Giger experienced in trying to bring his vision to life.

[Robert]

Naturally, the art in this stands on its own but Giger's mad, obsessive, protective, frustrated and (at times) surprisingly open accounts of his work on "Alien" were quite fascinating.

[Danne]

the very reason Alien is so scary and that my nightmares in the 80s looked, and felt the way it did

[Nick]

Greatest picture book of my pre-adolescent childhood lol. It continues to be of the highest value to me as an adult.The book reveals Gigers production and timeline notes, deep franchise lore, production realities that made things like life cycle, propagation, behavior, many of Gigers contributions to the franchise' monster, on the cutting room floor. His design continues to transcend all of the missteps thus far, the concept remains fresh in the wake of pandemia, biotech atrocities and the horror of space. This book chronicles the creation of a truly gothic, anatomically eccentric sexually charged space demon that's secretions are more dangerous than its physical form. Really good stuff..

[Knick Knack Kitty Kat]

Loads of insights into the thinking, the designs and the artwork being Ridley Scott's film, Alien.

[nooker]

A story about a free form creative having to do commercial work and be on dead lines. Though this one ended ultimately rewarding.

[ce1est]

PAPAPAPAPAPAHHHH

[Chris]

This was an amazing addendum to the Making of Alien book all told through the eyes of H.R.Giger. Found it buried in a pile at a booksale and was over the moon as I hadn't read it since I was a teenager. Great book!

[Sidney Knight]

A fantastic book to accompany the sci-fi classic. Whether you’re a fan of Giger himself or simply Scott’s movie, these glossy pages of behind the scenes artwork and set production will catapult your inner geek to the surface immediately—and he will thank you for it.

[Stephen]

Amazing!

[Cristobal]

awesone

[Patrik]

A great book with a lot of interesting facts about the production of the film.

[David]

Foreword to the book written by Dr. Timothy Leary. What more do you need to know? :)