Ridley Scott Praises H.R. Giger For the ‘Alien’ Franchise’s Success

With Ridley Scott having directed 1979’s Alien and two of its prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the filmmaker is often considered the franchise’s most prominent creative figure. The filmmaker recently confessed that, without the creature design of H.R. Giger and his work on the xenomorph, the franchise wouldn’t remain as relevant almost 40 years later.

“In my career, which has been pretty long, there’s only been, with the greatest respect for the people I’ve worked with, two real, real originals,” Scott shared with Yahoo! Movies. “Funnily enough, I came across a guy called H.R. Giger and if I hadn’t got that monster you would not have had that movie.”

The Swiss painter has long been an icon in the world of science fiction, with his paintings blending humans, aliens, and robots with the heavy use of biomechanical and sexual imagery. The collaboration between Scott and Giger helped fuel the entirety of Alien, cementing it as a sci-fi masterpiece.

“I saw the drawing – the drawing was drawn for the book, not the film – and I was so kind of taken, I flew to Switzerland where he lived because he didn’t want to get the plane as he was scared of flying,” Scott recalled. “I met him in Zurich at his home and I persuaded him to travel by train to come to England and live at Shepperton studios for ten months. And he did.”

The filmmaker knows he can’t give Giger all the credit, given the amount of talented collaborators involved in the project, though the power of the artist’s imagery throughout the film couldn’t be denied.

“It wouldn’t have been the same movie,” Scott confessed. “Whilst the cast was wonderful, with Sigourney [Weaver] and Harry [Dean Stanton] and those people, but without that eighth passenger it wouldn’t have been the same film.”

He added, “What I’m trying to say is that there are rarities, there are those [ideas] that occur once in the while, not that often, but when they do grab them and hang on to them.”

Sadly, a variety of factors have contributed to the uncertainty of the franchise’s future.

Prometheus saw the return of Scott to the series after a handful of dull and disappointing sequels, though the film’s focus on artificial intelligence as a major threat instead of the monstrous xenomorph disappointed some audiences.

Last year’s Alien: Covenant featured the familiar xenomorph more prominently, though it still wasn’t prominent enough, resulting in an underwhelming box office performance.

If consecutive financial disappointments weren’t enough to signal the end of the series, 20th Century Fox being purchased by Disney could result in fewer R-rated movies being developed, which would severely limit the Alien series.

Stay tuned for details about the future of the Alien franchise.

Do you think the series could have succeeded without Giger’s imagery? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

[H/T Yahoo! Movies]