[Bonus Video] ALIEN's Space Suits (Patreon)

Hi! I found some great stuff on the iconic space suits in Alien, but they weren't designed by Giger and I wanted to focus on his work for the main video. Here is a bonus video with some bonus... bonus info on how they made the planet's surface from space. Enjoy!

Moebius

Helmet (Pat Lowry & Dennis Lowe)

BTS Pics

Lambert’s Space Suit: https://bit.ly/3SeE30c

(Before and Afters) The Nostromo was originally yellow, and other stories from ‘Alien’s’ secret documentarian by Ian Failes  - https://bit.ly/3Oi0CA9

SCRIPT: 

One visually striking element that we see for the first time in the Derelict Sequence wasn’t designed by Giger at all–the spacesuits. Besides the white variant at the very end of the movie, the only time we get to see these space suits throughout the entire alien franchise is the roughly 30 minutes that is the derelict sequence, and yet they are so interestingly designed that they have become iconic.

But before we get into the spacesuits, I want to quickly mention something I found about the creation of the planet's surface from space.

Special effects technician Dennis Lowe said, “One success that did work out was photographing the cloud effect that was eventually projected onto the alien planet as we descended into the atmosphere. Nick [Allder] gave me this job as I remembered telling him that I did an experiment while at Art School playing with aluminum paint with white spirits in a tray and that if you turned a warm spotlight on its surface it would produce convection currents that looked weird. We hired a Hasselblad 6x6cm roll camera and filmed a load of transparencies using this method and there was one magical transparency that shone out and that’s the one we used” (Before and Afters).

I just thought it was cool how well some of these low-tech methods work. It reminds me of how they used paints and different liquids to make the galaxies 2001: A Space Odyssey and made the craters on the surface of the moon by flicking water at wet plaster and then letting it dry.

I talked a bit in an earlier episode about how the inspiration for the look of the Nostromo’s space suits was Samurai armor. The suits were designed by French artist Moebius who had worked with screenwriter Dan O’Bannon on Heavy Metal Magazine and Jodorowsky’s failed Dune adaptation (Alien Explorations). Ridley Scott had made a sketch of the space suits with the Samurai influence and handed it off to Moebius for refinement, which I believe this is (Starlog issue 024, 94).

Moebius returned nine drawings with this one being the winning design (Mediascene #35).

The suits were constructed by costume designer John Mollo who had recently won an academy award for his work on Star Wars.

Scott gave Mollo the Moebius sketches and a list of things he wanted incorporated into the design. These were a samurai armor and overall Japanese influence, they should be striking, yet practical, they should like they had been well used and worn, and the suits should be color coded to each person (The Alien Legacy). Kane’s is yellow, Dallas’ is a pinkish red, and Lambert’s is light blue.

Mollo: “This is a yellow suit. This is one of the different colors. This has got bits of piping sort of Japanese cording on it and a bogus readout of some sort on the wrist.”

The gloves were made of thin plastic for some reason rather than attaching plastic to regular gloves (The Alien Legacy). Mollo described the boots as being the weakest part of the design, but you don’t really see them much in the movie (The Alien Legacy).

The front pack had what looked like a handle that you would pull out, but it was all one piece and, on the back was a heavy metallic pack made of fiberglass with various tubes and for what would be a futuristic air supply (The Alien Legacy).

The main aspect of the samurai design were metal shoulder protectors and a metal chest plate that had the name of its user engraved on it (The Alien Legacy). These were both attached to a padded neck ring to make one piece almost like football chest pads.

Aside from the three suits that the main actors wore, Mollo had to make three smaller duplicates. The three smaller ones were for these shots of the characters walking near the legs of the ship–these are Scott’s two sons and the cameraman’s son who were used to make the ship look bigger than it actually was.

In these pictures you can see the difference in height. They are standing next to the same railing.

Here, we can see some stills by Pat Lowry of them testing the helmets.

The helmets were made of fiberglass and bronze finish, two holes in the front for fake air pipes, a real light on top, and fake wiring on the inside, and fake controls on the back (The Alien Legacy). I love how it looks like the bronze has oxidized and turned green after heavy use, making you think about what they might have looked like when they were new. And they did some really cool weathering with the chestplate as well.

The helmets look great, but there was a big problem with them.

The soundstage itself was already hot, and as you can see, the suits were very bulky. Within 15 seconds of putting the helmet on, the heat in the suits would become almost unbearable (The Beast Within). Scott isn’t claustrophobic and he nearly had a panic attack when he tried it on (The Beast Within). The helmets were totally enclosed, so if you wore them too long, they would fill up with carbon dioxide and it would be a struggle to breathe (The Beast Within). For shots where they had to walk for a long stretch, they would nearly pass out. John Hurt, who played Kane, had a particularly difficult time.

When the actors couldn’t stand it anymore, the crew had to detach all the tubes and everything before the helmets could be taken off (The Alien Legacy).

For the spacesuit exhaust, jets of liquid nitrogen steam were set to puff on timers (Rinzler 197). Unfortunately, between the dust storm and the exhaust effect for the helmets, the actors were really having a hard time (Rinzler 197).

The problem wasn’t fixed until both of Scott’s kids apparently passed out during the forced perspective shot (The Beast Within).

The fix was to have a nurse standing by with an oxygen tank that the actors would use between takes (The Beast Within).

Dennis Lowe took this photo of them shooting a pick-up shot. Phil Rae and an Scenic Artist are wearing the top half of the space suits and you can see them on their knees. This was at Bray Studios where they were shooting the models, so it looks like this would be something over-the-shoulder that shows the Nostromo model in the background and I believe it is this shot that didn’t make it into the final film. It just looks funny because they aren’t wearing the bottom half of the space suit.

And that’s it! Thanks so much for your support! I really appreciate it!

Thanks so much for your continued support!