Film Review: Alien

Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) is a film that features numerous transhuman elements. This review will be exploring transhumanism and how it connects to Alien. The key sources are: Julian Huxley’s Religion without Revelation (1927), Nick Bostrom’s A History of Transhuman Thought (2005) and H. R. Giger’s personal website. The key points covered: What is transhumanism? Who is H. R. Giger? And how does Giger’s work on Alien show transhumanism?

Fig 1. Alien Poster (1979)

Transhumanism is the futurist belief that humanity can transcend its current and natural limitations, usually with the assistance of technology. “The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself – not just sporadically, an  individual here in one way, an individual there in another way – but in its entirety,  as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve:  man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and  for his human nature.” (Huxley, 1927, quoted from Hughes, 2004). Some believe it to human nature to want to evolve and become more than what we already are. While there is debate as to where the term first came from, it is largely agreed that many of the foundational ideas come from Sir Julian Sorell Huxley. The basic idea is that transhumanists want to advance the human race in anyway possible. This is something reflected in the work of H. R. Giger.

Fig 2. H. R. Giger (2012)

Hans Ruedi Giger was a Swiss artist that created many unusual art pieces. “H.R. Giger’s fusions of human and machine can be profoundly disturbing, yet somehow beautiful, alien and recognizable all at once.” (Bellot, 2017) Giger’s work showed a bizarre relationship between human and machine, which indicates to him being a transhumanist. 

Fig 3. Birth Machine (1967)

In 1977, Giger compiled a collection of his work into a book, titled Necronomicon (After the fictional Lovecraftian book of the same name). The Necronomicon contained many different pieces of art, including Necronom IV (1976), which became the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Alien.

Fig 4. Necronom IV (1976)

Alien is a film set in the far future. The crew of the spaceship Nostromo find a strange structure, inside they the remains of a long dead alien, called the space jockey. Further inside they find a large batch of eggs. One of these eggs hatch and a facehugger attaches itself to a crew member. They take him back to the ship to remove the creature, which they are unable to do. Eventually it detaches and everything seems to go back to normal, until a chestburster rips out of him and escapes somewhere into the ship. The rest of the film becomes a 3 way conflict between Ash (an android with the hidden mission to bring back alien life), the remaining crew and the alien Xenomorph.

There are numerous transhuman elements in the film, starting with the alien environment and the space jockey.

Fig 5. Space Jockey (1979)

To keep the designs consistent, Scott hired Giger to be the head of designing everything non-human in the film. The derelict ship has a very peculiar and otherworldly feel to it with the unusual patterns and structures. The space jockey also shows something very distinctly ‘other’. But it is also shown in a way that it could have been possible that this being was more advanced than humanity, but it was simply a victim of time and probably a Xenomorph attack.

Fig 6. Xenomorph (2004)

Xenomorph XX121, or as it is more commonly known as, the Alien, is a parasitic life form based on the designs of H. R. Giger. The creature has a very graphic life cycle; starting with an egg, a facehugger will emerge and latch itself onto a person's face, it then proceeds to lay an egg down the person’s throat and will then promptly die. The egg inside the person hatches and a chestburster will tear itself out of the host’s body. Quickly, the chestburster grows into a Xenomorph drone. This life cycle could be seen as transhuman, because a human is required for this version of the Xenomorph. In the lore of Alien, Xenomorphs change depending on the host creature. Typically a Xenomorph is seen as being an upgrade from its host creature, meaning that in theory, it is transhuman.

Fig 7. Ash (1979)

The biggest example of actual transhumanism in Alien, however, is nothing to do with Giger. Ash is an android. An android is a robot that is designed to be as close to a human as possible. Androids are usually made with artificial intelligence, which is a major aspect of transhumanism. An advanced A.I. could easily outsmart and surpass humanity and a robotic body could continue functioning without sleep or sustenance, making androids truly superior beings in the eyes of transhumanists.

Transhumanism is the concept that humanity can evolve. Ridley Scott’s Alien shows a couple paths into that evolution with the Xenomorph and with Ash, while H.R. Giger’s work shows a possible relationship between human and machine.


Bibliography

Bellot, G. (2017) Transhumanism: More Nightmare Than Dream? [Online] At: https://lithub.com/transhumanism-more-nightmare-than-dream/ (Accessed on 8th December 2018)
Bostrom, N (2005) A History of Transhumanist Thought [Online] At: https://nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf (Accessed on 8th December 2018) H.R. Giger (1996) At: http://www.hrgiger.com/ (Accessed on 8th December 2018) Hughes, J (2004) Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future.

Huxley, J. (1927) Religion without Revelation [Online] At: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.90330/page/n5 (Accessed on 8th December 2018)

Illustrations List

Figure 1. Alien Poster (1979) [Poster] At: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poster-Ridley-Sigourney-Weaver-Ripley/dp/B018YHJU4W (Accessed on 08.12.18)

Figure 2. Belz, M. (2012) H. R. Giger [Photograph; Close up] At: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/HR_Giger_2012.jpg (Accessed on 08.12.18)

Figure 3. Giger, H. (1967) Birth Machine. [Art] At: https://www.allposters.com/-sp/Birth-Machine-Posters_i9588836_.htm (Accessed on 08.12.18)

Figure 4. Giger, H. (1976) Necronom IV [Art] At: http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/1979/04/development-of-necronom-iv.html (Accessed on 08.12.18)

Figure 5. Space Jockey (1979) From: Alien, Directed by Ridley Scott. [Film Still] United Kingdom/United States: 20th Century Fox. At: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/33592/what-happened-to-the-alien-that-came-from-the-space-jockey
(Accessed on 08.12.18)
Figure 6. Xenomorph (2004) From: Alien vs. Predator, Directed by: Paul W. S. Anderson. [Promotional Image] United States: 20th Century Fox. At: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Alien_vs._Predator_%282004%29_-_Alien.jpg (Accessed on 08.12.18)

Figure 7. Ash (1979)  From: Alien, Directed by Ridley Scott. [Film Still] United Kingdom/United States: 20th Century Fox. At: http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Ash (Accessed on 08.12.18)