March 3, 2016

What is it about the xenomorphs from the ALIEN franchise that make fans so excited to see them pitted against other monsters, creatures and superheroes? Cinematically, after much reluctance from 20th Century Fox, we finally got two ALIEN VS PREDATOR movies, both hugely successful and both not nearly as good as any of their comic book counterparts.

Hell, Dark Horse Comics always went pretty wild with their ALIENS mash-ups. On top of the Predator, the ALIEN has battled Terminators, Batman, Judge Dredd, Superman, Green Lantern, WildC.A.T.S and Witchblade!

But surprisingly, the ALIENS have never done battle with H.R. Giger’s other magnificent other worldly creation, Sil (or EVE) from the SPECIES series.

The infamous Swiss surrealist painter was brought to the attention of director Ridley Scott by screenwriter Dan O’Bannon who had worked with him on the never-made Alejandro Jodorowsky version of DUNE. It took several months and a handful of conceptual designs but eventually Giger came up with what would end up being one of the most iconic and terrifying creature designs in the history of horror and sci-fi. The Academy recognized his work and in 1980, Giger took home the Oscar for “Best Achievement For Visual Effects.”

In 1994, Giger was brought in to do the creature concept designs for “Sil,” the female alien/human hybrid that would be showcased in the film SPECIES. Giger himself was never happy with how Sil looked in the final film as budget constraints and creative differences sullied his true vision. And while the design is spectacular and actress Natasha Henstridge did a fantastic job portraying the human version of Sil, on a desperate quest to mate, most of the full-on Sil design is rendered in CGI. And we’re talking early mid-90’s era CGI.

The design and costume were much stronger in the sequel as done by Steve Johnson and his FX team. The famed FX legend also was wise to include Giger in the discussions about how they planned to execute Eve, the sequel’s version of Sil, and the other various alien designs. When fully realized, Eve looks fantastic in SPECIES 2, but we barely get to see her as her full alien appearance is relegated to the finale and a few brief flashback sequences. Still she’s a marvel to look at and one of Giger’s finest creations.

Now, why haven’t the two Giger aliens faced off against each other yet? With the xenomorph from ALIEN, you have the perfect killing machine; a giant beast with the best of defense mechanisms – acid for blood. It towers at a good 7 feet tall in most cases, not including the giant queen, and has faced off against some of the deadliest creatures in the furthest reaches of space. It would make for the perfect weapon if they weren’t so unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Meanwhile, Sil (or Eve) carries both the genetic make-up of a vicious alien from space and that of human DNA. They even comment in the first film that her savage side could really come from either gene pool. She’s an elegant killer, and smart. She’s also super fast. She’d probably put up one hell of a fight against a xenomorph.

So what do you think? When face to face, which of Giger’s cinematic masterpieces would survive in an all out battle?