Editing Xenomorph (section)

==Concept and creation==
[[File:H.R. Giger - Necronom IV.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|''Necronom IV'', Giger's 1976 surrealist print that formed the basis for the Alien's design]]
The script for the 1979 film ''[[Alien (film)|Alien]]'' was initially drafted by [[Dan O'Bannon]] and [[Ronald Shusett]]. Dan O'Bannon drafted an opening in which the crew of a mining ship is sent to investigate a mysterious message on an alien planet. He eventually settled on the threat being an alien creature; however, he could not conceive of an interesting way for it to get onto the ship. Inspired after waking from a dream, Shusett said, "I have an idea: the monster screws one of them", planting its egg in his body, and then bursting out of his chest. Both realized the idea had never been done before, and it subsequently became the core of the film.<ref name="doc">''Star Beast, the [[Alien Quadrilogy]]'' boxset</ref> "This is a movie about alien interspecies [[rape]]", O'Bannon said in the documentary ''Alien Evolution''. "That's scary because it hits all of our buttons."<ref name="burster"/> O'Bannon felt that the symbolism of "homosexual oral rape" was an effective means of discomforting male viewers.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gallardo |first1=Ximena |title=Alien Woman: the Making of Lt Ellen Ripley |date=2006 |pages=25 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=9780826415707 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ecFu4B_CpoC&dq=chestburster+roger+dicken&pg=PA25}}</ref>

The title of the film was decided late in the script's development. O'Bannon had quickly dropped the film's original title, ''Star Beast'', but could not think of a name to replace it. "I was running through titles, and they all stank", O'Bannon said in an interview, "when suddenly, that word ''alien'' just came out of the typewriter at me. ''Alien''. It's a noun and it's an adjective."<ref name="doc"/> The word ''alien'' subsequently became the title of the film and, by extension, the name of the creature itself.

Prior to writing the script to ''Alien'', O'Bannon had been working in France for Chilean cult director [[Alejandro Jodorowsky]]'s [[Alejandro Jodorowsky#Dune and Tusk (1975–1980)|planned adaptation]] of [[Frank Herbert]]'s classic science-fiction novel ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]''. Also hired for the project was Swiss [[surrealist]] artist [[H. R. Giger]]. Giger showed O'Bannon his nightmarish, monochromatic artwork, which left O'Bannon deeply disturbed. "I had never seen anything that was quite as horrible and at the same time as beautiful as his work," he remembered later.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Book of Alien|author=Paul Scanlon|author2=Michael Gross|date=1979|publisher=WH Allen & Co.}}</ref> The ''Dune'' film collapsed, but O'Bannon would remember Giger when ''Alien'' was greenlit, and suggested to director [[Ridley Scott]] that he be brought on to design the Alien, saying that if he were to design a monster, it would be truly original.<ref name="doc" />

[[File:Carlo Rambaldi al Giffoni Film Festival 2010 - cropped.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Carlo Rambaldi]], the creator of the mechanical head-effects for the creature, was most famous for designing the title character of the film ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]''.]]
After O'Bannon handed him a copy of Giger's book ''[[Necronomicon (Giger book)|Necronomicon]]'', Scott immediately saw the potential for Giger's designs, and chose ''Necronom IV'', a print Giger completed in 1976, as the basis for the Alien's design, citing its beauty and strong sexual overtones. That the creature could just as easily have been male or female was also a strong factor in the decision to use it. "It could just as easily fuck you before it killed you," said line producer Ivor Powell, "[which] made it all the more disconcerting."<ref name="burster" /> [[20th Century Fox]] was initially wary of allowing Giger onto the project, saying that his works would be too disturbing for audiences, but eventually relented. Giger initially offered to completely design the Alien from scratch, but Scott mandated that he base his work on ''Necronom IV'', saying that to start over from the beginning would be too time-consuming. Giger initially signed on to design the adult, egg, and chestburster forms, but ultimately also designed the alien planetoid LV-426 and the Space Jockey alien vessel.<ref name="doc" />

Giger conceived the Alien as being vaguely human but a human in full armor, protected from all outside forces. He mandated that the creature have no eyes because he felt that it made them much more frightening if one could not tell they were looking at them.<ref name="burster"/> Giger also gave the Alien's mouth a second inner set of [[pharyngeal jaws]] located at the tip of a long, tongue-like proboscis which could extend rapidly for use as a weapon. His design for the creature was heavily influenced by an aesthetic he had created and termed ''biomechanical'', a fusion of the organic and the mechanical.<ref name="burster" /> His mock-up of the Alien was created using parts from an old [[Rolls-Royce (car)|Rolls-Royce]] car, rib bones and the [[vertebrae]] from a snake, molded with plasticine. The Alien's [[animatronics|animatronic]] head, which contained 900 moving parts, was designed and constructed by special effects designer [[Carlo Rambaldi]].<ref name="doc" /> Giger and Rambaldi together would win the 1980 [[Academy Award for Visual Effects]] for their design of the Alien.

[[File:HR Giger 2012.jpg|thumb|upright|[[H. R. Giger]], who designed and worked on the Alien and its accompanying elements]]
Scott decided on the man-in-suit approach for creating the creature onscreen. Initially, circus performers were tried, then multiple actors together in the same costume, but neither proved scary. Deciding that the creature would be scarier the closer it appeared to a human, Scott decided that a single, very tall, very thin man would be used. Scott was inspired by a photograph of [[Leni Riefenstahl]] standing next to a {{convert|6|ft|4|in|m|abbr=on|adj=off}} [[Nuba peoples|Nuba]] man.<ref>{{cite book|title=''HR Giger's Alien''|author=HR Giger|publisher=Sphinx|date=1979|page=60}}</ref> The casting director found {{convert|6|ft|10|in|m|abbr=on|adj=on}}, rail-thin graphic designer [[Bolaji Badejo]] in a London pub. Badejo went to [[tai chi]] and [[Mime artist|mime]] classes to learn how to slow down his movements.<ref name="doc" />

Giger's design for the Alien evoked many contradictory sexual images. As critic Ximena Gallardo notes, the creature's combination of sexually evocative physical and behavioral characteristics creates "a nightmare vision of sex and death. It subdues and opens the male body to make it pregnant, and then explodes it in birth. In its adult form, the alien strikes its victims with a rigid phallic tongue that breaks through skin and bone. More than a phallus, however, the retractable tongue has its own set of snapping, metallic teeth that connects it to the castrating [[vagina dentata]]."<ref name="burster" />

===Name===
This creature has no specific name; it was called an alien and an organism in the first film. It has also been referred to as a creature,<ref name="A2" /> a serpent,<ref name="AvP"/> a beast,<ref name="A3" /> a dragon,<ref name="A3" /> a monster,<ref name="A2" /> a nasty, or simply, a thing.<ref name="A1" /> The term ''xenomorph'' (lit. "alien form" from the Greek ''xeno-'', which translates as either "other" or "strange", and ''-morph'', which denotes shape) was first used by the character Lieutenant Gorman in ''[[Aliens (film)|Aliens]]''<ref name="A2"/> concerning generic extraterrestrial life. The term was erroneously assumed by some fans<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2014/08/the-throwaway-line-in-aliens-that-spawned-decades-of-confusion/|title=The throwaway line in Aliens that spawned decades of confusion|first=Lee|last=Hutchinson|date=August 2, 2014|website=Ars Technica}}</ref> to refer specifically to this creature, and the word was used by the producers of some merchandise.<ref>{{cite web|title=List of Aliens action figures|url=http://www.shelflife.net/Aliens-Action-Figures|access-date=2013-05-29|archive-date=May 3, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130503125434/http://www.shelflife.net/Aliens-Action-Figures|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The species' [[binomial name]]s are given in [[Latin]] as either ''[[wikt:internecivus#Latin|Internecivus]] [[wikt:raptus#Latin|raptus]]'' (meant as "murderous thief") in the ''Alien Quadrilogy'' DVD or ''[[wikt:lingua#Latin|Lingua]] [[wikt:foedus#Adjective|foeda]] [[wikt:Acheron#Latin|acheronsis]]'' (meant as "foul tongue from [[Acheron]]"){{efn|With ''acheronsis'' instead of ''[[wikt:acheronensis#Latin|acheronensis]]'', ''[[wikt:acheronteus#Latin|acherontea]]'' or ''[[wikt:acherunticus#Latin|acheruntica]]''.}} in some comic books.<ref>The comic book ''[[Aliens versus Predator versus The Terminator]]'' includes the binomial name ''Linguafoeda acheronsis''.</ref> The main Alien from ''[[Alien vs. Predator (film)|Alien vs. Predator]]'' is listed in the credits as "Grid", after a grid-like wound received during the film from a Predator's razor net.<ref name="AvP"/> ''[[Alien: Covenant]]'' actually credits the Alien as "Xenomorph", while also listing a different variety of the creature as the "[[#Neomorph|Neomorph]]".<ref name="covenant">{{Cite AV media|title=[[Alien: Covenant]]|people=[[John Logan (writer)|John Logan]], Dante Harper, Jack Paglen, [[Michael Green (writer)|Michael Green]] (writers); [[Ridley Scott]] (director)|publisher=20th Century Fox|year=2017}}</ref><ref name="neo">{{Cite web|url=https://www.slashfilm.com/alien-covenant-neomorph/|title=Alien Covenant Neomorph Revealed|date=April 20, 2017|website=/Film}}</ref> In ''The Weyland-Yutani Report'', the Alien encountered by the ''Nostromo'' was specifically referred to as "Xenomorph XX121",<ref name="WYreport" /> and this name is spoken out loud by the android Rook in ''[[Alien: Romulus]]''.<ref>{{Cite AV media|title=[[Alien: Romulus]]|people=[[Fede Álvarez]], Rodo Sayagues (writers); Fede Álvarez  (director)|publisher=20th Century Studios|year=2024}}</ref>