Without a doubt, one of the most successful film series within the science fiction genre is Alien. Since its first delivery with «Alien, the eighth passengerin 1979 until, «Alien 5″, 2015, with a total of nine parts that make up this saga to show us, in great detail, what extraterrestrial life and its biology could be like. But where would they get the idea to create Alien’s facehugger phasethe eighth passenger has always been a mystery to us, as it is a truly strange creature and worthy of the most horrible nightmares.
What inspired the facehugger phase of Alien?
Everything we imagine is the result of what we know from the oldest legends and myths to novels and, of course, also cinema, but no matter how much we reinvent, modify, combine or exaggerate in our minds, reality always manages. to far surpass fiction and this is the case of the facehugger phase from Alien. Seen closely, it is a cross between an octopus and a lobster, but without claws, with a slimy appearance, which born from an egg which when opened throws it into the air to capture a host in which to deposit its embryo, which when it grows will give rise to the breasted vulture larva.
Reasoning with Alien logic, what comes out of the eggit cannot be an adult individual of that species, nor a larva, so what is it? It is a flying reproductive organ. How are you staying? But it is just that, a reproductive organ that needs a host so that its “seed” can develop and become a larva. Does it seem impossible to you? Yes, it is as surreal as you want, but nothing original, because it is just what the Argonaut Mollusk male, that throws its reproductive organ to the female to inseminate her.
It was probably this mollusk that inspired the creator of Alien to design the face-hugging phase of the xenomorph, because in addition to using that same reproduction method, if you compare them, they are quite similar: change the color, give it the smooth claw-shaped tentacles, except for one, the longest one, turning it into a kind of scorpion tail and you have it. And although it is not exact, because the Argonaut is an animal in its adult state, and not an evolutionary state of itself, it is still a good starting point. And nature leaves very little to the imagination. If you want more crazy examples, you can find them in the book ««Sex on the sea» of the Dr. Marah J Hard.