Gently down the scream, I assume.
The novelization of Alien includes a passage where (I think) Ripley speculates that the creature might metabolize air but the crew later discovers the creature has broken into the food stores and torn open food cans.
They certainly didn’t ignore it in Alien 3: the critter in that film was gestated in a dog and was quadrupedal. Seems to be clear evidence that the host influences the form of the Bug/Xenomorph/Wienerhead.
There’s also the Alien v. Predator movies, which feature the results of an alien incubating in a predator.
(I used to work with a guy who said that the first AvP movie was his favorite movie of all time. He also believed that the US government was behind 9/11. I’m pretty sure there’s a connection there.)
An acid that strong is impossible, so it turns from SF to Horror.
It’s SF and horror. Science fiction is full of impossible things.
Exactly, that’s the “fiction” part of “science fiction.”
Alien is most certainly scifi.
May I introduce you to time travel, faster than light travel, and telepathy which are staples of science fiction?
Odesio
Pile on! 
But yeah, something being impossible doesn’t push it right out of one genre into another.
So apparently Star Trek, with it’s DiLithium Crystals, is a Horror film too. :rolleyes:
It’s New Shimmer!
And, each can be made the “one impossible thing” to put the hook of the SF strory on. But in this case, it was just a side explanation of why they couldn’t just shoot the damn thing.
A horror film set in outer space is still a horror film.
A horror film set in the future where men and women are space truckers sure smells like science fiction to me.
And a scary science fiction movie is still science fiction.
You’re trying to make a distinction that just does not exist.
It’s a desert topping and a floor wax.
I agree with the above posters who say that the Alien is based on humans. Early facehugger designs look even more like a pair of hands fused together. Early designs of the Alien had eyes like motorcycle goggles.
Re Host Characteristics
Dark Horse comics, who have the comic book rights to both Alien and Predator, have taken this to heart. The Aliens have a varied appearance, depending on the host. Wizard did a competition of ‘Aliens with famous hosts’ based on the idea. My favorite was a blue Alien with antennae and a broad grin, having burst from the Tick. The Alien action figure line(by Mattel? I can’t remember. They came out in the nineties) used this an excuse to make more toys, making Aliens that had different shapes and coloration due to having different hosts. These included- scorpion, bull, rhino, crab, gorilla, and snake varieties.
A horror film set in outer space is a horror film that is also a science fiction film. It doesn’t have to be only one or the other.
I thought it was the lack of firearms aboard the Nostromo that prevented them from shooting the damn thing?
You got science fiction in my horror film!
No you got horror film in my science fiction!
Hey! Now you have two great tastes in one movie!
H.R. Giger’s design for the alien may have been inspired variously by genitalia [both sexes’], insects, dinosaurs, and certain reptiles and amphibians, but if you go further back, it really all started, via Dan O’Bannon, with a large, orange, spotted beach ball with feet in Dark Star. That page doesn’t elaborate on the ur-Alien design, but merely states: “Co-written by Dan O’Bannon, who later reused the “alien mascot” section of the film as the basis of his script for Alien (1979).”
Fortunately, Google Images comes to the rescue!
Thank goodness Giger revamped the whole thing.
There were stages between, and there’s no evidence that O’Bannon saw his creature from Dark Star as the ancestor of Alien (especially as “the beachball” wasn’t originally even IN “Dark Star”. The film started life as a student film. It was too short for a commercial release, so they added to it. A lot of what they added was Pinback’s scenes (O’Bannon played Pinback), including all the scenes with the “beachball.”
When they were putting together “Alien”, Giger was by no means the first artist. I’ve seen other production sketches by another artist (Ron Cobb, I think), that looked nothing like the final production. I didn’t see any sketches of The Creature, but it undoubtedly would’ve looked different.
Christopher Foss did some work for it at one stage. I’ve got a book called “21st Century Foss” which includes a section on Alien. Mostly architectural stuff and spaceships, nothing critter-related. His style, while very cool, is quite different from Giger.
He also worked on an initial attempt at making “Dune” into a movie. Same book has plenty of sketches from that. Interestingly IMDB says that Dan O’Bannon and H.R. Giger met because they were both working on the same movie.