Star Trek Almost Recruited H.R. Giger To Revamp The Franchise’s Scariest Villains

At this specific epoch in popular culture historical past, most anybody, not simply Trekkies, might inform you all in regards to the Borg. The Borg, in fact, are a race of soulless cyborgs, possessed of a single machine consciousness, that traverses the galaxy in outsize cubic ships, kidnapping folks and stealing know-how for assimilation into their collective. They bear no malice; they merely take and use no matter they need, being too highly effective to withstand. As they inform each ship they encounter, “Resistance is futile.” They have been the “Star Trek” franchise’s greatest villains … till they weren’t.

The Borg have been launched within the 1989 “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” episode “Q Who” and have been proven to the crew of the USS Enterprise-D for example of a deep house risk that Starfleet is just not but ready to face. The Borg do not have people. Most insidiously, they’ll adapt to any assault. For those who kill one drone with a phaser, the following one can be proof against phasers. The drones themselves behave like mechanical zombies. They’ve pale, pigment-free pores and skin, and their our bodies are lined with metallic paneling or worm-like tubes. Usually their eyes, ears, or mouths are stopped up with mechanical implants. 

There’s an eerie, biomechanical look to the Borg that was clearly impressed by the art work of H.R. Giger, the Swiss surrealist who, in fact, is greatest identified for designing the titular creature in Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie “Alien.” Many of us, nonetheless, are moreover conversant in the grim, apocalyptic aesthetic of his different artwork, whereby human our bodies merge disturbingly with industrial tools. Fittingly, Cinefantastique Journal reported in 1996 that Giger was as soon as approached about revamping the Borg’s design for that yr’s “Star Trek: First Contact.” Sadly, although, he did not find yourself contributing to the film.

In “Star Trek: First Contact,” the Borg’s metallic panels are extra form-fitting and resemble customized fits of armor. The facial implants on Borg drones are nonetheless current, they usually’re nonetheless encrusted with tubes, however they’ve a extra natural look to them. Their all-white pores and skin is now blotchy and rash-y, they usually appear to sweat, making them extra animalistic and malevolent. Whether or not or not that is an enchancment will be debated.

Longtime “Star Trek” make-up designer Michael Westmore designed the facial make-up, whereas the physique costumes have been designed by Deborah Everton. Cinefantastique Journal talked about, solely in passing, that H.R. Giger was consulted about “First Contact,” however the outlet famous that he handed on the movie. One can solely speculate as to why. Possibly it was as a result of the creatives behind “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” had already borrowed from him so closely.

On the time, Giger had not too long ago accomplished his work on the sci-fi horror movie “Species” and was serving as a inventive guide and set designer for the 1996 German horror/comedy “Killer Condom.” It is maybe telling that Giger would moderately have labored on a film titled “Killer Condom” than be concerned with a well-moneyed studio image like a “Star Trek” sequel.

Giger was notoriously bizarre (the “Alien” crew referred to him as Rely Dracula on the movie’s set), and one can maybe think about that he would not need to signal on to a film whereby he could be subjected to studio notes and the whims of govt producers. The “Star Trek” franchise was, on the time, carefully overseen by govt producer Rick Berman, and he was stringently protecting of Gene Roddenberry’s creation. A wild artist like Giger wouldn’t have gotten together with Berman.

It needs to be famous that, for “Star Trek: First Contact,” the Borg weren’t merely redesigned; their whole dynamic was modified. On “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology,” they have been mentioned to have a singular consciousness. In “First Contact,” they turned extra like a beehive, with drones, staff, and even a queen (performed by Alice Krige). The Borg queen was additionally a free-thinking and passionate determine, making selections on her personal and motivated by feelings. It was a dramatic shift. Rick Berman was quoted as saying the next in regards to the Borg’s revamped design:

“We needed to develop the Borg in a approach that [was] distinctive. We needed to have the ability to put [in] the analysis and growth time, and the price of growing the costumes and the make-up prostheses that we might by no means afford to do in tv, due to the cash concerned and the time concerned. We have been like children in a sweet retailer, with the ability to develop the Borg and to design them, and have them prove the way in which they did. It was great.” 

“Star Trek: First Contact” went on to change into a large essential and field workplace come across its theatrical launch in 1996, and it is nonetheless regularly ranked as among the best “Star Trek” films ever made. One can solely speculate if H.R. Giger’s designs would have helped the movie. Personally, I believe they could have hindered it. Giger’s work is so surreal, sexual, and off-putting {that a} mainstream viewers might need rejected his model of the Borg. If Berman had possessed the chutzpah to really make an R-rated “Star Trek” film, then possibly it might have labored as an amazing sci-fi horror flick.