I stumbled on this little gem at Pink Tentacle yesterday and was suitably blown away. It would appear that in 1984/85 H.R. Giger quietly recycled some of his iconic production artwork for Alejandro Jodorowsky's unrealised Dune adaptation. Not for use in another movie, but a Japanese ad campaign for Pioneer's ZONE home entertainment system.
This brief glimpse of Giger's dark vision for planet Arrakis makes me lament the death of this project more than ever. The combination of Giger's nightmarish design and Jodorowsky's unconventional and surreal approach would surely have resulted in a cult SF film quite unlike anything we've ever seen.
As everyone knows, shortly after the collapse of Dune, Jodorowsky's core creative team of Dan O'Bannon, Giger, Chris Foss and Moebius all went on to contribute their talents to Alien; thus making O'Bannon's bastard child of Dark Star and Dune the closest we'll ever get to seeing What Could Have Been.
Of course this is all ancient history and common knowledge, but seeing these TV and print ads makes me wish anew that Giger's brilliance was further utilised at the height of his ability. I could watch an entire film - devoid of any actors, dialogue or story - of nothing but Giger's art, brought to life by '80s practical FX: sets, miniatures, models, animatronics, puppetry and matte paintings. A sort of biomechanical perversion of Koyaanisqatsi.