Species

1. Domain
2. Kingdom
3. Phylum
4. Class
5. Order
6. Family
7. Genus
8. Species

From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. For further information see the BioTech homenode.

Species, a 1995 film directed by Roger Donaldson, unfortunately made little impact on the world in general. Important in particular to fans of the Swiss artist H.R. Giger, the film nevertheless has its own appeal as a fairly straight-forward sci-fi horror flick. One is never far from the realisation, however, that the the main impetus for the film, the whole reason for its being, is to provide a vehicle for the work of H.R. Giger in the hope that the success of the lucrative Alien films could be re-created.

The idea of the Species film was to expand on an intelligent, plausible method by which alien invasion of earth might take place. Rather than approach earth in vast, vulnerable spacecraft, the aliens would trust to DNA, basic and robust. Unlike the Body Snatchers, the aliens would not arrive in physical form, but would instead transmit their DNA over the vast reaches of interstellar space by radio signal and wait, patiently, for humanity to experiment with the downloaded genetic material.

Sure enough, the DNA is carefully implanted into a variety of human ova, and the beautiful, feminine alien creature Sil emerges, wasting little time before escaping with the dreadful imperative to mate. Of course, this cannot be allowed, and the usual team of experts and non-experts with surprisingly complementary skills and crowbar plot-device flaws is despatched to stop the alien menace.

Those who are familiar with Giger's past film work will know him to become intensely involved in the realisation of his designs. Given too, the often extreme nature of Giger's work and the possibility for an erotic alien sex machine, it was almost inevitable that disagreements would ensue, and it was not long into the design process that Giger's idea of feminine alien perfection was deemed a little extreme. Sil's shark's-teeth nipples hardly made it into the final cut, and Giger's plans for her to be impregnated by giving her partner anally-stimulated oral sex seem to have been neatly avoided entirely.

What really caused problems, however, was the method of Sil's demise. It is clear from Giger's own writings on the subject that by this time Sil's appearance on screen had begun to mean everything to Giger. Her replacement with a computer-generated version of Sil (compared by Giger to a frog) and her subsequent death at the hands of a flamethrower led to a scornful image entitled The Flamethrowerfucker and a letter to MGM complaining about the unoriginality of the ending. Add to this several other paragraphs, including one where Giger complains that the tongue looks like a carrot, and indeed that the punching tongue was far too close to the Alien films.

Watching Species, it will quickly become obvious that Giger was utterly ignored. Perhaps because of this, Species remains a rather formulaic horror movie, worth seeing if you have an afternoon to spare, and certainly worth seeing if you have a choice between it or its sequel. Be impressed by the transformation cocoon, the spine-ripping scene and the ghost train, but don't expect to be impressed by the plot.

Species: 1994 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

Written by Dennis Feldman
Directed by Roger Donaldson
Produced by Frank Mancuso, Jr. and Dennis Feldman

Sil: Natasha Henstridge
Young Sil: Michelle Williams
Fitch: Ben Kingsley
Press: Michael Madsen

Spe"cies (?), n. sing. & pl. [L., a sight, outward appearance, shape, form, a particular sort, kind, or quality, a species. See Spice, n., and cf. Specie, Special.]

1.

Visible or sensible presentation; appearance; a sensible percept received by the imagination; an image.

Sir I. Newton.

Wit, . . . the faculty of imagination in the writer, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Dryden.

⇒ In the scholastic philosophy, the species was sensible and intelligible. The sensible species was that in any material, object which was in fact discerned by the mind through the organ of perception, or that in any object which rendered it possible that it should be perceived. The sensible species, as apprehended by the understanding in any of the relations of thought, was called an intelligible species. "An apparent diversity between the species visible and audible is, that the visible doth not mingle in the medium, but the audible doth."

Bacon.

2. Logic

A group of individuals agreeing in common attributes, and designated by a common name; a conception subordinated to another conception, called a genus, or generic conception, from which it differs in containing or comprehending more attributes, and extending to fewer individuals. Thus, man is a species, under animal as a genus; and man, in its turn, may be regarded as a genus with respect to European, American, or the like, as species.

3.

In science, a more or less permanent group of existing things or beings, associated according to attributes, or properties determined by scientific observation.

⇒ In mineralogy and chemistry, objects which possess the same definite chemical structure, and are fundamentally the same in crystallization and physical characters, are classed as belonging to a species. In zoology and botany, a species is an ideal group of individuals which are believed to have descended from common ancestors, which agree in essential characteristics, and are capable of indefinitely continued fertile reproduction through the sexes. A species, as thus defined, differs from a variety or subspecies only in the greater stability of its characters and in the absence of individuals intermediate between the related groups.

4.

A sort; a kind; a variety; as, a species of low cunning; a species of generosity; a species of cloth.

5.

Coin, or coined silver, gold, ot other metal, used as a circulating medium; specie.

There was, in the splendor of the Roman empire, a less quantity of current species in Europe than there is now. Arbuthnot.

6.

A public spectacle or exhibition.

Bacon.

7. Pharmacy (a)

A component part of compound medicine; a simple.

An officinal mixture or compound powder of any kind; esp., one used for making an aromatic tea or tisane; a tea mixture.

Quincy.

8. CivilLaw

The form or shape given to materials; fashion or shape; form; figure.

Burill.

Incipient species Zool., a subspecies, or variety, which is in process of becoming permanent, and thus changing to a true species, usually by isolation in localities from which other varieties are excluded.

© Webster 1913.