In 1985 the Japanese electronics company Pioneer hired visionary Swiss artist H.R. Giger for an advertising campaign to promote the company’s new Zone system. A television commercial was made featuring one of Giger’s unmistakable creatures, and Giger generated two print advertisements as well.

Aylmer at the Unflinching Eye blog points out that Giger was likely repurposing some of the labor that went into Jodorowsky’s never-to-be-completed adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune:
 

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.

 
If you haven’t seen Frank Pavich’s 2014 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, it’s a must-see!

This is not the only instance of Japan expressing admiration for Giger’s work. In 2014 we noted that Shirokanedai, Tokyo, was one of the four locations to host one of the distinctive and immersive bars created in the Giger style, but Giger grew irritated by the limitations imposed by the Japanese building codes, and disowned the Tokyo Giger Bar.

Here are the two print advertisements Giger created for Pioneer (click on the images for a larger view):
 

 

 
The TV commercial using Giger’s art:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Gigerstein’: The extraordinary guitar that H.R. Giger designed for Blondie’s Chris Stein
Incredible H.R. Giger bar puts you in the belly of the Xenomorph