It would have been just as ominous, and closer to the movie. just a thought.
shareI don't know if there's any official reason but I'm going to assume it's because they wanted the lighting to point downward and not up toward the title.
shareBecause it was too pornagraphic. The original egg was designed to open with two slants, so it resembled a vagina; Scott was told it was too extreme and to have Giger redesign the egg, so Giger made it with four slants when opening so it looked like a cross between a vagina and an asshole.
I’m not making this up, just do a quick google search. Funny enough, the four slant vagina/ass hole opening egg made it through production.
All of that being said, there was no way it was going to be put on a movie poster for all to see.
Maybe the person who created the poster didn't know the configuration of the egg. The poster did come almost a year before the movie premiered.
shareWhen it came out they did not want to give away the effects or the plot.
shareActually that's a good reason. "We know what happens next because of the promo poster".
shareThe whole movie was based on a mystique built around the existence of the Alien. They rarely showed it for more than fractions of a second, and until it came out in video where it could be paused and frame-grabbed it haunted people's visions.
shareIndeed
shareIt’s all here, like I stated in my original post. Most of the Giger contributory effects were hyper sexualized, that was part of his MO.
https://monsterlegacy.net/2015/02/05/starbeast-alien-the-egg-and-the-facehugger/
So true! The audience gets the briefest of glimpses and the Alien looks different every time.
I think it was Ridley Scott who said that they edited out a lot of the Alien. In the bonus section of the DVD it shows the longer version of the creature approaching Lambert. It really does look like a very tall guy in an alien costume