The Visual Artistry Behind 'Alien Xmas': Classic Stop-Motion Reborn
By Alexander Ross
The road to Alien Xmas began decades before its Netflix premiere. Brothers Stephen, Charles, and Edward Chiodo built an enduring industry reputation throughout the 1980s and 1990s through projects requiring tactile, slightly eccentric creature designs. They constructed the grotesque practical figures for Killer Klowns from Outer Space, animated the classic claymation large-margin sequence in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and later built the stop-motion Arctic animals for Jon Favreau’s holiday staple Elf in 2003.
During that collaboration on Elf, Stephen Chiodo handed Favreau a copy of his 2006 illustrated children’s book Alien Xmas, co-written with Jim Strain. The premise flipped traditional invasion tropes: a kleptomaniac alien race known as the Klepts views Earth solely as a resource dump, targeting the North Pole for its concentrated abundance of material goods. Favreau held onto the concept for over a decade.
When Netflix expanded its animation slate to compete against legacy studio catalogs, Favreau pitched the book as a throwback seasonal special. The goal was deliberate counter-programming. While major studios poured $100M-plus budgets into computer-rendered spectacles, Alien Xmas had to feel like an artifact recovered from an alternate mid-1970s broadcast schedule, executed with contemporary cinematic pacing.
Alexander Ross has covered the video game industry for a decade, writing deep dives on game design, esports tournaments, VR developments, and gaming culture.
