Alien (film)
Alien is a
1979 science-fiction/
horror film directed by
Ridley Scott, and was the first film in what would become a successful
Hollywood franchise. The title of the film refers to a
xenomorph, a highly-aggressive extraterrestrial creature, but the connecting thread of the plot of the series becomes the story of
Ellen Ripley, played by
Sigourney Weaver, who finds herself the principal opponent of the alien species throughout the series. The film launched the first major
American film series with a female
action hero.
H.R. Giger designed the film's visual
imagery and won an
Oscar for it.
In
2002, the United States
Library of Congress deemed
Alien "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the
National Film Registry.
Publicity for the film used a tagline which became famous:
In space no one can hear you scream.Refinery workers travelling on a long journey through deep space wake mid-flight to investigate signs of alien intelligence. The crew finds such evidence and inadvertently brings aboard a living specimen that begins to take out the crew one-by-one.
En route to Earth, the ship's computer (called "Mother") of the spaceship
Nostromo (a commercial towing-vehicle hauling a huge interstellar mineral-refinery platform) wakes the crew from
hypersleep. Initially the crew think they have arrived at Earth, but soon discover that they remain far from home and that they must investigate a signal â€" possibly a sign of alien intelligence â€" from a nearby
planet (referred to as
LV-426 in the sequels). The
Nostromo lands on the storm-ridden planet and Dallas (the ship's captain, played by Skerritt), Kane (Hurt), and Lambert (Cartwright) leave the ship in space-suits to investigate the source of the signal. It leads them to a massive derelict spacecraft of unknown origin. Inside the craft they find the apparent fossilized remains of the ship's pilot or navigator with a large hole in his rib-cage, with the bones bent outward.
Kane stumbles across a narrow shaft and descends into a massive chamber below, in which he finds a large number of eggs. Upon examination one of the eggs opens and an unknown lifeform explodes outward and proceeds to attach itself to his helmet-visor. Kane stumbles backward as the creature (subsequently dubbed a "
facehugger") dissolves through the helmet visor and attaches itself, spider-like, to his head.
Upon returning to the ship with Kane, Ripley (Weaver) refuses Dallas's order to open the ship's inner hatch, but Ash (Holm) overrides her and opens the hatch anyway. Upon investigation, Kane is still alive, though in a coma. Attempts to remove the facehugger fail, as it has a tight grip around Kane's neck. Attempts to cut it reveal an acid-like blood that eats through several decks of the ship.
The facehugger eventually falls off on its own, with Kane seemingly back to normal. Although initially missing, the facehugger, once located in the infirmary, appears dead. Assuming the incident has concluded, the ship lifts off to resume its course. The crew meet for one more meal before re-entering hypersleep. During the meal Kane suddenly goes into horrific convulsions. As the crew try to hold him down, his chest explodes as an alien creature, known as the "chestburster", escapes and scurries away.
The crew splits up into two teams to try to corner the creature. Ash rigs together a tracking-device, while Brett (Stanton) assembles a weapon similar to an electric
cattle-prod.
Picking up a signal, Parker (Kotto), Brett, and Ripley think they have the creature cornered in a storage locker. But they have actually discovered Jones, the ship's cat, who promptly runs off. Realising that they might detect Jones again, Brett sets out to retrieve the cat. The alien attacks Brett and hauls him off into the air-shaft.
The crew now realise that the alien has apparently grown at an alarming rate and reached a size bigger than any of them. They rig up a number of hand-held incinerator-units similar to flamethrowers. As the alien has used the air-shafts to move about the ship, the crew proceed to cover every air-shaft vent and seal every bulkhead behind them, while Dallas enters the air-shafts with a
flamethrower, intending to drive his prey into the airlock and to blow it into space.
Using the portable trackers, the crew determine that Dallas has reached the general vicinity of the alien within the air shafts. However the alien's signal disappears, only to reappear right next to Dallas. The alien sneaks up on Dallas and attacks him when he shines his torch on it. The surviving crew members debate their next move. Ripley persuades them to stick with Dallas's plan and to stay in a group.
Ripley queries Mother about how to neutralize the alien and discovers that Ash had a mission to obtain the alien lifeform and to ensure its delivery to Earth. "The Company" (the
Weyland-Yutani Corporation) knew about the alien all along, and regarded the crew of
Nostromo as expendable. Ripley then notices that Ash has joined her in the binnacle. Ripley flees but Ash corners her. With seemingly superhuman power, Ash knocks Ripley down and proceeds to attempt to choke her by putting a rolled up magazine down her throat. Parker and Lambert arrive and attempt to subdue Ash who instead assaults Parker, who is forced to smash a
fire-extinguisher over Ash's head. Ash then proceeds to convulse wildly and spew white liquid from his mouth. Parker gives one more blow to Ash, dislodging his head in the process and revealing the Science Officer as an
android. Lambert subsequently disables Ash by stabbing him in the back with the electric cattle-prod.
As she attempts to reconnect Ash's head and voice/brain faculties â€" hoping that the android may tell them how to defeat the alien â€" Ripley tells Parker and Lambert what she has learned. Ash insists they cannot hope to kill the alien, and the crew decide to destroy the ship and to escape in their shuttle.
While Ripley preps the shuttle for take off, Parker and Lambert go to gather extra bottles of coolant for the shuttle's life-support system. Ripley overhears the meows of Jones the cat and realizes that he remains running loose on the ship. She locates him and places him in a small plastic crate. While doing so she overhears a commotion over the ship's open-frequency intercom as the alien kills Lambert and Parker.
Ripley now activates the ship's self-destruct sequence and races back to the shuttle. She rounds the corner to the shuttle airlock, only to see the alien standing there. Ripley retreats back to the self-destruct console and tries to reverse the process, however she has returned too late and can no longer countermand the sequence. Ripley makes her way back to the shuttle. With less than a minute to spare, the shuttle hurtles away at full speed and the ship explodes.
Preparing for hypersleep, Ripley discovers the alien has hidden itself aboard the shuttle, and locks herself in a storage-locker. She puts on a space-suit, arms herself with a harpoon-gun and then uses various vents to release steam to drive the alien out. With the alien loose, Ripley opens the airlock, blowing the alien out. It grabs onto the hatch before Ripley uses the harpoon to knock it clear. Though tumbling outside of the ship, the alien remains connected to the ship via the harpoon line. Ripley ignites the ship's thrusters and blasts the alien into space.
Now alone, Ripley puts herself and Jones into hypersleep and waits for rescue.
Dan O'Bannon (who had collaborated with
John Carpenter on the cult sci-fi film
Dark Star) wrote the original
screenplay as a script titled
Star Beast, a revision of some earlier ideas of O'Bannon's (one of which dated from some years before) about
gremlins getting loose aboard a
World War II bomber and wreaking havoc with the crew.
O'Bannon's original script bears many resemblances to the film as actually produced, yet with significant differences. The spaceship â€" designed with a low-budget production in mind â€" originated as a small craft called the
Snark. In the original script, the ship has an all-male crew â€" including the Ripley character. Actor
Tom Skerritt originally won the role of Ripley, but in the course of developing the script, character re-casting made Ripley a woman, reportedly at the insistence of producer
Alan Ladd, Jr.. This decision proved crucial to the film's success.
After sailing in response to the intercepted alien message, the crew discover the derelict alien craft and its dead pilot. Ominously the pilot in its death throes had scratched a triangle on its control console. The crew members go outside and see the remains of an ancient
pyramid. They lower Kane into the structure, where he finds a chamber with a breathable atmosphere. An
altar-like structure houses the alien embryo-eggs, and a hieroglyph depicts the alien's lifecycle. This concept survived for a long time, and preliminary H.R. Giger pyramid drawings intended for
Alien exist, but eventually the producers went with the idea of combining the wrecked derelict ship with the egg-chamber (also designed by Giger), although the ideas of the pyramid, the altar and the hieroglyphs re-surfaced in the 2004 film
Alien vs. Predator. The subplot of Ash as an android and the betrayal of the crew came in later in the script-development process. The production dropped a scene in which Ripley and Dallas have sex â€" in order to secure a lower censorship-rating.
Substantial excerpts of O'Bannon's original script appeared as bonus materials on the
1992 laserdisc boxed set of
Alien (though the
1999 Alien Legacy DVD box omitted these). The complete O'Bannon script appears in the
2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set as a bonus feature.
Some early concept art came from
Chris Foss and from
Jean Giraud, better known as the
comic-book artist MÅ"bius. MÅ"bius's designs for the
Nostromo spacesuits made it into the final film.
Many reviewers have noted that the basic plot of
Alien, in which a small group of humans is pitted against a relentless alien creature in a remote location, derives from earlier sci-fi movies of the 1950s such as
Howard Hawks'
The Thing from Another World and the
1958 movie
It! The Terror from Beyond Space by
Edward L. Cahn [
1], [
2]
O'Bannon wrote the original treatment in
1976 while staying with
Ronald Shusett after the collapse of a projected film version of
Dune, on which he had been working and which
Alejandro Jodorowsky would have directed. Artist
Ron Cobb, who had worked with O'Bannon on
Dark Star and
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, produced a series of conceptual designs that defined the gritty realism of the film. O'Bannon and Shusett sold the script to the Brandywine company of David Giler, Gordon Carroll, and
Walter Hill who had a production deal with
Twentieth Century Fox with Hill attached to direct.
Hill and Giler re-wrote the script, ejecting superfluous elements and making it more action-oriented. They also rewrote almost all of the dialogue, giving the characters more distinct personalities. These changes were the source of tension between O'Bannon and the other production members that lasted through the making of the film. O'Bannon invited other artists who had worked on the
Dune project to work on the film including Foss, MÅ"bius, and Giger. At this stage, there was a hiatus in the production, as the studio was alarmed at the prospect of committing to a new science fiction film when it feared the yet-to-be-released
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope would be a flop.
When
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope became a box office hit, Fox gave the film the go ahead with an $8 million budget—much higher than the writers had originally hoped. During the production hiatus, Hill had been replaced by Ridley Scott who revised many of the design elements before principal photography started at
Shepperton Studios in
England. Giger was brought in from
Zurich and along with Ron Cobb was set up at the studios as a type of
artist in residence. (Giger kept a diary through the production that was the basis of his book
Giger's Alien). Much of the film's production design was done by the same team that had worked on
Star Wars, with
John Mollo supervising the costumes including the distinctive spacesuits and
Carlo Rambaldi producing the crucial mechanical effects for the title alien's head. Special effects were led by the team of
Brian Johnson and
Nick Allder who had worked on
2001: A Space Odyssey and
Space 1999. Scott turned to a computer animation pioneer Bernard Lodge from his old college the
Royal College of Art in
London to produce the film's influential green line computer displays.
The film features only eight actors:
*
Tom Skerritt (as
Captain Dallas)
*
Sigourney Weaver (as
Warrant Officer Ripley)
*
Veronica Cartwright (as
Navigator Lambert)
*
Harry Dean Stanton (as
Engineering Technician Brett)
*
John Hurt (as
Executive Officer Kane)
*
Ian Holm (as
Science Officer Ash)
*
Yaphet Kotto (as
Chief Engineer Parker)
*
Bolaji Badejo (as
The Alien)The crew of the ship
Nostromo also includes an onboard
cat named "Jones".
Jerry Goldsmith composed the original score for the film. Despite the film's futuristic setting, the composer's score reflects the film's underlying
horror-film genre with its use of oscillating string textures and bizarre sounds. Goldsmith composed a main theme in the romantic style that barely appears in the finished film.
Director Ridley Scott and editor Terry Rawlings became quite attached to several of the cues they used for the temporary track while cutting the movie. As a result they moved around much of Goldsmith's score and had many sequences rescored. (Interviews on the "Quadrilogy" DVD release of this film document the viewpoints of Goldsmith, Rawlings and Scott in regard to this situation and why it occurred.) Two cues from Goldsmith's earlier score for
Freud appear in the film, and a section of
Howard Hanson's second symphony, "The Romantic" replaced the end credits. As a result, Goldsmith's original soundtrack LP represented more the original score he wrote than what ended up appearing in the film.
The initial
DVD release of
Alien included an isolated score track that synched the original music up to where it would have appeared in the film, as well as an additional track with the re-scored tracks (the production audio plays when the music does not appear). The soundtrack
CD has gone out of print, however. In the final DVD release, most of the scenes showing the
Nostromo exterior, and all of the sequences from
Howard Hanson's 2nd Symphony ("Romantic"), some of which went along with them, have disappeared, for reasons unknown.
The theme that most critics and fans of the film have pointed to is that of the human birth cycle. When Kane, Dallas, and Lambert venture into the alien craft, they enter through giant vagina-like openings and travel up a tunnel that resembles the birth canal. The fossilized alien sits in a long, telescopic phallus-shaped piece of machinery, and the audience can intrepret the egg that Kane finds as an
ovum. Such imagery fits with the often sexual nature of Giger's art.
The film presents a version of birth that might seem almost empathetic with that of the woman's experience: the alien bursting from Kane's chest reflects the intense pain that a woman experiences during natural child birth (a birth without
anesthesia). The film also more broadly deals with issues of human sexuality, including
rape,
free love and even
homosexuality, although these last two points only emerge in the director's audio commentary on
DVD .
The other main theme of the film deals with
blue-collar workers faced with extraordinary circumstances. With the exception of Ash the science officer, all the characters are working class, even the officers. There is also the notion of a corporation that puts profit before the safety of their workers. Ripley hints that the company probably wants the creature for its weapons division. To acquire it, the company makes the lives of the crew members expendable. This may be reflective of the economic culture of the
1970s when millions of blue-collar workers lost their jobs as American corporations shut down factories and other production facilities in favor of cheap, overseas labor.
David Giler and
Walter Hill added these paranoia themes, much to the chagrin of
Dan O'Bannon who thought they had used his film to make a trite statement against the American work-ethic.
Also important is the confusion of artificial with organic. The initial stress laid on life cycles and processes eventually eases off once the alien births. After it escapes, much weight is given to visually confusing its smooth head with metal piping and its spindly, bristling legs and tail with wires, chains, and grates. The film further explores this theme with the computer system "Mother", with the revelation of Ash as an android, and with the realization that Ash's mission involves regarding humans as accessories or mechanisms in the process of preserving the alien and of bringing it to Earth at all costs.
The name of the ship, "Nostromo", provides a reference to the novel of the same name by
Joseph Conrad, an author visited earlier by Ridley Scott in his movie
The Duelists. In Conrad's
Nostromo, a silver-mining corporation entrusts a dangerous cargo (silver â€" dangerous because revolutionaries want it) to an audacious anti-hero called Nostromo, tasking him with protecting it from the revolutionaries. This may link with the idea of blue-collar workers facing impossible odds, as mentioned above. Given the eventual destruction of the alien cargo, like the betrayal of the silver in Conrad's
Nostromo, one could draw parallels between the eventual corruption of Nostromo and the "corruption" of Ripley. The shuttle
Narcissus also comes from Conrad's oeuvre: see
The Nigger of the Narcissus.
In cultural studies
* Many analysts have examined the film's gender politics, and some have linked it to wider cultural idioms such as the experience of
abjection defined by
Helene Cixous.
In film and video
* Aside from the creation of the
Alien franchise and launching the international careers of Sigourney Weaver and Ridley Scott, the box office success of the film spawned a cycle of far less-successful imitations, including
Xtro and
Inseminoid.
* Commentators point to
Alien, along with
The Brood, as launching the
body horror sub-genre of
horror film. Also the film's cramped, claustrophobic sets have become the
de facto norm for horror movies set in space.
* The film's representation of the ship's crew has also had a huge influence. For the first time, a blockbuster science-fiction film depicted space-travelers as blue-collar company-employees rather than as highly-empowered agents of a quasi-military structure (such as in
Star Trek). (A hint of this also appears in the earlier
Silent Running.) The film
Outland borrows much of this premise, and across the genre the aesthetic of
Alien for future technology became the norm in the following decade.
* The movie
Spaceballs had a scene involving John Hurt (Kane), and another chestbuster in a diner. Hurt's character laments "Oh no, not again!"
* The distinctive "bio-mechanoid" style of H.R. Giger, made famous by this film, has spawned copies and references in so many sci-fi films and television productions that it has become a design motif in its own right. Famous examples of Giger-inspired design include
Independence Day and
Species. Rumors of the alien's resemblance to the Borg are greatly exaggerated.
*
Star Wars'
Expanded Universe beings, the
Yuuzhan Vong, could represent another example inspired by Giger's bio-mechanoids.
* The impact of
Alien also became perceivable in the early years of
Japan's
direct-to-video animes (see
OVA), where it inspired a number of series like
Lily-C.A.T. and
Roots Search.
In games
*
Nintendo's
Metroid videogame series shows noticeable influence from the movies of the
Alien series. To commemorate this influence, one of the game's perennial villains has the name
Ridley, in honor of
Alien director Ridley Scott. Also,
Konami's
Contra saga has many enemies that have an astounding resemblance to the aliens.
* In the computer game
StarCraft by
Blizzard Entertainment, the
Zerg faction resembles the Xenomorphs in many ways. A five-mission demo version of the game (supposedly a prequel to the retail version) even refers to the Zerg as Xenomorphs. A cutscene involves Zerg aliens ambushing Terran marines in an infested science vessel named the 'Amerigo'. Quotes from the movie's sequel,
Aliens, also appear in the game, though some are well-hidden (for example, selecting the same Marine over and over will eventually cause him to quote Hudson's line "How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?")
* In
Viewtiful Joe 2,the last level features enemies similar to the Xenomorphs.
* In the final level of
Conker's Bad Fur Day, the protagonist
Conker fights a Xenomorph named "Heinrich" while wearing a powersuit.
* The
Resident Evil series of games by Capcom shows considerable influence from the Alien series, such as the concept of the character initiating the self-destruct sequence and having to "fight" the enemy in a limited time for the finale. A "chest-burster" similar to the Alien features in
Resident Evil 2 (1998) and in
Resident Evil: Outbreak (2004).
* The game
Half-Life shows a notable number of influences from the Alien films, notably
headcrabs, which closely resemble
Facehuggers.
* The game
Halo contains references to the film
Alien. Aboard the
Pillar of Autumn, a poster on the wall announces a missing
calico cat aboard that answers to "Jonesy". Also, Marines throughout the game frequently quote phrases taken directly from
Alien or from its sequel. One can regard the enigmatic alien species known as "the Flood" as variants of the Xenomorphs, though only in reproductive method and not in aesthetic design.
* The game
Tokimeki Memorial : Forever with you contains a reference to the
Alien films: it presents one of the characters of the game, the art-loving Ayako Katagiri, as a fan of a painter named "Gergi" (an anagram of Giger), famous for his grotesque and biomechanical paintings. Also, in the
Tokimeki Memorial OVA 1, at one point, Ayako appears with a sketch depicting a Xenomorph in front of her.
* The
Turrican series of games from the early 1990s included levels directly influenced by Giger's
Alien designs. See sample
screenshots from Turrican 3.
In music
* Dutch composer
Arjen Anthony Lucassen wrote "Perfect Survivor", a song inspired by the original
Alien movie, for his progressive metal side-project
Star One.
October 29,
2003, saw
Alien re-released in cinemas as a
Ridley Scott Director's Cut. It restores many â€" but not all â€" of the deleted scenes that have already appeared as bonus materials on previous
laserdisc and
DVD releases of the film, and makes some interesting deletions from the original cut. However, unlike the
Star Wars "Special Editions", it does not appear to
digitally enhance any of the film's original special-effects footage (though the film's original negative did undergo some digital cleanup and restoration). However, the new release added some minor effects to the film, such as the shot of the sunrise on the planetoid, the lights on the helmets of Dallas, Lambert and Kane move under a natural arc on the left side of the screen. Also, when the Nostromo aligned itself to the planetoid, effects added a field of stars to the background.
Ridley Scott has stated that he did not really think that
Alien required this tweaking, and that the term "Director's Cut" was used for marketing reasons only (and inconsistently as well). In the
Alien Quadrilogy materials, he goes out of his way to state his preference for the original: "rest easy, the original 1979 theatrical version isn't going anywhere". He recut the film himself, only after viewing the studio's attempt to do so; a version that he felt was "too long" and ruined the film's pacing.
A brief rundown of the restored footage or cut scenes, in the order that the scenes appear:
*The
Nostromo crew listening to the alien transmission
*Kane took out his weapon in the egg chamber.
*The scene in which Ripley asks Ash if Mother has analyzed the alien transmission (and in which Ash replies "No") has disappeared. Instead we see Ripley simply playing with the computer console and sitting down while a binary sequence displays on the computer screen.
*Lambert slapping Ripley for refusing to let them bring Kane back aboard the ship.
*Some dialogue deleted during the scene where Ripley confronts Captain Dallas in the corridor over letting Ash keep the dead alien facehugger. Dallas' lines about the replacement of
Nostromo's original science officer by Ash at the last minute have disappeared. This interesting deletion removes a bit of
foreshadowing that all is not as it seems with the character of Ash.
*Cut of the scene where Ash leaves the infirmary after Ripley has confronted him for breaking quarantine procedures.
*A handful of shots added to Brett's death scene, including one clearly showing the alien dangling from above, and another where Parker and Ripley rush into the room just after the alien grabs Brett. As they look upward, dripping blood covers them.
*A brief sequence showing Dallas querying the ship's computer, Mother, about his odds of killing the alien, and getting no reply, before he enters the ventilation ducts, has been cut.
*A new brief shot of Lambert added as the crew regroup and weigh their options after Dallas' death.
*A portion of the film's most famous deleted scene—Ripley discovering the alien's nest and the bodies of Dallas and Brett—has been restored, though the Director's Cut does not include Ripley's lines to the dying Dallas ("What can I do?" and "I'll get you out of there.") before she kills him with the flamethrower.
*A quick extension of a shot as Ripley discovers the alien blocking the path to the shuttle; the alien is shown staring at Jones the cat in his catbox, then it swats the catbox out of its way. This extended shot has actually never been shown before, even on DVD.
*The Director's Cut also deleted snippets of footage here and there not readily apparent upon first viewing:
**Part of the sequence where Ripley gains entry to Mother
**Parker going through the ship alone and watching out for the alien
**An almost unnoticeable cut as the last three surviving crew members round a bend in the corridors of the ship
The
Alien Quadrilogy boxed set released on
December 2 2003 includes both the Special Edition and the original theatrical version.
Note that due to the scenes cut from the original release to accommodate the new footage in the "Director's Cut", the "Director's Cut" actually runs a full minute shorter in time than the original theatrical release.
See the article
Alien series.
Prequels/Crossovers
Alien vs. Predator (
2004), directed by
Paul W.S. Anderson (A
stand-alone)
Sequels
*
1986:
Aliens, directed by
James Cameron*
1992:
Alien³, directed by
David Fincher*
1997:
Alien: Resurrection, directed by
Jean-Pierre JeunetRumors also presage an
Alien 5 movie in which Xenomorphs reach Earth. Although commentators have assessed the script (for the moment) as too violent to appeal to any major group, Ridley Scott has said on occasion that he would consider directing the film. However, when interviewed in
2005 after the release of
Alien vs. Predator, Scott characterized the franchise as wrung dry and as no longer interesting to him. However, another interview has stated that he has regained some interest and that the fifth film might happen after all.
Spin-offs include
comics,
novels, and
computer games. Note for example the novelization by
Alan Dean Foster. The Aliens have also appeared in numerous
crossovers featuring Predators (See
Yautja),
Superman,
Batman,
WildC.A.T.s,
Green Lantern,
Judge Dredd and many others.
John Hurt had a cameo part in the
Mel Brooks movie
Spaceballs, in which a scene near the end of the film features a parody of the chest-burster scene from the original movie. The alien then dances off screen.
The
30 Second Bunny Theater made a version of
Alien (with
Angry Alien Productions), turning movies into 30-second flash comedies starring bunnies.
Swiss painter and sculptor
H. R. Giger designed the alien creature's adult form and the alien architecture. The designs feature sexual undertones (the alien's head bears a slight resemblance to a human
penis), and the creative use of bones in the architecture (the set-constructors used real bones in making the interior of the alien ship). Giger received an
Academy Award for his work on the original film.
The alien has a long, black, and shiny skull with no eyes. Below, the gruesome jaw holds the razor-sharp silvery fangs. The mouth houses a tongue-like body-part with a second mouth on the end. On the alien's back stand four curved black spines as thick as a pipe and as long as a short sword. The alien has black webbed hands with long, black, razor-sharp claws. The "blood" of the creature consists of pale green acid, which also serves as a natural defense-mechanism.
*
Alien became the first R-rated film to have a merchandising line aimed at children. The children's products released included various toys and models based on the creature and its egg,
jigsaw puzzles, a
board game, a
Viewmaster-style movie reel, and even a storybook, all of which rate as collectible today. Most notably,
Kenner released a 12-inch Alien figure, impressively made (for its time) with articulated parts including the retractable jaw and glow-in-the-dark cranium. However, the toy did not sell well, probably because its target demographic failed to recognize it. Parents also deemed the toy too frightening for children. Toy-lines for R-rated films would not become common until the
1990s. Some claim that the more ready accessibility to younger viewers of certain films (such as the
Alien sequels) has caused this phenomenon, but others believe that a toy market has developed that has adults as the target buyers (as has likely occurred with the popular McFarlane toys). At the time, Kenner's decision to do a toy-line based on
Alien came while the movie remained in production. Due to their success with the other 20th Century Fox film,
Star Wars, they admittedly acted on the assumption that Fox would produce another space-adventure movie: their research failed to ascertain that the
horror-oriented
Alien would target adults.
*
Jon Finch, originally cast in the part of Kane, had to drop out of the project after falling ill during the first day of shooting. John Hurt replaced him.
* According to the behind-the-scenes documentary
The Beast Within: The Making of 'Alien, the film-crew built the spaceship set in one piece. To move around the set, actors had to navigate through the hallways of the ship. Toward the end of the shoot, many members of the cast and crew recalled walking inside the set alone as a very unnerving experience. Some surmise that such emotions come across on the screen.
* The scene where the alien Chestburster emerges from Kane conveyed such violence that it caused some people watching the movie to faint, and others vomited.
* According to the behind-the-scenes documentary The Beast Within: The Making of 'Alien, the film-crew kept the scene where the Chestburster emerges from Kane secret from all actors except John Hurt (Kane). The rest of the crew entered the scene with Kane already on the table and all cameras set. One cast-member later recalled feeling suspicious at finding all the movie-equipment covered with plastic film. In a brilliant move by Ridley Scott, none of the actors knew what they would witness, and as a result produced genuine reactions of shock, horror, and disgust.
* An alien chestburster appears in the 1986
Colin Baker Doctor Who story
The Trial of a Time Lord as the
Sixth Doctor looks at the chestburster in Dr. Crozier's laboratory. Also, an alien egg appears in a glass case in the 2005 Christopher Eccleston story "Dalek" in the underground museum of
Henry Van Statten and remains visible as the
Ninth Doctor and
Rose Tyler leave the
TARDIS and when the guards storm in past the TARDIS. Portions of the Nostromo set also appear in the 1983 serial
Terminus.
* Ridley Scott reused the scene where the Nostromo separates from the rest of the refinery in
Bladerunner on a computer-display inside a
spinner.
* To save money on the very tight budget,
Ridley Scott filmed his children in spacesuits on a smaller set (when Kane, Lambert and Dallas walk over to the Bone Ship). Due to the lack of both oxygen and air-holes in the suits, both the adults and children fainted while dressed in the spacesuit costumes for that sequence.
* The
Polish title for
Alien: "Obcy: Ã"smy pasażer Nostromo", roughly translated means "Stranger: The Eighth Passenger of the Nostromo". However, as the word "obcy" in Polish means "strange" or "unfamiliar", it has become accepted, thanks to the film, as the modern Polish word for an alien. Before the movie came out, the only known term for an alien, "zaziemiec", literally meant "foreign terrestrial". The translators may have avoided using this word in the title because of the word's lack of scary connatations.
* During the
opening credit-sequence, the camera pans across an apparent
planetoid. As the camera pans across the planetoid, it actually appears elliptical rather than a sphere â€" just like a typical planetoid.
*
Xenomorphs*
*
Alien at The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, & Spaceflight*
Executive producer Ron Shusett on making Alien - video interviews and transcript
