TOP CHILLING SCENES
FROM THE SERIES
CHEST-BURSTER
(ALIEN, 1979)
The classic alien birth scene that took the entire
cast by surprise (and got Veronica Cartwright
splattered) remains a chilling jaw-dropper in all
its gruesome glory.“HERE KITTY KITTY!”
(ALIEN, 1979)
Kane’s death worked on surprise tactics, but Brett’s
(Harry Dean Stanton) demise is all about building
suspense, as the below-deck worker looks for a cat
but fi nds a horrifi c end with one big motherfucker!ROBOT REVELATIONS
(ALIEN, 1979)
When science offi cer Ash (Ian Holm) is revealed to
be a corporate robot ensuring the survival of the
xenomorph over the expendable crew, it brings a
chilling twist to proceedings.more dimensional, and I thought they were very
stereotypical in that fi lm,” refl ected Ward to
SciFiNow, who received a story credit on Alien 3.
Fragments of Ward’s original intentions
do remain however, including the religious
persuasion of the ‘monk-attired’ prisoners, a
reference to the beast as a devil-like ‘dragon’,
the surprise revelation of Ripley’s alien
pregnancy and her dramatic sacrifi cial inferno
demise that had a strong feeling of fi nality to it.
“One of the reasons I died was really to
liberate the series from Ripley. [...] I didn’t want
her to become this fi gure of fun that no one ever
listened to...” refl ected Sigourney Weaver.
Despite Ripley’s defi nitive demise she was
resurrected fi ve years later for the 1997 follow
up: Alien Resurrection. Scripted by a pre-Buffy Joss Whedon, the character returned
as a human/alien hybrid cloned from blood
fragments found 200 years following her death.
It was supposed to be a dark and edgy take
on Ripley; one where you weren’t entirely sure
where her allegiances lay and whether she
was more alien than human. It was different
enough to lure Weaver back and attract
another idiosyncratic visualist, French auteur
Jean Pierre Jeunet, to direct (after Danny Boyle
was briefl y considered).
Alien Resurrection returned the story to a
spacecraft setting that saw Ripley team up with
space pirates and a female android (played
by Winona Ryder) to defeat a hoard of aliens
before the ship reaches Earth. Despite proving
another visually arresting entry in the long-running series, Jeunet’s trademark irrelevant
tone and dark humour felt out of place, while the
fi lm was almost completely devoid of suspense
and scares, with Whedon later claiming that
his script had been butchered. Nevertheless,
Alien Resurrection was a commercial hit and
Whedon penned an earth-bound continuation
that disinterested Weaver and eventually led to
Fox green-lighting the derogatory AVP: Alien
Vs Predator (2004), which featured Lance
Henriksen as Weyland, (after Ridley Scott and
James Cameron briefl y entertained a writer-
producer/director alliance for ‘Alien 5’).
The life-death-rebirth gestation of the series
continued with a desire to explore the unknown
backstory to the original Alien that saw the
return of Ridley Scott to the franchise. 2012’s
Prometheus evolved from questions regarding
the ominous Space Jockey that the crew of the
Nostromo had discovered inside the derelict
spacecraft. “That was my starting block of this
thing: Who were the big guys and what were
they doing there?” said Scott.
However, what began as a prequel to Alien
sprang into something else when Damon
Lindelof did a rewrite of Jon Spaihts’ original
screenplay. “For me Prometheus was always
about making a Blade Runner/Alien mash
up using the best themes from both movies
and dropping them all into the same world,”
admitted the scribe during his DVD commentary.
Marketed as not a prequel but a fi lm that
shared Alien ‘DNA’ and set within the same
universe, Prometheus explored such hefty themes
as ‘man meeting his maker’ and our relationship
to our creators, known as the Engineers; the
same people who piloted that derelict spacecraft
in Alien. Human mortality and ‘what it is to be
human’ was also explored through the inquisitiveW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^087
COMPLETE GUIDE
ALIEN
“GET AWAY FROM HER,
YOU BITCH!”
(ALIENS, 1986)
Ripley utters the immortal line before embarking on
a power loader-assisted battle with the alien queen
that sees the bitch dispensed into outer space.RIPLEY’S SACRIFICE
(ALIEN 3, 1992)
When an alien-pregnant Ripley sacrifi ces herself
into the furnace on Fury 161, it brought a thought-to-
be potent fi nality to both the character and
the franchise.AUTOMATED-ABORTION
(PROMETHEUS, 2012)
Trust Ridley Scott to try and outdo the chest-burster
scene from Alien by depicting Dr Shaw’s (Noomi
Rapace) grisly med-pod extraction of the unborn
creature within.character of David (Michael Fassbender), a
synthetic searching for purpose who has a low
opinion of his own creators.
All the xenomorph symbolism returned for
Scott’s 2017 follow-up Alien: Covenant, which
was written by John Logan and positioned
itself as a no-holds-barred Alien prequel that
revealed David as the experimenting homicidal
mastermind behind the iconic biomechanoid.
Actor Benjamin Rigby played Ledward, part of
the security personnel of the colonisation vessel
Covenant, who becomes the fi lm’s unfortunate
fi rst victim when the parasite dramatically bursts
from his back. “It was a really nice surprise to
know that I had such a seminal death in this
franchise,” he remarks to SciFiNow. “Ridley was
like: ‘The makeup’s really good but the rest is up
to your acting,’ so I just went for it! [...] I wanted
to pay homage to John Hurt because he’d done
such a brilliant job but at the same time I wanted
to make it my own.”
Depending on your opinion, Covenant
was either another visually spectacular, yet
uninspired ‘greatest hits’ of the Alien series or a
bold parable that capitalised upon the themes
of its predecessor by further exploring some
deep philosophical questions. “I love what John
[Logan] did with that script and I love the ‘man
meeting his maker’ through-line,” refl ects Rigby.
“I think the more we edge toward the potential
demise of humanity the more pertinent those
fi lms are becoming.”
Where from here? Disney has now acquired
20th Century Fox and has promised to complete
Scott’s prequel trilogy by defi nitively linking
events back to Alien, while also contemplating a
franchise reboot. Then there’s Neill Blomkamp’s
cancelled sequel to Aliens that brought back
Hicks and Newt, discounted all subsequent
follow-ups and had Sigourney Weaver
triumphantly returning to the franchise. With
Disney in charge could this potentially be
resurrected? Time will tell when and indeed how
the bitch will be back.Alien: Six-Film Collection is available on Blu-ray
from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.“I DIDN’T WANT [RIPLEY] TO BECOME
THIS FIGURE OF FUN THAT NO-ONE
EVER LISTENED TO...”
SIGOURNEY WEAVERW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^087
COMPLETE GUIDE
ALIEN
“GET AWAY FROM HER,
YOU BITCH!”
(ALIENS, 1986)
Ripley utters the immortal line before embarking on
a power loader-assisted battle with the alien queen
that sees the bitch dispensed into outer space.
RIPLEY’S SACRIFICE
(ALIEN 3, 1992)
When an alien-pregnant Ripley sacrifi ces herself
into the furnace on Fury 161, it brought a thought-to-
be potent fi nality to both the character and
the franchise.AUTOMATED-ABORTION
(PROMETHEUS, 2012)
Trust Ridley Scott to try and outdo the chest-burster
scene from Alien by depicting Dr Shaw’s (Noomi
Rapace) grisly med-pod extraction of the unborn
creature within.character of David (Michael Fassbender), a
synthetic searching for purpose who has a low
opinion of his own creators.
All the xenomorph symbolism returned for
Scott’s 2017 follow-up Alien: Covenant, which
was written by John Logan and positioned
itself as a no-holds-barred Alien prequel that
revealed David as the experimenting homicidal
mastermind behind the iconic biomechanoid.
Actor Benjamin Rigby played Ledward, part of
the security personnel of the colonisation vessel
Covenant, who becomes the fi lm’s unfortunate
fi rst victim when the parasite dramatically bursts
from his back. “It was a really nice surprise to
know that I had such a seminal death in this
franchise,” he remarks to SciFiNow. “Ridley was
like: ‘The makeup’s really good but the rest is up
to your acting,’ so I just went for it! [...] I wanted
to pay homage to John Hurt because he’d done
such a brilliant job but at the same time I wanted
to make it my own.”
Depending on your opinion, Covenant
was either another visually spectacular, yet
uninspired ‘greatest hits’ of the Alien series or a
bold parable that capitalised upon the themes
of its predecessor by further exploring some
deep philosophical questions. “I love what John
[Logan] did with that script and I love the ‘man
meeting his maker’ through-line,” refl ects Rigby.
“I think the more we edge toward the potential
demise of humanity the more pertinent those
fi lms are becoming.”
Where from here? Disney has now acquired
20th Century Fox and has promised to complete
Scott’s prequel trilogy by defi nitively linking
events back to Alien, while also contemplating a
franchise reboot. Then there’s Neill Blomkamp’s
cancelled sequel to Aliens that brought back
Hicks and Newt, discounted all subsequent
follow-ups and had Sigourney Weaver
triumphantly returning to the franchise. With
Disney in charge could this potentially be
resurrected? Time will tell when and indeed how
the bitch will be back.Alien: Six-Film Collection is available on Blu-ray
from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.“I DIDN’T WANT [RIPLEY] TO BECOME
THIS FIGURE OF FUN THAT NO-ONE
EVER LISTENED TO...”
SIGOURNEY WEAVER