The Alien film franchise is a science fiction horror film series, focusing on Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) and her battles with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred to as the "Alien". Produced by 20th Century Fox, the series started with the 1979 film Alien, which led to three movie sequels, as well as numerous books, comics and video game spin-offs.
Related to the franchise are the Alien vs. Predator films which combine the Aliens with the Predators from the Predator film series.
The Alien (sometimes referred to as a Xenomorph) is a fictional endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species that is the primary antagonist of the Alien film series. The species made its debut in the 1979 film Alien, and reappeared in its sequels Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), Alien Resurrection (1997), as well as two crossovers Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), and finally Ridley Scott's 2012 film Prometheus, although in a more primitive state compared to the other films. It also appears in various literature and video game spin-offs from the series.
Unlike many other recurring enemy extraterrestrial races in science fiction, the Aliens do not have a technological civilization, but are predatory creatures with no higher goals than the propagation of their species and the destruction of life that could pose a threat. Like wasps or termites, Aliens are eusocial, with a single fertile queen breeding a caste of warriors. The Aliens' biological life cycle involves traumatic implantation of parasitic larvae inside living hosts, which mature before erupting from the host's chest. Their design deliberately evokes many sexual images, both male and female, to illustrate their blurring of human sexual dichotomy.
The Alien design is credited to Swiss surrealist and artist H. R. Giger, originating in a lithograph called Necronom IV and refined for the series' first film, Alien. The species' design and life cycle have been extensively added to throughout each film.
The script for the 1979 film Alien was initially drafted by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett.[3] Dan O'Bannon drafted an opening in which the crew of a mining ship are sent to investigate a mysterious message on an alien planet. He eventually settled on the threat being an alien creature; however, he could not conceive of an interesting way for it to get onto the ship. Inspired after waking from a dream, Shusett said, "I have an idea: the monster screws one of them,"[3] planting its seed in his body, and then bursting out of his chest. Both realized the idea had never been done before, and it subsequently became the core of the film.[3] "This is a movie about alien interspecies rape," O'Bannon said on the documentary Alien Evolution, "That's scary because it hits all of our buttons."[4] O'Bannon felt that the symbolism of "homosexual oral rape" was an effective means of discomforting male viewers.
Giger's Alien design, inspired by his earlier print Necronom IV, for the film Alien The title of the film was decided late in the script's development. O'Bannon had quickly dropped the film's original title, Star Beast, but could not think of a name to replace it. "I was running through titles, and they all stank", O'Bannon said in an interview, "when suddenly, that word alien just came out of the typewriter at me. Alien. It's a noun and it's an adjective."[3] The word alien subsequently became the title of the film and, by extension, the name of the creature itself.
Prior to writing the script to Alien, O'Bannon had been working in France for Chilean cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky's planned adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic science-fiction novel Dune. Also hired for the project was Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger. Giger showed O'Bannon his nightmarish, monochromatic artwork, which left O'Bannon deeply disturbed. "I had never seen anything that was quite as horrible and at the same time as beautiful as his work," he remembered later.[6] The Dune film collapsed, but O'Bannon would remember Giger when Alien was greenlit, and suggested to director Ridley Scott that he be brought on to design the Alien, saying that if he were to design a monster, it would be truly original.[3]
After O'Bannon handed him a copy of Giger's book Necronomicon, Scott immediately saw the potential for Giger's designs, and chose Necronom IV, a print Giger completed in 1976, as the basis for the Alien's design, citing its beauty and strong sexual overtones. That the creature could just as easily have been male or female was also a strong factor in the decision to use it. "It could just as easily fuck you before it killed you", said line producer Ivor Powell, "[which] made it all the more disconcerting."[4] Fox was initially wary of allowing Giger onto the project, saying that his works would be too disturbing for audiences, but eventually relented. Giger initially offered to completely design the Alien from scratch, but Scott mandated that he base his work on Necronom IV, saying that to start over from the beginning would be too time-consuming. Giger signed on to design the adult, egg and chest-burster forms, but ultimately also designed the alien planetoid LV-426 and the Space Jockey alien vessel.[3]
Giger conceived the Alien as being vaguely human but a
human in full armor, protected from all outside forces. He mandated that the
creature have no eyes, because he felt that it made them much more frightening
if you could not tell they were looking at you.[4] Giger also gave the Alien's
mouth a second
inner set of pharyngeal jaws located at the tip of a long, tongue-like proboscis which could extend rapidly for use as a weapon. His design for the creature was heavily influenced by an aesthetic he had created and termed biomechanical, a fusion of the organic and the mechanic.[4] His mock-up of the Alien was created using parts from an old Rolls Royce car, rib bones and the vertebrae from a snake, molded with plasticine. The Alien's animatronic head, which contained 900 moving parts, was designed and constructed by special effects designer Carlo Rambaldi.[3] Giger and Rambaldi would both go on to win the 1980 Academy Award for Visual Effects for their design of the Alien.[7]
Scott decided on the man-in-suit approach for creating the creature onscreen. Initially circus performers were tried, then multiple actors together in the same costume, but neither proved scary. Deciding that the creature would be scarier the closer it appeared to a human, Scott decided that a single, very tall, very thin man be used. Scott was inspired by a photograph of Leni Riefenstahl standing next to a 6'4" (1.93 m) Nubian.[8] The casting director found 7'2" (2.18 m), rail-thin graphic designer Bolaji Badejo in a local pub. Badejo went to tai chi and mime classes to learn how to slow down his movements.[3]
Giger's design for the Alien evoked many contradictory sexual images. As critic Ximena Gallardo notes, the creature's combination of sexually evocative physical and behavioral characteristics creates, "a nightmare vision of sex and death. It subdues and opens the male body to make it pregnant, and then explodes it in birth. In its adult form, the alien strikes its victims with a rigid phallic tongue that breaks through skin and bone. More than a phallus, however, the retractable tongue has its own set of snapping, metallic teeth that connects it to the castrating vagina dentata."[5]
[edit] Name
This creature has no specific name, and has been referred to most often onscreen, and in the credits of each film, simply as the Alien. It was called an alien, and an organism, in the first film. It has also been referred to as a creature,[1] a serpent,[9] a beast,[2] a dragon,[2] a monster,[1] or simply, a thing.[10] The term xenomorph (lit. "alien form"—from Greek xeno- or "strange" and -morph, shape) was used by the character Lieutenant Gorman in Aliens[1] and by Ellen Ripley in a deleted scene from Alien 3.[2] This term has been adopted by fans[11] and used in merchandising[12] as a convenient name. The species' binomial names are given in Latin as either Internecivus raptus (meant as "murderous thief") in the Alien Quadrilogy DVD or Lingua foeda acheronsis (meant as "foul tongue from Acheron")[13] in some comic books.[14] The main Alien from Alien vs. Predator is listed in the credits as "Grid", after a grid-like wound received during the film from a Predator's razor net.[9]
[edit] Characteristics
Continuing advancements made in the field of special effects technology as the series progressed have led to numerous variations in the creature's design, including varying numbers of fingers and limb joints and varying head design.
[edit] Appearance
When standing upright, the Aliens are vaguely bipedal in form, though they adopt a more hunched, quadrupedal stance when walking or sprinting. They have a skeletal, biomechanical appearance and are usually colored in muted shades of black, blue or bronze. Their body heat matches the ambient temperature of the environment in which they are found, so they do not radiate heat, making them indistinguishable from the background.[1][9] In most of the films, adult Aliens are capable of running and crawling along ceilings and walls.[1][2] They have great physical strength, having been shown to be capable of breaking through welded steel doors.[1]
Aliens have segmented, blade-tipped tails. The sharp tip was initially a small, scorpion-like barb,[10] but from Aliens onwards the blade design increased in size and changed in appearance to more closely resemble a slashing weapon.[1][9] From Alien Resurrection onwards, the tails have a flat ridge of spines at the base of the blade. This was introduced to help them swim convincingly,[15] and was left intact in the subsequent cross-overs. The original shooting script for Aliens and the novelization both featured a scene in which Lieutenant Gorman is "stung" by the barb tail and rendered unconscious.[16] In the final cut of the movie, Gorman is knocked out by falling crates. As a weapon, the strength of the tail is very effective, having been shown to be strong enough to impale and lift a Predator with seemingly little effort. They are also adept at using their tails as blunt weapons, sometimes to deadly effect, as seen in Alien.
They have elongated, cylindrical skulls, but possess no visible eyes, though in the original Alien film, the top of the creature's head was translucent, with empty, human-looking eye sockets within. This element was re-used for the "Predalien" 28 years later. How the creatures see is uncertain. In Alien 3, a fisheye lens was used to illustrate the Alien's point of view. In the novelization of the movie Alien, the creature is held mesmerized by a spinning green light for several minutes. In Aliens, the adult creatures have a more textured head rather than a smooth carapace. In the commentary for Aliens, it was speculated that this was part of the maturation of the creatures, as they had been alive far longer than the original Alien, although James Cameron stated that he simply left the carapace off because he liked them better that way.[1] The smooth design of the carapace would be used again in Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, although made narrower with a longer muzzle and more prominent chin. This design would be kept in Alien versus Predator,[17] and abandoned in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in favor of the ribbed design. The Aliens' inner jaws are powerful enough to smash through bone and metal.[9]
Throughout their appearances, human-spawned Aliens have been shown to have a fluctuating number of fingers. In Alien, the creature has webbed, six fingered hands. In Aliens, the number of fingers is reduced to three (two "paired" and a single, opposable thumb), and they are shown to be much longer and more skeletal. In Alien Resurrection, the number of digits is increased to four, with two long middle fingers and a pair of thumbs. This design is kept in the Alien vs. Predator films, though the hands were made bulkier in order to make the Aliens seem more formidable against the Predators.[18]
Aliens have been alternately portrayed as both plantigrade and digitigrade organisms, usually in accordance to their host. Human-spawned Aliens were usually portrayed as having humanoid hind limbs, while in Alien 3, the featured Alien sported double-jointed legs due to its quadrupedal host. This characteristic would be continued in Alien Resurrection for the human-spawned Aliens. Tom Woodruff, who had previously played the "dog-alien" in Alien 3, described the human-spawned Aliens in Resurrection as feeling more like a dog than the previous creature, despite having been born from human hosts.[19] The human-spawned Alien warriors would revert to a plantigrade posture in Alien vs. Predator.
[edit] Blood and secretions
Alien blood is an extremely potent acid and is capable of corroding on contact almost any substance with alarming speed. It is dull yellowish-green in color, and seems to be pressurized inside the body so that it spurts out when punctured. Ron Cobb suggested the idea that the creature have acid blood as a plausible means to make the creature "unkillable"; if one were to use traditional firearms or explosives to attack it, its blood would eat through the hull of the ship.[20] The Alien novelization suggests that, at least at the "facehugger" stage, the acid is not blood but a fluid maintained under pressure between a double layer of skin.[21] In the Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem documentary: "Science of the Alien", it is theorized that the Aliens' acid blood could be some type of "hydrosulphuric acid" composition due to its corrosiveness and the conspicuously toxic effects on living human tissue. The documentary also speculates that Aliens are immune to their own acidic and toxic liquids due to an endobiological build-up similar to the human stomach's ability to protect itself from its digestive fluids. The documentary takes this theory one step further and speculates that the Alien organisms' protection system against its own toxic hydrosulphuric acid is protecting the rest of the organism with what is basically a bio-organically produced Teflon insulation.[22] The film Alien vs. Predator suggests this to be the case, as a Predator uses Alien chitin to make armor for Alexa that protects her from their blood. Considering that- in the Alien Versus Predator films- the Predators repeatedly use bladed weapons to dispatch aliens and their bladed weapons are never shown to disintegrate due to the acid, it is reasonable to assume the Predators have armor and weapons that are also capable of resisting the effects of alien blood.
Aliens can produce a thick, strong resin that they use to build their hives and to cocoon their victims, and they can use the walls of their hives as camouflage. In the original Alien, the facehugger is shown to be able to "spit" acid, melting the faceplate of Kane's helmet and allowing the creature immediate access to the inside. This ability is also exhibited by adult Aliens in Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection; much like a spitting cobra, they use it to blind and immobilize their victims.
[edit] Intelligence and communication
During events in Aliens on the LV-426 colony and in Alien: Resurrection on the USM Auriga, the species displayed observational learning and problem solving skills,[1][23] and in both cases the Aliens learn how to operate machinery at a very basic level. On LV-426, they were able to cut power in a section of the complex to gain access to the humans, and the Alien Queen learns to board an elevator by observing Ripley and Newt escaping in the one beside it. The novelization of the film notes that the queen establishing her 'nest' at the base's main power plant could have been chosen either for the feral, animal reason of the warmth that it would provide or for the intellectual reason of selecting a location where any attackers would be unable to destroy her without destroying the entire facility. In the director's commentary for Aliens, James Cameron noted that the creatures in Aliens had been alive for far longer than the Alien in the original, and had more time to learn about their environment.[24] On the USM Auriga, the Aliens kill one of their own, using its blood to melt through their enclosure and escape; in Alien vs. Predator, they use a similar strategy to free the queen from her chains. An Alien also uses acid spurting from its severed tail as an improvised weapon, indicating they are fully aware of the effects of their acid blood.
[edit] Life cycle
Aliens are eusocial life-forms with a caste system ruled over by a queen.[1][9][23] Their life cycle comprises several distinct stages: they begin their lives as an egg, which hatches a parasitoid larval form known as a facehugger, which then attaches itself to a living host by, as its name suggests, latching onto its face. In the Alien 3 novelization, Ripley commented that this parasitoid would likely be able to use a host as small as a cat, or as large as an elephant.
The facehugger then "impregnates" the host with an embryo known as a "chestburster",[25] which, after a period of gestation, erupts violently from the host's chest resulting in the death of the host.
The chestburster then matures to an adult phase, shedding its skin and replacing its cells with polarized silicon. Due to Horizontal gene transfer during the gestation period, the Alien also takes on some of the basic physical attributes of the host from which it was born, allowing the individual alien to adapt to the host's environment.
The adult phase of the Alien is known by various different names. The adult Aliens have been referred to as "drones," "warriors," "workers," and sometimes "soldiers," similar to the way ants have been defined. The names of the adult phase have also been used to name different types of adult phases of the Alien in numerous sources including video games, comic books, novels, and, of course, the films, but only in the commentaries by the team who created the films. No official name has been given to the adult stage of the Alien in the films themselves.
Queen
Queen Aliens are significantly larger and stronger than
the normal adults, approximately 4.5 metres (15 ft) tall. Their body
structure differs also, having two pairs of arms, one large and one small. The
queen's head is larger than other adult Aliens and is protected by a large, flat
crest, like a crown, and they vary from queen to queen. In the second film
Aliens, unlike other adults and queens, the queen had high-heel protrusions
from its feet.
Egg-laying Alien queens possess an immense ovipositor attached to their lower torso, similar to a queen termite's. Unlike insect queens, there appears to be no need for drones to fertilize an Alien queen's eggs. When attached to its ovipositor, the queen is supported by a "biomechanical throne" that consists of a lattice of struts resembling massive insect legs.
In the original cut of Alien, the Alien possessed a complete lifecycle, with the still-living bodies of its victims converted into eggs. However, the scene showing the crew converted into eggs was cut for reasons of pacing, leaving the ultimate origin of the eggs obscure. This allowed Aliens director James Cameron to introduce a concept he had initially conceived for a spec script called Mother, a massive mother Alien which laid the eggs and formed the basis for the Aliens' life cycle. Cameron conceived the Queen as a monstrous analogue to Ripley's own maternal role in the film. In that vein, some critics have compared it to Grendel's mother.
The design of the queen was created by Cameron in collaboration with special effects artist Stan Winston, based upon an initial painting Cameron had done at the start of the project. The Winston Studio created a test foam core queen before constructing the full hydraulic puppet which was used for most of the scenes involving the large Alien. Two people were inside working the twin sets of arms and puppeteers off-screen worked its jaws and head. Although at the end of the film the queen was presented full-body fighting the power-loader, the audience never sees the legs of the queen, save those of the small-scale puppet that appears only briefly. In Aliens, Cameron used very selective camera-angles on the queen, using the 'less is more' style of photography. Subsequently the movie won an Oscar for Visual Effects.[30] An adult queen was to reappear in Alien Resurrection. The original mechanical head previously used in Aliens was provided by Bob Burns, and was an altered design. It was repainted with a blend of green and brown, giving it a shimmering, insect-like quality. This color concept would be abandoned in Alien versus Predator in favour of the original black color scheme.
In the climax of the 2004 film Alien vs. Predator the queen's basic design was altered to make it more "streamlined" in appearance and its over-all size was increased to 6 meters (20 feet) tall. Other changes include the removal of the "high-heel" protrusions on its legs, including additional spines on its head and making its waist thinner because there was no need for puppeteers inside its chest. The animatronic laying queen had 47 points of hydraulic motion.[18]
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) introduced a younger form of the full grown queen, albeit with traits inherited from its Predator host. Recalling the facehugger's method of embryo implantation, the Predalien uses its inner mouth to directly deposit multiple chestburster embryos into pregnant female hosts, also using its mandibles to latch on the faces of said hosts. This is explained by the Brothers Strause as a means of quickly building an army of Aliens before the young queen evolves into its sedentary, egg-laying state.
Egg
The eggs laid by the queen are ellipsoidal leathery objects between two to three feet high with a four-lobed opening at the top. As a potential host approaches, the egg's lobes unfold like flower petals, and the parasitic facehugger extracts itself from the egg and attaches itself to the potential host. Giger initially designed the eggs with a much more obviously vaginal appearance, complete with an "inner and outer vulva". The producers complained that Catholic countries would ban the film if the allusion was too strong, so Giger doubled the lobes to four, so that, in his words, "seen from above, they would form the cross that people in Catholic countries are so fond of looking at." The interior of the original egg was composed of "Nottingham lace", which is the lining of a cow's stomach. In the first film, the quick shot of the facehugger erupting from the egg was done with sheep's intestine. Initially the egg remained totally stationary save for the hydraulic movement of the lobes; however, by Alien Resurrection the entire egg was made to ripple as it opened.
Facehugger
A facehugger is the second stage in the Alien's life cycle. It has eight long finger-like legs which allow it to crawl rapidly, and a long tail adapted for making great leaps. These particular appendages give it an appearance somewhat comparable to chelicerate arthropods such as arachnids and horseshoe crabs.
The facehugger is a parasitoid; its only purpose is to
make contact with the host's mouth for the implantation process, by gripping
its legs around the victim's head and wrapping its tail around the host's
neck. Upon making contact, the facehugger tightens its tail around the host's neck
in order to render it unconscious through oxygen deprivation. The facehugger
then inserts a proboscis down the host's throat, supplying it with oxygen[10]
while simultaneously implanting an embryo. Attempts to remove facehuggers
generally prove fatal,[1] as the parasitoid will respond by tightening its tail
around the host's neck, and its acidic blood prevents it from being safely cut
away. In addition, its grip on the host's head is strong enough to tear the
host's face off if it is forcibly removed.
Once the Alien embryo is safely implanted, the facehugger detaches and dies.
Giger's original design for the facehugger was a much larger creature with eyes and a spring-loaded tail. Later, in response to comments from the filmmakers, Giger reduced the creature's size substantially. At first Giger assumed that the facehugger would wrap around the outside of the astronaut's helmet, but Scott decided that it would have far more impact if the facehugger were revealed once the helmet was removed. Scott and Giger realised that the facehugger should burn through the helmet's faceplate with its acid blood; subsequent redesigns of the space helmet included a far larger faceplate to allow for this.[35] Dan O'Bannon initially conceived the facehugger as somewhat resembling an octopus, possessing tentacles. However, when he received H. R. Giger's designs, which substituted tentacles with fingerlike digits, he found Giger's design concept to be superior. Since no one was available at the time, O'Bannon decided to design the facehugger prop himself. The technical elements of the musculature and bone were added by Ron Cobb. Giger's initial design for the smaller facehugger had the fingers facing forward, but O'Bannon's redesign shifted the legs to the side. When the foam rubber sculpture of the facehugger was produced, O'Bannon asked that it should remain unpainted, believing the rubber, which resembled human skin, was more plausible.
In Aliens, the facehuggers were redesigned by the late Stan Winston so that they would be capable of movement. Unlike the creatures in the first film, the creatures would take a much more active role in impregnating their victims. When Ripley throws one off her, the facehugger was now capable of scuttling across the floor and leaping at its prey, wrapping its tail around the victim's throat. Due to the film's budget, only two fully working facehuggers were built.
In Alien 3, another addition, a "super-facehugger" that would carry the embryo of the queen Alien, was planned but ultimately dropped. The super-facehugger is briefly glimpsed in the Assembly cut of Alien 3, but not identified as such.
Chestburster
After implantation, facehuggers die and the embryo's host
wakes up afterwards showing no considerable outward negative symptoms.
Symptoms build acutely after detachment of the facehugger, the most common being sore
throat, slight nausea, increased congestion and moderate to extreme hunger.[10]
In later stages where the incubation period is extended in preparation of a
queen birth, symptoms will include a shortness of breath, exhaustion, and
hemorrhaging (detectable through biological scanners and present in nosebleeds or other
seemingly random bleeding incidents), as well as chest pains inflicted either in
lack of chest space due to the chestburster's presence, or even premature
attempts to escape the host.[2] The incubating embryo takes on some of the
host's DNA or traits, such as bipedalism, quadrupedalism[2] or possessing the
mandibles of a Predator[39] and other body structure
changes. Over the course of 1–24 hours, indeterminable in some cases, and sometimes up to a week, in the case of some queens, the embryo develops into a chestburster, at which point it emerges, violently and fatally ripping open the chest of the host. There is no on-screen explanation of the reasons for the different incubation times.
The chestburster was designed by Alien director Ridley Scott and constructed by special effects artist Roger Dicken.[5] Giger had produced a model of a chestburster that resembled a "degenerate plucked turkey"[40] and was far too large to fit inside a ribcage. Much to Giger's dismay, his model reduced the production team to fits of laughter on sight.[4] Scott drafted a series of alternative designs for the chestburster based on the philosophy of working "back [from the adult] to the child" and ultimately produced "something phallic."[4] The chestburster in the original Alien was armless but arms were added in Aliens to facilitate the creature crawling its way out of its host's corpse.[41] This concept would be abandoned in Alien Resurrection and subsequent films.
[edit] Growth and maturity
When a chestburster erupts from the body of its host, it is less than 1 foot (30 cm) tall. However, it soon undergoes a dramatic growth spurt, reaching adult size in a matter of hours; in Alien the chestburster had grown to 2 metres (6.6 ft) in height by the time the Nostromo crew located it again.[42] The chestburster is shown to have molted before reaching maturity.[10] In Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Alien warriors are shown who are still growing, showing shedding skin. In the unrated cut, the Predalien is shown actively wiping off its final molted skin at the film's start.
Alternative forms
Aliens take on various forms depending on the characteristics of their hosts. Most of the Aliens seen to date have been human-spawned, but a number of Aliens born from other hosts have also been seen.
Dog Alien
The "Dog Alien" (also jokingly referred to as the "Bambi burster",[37] or "Runner Alien" in the expanded universe stories), was introduced in Alien 3. The creature itself shares the same basic physical conformation and instincts as the other Aliens shown in the previous films, although there are several differences due to the host it was spawned from (a dog in the theatrical cut, an ox in the DVD assembly cut). The Dog Alien in its Chestburster form is a miniature version of the adult, unlike the larva-like human spawned chestbursters. The adult is primarily quadrupedal, has digitigrade hind legs and lacks the dorsal tubes of the human-spawned variety.
Newborn
In Alien Resurrection, due to significant genetic tampering in an attempt to recover DNA from the deceased Ellen Ripley and the Alien Queen within her, the resulting cloned Aliens show a number of minor human traits. The cloned Queen inherits a womb, and as a result it ceases to lay eggs and gives birth to a humanoid mutant. Physically, the human-Alien Newborn is very different from its brethren, being larger, with pale, translucent skin, a skull-shaped face with eyes, a human tongue and complete absence of a tail. The Newborn fails to bond with its Alien Queen mother, and kills it. Instead, the Newborn sees the Ripley clone as a surrogate parent.
The Newborn creature was originally scripted by Joss Whedon as being an eyeless, ivory-white quadruped with red veins running along the sides of its head. It had an inner jaw, with the addition of a pair of pincers on the sides of its head. These pincers would have been used to immobilise its prey as it drained it of blood through the inner jaw. The creature was also meant to rival the Queen in size.[44] Jean-Pierre Jeunet later asked ADI to lean towards making the human-Alien hybrid, known as the Newborn, more human than Alien. The Newborn's eyes and nose were added to improve its expressions to make it a character, rather than just a "killing machine", and give it depth as a character. Jeunet was adamant about the Newborn having genitalia, a mix of both sexes. However, Fox was uncomfortable and even Jeunet felt "even for a Frenchman, it's too much."[15] The genitalia were digitally removed in post-production. The Newborn animatronic required nine puppeteers and was the most complex animatronic in the film.
Predalien
This variation is the result of a facehugger impregnating a Predator. The "Predalien" was first depicted in a painting by Dave Dorman, and subsequently featured in the Aliens versus Predator comics and games. A Predalien chestburster debuts in the final scene of Alien vs. Predator, but it is not until Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem that an adult hybrid makes its first movie appearance.
The Predalien shares many characteristics with its host, such as long hair-like appendages, mandibles, skin color and similar vocalizations. It is a large, bulky creature, and possesses physical strength greater than that of human-spawned Aliens. Like human-born Aliens, it is also shown to be stronger than its host species, as evidenced by its ability to pin, push, and knock a Predator away with ease.
The Predalien seen in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was also a Queen, as it also possessed the ability to impregnate human hosts with multiple Alien embryos.
Alien (1979)
Directed by
Ridley Scott
Produced by
Gordon Carroll
David Giler
Walter Hill
Screenplay by
Dan O'Bannon
David Giler (uncredited)
Walter Hill (uncredited)
Story by
Dan O'Bannon
Ronald Shusett
Starring
Tom Skerritt
Sigourney Weaver
Veronica Cartwright
Harry Dean Stanton
John Hurt
Ian Holm
Yaphet Kotto
The commercial towing spaceship Nostromo, owned and operated by Earth
mega-corporation Weyland-Yutani, is on a return trip to Earth hauling a refinery
and twenty million tons of mineral ore and carrying its seven-member crew in
stasis. Detecting a transmission of unknown origin from a nearby planetoid, the
ship's computer awakens the crew.[13] Acting on standing orders from their
corporate employers, they set out to investigate the transmission's source.
Landing the ship on the planetoid damages the ship some, so Captain Dallas (Tom
Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), and Navigator Lambert (Veronica
Cartwright) set out to investigate the signal while Warrant Officer Ripley
(Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Engineers Brett (Harry
Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) stay behind to make repairs.
Dallas, Kane, and Lambert discover that the signal is coming from a derelict
alien spacecraft. Inside they find the remains of a large alien creature whose
ribs appear to have been broken outward from the inside. Meanwhile, the
Nostromo's computer partially deciphers the transmission, which Ripley
determines to be some type of warning. Kane discovers a vast chamber containing
numerous eggs, one of which releases a creature that attaches to his face.
Rendered unconscious, Kane is retrieved and carried back to the Nostromo. Acting
on improper orders from Dallas, Ash violates quarantine protocol by opening the
airlock, allowing the exploratory team aboard. After an unsuccessful attempt by
Ash to surgically remove the creature from Kane's face, the crew discover that
the creature's blood contained a corrosive acid. The creature eventually
detaches from Kane's face by itself and is found dead. With the ship partially
repaired, the crew is able to return to the refinery platform left in orbit and
resume their trip to Earth.
Kane awakens from his ordeal with some memory loss but no other apparent
ill-effects. During the crew's final dinner before re-entering hypersleep, he
chokes and convulses until an alien creature bursts from his chest, killing him
and escaping into the ship. Lacking conventional weapons, the crew attempt to
locate and capture the creature by fashioning motion trackers, electric prods,
and flamethrowers. The Alien, by now fully-grown, attacks Brett and disappears
with his body into an airshaft. Dallas enters the airshaft network intending to
force the Alien into an airlock, but it ambushes him. Realising that the alien
is aggressive and intent on killing the entire crew, Lambert implores the
remaining crew members to escape in the ship's shuttle, but Ripley, now in
command, explains that the shuttle will not support four people, and that they
should continue with Dallas' plan of cornering and flushing out the alien.
Accessing the ship's computer, Ripley discovers that Ash has been ordered to
return the Alien to the Nostromo's corporate employers even at the expense of
the crew's lives. Ash attacks her, but Parker and Lambert intervene,
decapitating and impaling Ash, revealing him to be an android. Before being
destroyed, Ash predicts that the others will not survive. The remaining three
crew members plan to arm the Nostromo's self-destruct mechanism and escape in
the shuttle, but Parker and Lambert are killed by the Alien while gathering the
necessary coolant supplies. Ripley initiates the self-destruct sequence herself
and heads for the shuttle with the crew's cat, but finds the Alien blocking her
way. She unsuccessfully attempts to abort the self-destruct, then returns to
find the Alien gone and narrowly escapes in the shuttle as the Nostromo
explodes.
As she prepares to enter stasis, Ripley discovers that the Alien has hidden
aboard the shuttle. She puts on a spacesuit and opens the hatch, causing
explosive decompression which forces the Alien to the open doorway. She propels
it out by shooting it with a grappling hook, but the gun catches in the closing
door, tethering the Alien to the shuttle. As it attempts to crawl into one of
the engines, Ripley activates them and blasts the alien into space. She then
puts herself and the cat into stasis, hoping to be picked up by another ship.
Aliens (1986)
Directed by
James Cameron
Produced by
Gale Anne Hurd
Gordon Carroll
David Giler
Walter Hill
Screenplay by
James Cameron
Story by
James Cameron
David Giler
Walter Hill
Based on
Characters created
by Dan O'Bannon
Ronald Shusett
Starring
Sigourney Weaver
Carrie Henn
Michael Biehn
Lance Henriksen
William Hope
Paul Reiser
Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the only survivor of the space freighter
Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for 57 years in stasis. At an
interview before a panel of executives from her employer, the Weyland-Yutani
Corporation, her testimony regarding the Alien is met with extreme skepticism as
she has no physical evidence. Ripley loses her space-flight license as a result
of her "questionable judgment" and learns that LV-426, the planet where her crew
first encountered the Alien eggs, is now home to a terraforming colony.
Ripley is later visited by Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke (Paul
Reiser) and Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope) of the Colonial Marines, who inform
her that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426. The company decides to
dispatch Burke and a unit of space marines to investigate, and offers to restore
Ripley's flight status and pick up her contract if she will accompany them as a
consultant. Traumatized by her previous encounter with the Alien, Ripley
initially refuses, but accepts after Burke promises that the team will destroy
any Aliens found and not attempt to study them. Aboard the warship Sulaco she is
introduced to the Colonial Marines, including Sergeant Apone (Al Matthews),
Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn), privates Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) and Hudson
(Bill Paxton), and the android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), toward whom Ripley is
initially hostile due to her previous experience with the android Ash aboard the
Nostromo.
The expedition descends to the surface of LV-426 via dropship, where they find
the colony seemingly abandoned. Two living facehuggers are found in containment
tanks in the medical lab. The only colonist found is a traumatized young girl
nicknamed Newt (Carrie Henn). The space marines determine that the colonists are
clustered in the nuclear-powered atmosphere processing station, where they find
a large Alien nest filled with the cocooned colonists. The Aliens attack,
killing most of the unit and capturing Apone and Dietrich. Ripley is able to
rescue Hicks, Vasquez, and Hudson. With Gorman knocked unconscious during the
rescue, Hicks assumes command and orders the dropship to recover the survivors,
intending to return to the Sulaco and destroy the colony from orbit. A stowaway
Alien kills the dropship pilots in flight, causing the vessel to crash into the
processing station. The surviving humans barricade themselves inside the colony
complex.
Ripley discovers that it was Burke who ordered the colonists to investigate the
derelict spaceship where the Nostromo crew first encountered the Alien eggs, and
that he hopes to return Alien specimens to the company laboratories where he can
profit from their use as biological weapons. She threatens to expose him, but
Bishop soon informs the group of a greater threat: the damaged processing
station has become unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a forty
megaton thermonuclear weapon. He volunteers to crawl through several meters of
piping conduits to reach and use the colony's transmitter to pilot the Sulaco's
remaining dropship to the surface by remote control so that the group can
escape. Ripley and Newt fall asleep in the medical laboratory, awakening to find
themselves locked in the room with two facehuggers, which have been released
from their tanks. Ripley is able to alert the space marines, who rescue them and
kill the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of attempting to smuggle implanted
Alien embryos past Earth's quarantine inside her and Newt, and of planning to
kill the rest of the space marines in hypersleep during the return trip so that
no one could contradict his version of events. The electricity is suddenly cut
off and numerous Aliens attack through the ceiling. Hudson, Burke, Gorman, and
Vasquez are killed while Newt is captured by the Aliens.
Ripley and an injured Hicks reach Bishop and the second dropship, but Ripley
refuses to leave Newt behind. She rescues Newt from the hive in the processing
station, where the two encounter the Alien queen and her egg chamber. Ripley
destroys most of the eggs, enraging the queen, who escapes by tearing free from
her ovipositor. Closely pursued by the queen, Ripley and Newt rendezvous with
Bishop and Hicks on the dropship and escape moments before the colony is
consumed by the nuclear blast. Back on the Sulaco, Ripley and Bishop's relief at
their escape is interrupted when the Alien queen, stowed away on the dropship's
landing gear, impales Bishop and tears him in half. Ripley battles the queen
using an exosuit cargo-loader, before expelling it into space through an
airlock. Ripley, Newt, Hicks and the still-functioning Bishop then enter
hypersleep for the return to Earth.
Alien 3 (1992)
Directed by
David Fincher
Produced by
Gordon Carroll
David Giler
Walter Hill
Screenplay by
David Giler
Walter Hill
Larry Ferguson
Story by
Vincent Ward
Based on
Characters created
by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett
Starring
Sigourney Weaver
Charles S. Dutton
Charles Dance
Brian Glover
Ralph Brown
Paul McGann
Danny Webb
Pete Postlethwaite
Lance Henriksen
The Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco experiences an onboard fire and launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) along with Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop. All four are in cryonic stasis. During the launch, the ship's medical scans of the crew's cryotubes show an Alien facehugger attached to one of the crewmembers. The pod then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by all-male inmates with "double-Y" chromosome patterns and histories of physical and sexual violence. After some inmates recover the pod and its passengers, an Alien facehugger is seen approaching the prison dog. Ripley is taken in and awakened by Clemens (Charles Dance), the prison doctor, and is told she is the only survivor of the crash. Many of the ex-inmates, led by Dillon (Charles S. Dutton), have embraced an apocalyptic, millenarian version of Christianity. Ripley is warned by the prison warden, Harold Andrews (Brian Glover), that her presence among them may have extremely disruptive effects.
Suspicious of what caused the escape pod to jettison and what killed her companions, Ripley requests that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt. She fears that Newt may be carrying an Alien embryo in her body, though she does not share this information. Despite protests from the warden and his assistant, Aaron (Ralph Brown), the autopsy is conducted. No embryo is found in Newt's body, and Clemens proclaims she simply died in the crash. Meanwhile, Ripley's unusual behavior begins to frustrate the warden and is agitating the prisoners.
A funeral is performed for Newt and Hicks, during which their bodies are cremated in the facility's enormous furnace. In another section of the facility, the prison dog enters convulsions, and a seemingly full-grown Alien bursts from its body. The Alien soon begins to attack members of the colony, killing several and returning an outcast prisoner Golic (Paul McGann) to his former deranged state. To get answers, Ripley recovers and reactivates the damaged android Bishop, who confirms that there was an Alien on the Sulaco and it came with them to Fiorina in the escape pod. She then informs Andrews of her previous encounters with the Aliens and suggests everyone work together to hunt it down and kill it. Andrews does not believe her story and explains that the facility has no weapons. Their only hope of protection is the rescue ship being sent for Ripley by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
Back in the prison infirmary, while talking to Ripley about the situation, Clemens is killed by the Alien, but when it is about to attack Ripley, it suddenly pauses, then retreats, mysteriously sparing her life. She runs to the mess hall to warn the others, only to see the Alien kill the warden. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour highly flammable toxic waste, which is stored at the facility, into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the creature. An explosion is caused by the creature's premature intervention, resulting in several deaths. Using the medical equipment aboard the Sulaco escape pod, Ripley scans herself and discovers the embryo of an Alien Queen growing inside her. She also finds out that the Corporation truly wants the Queen embryo and the adult Alien, hoping to turn them into biological weapons. Deducing that the mature alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon to kill her; he agrees to do so only if she helps the inmates kill the adult creature first. They form a plan to lure it into the foundry's molding facility and drown it in molten lead by trapping it by closing a series of doors. The bait-and-chase style plan results in the death of Dillon and all the remaining prisoners, except Morse (Danny Webb), who pours the lead. The Alien, covered in molten metal, escapes the mold and is killed by Ripley when she turns on fire sprinklers and sprays the beast with water, causing its exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter via thermal shock.
While Ripley battles the Alien, the Weyland-Yutani team arrives, including a man who looks identical to the Bishop android, claiming to be its creator. He tries to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the Queen embryo, which he claims will be destroyed. Ripley refuses and steps back onto a mobile platform, which Morse positions over the furnace. The company men shoot Morse in the leg, and Aaron picks up a large wrench and strikes Bishop II over the head with it. Aaron is shot dead, and Bishop II and his men show their true intentions, begging Ripley to let them have the "magnificent specimen". Ripley defies them by throwing herself into the gigantic furnace, just as the alien Queen begins to erupt from her chest. Ripley grabs the creature, holding on to it as she falls into the fire.
The facility is closed down and the last surviving inmate, Morse, is led away. A sound recording of Ripley (her final lines from the original Alien) is heard from the Sulaco escape pod.
Alien Resurrection (1997)
Directed by
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Produced by
Gordon Carroll
David Giler
Walter Hill
Bill Badalato
Written by
Joss Whedon
Based on
Characters created
by Dan O'Bannon
Ronald Shusett
Starring
Sigourney Weaver
Winona Ryder
Ron Perlman
Dominique Pinon
Gary Dourdan
Michael Wincott
Brad Dourif
Leland Orser
Dan Hedaya
J. E. Freeman
Kim Flowers
Raymond Cruz
Alien Resurrection is a science fiction film released in 1997 by 20th Century
Fox, and the fourth installment in the Alien franchise. The film was directed by
French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with a screenplay by Joss Whedon. Alien
Resurrection was the first film in the Alien series to be filmed outside of
England, at Fox studios in Los Angeles, California.
In the film, which is set 200 years after the preceding installment Alien 3
(1992), Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is cloned and an Alien queen is
surgically removed from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed
Aliens to study and research on the spaceship USM Auriga, using human hosts
kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape
their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy
the Auriga before it reaches its destination, Earth.
Alien Resurrection was released on November 26, 1997 and received mixed reviews
from film critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times felt "there is not a
single shot in the movie to fill one with wonder",[1] while Desson Thomson of
The Washington Post said the film "satisfactorily recycles the great surprises
that made the first movie so powerful".[2] The film earned $161 million,
recouping more than twice its $75 million budget.
Two hundred years after the events of Alien 3, military scientists on the outer
space vessel USM Auriga create a clone of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), using
DNA from blood samples taken before her death. They extract the embryo of an
Alien queen that had been growing inside her at the time of her death, raise it,
and collect its eggs for further use. The Ripley clone is kept alive for further
study. As a result of her DNA being mixed with the Alien's during the cloning
process, she develops enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, and an
empathic link with the Aliens.
A group of mercenaries arrive in their ship, the Betty, delivering several
kidnapped humans in stasis. The military scientists use the kidnapped humans as
hosts for the Aliens, raising several adult Aliens for study. The Betty crew
soon encounter Ripley. Call (Winona Ryder) recognizes her name and tries to kill
her, believing she may be used to create more Aliens. Call is too late; the
Aliens have already matured and quickly escape confinement, damaging the Auriga
and killing most of its crew. Military scientist Dr. Wren (J. E. Freeman)
reveals that the ship's default command in an emergency is to return to Earth.
Realizing this will unleash the Aliens on Earth, Ripley, the mercenaries, Wren,
a Marine named DiStefano (Raymond Cruz), and surviving Alien host Purvis (Leland
Orser) decide to head for the Betty and use it to destroy the Auriga.
As the group make their way through the damaged ship, several of them are killed
by Aliens. Call is revealed to be an android after Wren betrays the group. Using
her ability to interface with the Auriga's systems, she sets it on a collision
course with Earth, hoping to destroy the Aliens in the crash. Wren takes Call
hostage, demanding that she abort the collision. Purvis holds Wren's head to his
chest just as the Alien embryo he is carrying bursts through his ribcage,
causing it to go through Wren's head and kill him.
Ripley discovers that the Alien queen has gained a human ability from her DNA as
well: now possessing a womb, it can give birth to live offspring without the
need for eggs and human hosts. The resulting newborn, bearing a mixture of human
and Alien traits, recognizes Ripley as its mother and kills the Alien queen and
Dr. Gediman (Brad Dourif).
Ripley and the surviving mercenaries make their way to the Betty. As they
launch, the newborn hybrid attacks Call and kills DiStefano. Ripley kills it by
using her own acidic blood to burn a hole through a viewpane, causing the
creature to be sucked violently through the hole and into the vacuum of space.
The survivors escape in the Betty as the Auriga collides into Earth.
Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson
Produced by John Davis, Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill
Story by Paul W. S. Anderson, Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Based on Alien by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett & Predator by Jim Thomas, John Thomas
Starring
Sanaa Lathan
Lance Henriksen
Raoul Bova
Ewen Bremner
Colin Salmon
A man runs out of the snow to save himself from an unknown predator. He gets trapped and eventually attacked. In 2004, a satellite detects a mysterious heat bloom beneath Bouvetøya, an island about one thousand miles north of Antarctica. Wealthy industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) assembles a team of scientists to investigate the heat source and claim it for his multinational communications company, Weyland Industries. The team includes archaeologists, linguistic experts, drillers, mercenaries, and a guide named Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan).
As a Predator ship reaches Earth's orbit, it blasts a shaft through the ice towards the source of the heat bloom. When the humans arrive at the site above the heat source, an abandoned whaling station, they find the shaft and descend beneath the ice. They discover a mysterious pyramid and begin to explore it, finding evidence of a civilization predating written history and what appears to be a sacrificial chamber filled with human skeletons with ruptured rib cages.
Meanwhile, three Predators land and kill the humans on the surface, making their way down to the pyramid and arriving just as the team unwittingly powers up the structure. An Alien queen awakes from cryogenic stasis and begins to produce eggs, from which facehuggers hatch and attach to several humans trapped in the sacrificial chamber. Chestbursters emerge from the humans and quickly grow into adult Aliens. Conflicts erupt between the Predators, Aliens, and humans, resulting in several deaths. Unbeknownst to the others, a Predator is implanted with an Alien embryo.
Through translation of the pyramid's hieroglyphs the explorers learn that the Predators have been visiting Earth for thousands of years. It was they who taught early human civilizations how to build pyramids, and were worshipped as gods. Every 100 years they would visit Earth to take part in a rite of passage in which several humans would sacrifice themselves as hosts for the Aliens, creating the "ultimate prey" for the Predators to hunt. If overwhelmed, the Predators would activate their self-destruct weapons to eliminate the Aliens and themselves. The explorers deduce that this is why the current Predators are at the pyramid, and that the heat bloom was to attract humans for the purpose of making new Aliens to hunt.
The remaining humans decide that the Predators must be allowed to succeed in their hunt so that the Aliens do not reach the surface. As the battle continues most of the characters are killed, leaving only Alexa and a single Predator to fight against the Aliens. The two form an alliance and use the Predator's self-destruct device to destroy the pyramid and the remaining Aliens. Alexa and the Predator reach the surface, where they battle the escaped Alien queen. They defeat the queen by attaching its chain to a water tower and pushing it over a cliff into the water, dragging the queen to the ocean floor. The Predator, however, dies from its wounds.
A Predator ship uncloaks and several Predators appear. They collect their fallen comrade and present Alexa with one of their spear weapons in recognition of her skill as a warrior. As they retreat into space, a chestburster erupts from the dead Predator, beginning the events of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Directed by The Brothers Strause
Produced by John Davis, David Giler & Walter Hill
Written by Shane Salerno
Based on: Alien by Dan O'Bannon, Ron Shusett & Predator by Jim Thomas & John Thomas
Starring
Steven Pasquale
Reiko Aylesworth
John Ortiz
Johnny Lewis
Ariel Gade
Following the events of Alien vs. Predator, a Predator spaceship is leaving Earth carrying dead Aliens, living facehuggers, and the body of the Predator that defeated the Alien queen. A chestburster erupts from the dead Predator's body; it is a new creature that is a hybrid of Alien and Predator characteristics. It quickly matures into an adult and begins killing Predators throughout the ship. A Predator's weapons fire punctures the hull and the ship crashes in the forest outside of Gunnison, Colorado.
With the Predators dead, the hybrid and several facehuggers escape, implanting embryos into a nearby father and son and into several homeless people living in the sewers. A distress signal from the wrecked ship reaches the Predator home world and a lone Predator responds, traveling to Earth to observe the cause of the crash and track the facehuggers. It begins to erase the evidence of the Aliens' presence by destroying the crashed ship and using a blue liquid to dissolve the bodies of the facehuggers and their victims.
Meanwhile, ex-convict Dallas Howard (Steven Pasquale) has just returned to Gunnison after serving time in prison. He is greeted by Sheriff Eddie Morales (John Ortiz) and reunites with his younger brother Ricky (Johnny Lewis). Ricky has a romantic interest in his more affluent classmate Jesse (Kristen Hager) and is being harassed by her boyfriend Dale (David Paetkau) and two of his friends. Kelly O'Brien (Reiko Aylesworth) has also just returned to Gunnison after service in the military, and reunites with her husband Tim (Sam Trammell) and daughter Molly (Ariel Gade).
The Predator fights a number of Aliens in the sewers, and as the battle reaches the surface several of them disperse into the town. The Predator pursues some to the power plant, where collateral damage from its weaponry causes a city-wide power outage. Ricky and Jesse meet at the high school swimming pool but are interrupted by Dale and his cohorts just as the power fails and an Alien enters the building, killing Dale's friends. Another Alien invades the O'Brien home, killing Tim while Kelly escapes with Molly.
Kelly, Molly, Ricky, Jesse, Dale, Dallas, and Sheriff Morales meet at a sporting goods store to gather weapons. Troops from the Colorado Army National Guard arrive but are quickly killed by the Aliens. When the battle between the Predator and the Aliens enters the store, Dale is killed and the Predator's shoulder cannons are damaged; it is able to modify one into a hand-held blaster.
As the survivors attempt to escape Gunnison, they make radio contact with Colonel Stevens (Robert Joy) and learn that an air evacuation is being staged at the center of town. Kelly is suspicious of the military's intentions, convincing a small group to go to the hospital where they hope to escape by helicopter, while Sheriff Morales heads to the evacuation area with the rest of the surviving citizens. The hospital, however, has been invaded by Aliens and the hybrid. The Predator soon arrives and in the ensuing battle. Jesse is killed, Ricky is injured, and Dallas takes possession of the Predator's blaster cannon.
As the battle reaches the rooftop, Dallas, Ricky, Kelly, and Molly escape in the helicopter while the Predator battles the hybrid hand-to-hand. The two creatures mortally wound each other just as a military jet arrives; rather than a rescue airlift it is a bomber, executing a tactical nuclear strike that destroys the entire city and kills all of the extraterrestrials along with the remaining citizens. The shock wave causes the fleeing helicopter to crash in a clearing, where the survivors are rescued by the military. The Predator's blaster cannon is confiscated, and Colonel Stevens presents it to Ms. Yutani.
Prometheus (2012)
Directed by Ridley Scott
Produced by Ridley Scott, David Giler & Walter Hill
Written by Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof
Starring
Noomi Rapace
Michael Fassbender
Guy Pearce
Idris Elba
Logan Marshall-Green
Charlize Theron
As a hovering spacecraft departs an Earth-like world, a humanoid alien drinks a dark bubbling liquid, then starts to disintegrate. The alien's remains cascade into a waterfall. His DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.
In 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover a star map in Scotland that matches others from several unconnected ancient cultures. They interpret this as an invitation from humanity's forerunners, the "Engineers". Peter Weyland, the elderly CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds an expedition to follow the map to the distant moon LV-223 aboard the scientific vessel Prometheus. The ship's crew travels in stasis while the android David monitors their voyage. Arriving in 2093, they are informed of their mission to find the Engineers. Mission director Meredith Vickers orders the crew to avoid making contact without her permission.
The Prometheus lands near a large artificial structure, which a team explores. Inside they find numerous stone cylinders, a large, monolithic statue of a humanoid head, and the decapitated corpse of a large alien, thought to be an Engineer; Shaw recovers its head. Other bodies are found, leading the crew to surmise that the species is extinct. Crew members Millburn and Fifield grow uncomfortable with the true nature of the mission and attempt to return to Prometheus, but are left stranded in the structure when they get lost. The expedition is cut short when a rapidly-approaching storm forces the crew to return to the ship. David secretly takes a cylinder from the structure, while the remaining ones begin leaking a dark liquid. Back in the ship's lab, the Engineer's DNA is found to match that of humans. David investigates the cylinder and the dark liquid inside. He then intentionally taints a drink with the substance and gives it to an unsuspecting Holloway. Shortly after, Shaw and Holloway have sex.
Inside the structure, a snake-like creature kills Millburn, and sprays a corrosive fluid that melts Fifield's helmet. Fifield falls face-first into a puddle of dark liquid. When the crew return, they find Millburn's corpse. David separately discovers a control room containing a surviving Engineer in stasis, and a star map highlighting Earth. Meanwhile, Holloway sickens rapidly. He is rushed back to Prometheus, but Vickers refuses to let him aboard, and at his urging, burns him to death with a flamethrower. Later, a medical scan reveals that Shaw, despite being sterile, is pregnant. Fearing the worst, she uses an automated surgery table to extract a squid-like creature from her abdomen. Shaw then discovers that Weyland has been in stasis aboard Prometheus. He explains that he wants to ask the Engineers to prevent his death from old age. As Weyland prepares to leave for the structure, Vickers addresses him as "Father".
A mutated Fifield attacks the Prometheus's hangar bay and kills several crew members before he is killed. The Prometheus's captain, Janek, speculates that the structure was an Engineer military installation that lost control of a virulent biological weapon, the dark liquid. He also determines that the structure houses a spacecraft. Weyland and a team return to the structure, accompanied by Shaw. David wakes the Engineer from stasis and speaks to him in an attempt to explain what Weyland wants. The Engineer responds by decapitating David and killing Weyland and his team, before reactivating the spacecraft. Shaw flees and warns Janek that the Engineer is planning to release the liquid on Earth, convincing him to stop the spacecraft. Janek ejects the lifeboat and rams Prometheus into the alien craft, while Vickers flees in an escape pod. The Engineer's disabled spacecraft crashes onto the ground; its wreckage crushes Vickers. Shaw goes to the lifeboat and finds her alien offspring is alive and has grown to gigantic size. David's still-active head warns Shaw that the Engineer has survived. The Engineer forces open the lifeboat's airlock and attacks Shaw, who releases her alien offspring onto the Engineer; it thrusts an ovipositor down the Engineer's throat, subduing him. Shaw recovers David's remains, and with his help, launches another Engineer spacecraft. She intends to reach the Engineers' homeworld in an attempt to understand why they wanted to destroy humanity.
In the lifeboat, an alien creature bursts out of the Engineer's chest.
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Directed by Ridley Scott
Produced by David Giler, Walter Hill, Ridley Scott, Mark Huffam & Michael
Schaefer
Screenplay by John Logan & Dante Harper
Story by Jack
Paglen & Michael Green
Starring
Michael Fassbender
Katherine
Waterston
Billy Crudup
Danny McBride
Demián Bichir
Business
magnate Peter Weyland speaks with his newly activated android, who chooses the
name "David" after observing Michelangelo's statue. Weyland states that one day
they will search for mankind's creator together. David comments on his own
unlimited lifespan as compared to Weyland's, which unsettles Weyland.
In
2104, eleven years after the Prometheus expedition, the colonization ship
Covenant is seven years from reaching planet Origae-6, with 2,000 colonists in
stasis and 1,140 human embryos in cold storage. The ship is monitored by Walter,
an advanced android model that physically resembles David. When a shockwave
damages the ship, Walter reanimates his 14[11] human crewmates, themselves
couples and colonists. The ship's captain, Jake Branson, is burned alive when
his stasis pod malfunctions. While repairing the ship, the crew picks up a
transmission of a human voice from a nearby planet, which appears eminently more
habitable than Origae-6. Despite the protests of Daniels, Branson's widow, that
this new "perfect" planet is too good to be true, newly-promoted captain Chris
Oram decides that they will check the new planet.
With pilot Tennessee
maintaining Covenant in orbit, his wife Maggie flies a small lander to the
Earth-like planet's surface, where an expedition team tracks the transmission's
signal to a crashed alien ship. Crewmates Ledward and Hallett are infected by
spores from fungus-like organisms. Oram's wife Karine helps the increasingly ill
Ledward back to the lander, where Maggie quarantines them inside the med-bay. A
small pale alien creature (neomorph) bursts from Ledward's back, killing him,
and then mauls Karine to death. Maggie returns and attempts to kill the creature
with a shotgun, but triggers an explosion which kills her and destroys the
lander. Nearby in the fields, another neomorph bursts from Hallett's mouth,
killing him. The neomorphs attack the remaining crew, killing crew member Ankor.
The crew manages to kill one before David, who survived the Prometheus mission,
appears and scares off the neomorph.
He leads the crew to a temple in a city
full of dead humanoids. David tells them that upon his and fellow Prometheus
survivor Elizabeth Shaw's arrival at the planet, their ship accidentally
released a virus which annihilated all fauna on the planet, and that Shaw
perished when the ship crashed. Meanwhile, attempts to radio the Covenant are
stymied by ion storms. When the remaining neomorph infiltrates the temple and
kills crew member Rosenthal, David tries to communicate with the creature, and
is horrified when Oram kills it. Oram questions David, who reveals that the
Aliens are a result of his releasing and experimenting with the pathogen to
produce new lifeforms. He manipulates Oram into being attacked by a Facehugger
Alien. A new form of Alien, the Xenomorph, later erupts from Oram's chest,
killing him.
As the others search for Oram and Rosenthal, Walter finds
Shaw's dissected corpse, used by David as material for his evolving creature
designs. David states that humanity is a dying and unworthy species, and his
designed creature is a "perfect organism" set to eradicate them. When Walter
disagrees, David disables him, then threatens Daniels. Walter's advanced systems
self-repair, and he attacks David while Daniels escapes. Crewmate Cole quickly
cuts another facehugger off security chief Dan Lope, leaving Lope with acid
burns on his face. The now fully grown xenomorph kills Cole, while Lope escapes
and meets up with Daniels. Tennessee arrives in another lander to extract
Daniels, Lope, and Walter, who says David has "expired". They kill the attacking
xenomorph and return to Covenant.
The next morning, Daniels and Tennessee
discover that another xenomorph burst from Lope's chest, killing him, and is
loose on the Covenant. It matures, and kills crew members Upworth and her
husband Ricks. Final crew members Tennessee and Daniels lure the creature into
Covenant's terraforming bay and kill it. Covenant resumes its voyage to
Origae-6. As Walter helps Daniels into stasis, she realizes that Walter is in
fact David, but is unable to escape from her pod before falling asleep. David
regurgitates two facehugger embryos and places them in cold storage with the
human embryos.
He poses as Walter to record a log stating that all
crewmembers except Daniels and Tennessee were killed by the solar flare incident
at the beginning of the film and that the ship is still on course for Origae-6.