FAQ for
Alien (1979) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Alien can be found here.

No. Alien was based on a screenplay by American screenwriter Dan O'Bannon with input from screenwriters Ronald Shusett, David Giler, and Walter Hill. The movie was subsequently novelized by Alan Dean Foster. The success of Alien fostered five movie sequels: Aliens (1986), Alien³ (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997), AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), and AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007). Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection continue Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)'s story whereas AVP and AVPR were written as prequels to Alien.

They knew because its beacon repeated every 12 seconds. The Company heard and deciphered the beacon some time prior to the Nostromo's trek to retrieve ore from Thedus. Two weeks before the Nostromo set "sail", the Company replaced the old science officer with Ash (Ian Holm), whom they have preprogrammed to enact their plan of retrieving and protecting the alien life form. They then re-routed the Nostromo to the same area. They knew that the Nostromo would pick up the distress signal and, according to Company regulations, would be forced to respond to it, and Ash would be there to make sure that the mission was carried out.

This is unexplained in the movie. The origin of the Alien is a complete mystery to the crew members who have not encountered this species before. One clue is in the early drafts of O'Bannon and Shusett's script. They write: "Certain clues in the wrecked ship lead them across the hostile surface of the planet to a primitive stone pyramid, the only remnant of a vanished civilization. Beneath this pyramid they find an ancient tomb full of fantastic artifacts. Lying dormant in the tomb are centuries-old spores, which are triggered into life by the men's presence. A parasite emerges and fastens itself to one of the men's faces -- and cannot be removed." It would appear that it was the scriptwriters' intention that the alien(s) originated on the same planet where the derelict was found. However, this scene was left out of the movie and later, in Aliens, Ripley claims that the creatures were not indigenous to the planet but were brought in by the derelict ship.

While this never seen again in the Alien films, one assumption is that the mist was created by the eggs or the "mother" to keep them climate controlled in a warm and moist area until conditions were right for them to hatch. A alternative explanation is that the crew of the derelict spacecraft may have been transporting the eggs and covered them with the mist so that they could not detect when someone was in close proximity, therefore keeping them from hatching and impregnating the crew of the derelict.

Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) never went down to the area where the eggs were kept, never broke the blue mist, and never came in proximity to the eggs. They rescued Kane (John Hurt) because he was attached to a winch cable. Once he lost consciousness, all they had to do was reel him in.

Although such a rate of growth is quite unheard of in Earth's fauna, we should bear in mind that this particular life-form is extra-terrestrial, and therefore not necessarily subject to conventional wisdom about growth and development. Perhaps the Alien is a physiologically simple creature with all body structures present when it bursts out of its host, and all that is needed is that its cells quickly replicate and grow in size. The latter might be realized by drinking water and eating enormous amounts of nutrients for both energy and building blocks. Such rapid cell division would nevertheless require lots of energy, and this may account for its very short lifespan (the creators of Alien intended the creature to be aging very rapidly throughout the movie, becoming darker and finally dying at the end); the creature's body quickly invests all its energy into becoming functional, rather than into longevity, much like a butterfly.

No, it wasn't raining, and it wasn't Alien drool. It was condensation. Down near Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) it appeared quite hot, as he was sweating. Since heat rises, it could have caused some frost or ice to melt high up on the ceiling. Also, the giant lights that Brett looked up at could have given off a lot of heat.

It was most likely stress. It was an extremely stressful environment. It seems Ripley has a weak nose wall, because director David Fincher used a similiar situation during the Alien 3 funeral scene, where her nose bleeds.

There is no explanation in the movie as no one has encountered this type of alien before. At the beginning of the movie, the Nostromo crew find the dead "Space Jockey" with a large hole in his chest. In what looks like a holding area, there are several egg-shaped containers covered in a blue mist. Kane falls into the mist, and one of the eggs starts to react. The top of the egg bursts open, and a tentacled creature leaps out and attaches itself to Kane's face mask. Later, it is discovered that the creature has inserted a long tube down Kane's throat and appears to be providing him with oxygen. Some hours later, the creature just drops dead, Kane seems fine, and the crew decide to eat something before going back into hibernation. As Kane begins to eat, his chest suddenly bursts open and a small creature bursts free. The Alien grows at an incredible rate and begins picking off the crew one by one. Near the end of the movie, Ripley finds that the crew members have been cocooned and are turning into egg containers. In short, the simplest explanation as shown in the movie is that the alien is hatched from an egg, incubates in the body of a host, rips its way out of the host, quickly grows to adult form, and begins searching for living hosts that it fashions into egg containers for its spawn. That was O'Bannon's intended life cycle for the Alien...it would move from egg, to facehugger, to warrior adult. In the sequels to Alien, however, many other aspects are added to the alien's life cycle, such as a Queen, which greatly complicates attempts to explain how the life cycle works.

The growth sequence from egg to facehugger to adult is depicted in a mural that H.R. Giger created for early drafts of the film. The opposite transformation, that is, from adult to egg, while not specifically depicted in the mural, was detailed in an early script. In that script, Ripley finds a lair filled with bones, hair, shreds of flesh, pieces of clothing, and shoes. Hanging from the ceiling are two huge cocoons. One contains the body of Dallas; the other contains the remains of Brett. It is smaller and darker with a harder shell. It looks almost exactly like the spores in the tomb, suggesting that the bodies are being turned into spores/eggs, which will provide the containers for spawn.

The cocoon sequence, involving the transformation of Brett and Dallas into eggs, was filmed but was dropped from the final cut of the original release because director Ridley Scott felt that the sequence interrupted the pace of the film. He believed that the inclusion of this sequence interfered with Ripley's attempt to exit the ship, which would have unnecessarily slowed down the picture. The cutting of the cocoon sequence was an attempt by the director to keep tension in the final minutes of the film, not an attempt to alter the intended life cycle.That scene is now available in the Director's cut.

Yes. One of O'Bannon and Shusett's early attempts at a screenplay can be found here.

Ripley, Lambert, and Parker prepare to take the shuttle in order to escape from the Alien aboard the Nostromo. Parker and Lambert are killed by the Alien while gathering supplies, so Ripley grabs Jones and boards the shuttle after setting the Nostromo to self-destruct. As they drift off into space, the Nostromo explodes. Ripley places Jones in the hypersleep chamber and prepares herself for sleep, too. Suddenly, she becomes aware that the Alien is also on board. She backs herself into a closet containing spacesuits, then has the idea that she can don a suit, decompress the shuttle, and purge it of air. Unfortunately, it has no effect on the Alien. In desperation, she buckles herself into her seat and opens the hatch. The Alien is sucked outside with a little help from Ripley's gappling gun. When the Alien tries to regain entry through the engine casing, Ripley fires the engines, and the Alien is blown away into space. In the final scene, Ripley and Jones enter hypersleep, hoping to reach Earth in about six months.

A sex scene between Dallas and Ripley was in the script, but was not filmed. Subtle hints that Dallas has feelings for Ripley are shown throughout the film, as he is very protective of her. When Ripley, Ash and Dallas are searching for the facehugger in the medical lab, it falls on Ripley's shoulder. Dallas immediately jumps in front of her to protect her and she clutches onto him. Also, when Ripley volunteered to go into the air ducts, Dallas insisted on taking her place.

No. There are several reasons for this: (1) The two ships look nothing alike; they have completely different shapes and designs, (2) The Predators look nothing like the dead alien creature ('Space Jockey') found inside the derelict. The dead creature is several times larger, has a large proboscis and lacks the typical Predator mandibles, (3) It is unlikely that the ship would also just happen to crash on LV-426, the planet from Alien where the derelict is found, and (4) In the sequel AVPR, the Predator ship crashes on Earth, reducing chances to zero of it being the derelict from Alien.

In 1979, Ridley Scott made film history with the science fiction/horror movie Alien. The film was re-released worldwide in movie theaters in 2003. This version was later released on DVD together with the old Theatrical Cut. Both versions feature material that the other one doesn't include. Ridley Scott has stated that the Director's Cut is a director's cut in name only, as he was satisfied with his original cut, and instead considers the newer version to be simply an alternate cut, rather than a preferred or definitive version. A detailed comparison between the theatrical cut and the unrated version can be found here.. A detailed comparison between the director's cut and the theatrical version can be found here.