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Alien, Aliens and Alien^3 Information and FAQ 2/3
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& ALIEN, ALIENS and ALIEN^3 &
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& Information and Frequently Asked Questions &
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& Version 1.7 &
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& PART 2 of 3 &
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7. MEMORABLE QUOTES
In some cases, the circumstances around which these quotes occur will
be given so the reader can get the "full effect" of the moment.
"The entire world revolves around this wretched Alien." - H.R. Giger
_ALIEN_
< Kane starts choking, this starts the scene where the Alien bursts
from his chest>
"What's the matter man, the food ain't THAT bad?!" - Parker
< Ripley asks how long it takes the ship to self destruct >
"If we ain't outta here in 10 minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly
through space." - Parker
"You still don't know what you're dealing with do you? Perfect
organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility
[...] I admire its purity, a survivor; unclouded by conscience,
remorse or delusions of morality." - Ash
_ALIENS_
< When Ripley explains that Hicks is the "one in charge" (after the
marines' first confrontation with the aliens >
"He's just a grunt! No offense..." - Burke
"None taken." - Hicks
< After Ripley and Newt are attacked by the facehuggers, and they
discover it was Burke's doing >
"Allright, we waste him... no offense." - Hicks
< Ripley tells the story of why Burke tried to impregnate her and
Newt with alien eggs >
"I say we grease this rat-fuck son-of-a-bitch right now!" - Hudson
"You know Burke, I don't know which species is worse; you don't see
them fucking each other over for a goddam percentage!" - Ripley
< Gorman orders the troops to disarm all their weapons before the first
alien encounter >
"What the hell are we supposed to use man, harsh language?" - Frost
< The dropship crashes >
"Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great man, now what the fuck
are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man [...]
That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna
do now? What are we gonna do?" - Hudson
< After Ripley rescues the remaining troops with the APC and suggests
that they nuke the site from orbit, Burke tries to stop this plan >
"Hey maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just
got our ASSES kicked pal!" - Hudson
< Hudson asks Vasquez if she's ever been mistaken for a man, to which
she replies... >
"No, have you?" - Vasquez
< Ripley responds to Burke's reservations about nuking the alien-infested
site >
"They can BILL me!" - Ripley
"Dear Lord Jesus, this can't be happenin' man, this isn't
happenin..." - Hudson
< Hicks says that there won't be any rescue attempt made for another
17 days >
"17 days?! Hey man, I don't want to rain on your parade, but we're
not gonna last 17 hours against those things!" - Hudson
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." - Bishop
"Another glorious day in the Corps. A day in the Marine Corps is like
a day on the farm; every meal a banquet, every paycheque a fortune,
every formation a parade. I love the Corps!" - Apone
< After Gorman says, "Hicks, meet me at the south lock. We're coming
in." >
[sarcastically] "He's coming in. I feel safer already." - Hudson
< Bishop says "I'm afraid I have some bad news." >
"Well that's a switch." - Hudson
"Get away from her you bitch!" - Ripley
_ALIEN^3_
< Ripley's looking for the alien >
"Don't be afraid, I'm part of the family." - Ripley
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. TECHNICAL PROBLEMS
_ALIEN_
- The "blurb" on the back of the movie box is wrong. "...the crew of
a commercial spaceship make an unscheduled landing on a barren and
desolate planet for engine repairs." They did not land on the planet
to make engine repairs, rather to investigate the distress beacon.
_ALIENS_
- After the Sulaco arrives at LV-426, a computer screen displays the
last names and first initials of each of the crew members. Hudson
isn't on the list.
- Adding up the estimated time that Bishop makes (for getting the drop
ship down to the planet) gives a total of 180 minutes (3 hours),
however the fusion reactor is not going to blow up for another 4
hours. Ripley says "It's going to be close..." but they actually
have a full hour to clear the base. [not NECESARRILY a technical
problem, but it could be]
- In the LD version of aliens, during those split-seconds the camera
is NOT on the queen during the fight between Ripey and her, pay
attention to bishop. In one shot, you can clearly see the hole that
Lance Henriksen is standing in (to hide the other half of his body) to
give the effect of being ripped in two.
- In the battle scene between Ripley and the mother alien where Ripley
is in the loader, we see the alien pull the loader into the airlock
when Ripley tries to drop it. The loader is turned upside down and
the cone on top with the spinning yellow caution light is broken when
it slams into the floor. In the next scene, however, we see the
loader lying on the floor of the airlock with the yellow cone still in
one piece. Also, the sharp end of the alien tails seems to be
missing, as if it broke off, but the broken part isn't on the airlock
floor.
- When Bishop gets it from the mother alien, you can see the string
pulling the stinger through the dummy.
- The Pulse rifles are using "standard armor piercing explosive tip,
caseless" [Gorman, Aliens] and yet when one is fired, you see shells
flying out of it if you look carefully.
- In order to take a space ship from Earth, to another planet, the
Sulaco MUST travel faster than light. Given this technology, it seems
unlikely that the military would not use it to make weapons that are
better than the conventional "slug throwers".
- During the marines' initial confrontation with the aliens (while
Ripley and Gorman are monitoring the situation from the APC), there is
a scene where Ripley tells Gorman to pull his men out. The first time
you see Ripley in this 20 second clip she is wearing a audio headset.
The frame flicks to Gorman who looks unhappy, and flicks back to an
irate Ripley with NO HEADSET. The scene flicks back to Gorman who
loses his temper, and then back to Ripley who talks into the Headset
which has reappeared. (Gorman subsequently knocks the headset off.)
- In the scene in the dropship where Ripley is preparing to rescue
Newt; she's arming herself, there is an editing error. Camera angle 1
(close up of the weapons rack) Ripley grabs a flame thrower and then
from angle 2 (close up of the table) she puts down a pulse rifle.
Next she grabs a pulse rifle but puts down a flame unit. This is in
the theatrical version, but is corrected in the boxed set.
- When Frost falls down the stairwell on fire. If you look closely at
the last couple of frames before the camera angle changes you can see
a boot come out from the bottom left corner. It shows up quite nicely
in front of the fire. It looks to be more of a silhouette. It is
definitely not a character's boot, nor is it Frost's boot that may
have popped off. This is in both the theatrical and boxed set
version.
_ALIEN^3_
- Many instances where you can see the "outline" created by the blue
screening technique.
- The "furnace" that Ripley falls into at the end is WAY off scale, it
was just too big!
- The Cryo capsules seen in the escape pod in _ALIEN^3_ are the same
design as those seen in _ALIEN_ which is a DIFFERENT design than the
capsules seen in the Sulaco in _ALIENS_.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. TRIVIA
_ALIEN_
- _ALIEN_ grossed $ 40,300,000.00
- The first half of the movie was based on original ideas and a script
entitled "Memories" by Dan O'Bannon, the second half originated from
the idea of gremlins on a B-17 bomber, transposed to a spaceship.
[source: _ALIEN_ box set]
- Notice the similarity between the cocooned gremlins in the movie
"Gremlins" and the alien's eggs/cocoon structure. This similarity may
have been due to the original 'gremlins on a B-17' concept for the
latter half of _ALIEN_.
- It has been suggested that _ALIEN_ is a rip-off from from an A.E.
van Vogt short story entitled "Discord in Scarlet".
- "Nostromo" (a novel by Joseph Conrad) pilots a ship hauling ore out
of a turbulent South American country.
- The name of the shuttle "Narcissus" was taken from the Conrad novel
"The Nigger of the Narcissus". The plot revolves around a sailor who
brings death on board with him.
- The alien's habit of laying eggs in the stomach (which then burst
out) is similar to the life-cycle of the tsetse fly.
- The images that the computers display during the Nostromo's
separation from the Mother ship (as well as some images (ie: the
"Purge" message) used near the end where Ripley is setting up the
escape pod to blast off) are re-used in _Blade Runner_ (also directed
by Ridley Scott)
- Only John Hurt and the camera crew knew exactly what was going to
happen during the chest-bursting scene. The actors' only clue as to
what was going to happen was from what they read in the script, so
reactions are genuine.
- In the scene from ALIEN where Dallas, Kane and Lambert are leaving
the ship, the actual actors walking past the Nostromo's landing struts
are 3 children (two of which were Ridley Scott's children) dressed in
scaled down spacesuits. This has the effect of making the ship look
even bigger.
- Watch the scene where Kane gets attacked by the facehugger
frame-by-frame. You'll see (through Kane's eyes) the facehugger jump
out of the egg, attach itself to his helmet, break through the glass
shielding and stick a tube down his throat.
- An over-turned ice cube tray is on the side of Ash's motion tracking
device was an ice-cube tray.
- A sex scene between Dallas and Ripley (!) was in the script, however
was not filmed. [source: _ALIEN_ box set]
- The front (face) part of the alien costume's head is made from a
real human skull. [source: _ALIEN_ box set]
- Although it has nothing to do with _ALIEN_, Sigourney Weaver's real
name is Susan Alexandra. [source: Who is Who in America, 47th Edition]
- A good deal of the music that Jerry Goldsmith wrote for Alien never
made it into the movie. Several tracks on the CD soundtrack don't
appear in the film, and most of them that are in the movie apparently
weren't used in the scenes they were written for, judging from track
titles. The movie uses some classical music, plus music from an
earlier Jerry Goldsmith score entitled "Freud."
< the next two points are quoted from the Blade Runner FAQ with
permission >
- Notice that both _Alien_ and BladeRunner have "artificial persons",
and there is ambiguity as to who is/was a real human. _Alien_ and BR
are perfectly compatible, the only problem being that Ash should have
been a replicant, as opposed to a robot.
- When Deckard enters his apartment at the end, the background hum is
the same distinctive hum as in parts of _ALIEN_.
_ALIENS_
- British Aerospace was [secretly] contracted to design the weaponry
and spacecraft for Aliens. The dropship is a composite of the cockpit
from the Apache helicopter, and engine cowling from old British planes
- also the Sulaco is based on the pulse rifle.
- "...It was [Jenette] Goldstein's (Vasquez) outside that needed an
overhaul, largely because blue eyes and Huck Finn-style freckles
didn't quite fit the job description. 'The makeup took an HOUR,' she
sighs. 'The makeup woman said I had the most ornery freckles she had
ever seen.'...They also gave her dark contact lenses, and rather
unceremoniously, whacked off most of her waist-length hair." [from
STARLOG #115, Feb.1987]
- "The introduction to the marines, [...], as they awoke from hyper
space and gnawed on breakfast, was filmed at the production's end.
That way, the cast had several months to get acquainted." [from
STARLOG #115, Feb.1987]
- "Loco" is written on the back of Vasquez's shirt. [from STARLOG
#115, Feb.1987]
- Goldstein : "'It's never mentioned in the film, but in the
characters' background, she and Drake are recruited from juvenile
prison, where they're under life sentences.
'Therefore, they were different from the others, who were on a time
limit. Hudson was supposed to get out of the marines in four weeks,
which is what made him flip.'
That also explains the back of Hudson's vest, tailored by actor Bill
Paxton to read, 'Contents under pressure. Do not puncture.'" [from
STARLOG #115, Feb.1987]
- Ferro has "(Fly the Friendly Skies)" written on her helmet.
- On the side of the first drop ship is an insignia of an eagle with
big sneakers on, sort of completing a jump. Just above this is the
text "Bug Stompers" and just below is "We endanger species".
- The second drop ship is called "Smart Ass" and just below is "We aim
by P.F.M." (ie: Pure Fucking Magic)
- "Adios" is painted on Vasquez's smart gun.
- The smart guns used by Drake and Vasquez are mounted on them via set
of hydraulic arms. These arms take most of the load of the guns and
keep them stable. Virtually the same technology is used by camera men
on outside broadcasts, where they are used to keep the cameras steady.
The hydraulics absorb most of the energy created by a camera man
running down the road leaving a very steady picture.
- An ammunition clip for the M41-A pulse rifle holds 95 rounds.
- The mechanism used to make the facehuggers thrash about in the
stasis tubes in the science lab came from one of the "flying piranahs"
in one of James Cameron's earlier movies: Piranah II - The Spawning.
It took 9 people to make the face hugger work, one person for each leg
and someone for the tail.
- Hicks was originally played by actor James Remar, but Michael Biehn
replaced him a few days after principal photography began, due to
"artistic differences" between Remar and Cameron.
- Partly as a joke and partly to leave the ending open for subsequent
sequels, James Cameron added the sound of an egg opening/face hugger
scuttling about at the end of the film credits. (different sounds
were appended to different versions of the movie)
- "She thought they said 'illegal aliens' and signed up..." - Hudson
This quote (directed towards Vasquez) was an "inside joke" to the
actors of the movie. (quoted without permission from an interview
with Jeanette Goldstein [Vasquez] that appeared in STARLOG magazine)
''...she answered an ad for a film role in the local trades. It
read simply, "Genuine American actors, British Equity, for
feature film, ALIENS, 20th Century Fox," she relates, over lunch
near the old homestead in Beverly Hills.
"I had seen ALIEN, but I had NO idea this was a sequel.
It had been so long ago, it didn't even occur to me.
"I thought it was about actual aliens, you know,
immigrants to a country. I was wondering why they wanted
Americans. I figured the movie was about lots of different
immigrants to England."
Since she didn't have an agent at the time, she answered
the ad on her own, with rather surprising results. "I actually
came in wearing high heels and lots of makeup, and I had
waist-length hair," she says.
Other auditioners, who had advance notice from THEIR
agents, were decked out in military fatigues --- Goldstein's
first inkling she would be reading for the role of a marine...''
- One track of music from Goldsmith's CD for _ALIEN_ appears near the
end of _ALIENS_, during one of the big scenes of the Queen stomping
around the colony. Even though this music was used in _ALIENS_,
Goldsmith's name was not mentioned in the closing credits.
_ALIEN^3_
There were at least 12 "scripts" for _ALIEN^3_ (derived from the May
1992 issue of PREMIERE) :
1. William Gibson wrote his based on a brief treatment given to him by
Walter Hill, David Giler and Gordon Carroll. It was set in a Soviet
space station ("It was sort of like a Cold War in space, with genetic
manipulation of the alien replacing nuclear war," says Gibson). The
1987 writers strike interrupted the process, so Gibson went back to
work on a novel. "Only one detail survived. 'In my draft, this woman
has a bar code on the back of her hand,' he says. 'In the shooting
script, one of the guys has a shaved head and a bar code on the back
of his head. I'll always privately think that was my piece of
ALIEN^3.'"
2. Eric Red was hired for a "five-week" job to convince Fox to dole
out more development money. He collaborated with Renny Harlin.
According to Red, "HE came up with the gene-splicing idea. 'In the
third film, you needed a new alien. I suggested doing genetic
experiments on the alien.' Red says that Hill and Giler were
disorganized and irresponsible. 'They had no story or treatment or
any real plan for the picture,' he says. Hill and Giler say the
problem was Red's script; when Harlin read it, he quit the project."
3 - 4. David Twohy had a draft set in a penal colony in space without
Ripley in it (since Hill and Giler planned to bring her back in the
fourth film). But Joe Roth (head of Fox) insisted that he wouldn't
make the film without Weaver. Twohy had just started to write Ripley
into the script, when "one of the most transparent bits of studio
treachery I've ever heard of" took place. At the same time Twohy was
working, Fox hired Vincent Ward to collaborate with John Fasano to
develop the script involving a community of monks (remember the seven
dwarfs?). When a Los Angeles Times reporter called Twohy about
"competing drafts of Alien^3", Twohy dumped the script and went off to
do his own film. Fox insisted that Ward's script was for Alien 4.
Twohy: The old adage is true: Hollywood pays its writers well
but treats them like shit to make up for it.
5 - 9. Greg Pruss was hired next to rewrite Fasano's script (he had to
leave to cowrite ANOTHER 48 HRS). Pruss did "five arduous drafts".
Everyone moved to London where the crew was already beginning to
design and build sets even as the script was being written. But the
studio began having trouble with Ward, "who was less interested in
Ripley or the alien than in his monks. 'The movie's called ALIEN
because it's about the alien,' says Pruss. 'I couldn't get that
across to Vincent.'"
10. Pruss quit and Ward was fired. Once David Fincher signed on as
director, Fox hired Larry Ferguson(Beverly Hills Cop II) to do a
"four-week emergency rewrite." Ferguson continued more or less with
Ward's ideas and hence, the horrible idea with the seven dwarfs and
Ripley as Wendy. Weaver and Fincher hated the script and the movie
"almost fell apart".
11. Hill and Giler were paid to do another emergency rewrite. They
moved the story back to Twohy's prison and the religious element
evolved into what exists in the final draft. The studio and Weaver
liked the script but Fincher had a few reservations.
12. After much bureaucratic bickering over the budget and schedule
plus the firing of key participants, Rex Pickett was hired to
collaborate with Fincher for yet another rewrite. This occurred when
Hill and Giler were going on vacation. "It all blew up when Pickett
wrote a memo salvaging Hill and Giler's script."
- Prior to its release, _PREDATOR II_ came out in the theaters (which
had an almost identical story to the original idea for _ALIEN^3_) near
the end of _PREDATOR II_ we see a trophy case of different skulls, one
of which is the skull of an alien.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. PLOT PROBLEMS AND LOOPHOLES
This section contains plot problems that are SO BIG that there is no
plausible explanation for it. If a good theory comes along, the point
will be moved to section [11] frequently asked questions (at my
discretion of course).
_ALIEN_
- The shuttle on the Nostromo only had one hypersleep chamber; there
isn't enough capacity for the entire crew. If we are to assume that
the Narcissus is only a shuttle, then why is there no form of "escape"
from the Nostromo?
_ALIENS_
- What infantry platoon in its right mind would enter an enclosed
space carrying flamethrowers?
- Several times we see aliens spewing acid that does not seem to
damage the "sets" (or at least doesn't damage the "sets" as severely
as the few drops that eat through 3 layers of the Nostromo in _ALIEN_)
_ALIEN^3_
- How did the eggs get on the Sulaco? (refer to section [12])
- Why is the escape capsule so poorly designed? It gets ejected and
then FALLS to the nearest planet.
- How could Ripley hold on to the chestbuster AFTER it tore through
her chest?
- Why did it take so long for the chestbuster to come out of Ripley?
It only took a few hours for it to come out of Kane in _ALIEN_. Even
though Ripley was carrying a queen, the chestbuster itself was STILL
the same size as the one that came out of Kane.
- Why is that bloody autopsy necessary? As we see later in the movie,
that nice diagnostic scanner in the EEV's cryo-tube is still working
quite fine (and Ripley knows about it). The autopsy is obviously very
unpleasant for her, so it is hard to see why she didn't figure out the
easier way?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This section has been extended to allow for theoretical answers, the
responses that aren't based on solid facts (yet provide a plausible
answer) start with "[possibly]". If you believe you have a better
explanation, don't hesitate to say so. Any questions that seem to
have more than one plausible answer will appear in section [12]
frequently discussed topics.
_ALIEN_
Q: Is there a fan club I can join?
A: Depending on when you read this FAQ, these clubs may have dissolved:
The British Aliens Fan Club The Dropship
PO Box 11 19 Compton Crescent
Liskeard, Cornwall Northolt, Middx
PL14 6YL UB5 5LS
England England
Q: What is the "Narcissus" ?
A: The Narcissus is the name of the shuttle Ripley uses to escape from
the Nostromo.
Q: Who is the "Space Jockey"?
A: This is the name given (by the technical staff) to the remains of
the creature found on the derelict space craft.
Q: What is written on Brett's cap?
A: USCSS NOSTROMO 180286
Q: Why is there a "self-destruct button" on the Nostromo?
A: This question refers to the control panel (labeled "Emergency
Destruct System") that Ripley uses to cause the destruction of the
Nostromo. [possibly] the "emergency destruct system" exists to
protect company secrets in case the Nostromo is hijacked by a
competator. (this would be a similar principle to espionage: when an
enemy spy gets caught, he takes poison to kill himself so he cannot be
tortured into giving away secrets). Or, a 20 million ton ship flying
through space at very high speed tends to become a great danger when
it gets off course by some malfunctions. If it's on collision course
to some space station or colony, and there is no possibility of
redirecting or stopping it, it would be very reasonable to put it on
self-destruct and get away with the small shuttle.
Q: The crew is awakened early out of their hypersleep to explore the
planet from which the beacon is being transmitted, HOW early are they
awakened?
A: 10 months as indicated by Lambert (after the shuttle returns to the
Nostromo)
Q: Did the entire crew go down to the surface of LV-426?
A: Yes. The Nostromo is a towing device for the 20,000,000 tons of
ore. The entire crew went down to the planet's surface in the
Nostromo (which detached itself from the cargo it was towing).
Q: After the Nostromo blew up, and Ripley discovers that the alien is
on board the escape capsule, why does the alien take SO long to attack
her?
A: [possibly] the alien was coming to the end of its life cycle, when
Ripley happened to disturb it. It was slow to attack because it was
dying. This theory is supported by an older version of the _ALIEN_
script where Ash reveals that the alien had made a nest and ensured
the continutation of its species (cocooned Dallas and transformed
Brett into an egg) at which time the alien itself would approach the
end of its lifecycle; curl up and die.
Q: Does the alien have eyes? How does it see?
A: No. The alien was designed (by H.R. Giger) to "see" entirely by
instinct. The chase scene in _ALIEN^3_ would appear to contradict
this as it shows the chase through (what would appear to be) the
alien's eyes. However, it is likely that this cinematic technique was
used to show the chase, not through the aliens eyes, but through its
"perception". (it is also likely that this alien, being so different
from the ones we've already seen, has some kind of eyes)
Q: I want a longer version of the movie, dammit!
A: Easy. You'll need a laserdisc player with frame advance, a 4-head
VCR with frame advance (frame advance allows for nice editing), the
_ALIEN_ box set (on laser disc of course) and a 160 min tape (130 min
would work too). Now, all you need is to know where the "extra"
scenes (on the 3rd disk) can be re-added into the movie:
- Kane prepares breakfast - don't bother, there's a fade between the
hypersleep chamber and the breakfast scene... this is where you'd
place the scene, but the fade makes it impossible to do a good job.
- Crew listens to alien transmission - right after Parker agrees to going
down to the planet's surface, and right before the shot of the ship
approaching the planet.
- Lambert confronts Ripley - some of the scene already exists, just cut
THAT part out, and replace it with the longer scene.
- After the acid - add this scene right after Dallas tells Brett to get
back to work, and right before the scene where Parker and Brett are
repairing the ship.
- Ripley radios Parker - Add this right after the "post-acid" scene.
Place it right before the scene where Parker and Brett are repairing
the ship.
- Discussion of what to do (after Kane's death) - originally, this scene
was right before Kane's funeral, but it makes alot more sense to put
it in immediately AFTER Kane's funeral.
- Brett's death - difficult to place, you have to replace some of the
film, all you miss out on is a few cuts back to Jones. (if you're
really skilled, you can re-integrate them). Put it right before the
scene where Parker is drinking coffee. [WARNING: the suspense
building heart-beat sound in the background is not present in the
extended death scene]
- Alien in the airlock - don't bother with these two scenes, they don't
fit in the movie very well.
- Ripley talks to Lambert - add it as Ash walks out of the room (after
Dallas's death). But before Ripley looks at Lambert (you'll have to
cut that bit out.)
- Lambert's death - too bad, there's no sound, don't add it in.
- Cocoon scene - originally, it was after Ripley started running for the
shuttle (no wonder it created a pacing problem). If you add it in
after she discovers Parker and Lambert's bodies, but before she starts
running, then it doesn't affect the pacing.
That's it. The movie is now about 2 hrs and 8 minutes long.
Q: I recall seeing extra scenes in the movie when I saw it in the
theaters, am I imagining things?
A: Probably. However, during December 1978 a rough cut of _ALIEN_ was
screened in London, England (it was 2 hours & 45 minutes long) and
it included ALL of the completed "cut" scenes (as described earlier
in the FAQ).
_ALIENS_
Q: What does "Sulaco" mean?
A: "Sulaco" was the town in which most of Joseph Conrad's book entitled
"Nostromo" took place.
Q: Is LV-426 also called "Acheron" ?
A: There doesn't seem to be any evidence of this in the movie, the
name was given to the planet in the Alan Dean Foster novelization, the
movie-comic as well as the RPG.
Q: What IS the name of the company?
A: The Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It can be seen, mirror-reversed,
on a blast shield after the discussion of the atmosphere processor
blowing up. It appears as "Weylan-Yutani" on all beer cans in _ALIEN_
but is too small. In _ALIEN^3_ it is written on a computer screen in
an extreme close-up near the end. In the director's cut of _ALIENS_,
during the additional footage of the colony (prior to the alien
infestation) we see a logo of the company which reads:
Weyland-Yutani
\ /\ /
\ / \ /
\/ \/
Building Better Worlds
Q: What is the name of the colony?
A: Hadley's Hope (as revealed in the director's cut of _ALIENS_)
Q: Why don't the colonists on LV-426 pick up the derelict SOS?
A: In a cut scene from ALIENS, the derelict ship has been damaged by
volcanic activity and, as a result, the beacon was rendered
inoperable. [James Cameron, STARLOG #125, DEC 1987]
Q: How did the colony get infected?
A: In my [James Cameron] version of the Alien life cycle, the infestation
of the colony would proceed like this :
1. Russ Jorden attacked, they radio for rescue.
2. Rescue party investigates ship...several members facehuggered...
brought back to base for treatment.
3. Several "chestbursters" free themselves from hosts, escape into
ducting, begin to grow.
4. Extrapolating from entomology (ants, termites, etc.), an
immature female, one of the first to emerge from hosts, grows to
become a new queen, while males become drones or warriors.
Subsequent female larvae remain dormant or are killed by males...
or biochemically sense that a queen exists and change into males
to limit waste. The Queen locates a nesting spot (the warmth
of the atmosphere station heat exchanger level being perfect for
egg incubation) and becomes sedentary. She is then tended by
the males as her abdomen swells into a distended egg sac. The
drones and warriors also secrete a resinous building material to
line the structure, creating niches in which they may lie dormant
when food supplies and/or hosts for further reproduction become
depleted (i.e. when all the colonists are used up). They are
discovered in this condition by the troopers, but quickly emerge
when new hosts present themselves.
[STARLOG #125, DEC 1987]
Q: Is Ferro's first name "Mira" ?
A: No, according to the on-board computer on the Sulaco, Ferro's first
name starts with a "C". The confusion with her name is caused by
Vasquez when she says (to Ferro): [...hey mira, who's Snow White?]
However, in Spanish (Vasquez is Mexican), "mira" means "look", so
Vasquez is actually saying, "hey look, who's Snow White?".
Q: How many colonists are there?
A: There were 158 colonists on LV-426 [...you were responsible for the
deaths of 157 colonists... Ripley (Aliens)] plus Newt. This number
is also visible on a sign that was on-screen during the scene where
Newt's parents are going out to the derelict craft (director's cut
only).
Q: How many aliens where on LV-426 when the marines arrived?
A: [possibly] around 156. (Newt was still alive and at least one of
the other colonists hadn't been chest-busted yet) There has been some
suggestions that the colonists had livestock that the aliens could've
infected as well (raising the number of aliens to an indeterminant
amount) however there is no evidence of livestock anywhere in the
movie; furthermore, the planet does not seem to be a habitat in which
live stock could survive (there was no vegetation on the planet).
Q: Why did Ripley risk life and limb to save Newt, but didn't give a
second thought to Dietrich and Apone?
A: In the theatrical version of the movie, it can be said that Ripley
knew exactly where Newt was because of the locater band she was
wearing, thus making rescue of Newt plausible.
A better reason exists, however it was cut from the theatrical
release; the scene where Ripley discovers that her daughter has died
(refer to section [4] on cut scenes) reveals to us that her daughter
was relatively the same age as Newt the last time Ripley was with her.
We can see the parallels between Newt and the daughter that Ripley
had lost.
Q: How can Ripley hang on during violent vacuum decompression while the
much stronger alien queen can't?!
A: Ripley had her arm wrapped around a step in the ladder where as the
queen only had a finger-hold on Ripley's boot, when Ripley's boot
slipped off her foot, the queen had nothing else to hold onto.
Q: Why does Ripley attempt to climb out of the pit after the queen has
been "vacuumed" out of the Sulaco? Why doesn't she just close the
doors?
A: [possibly] Ripley thought that the lower door in the pit would be
damaged with the acidic blood of the queen alien, so she had to close
the top doors in order to seal up the breech. (this explanation is
from the novelization)
Q: Why doesn't anyone stay on board the Sulaco?
A: [possibly] the Sulaco is so automated that it would be unnecessary.
If another dropship was required, the station on LV-426 was equipped
to remote-pilot it down. (however, they had no idea that the
equipment had been ruined by the aliens)
Q: How has Newt survived all this time? The aliens seem to have no
problem getting around in the air ducts?
A: She can crawl through the air ducts that the aliens can't fit into.
This, combined with her knowing the air ducts so well, could keep her
out of the aliens' grasp (perhaps the aliens knew about her, but just
couldn't catch her). In the director's cut, Newt boasts to her
brother that the reason she wins their version of "hide-and-seek" is
because she can get into all those tiny crooks and crannies where no
one can reach her.
Q: How does the queen know how to use an elevator, and how does she
know what floor to get off at?
A: The elevator returns automatically to the level of the platform
Ripley got off at. When she leaves the elevator (to find Newt) you
see it returning up. She comes back (with Newt) and calls both
elevators. Ripley takes the first one that arrives and it starts
going up. The queen gets in the second elevator and it automatically
goes up.
Q: Are those power-loaders real?
A: Based on the Collectors Version of Aliens on Laserdisc, which comes
with a disk that shows some of the secrets of the making of the movie,
the loader is part real, part fake. The actual loader is real, but
has an external power supply. Since the loader is extremely heavy, it
is supported by cables which are masked out for the final print.
_ALIEN^3_
Q: What is the "dreaded" seven-dwarf concept for the _ALIEN^3_ script?
A: One of the earlier stages of the _ALIEN^3_ script received alot of
heat:
''...Back in New York, [Walter] Hill saw "The Navigator : An Odyssey
Across Time", a stunning but esoteric art film by an obscure New
Zealand director named Vincent Ward. But Ward said he didn't like
[David] Twohy's script. No problem, said Fox. "So I hopped on an
airplane," says Ward," and during the flight, I had an idea that was
totally different: Sigourney would land in a community of monks in
outer space and not be accepted by them." The monks would live on a
wooden planet that looked like something out of Hieronymus Bosch, with
furnaces and windmills -- and no weapons...
FINCHER : In the draft Larry [Ferguson, Beverly Hills Cop II] was
writing, she [Ripley] was going to be this woman who had fallen from
the stars. In the end, she dies, and there are seven of the monks
left --- seven dwarfs.
Q : You're kidding?
FINCHER : Seriously. I swear to God. She was like...what's her name
in Peter Pan? She was like Wendy. And she would make up these
stories. And in the end, there were these seven dwarfs left, and
there was this fucking tube they put her in, and they were waiting for
Prince Charming to come wake her up. So that was one of the endings
we had for this movie. You can imagine what Joe Roth said when he
heard this. "What?! What are they doing over there?! What the fuck
is going on?!" '' [PREMIER magazine, May '92]
Q: How did the face-huggers get on the Sulaco?
A: The truly factual answer is that the audience wasn't supposed to
question it. Use your imagination. (several theories exist, some of
which are stated in section [12] frequently discussed topics)
Q: Did the little face-hugger critter actually do so much damage to
the Sulaco that the ship decided to EJECT the hypersleep capsules?
A: Shown at the start of the movie was a face hugger jumping on a
cryo-tube, cracking the glass and dripping some acid on the floor.
The acid manages to eat its way into the electrical system and cause a
fire. The Sulaco then ejected the hypersleep capsules (probably
because it couldn't put out the fire).
Q: I remember seeing a trailer for _ALIEN^3_ that was really different
than the movie?
A: This is true. Quite awhile before _ALIEN^3_ was finally released,
there was a "coming soon" trailer shown in several theaters. This
trailer indicated that some aliens made it to Earth and there was
going to be a massive encounter. Later on, the writers ditched the
movie idea upon release of Predator II (due to the similarity in plot)
and decided to find a new story for _ALIEN^3_.
Q: There's a prison planet: is anyone really going to spend money on
hideously expensive space travel in order to send these guys to some
far-off solar system?
A: [possibly] Historically, extremely dangerous and/or
subversive-to-the- government criminals have been shipped off (at
great expense) to a new location quite often. England regularly
shipped off prisoners to one of the American colonies [Georgia? South
Carolina?] which was a designated prison colony, as well as Australia
-- a prison *continent*. The progression of the Western legal system
has been to appeal numerous times (at great expense) to avoid death
penalties. The Company in the Alien series is a reasonable outgrowth
from the rest of Western business, why not the legal system, too?
They avoid the massive cost of incarceration and court and lawyer fees
from appeals by not having a death penalty, but shipping the prisoners
off to a "prison".
Q: Where can I get Gibson's _ALIEN^3_ script?
A: NOT from me. Refer to the section 14 [Where can I get Gibson's
ALIEN^3 script?] for more detail.
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