Trivia / Alien

Works with their own trivia pages:

• Aliens
• Alien³
• Alien: Resurrection

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Trivia for the franchise in general:

• Ascended Fanon:
  • Ron Cobb, who designed the "human" technology for the original Alien film and invented Weyland-Yutani (or as he had it, "Weylan-Yutani"), said that he envisioned Britain, which was going through a very troubled period in its history at the time, would eventually revive, and its monarchy would unify with that of Japan, creating a world power. The name "Weylan-Yutani" was meant to invoke the corporations British Leyland and Toyota. In 2019, science fiction writer Andrew E. C. Gaska, Disney's hired canon welder for the Alien franchise, made that speculation canon for the first time in the Alien RPG, as the Three World Empire.
  • In the same work, Gaska also canonised the Union of Progressive Peoples, a communist superstate invented by William Gibson in his unused script for Alien³, and the monastic order created by Vincent Ward in his original script for the same film.
  • He also canonised the worker caste, Aliens whose sole job is secreting the resin to create the hive, an idea conceived by James Cameron in an early script draft for Aliens but ultimately dropped.
• Based on a Dream: Not the film series' premise, but the creatures themselves. Their design is the work of H. R. Giger, who took them from his nightmares. The idea of the Alien impregnating its victims and then bursting out of their chests was conceived by Ronald Shusett after waking from a dream.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Czechoslovakia: Intruder
  • Hungary: The Eighth Passenger: Death
  • Slovenia: Eighth Passenger
• Creator Backlash:
  • Ridley Scott has stated for years that he feels the Xenomorphs have been done to death and that he wants to move the focus of the series away from it. He attempted to start a sister series focusing on the Engineers with Prometheus, but when this backfired he seemingly changed his mind with Alien: Covenant. Following Covenant's lacklustre reception, however, he reiterated his prior opinion regarding the Xenomorphs being "cooked" and expressed interest in having the sequel to Covenant focus more on David instead.
  • Sigourney Weaver felt this way about the series. She didn't want to do another one after Aliens so she could move on to other projects. Ripley's death at the end of the third movie was included at her insistence, to make any further sequels starring her impossible. After that the writers had to resort to cloning the character, but she agreed to reprise the role again when Fox offered her an additional producer credit that would give her an 11 million dollar salary (which was more than the entire budget of the first film^note Although unadjusted for inflation, mind you), and because she thought the Alien vs. Predator concept which was pitched around at the time sounded awful. They later made this spin-off as well anyway, and an even more awful sequel. She finally signed back on with Alien: Isolation because she thought it genuinely added something new to the franchise.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Movies, books, comics, video games, toys, etc. . . Alien is probably only behind Star Wars as 20th Century Fox's one. Directly responsible for the issues that plagued Alien³, as to keep the cash flowing, Fox set out to make a release date, not a movie.
• Creator Recovery:
  • With the lacklustre-to-negative reception of the third and fourth films and the Alien vs. Predator duology — the plans for the latter of which caused him to quit as the director of the third movie, Ridley Scott stated that he felt the Xenomorph was all played out, which was one of the reasons he went along with Damon Lindelof's rewrite of Prometheus. The fan disappointment of the movie's lack of Xenomorphs — and Scott's own dissatisfaction with how subsequent directors had portrayed the creatures — led to their inclusion in Alien: Covenant, and in interviews Scott lamented ever having left the Alien franchise and expressed the intent to make at least three more Alien films. Following Alien: Covenant's mixed reception, however, he reiterated his previous view that "the beast is cooked" and expressed interest in having the next film center around David and replacing the Xenomorphs with something else.
  • Like Scott and James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver was unimpressed by FOX's decision to make a film based on the Alien vs. Predator crossover series, which contributed to her insistence that Ellen Ripley be killed off in the third movie. While she returned for the fourth movie and cameoed in the Alien: Isolation game, Neill Blomkamp's proposed fifth movie was what reignited her passion for the character and the franchise.
• Development Hell: Neill Blomkamp's fifth Alien movie was green-lit by Fox but put on hold pending the success of Alien: Covenant. Ridley Scott eventually stated that the project has been scrapped by FOX and wasn't much more than an outline to begin with and expressed his intent to retain creative control of the series and make Alien films until he dies; and Blomkamp himself noted in interviews that he was doubtful it would happen.
• Disowned Adaptation:
  • Co-creator Ronald Shusett has criticized Prometheus for being the complete antithesis of the first movie. As with many fans, he's also not fond of Alien³ or Alien: Resurrection.
  • Ridley Scott deliberately de-canonized Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
• Flip-Flop of God:
  • Whether Alien³ and Alien: Resurrection are canon. In 2014, the Alien: Out of the Shadows trilogy of novels was officially recognized by Fox as canon to the Continuity Reboot of the franchise, but when the author of the second novel was going to disregard 3 and Resurrection, they made him include references to them. In a 2016 interview Sigourney Weaver said that Alien 5 would be set in an Alternate Universe that "[runs] parallel" to the 3rd and 4th films, where Newt and Hicks survived.
  • The origins of the Xenomorphs are a muddied mess even in official material. Are they a naturally-evolved species like in the Dark Horse comics and Alien vs. Predator crossovers? Are they a bioweapon created by the Space Jockeys/Engineers, like in the Fire and Stone comics, script for Alien Engineers, and the novelization of Alien: Covenant? Or are they a bioweapon created by David-8 as seen in the film version of Alien Covenant? The official Alien tabletop RPG muddies things even further by acknowledging all three origins as canon.
  • The original 1988 Aliens comic series has flirted with this. Originally set as a comic sequel to Aliens, with a story that takes place several years after the events of the film and follows Ripley, Hicks and a teenaged Newt, the series swapped the latter two characters' names to Billie and Wilks after Hicks and Newt's deaths in the third film. The revised character names stood until 2018, when the original versions of the stories were republished for the first time in color during the 30th anniversary of the franchise, with a subsequent re-release retaining Hicks and Newt's names.
• God Never Said That: After Neill Blomkamp and Sigourney Weaver made ambiguous comments about the fifth film being a followup to the second movie in early 2015, sites began reporting that that the fifth movie was going to finally decanonize the controversial 3 and Resurrection-—long regarded as Fanon Discontinuity by many fans. Blomkamp eventually clarified that his statements had been taken out of context, and that the 3rd and 4th films were still canon, but concept art of an adult Newt makes the validity of that statement questionable - though Sigorney Weaver's statement that the fifth film would take place in an alternate timeline clears the issue.

• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The "Aliens" Mod for Quake was killed by Fox lawyers (creating the term "Foxed" for that situation), but of course that didn't stop it from being available online for many years afterwards.
• Life Imitates Art: The Alien being inspired by parasitic wasps becomes incredibly funny when a new species of said parasitic wasp was named after the Xenomorph due to physical resemblance, and its especially brutal method of reproduction.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The franchise has had various special edition releases with unique items over the years, including a "Facehugger" VHS boxset in 1993 (which had copies of the first two films and The Making of Alien 3, pins, a t-shirt and a pass to the Alien War UK attraction), the "Alien Legacy" boxset in the late 90's (which had special collector cards and a mail-in offer for a bonus DVD), the "Alien Quadrilogy", which included the then-newly restored Assembly Cut for the third film and a boatload of extras, and the "Alien Anthology", which includes almost all the extras from all the preceding special edition boxset releases - with an optional collector's edition packaged in a model case designed by Sideshow Collectibles.
• The Merch: Kenner, McFarlane Toys, and NECA all did figures based on this, Predator, and Alien vs. Predator. In Kenner's case, there was Misaimed Marketing going on as their figures are aimed at kids.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• Science Imitates Art: The fossil wasp Xenomorphia is named after the titular creatures, due to the fact they were discovered to have parasitized fly pupa, similar to the parasitoid life-cycle of the Xenomorph aliens (a parasitoid life-cycle is common amongst living wasp species as well).
• What Could Have Been: See the franchise's page.

Trivia for the first film:

• Ability over Appearance: The script was written so that any character could be played by either a woman or man. The filmmakers originally wanted a guy for Ripley, but Sigourney Weaver owns the role.
• Acting in the Dark: While everyone in the cast knew that the chestburster scene would take place (it was in the script, after all), only John Hurt knew precisely what would happen. The rest of the cast was just told to break for lunch after Hurt fell back on the table, so the effects crew could set up the rig. Tom Skerrit elected to hang around and watch the crew work, but even he wasn't sure exactly how they were going do what they were going to do. The rest of the actors came back from lunch to see the setup, but still had no idea exactly what the effect would look like or how it would be achieved. Veronica Cartwright was told "You'll get a little blood on you," but had the misfortune to stand square in the path of one of the blood jets, getting a huge amount sprayed on her, much of it right in her face, prompting her quite real cry of "Oh God!"
• Actor-Inspired Element: According to Sigourney Weaver, Lambert in the original script was the Deadpan Snarker of the group and also the Only Sane Man - who wouldn't crack up until the end. Veronica Cartwright made her into more of a Woobie, to give the audience someone to sympathise with.
• Approval of God: On the 25th of March 2019, the North Bergen High School drama club of New Jersey staged Alien: The Play, a stage-play adaptation of Alien, with a total cast and crew of 16 students and 3 teachers working off a budget of $3500. The teachers and students admitted to have cobbled the sets and space-suits out of "essentially trash" (with the Alien itself made out of a clearance-shop skeleton dolled up with machine parts, not unlike the original Alien). The stage-play became a viral sensation on Twitter and social media, even going as far as earning the approval and respect of Sigourney Weaver and Ridley Scott themselves. Scott even provided $5000 so the club could stage an encore for Weaver to attend.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Tom Skerrit was approached for the role of Dallas twice. The first time, before Ridley Scott had been hired as director, the budget was four million dollars. Skerrit thought the script had potential, but four million wasn't going to realize that potential, and passed. The second time, Scott was directing, the budget had been doubled, and now Tom Skerrit knew this was a film he wanted to be involved in.
• Billing Displacement: Tom Skeritt (Dallas) is billed above Sigourney Weaver in the credits, as Ridley Scott did not want to spoil the fact that Ripley was going to be the lone survivor of the Nostromo. Of course, the existence of the sequels make this impossible now. Skeritt was also the biggest name in the film at the time of its release, while Sigourney Weaver was an unknown with a handful of minor credits.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Sigourney Weaver was originally cast as Lambert, while Veronica Cartwright was going to play Ripley. At the last minute, their roles were switched. Cartwright didn't find out until she went to a costume fitting.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Bolaji Badejo, the actor who portrayed the fully-grown Alien for the majority of the film, is stated in the book BFI Film Classics: Alien to have been a member of the Kenyan/Tanzanian Maasai people. In fact, Bolaji Badejo was born in Lagos in Nigeria, and he was of Yoruba descent. This may be due to him being cast as the alien due to his tall height and impressive slenderness, as the Maasai are well-known for being tall. In at least one behind-the-scenes interview, Ridley Scott calls him "like Maasai," but was just talking about his body proportions that made him ideal to wear the Alien costume.
• Darkhorse Casting: Prior to this, Sigourney Weaver had only minor parts in a couple of films and primarily acted onstage.
• Defictionalization: To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film, Reebok introduced a limited edition "Alien Stomper" boot based on the shoes that Ripley wears.
• Deleted Scene: Scenes that weren't restored in the Director's Cut:
  • More shots of the Nostromo flying through space were filmed than were used in the final cut of the film, including a lengthy take that showed the refinery cargo in much greater detail.
  • In the first draft, Kane woke aboard the Nostromo before the other crewmembers and was to begin preparing breakfast as the others woke one by one. John Hurt actually filmed footage for the breakfast sequence, although the scene was cut and condensed to the version seen in the film before it was completed.
  • Footage was cut from the exploration of the derelict, including an extended entry where Dallas, Lambert and Kane discuss whether or not they should enter the ship and, later, Kane volunteering to enter the cargo hold and Dallas warning him not to unhook himself from the cable.
  • Footage was filmed showing the Egg opening from Kane's point of view. While there are several shots from Kane's perspective as he studies the Egg in the film, the actual shot of it opening is seen in a wide shot.
  • Footage was filmed of Ash helping Kane back aboard the Nostromo, revealing that Dallas and Lambert have constructed a stretcher to bring him back to the ship.
  • After Dallas asks Ash how they are going to remove the Facehugger, Ripley demands to know what happened. Lambert describes what occurred inside the derelict, finally explaining that after losing contact with Kane, they brought him up to find "this thing on his face".
  • After the Facehugger's acid blood has burned through the Nostromo's decks, Lambert returns to the infirmary and asks Ash if any of the acid got on Kane. She goes on to ask how they are going to get the creature off, but Ash has no suggestions. The rest of the crew then arrive, concerned for Kane's survival. Ripley looks at the x-ray scanner and notices a stain on Kane's lungs, but Ash claims not to know what it is. Finally Dallas tells Parker and Brett to get back to their repairs so they can leave the moon as soon as possible.
  • Footage was filmed of Parker and Brett making repairs to the Nostromo on LV-426, and as they go about their business they are interrupted by Ripley over the intercom, who hounds them to finish the work. The longer takes feature Parker mentioning his intention to get his own ship one day, and both engineers agreeing that they should never have set down on the planetoid. Ripley contacts them over the radio and asks what is happening, and Parker responds (without activating the intercom), "My Johnson's what's happening." He then replies to Ripley, saying they are working hard and suggesting she try it some time. She retorts by saying she has the hardest job on the ship — listening to Parker's bullshit. Parker hangs up and calls Ripley a bitch before continuing with his work.
  • A lengthy dialogue scene after Kane's death, in which the crew meet in the now cleaned mess room and discuss what to do. Brett angrily asks Ash for suggestions of how to kill the newborn Alien, but he has none. The crew debate several strategies for dealing with the infant creature, until Parker, sick of the aimless talk, angrily and frankly points out that he is scared, and that they need to focus on killing the creature. When Lambert reminds him of the threat of its acid blood, he suggests that they put on space suits and decompress the entire ship to starve the Alien of atmosphere. The argument becomes increasingly heated, with Parker blaming Lambert for bringing the creature on board, until Brett calms things down by pointing out that their fighting isn't going to get them anywhere. Returning to Parker's proposal, Ash regretfully states that for all they know, the creature might be better off without oxygen, as the Eggs survived that way aboard the derelict for some time. Ripley cuts in and points out they still have the problem of finding the creature; many of the ship's cameras are out, rendering them blind on B and C decks. Again considering what to do when they find the Alien, Brett — showing unusual initiative — proposes building nets and cattle prods to try and trap the infant Xenomorph so that it can be expelled into space. Lambert considers the idea ridiculous, again angering Parker, but Dallas calms them down once more and tells the two engineers to get on with preparing the equipment.
  • A brief scene extension was cut after Ripley takes charge and elects to continue with Dallas' plan of forcing the Alien into the airlock. After Parker leaves to refuel the flamethrower, Ripley reassures Lambert, who is dubious of continuing with the plan that got Dallas killed. Ripley then asks her if she has ever slept with Ash (again tying into the original idea that crew members would regularly sleep together). Her response in the negative fuels Ripley's suspicions of Ash. Ripley then asks Lambert to join her on the bridge and make sure they're still on course for home.
  • Footage was filmed of the Alien approaching Lambert before it attacks her. The creature starts out curled up on the floor, and is struck by one of the coolant tanks Lambert rolls towards the doorway. It then unfurls its tail, pointing it threateningly at Lambert and alerting her to its presence, before walking over to her on its back in a crab-like fashion. It appears to study her for some time, before standing to its full height in front of the terrified navigator. The sequence was cut because it showed too much of the Alien, and clearly revealed the creature to be a man in a suit.
  • While the infamous "Eggmorphing" scene where Ripley discovers Dallas and Brett cocooned by the Alien in the ship's hold was added back to the Director's Cut of the movie, the sequence was edited considerably from its original length. Most obviously, the Director's Cut version is missing all of Ripley's dialogue — in the full version, she tearfully promises Dallas she will get him out and onto the Narcissus, but when he renounces the idea she asks him what she should do. The scene also originally took place slightly earlier in the film, after Parker and Lambert are killed but before Ripley sets the ship's self destruct system.
  • Originally, the drinking birds inside the Nostromo were going to be shown right before the ship exploded, their heads moving in time to the countdown. The scene was shot, but it was deemed unnecessary.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The presence of laser pistols. Likely due to Aliens, the franchise is typically associated with weapons like the M41A1 pulse rifle (in addition to more contemporary weapons such as the Ithaca 37) and so the laser pistols have been quietly forgotten. Aliens: Fireteam Elite pokes fun at this by implying it was part of an In-Universe small-arms fad that was quickly forgotten.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • The scene where the chestburster erupts from Kane's chest at dinner. The actors knew in theory what was about to happen but had not been told any specifics. For example, Veronica Cartwright did not expect to be sprayed with blood; her horrified "Oh, God!" is completely genuine. The blood was also not fake. This is all confirmed on the Collector's Edition release of the DVD. This Guardian article has some of the cast and crew reminiscing about the filming of the scene.
    • It's slightly more nuanced than that: the actors (except for John Hurt) only found out on the day what was going to happen, and it actually took two false starts to get the creature to burst through the fabric of Kane's shirt, so by the time they got the shot, they were on the third take and they all knew that the creature was going to burst out of his chest. There were also visible tubs of gore and guts all over the set, so it was pretty obvious that they were going to be a part of it too. What they weren't prepared for was the sheer volume of blood that was going to be sprayed; Veronica Cartwright happened to be unlucky enough to be standing directly in the track of one of the blood hoses, and got a load of it in the face, hence her reaction. So it was part acting, and part genuine disgust and horror. The scene was shot over one full day; once the cast got the convulsing Kane on the table, there was a cut, and everyone but John Hurt was told to break for lunch (since John Hurt was needed to be glued into the rig for the effect shot). Tom Skerrit decided to stick around and watch the effects guys work, so he had a better idea than the rest of the cast exactly what was going to happen and how it would be done, but even he wasn't entirely aware of all the details.
  • Veronica Cartwright really slapped Sigourney Weaver. That wasn't just a sound effect, and Weaver's recoil and look of shock is genuine. According to the actress in the DVD commentary, she was fed up with Sigourney, who at that point had acted only on the stage and so was not used to pretending to get hit, instinctively flinching away from the slap and so, after numerous failed takes, was given the direction to "really hit her", and so aimed for Sigourney, anticipating the flinch, and Sigourney flinched right into the backswing. Cartwright didn't intend to make contact with force that resulted.
  • Ridley Scott placed a veiled cage with a German Shepherd in front of Jones the Cat, and unveiled it when he shouted "Action!" Hence, when the alien rises up behind Brett like a phallic gargoyle, the menacing hissing of fear from the poor kitty cat is real.
  • In a lesser-known example, Ridley Scott made sure that Bolaji Badejo (the man who played the Alien in most of the scenes) did not take tea or lunch breaks with the rest of the cast so their fear of the alien would be more genuine.
  • Yaphet Kotto did a lot of improv acting. Scott played along with it, and advised him to antagonize Sigourney Weaver, so their conflict later in the film would be more believable. When Ripley yells at Parker to "SHUT UP!" after Dallas' death, Weaver already had to listen to Kotto talking over her dialogue dozens of times. Having come mostly from stage, Weaver wasn't used to improv at all, and Kotto (at Scott's insistence) pushed her into actually asserting authority over the remaining cast.
• Executive Meddling:
  • According to the audio commentary, Ash as a character did not exist in the original concept at all, and was added during production. This annoyed Dan O'Bannon, thinking it an unnecessary and distracting diversion from the main plot, though Ron Shusett and Ridley Scott thought it a good twist. This is especially noticeable in the commentary (spliced together from several seperately-recorded commentaries) where Scott and Shusett are very complimentary of the idea, adding a new dimension to the story and basically creating the rest of the franchise (to the point where Weyland-Yutani doing something stupid to try and get or study the Xenomorphs is almost painfully cliche), where the nicest thing O'Bannon can say about it is that "it's a bad twist done well."
  • Another big one was Ridley Scott wanting the final scene where Ripley was giving the last report of the ship and her crew to be the alien using Ripley's voice. The suits really had to fight him on that one.
• Focus Group Ending: Ridley Scott's original ending had the alien killing Ripley by biting her head off and communicating with Earth in her voice. 20th Century Fox scrapped it for being too dark.
• Follow the Leader: Ridley Scott cited 2001: A Space Odyssey and A New Hope as inspiration for the film's depicition of space, while The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) inspired the horror element. 20th Century Fox was looking to make another science fiction film in the wake of the success of Star Wars and the script for Alien happened to be lying around.
• Looping Lines: To cut around a lengthy deleted subplot involving a second attempt to flush the alien out the airlock and Dallas's missing access card, there's a bad dub moment where Sigourney Weaver says "I have access to MOTHER now and I'll get my own answers" over an absolutely riveting shot of her forehead and the back of Ash's head.
• No Budget: Subverted. When the film was initially greenlit, the budget was set at around 4.4 million dollars (on the low side of respectable at the time). Ridley Scott was attached to direct, and as is his habit, storyboarded the whole film from beginning to end. Seeing Ridley's storyboards, Fox immediately doubled the budget, knowing they had a director who could not only deliver a powerfully visual film if given the right resources, but also knew and understood exactly the movie he wanted to make (meaning money wouldn't be wasted on "figuring things out").
• Orphaned Reference:
  • Lambert's line pondering the fate of the Derelict crew would've been answered in the film's finale, when it is revealed the creature mutates its victims into eggs. Thus, the eggs in the Derelict's cargo hold are the crew. But the infamous "eggmorphing" scene was deleted from the theatrical cut and its canonicity is doubtful, orphaning her unintentional foreshadowing and leaving a gap in the creature's lifecycle that wouldn't be filled until the sequel.
  • In the director's cut, Ripley asks Lambert if she had sex with Ash, to which she replies that she didn't think he'd be interested. This was leftover from the original script where the crew had casual sex with each other (a sex scene between Ripley and Dallas was cut from the script).
• The Other Marty: Jon Finch had been cast in the role of Kane, but had fallen very ill with pneumonia due to his diabetes and was replaced by John Hurt, who was Ridley Scott's first choice for the role before he was attached to Zulu Dawn, only to become available again due to a Role-Ending Misdemeanor he endured at South African customs over his name being similar to that of an American anti-apartheid activist.
• Real-Life Relative: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Parker and Ripley are voiced by the real-life marriage of Jorge Roig and Rocío Garcel.
• Referenced by...: The soundtrack that plays in the film's opening credits is sampled at the beginning of the Title Track of Nine Inch Nails' album The Downward Spiral.
• Spared by the Cut: Ridley Scott's original ending had the alien killing Ripley by biting her head off and then communicating with Earth in her voice. Fox rejected this for being too dark.
• Star-Making Role: For Sigourney Weaver.
• Throw It In!: There is a long-shot late in the film during the confrontation between Ash and Ripley where the camera tracks with Ash. The camera actually knocks into some of the chimes hanging from the ceiling before Ash passes by them, and the sound and visible swinging of them is clear in the final cut. That take gives a sense of Ash projecting menace beyond the confines of his own body.
• Troubled Production:
  • It had a smoother production than most of its sequels, but not an entirely trouble-free one. Most of the problems that did occur were in pre-production, firstly when the producers were having trouble finding a studio to back the film, and then when looking for a director. They were initially keen to hire Robert Aldrich, but when they actually met him, they were dismayed to find that he didn't give a shit at all about their vision and was just looking for a quick paycheck. Several more directors passed on the project, and producer Walter Hill considered directing it himself before a sample of Ridley Scott's work just happened to pass his desk.
  • Production itself was relatively smooth, the main problems being friction between the producers and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon (who didn't like that Hill had rewritten the screenplay to have more gritty and realistic dialogue), and the visual effects team being sorely under-funded and under-equipped, which resulted in cinematographer Derek Vanlint having to gather up all his lighting equipment and lend it to the VFX team at the end of each day. Additionally, Jerry Goldsmith composed a substantial amount of music for the film, only for Scott to throw most of it out and have the finished product largely unscored while replacing some of the music with a Howard Hanson composition and tracking in Goldsmith's music from Freud, enraging Goldsmith and resulting in the two not working together again until Legend (1985) (where the music was also screwed with).
• What Could Have Been: See the franchise's page again.
• Word of God:
  • Ridley Scott mentions on the DVD Commentary that Ash is a Replicant.
  • Scott mentions that he had conceived the Alien having the lifespan of only a few days, which explains why it snuck aboard the escape pod, as it wanted to find a nice quiet place for it to die alone and why it doesn't attack Ripley until she coaxes it out of its hiding spot.
• Working Title: The film was known as Star Beast in its earliest stages. When the writer went through the script he saw characters constantly referring to the Alien, and then the title came out at him, noting that it is both a noun and an adjective.

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