Alien (franchise)/Trivia

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• 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.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty: In Aliens, Ripley doesn't say "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.", she says "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.". What's worse is that the line is often attributed only to Hicks instead, who was repeating it in concurrence with Ripley.
• Casting Gag: Jenette Goldstein (who played Private Vasquez) originally thought Aliens was going to be a drama about immigration and showed up to audition wearing short skirt and high heels. This incident was directly referred to in a crack Hudson made about Vasquez during the briefing.

Hudson: Excuse me, did someone say 'aliens'? She thought they said illegal aliens and signed up!

• Creator Backlash:
  • David Fincher disowned Alien³ due to all the Executive Meddling he had to endure during the movie's production.
  • Joss Whedon was dissatisfied with Alien: Resurrection, and director Jeunet swore off Hollywood after the experience.
• The Danza: All the actors playing Marines in Aliens (except Michael Biehn) used their real first names for their characters.
• Deleted Scene: From near the end of the film, as Ripley comes across Dallas while setting up the ship's destruction, going through the process of being turned into another egg and finishing the explanation of the alien's life cycle. Ridley Scott loved the idea, but found that the scene was too much of a speed bump in the middle of the climax.
• Development Hell: The tale of Alien³'s development is the stuff of industry legend, and a prime example of Executive Meddling in full force. A rotating lineup of directors who all got shunted aside by FOX, delays, reshoots, disastrous test screenings, tensions between FOX and (then-newbie) director David Fincher, a "pay-or-play" deal between the studio and Sigourney Weaver, Fincher getting locked out of the editing room, executives and writers at odds as to how the story would play out, months spent building sets that had to be shoehorned into a completely different script...it all added to a giant mess in its development.
• Dueling Movies: Alien: Resurrection with Deep Rising.
• Dyeing for Your Art: In Aliens, all the actors who played the Marines attended a two-week training session with S.A.S. officers, except Michael Biehn, who was a last-minute addition. The other main actors, Sigourney Weaver, Paul Reiser, and William Hope, were deliberately excluded from training, to generate a sense of detachment between their characters and the Marines.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • In the first film, the cast knew the general details of what they were shooting for the Chest Burster scene, but they didn't know they were going to get sprayed with real animal blood and entrails. Veronica Cartwright's shocked scream is entirely real.
  • In Aliens, the scenes on board the Sulaco were filmed last, so that the actors playing the Colonial Marines would have had time to build up a realistic rapport with one another over the course of shooting.
• Executive Meddling: The second film had many scenes cut from it (though they were restored later in the home video release of the film) that expand upon many plot points in the film. The third and fourth films were crippled by executive meddling and Alien Vs Predator was also ruined by it, due to the studio wanting a PG-13 film (the DVD version ended up being "unrated" though basically the same movie save for several seconds of minor gore restored). Note that, Joss's complaints to the contrary, the script to the fourth movie is substantially the same as the one he handed over. It's the rest of the project that got screwed up.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Alien³ tends to be jokingly referred to as Alien Cubed among the fandom due to the inexplicable superscript use of the number 3 in the movie's title.
    • It's also occasionally called Alienses, on the basis of the logical progression Alien -> Aliens -> Alienses.
  • Space Jockey - the alien pilot aboard the derelict ship -- extended to the rest of his race, as well. Derived from a name used by the film crew; in the canon, it's never named.
  • Xenomorph - Used once, among many other words, to describe the aliens in the franchise, this word stuck as the standard term used by fans.
    • As a matter of fact, none of the life cycle stages (i.e. Facehugger, Chestburster, Drone) were ever officially named. They were given Fan Nicknames which simply stuck.
• Hey, It's That Guy!
  • Alien features an All-Star Cast including Dana Barrett, Viper, Kananga, Bilbo Baggins, The Elephant Man, Betty Grissom, and Bud. Along with Bolaji Badejo in the xenomorph suit, these are the only people in the film.
  • In Aliens; if you thought Captain Hollister's last job sucked, you ain't seen nothing yet.
  • In Alien 3:
    • The Eighth Doctor is a Talkative Loon serial killer. In the Re Cut he's the one who lets the alien out of its prison again.
    • Pete Postlethwaite as a random prisoner!
    • Charles Dance as Dr. Clemens
  • Alien Resurrection features Hellboy and Grima Wormtongue.
• 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.
• The Other Marty: James Remar was originally cast as Hicks in Aliens, but was replaced with Michael Biehn after a few days filming. A few shots of Remar (mostly from behind) made it into the final product.
• Real Life Relative: For the deleted scene where Ripley discovers her daughter's dead, a photo of Weaver's mother was used.
• Throw It In: Ripley yelling at Parker to shut up is actually a frustrated Sigourney Weaver yelling at Yaphet Kotto to shut up because she was fed up with him talking over her during previous takes.
  • The "Game over, man!" line from Aliens was improvised.
• Trope Namer:
  • Chest Burster - This is the part of the alien's reproduction method, and main gateway to horror.
  • Game Over Man - Not an example itself; just for the terrible pun.
  • It's the Only Way to Be Sure - Suggested in Aliens, but the main characters don't get to pull it off.
  • Stay Frosty - Originated by Corporal Hicks.
  • Vasquez Always Dies
• Working Title: The first 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 is both a noun and an adjective.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Harrison Ford turned down the role of Captain Dallas in Alien.
  • Alien 3 went through several writers, including William Gibson, Eric Red, David Twohy and Vincent Ward, before the final shooting script was thrown together using parts of all the previous drafts (mainly the latter three). Summaries of each can be found at The Other Wiki. For interested parties, the full version of Gibson's draft can be found here.
  • There were brief talks of James Cameron's interest in writing a script for a possible Alien 5 with Ridley Scott interested in directing, but Fox chose to focus on Alien vs. Predator instead.