In honor of FX’s Alien: Earth, here are 12 details of the Alien franchise a normal person wouldn’t know.
Xenomorphs have been terrifying audiences for nearly half a century since the release of Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, a member of the Nostromo crew who does battle with a horrific creature.
After nine films, including sequels, prequels and spinoffs, and now Hulu’s Alien: Earth, the Alien franchise continues to elicit both fear and obsession. Alien fans are nothing if not passionate, knowing the ins and outs of the decaying yet futuristic universe.
But for non-diehard fans of Alien, here are 12 details that may not be on your radar.
David Was Influenced By Rachel From Blade Runner
David (Michael Fassbender) is the android star of Ridley Scott’s two recent Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
His performance was inspired by a character in one of Scott’s other films, 1982’s Blade Runner: He told Slashfilm in 2012 he took influence from the replicant Rachel, played by Sean Young.
“There was something in her character, a quality there that I kind of liked for David,” Fassbende said. “This longing for something or some sort of a soul at play there, a sort of vacancy also, a sort of vacant element.”
Another Unexpected Tie Between Alien and Blade Runner
Alien and Blade Runner may be set in the same universe.
In a bonus feature for Alien, the USCSS Nostromo’s dossier includes credentials for Dallas (Tom Skerritt), and they include the Tyrell Corporation – the company behind the replicants in Blade Runner.
Scott always said the films certainly have visual ties. But that bonus feature took the extra step of deepening the connection whether canon or not.
Artist Francis Bacon Helped Inspire the Xenomorph
Dublin-born artist Francis Bacon was a master of body horror. Scott and the Xenomorph’s designer, H.R. Giger, were influenced by his beautiful yet terrifying paintings.
Many see a resemblance between the gangly and chilling figure in Bacon’s 1933 painting Crucifixion and the alien in Giger’s iconic extraterrestrial design.
“We come to the conclusion that we must make the beast blind and give it a terrific set of teeth – something like the detail in Francis Bacon’s Crucifixion triptych,” Giger is quoted as saying in his obituary in The Guardian. “It was Francis Bacon’s work that gave me the inspiration of how this thing would come tearing out of the man’s flesh with its gaping mouth, grasping and with an explosion of teeth… it’s pure Bacon.”
The Eggs’ Innards Were Built With Seafood and Meat
In the original film, the eggs that produce the facehuggers are a mix of cow organs, clams, and oysters.
“In those days prosthetics weren’t that good,” Scott once told The Guardian. “I figured the best thing to do was to get stuff from a butcher’s shop and a fishmonger. You can’t make better stuff than that. It’s organic.”
When the facehugger is lit up and moving around in the egg, that’s actually Scott’s gloved hand at work.
We’re showing the pleasant image of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, above, because the sight of the eggs wouldn’t make it past the algorithms for some of our syndication partners that try to weed out images like the kind of stuff you’d see at a butcher shop or fishmonger.
Composer Jerry Goldsmith Didn’t Enjoy Alien
Jerry Goldsmith’s spine-tingling score is masterful at evoking in fear. Ridley Scott’s sense of silence, combined with Goldsmith’s romantic approach to horror, is an audible experience as unique as the boundary-pushing visuals.
Goldsmith, though, once told the Los Angeles Reader that Alien was “one of the most miserable experiences I’ve ever had in this profession.”
He was not pleased with how his score was chopped up and rearranged for the final film. It was a constant struggle for Goldsmith, who was especially disheartened by his end credits theme getting canned.
James Cameron Did Not Always Gel With Some on the Aliens Crew
The behind-the-scenes features for 1986’s sequel Aliens are a candid treat for fans.
Creative disagreements and personality clashes are not sugarcoated or hidden in director Charles de Lauzirika’s Superior Firepower: The Making of Aliens.
The feature-length doc is a real fly-on-the-wall bonus feature that shows James Cameron and the English crew facing off at Pinewood Studios.
During work, tea time arrives. Posts are left. And Cameron is left furious, wondering where the Ridley Scott-faithful crew went. It’s just one of many battles fought during the making of Aliens.
It Took Over a Dozen Artists to Control the Mother Queen
The fourteen-foot-tall Alien Queen was a grand puppet.
Winston and his team used hydraulics for the big mama’s movements, but it took a team of over a dozen artists to puppet the creature.
It was Cameron’s mad genius idea to put two men, Stuart St. Paul and Malcolm Weaver, in the suit operating the arms. Outside the suit, sixteen additional puppeteers kept the alien moving.
James Remar Shot Scenes as Cpl. Hicks
James Remar, known for The Warriors and too many entertaining films to list, was originally cast as Cpl. Hicks in Aliens.
Not only was he cast, but he shot a week’s worth of footage for the sequel. The Boston actor looked the military part, wielding the character’s pump-action shotgun with gusto.
Unfortunately, due to personal issues at the time, Remar departed the film. Cameron tapped his Terminator pal, Michael Biehn, to step in and play Ripley’s brother-in-arms.
The image above is of James Remar in Showtime’s Dexter since, as we mentioned, he isn’t in Aliens.
The Scrapped Dog-Burster
One of the more nihilistic sequences in the franchise almost went another step further. In Alien 3, a dog is infected by a chestburster and gives birth to a Xenomorph.
It’s an upsetting sequence that director David Fincher considered doubling down on with what we can only call… Xenodogs.
At one point a whippet was covered with latex. It looked horrifying enough, but once the dog started running in costume, it was deemed too ridiculous for the dour Alien 3.
There Are At Least 3 Cuts of Alien 3
Fans Made Their Own Cut of Alien 3
Alien 3 was a famously troubled production — director David Fincher, who feuded with the studio, Fox, told The Guardian in 2009, “to this day, no one hates it more than me.”)
The version released in theaters in 1992 was a box office success, but received poor reviews. In 2003, a new version called the Assembly Cut was released without Fincher’s involvement, and an updated version of it was released on Blu-Ray in 2010. The Assembly Cut received better reviews.
But fans also weighed in with a Legacy Cut, which brings the theatrical and assembly cut together with a new polish.
The Newborn Was Different
The Newborn is the big swing in Alien: Resurrection, which led by French director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, best known for Amelie.
The hybrid between Ripley’s clone and a Xenomorph is hideous, but also polarizing with fans. It could have been even more divisive: According to One Step Beyond: Making Alien Resurrection, at one point the Newborn would have been portrayed with both male and female genitalia.
Fox, the studio, didn’t love the idea, and Jeunet ultimately decided that “even for a Frenchman, it’s too much.”
The Offspring in Alien: Romulus Isn’t CG
Director Fede Álvarez packed Alien: Romulus with Easter eggs and callbacks to the franchise, including the human-alien hybrid from Alien: Resurrection.
Through Álvarez’s eyes, the creature is both monstrous and uncanny — especially because it’s not a CG effect terrorizing Rain (Cailee Spaeny) in the finale – it’s 7’7” basketball player Robert Bobroczkyi playing “the Offspring.”
Under heavy prosthetics, with a CG tail and other additions, Bobroczkyi made a potentially ridiculous finale more tangible with his gigantic presence.
You can read all about the making of Alien: Romulus in MovieMaker‘s cover story on the film.
New episodes of Alien: Earth arrive on FX each Tuesday.
Main image: Alien. 20th Century Fox.
Editor’s Note: Corrects formatting.