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Aliens (1986) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been 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 Aliens can be found here.

No. Aliens is a sequel to Alien (1979), which was based on an original screenplay by Dan O'Bannon. The screenplay for Aliens was written by Canadian-American film-maker James Cameron, who also directed the movie. There have since been four sequels: Alien³ (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997), AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), and AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem) (2007). Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection continue Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)'s story begun in Alien, whereas AVP and AVPR were written as prequels to Alien.

The order in which the films were released is: Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Predator (1987), Predator 2 (1990), Alien³ (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997), AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), and AVPR: Alien vs Predator: Requiem (2007). However, the chronology of the events runs: Predator (1987), Predator 2 (1997), Alien Versus Predator (2004), Alien Versus Predator: Requiem (2004), Alien (2122), Aliens (2179), Alien³ (2179), and Alien: Resurrection (2379).

The first thing Ripley asks upon awakening is "How long was I out there?" Company representative Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) informs her that it's been 57 years. He also informs her that, 20 years ago, a terraforming community was set up on LV-426, the same planet on which the Nostromo crew first recovered the Alien.

Her escape shuttle was picked up by a deep salvage team hoping to claim possession of the "wreckage." When they discovered that Ripley was still alive, their finders claim was negated. Ripley and Jones were taken to Gateway Station for recuperation.

Ripley's shuttle decompressed shortly after the Alien drooled on the floor. The subsequent air displacement was strong enough to almost blow the Alien out (had it not held on), so it is imaginable that most of the drool blew out/evaporated quickly. After being adrift in space for 57 years, any remaining drool would have evaporated. It's also likely that the Company simply lied to Ripley and used it as a way to demote her and thereby silence her about the Alien. In the novel of the film (taken from the original shooting script), Ripley comments to Burke that the evidence had been tampered with.

The Company knew nothing about the events on the Nostromos. Ripley blew up the ship in Alien, and her escape pod wasn't picked up until 57 years later. In the interim, the Company may have sent an investigative crew to the planet, landed on the opposite side from where the derelict ship landed, and found nothing. Another possibility is that the Company may have wanted to cover up the entire incident. An elaborate investigation into the disappearance of the Nostromo might have revealed that they sacrificed the crew in order to obtain a specimen of the Alien. In order to protect the Company, they may have buried the incident until there was an opportunity to have the colonists on LV-426 take a look. Many viewers surmise that the Company may actually have sent the colonists to LV-426 for just that purpose. Later in the movie, however, just after they have strong-holded themselves in the MedLab/Operations Center, Ripley reveals that she's read the colony's information log and discovered that Burke was the one who deliberately sent the colonists to investigate the derelict ship after hearing about it from Ripley's testimony. Burke says he did this for three reasons: (1) he wasn't certain that there even was a derelict ship on the planet, (2) to make it a security situation would have brought in the administration, resulting in the loss of any rights to anything found on the planet, and (3) he hoped to obtain an Alien specimen and make millions by selling it for bio-weapons research.

The colonists were sent to LV-426 with no knowledge of a derelict ship or any warning that the planet may harbor a dangerous alien lifeform, so they had no reason to go looking for them. They may not have detected the derelict's beacon because it was no longer sending out a signal or because of interference. For example, they may have approached LV-426 from the opposite direction as the Nostromo, so the bulk of the planetoid itself blocked out the signal. In a graphic novel released by Heavy Metal two months before the movie release, when Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt), and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) enter the derelict, Dallas twists a knob near the base of the giant's chair and turns off the signal. This event also occurs in the original shooting script for Alien. In a 1986 issue of the magazine Starlog, and in an extended scene with the derelict ship in Aliens: Special Edition, the ship is visibly damaged by volcanic activity, i.e., a lava flow has crushed the derelict ship against a rock outcropping, ripping open its hull. This damage has apparently silenced the signal. It's been suggested that the signal stopped broadcasting as soon as the crew of the Nostromo entered the derelict. (This is unlikely, as the signal was meant as a warning to other visitors not to come any closer. There would be no sense in programming it to deactivate and thereby risk more visitors coming to investigate.) It's also been suggested that the Terra-forming process used to make the planet livable to humans increased the atmosphere's oxygen content, which caused increased corrosion to the beacon of the crashed ship.

Whatever the reason the colonists were not alerted by the warning beacon, the original script did call for them to eventually find the derelict, although that information did not make it into the movie. In fact, it was Newt (Carrie Henn)'s father who found the derelict and was jumped by a Facehugger much like it happened to Kane in Alien. Like on the Nostromo, the Alien then hatched and quickly began to go after the rest of the colonists. By the time Ripley and the Marines got there, Newt was the only one of the 158 colonists left.

Ripley keeps having bad dreams about the Alien. Knowing how many eggs were still left on the derelict spaceship and, after being told that there are now more than 60 colonist families on the planet and that the Company has lost contact with them, Ripley gets assurance from Burke that the reason for going back is to destroy the Aliens, not to study them or to bring them back. Consequently, she agrees to go along as a consultant.

Numerous behind-the-scenes pictures and documentaries of Alien show the Alien's head with ridges, but the special effects artists covered it with a gelatinous substance, causing the head to appear smooth. The reason for the different look in Aliens is that director James Cameron thought the Alien head looked more interesting with the ridges visible, so the special effects team left out the gel. According to the extras from the DVD, Cameron also didn't want to have the clear dome on the Alien's head, as he thought it would be prone to breaking. To stay within the continuity of the saga, one could argue that Aliens are "born" with a smooth head and that this cover falls off after a while, exposing the ridges.

Pvt Hudson (Bill Paxton) comments about the mission being "just another bug-hunt," possibly implying that the marines have encountered alien species before, as does Pvt Frost (Ricco Ross) in the mess hall scene, when he reminisces about "Archterian poontang." Under the cockpit window of the drop ship is a picture of the marines' mascot: an eagle brandishing a machine-gun and wearing boots with the slogan, "bug stompers," which implies that such is their specialty. Elsewhere on the marines' uniforms are patches with similar images of an eagle and the slogan, "We endanger species." A "bug hunt" could also simply mean that they've been sent on several wild goose chases with no aliens to be found, which would explain their derision about it being another false alarm. James Cameron revealed on the DVD commentary that he had all the actors playing marines read Starship Troopers; this is a nod to the inspiration of that book.

However, the most likely reason is that "bug hunt" was slang for a search-and-rescue mission, which seemed a rather second-rate challenge than a "stand up fight", which, in Hudson's terms, meant being sent down to a war-ridden planet to aid in some sort of violent dispute where there will be lots of combat. When Gorman says, "All we know is there's still NO CONTACT with the colony and that a xenomorph may be involved." It meant they would be going in to look for missing colonists, to which Hicks replies, "It's a bug-hunt." which corroborates with the slang theory. Then he asks, "What exactly are we dealing with here?" to which Ripley steps in to explain the circumstances of the colonists going missing.

It is likely the marines uniform slogans about being "bug stompers" is merely coincidence (done so because of the Starship Troopers novel), as if they specialized in dealing with alien species or had been sent on wild goose chases before in regards to aliens, then they would've been a little more serious in the briefing, knowing that there have been past inquirries as to extraterrestrial existence. But they scoff at Ripley's story, just as the Company executives did, because there hadn't been anything relating to extraterrestrials recorded in "over 300 surveyed worlds". Unlike Star Wars, which has thousands of different species, this universe is portrayed as a humans-only dimension, as the concept of the original film was to depict what it would actually be like to encounter an alien.

Prior to his encounter with the Aliens, Hudson is only concerned that this is going to be another "bug hunt". During the first encounter with the aliens, his point of view changes drastically. He probably did not expect the Aliens to put up much of a fight or to be so unstoppable against all their superior military guns. He also loses his composure after seeing many of his squad claimed by the Aliens. He is one of the very few marines to survive the encounter. As they set up a barricade, Hudson begins to slowly sink into a state of paranoia, even questioning Ripley's judgment and her ideas of survival. Eventually, Ripley calms him down stating "We really need you and I'm sick of your bullshit." Hudson starts to gain control of his fears. When the Aliens overrun Operations, Hudson fights without fear, constantly taunting the Aliens and gunning them down at will.

The most likely explanation is that the stasis fluid neutralizes their acid.

When Ripley learned that Burke intended to secretly bring the Facehuggers back for bioweapon research, she threatened to alert the ICC that he was smuggling in dangerous organisms. She further vowed to report him for his role in the murder of the colonists. However, Burke's intention wasn't to kill Ripley but to get her and Newt impregnated with the alien embryos, then freeze their bodies in order to get them through ICC quarantine. He figured that no one would know what they were carrying inside.

The Facehuggers were being kept in stasis tubes in the Med Lab. The most probable explanation is that Burke set the tubes on slow drain just before he and Lt Gorman (William Hope) left the Lab together. When the fluid in the stasis tubes had drained sufficiently, the Facehuggers revived enough to escape from the tubes themselves.

In the DVD commentary, the director states that the Aliens in this film had been alive for a few weeks at least and, thus, had plenty of time to adapt and learn. Some viewers say that the Aliens have more than enough capacity to reason that humans are dependent on light and electrical energy. It can not be clearly deduced how intelligent Aliens are. They eventually learn to stay away from the sentry guns (in the Special Edition), but it takes them quite a number of sacrifices before they find out. This suggests that they learn through a process of trial-and-error. Generally speaking, the quicker an organism learns, the more intelligence it possesses. Just like small children, they need to experience it first before they can learn anything about it. It is very much possible that they damaged a conduit by accident earlier in life, noticed how it caused the power to go out, and used that knowledge to intentionally cut the power later. Others postulate that the introduction of a Queen indicates that the Aliens are a hive species, reducing the Aliens to mere drones with no more intelligence than a very evolved instinct. By this reasoning, the Aliens did not intentionally cut the power, but accidentally damaged some electrical conduits, probably while they were finding ways into the complex through the ceiling.

The Queen seems to display a fair ability to reason. She recognises the threat that Ripley's flamethrower poses (after some demonstration) and then calls off her warrior Aliens. She is also able to figure out how an elevator works; notice that Ripley needs to press the switch in order to go up; the Queen must have done the same to reach the platform. It is unclear whether she knew this procedure ahead of time or whether she was imitating Ripley's actions. She also appears to know how to safely hitchhike on a dropship (or was it lucky chance that she ended up safe in the landing strut bay?). This opens the possibility that it is just the Queen that displays intelligence, and the warrior Aliens simply obey her.

In order:

1) Pvt Frost: After Dietrich is grabbed by an Alien, she fires her flamethrower at Frost, overwhelming him and causing him to plummet down a shaft.

2) Cpl Dietrich (Cynthia Dale Scott): She is taken by the aliens and presumably impregnated.

3) Pvt Crowe (Tip Tipping): When Frost's bag of ammunition explodes, he is in close proximity and is killed.

4) Pvt Wierzbowski (Trevor Steedman): Killed in the battle. He gives a long tortured scream as seen from the point of view from his camera.

5) Sgt Apone (Al Matthews): While he is ordering the ceasefire to prevent rupture of the cooling system, Apone is taken by an alien.

6) Pvt Drake (Mark Rolston): Before entering the APC, Drake encounters an alien, which he didn't notice until the last second. Vasquez shoots it with her smartgun, but it explodes and a large amount of acid splashes on Drake's face and body, thus killing him.

7) Pvt Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash): Killed by an alien offscreen after he finds saliva when boarding the dropship.

8) Cpl Ferro (Colette Hiller): When the door opens behind her, she assumes it is Spunkmeyer. When she turns around, it is an alien, which kills her and causes the dropship to crash.

9) Pvt Hudson: After a intense firefight, Hudson is pulled through the floor and presumably impregnated or killed.

10) Burke: He tries to escape from the others and believes he has done so. A door opens behind him, revealing an alien, which presumably killed him. (In the comic book 'Newt's Tale,' as well as in a deleted scene not included in the Director's Cut, Ripley and Newt later encountered Burke in a cocoon. Ripley gives him a grenade to end his own life, but he was unable to bring himself to do it. He was therefore killed when an alien burst through his ribcage.)

11) Pvt Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) and Lt Gorman: After Vasquez is injured by acid, Gorman stays behind to help. Surrounded by aliens, Gorman detonates a grenade, killing both of them and taking several aliens with them.

Ripley helps Cpl Hicks (Michael Biehn) out to the dropship where Bishop (Lance Henriksen) is waiting for them. With only 19 minutes left before the complex blows up, Ripley goes back into the hive to get Newt, using her homing bracelet to track her. When Ripley keys in on the bracelet, however, she finds it on the floor. Suddenly, Newt, who has been cocooned, sees an egg opening and a Facehugger about to leap on her, so she screams. Ripley finds and releases her, kills the Facehugger, and they start running to the surface. Along the way, they find themselves facing the egg-laying Alien Queen. As she and Newt slowly back away, Ripley empties her flame-thrower and automatic on the Queen and her eggs and tosses in her arsenal of grenades. They head for the platform with the Queen in pursuit but find that the dropship is no longer there. Just as the elevator door opens and the Queen comes out, the dropship appears and picks them up. Bishop explains that the platform was becoming too unstable, forcing him to take to the air and to hover while waiting for them. They head back to the Sulaco, and the complex blows up. As they're disembarking from the dropship onto the deck of the Sulaco, Bishop is suddenly pierced through the chest by a tentacle and then ripped in half. The Queen emerges from the landing gear of the dropship where she has been hiding. Newt takes cover under the floor grates, while Ripley tries to divert the Queen by running into the cargo hold. The Queen goes after Newt anyway, so Ripley emerges from the hold encased in a cargo loader. The two "mothers" fight each other, with Ripley eventually able to trap the Queen in an airlock and blow her into space. In the final scene, Bishop and Hicks have been placed in hypersleep. Newt and Ripley do likewise for the return trip to Earth.

The introduction of the Queen to the Alien franchise has caused considerable debate among viewers attempting to build consistent canon between the first two movies. Ridley Scott, director of the first movie, has stated that he considers the original cut of Alien to be the definitive version -- no queen and the scene in which Ripley stumbles upon Brett and Dallas being transformed into eggs having been cut from the movie. The transformation scene resurfaced in the Director's cut. James Cameron had free reign from the studio to come up with his own alien life cycle for the second movie (as described in the commentary for Aliens: The Special Edition). A popular hypothesis among fans is that the Aliens have a hive-based society. With insects, there is no "Queen" egg until the workers choose to create one. It could be that the lack of a Queen compels the Alien warriors to create the right circumstances for the production of a Queen, and that the "transforming" is part of preparing a host or producing the correct food source to make a "Queen facehugger." In this case, transforming humans is a behavior the Alien falls into if a queen isn't available to make eggs. Another theory is that the Alien doesn't turn people into eggs at all; the cocoons simply appear egg-shaped, but it takes a Queen to lay the eggs containing the Facehuggers.

There are many theories about how the eggs got aboard the derelict. The nature of the derelict and its crew are a mystery, left intentionally unanswered by the original crew that produced Alien. Viewers have proposed various theories, such as:

Theory One: The Queen burst from the derelict's pilot. He may have been the only crew member on the ship, so once he died, the ship crashed, leaving the Queen time to lay thousands of eggs, then hibernate, until visitors came.

Theory Two: The Space Jockey was some sort of scientist. He investigated a planet and found the eggs, loaded them onto his ship to examine, and was then impregnated by one. When he came to, not knowing what had happened to him, he took off into space. The alien then birthed, and he crashed with all the eggs intact (no queen present).

Theory Three: Ignoring the continuity with the franchise and speculating on the original idea behind the aliens: the ship had a large crew, who were turned into eggs (as per a theory stemming from the director's cut). This would also mean that Lambert's comment "I wonder what happened to the rest of the crew," was a subtle hint this was the original intention. If this is what happened then, there was never supposed to be a queen, and the Alien itself was the final stage. This theory is extemely unlikely, as the Space Jockey and its species are far too big to turn into little eggs.

Theory Four: The Queen was on the ship, laid the eggs, but died off or was killed in the crash. It said that the Space Jockey had been dead for so long it had become fossilized, suggesting the ship had been there for thousands and thousands of years. (It's suggested the Aliens don't age or die naturally from both the fact that the eggs survived in the ship for all that time and the fact that Ash says "I have confirmed that he's got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. Has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon, which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions."). So a new queen wasn't birthed until Aliens, possibly from Newt's father.

Theory Five: Director Ridley Scott explained in interview that he envisioned the derelict as a sort of carrier for biological weapons; the eggs were intentional cargo, but naturally, something went wrong. This is certainly consistent with the Company's obsession with obtaining a specimen for their bio-weapons research.

According to James Cameron on the Aliens Special Edition DVD (2003) commentary, he'd previously had trouble getting visual effects right in the wider aspect ratio of 2.35:1 while working on the FX crew of Escape From New York (1981), and so for Aliens opted for the narrower and easier 1.85:1 ratio. Cameron also stated that if given the chance again, he'd film Aliens in 2.35:1.

The original version was too long for the studio, so it demanded several cuts to tighten the plot. American audiences in particular were were not expected to willingly sit through a movie of 148 minutes. So Cameron went to the cutting room again, and removed more than 15 minutes of footage. Most of this was character development of Ripley or background information about what had happened to Newt's parents. Some of the action got cut out, as well. The advantage of the Theatrical Version is that it is moves more fluidly. The Director's Cut, however, offers more depth and information. This is also the opinion of director James Cameron, who prefers the Director's Cut, (also called the "Special Edition"), believing it to be the better and more exciting version of the movie. Leading actress Sigourney Weaver also made clear which version she preferred, threatening to never shoot another Alien film if the longer Director's Cut was not released. A detailed comparison between both versions can be found here.