Questions tagged [alien-1979]
A 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Sigourney Weaver. Use in conjunction with the [alien-franchise] tag.
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What was known after Brett was taken?
In the scene where Dallas is crawling through a duct and Lambert becomes hysterical as she sees the dot representing the xeno approaching his position, what could Lambert know of the appearance of the ...
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Relationship between turning off cooling system and self destruct -- why was the cooling system involved?
Ripley first turns off the cooling system and then turns it back on (when she decides she does not want the ship destroyed which I do not understand) and tells Mother this as she appeals to the ...
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Why is Parker hostile towards Ash?
Shortly after the captain is killed, Ripley asks Parker to refill a flamethrower and Parker explicitly rejects Ash helping him, saying, "Don't follow me!"
Of course, no one knows Ash is a ...
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Ripley wants to leave shuttle to tell team Mother thinks message is a warning -- why not just tell them?
Ripley says to Ash that it is not an SOS but rather a warning. Then she proposes to him that she go out there and he, disingenuously, sort of stammers, What's the point, by the time you get there they'...
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As the ship is preparing to wake the crew there seem to be helmet-like objects -- what are they?
They do look very much like helmets but why would they not be part of a complete spacesuit?
One thing I would add is as the ship is going from its own semi-dormant state, as the computer systems and ...
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Was Lambert being transgender known before the release of Aliens?
The inquiry scene of Aliens, which has more details available in the DVD/Blu-Ray extras, shows that the character Lambert was transgender, and transitioned from male to female at birth.
Was this known ...
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Why the need for a Science Officer on a cargo vessel?
Just been watching the excellent Alien movie and wondered: why would the Nostromo, an innocuous civilian cargo vessel, have a "science officer" on board?
If you need a Science Officer, how ...
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Why would the Nostromo have a self-destruct mechanism?
Just been watching the excellent Alien movie and wondered: why would the Nostromo, an innocuous civilian cargo vessel, have a multi-million-dollar built-in self-destruct mechanism?
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Why didn't Mother accept the deactivation of the Nostromo autodestruction procedure?
Ellen Ripley seems to complete the deactivation of the request either physically or via a voice command, and Mother rejected accomplishing the task. She didn't want to or wasn't able to?
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Does a child play Ash when he is attacked in Alien?
In a YouTube video on Adam Savage's Tested channel, where he meets with the art teacher from North Bergen High School and they are looking at their Ash prop for the Alien play they created, both Adam ...
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What was the exact content of the warning signal transmitted from the derelict in Alien?
I've always assumed that the transmission did not give many details about the xenomorph's biology, other than it was a dangerous organism. In other words, the transmission could probably be summarized ...
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Alien (1979) - Why send humans to collect the Xenomorph?
(Spoilers ahead, though in fairness the movie is 42 years old)
Pretty late in the movie Alien (1979), it's revealed that Weyland Yutani Corporation knew of the existence of the Xenomorphs, and in fact ...
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Ripley and Ash's company orders: further mysteries
Recalling this question about why Ripley didn't mention Ash (either at the company enquiry or to the Marines) it is also confusing that at the end of Alien, Ripley, after she blasts the alien into ...
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How did Weyland-Yutani already know about the warning beacon on LV-426 before the events of Alien?
It's obvious from Special Order 937 that Weyland-Yutani had somehow already detected the warning beacon emanating from the derelict on LV-426, and had at least partially deciphered it. Is it ever ...
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How do Xenomorphs grow up without eating anything in a spaceship? [duplicate]
There is nothing for Xenomorphs to eat in spaceships, but they grow up very fast after they burst out of their hosts. Don't they need any food to live?
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Why does Ash do 'human' things when no-one's watching?
Why does Ash quickly start doing a warm up exercise before going into his observation blister?
It’s not as if he suspects anyone is watching him and as he is
There doesn't seem to be any reason why ...
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Why are androids in the Alien franchise so fascinated with the alien?
Why they are so fascinated by the creature? Why do they speak of the xenomorph as being a superior life form?
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How did the Alien know that Ripley was going to blow the Nostromo? [duplicate]
How could the Alien know that Ellen Ripley is going to blow up the Nostromo?
He deliberately hid himself in the emergency ship in order to survive the explosion.
Did he follow her? Is he super ...
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Why do androids hibernate in the Alien movies? [duplicate]
The android, Bishop, in the Aliens movie hibernates with the rest of the Sulaco crew for the 17 day voyage. Does he need to sleep?
Unlike the Alien movie where Ash hibernated because was merely ...
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How long do alien chestbursters gestate inside human hosts? [duplicate]
In the Alien movie, Kane is attacked by an alien facehugger which implants an embryo inside him. The embryo gestates in seemingly a matter of hours to become a chestburster.
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How did Ripley know where to find these characters?
In Alien 2003 director's cut edition, after
How did Ripley know where they are/head to this place, in case she didn't know she would find them there?
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Are Romulans related to Xenomorphs? [closed]
In the first episode of Star Trek: Picard the character Dahj is attacked for a second time. During the fight it is revealed that the attackers are Romulan. Dahj fights off all the attackers, but one ...
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Is this a reference to the film Alien in the novel 2010 Odyssey Two?
I recently reread the novel 2010 Odyssey Two by Arthur C Clarke for the first time since my teens (20 plus years if you are interested) and noticed this passage
"Max" he said, in a tone of deadly ...
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How did the crew know where this character went, and where the Alien was going?
In Alien, there is a scene in which
After this happens, the other members of the crew know this happened, and apparently know where it happened, saying that the Alien must have gone through the air ...
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Do the synthetics/artificial persons in the Alien universe really eat?
In both Ridley Scott's and James Cameron's Alien franchise films we see the synthetic Ash drinking a milk-like substance and artificial person Bishop eating some corn bread.
Do they actually process ...
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Did Ripley age between Alien and Aliens? [duplicate]
When Ripley was in Cryo-sleep between Alien and Aliens did she age at all? The person in Cryo is still alive, reduced heart rate etc, but given that you wouldn't normally be 'asleep' for so long any ...
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Xenomorph Life expectancy
Is there any indication given in the Alien movies or literature of how long an Xenomorph lives for?
It occurred to me that given a limited number of potential hosts ( as per the colony on LV-426, the ...
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What is the gestation period for an embryo implanted by a face hugger?
The facehuggers from the original Alien films are shown implanting an embryo into a host.
Time elapses and we usually see other events taking place before we see the host again. When we see the ...
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Why was the Prometheus more advanced than the Nostromo? [duplicate]
I am aware that the Prometheus was an important research ship whereas the Nostromo was just a mining ship, but that alone is not a satisfactory explanation for the sheer technological difference ...
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Why did the crew of the Nostromo destroy the ship?
In Alien, the crew, finding themselves unable to kill the titular character, set the Nostromo to self-destruct and attempt to escape in the shuttle.
But why destroy it? It actually cost extra effort ...
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Is Covenant canon with the first Alien movie?
This question is a little complicated but I will try to outline problem as neatly as possible.
In Alien, the crew of the Nostromo land on a planet, find what we would now know to be an Engineer ship, ...
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What does the button "padme" do in Alien?
Whilst Ripley is launching the Nostromo self destruct, she uses this panel with some interesting buttons:
The image is from TypeSetInTheFuture.com. Some of the buttons are:
PRANIC LIFT 777
LINGHA
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How does the Space Jockey’s chair work?
I have searched Google, but no joy. Are there details about the chair the Space Jockey is sitting in in Alien — what it does, and how it functions in relation to the space craft?
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Do the xenomorphs attack the synthetics?
In the Aliens universe do the xenomorphs attack the synthetics?
At the end of Aliens (1986), we can see a xenomorph killing Bishop the synthetic. But in this case I think that the xenomorph killed ...
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How smart is the original Ridley Scott Xenomorph really?
In Ridley Scott's 1979 movie 'Alien', after Ripley rigs the ship to self-destruct she proceeds to the escape pod, all the while the ship announcing that it has been rigged to blow and commencing a ...
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What's the name of the refinery being pulled by the Nostromo?
In the film Alien, what is the name of the huge cathedral-spire refinery being pulled by the "Nostromo"? Unless the tug & refinery are both called Nostromo.
We know that the names "Narcissus" &...
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Where had the Nostromo been before stopping to investigate the distress signal?
In Alien the Nostromo is on the way back to Earth bearing cargo, when it is redirected to investigate the distress signal from the downed ship.
Where had it been? I know it was carrying (in the ...
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In the movie Alien, why did Ash use a magazine to try to kill Ripley? [duplicate]
When I read the answers to "What was Ash trying to do with the magazine?", I was wondering why he would use a magazine at all to kill her.
As an android, he is stronger and faster than humans. He ...
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Do we know where Ridley Scott got the idea for the xenomorph inner-mouth?
The xenomorph inner-mouth is pretty unique, I don't think I've ever seen it or anything similar in any real creature.
Do we know if Ridley Scott found inspiration for it anywhere in nature or did he ...
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Exactly how much did Ridley Scott think the Company knew by the end of Alien?
So, as we probably all know, the backstory and history of Alien has been retconned to hell and back over the decades. And through the entire affair, Weylan-Yutani basically became more and more ...
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What was the common usage of the term "alien" around 1977?
The Alien movie was released in 1979. If you walked up to the average person on the street in 1977 and asked them to think of an alien, what is the first thing that would come to mind: would it be 'a ...
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Did anybody turn the beacon off?
In the first movie, the Nostromo is awakened from a considerable distance by the distress beacon left by the spacecraft. They investigate the craft, things go bad, simple stuff.
The thing is, I don't ...
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How old is the Nostromo?
The ship has obviously seen some wear and tear by the time the events of Alien take place and, based on Why Are Synthetics in Alien So Advanced? even the technology that built the Nostromo is ...
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Why are synthetics in "Alien" so advanced?
According to the MU-TH-UR 6000 fan wiki entry, we have the following:
The MU-TH-UR 6000, known simply as "MOTHER" was a 182 model 2.1 terabyte AI Mainframe that served as the computer ...
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Why does the Alien burst through the chest?
In the ultra (in?)famous ChestBurster scene we were introduced to the monstrous Xenomorph. But why the chest?
Why didn't the alien simply claw up through the esophagus?
It would have been far ...
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How long are prespawn Facehuggers viable after hatching?
Once a Facehugger leaves its egg, how much time does the organism have to find a host before it dies (or possibly has to reenter the egg)?
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What exactly was happenning to Ash?
In Ridley Scott's Alien, it is revealed that
During this sequence, white fluid starts leaking from his face, and he begins shaking uncontrollably.
It is shortly revealed that
but there was nothing ...
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Alien universe - is there any information about the political situation on earth? [duplicate]
Alien universe - is there any information about the political situation on earth? As I know, in first three films, there were any information about wars or global government on earth or in outer space,...
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Why don't they freeze Kane?
As Parker repeatedly asks after they bring the face-hugged Kane aboard, why don't they freeze him? I understand that Ash doesn't want to, but neither Dallas nor any other crew member provide any ...
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What happened to the derelict spaceship between the 'Alien' movies?
In Alien, we saw that the derelict ship was filled with eggs, however in 'Aliens' we are told that LV-426 is now inhabited by colonists. Since the derelict was full of eggs Weyland-Yutani shouldn't be ...
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