Alien - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[bryan]

Copywriter Barbara Gips came up with the famed tagline: "In space, no one can hear you scream."

[tammy]

According to Sir John Hurt in the DVD documentary, he was considered at the beginning of casting to play Kane, but had already committed to another movie that was set to take place in South Africa, so Jon Finch got the role instead. However, two separate incidents occurred which got Hurt the role. First was the fact that he was banned from South Africa because the country mistook him for John Heard, who strongly opposed apartheid (Hurt points out that he was opposed to it too, but was lucky enough not to get blacklisted) so he was unable to do the other movie. Second, Finch became seriously ill from diabetes on his first day of shooting and had to pull out. Ridley Scott immediately contacted Hurt, pitched him the script over a weekend, and Hurt arrived on the set Monday morning with little to no sleep to begin filming.

[michele]

Originally, the crew was suppose to emerge from hypersleep completely naked, as can be seen in the storyboards. This was nixed due to concern about censorship in several markets.