Aliens - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[linda]

After the dropship rescues Ripley and Newt, a blast sends it hurling sideways into the wall before Bishop regains control. As he retracts the landing legs, some of the wreckage is pulled in with them. The Queen alien apparently used the opportunity to jump into the landing leg well.

[chad]

Contrary to popular belief, Jenette Goldstein is not Hispanic. Make-up was used to make her skin appear darker. She also dyed her hair black and wore dark brown contact lenses.

[jamie]

After the sudden success of The Terminator (1984), James Cameron was in high demand, but he really wanted to do this sequel to Alien (1979), one of his favorite films. A risky project, given that movie's popularity, but Cameron later said that he was so happy that he never considered it could be career suicide. When warned by producer Julia Phillips of Taxi Driver (1976) fame that anything good in the movie would inevitably be attributed to Ridley Scott's vision, and all the bad to his, he simply replied "Yeah, but it will be cool".

[ronnie]

The base of the ME3 props used, was a Hama "Kameragriff mit Spiralkabel" 50 cm (5506 or 5507). It appears that the welder may have not been directly built from a Hama grip and that the grip was used as the base the welder prototype was build on, as the screw holes on the right side of the grip have been filled in, the "trigger" has been omitted and the hinge bracket has been fixed in place and extended to the back. It is possible the prototype was then used to cast shells, which would then cover a real TIG welder.

[javier]

Was voted the 42nd Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly. They describe it as the "greatest pure action movie ever."

[albert]

James Cameron: [nice cut] (at around 5 mins) a few minutes into the movie, we see Ripley lying in the cryo-tube, and then the scene fades to the picture of the earth; the earth directly fits into the silhouette of Ripley's face.

[scarlett]

Sigourney Weaver refused any information on the behind the scenes making of the queen so she could keep the character real in her mind.

[melinda]

Carrie Henn watched Alien (1979) before shooting at James Cameron's request. When she watched it, she actually found it funny and laughed.

[ruby]

The film takes place in 2179.

[bernard]

A set design company offered to build James Cameron a complete and working APC vehicle from scratch, but the cost was far too high for the budget he had in mind.

[eli]

When negotiating for the role, Sigourney Weaver requested that in the film, her character should never use a gun, have sex with an alien, and die. Cameron refused her on all three, but she achieved all three in the sequels where she got to be producer.

[ken]

The armored personnel carrier (APC) is a modified tow-truck that British Airways used for towing airplanes around at Heathrow. The only trouble was that the truck they purchased weighed 75 tons. By stripping out most of the lead used in its construction, they were able to remove about 35 tons. It was still so heavy that the construction team had to reinforce several floors to carry the vehicle's weight.

[fred]

Paul Reiser subsequently appeared in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) for director Tony Scott, whose brother Ridley Scott directed the original Alien (1979). Although she doesn't appear; Helen Hunt acted with two co-stars of this film. Paul Reiser on television in "Mad About You" (1992) and Bill Paxton in feature film "Twister" (1996), respectively.

[nicholas]

The Alien nest set was kept intact after filming. It was later used as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman (1989). When the Batman crew first entered the set, they found most of the Alien nest still intact.