We thought it only fitting to give some lovingly creepy trivia to the ins and outs of James Cameron’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s beloved Alien flick, part of our ROBOTIC theme. Take a look and see how much you know about one of the most daring action films of all time! (Plus some additional Alien franchise facts!):
1. If you want to visit one of the original eggs from Aliens, you need only head on over to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
2. 20th Century Fox, who have released the entire franchise including Aliens, had complained at a point that they felt the majority of their budget had been spent on intricate set-pieces rather than special effects. They were gleefully made aware, to their delight, that those were not full set-pieces and actually practical effects and miniatures. This meant no further budget was needed to make sure those items were handled. It also meant that Fox was so convinced those were true sets that the creators obviously had done their job beautifully.
3. Sigourney Weaver’s return as Ripley in Aliens was so critically acclaimed that she was nominated for an Academy Award. The first nomination ever to be given for a female in an action role.
4. To film the infamous chestbursting scene from the first film, they used four cameras in one take. Talk about coordination of behind-the-scenes efforts!
5. H.R. Giger’s initial artwork of the Xenomorph aliens had eyes but during production of Alien, he decided it would make the enemies far more cold and terrifying if they had no way to visually represent vulnerability and emotion. That fear-factor would be be upped exponentially.
(20th Century Fox)
6. Generally films get shown to test audiences to gather up notes on final cuts before it is released, but there never was a test audience screening for Aliens. This was because the final cut of the film wasn’t finished until a week before it was slated to be released.
7. Those terrifying scenes of the Xenomorphs crawling through those vent shafts were actually filmed vertically with the actors in suits being lowered down head-first. Giving an even more effortless of a horror as the climbed through those vents.
8. There is a myth out there that Ridley Scott hated his neighbors with such an intense and burning passion that the name ‘Weyland Yutani’ is derived from their names. However, it has actually nothing to do with that. Conceptual Designer Ron Cobb actually came up with the name’s concept from a few different places so as to make it sound like close to an engineering and vehicle company. Toyota wouldn’t work for obvious reasons, so he shuffled names around and even used HIS neighbor’s name!
(20th Century Fox)
9. The Queen Xenomorph has what appear to be glass translucent teeth as opposed to Warrior Aliens whose teeth have a metallic glistening appearance. Then again, who wants to be close enough to look at those differences in the first place?!
10. An action-figure of Spydor from the cult-classic cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was used to test and show how concept designers would want the facehuggers to move about. Every part of our geeky worlds connect, don’t they?
