Ripley's Alternate Fate in Alien: The Original Ending - Explained
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- Was there really an alternate ending of Alien where Ripley lost her battle against the Xenomorph? I take a look at Alien's alternate ending(s) and how everything may have been changed.
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The idea of the Alien talking has me thinking about that scene in “Spaceballs” when it starts singing and dancing on the counter.
yeah actually glad they didnt go with it
🎶 Hello my baby! hello my honey! Hello my clementine!! 🎶
Ragtime gal
@@mdjones66😆
"Send me a kiss by wyyyrre.. baby, my heart's on FYYRRE! If ya refuse meh, honey you'll lose meh, then you'll be left alone. So baby TELEPHONE and tell me I'mm your owWwn.. "
I'm glad Alien had the ending that it ended up with. While I can appreciate the idea of Ripley getting killed at the end to cement the terror of the Xenomorph as an unstoppable monster, I'd really feel bad for poor Jonesy...
In that ending the xenomorph(Big Chap) would look at Jonesy the same way Maui looked at HeiHei(the retarded chicken) and thought,"Boat Snack!".
This is Jonesy, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off. Meow
What ever did happen to Jones? Whether you’re going the Alien3 route or the Dark Horse comics route, does he just live out his final days alone at the apartment, waiting for Ripley to return?
@@lianakriebel He was left at Gateway Station above in Earth orbit in stasis. When it became apparent that Ripley was not returning The WY corp took possession and promptly included him in animal testing experiments.
Just kidding, lol.
@@lianakriebel This is something that has always preyed on my mind. What happened to him? I've also long wondered about his life on the Nostromo. More specifically, how he perceived the events from 'Alien' as the plot advanced.
The film is a masterpiece. I'm glad they went in the direction they did.
it seems the execs push the right route- refreshing!
The Alien should have been blown up with the Nostromo IMO; that sequence at the end just ruins the creature for me, especially that shot of it bouncing around outside the ship 😂🙄
Wish Aliens 3 was better by not killing off Hicks and Newt.
@@Ultrarmx Newt got her plot armor denied, and Hicks(one-dimensional soldier) would've been bedridden the whole movie anyway. Their deaths/funeral brought more weight and gravitas to the film than surviving the crash ever would have.
To think, one of the greatest sci fi movies of all time was nearly ruined by an early episode of sUbVeRt YoUr ExPeCtAtIonS. Tragic.
Thank God for greedy executives planning sequels.
So instead, the execs decided to kill off Newt and Hicks during the intro credits of Alien3.... that is where the Alien franchise died IMHO....
Alien 3 is a great film.
I hated Alien 3. They should have been on earth fighting the aliens there.
Absolutely.
I like to pretend Alien 3 doesn't exists, I live happier.
I like the idea that the alien kills her, sits down and mimics Dallas' voice. That would've been extremely sinister.
But I do prefer that Ripley escaped. It is also better that we did not see an egg.
When I first saw Aliens, because it wasn't shown in Alien, I actually wondered if there was something else on the ship. Less can mean more. It was good to wonder. In Aliens the dream sequence got me for a moment because I had that in mind!
Ridley Scott and James Cameron knew what they were doing in those days 🙂
As someone who hates the Alien sequels, I really wish they went with the original ending.
i read about that somewhere years ago, i think it would have been extremely silly and goofy and completely out of tone to the rest of the movie.
the opening of alien 3 being a dream Ripley has in hyper sleep would make a lot more sense, with egg being that without explanation, the scene being a nightmare would be perfect, since dreams most of the times don't make sense at all.
Killing her, maybe. Being smart, no.
If it can mimic voices of people it hasn't actually killed, only cocooned like Dallas and Brett and not slaughtered like Parker and Lambert, then why didn't it lure Ripley in to a dark corner using Dallas' voice ("before" she found Dallas cocooned to the wall)? And how did it get the voice copied? Did it eat their brains? The only thing it could have heard was their screams just before capture. I basically agree with what was said earlier in the comments: I find myself picturing the Xeno putting his feet on the console and talking like a 70’s newscaster, making ominous prank phone calls, or better yet, appearing on Svengoolie! Nah... look what voice mimicking did for "Attack of the Crab Monsters" ....
I'm so glad they didn't do the Xeno speaking ending, it would have utterly ruined its mystique and probably come across as more comical than scary.
Making telepathic communication with the Xenomorph would been much better than speaking
Yeah, it would have been too much
it would have been one hell of a shock though, to see this creature be so animalistic, growling and hissing the whole time, only to learn its actually hyper intelligent and can mimic and understand human speech.
although that wouldve told us too much about what the creature really is, a fact we didnt learn until recently, that the xenomorphs were a bio weapon specifically made to kill us and other failed attempts by the engineers to seed life. seeing it speak and understand human language wouldve communicated to the audience the truth of the creature from the very beginning, killing the mystique as you said.
imho it wouldve worked great as an ending if there had never been any other sequels, as that few seconds wouldve answered most if not all questions for us
@@specter86fl yeah, I agree. It'd be wild if the last twist was that this seemingly mindless creature was actually just a monster that knew full well what it was doing and didn't care. But, hey, that's a great beat for a different picture!
@@specter86fl Yeah Queen Mother and Hatchling can speak like humans language
Nah, unless there is a good, dramatic reason for it (eg: The Wicker Man), I hate it when they gratuitously kill the lead character right at the end of a horror movie. Killing Ripley would have been like the shark getting Brody at the end of Jaws or the Shape killing Laurie in Halloween. You've been through so much with the characters, it would spoil the movie.
You mean, like Alien 3 ..... ?
@@tulinfirenze1990 I've grown to like Alien 3 over the years, especially after seeing the Assembly Cut, but I was appalled by them killing Ripley in 1992 and the film will never be on the same level as Alien.
Yeah......Remember the ending of the Mist? Man......that was hard to watch and re-watch, knowing what is going to happen. As my wife said "it's all about the ending..nothing else really matters..."
@@tulinfirenze1990 Half of the plot in Alien 3 is what was rejected in Alien, so... yes
Nevertheless, Ripley's death could have been great if happened in another, better, movie.
IMHO this is because people are used to the Americanised version of the hero's journey.
Older European stories often end with the protagonist dying or being cursed forever.
I think the ALIEN being on the shuttle at the end was surprise enough.
To kill Ripley after that, or have a cacoon in there right at the end would have been to much.
Killing her would have taken away a lot of rewatching of the film knowing they all die. Much like Alien3.
People were speculating if Jones was hosting an Alien at the end of the film for years before ALIENS.
I agree. Killing Ripley would have been too much.
@@LocalHeretic-ck1kd Hi.
Yes. There was already enough death. The film was elevated above the typical monster movie. This would have lessened the impact I am sure.
In fact, the ending of ALIEN prepared me for the final of ALIENS.
I just knew the Queen had managed to get on board.
I agree, that the ending of Alien they went with was probably the most effective, because honestly, when you saw that movie the first time, you still didn't know if it wasn't going to sneak back aboard the ship again some how, until you finally see it getting incinerated and floating away. But killing Ripley at the end could have been very effective too. And here is my reason why. Great an actor as Sigourney is, the sequels that centered around her character got repetitive quickly in their writing, and starting with an all new batch of characters each time might have helped more creative scenarios to emerge. I don't know, i just have such mixed emotions about it. The first two were so damn great! Sadly, i think Alien Three was the one that offered the best chance for telling a different kind of story -unfortunately it just didn't seem to capitalize on that chance as well as it could have in my opinion. It was definitely by the fourth movie that Ripley should have not been resurrected! She had served with distinction and died a hero at the end of Three! Let her rest in peace :)
@@budahbaba7856 Agreed.
Having Ripley back was a mistake after ALIENS in my opinion. Making her the central character limited expanding the concept. When they did kill her it was done in the most pointless way, making her previous adventures pointless.
Resurrecting her was definitely a mistake in 4. That was a bad film that killed it in my view. AVP was little better.
@@budahbaba7856 the prequels don't have her at all and they showed limited creativity if any even though the alien universe has potential for about a million different things. Sigourney was just too solid of an actor to be killed off in 3 and it's my least favorite. she's just perfect for the role, still waiting for the new MC in maybe the series they are producing now (Alien series).
I remember seeing this for the first time and left the theater thinking that maybe Ripely might have an egg inside her. Everyone was wondering the same thing. So when Aliens came out and the dream scene of Ripely with an alien on the verge of busting out of her chest just freaked out the entire audience. Our own nightmares were being used to play us.
It must have been nuts seeing that in theaters
I really want to see these scenes, they just sound so awesome. The ending where the Xenomorphs pilots the ship was so silly lol
Not really silly, even Six could use humans tech against them🙂
The ending of the alien using Dallas's voice driving the ship to Earth would've been typical Hollywood.... Total crap! The monster acted on primal instinct throughout the whole movie... It mimicking Dallas, driving a space ship and pouring a delicious cup of space coffee for the journey there would've been completely out of context of everything!🤣
@@tomfromdetroitmi123 Would be like the zombie getting on the police car radio after killing the cops and saying, "send more cops" in Return of the Living Dead." But that was a comedy.
The xeno speaking at the end would not have been in keeping with the movie. The dread of the film needed a release at the end, where the audience gets as much relief as the Ripley character. There's that exhale, thank god we survived it. Knowing you can beat it allows you to go into the sequel knowing we may survive again. Love your channel.
It reminds me of the "Halloween" debate, many love H2 but feel it takes from the scary ending of the 1st.
Wanting Ripley to live is understandable, but it takes away from the terror of the Alien. I see both sides but personally would've killed her, tho not in the gruesome or "talking alien" scenario Ridley suggested.
It's hard for me to separate the films as their own beings since Aliens is such a big part of my life and I have such strong feelings attached to it. The scene where Ripley is gearing up to fight the Queen to get Newt, no joke, makes me think of my Grandmother who recently passed. They had near-identical perms and my Grandma did protect me more than once from very bad things. She was a fighter and a worker, and I knew if some creature had taken me as a little kid, she'd have come for me. And watching Aliens helps me feel a little less sad inside. So I can't say that I'd enjoy an ending where Ripley dies. I also thinking having a pod on board would have felt... odd.
I know that a lot of ALIEN stories are set in a very unfortunate nihilistic-esk merciless universe, but personally I think this series takes a huge hit with sigourney weaver dying in this movie. The movie would have been great either way because the creature design is so great, but sigourney really makes this franchise for me. Also without her ALIENS is a much less memorable movie.
"but personally I think this series takes a huge hit with sigourney weaver dying in this movie"
Emphasis on SERIES.
Alien was never conceived as a franchise, and you are looking at it from the perspective of a franchise rather than the singular film it was conceived to be.
@@mnomadvfx you’re absolutely right and if it went down the singular film route killing her would have made for a very provocative and striking ending. I’m just saying that although it is a completely different movie than Alien, I really enjoyed Aliens and I’ll take as much sigourney weaver as I can get.
Odd, I think Aliens would've been better without her. Hudson, Bishop, Vasquez - I found them much more interesting and memorable.
@@mattstorm6568 there’s a lot of memorable characters and moments in aliens, but for me ripely definitely stands out way more than any of the space marines or any of the other characters. I love Apone and Hudson, but ultimately these characters are just written as kills and in the case of Vasquez she is just written as a very generic tough marine sort of character. However with ripley, we already have a familiarity with and we get to see her character turn into a motherly figure for newt. Above all this, seeing her fight the queen alien in a loader is one of the coolest things I’ve seen.
@@kirkmarongeii7942 Prior to it being released on DVD I always found the surrogate mother/daughter thing to be unearned, once I saw the deleted scenes involving Ripley's daughter + Newt's family it made more sense.
The reason they cut those scenes out is at the heart of what I didn't like about Ripley. They wanted to defeminize, and therby dehumanize her to turn her into a cliche action star. Not saying I didn't want her in the film I just thought she was too know it all and unrealistic. She was much more relatable in "Alien".
Vasquez had deep moments they just weren't spelled out but conveyed thru gestures, facial expressions, etc. The "yer so bad" after Hudson's attempt to insult her - it's quick n simple but coveys an entire history between the 2 and the bond they have, there are several great scenes like this, even with characters who die early.
I've always wanted to see that legendary 4-hour, that was supposedly more violent and unsettling.
They talk about it in one of the behind-the-scenes vids on the Alien Anthology BluRay set. They even show a partial more violent death scene for poor Brett. You see the Alien push its inner-jaws slowly into his head, as he screams, spasms and bleeds all over, before he's pulled up into the cooling towers.
Alan Ladd Jr even talks about how his then-wife was so terrified of the more violent 4-hour cut that she wouldn't leave their hotel room for a few days!!
They've gotta release it!!
Ripley's journey through Alien, Aliens _and_ Alien 3 were, in my opinion, the ultimate and best realisation of the concept of Ripley dying at the end of the first movie.
Ripley's gone through so much by the end of 3, more than most humans ever would. She'd suffered, found and then lost so much, all while the Alien, in some shape, form or number was along for the ride. Like the parasite it starts as, it infects and leeches her life until she's pushed into a situation where she can only stop it by killing herself as well. And in that story, she _succeeds!_ The last known traces of the Alien are gone and while her life ends, so does her suffering.
In other words, badass bitch taking a universal threat down with her. Such a thing couldn't have been so impactful if it weren't for Ripley's journey through those three movies.
Just to be cloned, but cloned with her memories intact, having to kill her Alien/Human Hybrid son
@@jordanmasterton150 Yeah that's when the series went to shit.
Alien 3 and the ones after was a simple cash grab, the story finished with Aliens or Ripley's Revenge.
Finally! You finally talked about this! The Dallas Imitation ending is the one which I wished the original screenplay graphic novel used.
They went with the best option and kept Ripley alive but just the thought that she didn’t make it in the very end made me think “damn that’s harsh”. The alien sitting at the consul and speaking in Dallas’s voice would have cheapened the story right at the very end.
I don't think so. I think it could have been horrifying. And appropriate. What better way to close the movie than to show how super intelligent the xenomorph really is. There must be an enormous brain inside the freakisly large skull.
@@Curt_Randall people find different things scary. I tried to picture it and as a scary entity mimicking voices it has a little bit of weight. But my mind goes to comedy too and parodies, and I imagine him putting his feet on the console and talking like a 70’s newscaster, or how the chestbuster sang in Space Balls.
@@thegingerbreadman5149 They did the mimicking alien in "PREDATOR". In that instance I don't really believe it added anything to the movie. You knew he was obviously way more advanced than humans. It just kind of seemed like a cheap parlor trick.
@@Curt_Randall Nah, it would have felt silly, and stupid. In the last 20 seconds, "oh yeah, this force of nature, this shark.....PRAISE M. KNIGHT ITS A TWIST! HE WAS SMART THE WHOLE TIME!" Cheap and lazy.
It kills the alien mystique if it talks. It feels a bunch more visceral if it can't actually talk. Unless it's the Alien queen or a special hybrid.
The implied intelligence of Big Chap always intrigued me.
Later movies leaned more towards hyper aggressive animalistic behaviour. I actually miss that enigmatic quality to the Alien nowadays where its behaviour has become more predictable.
The fact that even Ripley might not have been protected by plot armour (like in Aliens) certainly ups the tension.
Except the part where they cut the colony's power, sneak in ABOVE the marines who are expecting a frontal assault, cut off and isolate soldiers in the ducts to more effectively take them out and react in a very calculated manner to an obvious threat in the heart of their hive.
I'm confident that the Alien franchise had one way or another continued even without Ripley's survival at the end of Alien, it just wouldn't have been the franchise & horror/sci-fi saga as we today know it. It's easy to be wise after the fact, knowing what we know, & we are all also biased just because we know the story we did get. A world without Ripley, especially from Aliens, is not only hard to try to imagine, it is downright painful to imagine. But if we had never known we had never known. And had never been aware of what we were missing out. Still, biased as I am & surely share with most of you, I definitely feel they made the right decision, regardless if that decision came down to money being the nr 1 reason or not. Alien still had worked, no doubt, & most likely it had been even more horror than what it already is. But ask yourselves this; Alien is already so much horror &, indeed, we are today where we are with this saga. So did the first Alien really need that final & extra horror added by killing off our heroine? It all comes down to personal taste & opinion, no answer is wrong. But my answer is that Alien did not need that extra horror. It had enough as it is, as we all know. Plus, the best horror films, in my opinion, are the ones WITH a happy ending, or at least with a bit of hope. Then the ordeal & the horror we have endured together with whatever character is left feels more satisfying, that all the struggles & horror wasn't all for nothing. We love Ripley for her willingness to live, her courage to fight for her life & others' lives. But if she had died, her courage had not ended up being as inspiring to us watching, not to the great level that it ended up being. If there never is any hope & no reward at the end, after a while we humans loose faith. And for that reason we also stop caring. And that is the LAST thing any horror story should create in its audience = that we stop caring. As long as we care the horror works. And my gut tells me that even if it had worked to kill Ripley off at the end of Alien it would maybe have worked better then & there but not so much decades afterwards, I think. Today we look back at Ripley's survival & celebrate it, celebrate her victory & the fact that she survived, as we all would like to if we had been in her position. But I feel that if we had looked back at that ending today then Alien had been known as the film where the last survivor almost survived. And that was that. Nothing more to discuss. We stop caring. It's easier to celebrate life than death, after all.
But I think one thing is very certain, & I've seen several comments about it here already as well; i think most agree that a talking Xeno had been way too much! Perhaps even at the risk of being comical. True, the Xeno's didn't really become regarded as animals until Aliens, thanks to the Queen & Hudson's comment about them as animals. But there is nothing in the first film that suggests this alien creature to be THAT intelligent & capable, to the level of being as smart as us. A talking Xeno had ruined the mystery for most I think, as well as removed the horror with it. Alien works still to this day so efficiently because of the sense of realism. It's a guy in a suit, there are puppets etc etc, we all know this. But you don't feel that when watching the film. The damn thing looks freaking real because it behaves real, even if it is alien. If starting to behave far more like us, out of the blue, no build-up, makes no sense what so ever. We already had the Ash surprise, & there are always hints of him being an android. A Xeno being able to talk has no build-up. Thank goodness that ridiculous idea was scrapped, regardless if they filmed it or not. I can imagine a Xeno Queen being able to push elevator buttons. Pushing buttons inside a ship & talking English into a microphone are lightyears above that. THAT ending had destroyed the whole film, I dare to say that. A singing alien chestburster in Spaceballs is there to make us laugh, on purpose. I had not been laughing over this.
If you could do Aliens without Ripley, it would be from Newt’s perspective during the
Fall of Hadley’s Hope. Newt barely manages to survive to the end of the film and is rescued by
The colonial marines who haul her back to the Sulaco, but then twist it with the final shot
of the film showing a spent face hugger lying curled up in Newt's hideout.
I recently rewatched Aliens and it occurred to me how on earth did Newt survive in the colony?. The only way Newt avoids the xenos for so long would be very still and very quite. Yet Carrie Henn spends the entire film screaming her head off every moment at everything. Just a funny observation.
@@braxxian River of Pain, explains a lot when it comes to Newt and her family. I really think they should make a movie from it. Moreover the vents newt was using for the most part were too small for the aliens to get into. Aliens indirectly explains this when Ripley grabs the light from Bishop and crawls to the small vent and the vents are also mentioned in River of Pain as well.
@@braxxian one theory I’ve heard on Newt’s miraculous survival is that she was neither large enough to act as a host for a xenomorph, nor was she enough of a threat to warrant any attention. That would comport with the rationale behind why xenomorphs only attack androids when the androids initiate it and why face huggers don’t bother trying to impregnate androids. They seem to have parameters for which individuals they spend energy on and which ones they can disregard.
There was another theory that supposed Newt might have been impregnated with a Queen egg under the assumption that a queen egg will not hatch until another queen is no longer near. For this reason, the face hugger with a queen egg will target young individuals who can carry the egg for several years or decades if need be. And the assumption is that the drones will not cocoon a host carrying a queen egg, because ideally the host will run away and unknowingly reach an area far enough away from the colony that the birth of a new queen will not lead to an imminent civil war between rival queen’s colonies.
@@braxxian Fail.
They did an autopsy on Newt in Alien³, so a prequel done as Ricarla B stated wouldn't work.
They had already done the "everyone in the house/ship dies in the end" idea in Night of the Living Dead in '68, so I think it would not have had as much shock value. I like what they did in the end. Also, compare with Predator, one human makes it, it is quite enough that all others do not.
Wow I've never thought of that angle. After 40+ years, Alien is a gift that keeps on giving.
There's a difference between bleak and cynical. Alien 3 and Alien: Covenant sometimes get accused of being cynical, but I'm not convinced. AVP Requiem is the one that comes closest to deserving that title, but even that film wasn't a complete exercise in nihilism, despite the directors' original plan to have the survivors all shot down at the end. I feel that this alternate ending to Alien would have crossed that line, though. A bleak ending has to be satisfyingly bleak, not just meanspirited for the sake of being meanspirited.
I agree on Alien 3, bleak, but offers the idea of redemption both to the criminals and Ripley. To be sure, I hated it the first time I saw it, as I was expecting another action thrill ride. But once I watched the movie for what it was, I loved it.
That said, I have no interest in re-watching Prometheus, little interest in Covenant. Sometimes, I think Scott is just fascinated by gore to an extent I can’t follow.
In so many cases, I think directors actually make better films when they have corporate suits telling them no. It’s not for virtue of them being corporate suits, but because they happen to be the only people who can fight them.
I love the fact that it's mentioned so early on how it wouldn't make sense to put an alien egg on the Narcissus and you include a shot of an alien egg on the Sulaco. That made my day.
I think an ending where Ripley was killed off like that, at the last minute, would indeed have been shocking and probably at that time in the world, probably a little upsetting. Ambiguity is one thing but flat out killing the main character I think could have been damaging to the popularity of the movie at the time. Today, I think that ending would've been much more well received and loved.
Plenty of films had killed off the main character by the time _Alien_ came out and it never seemed to hurt their popularity.
@@andysmith1996 Yes, and I think it would've been too much build up for her not to succeed, I don't think it would've done well at the time, but today I could see that happening.
@@joshuahamilton2441 Again, when _Alien_ came out, plenty of films had killed off the main character without hurting their popularity. If anything, films today are more calculated to appease the audience with happy endings.
@@andysmith1996 Okay cool.
5:23, yes I heard about that, and the idea of a TV series that never got off the ground, until 43 years later, Hulu had pitched the idea of an ALIEN series set on Earth during the late 21st to early 22nd century.
The Original Alien movie still scares the crap 💩 out of me even today, i remember going to the bar straight from opening night Alien and ordering a pint 🍺 of beer 🍻, my hands were shaking so much the barmaid carried it over to our table, she had a harty laugh when I explained that we had just been so see Alien, the theatre was directly beside our local bar, and it scared 😳 the life out of me, after talking for a while we ended up going out together for around 6/7 months and it was great while it lasted.
His best friend: "Look out, her second jaw is about to shoot out!"
Mike: "Stop saying that, you bastard!"
Aww 🥰
I was a child when I saw it, I remeber going to the bathroom afterwards and thought they were outside the window and were gonna get me.....I guess I was In the right place to be shitting myself 😅
@@christinawilkephillips7684 🤭🤭🤭
No it's hilarious after 3 viewings just watch it! Oh let's go find the cat it's so important to have a cat! I hear a noise why don't we walk over to that dark corner and investigate! I did a screening for some young kids but I had to leave the room when I was cracking up!
Aliens 2 is even more hilarious - every piece of tech they bring to give themselves an advantage is rendered useless one by one by the aliens!
I’m glad they didn’t do the voice thing, but I think killing Ripley would be a fantastic ending I am extremely glad we never got lol. Aliens is my favorite movie of all time so needless to say I prefer the ending where she survived
Alien is fantastic, but Aliens is perfection pure, every scene, every expression of the actors, every camera angle, every piece of music works to create a motion picture symphony, the way Mozart was creating music
@@cineffect I feel the exact same way, especially the extended cut. Personally I always watch them back to back because they pair so well together. Both are masterpieces, but Aliens is just that extra step above. Honestly I refuse to watch either of the two sequels to it just because I think Aliens has such a perfect ending for Ripley’s character
@@sadplatinum6786 If Alien and Aliens did not exist, Alien 3 would have been a pretty good movie.
@@cineffect yeah that’s what I’ve heard, I bet it’s good I’m just too attached to the ending of Aliens. I wish it was more or less the same plot with just a different main character stuck on the planet instead of Ripley, then I’d be down
@@cineffect the alien 3 dirctor did a good job on what he had cos he had studio interface out the wazzue next to no money no scriped and a very tight dead line to boot
I think it would've been very interesting to see what would've happened if Ripley didn't make it (and if the Xenomorph could mimic human voices as that would've bee terrifying when applied to the films going forward) cause a downbeat ending can be a good one if down right for I've seen many movies where it was done wrong.
I didn't realize all that thought was surrounding the "what ifs" of that movie! It's a classic for sure! Glad they made the decisions they did and kept it fairly close to O'Bannon's plot line...
These Xeno’s honestly are about the only things I find truly scary. As a kid I grew up fearing them and I still have never really gotten over that. Your videos mate always helps with keeping these things real. Fear is a good thing when focused and controlled
What's a Debo?
@@tulinfirenze1990 auto correct on my phone
@@andy84denham Oh okay - LOL
I agree with the notion that if the Xenomorph killed Ripley at the very end would’ve made Alien a much more terrifying movie
audiences would probably have been stunned
@@eatthisvr6 And booed
Surprise downer endings can work sometimes, such as in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake. However, you have to walk that line between shock and not making the audience feel cheated. I feel like Ripley getting killed at the end of Alien would have felt like a cheap move, and I personally think it's more emotionally impactful that someone actually survived such a harrowing ordeal. Maybe it's just because I'm a cat person.
Lucky star lucky lucky star.
30 years ago, I was reading Dean fosters novel, because my parents would not allow me to watch horror films. So I read the novel BEFORE I saw the film. I remember the cocoon scene with Dallas and Brett was the most frightening scene in the book. I felt really disappointed when I first saw the film, and realised the scene was scrapped. Much later, of course I've watched it on the extended version, but I felt it was a bit unfinished. The idea of the cat beeing infected would have been a good twist, but I like it that way. In the film, the alien seems to ''like'' the cat. Like it was some kind of apex predators that are on the same level.
@@arbiter8246 Why are you asking this with no relation to my comment, are you a troll or a bot??
@@arbiter8246 Also, audible books are really lame, just why?? Except if I'm blind I would never choose an audible book over a real one. I've read the novel in french when I was young, and in english later on.
The alien doing captain dallases voice would have been so unbelievably silly, glad we got the ending we did.
Man this channel is so high quality. Great stuff
I like the idea of the Alien as something that always survives and evolves in some way.
Looking at Ridley Scott's filmography, I feel like his strength lies in visuals and not so much with scriptwriting.
I think we can all agree on that
Most definitely. Remember he came from the world of directing commercials before making his first film. The strength of his first 3 films (which I still think are his best films) came from the combination of his visual flair and good scripts and/or source material....a Joseph Conrad story for his first movie, the original Dan O'Bannon concept for Alien and Philip K. Dick for Blade Runner. I was always dubious of his prowess as an "idea guy" when he started to go on and on back in the day about Deckard being a replicant...he seemed so invested in what, to me, would have been a goofy shock revelation that actually goes against all logic of the world-building that had been done to create the film....more of a cheap "gotcha" than some deep insight on the human condition.
This is amazing! So well timed! I was just thinking about this yesterday!
Love the behind-the-scenes footage in this! Haven’t seen most of it before!
When I was a kid, my idea for a sequel was as follows; it turns out the xenomorphs are an intelligent, civilized species (the one aboard the Nostromo was feral). Humanity makes contact with their civilization… and then it turns out there are creatures on their homeworld to which the xenomorphs are basically like cockroaches. I thought of this because it seemed to me that any predator that is so good at hunting its prey would eventually deplete its food supply and die off. So there had to be something higher up the food chain. Interestingly, the story that inspired “Alien” (“Dark Destroyer”) had that exact idea. The alien Coeurl is the last of its species, having killed off all its prey. But generally, if you keep making up reasons why your monster can’t be killed, there’s no suspense any more. And revealing that it somehow absorbs the minds of its prey at the last minute is just over-the-top ridiculous.
I thought Dark Star inspired Alien.
Eh, how could they be civilized when how they are born is the complete opposite 😭
Alternate endings for Alien are a huge talking point - how would you liked to have seen Alien end, if differently? What characters would survive alongside or in place of Ripley, if at all?
I read the book when it came out in the mid to late seventies. The book ended much like the movie, from what I can remember.
The book was quite unique. It also gave the aliens view in that she was trying to protect her young. Also the alien didn't kill her captives, she poisoned them to save for later for her young. Ripley killed them.
All of those could have worked at the time. However, most would have drastically changed the course of the series. The Alien mimicking Dallas could have been unnerving or deeply comical. I think an egg on thr shuttle would have just been a bit much. I'm just not convinced I'd have liked them as much as I do the ending we got. After all, "I got you" was so quiet and well done. Ripley is obviously going to have a lot to process, but for that moment, her struggle and fight is over, against something apparently far superior physically, and she won.
Killing Ripley off would have been like killing Luke at the end of the first Star Wars.
I had heard about that second one. Glad they didn't do it. Feels a little too "Phase IV" to me, just another thud of a movie trying to be clever with a wild twist that is interesting, but makes no sense.
Love your alien vids! Also love ur narration on comics and books
Lol, I love that you showed a shot of an egg on board the Sulaco from Alien 3 while discussing how having an egg on board the shuttle without a good reason would have been silly. Nice touch!
I agree that the ending we got was the better option. While I could appreciate the alternate ending and it would not have detracted from my enjoyment of the film as a whole, the "official" ending just worked better and of course, led us to the amazing sequel in a much more logical way. Thanks for the great video, I wasn't even aware that an alternate ending was even considered prior to now and this was a nice tidbit of information. Stay safe out there!
Loved the alternate ending endowing the creature with such abilities. I always thought Ash's description of the alien hinted at something more than what we would see in the sequels.
They did cut the power in Aliens suggesting there's more to them than instinct.
@@haitolawrence5986the queen also seemed to understand threats and dealings too 🤷♀️, I mean after all they are birthed from humans the most intelligent life form we know of
I think the alternate could have worked, would have been really cool to see a terrifying ending, the whole story feels bleak enough to justify it. I’m still okay with the actual ending but my big gripe is the execution. I dunno, something about the Alien being harpooned and then bouncing around the outside of the ship always looked too goofy and kinda spoiled it for me. After a whole movie of hiding the big monster in the shadows, seeing it like that feels like a big anticlimax.
So many of the millenial "reactors" watching the film today for youtube are saying the same thing. It NEVER bothered me in the slightest - it's what the alien looked like. Could have been worse - today it would be all CGI bullshit.
I kind of agree with this.
The original 1979 theatrical cut is the only way it could've ended and anything else would've ruined it. I was 12 yrs old that Friday opening night in June 1979 at the 9pm showing in East Hartford, CT and can still hear people screaming in fear as well as the cheering once Ripley blew the Alien out of the airlock. Audiences needed that resolution, and so did I, along with Hanson's score rolling during the credits.
You always make fascinating content
Always wondered if Ash knew about Alien then he must be knew about they have a homeworld under Queen Mother ruler after he communicationed with the Alien in the book he said *let my grave keep some secrets*
Have you ever done a video on why Ash seems to roll up a magazine and forces it into Ripleys mouth to try and kill her?
I’ve never been able to work out why he tries to do it that way. I always think it’s something to do with the way the facehugger impregnates the host, but I still don’t get it…
It's been written about at length. In a film REPLETE with sexual metaphors and symbolism, It signifies Ash's own frustration with his sexual inadequacies and impotence (an earlier cut scene between Ripley and Lambert has them revealling that neither has slept with Ash, even though sexual relations between the crew are frequent and varied). The rolled up magazine is very clearly a phallic symbol and he's very clearly and violently using it to orally "rape" Ripley. For the people who don't get it, it still works very effectively as part of the swift and unsettling devolution of Ash before he finally melts down.
Personally I think Alien is a total masterpiece as is, that said I wonder what our reaction would've been had the ending been darker?
Ripley slays the beast and within a couple of minutes the orchestral score kicks in with a feeling all is right in the universe...
Would it have made the story more frightening had she not have survived but bravely died after a short but brutally ending fight? The ship then drifts in space leaving us to wonder where its destination could heading. The Narcissus in total silence gets smaller and smaller as the camera pans out revealing the enormity of space. The ordience is left to wonder where is going and in shock of the emotional roller coaster of the horror they've just witnessed that didn't end with the generic shark getting blown out the water or the vampire shrivelled by daylight.
After a few seconds pause showing the Narcissus dissappear in the camouflage of stars and nebulae the picture fades to black and still in silence the credits roll...
I wonder how many of the audience would've gotten up immediately? More likely still sat quietly as the lights went bright just in shock.
I love stories like this. So many people that go to Uni or college studying film and movie making get taught that you have to have every single little detail planned to the enth degree before you can even start filming. But I have seen so many interviews of directors of iconic movies talking about how they wrote the movie as they went along.
I look at this how I look at Lethal Weapon 2: if Riggs died, I'd have been ok with it - it fit the pulse of the movie. It would have been interesting if Alien ended the way it did at the beginning of the video, and given the beast a much more solidified label of the "perfect organism" (especially if its regeneration theories were explored and implemented). But that other ending, with it speaking - well, at first I thought it was downright silly. But then, I thought about how this original beast was much more methodical and demonic in the way it killed (that I can't believe wasn't explored in other movies), that's why I still don't like how they edited Brett's kill scene. It just might've worked. Very interesting though.
When I hear this I can't help but think of the alternative ending to Clerks when Dante is killed 😂
The only satisfying end to that movie would have been if someone mercifully shot the viewer at the end of that inane, long winded, pretentious garbage dump of a film.
@@dongately2817 tell us how you really feel. 😂
It's going to be really good for the channel when the Alien TV series comes out! I'm looking forward to your continued and hopefully in depth coverage of the show when every episode drops and for all the in between gossip that's sure to surface as we inch closer and closer to the premiere!
Recently rewatched this on the big screen with the local place doing a 45th anniversary showing. For some reason this time really struck me how much Ripley is intentionally made to look like a minor character throughout. She is in the background while the alien ship is visited; she is the last character to be shown at the breakfast wake-up table. When in scenes with others, she is usually to the side or even off camera while the other person is the focal point. I only saw all the movies for the first time in the 90s, at which point it was clearly about Ripley - but seeing Alien in cinemas when it first came out must have had a legit ‘oh what - this is the survivor?’ element to it.
I think I would of been an amazing twist at the end after all the horror Ripley went through but I am glad they went in the direction they took Peace out.🤘
I think Ripley dying would have been an acceptable ending. I always watch it because it is a fantastic film from beginning to end. Had she died instead of lived, we would be none the wiser as we are today. I still watch Alien 3 as much as the others. Knowing she dies in it changes nothing for me, especially knowing that's what Sigourney originally wanted before they threw a ton of cash at her to do *shudder* Resurrection.
I'm glad it ended the way it did, as others are. If Ripley had died, it would have been the atypical horror meme, "insert horror premise - then everybody dies at the end". I think with the actual ending, it gave the audience a moment to take a breath and take in the whole experience. If Ridley did suddenly die, the credits would have rolled seconds later, kind of killing the momentum of the whole film. In a way, it would have been a cheap out. Thanks to Walter Hill, we got the right ending.
When ”Conan the barbarian” and ”The roadwarrior” made success , there was a slew of copycat movies , one worse than the other. Somewhere around the same time , there was a ”Alien 2” movie at the VHS rental place. It was some Italian lowbudget sub b-movie garbage. Sadly , we fell for it.
I think twist 'actually the hero died right the end' endings need the right movie to exist within. Ones where the whole point is just to establish the absolute terror and hopelessness of the story where the goal is to walk away feeling depressed and defeated. In a sense, a movie is about a journey, and the destination at the end has to feel justified and satisfying. The alien movie, at least in the final version we saw, was plot wise and editing wise, too much like a heroic tale of one character beating the odds and coming out on top. It didn't feel like a journey to establish hopelessness, it felt like a journey to establish Ripley surviving. To suddenly toss that out the window at the end would have defeated that.
Always loved your videos so informative and not that but give me information i never knew about when it comes to aliens
That was really good, and I have never heard most of it. Thanks!
Hello! Yes I heard about the original ending had to replaced with a happier ending. I looked it up on IMDB.
the concept of the alien being able to perfectly mimic Dallas's voice was chilling.
On one hand it seems kinda ridiculous and stupid, but on the other it seems like a good twist as the Alien is portrayed as nothing more than a vicious animal throughout the entire film, so it speaking could have been shocking. Fine line I guess.
You have great Alien content, what a beautiful channel 👍👍👍
Fantastic edit in that opening!!
i remember back then when the rumour was indeed that a new type of alien came out of the cat
I've heard of many of those endings, including one that never saw Ripley as she would have been dead sooner. The alien sitting down and using Dallas's voice, from what I understand also had the tiny form we see as the chest-burster having built its bigger body, hence it looking so mechanical. I think we got the best ending, and those other endings were terrible ideas. Like some of the ideas thrown around about the women being fucked by it?!??!?! What is with men and alien fucking?
I hate to think of Alien being made today by Ridley, with all of the same fanfare George Lucas got after he said he was making his prequels. He had so many yes people, so happy to just be working on the next "Star Wars" movie, that no one had the brains or courage to tell him "No, that's a bad idea" and we probably would have ended up with a terrible movie because the director was too big for his own good. Hell, there's a video I saw about how the original Star Wars would have been if not for the editing process and Lucas's ex-wife having good sense.
The alternate ending with the Alien imitating Dallas sounds so cheesy. I am glad they didn't go with it. Plus, the xenomorph sitting down and figuring out the controls completely removes all mystery and savagery from it. Part of the terror is it's sheer ferocity and animal like intelligence.
Having the xeno talk would have been crazy last minute make or break moment . It's way scarier as a wild animal with no intentions just attack what moves .
🙌
Good sense prevailed and then they shat all over the legacy and potential by killing the entire franchise in Alien 3 (a good film imho, but an absolute kick in the balls to Aliens and the ruination of future of the universe).
Great upload! Enjoyed!
What an excellent channel.
Also, a great narration voice.
As much as I adore Ripley, I actually think killing her would have been a fantastic ending. Imagine the magnitude of it? It would have made us even more terrified of the alien and also mirrored Ash's chilling last words of giving Ripley and the other crew members his deepest sympathy. People would have never gotten over it in a way that would have ultimately been a huge tribute to the film.
Killing Ripley at the end of Alien would have been chilling. Aliens didn’t roll around till 1986, 7 years later so there was never any real rush or need to keep the Ripley character alive at that time. Alien may have been a stand alone film had that happened, and perhaps even a better one than we have today.
It was an amazing ending that they decided on and the cat living too was a bonus.
I absolutely love this original trilogy… I just always hoped they would make one last movie with Sigourney Weaver as Ripley travelling to the Xenomorph home planet and wiping them out!! It would be a great finale to the franchise!!!!
They shoulda had Jack Palance be in the (proposed) sequel. He could be a WY exec, and, upon being asked who was in the derelict shuttle he would say "Ripley, believe it or not!"
I'll see myself out...
It seems that money was, as always, the main reason why they didn't kill Ripley off at the end of the movie. That said, I think that killing her off would have been the far more epic and superior ending.
I saw Alien in the theatre when I was in 6th grade (a friend's mom took us). I had seen Jaws and Star Wars in the previous years and I never would have believed I'd be telling people "Alien is the best movie I've ever seen." If Ripley had been killed and the Xenomorph spoke at the end ... I swear my friend's mom would have burst out laughing ... which would have started a domino effect, I'm sure. The theatre was full and really into the movie, you could cut the tension in the air with all the squirming in people's seats. A well spoken Xeno ... no way, thank god they didn't do that.
As it is the perfect sci fy horror movie was marred by "Why did they show the Alien from head to toe ...?" It was just a guy in a creature from the black lagoon type costume bouncing around outside the escape shuttle. Ridley Scott had done such a great job of suggesting menace and size by the less is more philosophy. For example, the scene with Harry Dean Stanton when he tries to catch Jonesy and he stops when the cat hisses and slowly turns around as his eyes rise to the gigantic sight of his demise.Then we saw Dean Stanton's limbs flailing as he is pierced and lifted by the strength of the Alien's mouth weapon. The Alien's 'imagined' size and strength was horrific. Masterfully done.
But, Ripley suddenly dying in her space suit her mask, abruptly, penetrated and her face fatally exposed
and impaled ... the end. That would have been a shocking, realistic ending. Grim but effective.
You know, the idea of "no one makes it out alive," would have been great, and actually makes more sense. One of the biggest things that hurts the film in modern times is after Ripley nails it with the grapple-gun and knocks it out of the airlock. We have rose-colored lenses on, but the shots of the Alien bumping off the shuttle, climbing into the thrusters, are really, REALLY, bad in retrospect.
Seen know, those shots look "tacked on," and knowing that Ripley was supposed to end as the last victim, they feel even more so. The Alien goes back into hibernation after cocooning Ripley for a transformation into an egg - which is what is happening to Dallas in the extended version - make far more sense. We see Dallas' fate as foreshadowing, and Ripley's ultimate fate is to end up the same. Its lifecycle is now in motion, whereas the humans are coming to an end. It really is a "perfect organism," and Ash's lines about having "no chance" and admiring it for its "purity," are even more cryptic and terrifying.
I love Weaver, and ALIENS is one of my top films to watch on any given Sunday with my wife. But looking at it from a "what if," lens I think makes the idea of a terribad ending all the more appealing.
Fantastic actor….. I just can’t imagine a world without Aliens…… but I do think that would of been another great ending!
Thanks for posting, such an amazing movie
Honestly, I can’t imagine the Alien series without Ripley. I also really can’t envision an ending involving a speaking Xenomorph being satisfying in any way.
Great job with the essay
Existential horror is what makes Alien so great, and the lack of it is why all the sequels fail. In Alien everything in the universe is trying to kill you, even your own species. Through Ripley the film leaves you wondering if survival is a blessing or a curse. Perfection!
Ripley's story should have ended at Aliens. I don't like what had become of the Alien and Predator series.
@@KamenKami I know that a lot of people like Aliens, but I think it pales in comparison to Alien. Besides lacking existential horror, there's simply too many problems with the basic plot.
@@bradwatson7324 You misunderstand me. I like the first two films only. I wish the series ended at Aliens. I like the first Predator film, I don't care for the others.
The audience would have laughed or yelled in anger. This would be like having a grizzly bear pick off a group of hunters, then climb into a pickup truck and drive away.
I propose an alternative, happiest ending possible for ALIEN. In the first chapter of the novelisation, the concept of 'pro-dreamers' is introduced before describing each of the crew's relative merits in this area of entertainment. Ripley is killed in the shuttle by the Xeno then we immediately cut to her waking up in the cryosleep chamber alongside her shipmates in Earth orbit. Everyone gets full shares (Yes, you too Parker&Brett) Ash is human and Ripley makes a fortune from the commercial sale of the recording of her dream and everyone lives happily ever after.
THE END
Nice commentary and delightful food for thought. Thanks for sharing and Best wishes.... Ax
Wow, didn’t know this. Excellent. Thanks.
Interesting! I never knew they had alternate ideas for ending Ripley's fate. I'm glad they kept her alive though!
Not the first time I've heard this, from what I recall, Ripley was supposed to die at the end, but they changed their minds just before filming the last scenes. I also remember that originally Ripley was actually written as a male character. In all, I'm quite happy with the end result they went with.
They couldve sold this as a dark alternate ending on a DVD extra feature. I'd still buy it, but having it be a downer ending as the theatrical release would be a huge mistake.
The ending with Ripley dying is actually better when u think about it. After all, logically if someone survived such an ordeal they would never want to go back to such a nightmare. That's the most unrealistic thing about the second movie. A story with Hicks being the star character in the second movie would be good. And even then he would die in the end. Showing once again that no one escapes the terror of Aliens.