10 Things You Didn’t Know About Alien: Resurrection

One of the biggest problems with the Alien franchise is that the first two films are so good that the rest pale in comparison. The differences between each film are undeniable and I still think it’s great that each movie stands alone in its originality. Very few franchise can say that over a span of 4 or more movies. Alien: Resurrection is the one that usually gets the least amount of respect, though.

It was years past the peak of Alien-Mania and the idea of bringing back a character who had so epically died in the previous movie didn’t sit well with some people. But I find myself loving Resurrection in spite of those things. The cast is remarkable, unique, and beyond interesting in any setting and I am willing to say that they could carry an entire series on their own merits. As an Alien film, however, I’m afraid that Resurrection will never get the overwhelmingly positive response that the first two films have. Hopefully these 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Alien: Resurrection will help.

#1. Clones: The little clone girl at the beginning was based on photos that Sigourney had sent them from her childhood. The later stage clone was a molded face on the body of a body double.

#2. Say hello to the Queen: They used the same Alien Queen from Aliens for this movie. It was in the garage of Bob Burns, who is a famous movie memorabilia collector. He graciously let them borrow it for the film. They re-painted it, re-built, and re-furbished it and then returned it to him after filming.

#3. Models>CGI: None of the ships used were digital. Everything was done with models. The background and the use of smoke was mostly done digitally as it helped to add texture and distance to the shots of the models.

#4. She got game: Sigourney made the basketball shot on the sixth take. They were planning on doing the shot digitally but she insisted she could make it. Then they wanted to “fix” the shot digitally because the ball leaves the frame for a split second before going into the basket but Weaver talked them out of it.

#5. Poor Dan: Dan Hedaya’s character was originally going to get sucked through the hole in the window but they decided that it was too grand a death for such a secondary character. They ended up using that same death for the newborn at the end of the film and were surprised by the reaction of his more simple death at the hands(tail?) of the alien warrior.

#6. Inspiration: The scene where Ripley finds the clone room is the reason that she accepted the movie in the first place. Weaver’s head was slipped through the bed and a mechanical body was used for the #7 clone. They did a close up shot for the burning body so they had to burn the actual prosthetic for the scene instead of just the stunt one.

#7. An eye for the ladies: Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to make the human villain a woman but the studio chose not to as there were already two female leads.

#8. Lady in red: You may notice that the character played by Kim Flowers is wearing the same outfit as Ripley during the underwater scene. Sigourney Weaver saw Flowers’ costume and wanted to wear it. Flowers’ character, Hilliard, can be seen wearing a different costume for the duration of the film.

#9. Delete!: The Newborn had gone through several changes over the course of the filmmaking process. They ended up with a more “human” looking creature that had eyes. Initially, they wished to do the creature digitally but ended up with an animatronic that is only fully visible in once scene. It had both male and female genitals that had to be removed in post-production per the studios orders.

#10. Brown coats: The script was written by Joss Whedon. He was unhappy with the finished product not because they changed his script by much, but because they played it too seriously. He had written it more tongue in cheek and thought that the line deliveries killed his script. He would later write Firefly and Serenity. Also about a group of smugglers on a rickety spaceship.