The cold isolation of space. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Aliens stalk the halls
with only one thing on their minds: expand and consume. Keep watching to see how each
Alien movie connects to one another!
In the late 1970s, H. R. Giger designed a new horrific movie monster: the Xenomorph.
It became iconic for its lethal serrated tail, its flesh-tearing proboscis, and acidic blood
that could burn through the hull of a spaceship.
Director Ridley Scott took Giger's creature and placed it inside the Nostromo, a futuristic
yet claustrophobic spaceship that becomes little more than a tomb for the Xenomorph's
many victims. Upon its 1979 premiere, Alien cemented itself as a sci-fi horror phenomenon,
with Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley enduring as one of the most iconic protagonists in
cinematic history.
In the years since, the Alien universe has developed a massive legacy steeped in expansive
lore.
"I think they want us to come and find them."
While Prometheus was also helmed by Scott, this prequel was a markedly different experience
than the original movie. The film follows Dr. Elizabeth Shaw — played by Noomi Rapace
— and Dr. Charlie Holloway — portrayed by Logan Marshall-Green — as they try to
answer humanity's big question: "Where do we come from?"
The two archeologists discover evidence across multiple cultures and time periods suggesting
that humans worshiped giant mysterious beings. This evidence also suggests an unknown importance
surrounding the distant moon, LV-223. Funded by the Weyland Corporation, the pair embark
on a two-year journey into space aboard the starship, Prometheus. The crew is eventually
awakened from stasis by the android David — played by Michael Fassbender.
Upon landing, they discover impressive technology years beyond humanity, along with vases of
dark, unidentified goo. While studying what they've found, several crew members are attacked
and infected by alien lifeforms. Simultaneously, David experiments on other crew members using
the newfound goo. But the real kicker comes from the head of one of those large humanoid
beings depicted on Earth. The species is given the moniker, "the engineers."
After doctors Holloway and Shaw are intimate with one another, they come to realize Holloway
is infected with an alien contagion, leading to his premature death at the hands of the
crew.
Still reeling from Holloway's demise, the crew soon discovers they've been transporting
the withered Peter Weyland — played by Guy Pearce — so that he could discover the key
to immortality. To this end, Weyland and David locate a living engineer in stasis and awaken
it. While Weyland is convinced the engineer species were the original creators of humanity
and his source of salvation, the engineer ultimately kills him, decapitates David, and
is hellbent on tracking down the remaining crew.
Dr. Shaw learns that she is pregnant with an alien lifeform and manages to extract the
octopus-like creature from her abdomen. Through this, she deduces that the goo found on the
moon was created by the engineers to wipe out humanity. After Shaw bests the engineer,
she takes David's still-active head and commandeers a ship to find the engineers' homeworld. As
Prometheus concludes, the octopus-like monster, which Shaw had unleashed on the engineer to
provide her escape, is revealed to be a proto-facehugger. It implants the engineer with a chest-bursting
embryo similar to the Xenomorphs, setting the stage for the rest of the franchise.
"They are a dying species, grasping for resurrection. They don't deserve to start again, and I'm
not going to let them."
Nearly 11 years after the events of Prometheus, a solar flare damages the colonization ship
Covenant while it's en route to its designated planet. The android Walter, played by Michael
Fassbender, awakens the emergency crew, only to have their captain perish due to a technical
malfunction. Upon repairing the ship, the Covenant crew receives a mysterious transmission,
which they trace back to a nearby planet. This setup kicks off 2017's Alien: Covenant,
Scott's second prequel.
The acting captain Christopher Oram — played by Billy Crudup — decides to settle on this
new planet instead. While receiving pushback from Chief Katherine Daniels — portrayed
by Katherine Waterston — Oram steers the Covenant towards the signal. They discover
the engineer ship, which Dr. Shaw had stolen in the final act of Prometheus, and after
trekking through the planet's wilderness, two of the crew are infected by airborne spores.
The spores gestate into the newly dubbed Neomorphs, which quickly grow into adulthood and attack
the crew. Amid the chaos, the Prometheus android David comes to their rescue.
While the crew is initially trusting, they realize David has grown a god-complex through
his years in isolation. It's revealed that he killed Dr. Shaw to experiment on her and
systematically wiped the engineer species from their homeworld using the bio-agent that
had been developed to kill humanity. Not only that, but David was the one who engineered
the genetic make-up of what would become the Xenomorph.
As Oram is infected by a facehugger, the remaining crew make moves to immediately leave the planet.
But when David destroys Walter and boards the Covenant posing as him, he's followed
by two Xenomorphs, who resume terrorizing the crew.
After the Xenomorphs are destroyed, the remaining crew enter hypersleep to continue their journey
to their original destination. But as Katherine enters her pod, she realizes in horror that
David has replaced Walter and is now in control of the ship. While she falls into stasis,
we see David placing the Xenomorph embryos in c old storage, setting up some of the groundwork
for the original 1979 film.
"This is Ripley. Last survivor of the Nostromo. Signing off."
Alien takes place 17 years after Alien: Covenant. In the original, landmark flick, we are introduced
to the crew of the Nostromo as they come across a wayward distress signal. Captain Dallas
— played by Tom Skerritt — decides to investigate, and the crew discovers an alien
ship bearing a dead engineer and several alien eggs. After a facehugger emerges and attaches
itself to Kane — portrayed by John Hurt — they break quarantine procedures and bring
their affected teammate back aboard the Nostromo.
While the film chronology confirms this as an engineer ship, the fact that the android
David was the final designer of the Xenomorph species leads to narrative inconsistencies.
For the time between the end of Alien: Covenant and the start of the original movie, there
are no explanations as to how another engineer ship came to contain a species that wasn't
created by them. With an Alien TV series reportedly on the way and Ridley Scott indicating another
film is in the works, it's possible this gap will be bridged in future installments.
While the crew fails to safely remove the facehugger from Kane, it implants a Xenomorph
embryo down his gullet. After he wakes and joins his shipmates for a meal, the hidden
parasite bursts from his chest cavity, shocking the rest of the crew before scurrying off.
As they hunt for the creature, it grows rapidly and starts picking off members of the team
one by one.
The science officer Ash — played by Ian Holm — is discovered to be an android tasked
with the preservation of the Xenomorph for further study, regardless of the human passengers’
safety. After Ripley sets the ship to self-destruct and flees in an escape pod, she has one final
showdown with the Xenomorph, which ends in her blasting it into space using the pod’s
exhaust. From there, she sets a course for Earth and falls back into hypersleep.
Alien's major conflict has less to do with the deadly alien aboard the Nostromo and more
to do with a shadowy corporation using whatever means to achieve their goals. However, exactly
how The Weyland Corporation discovered the Xenomorph's location prior to our main cast
finding the derelict ship remains a mystery.
"Ma'am, I already said that it was not indigenous. It was a derelict spacecraft. It was an alien
ship. It was not from there."
At the start of James Cameron's sequel Aliens, Ripley wakes up on a space station orbiting
Earth after 57 years in stasis. She is debriefed by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who abjectly
dismiss her explanation of what happened in the previous movie. However, the Weyland-Yutani
representative Carter Burke — played by Paul Reiser — informs Ripley that they lost
contact with the terraforming colony, Hadley's Hope. He convinces her to join a mission in
which they will determine the colony's fate, as well as destroy any alien species alive
on the planet.
Upon their arrival, the Colonial Marines discover a young girl named Newt — portrayed by Carrie
Henn — and the rest of the population cocooned in unrecognizable goo. With chestbursters
popping from these trapped victims and adult aliens attacking the team, Ripley realizes
that the Xenomorphs are using humans as incubators. As attacks continue, the question becomes:
How are the eggs being created?
Ripley soon uncovers how Burke had ordered the colonists to investigate the derelict
engineer ship still in orbit so that Weyland-Yutani could use the species for weapons research.
Ultimately, Ripley, Newt, the android Bishop — played by Lance Henriksen — and Corporal
Hicks — portrayed by Michael Biehn — are the only survivors.
The aliens target Newt after she is separated from Ripley, who then pursues them into the
heart of their hive and finds the Xenomorph queen. After reclaiming Newt and escaping
the queen, they board a ship to leave the planetoid behind. But the queen manages to
get aboard. Ripley battles the monster via a mechanical ExoSuit and forces it out of
an airlock. The survivors then enter hypersleep for a trip back to Earth and credits roll.
"This is Ripley. Last survivor of the Nostromo. Signing off."
David Fincher's 1992 film Alien 3 begins directly after the events of the previous installment.
A mysterious fire on Ripley's ship forces the computer to launch its escape pods onto
the planet Fiorina 161. After Ripley is recovered by Doctor Clemens — played by Charles Dance
— she is brought to an all-male maximum-security prison. She learns that Newt and Hicks were
killed in the spaceship crash, while also being informed that a message was sent to
Weyland-Yutani for them to come and collect her.
Uncertain of what caused the fire on her ship, Ripley convinces Clemens to autopsy Newt's
body. However, when a prison inmate dies under strange circumstances, she suspects that another
Xenomorph managed to board her ship and is now loose in the prison.
When Ripley finds and reactivates Bishop, he confirms her fears of a rogue Xenomorph
just as it ramps up its attacks on inmates. But since the prison lacks any kind of weapons
stockpile, the remaining prisoners must lure the alien into a death trap.
As they work to put their plan into motion, Ripley finds out that she is the current incubator
for a new Xenomorph queen. She realizes she must kill herself, but not before helping
the prison crew stop the alien. Knowing it won't hurt her because she's pregnant, Ripley
and the remaining crew corner the alien, dump molten lead on it, cool it with the emergency
sprinkler system, and shatter the creature to pieces.
Upon their victory, however, Weyland-Yutani arrives. They try to convince Ripley that
they can safely remove the gestating queen from her body, but she doesn't buy it for
an instant. She jumps into a massive blast furnace, killing herself and the queen. Or,
so it seemed.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 1997 follow-up Alien: Resurrection depicts the final chronological
events in the Alien film saga, especially since Ridley Scott declared the Alien Vs Predator
movies non-canonical. This installment, originally penned by Joss Whedon, takes the Jurassic
World approach to its story. It depicts the United Systems' ill-advised attempt to clone
the Xenomorphs some 200 years after the events of Alien 3.
Utilizing Ripley's DNA, the USM creates clones of her with the alien queen embryo still inside.
Following seven unsuccessful attempts, they finally create Ripley 8, who possesses the
original Ellen Ripley's genetic memories. Additionally, since her DNA was grafted with
that of the Xenomorph queen, the queen also shares the same genetic knowledge as her host,
making them both partial hybrids of each other.
When a rag-tag mercenary ship called the Betty arrives and delivers humans to serve as hosts
for alien embryos, you can almost hear Ian Malcolm's voice in Jurassic Park stammering
that life will find a way. While these human sacrifices do indeed produce aliens, the newer
spawns use their new genetic knowledge to break free of their containment.
The aliens proceed to attack the remaining soldiers left onboard, and after a burst of
bloody mayhem, only a few survivors remain. By this point, Ripley 8 has discovered her
own superhuman strength and acidic blood. In the meantime, the survivors find out the
station is on autopilot and heading for Earth. Seeing the looming catastrophe in front of
them, the team moves to escape via the Betty and destroy the USM station. But before they
can all get to their liferaft, Ripley 8 is abducted by a Xenomorph and taken back to
the hive. It's revealed to her that the alien queen has evolved to possess a human-like
reproductive system, and she gives birth to a fully-fledged human-alien hybrid.
When Ripley 8 manages to escape the Xenomorph swarm and boards the Betty with the rest of
the crew, an open hatch prevents them from leaving. As they move to fix the issue, the
human-alien hybrid attacks. Ripley 8 stops the creature by using its genetic trust in
her against it. While hugging the hybrid, she creates a hole in a nearby window using
her acid blood, which violently sucks the creature into space. The movie concludes with
the remaining crew arriving on Earth, optimistic for a future without the threat of a Xenomorph
apocalypse. Well, at least for now.
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