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Quotes

Ripley: When we throw the switches, how long before the ship blows?

Parker: Ten minutes.

Ripley: No bullshit?

Parker: We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space.

See more...

Mistakes

When Tom Skerritt first "interfaces" with Mother after being awoken, he says, "Good morning, Mother" - it is not even close to being Tom Skerritt's voice. See more...

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The Character of Lambert was actually born male, and had a sex change to become female. This is stated in the dossier that can be seen in the beginning of Aliens. See more...

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Alien (1979) - 48 corrections

Directed by Ridley Scott, starring John Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt (add more)

Genres: Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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The amount of Alien slime on Dallas' hand changes between shots. [Be more specific. Which scene are you describing?]
Edit Corrected by THGhost
In the final sequence aboard the Nostromo, as Ripley is trying to find the buttons that will release steam and open the airlock to drive the Alien out, watch the close-ups of her gloved hand manipulating the controls. Complete, undisguised "trees" of model kit parts are visible as hastily applied detail. You'd never notice in the theatre, but now we have DVD players. [This doesn't really make that much sense. What do you mean by "undisguised "trees" of model kit parts"?]
Edit Corrected by THGhost
When the Android is attacking Officer Ripley, the first scene Ripley was sprayed with glycerine to give the idea they were sweating. However, the later scenes of the fight this glycerine omitted because she found out she was allergic to it. [How is this a mistake? It may possibly be trivia, but is not a mistake.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
Several scenes on the story boards and in the script did not make the final cut of the film. Some weren't even filmed at all. Some of these scenes included a sexual encounter between Dallas and Ripley, who have their moment spoiled in horror when Kane's corpse, which they ejected hours before, drifts in front of their view and bangs into the window. The other more controversial scene that was not even filmed, but only hinted at, was a 'rape' scene involving Lambert and the Alien. The Alien sliding its tail between Lambert's legs was originally intended to be the start of a bizarre sodomy/rape sequence, but director Ridley Scott thought better of it and decided not to film that scene. The only inclination of the alien sodomizing or raping Lambert left in the film is the fact that her corpse, which we only get a brief glimpse of hanging from the ceiling, is stark naked. [The Alien slides its tail between Brett's legs (as can be seen in the extended sequence, or one can notice by the different footwear that Brett and Lambert wear), and that shot was not intended to be part of Lambert's death "originally," but rather as part of Brett's demise.]
Edit
In the scene where Bret is confronted by the alien in the landing gear bay, we see the alien 'unfolding' from a vent using backward folding bird-like legs. In every other scene the alien has forward bending, human-like legs. [You're misidentifying one of two shots. The Alien begins above Bret inside the vent. The tail lowers to the floor first, to act as support for it's bodyweight. The tops of its feet are on the vent's floor at the entrance. Without the tail, it could not hold this position- it would just fall to the floor. It then lowers itself (using the tail), feet remaining on the edge of the vent entrance. When we see the side view of its head slowly lifting, we see its arms lower to reach for Bret. It kills him, then drags him into the vent (his body isn't found when Parker arrives). What you believe are backward knees are either the alien's ankles on the vent edge, or the lowering arms soon after.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
When Ripley is setting the ship's self-destruct mechanism she goes to a panel in the floor. In this panel there are four holes with four screws next to them. When she inserts the first screw she has to manually lift up the cylinder to activate it. It also makes a sound as it is lifted. After she inserts the screw into the second cylinder it cuts to a view in front of her. The cylinder makes the same sound as it raises, but Ripley is not lifting this one. Her arms are doing nothing. When she activates the last cylinder she once again has to lift it up manually by the inserted screw. Based on the design of the mechanism it is apparent that all four cylinders have to be manually lifted, but Ripley does not lift the second cylinder. It lifts itself. [She tugs at the first, but this doesn't mean it needs her to. The second rises on it's own, making the same sound. The third is shown having risen without making the sound like the first two as she screws the last one in. She's never shown pulling the third or fourth, and the fourth is never shown rising. There's no consistency between any two of the four, so we don't know if it isn't shown exactly as it's supposed to work.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
When Ripley goes down to check out how Brett and Parker are doing with the repairs, she says: "Don't worry Parker. (pause) You'll get whatever's coming to you." In the short pause between these two sentences, you can hear Ripley say something like "You have". It seems to be a wrong line which has been deleted, but not properly. [Her voice simply dropped out on 'Yeah", as in "Don't worry, Parker - yeah, you'll get whatever's coming to you."]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
In the infirmary scene where Ash, Dallas, and Ripley are looking for the facehugger that has detached itself from Kane, just at the moment when Ripley is looking under the table where Kane is lying, Dallas is empty-handed, he knocks something over and gives Ripley a fright and says sorry while at the same time holding a light in his right hand that was not there a second or two earlier. [He knocks over the container when he picks up the light.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Just before landing, Dallas orders the Navigation lights turned on and we see rows of lights lighting up on Nostromo's belly. After landing, Dallas orders the flood lights turned on and we switch again to Nostromo's unlit belly (that should already be lit up with the nav lights) and we see the same rows of lights turned on again. [The rows of belly lights are seen lit before Dallas requests "navigation lights". Immediately after the order, the four large lamps at the rear of the ship are on (making those the "navigation lights"). The ship then has a very rough landing, taking significant damage (alarms, gas leaks, failing lights), and the next exterior shot shows all outside lights have gone off. After quite a bit of time (and repairs), Dallas requests the flood lights, and the rows of small lights turn on, which makes those the "flood lights".]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
At the end of the movie, Ripley signs off as the third officer of the Nostromo. This is a technical mistake - as third in command Ripley would be the second officer behind Dallas, the captain and Cain, the first officer. [While this maybe true for the current military or commercial shipping, we do not know what nomenclature is used in the future. It could easily be the case that in Ripley's time, they are listed in numerical order. Much like the rank 'Inspector' in US law enforcement has different meanings in various police forces around the US (And is now obsolete in many).]
Edit Corrected by SoylentPurple
1. As captain, why send yourself, the only other pilot (Cain) and the weakest and most timid member of the crew (Lambert) to investigate an unknown and possibly dangerous planet? The better selection would have been Cain, Ripley (whose duties as warrant officer seem to be unclear) and one of the engineers, Bret or Parker. 2. Are we really to believe that the chain smoking and slightly built Lambert could help Dallas carry Cain's limp, space suit laden body thousands of meters, across rugged terrain back to the Nostromo? 3. The Nostromo can navigate itself to Earth through deep space - a navigator is not needed. 4. The Nostromo is just a 'tug' so why does it need a science officer and a lab filled with science equipment? 5. All the elaborate buttons and switches on the bridge and med lab have no labels or designators - how does the crew know what they're turning on or off? 6. Dallas makes two flippant decisions. First, to take off from the planet with needed repairs still underway. And second, to remove the face-hugger from Cain's face even thought it might kill him. [All character decisions, not movie mistakes. But there are some valid explanations: 1. Lambert's technical abilities were needed to decipher the alien equipment. 2. Lambert carried the lighter end (feet-end of the stretcher), and they likely made several rest stops. 3. Another character decision. 4. A science station doubles as sickbay and is needed in case they run into alien unknowns (like the situation in the movie). 5. Well trained people don't need labels on buttons. For example, expert typists can use a blank keyboard. 6. Not flippant decisions, the ship was able to take off and trying to remove the face-hugger was a calculated risk.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
When Ripley interfaces with Mother for the first time and sees the special order, an instruction reads as "Insure return of organism" rather than "Ensure return.," a common enough grammatical error for humans but not one that a programmed super-computer would generate. This mistake occurs on the same screen where the word 'override' is spelled incorrectly but this observation has already been posted by another contributor. [Programming error. Computers don't know "words," just programming codes. If the original programmer was a bad speller, so might the computer. Case in point: "All your base are belong to us."]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When Ripley is in Mother there is a moving shadow of a crew member over her right shoulder in the doorway. This occurs after Mother responds "unable to clarify". [No error here. Once Mother tells Ripley the true nature of the mission, we see Ash is now seated next to Ripley. The previous shadow movement was Ash sneaking into the room.]
Edit Time
Normally the face sucker alien is helping the host, Kane, breathe. This is evident by the close up shots where the sacs on the side of his body pulsate. In the panoramic shot the sacs on the side of the face sucker are not pulsating. [NO one ever said they were pulsating specifically to give Kane air. While it's probably giving him air in some other way, the pulsating is probably just the facehugger ejecting the alien embryo into Kane, which it would only have to do for a little while as iopposed to helping him breathe.]
Edit
When talking to 'Mother' the characters never seem to type enough keystrokes to account for the wording of their questions on the computer screen. [Who's to say in the future they don't have "short hand" software for quick typing?]
Edit
It's difficult to see, but the instructions for self destruct (at least those for cancellation) appear to be in French. (Although fleeting, this is easier to spot in the cinema than on DVD) [While the instructions on the right side of the panel are in French, they are simply translated versions of the instructions on the left, which are in English.]
Edit Time
Ripley was originally supposed to be a male. The decision to cast a woman was done on a lark, and no script changes were made to "feminize" the character. [Dan O'Bannon's original screenplay never mentioned sexes. All the characters were written to be either sex.]
Edit
Ripley's nosebleed: from 1:17:16 (chapter 14: 'A Confrontation with Ash' on the '99 DVD), Ripley's nose starts bleeding, eventually very noticeably. This is almost a full minute before Ash begins attacking her by throwing her twice, which might actually make it bleed. [This would only be an error if a later scene were intended to show the moment the bleeding is caused by some physical strike, but there's no such moment (and there is the chance that her first shoving match with Ash may have had her head striking his, but it's not a certainty). Still, nosebleeds are commonly triggered by stress in people prone to them. Ripley's nosebleed begins after she learns of the special order (crew expendable) and becomes extremely distraught- and after her physically tossing Ash around (causing his head cut that later drips). She marches off, and in the passageways she can then be seen with the nosebleed.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
When Brett is about to be killed by the alien, a close up shot of just his hat is shown when the alien's teeth impale his skull and his brains come pouring out. In slo-mo you can see that an alien hand is holding his head in place as it strikes. A split second later we see Brett's face, but there is no hand anywhere near him nor is the alien reaching out towards him. [No, the alien DOES have its hands on his head. It is on the very left of his hat, and is very hard to see, but it is there.]
Edit Time
When the crew goes into the ship with the eggs in it, you can clearly see that all their gloves are hockey gloves just painted over. Pretty cheap. [Just because they look like hockey gloves (and probably were used to make the gloves) doesn't mean they really are in the movie. Maybe in the future, all astronaut gloves look like that.]
Edit Time

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