Alien (1979) - 12 questions

Question: Why did Ash attack Ripley after she found out about Special Order 937?

Answer: Because Ripley would warn the other crew members about the Special Order, namely that the company's mission was to collect the alien (to use as a biological weapon) and that the crew was expendable. The company assigned Ash to carry out the plan, and being a robot, his only intent is to follow their orders.

Question: Why were there so few crew members on this very very large ship? If even one of them had a heart attack, they'd have to maintain the ship with only 80%.

Answer: There are several possible reasons. For one, the ship is fully automated, and the computers perform many technical functions, basically running everything. The crew is barely essential, and is kept in stasis during much of the voyage, awakened only at specific periods to perform specialized tasks or attend to unexpected problems. And though the ship is large, its function is simple: hauling payload. Also, the ship is owned by a ruthless corporation wanting to maximize their profits. One way to achieve that is by using minimal personnel. They no doubt assume that if one crew member was lost or incapacitated, the others would manage somehow. On this particular voyage, however, the company intended to find and utilize the alien, and having a small crew, which they consider "disposable" makes it easier to achieve that. It was probably intended that Ash, the robot, would murder the crew or see to it that the alien “impregnated” them with embryos before putting them back into stasis, only to die later.

Question: Kane looks at the egg, the facehugger lunges out, and Kane falls back. If the facehugger "sprayed" or "secreted" acid to get in his helmet, wouldn't the acid that would have been on the facehugger burn Kane's face when it attached?

Answer: The creature secreted just enough acid to burn through the helmet, softening it so it could push the tube into the face plate. The acid did not drip onto Kane's face.

Question: First, thank you to the individual that answered my question: "Why did they wear helmets in the first alien and not Aliens?" However, I am still puzzled though with my question: "How did the facehugger get through Kane's helmet?" The answer given was: "It secreted an acid that "burned" through the helmet." If this is true, wouldn't the acid still on the facehugger have burned Kane's face when it attached itself?

Answer: The facehugger was apparently able to control how much acid it secreted, and it was just enough to penetrate the helmet without it touching Kane's face. It would need to protect its "host" in order to ensure that the embryo was able to fully develop before "hatching."

Question: Throughout the movie, Ash does a few weird things, such as that jogging motion that he makes in the cockpit and the "poor baby" expression he gives Ripley just before he attacks her. Aside from driving home the fact that he's an android, do these actions have any meaning? (Unless he's being sarcastic, the expression doesn't seem fitting, since he doesn't seem to feel any particular empathy toward humans.) Also, what causes him to suddenly start bleeding? And finally, why does he try to stuff a rolled-up magazine down Ripley's throat? My interpretation is that he's trying to implant her with an embryo, since he also starts making weird gagging noises at the same time; but if that's the case, where/when did he get it?

Answer: I can't speak to the running motion exactly. I've always wondered about that myself. Maybe it was a quick systems check of sorts. Beyond that, the 'poor baby' expression and odd noises he makes are because he is damaged. There is a quick, light scuffle with Ripley before he starts bleeding where she throws him against the wall twice, and that's where the 'blood' comes from. After that, he's trying to kill her with the magazine in the throat. As Bishop points out in Aliens, that model has always been 'a bit twitchy'. He's trying to protect the mission by any means necessary, and she was in the way.

Question: If Ash's job was to get the Alien specimen back to "The Company", why wouldn't he have just advised Dallas to put Kane in hypersleep, claim that it was too advanced for him to handle and let The Company gather the specimen when they arrived back to Earth? The way it was done resulted in a failure to get the Alien back and cost lives.

Answer: Ash tried exactly that, but Dallas overrode him. He was uneasy about putting Kane in hypersleep with a facehugger attached.

Question: Question about the Director's Cut of the film. The scene where Brett is looking for Jones has been altered slightly - when he looks up at where the water is dripping from, you can actually see the Alien hanging motionlessly from one of the chains. Has Ridley Scott given an explanation as to why he added this new dynamic to the scene? It's easy enough to speculate why, but a link to an 'official' explanation would be appreciated.

Answer: According to the commentary on the DVD, Ridley didn't add this scene to the original cinematic release because he thought it revealed the true horror of the Alien too soon in the film. The scene is quite early in the film and he thought revealing the fully matured Alien at that time would reduce the viewer's fear.

Question: Just curious,does the space jockey have any relation with the Predator and what is their history?

Answer: The space jockey is another alien race entirely. Since the Predator movies didn't even exist when Alien was released and there were no creative links between the two series until Alien Vs. Predator, it is safe to say that the space jockey has absolutely nothing to do with the Predators.

Question: When the man who was looking for the cat, before he was killed, there is water dripping from somewhere, where is it coming from?

Answer: It's a leak in one of the many systems onboard. The leak is relatively minor, so the crew postpones fixing it until they dock.

Question: I know they never really make this clear in the movie,but if anyone has heard an interview from Ridley Scott as to about how far in the future this movie takes place,I'd love to know.

Answer: An easter egg on the Alien Legacy DVD states that the year of their arrival on Acheron is 2122. It's logical, since in Aliens, 57 years later, Ripley mentions the order given by Burke to investigate the derelict, which was dated '79.

Question: One of the trivia entries states that Ridley Scott prevented any members of the cast from seeing the chestburster until the scene was filmed so their reactions would look more natural. However I've dug up numerous sources (such as IMDB) that says this is not the case and the cast had indeed seen the creature before hand. Which is the correct version of this story?

Answer: The version that I've heard the most often, which seems the most plausible, is that the cast were pretty much aware of what was going to happen - the chestburst effect requires machinery, a fake torso and so forth, so it's a bit daft to imagine that they weren't aware of what was coming. What they weren't expecting was the sheer amount of blood squirted everywhere, so their reactions to being sprayed with blood are, to some extent, natural.

Question: What exactly is the space jockey and why haven't we seen it in the other films except its fossilized self sitting in the what I call the laser gun?

Answer: It's another race of space alien that is also subject to infection by the Aliens. This particular one was infected and moved as far as it could from its race's known space and broadcast a warning before it died. The presence of eggs in the hold may indicate that it was a research ship. The race was never used in other Alien movies because it adds a new dynamic to the plotlines: two alien species, locked in mortal combat and neither particularly friendly with humans.