Alien

Revealing mistake: Mirrors were used to make the corridors appear longer, early in the film when Brett is complaining to Parker about the way they are treated by the company you can see their reflections in the mirror behind them as they walk down the corridor. It's only for a second as they are moving off camera but you can see them in their white overalls.

Video

Revealing mistake: In a scene near the end, the camera operator appears to bump into Sigourney Weaver from behind, prompting her to momentarily break character. Weaver had been frantically running down a corridor with the camera following closely behind. When she reaches a ladder, the view passes her for a split-second and bounces back a step from an apparent soft collision. Weaver glances back at the camera with a look as if meaning to say, "Are you all right?" but immediately resumes climbing the ladder. (01:39:35)

TonyPH

Revealing mistake: They use the same shot three times when showing the acid eating throughout the ship. After they try to cut the finger off the face sucker, acid begins to burnt through the decks. When they have gone down 1 deck and look up they see where the acid came through. They then move down 1 more deck and look up again. The acid is just beginning to burn through. Then they look up again and it is the same shot that was used before. The same hanging acid on the right with the drip on the left. After the acid has neutralized, they look up at the hole and it is the same shot again. (00:39:50)

luchador

Revealing mistake: As Ripley stumbles away from the self-destruct system, the cooling rods are not visible. A few seconds later, in close-up, they can be seen to be above the edge of the compartment they are in. (01:32:10)

Revealing mistake: When Ash attacks Ripley and Parker beats him off, the android gets up again and tackles Parker. Look closely as Parker crawls up against the wall...the body of Ash isn't a body at all...it's half a mannequin that doesn't even have a lower body connected to it, and it is visible when Parker's legs spread and you can see that there is nothing under Ash's torso except a big hole where the lower half should connect. (01:23:45)

Alien mistake picture

Revealing mistake: Parker had hair. When the alien bit through his head the melon they used did not have hair. Also, the seeds can be seen inside the melon when paused at the right moment. (01:33:35)

luchador

Alien mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Parker shoots the blowtorch at Ash, Ash's face begins to melt off. When the skin melts off we see, in slo mo, that the dummy they used has a sealed mouth. (01:27:25)

luchador

Revealing mistake: At the start of the film where we see the cockpit for the first time, you can see the camera shake as it bumps into something whilst it pans towards the seats. The sound of the bump can be heard as well.

THGhost

Revealing mistake: The amber warning lights on the ceiling start flashing before Ripley has activated the self-destruct system.

Revealing mistake: As Ripley, Lambert and Parker leave the room after decapitating Ash, Parker turns around and incinerates Ash's body. As soon as the shot starts, if you look carefully just before the flame actually touches Ash, you can see Ash's head (mostly the skin below his neck) has already melted before the flame, or even the heat for that matter, touches him. The flamethrower had only been set off a split second before the fire reached Ash and by that point the head has already began melting, so the heat made from the fire could not have melted his head that quickly.

Casual Person

Revealing mistake: When Dallas is in the air shaft he shoots downwards with his flamethrower, you see the flames that he is shooting from the bottom of the ladder, but you can see a flamethrower shooting upwards from the side of the shaft and it also moves in an arc.

Revealing mistake: You can see the blood was initially thrown on John Hurt instead of coming from underneath his shirt. You can also see the underlying prop wrap that was used for the blood exploding out of him just before you see the alien pop out. (00:56:56)

Continuity mistake: In the shot of the alien's tail wrapping around the back of Lambert's legs right before it kills her, the floor is different to what it was before, there is water suddenly falling from the ceiling when there wasn't before and her trousers have changed from white to blue. This is because that shot was originally intended to be used when Brett was killed.

THGhost

More mistakes in Alien

Ripley: Did you ever ship out with Ash before?
Dallas: I went out five times with another science officer. They replaced him two days before we left Thedus with Ash. Hmm?
Ripley: I don't trust him.
Dallas: Well, I don't trust anybody.

More quotes from Alien

Trivia: There is no dialogue in the first six minutes of the movie.

More trivia for Alien

Question: A bit puzzled as to why Ash tried to kill Ripley by stuffing a rolled up magazine in her mouth when he could have strangled her in seconds.

Answer: I believe this was another subtle way for the film to depict that Ash was malfunctioning or at least not fully processing correctly and having problems. It was showing a brutal savagery to his motions as well as an artistic choice for the moment.

Quantom X

Answer: This is just one possibility among many, but Ridley Scott suggested Ash may have been developing latent sexuality that he was not equipped to handle through his programming, and perhaps not physically either; his use of a rolled-up magazine may have come about because he was not constructed with a penis (I had to stop myself from making a pun about "hardware").

TonyPH

I always wondered about this. It always struck me as a little Freudian. Also, notice the picture of the topless lady on the wall - an interesting detail when combined with the phallic paper.

Jack Vaughan

More questions & answers from Alien

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