At the end, when Ripley has her arm slung through that rung in the airlock and the queen alien is hanging from her foot AND the decompression that has everything in the cargo hold whipping by her head...she only loses a shoe as the queen is swept into space? By all rights, shouldn't only her arm be left dangling there? [First, the amount of force needed to rip a person's arm out of its socket is incredibly strong. This wasn't an explosive decompression... the door opened gradually, so the force pulling her into space wasn't that violent. Many of the objects that get blown out are heavier, but they also have more surface area than a human. Much of the air went *around* Ripley. People don't have their heads ripped off while walking through hurricane-force winds capable of lifting rooves off houses and overturning airplanes.] Corrected by JC Fernandez

In the scene where Bishop "does the thing with the knife," it appears Ripley is sitting at the end of the table with the rest of the marines. She is watching the events with Bishop and Hudson. However when Bishop sits next to Ripley, she's at a different table and her back is to the other marines. Did I see this right? [Almost. Ripley has spun round 90 degrees to watch what is happening at the other end. Because the camera is low down it looks as if Ripley is at the same table. In some shots you can see her legs however, indicating she has just swivelled round on her stool.] Corrected by SoylentPurple

At the beginning of the movie, when Reidecker is discussing Newt's parents' prospecting claim with Al, he refers to them as "a mom and pop survey team" as if he did not know who they actually were by name. However, this remote colony had only 158 members, so they would have all known each other very well. [He's describing the team. Saying "a Bob and Shirley survey team" doesn't make any sense.] Corrected by Phixius

Not really a HUGE mistake, but when Ripley finds Newt in her hole the first time you can see lots of boxes laying round with rations or MRE's in them. But later when the female medic is checking her out she says she is suffering from "Borderline Malnutrition" How is that possible when she had so much left over food? [The term "malnutrition" does not necessarily mean that you have had too little food, it also includes the bad effects of an improper regular diet. MRE's are not designed to be eaten on a regular basis, but as emergency food when nothing else is available. Newt has eaten MRE's for a very long time, and is suffering from the ill effects from this (most likely constipation and lack of proper vitamins).] Corrected by Twotall

In the final rescue of Newt, Ripley wisely uses flamethrower bursts to make sure the small hallways are clear of aliens. However in all other scenes involving the Incinerators they leave a flaming wash behind that continues to burn for a while (ex. the APC rescue). Obviously the director couldn't have Ripley wait around for the wash to die down so the bursts burn clean. [Flamethrowers use a pressurized liquid that sprays out and ignites. In every other scene, the flamer was sprayed directly ON something (like Frost or the APC). Ripley fires it straight down the tunnel to flush out any hiding aliens, so it has nothing to cling to.] Corrected by Grumpy Scot

When Spunkmeyer is loading a weapon into the ship he lifts it up to the ship with the walking forklift. As it is pulled into the ship we see strings holding up the back end of the weapon to keep it level. These strings were not there as he carried the weapon. [Not so. The cables are being used by the guys in the background that are guiding a large, black object that is suspended from heavy cables, going from left to right in the distance.] Corrected by John W Rosa

During the inquest of what happened to the Nostromo and its crew, Van Leuwen refers to Ripley's company ID number as NOC14472 while the data screen in the background displays NOC14672. [Either the display or Van Leuwen are wrong, but either way, the error is possible within the context of the film, with him being a human and the display being created by information supplied by then entered by a human. Not really an 'error'.] Corrected by John W Rosa

When Vasquez cuts a hole in the pipe for Bishop to up link with the mother ship to get the other landing plane, the plate from the pipe falls in to the hole. When Bishop is in the pipe, Vasquez and Ripley place the cut out piece back on the hole to weld it in place. The cut out piece is smaller than the hole. It was cut out from the pipe and should not fit over the hole without falling through. [They probably just did the very common thing of turning the plate around so the left side was welded to the right side of the hole etc. It wouldn't fall through that way as Vazquez obvioulsy didn't cut a perfectly shaped piece of metal.]

In the first encounter with the alien queen Ripley ignites the eggs, unloads the pulse rifle, and then throws her ammunition harness and grenades into the fire for good measure. However, when they get to the elevator the harness is back on without any grenades. [This is untrue. Ripley clips on a harness first, then she just puts a bandola of grenades over her neck/one shoulder. Then at the end she just throws the bandola into the flames. The harness remains on throughout.]

In the scene where Newt and Ripley are in the room with the face huggers, Ripley tries to escape by banging a chair against the glass window full force. However, it merely bounces off. But, when one of the marines dives at the window, it smashes. How is this possible? [It's possible because immediately before Hicks dives through the window, we see (and hear) Hudson put several rounds from a pulse rifle through it.] Corrected by Tailkinker

When Ripley goes to save Newt, she uses a tracking device to find her. However the only data that tracking device gives her is how far away she is from the receiver. It doesn't give any clue as to direction. For all she knows the receiver can be 50 meters above her, 50 meters behind her, 50 meters ahead of her, below her, to her right, to her left, etc, or even any combination of them. Yet in the maze of levels, sub levels, stairs and corridors of the compound she is able to find the EXACT path to the receiver on her first attempt. [Ripley already knew which level the aliens took their victims when cocooning them as she had observed this from the monitors in the APC. That solves the up or down direction. When Ripley exited the elevator and started forward through the hallway the distance on the tracking device started counting down which meant she was going in the correct direction. If the numbers start getting larger, then she is obviously going the wrong way.]

When the Corporal is explaining to Ripley how the Pulse-Rifle works, he says that the M41A Rifle fires caseless ammunition, but throughout the film you see spent casing ejecting from the side of the Rifle's receiver. Also, the Pulse-Rifle has a standard cocking handle on its side, much like any current arm firing cased ammunition with a reciprocating bolt . All the weapons to date that fire caseless ammo, such as the Heckler & Koch G11 Rifle, use some kind of revolving breech to chamber and fire the round. Using a revolving breech is relatively simple, and saves weight and space, so I don't think a caseless Rifle of the future would have a cocking handle like an 'old-fasioned' rifle. [As the original submission states, the M41A Rifle is a "Rifle of the future" so who knows how it would ultimately be designed and why it is designed that way. Given this is a fiction movie and a fictious rifle it can't be classified a mistake.]

At the end, when Bishop gets impaled by the queen's tail, he spews up white blood, some of which lands on Ripley's chin, but in the next shot her face is clean. [It is possible that between shots she wiped her face on her sleeve as in an instinctive reaction.]

Whilst the phrase 'Fire in the hole' may have changed in the future, it is unlikely it would have two separate meanings. For example, the first is when the APC catches fire, (as in fire in the APC) and the second is when Vasquez throws the cannister in front of the sentry guns (the more traditional meaning-i.e. throwing a grenade). Both these phrases have nothing to do with each other, but are still used in exactly the same way. [The submitter is really stretching here. "Fire in the hole" is used as a generic warning of danger. (I even use it at work to mean the boss is coming.) Not only that, but there are many phrases with multiple meanings.]

This isn't a mistake, but a funny little thing: When you look closely to Drake's an Vasquez' Auto-cannons, you can clearly see, that these are modified German machine guns, produced by Heckler & Koch. In some shots, when firing, you can also see the ammo-belts hanging out of the guns (e.g. when Drake is firing his last rounds, just before he drops the gun). These machineguns are also carried by some Stormtroopers in "Star Wars" - almost unmodified. [The auto-cannons are actually German World War II era MG-42s, according to the special edition DVD.]

Only six aliens were used for this film, painstaking editing made it look like there were hundreds of them. If you watch carefully, you'll notice there are never more than six aliens on screen at one time. [This piece of trivia is an extremely common mistake made about the film Aliens. There were actually about 20 alien suits in all. James Cameron corrected this in an interview in the 90's, and if you check the picture galleries on the Alien Quadrilogy DVD, you can see them all.]

During the briefing on the Sulaco Hudson's comment "Someone said alien. She thought they said illegal alien, signed up." was an inside joke. When Jeanette Goldstein was told they were casting a movie titled "Aliens" she thought it was about the U.S/Mexican border. So for her screen test she tried to look and sound as Hispanic as possible. So she was cast as Vasquez. [This is almost correct. She wasn't cast because she looked and sounded Hispanic. In the first audition, she told them that she had done some body building in the past, which earned her a second chance.]

When Ripley drives the APC into the station to pick up the marines, Hudson is apparently injured since Hicks has to practically carry him out of the alien hive and into the APC. But in subsequent scenes he has absolutely no trouble walking and his only injury seems to be the acid burn on his arm that he got after he made it to the APC. [He could have just twisted his ankle a little. I've done it a few times, its painful to put your full weight on it but the pain dissapears in only a few minutes.]

The guns fire 10mm caseless. Each magazine holds 95 rounds (according to the poorly placed counter). A springloaded magazine can only push bullets in one direction, so at most you can have two rounds alternated vertically in a compressed zig-zag pattern. You can't have five rounds side by side in a magazine, as there would be no way of moving them horizontally into the chamber as well as vertically through the length of the magazine. This means that a 100 round magazine would either have to be a drum or cylinder shape like that on a Thompson submachinengun or it would be at least sixty centimetres long. [Nowhere in the movie it is established springloaded magazines are used, and as it takes place in the future, who knows what they came up with.]

Bishop tells Ripley that she has 19 minutes at the end when she charges off to find Newt, but seconds later as she walks out of the ship the computer voice says there are only 15 minutes left to get to safe distance. Both are computers that would be working from the same data, why would there be such a large discrepancy? [The computer in Hadley's Hope is saying that any personnel remaining have 15 minutes to get to 'minimum safe distance' not to when the atmosphere processor will blow. On the Sulaco, Bishop tells Ripley how long until the explosion.]