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Bishop: Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid.

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Throughout the sequence when the female pilot is preparing to drop the ship with Ripley and the marines on down to LV426, you can see a crewmember in her reflective sunglasses. See more...

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Just an aside - if you look at a lot of the hardware used by the colonial marines it is the same hardware you see used by the humans in the film "Terminator" the first one, some of the guns, the flash lights (which are just roadside emergency lights, I have a few) and some of the armour. See more...

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Aliens (1986) - 77 corrections

Directed by James Cameron, starring Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Sigourney Weaver (add more)

Genres: Action, 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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in the extended version especially, the fact that Ripley was lost in space for almost 60 years and at the exact time when she arrives on earth the colonists find the eggs and the company loses connection to them is an unbelievably huge coincidence. In the theatrical version the timing of the events remains a bit more unclear - the colonists may have died even years ago, at any time between those 57 years time period and the company noticed that after they found Ripley and decided to communicate with them to check. But in the extended version this possibility is killed as we see the colonists' situation, and one just has to believe the above described huge coincidence. [Coincidence? It's made very clear in the film that it's anything but. Once Ripley was found and told her story, Burke sent instructions to the colony ordering them to investigate the reported location of the derelict alien ship, leading directly to the infection of the colony and the death of all the colonists bar Newt. There's a pivotal scene where Ripley confronts Burke about it, angrily telling him that it was all his fault, something that he attempts to dismiss as "a bad call" on his part, shortly before he attempts to infect her and Newt by releasing the facehuggers. Rewatch the movie; the chain of events is made very clear. It's no coincidence.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When the marines are in the dropship and ready to go to the planet below, the couplers release and the ship literally drops from the Sulaco which is in a gentle orbit. The dropship should have continued to move with the Sulaco in orbit. [Assuming that the planet has the same gravity pull as our Earth, all that would be required for the dropship to appear to "drop down" would be for the Sulaco to give the it "a push" and/or the dropship to push back.]
Edit Corrected by XIII
Bishop's programming about "he is not allowed to harm, or by omission of action allowed to harm, a human being (paraphrased) is the same prime directive of the androids in Isaac Asimov's "Robot's of Dawn" series. [The rule is invented by Asimov, however it is a widely used rule by other writers/ filmmakers for robots in general, not for androids specific.]
Edit
One of the sets for Aliens was later re-used as the Axis Chemical plant in Batman. [Incorrect. When the crew for Batman went to Acton Power Station (closed down and used for filming), they found part of the old set from Aliens. They didn't actually use any part of that set, they simply found it.]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight
When the crew are in the drop ship going down to the planet, Hicks is shown to be asleep in one shot, but when Hudson is ranting at Ripley about the weapons that are available, Hicks can be seen behind him, wide awake. Hicks is then shown to be both awake and asleep in the following shots, and Apone even tells someone to wake Hicks up, when we can see he is already awake and laughing with the others. [This is all meant to demonstrate how seasoned a soldier Hicks is that he can "sleep" through the drop. At no point is he ever actually asleep, he's just very relaxed. He opens and closes his eyes as the conversation interests or disinterests him. Apone is making a joke about this.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
There is NO WAY that the entire crew of a Marine Transport is composed of two squads. When the Marines all go down to the surface, it's ALL the Marines, resulting in having to remote pilot the second landing craft down. As someone with over 20 years experience in the Military, I can safely say that this vessel would have a crew that would include -among others- a pilot, copilot, navigator, engineer, communications officer, medic, and several crew members to maintain the food and life support systems, various cargo loaders, drop ships, and weapons systems of the ship (which are visible in exterior shots). There is no way that a bunch of Privates would be qualified to do those tasks- their Military Occupation Specialties are 0300 series/combat related NOT support related. Those are apples and oranges. [This mistake makes several assumptions. The Sulaco demonstrably has enough automation to travel to LV-426 without a crew. So why crew her? The Corporation thinks that 2 squads are enough. 2 squads of Marines must have been enough to handle similar situations in the past. So why send a company or more? The Sulaco is entering a situation where there will be no hostile starships, so why man her weapons or provide a warship escort? Ferro, Gorman and Bishop provide the specialized skills deemed necessary for this mission. So why send more officers or techs? The company, always concerned about the bottom line, sent exactly what they thought was necessary and not a bit more.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
After they escape the planet, the nuke goes off, and they are back on the spaceship, where they should all be weightless, including the alien, and would be floating around on the ship, not walking around like they were on solid ground. This totally unscientific approach to the movie is annoying. [Well, you must just hate science fiction, then. Practically every sci-fi film set in space features a ship or station with artificial gravity. This is a fictional technology, as are faster-than-light drives, hibernation pods and androids made in human form, all of which feature in the Alien series of films, all of which are unscientific and all of which presumably annoy you as well. Unfortunately for your sense of scientific indignation, the use of a fictional technology in a science fiction film is not only not a mistake, it's practically a requirement.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Vasquez goes to weld the piece of pipe back in place part of it has already been welded. Look at the right of the screen. The piece has already been tack welded before she fires up the torch. [It's not tack welding seen at the right, it's slag from the torch cutting.]
Edit Time
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.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez Time
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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit 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).]
Edit 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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit Corrected by johnrosa Time
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'.]
Edit Corrected by johnrosa
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.]
Edit Time
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.]
Edit Corrected by Soylent Purple
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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit
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.]
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