Alien
Alien mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the search party goes into the boneship, they are wearing full space suits, and hoods under their helmets. When Kane's helmet is first cut off, he has no hood on. (00:36:45)

Alien mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Ripley is heading towards the Shuttle towards the end, just before she finds Jonesy, there is a POV shot where the camera is walking towards a ladder. If you look at the floor you can see the dolly that the camera moves on. (01:36:05)

Alien mistake picture

Continuity mistake: While Parker is decapitating Ash with the fire extinguisher his T-shirt is not torn, just after he says "Ash is a goddamn robot" his T-shirt is now torn and held together with a safety pin. (01:23:20)

Will

Alien mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the crew is chiding Parker for Brett saying nothing but 'Right' all the time, Brett's cigarette is first short, then long, then short again.

Alien mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Kane is struggling on the table shortly before the alien rips through his chest, just before the first patch of blood appears, his T-shirt rides up and something strapped to his chest can be seen. This is some sort of pack containing fake blood that discharges onto his T-shirt. (Best viewed in slow motion.) (00:55:40)

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Continuity mistake: When Lambert deactivates Ash by using a cattleprod, you will notice that she is wearing brown cowboy boots. Minutes later as the Alien goes to wrap its tail round the back of her legs, she is now wearing a sneaker - though you only see the toe cap it is clearly not a brown cowboy boot. (01:23:55 - 01:33:40)

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Character mistake: When Ripley is talking to "mother" by typing, it types "Emergency command overide 100375". "Override" should be spelt with two R's. (01:19:34)

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

Alien mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Near the start, when Dallas is at the entrance to Mother, one of the lights to his left, the fifth one down from the ceiling, is not lit. The next shot from inside Mother looking out shows that light is now lit. This exact same thing happens a second time when Ripley is entering mother later in the movie. These two scenes must have been shot at the same time. (00:08:20 - 01:18:35)

luchador

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: That light totally had enough time to light between the frames, because it was hidden by the sliding door for a brief moment. Lights were lit one at the time, not all at once, so this one starts to shine just a little bit later than all the others, that's it.

I consider this a valid mistake and the correction is a stretch. The lights only took about 2 seconds to light up, but she's at the door for almost 3.5 seconds after they're on and the last light did nothing. Then in the half second it took the door to open, the last light is now on.

Bishop73

Character mistake: 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."

More mistakes in Alien

Ripley: Micro changes in air density, my ass.

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Trivia: Ripley abruptly yelling at Parker to "Shut up!" is not in the script. Fans and industry gossip have long speculated that this was Sigourney Weaver breaking character in frustration and she was in fact telling Yaphet Kotto to "shut up" so she can finish her lines. The sequels 'Aliens' and 'Alien 3' both feature scenes where one of the normally cooler-headed protagonists suddenly snaps at a ranting character to "shut up!" in apparent reference to this moment. (01:16:50)

TonyPH

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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

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