Works with their own trivia pages:
Films:- Alien (1979)
- Aliens
- Alien³
- Alien Resurrection
- Alien vs. Predator
- Prometheus
- Alien: Covenant
- Alien: Romulus
Books:
TV Series:
Video Games:
Trivia for the franchise in general:
- Ascended Fanon:
- The term "xenomorph" is just a (deliberately) clunky way of saying "alien life form"; "xenos" means "strange" or "alien", and "morph" means "form" or "shape". It was spoken by Gorman in Aliens precisely because it made him seem awkward and out of his depth; it was never intended to be the name of the creature. If you think about it, if Gorman was familiar enough with the creature to call it by name, why would anyone be suprised to see it on the planet? Nonetheless, for some reason, this awkward moniker started being used in ancillary material as a specific name for the creature. While the canon writers held off for as long as they could, they finally decided to split the difference and, in Alien: Romulus, officially granted the creature the designation "Xenomorph XX121".
- Ron Cobb, who designed the "human" technology for the original Alien film and invented Weyland-Yutani (or as he had it, "Weylan-Yutani"), said that he envisioned Britain, which was going through a very troubled period in its history at the time, would eventually revive, and its monarchy would unify with that of Japan, creating a world power. The name "Weylan-Yutani" was meant to invoke the corporations British Leyland and Toyota. In 2019, science fiction writer Andrew E. C. Gaska, Disney's hired canon welder for the Alien franchise, made that speculation canon for the first time in the Alien RPG, as the Three World Empire.
- In the same work, Gaska also canonised the Union of Progressive Peoples, a communist superstate invented by William Gibson in his unused script for Alien³, and the monastic order created by Vincent Ward in his original script for the same film.
- He also canonised the worker caste, Aliens whose sole job is secreting the resin to create the hive, an idea conceived by James Cameron in an early script draft for Aliens but ultimately dropped.
- Based on a Dream: Not the film series' premise, but the creatures themselves. Their design is the work of H. R. Giger, who took them from his nightmares. The idea of the Alien impregnating its victims and then bursting out of their chests was conceived by Ronald Shusett after waking from a dream inspired by the pain from an illness of the intestines.
- Completely Different Title:
- Czechoslovakia: Intruder
- Hungary: The Eighth Passenger: Death
- Slovenia: Eighth Passenger
- Creator Backlash:
- Ridley Scott has stated for years that he feels the Xenomorphs have been done to death and that he wants to move the focus of the series away from it. He attempted to start a sister series focusing on the Engineers with Prometheus, but when this backfired he seemingly changed his mind with Alien: Covenant. Following Covenant's lacklustre reception, however, he reiterated his prior opinion regarding the Xenomorphs being "cooked" and expressed interest in having the sequel to Covenant focus more on David instead.
- Sigourney Weaver felt this way about the series. She didn't want to do another one after Aliens so she could move on to other projects. Ripley's death at the end of the third movie was included at her insistence, to make any further sequels starring her impossible. After that the writers had to resort to cloning the character, but she agreed to reprise the role again when Fox offered her an additional producer credit that would give her an 11 million dollar salary (which was more than the entire budget of the first filmnote ), and because she thought the Alien vs. Predator concept which was pitched around at the time sounded awful. They later made this spin-off as well anyway, and an even more awful sequel. She finally signed back on with Alien: Isolation because she thought it genuinely added something new to the franchise.
- Cash-Cow Franchise: Movies, books, comics, video games, toys, etc... Alien was probably only behind Star Wars as 20th Century Fox's one. Directly responsible for the issues that plagued Alien³, as to keep the cash flowing, Fox set out to make a release date, not a movie.
- Creator Recovery:
- With the lacklustre-to-negative reception of the third and fourth films and the Alien vs. Predator duology — the plans for the latter of which caused him to quit as the director of the third movie, Ridley Scott stated that he felt the Xenomorph was all played out, which was one of the reasons he went along with Damon Lindelof's rewrite of Prometheus. The fan disappointment of the movie's lack of Xenomorphs — and Scott's own dissatisfaction with how subsequent directors had portrayed the creatures — led to their inclusion in Alien: Covenant, and in interviews Scott lamented ever having left the Alien franchise and expressed the intent to make at least three more Alien films. Following Alien: Covenant's mixed reception, however, he reiterated his previous view that "the beast is cooked" and expressed interest in having the next film center around David and replacing the Xenomorphs with something else.
- Like Scott and James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver was unimpressed by FOX's decision to make a film based on the Alien vs. Predator crossover series, which contributed to her insistence that Ellen Ripley be killed off in the third movie. While she returned for the fourth movie and cameoed in the Alien: Isolation game, Neill Blomkamp's proposed fifth movie was what reignited her passion for the character and the franchise.
- Development Hell: Neill Blomkamp's fifth Alien movie was green-lit by Fox but put on hold pending the success of Alien: Covenant. Ridley Scott eventually stated that the project has been scrapped by FOX and wasn't much more than an outline to begin with and expressed his intent to retain creative control of the series and make Alien films until he dies; and Blomkamp himself noted in interviews that he was doubtful it would happen.
- Disowned Adaptation:
- Co-creator Ronald Shusett has criticized Prometheus for being the complete antithesis of the first movie. As with many fans, he's also not fond of Alien³ or Alien Resurrection.
- Ridley Scott deliberately de-canonized Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
- Enforced Method Acting: The Director’s Cut includes a scene where Lambert slaps Ripley in the face after the latter tried to lock the expedition crew out of the ship. Not only was the slap real, Sigourney Weaver had no idea Veronica Cartwright was actually going to hit her, and her stunned reaction was completely genuine.
- Fan Nickname: Inverted. The adult Xenomorph from the first movie was called "Big Chap" by the cast and crew due to his size; it has become widely used in the fandom to describe this particular creature and eventually appeared on merchandise.
- Flip-Flop of God:
- Whether Alien³ and Alien Resurrection are canon. In 2014, the Alien: Out of the Shadows trilogy of novels was officially recognized by Fox as canon to the Continuity Reboot of the franchise, but when the author of the second novel was going to disregard 3 and Resurrection, they made him include references to them. In a 2016 interview, Sigourney Weaver said that Alien 5 would be set in an Alternate Universe that "[runs] parallel" to the 3rd and 4th films, where Newt and Hicks survived.
- The origins of the Xenomorphs are a muddied mess even in official material. Are they a naturally-evolved species like in the Dark Horse comics and Alien vs. Predator crossovers? Are they a bioweapon created by the Space Jockeys/Engineers, like in the Fire and Stone comics, script for Alien Engineers, and the novelization of Alien: Covenant? Or are they a bioweapon created by David-8 as seen in the film version of Alien Covenant? The official Alien tabletop RPG muddies things even further by acknowledging all three origins as canon.
- The original 1988 Aliens comic series has flirted with this. Originally set as a comic sequel to Aliens, with a story that takes place several years after the events of the film and follows Ripley, Hicks and a teenaged Newt, the series swapped the latter two characters' names to Billie and Wilks after Hicks and Newt's deaths in the third film. The revised character names stood until 2018, when the original versions of the stories were republished for the first time in color during the 30th anniversary of the franchise, with a subsequent re-release retaining Hicks and Newt's names.
- God Never Said That: After Neill Blomkamp and Sigourney Weaver made ambiguous comments about the fifth film being a followup to the second movie in early 2015, sites began reporting that that the fifth movie was going to finally decanonize the controversial 3 and Resurrection-—long regarded as Fanon Discontinuity by many fans. Blomkamp eventually clarified that his statements had been taken out of context, and that the 3rd and 4th films were still canon, but concept art of an adult Newt makes the validity of that statement questionable - though Sigorney Weaver's statement that the fifth film would take place in an alternate timeline clears the issue.
- Inspiration for the Work: Dan O'Bannon, screenwriter of Alien, based the film on a subplot of his first feature film, Dark Star, in which a beach ball-shaped alien chases a a man around a space ship. The plotline is played for dark comedy, but O'Bannon decided to expand it into straight horror.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: The "Aliens" Mod for Quake was killed by Fox lawyers (creating the term "Foxed" for that situation), but of course that didn't stop it from being available online for many years afterwards.
- Life Imitates Art: The Alien being inspired by parasitic wasps becomes incredibly funny when a new species of said parasitic wasp was named after the Xenomorph due to physical resemblance, and its especially brutal method of reproduction.
- Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The franchise has had various special edition releases with unique items over the years, including a "Facehugger" VHS boxset in 1993 (which had copies of the first two films and The Making of Alien 3, pins, a t-shirt and a pass to the Alien War UK attraction), the "Alien Legacy" boxset in the late 90's (which had special collector cards and a mail-in offer for a bonus DVD), the "Alien Quadrilogy", which included the then-newly restored Assembly Cut for the third film and a boatload of extras, and the "Alien Anthology", which includes almost all the extras from all the preceding special edition boxset releases - with an optional collector's edition packaged in a model case designed by Sideshow Collectibles.
- The Merch: Kenner, McFarlane Toys, and NECA all did figures based on this, Predator, and Alien vs. Predator. In Kenner's case, there was Misaimed Merchandising going on as their figures are aimed at kids.
- Referenced by…: Has its own page.
- Role Reprise: In the French dub of the audiobooks of the Alien: Out of the Shadows trilogy, Tania Torrens reprised the role of Ellen Ripley.
- Science Imitates Art: The fossil wasp Xenomorphia is named after the titular creatures, due to the fact they were discovered to have parasitized fly pupa, similar to the parasitoid life-cycle of the Xenomorph aliens (a parasitoid life-cycle is common amongst living wasp species as well).
- What Could Have Been: See the franchise's page.