We’re now six movies deep in the “Alien” franchise (including the forthcoming “Alien: Covenant,” not including “Alien vs. Predator”) and as Ridley Scott has said himself, it’s the kind of property that could go on forever. However, had things gone differently during the making of the original film, it’s arguable that might not have even been a sequel, let alone multiple films.
While die hard fans may already know this story, some might not realize that Scott had initially pitched a much more brutal finale to “Alien,” one that studio executives turned down. We all know that in the finale, Sigourney Weaver harpoons the Alien into outer space. But in Scott’s dark imagination, he thought that maybe it wouldn’t have been enough to kill it.
“I thought that the alien should come in, and Ripley harpoons it and it makes no difference, so it slams through her mask and rips her head off,” he said.
“After that, the tentacles of the alien would’ve been seen pressing buttons on the dashboard. “It would mimic Captain Dallas [Tom Skerritt] saying, ‘I’m signing off,’ ” Scott added.
The director says his finale was “a bit Hitchcock,” and concedes that maybe it’s better they didn’t go that way. However, one can only assume that David getting his read ripped off by the Engineer in “Prometheus,” was Scott’s way of finally making the scene he wanted to do in the first “Alien” movie.