The Original Ending for Alien Would Have Ruined the Entire Franchise

1979’s Alien almost had a very different, and far worse, ending that could have derailed the Alien franchise that followed the movie. Set in the 22nd century, Ridley Scott’s Alien centers on the crew of the space mining cargo ship the Nostromo, who encounter a monstrous extraterrestrial creature on their trip home (the alien later dubbed a “Xenomorph” in James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens). The creature slaughters the entire crew of the Nostromo, with only Ellen Ripley, played by a then-unknown Sigourney Weaver, escaping with her life. The success of Alien kickstarted the ongoing Alien franchise, which has also been the subject of comic books, video games, streaming television with the upcoming Hulu series Alien Earth, and even crossed over with another famous 20th Century Fox alien creature in the Aliens vs. Predator franchise. And all of it might never have happened if the original ending of Alien had been used.

As with many movies, the ending of Alien wasn’t set in stone when the movie first entered production, with Ridley Scott proposing a very different and far more grim ending to 20th Century Fox. While the ending was never filmed, Scott spoke of it in an interview with EW in 2017, and it would have likely heavily reshaped the Alien franchise – if not ended before it even began.

Alien‘s Original Ending Explained

After Ripley escapes with her cat, Jonesy, on the Nostromo’s escape ship just before the interstellar cargo freighter explodes, she at first breathes a sigh of relief that the monstrous alien creature who decimated her entire crew has been eliminated. However, as Ripley prepares for to re-enter cryosleep and await rescue, she is startled and horrified to discover the Xenomorph has stowed aboard the escape ship, with Ripley then successfully blowing open the ship’s air lock, causing the Xenomorph to be sucked out into the vacuum of space. Though the Xenomorph holds on to the sides of the ship’s doorway, Ripley fires a harpoon that knocks the Xenomorph out, with the creature then being roasted by fire from the ship’s thrusters. Scott’s original ending for Alien would have played out more or less the same up to the point of Ripley harpooning the Xenomorph. However, this would have proven to be ineffective against the alien, who then manages to pull itself back into the ship and, in Ridley Scott’s words to EW, “It comes forward and it slams through her mask and rips her head off.”

The never-filmed alternate ending of Alien gets even wilder from there, with the Xenomorph then approaching the ship’s controls and speaking into the radio, saying “I’m signing off. Hopefully, they’ll pick me up” in the voice of Tom Skerritt’s Captain Dallas. Per Scott, he pitched this original ending for Alien over the phone, and the studio swiftly threatened to fire him from the movie, leading to Alien‘s ending being changed to have Ripley prevail. While the response of 20th Century Fox’s executives may have been on the aggressive side, there is plenty to indicate that the ending change was still the right call to make.

RELATED: How To Watch the Alien Movies in Order (Including Alien: Romulus)

Alien’s Original Ending Would Have Had Massive Ramifications

It isn’t uncommon in horror movies for the rug to get pulled out from under the protagonists at the last minute, with the villain winning in one last terrifying scare. However, hindsight being 20/20, Alien’s original ending versus the one it went with shows a real fork in the road for where the Alien franchise could have gone. The event of Ripley’s death wouldn’t necessarily have prevented any further movies in the Alien Universe from ever being made, with Ridley Scott’s prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant showing there’s plenty of Alien stories to tell without the involvement of Ripley. However, the movie’s direct sequel Aliens is regarded not only as a classic of sci-fi and action but as the best of the Alien franchise by many Alien fans (including yours truly). You can throw Aliens and virtually every Alien movie not set before the original into the recycling bin, if Ripley had never made it out alive.

Moreover, Scott’s original ending would have taken the movie out on a bizarre twist that completely undercuts the spine-tingling tone of everything that came before it. The Xenomorph suddenly not only having the ability to speak, but the ability to mimic the voice of specific humans, would have been wild. While much of the xenomorphs’ mythos – including their Facehugger-spawning eggs being laid by the queen – isn’t established until Aliens, the original Xenomorph doesn’t show the slightest indication of being able to speak. On top of being a generally crushing experience for viewers, the abandoned ending of Alien would have likely been a “Jump the Shark” moment on par with the wild unrealized original plans for Scott’s Gladiator II. Fortunately, Alien ended up heading down the path toward a brighter future of nightmare storytelling.

The Alien Ending Change Was for the Best

The gloomy tone of Alien would have made Ripley’s demise a particularly tough pill to swallow; moreover, it would have robbed sci-fi fandom and cinema of a great legacy franchise. Not just the equally iconic Aliens, but the franchise’s past and present bridge Alien: Romulus, and maybe even the Aliens vs. Predator crossovers. That’s not counting Sigourney Weaver’s run as Ripley, which established one of the greatest sci-fi and/or horror heroines of all time. The transformation Ripley experiences from Alien to Aliens, in particular, would be a great storytelling loss of a deeply traumatized survivor becoming a warrior with an iron will. Alien concluding with the Xenomorph sending out a phony transmission in the voice of Dallas would have ended the movie on a whimper, and likely would’ve become a punchline in later years.

By keeping so much about the Xenomorph unknown and mysterious, Alien is the kind of movie that is strengthened by elements it left unexplained being expanded upon and evolved in subsequent entries in the series. While Alien certainly tells a standalone story, it’s now chapter one in a sci-fi and horror movie legacy that it simply would not have had as a one-and-done horror tale with a downer ending. Sometimes, horror movies really stick the landing when the villain wipes out all of the protagonists, and other times, it’s best for the good guys to win. Alien is an example of the latter, and its original ending shows how much that could have changed for the worse.

The Alien movies are available to stream on Hulu and Disney+, and Alien: Earth will debut on Hulu this summer.