FAQ

Aboard the medical research vessel USM Auriga, Dr. Mason Wren (J.E. Freeman) and his team of scientists have succeeded in cloning Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) 200 years after her death in order to extract the Alien Queen from inside her and breed more aliens, using the crew of a hijacked transport as hosts. When two of the aliens manage to break out of their containment tank and release ten others, the scientists and crew of the Auriga evacuate, leaving behind Wren, Ripley, and a motley crew of space pirates to deal with the creatures on the ship, which has been automatically set on a course to Earth.

Alien: Resurrection is the fourth movie in the Alien franchise, preceded by Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), and Alien³ (1992). The screenplay for Alien: Resurrection was written by Joss Whedon. Alien: Resurrection was followed by two more (unrelated) movies, Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)). Alien: Resurrection continues Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)'s story that begun in Alien, whereas AVP and AVPR were written as prequels/spin-offs to Alien. The later released prequels Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) officially disregard AVP and AVPR. Depending on whether Prometheus/Covenant and AVP/AVPR are considered mutually exclusive (which is debatable), this makes the canonical status of AVP and AVPR unclear, but most people agree that they are spinoffs rather than genuine Alien movies.

The tattoo signifies that she was the eighth attempt at cloning a model of Ripley from the original Ripley's DNA.

Although we never see it happen, a sample of Ripley's blood was taken just after she crash-landed on Fury 161 in Alien 3. By this time, she had already been impregnated with a Queen Alien embryo. One possible explanation is, as with a lot of Earth parasites/parasitoids, the Queen embryo takes nutrients from its host by fusing its bloodflow with that of the host. However, since the Aliens have concentrated acid for blood, this explanation does not hold up to scrutiny as a gestating alien embryo that merged its own bloodflow with a host would therefore be placing acid into the host's bloodstream. A more likely explanation is that the Queen shed cells that entered Ripley's body and bloodstream. It has been implied in previous movies that the Alien takes on characteristics of its host, so there is likely some form of DNA bonding during the embryonic phase (remember that the Aliens from Alien and Aliens that grew inside humans became bipedal, whereas the Alien from Alien 3, which grew in a mammalian animal, became quadrupedal). As a byproduct of this bonding, the blood samples used to clone Ripley contained DNA fragments of the Queen Alien. After centuries of degradation, the DNA would have become fragments that had to be properly sorted out and recombined into two separate sets of DNA, human and Alien (explaining the seven failed attempts before Ripley 8 was created).

The nuclear explosion at the end of Aliens (1986) could feasibly have destroyed the ship. In the first film, Lambert described LV-426 as "a planetoid, 1200 kilometers (in diameter)", which is relatively small (Earth's moon's diameter is almost three times larger). In the extended edition of Aliens, when Newt's family explores a region of LV-426 and finds the Derelict Ship, they drive there in a futuristic looking wheeled vehicle, suggesting the ship is not in the direct vicinity of the colonists' base (Hadley's Hope). Although it is not clear just how far the ship is from the nuclear explosion, Bishop referred to the explosion as having a blast radius of 30 kilometers (18.1 miles) and causing "a cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska" (which is over 200,000 sq kilometers). The Derelict Ship may or may not have been outside the range of the blast radius, but the area of destruction of a nuclear explosion goes way beyond its direct blast radius, as violent pressure waves can also contribute to indirect damage. So, if the intense heat and fire of the blast did not incinerate the eggs, the radiation and pressure wave may have destroyed the ship and the eggs within. Also, General Perez states "Ellen Ripley died trying to wipe this species out. For all intents and purposes; she succeeded," which supports the assumption that no eggs from the derelict have survived. In the 200 years since Ripley's death in Alien³ (1992), considering that the military was so interested in the alien species, it may be assumed that at least one mission was conducted to LV-426 to investigate the derelict ship site and see if any eggs were viable.

Another possibility that is not directly supported in the films may be that the colonists on LV-426 finally recognised the danger of the Derelict Ship and its eggs, and destroyed it before they were incapacitated by the Alien infestation. There is no evidence for this scenario in any of the movies, but given the fact that the colonists used seismic charges against the Aliens, they certainly had the means to destroy the Derelict Ship.

No explanation was given but most viewers assume that it's just an error made by the writer or actor. In keeping with the storyline, either Gediman (Brad Dourif) is mistaken, the name has changed after 200 years, or Fury 16 is a nickname for the original Fiorina "Fury" 161. It's also possible that Dr. Gediman is testing Ripley to see whether she has memories from Fury 161.

Weyland-Yutani is mentioned by Dr. Wren when he said "Weyland-Yutani, Ripley's former employers. They once had contracts with the military." In a deleted scene included in the Special Edition, Wren says that Weyland Yutani was bought out by Wal-Mart (yes, that Wal-Mart).

When asked at gunpoint, Wren mentions there are twelve more Aliens in addition to the one that was just killed, making a total of thirteen. Strange, considering that the crew of the Betty delivered only eight bodies to be used as hosts. Since each host can only deliver one Alien, and one of the hosts (Purvis) had not even "hatched" yet, there should be only seven Aliens. While never clarified in the movie, the novelization explains that the Betty crew actually delivered twenty captive hosts; the eight seen on screen constituted just one of several trips made back and forth from the Betty to the restricted laboratories. Despite this, we only ever see eight eggs placed in front of eight human hosts.

According to the FX crew, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet didn't like the static, mechanical appearances of the previous films' eggs and wanted them to be more interesting. Possible explanations based on the storyline have included: (1) the cloning process changed the mechanics of the eggs, or (2) the egg is a living entity in itself with basic perceptional senses such that it can sense the presence of a nearby host. Thus, the vibrations made by the crew of the Betty as they surface from the flooded kitchen awakened the eggs and made them stir before opening.

Yes. The "Three Laws of Robotics" were created by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and feature in many of his novels, but have no bearing on the android characters in the Alien franchise. This was made abundantly clear in the first film when Ash directly attempted to kill Ripley and also offered no assistance in neutralizing the Alien thus allowing it to kill off the Nostromo crew one by one. Even if the Three Laws of Robotics were relevant in Alien Resurrection, Call did not see Ripley as a human, as she repeatedly pointed out that Ripley was "one of them" and would turn on the others at any time. Not viewing Ripley as human would have allowed Call to terminate her without violating any of the Laws. In addition, Asimov's Foundation series of novels devised a "zeroth" Law of Robotics: "A robot cannot harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. This law overrides the First Law." According to this restriction, Call could kill Ripley if doing so would prevent harm to humanity as a whole.

The films were made and released in the order of (1) Alien (1979), (2) Aliens (1986), (3) Alien³ (1992), (4) Alien: Resurrection, (5) Alien vs. Predator (2004), (6) Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), (7) Prometheus (2012), and (8) Alien: Covenant (2017). In terms of the stories' timeline (and excepting Predator 2 (1990) which is set in 1997 and features an Alien skull glimpsed amongst the Predators' hunting trophies) the chronological order and timeline is of (1) 2004 - Alien vs Predator, (2) 2004 - Alien vs Predator: Requiem, (3) 2093 - Prometheus, (4) 2103 - Alien: Covenant, (5) 2122 - Alien, (6) 2179 - Aliens, (7) 2179 - Alien 3, and (8) 2380 - Alien: Resurrection.

According to the introduction by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the Special Edition is not a Director's Cut. The theatrical cut is his favored and authorized version. The Special Edition is mainly made for completists who really want to know everything. Thus, the Special Edition only features more background-knowledge about characters, which were cut from the theatrical version with a reason, since they're probably not very interesting to non Alien-fans. It is around seven minutes longer than the theatrical cut and contains some extended or alternate scenes:

* The intro is different. Instead of the close-ups of the failed Ripley clones inside a tank, it features a semi-comical sequence with a space pilot squashing a tiny insect that has jaws like an Alien.

* Ripley's surgery scene is longer and she wakes up just after the Alien embryo has been removed.

* Ripley's picture test scene is longer and she has an emotional reaction when shown a picture of a little girl.

* Ripley eating a meal in the mess hall with Dr Geidman is longer.

* The introductory scenes of the Betty crew are longer and in a different order.

* The private scene with Elgyn and Perez is longer.

* The scene where the crew find Purvis amongst all the other dead hosts is longer.

* Distefano and Christie discuss weapons before they begin the underwater swim.

* Call's dialogue while accessing the Father computer is different, and there is additional dialogue between her and Ripley both inside and after they leave the chapel.

* After the Auriga crashes, the ending is extended with the Betty actually landing on Earth and Call and Ripley sat among the ruins of an old city that looks like Paris, deciding what to do next.