One of the most iconic endings in horror is the ending of Alien. Ellen Ripley defeats the beast, makes a final note of the event, and goes into cryosleep. It all leads into James Cameron’s 1986 classic Aliens, and the rest was history. But it didn’t always end up that way.
Alien director Ridley Scott recently unveiled to Entertainment Weekly his own ending for Alien. And it involved the titular creature tearing Ripley’s head clean off right before the credits roll.
“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. It would mimic Captain Dallas [Tom Skerritt] saying, ‘I’m signing off.’ The first executive from Fox arrived on set within 14 hours, threatening to fire me on the spot. So we didn’t do that.”
It would have completely changed the course of the series and perhaps cinematic history as we know it. A truly and endlessly perplexing thought.
Although in today’s time, that could have very easily happened. Horror movies tend to have down endings a little too often now, and Alien’s original ending would have fit right in.
But I think what would have made the ending most interesting is the thought of the Alien talking. It could have been cheesy, sure. But it also would have given us a much more mysterious and disturbing antagonist – one that isn’t bug-like, but ultimately intelligent.
Ultimately alien.
Source: EW
What do you think, would you have been interested in seeing this ending for Alien? Or are you glad that things ended up the way they did? Let us know in the comments section below!