Screenplay by Larry Ferguson
David Giler
Walter
Hill
Produced by Gordon Carroll
David Giler
Walter
Hill
Directed by David Fincher
Cast List:
Sigourney Weaver Ripley
Charles S. Dutton Dillon
Charles Dance Clemens
Paul McGann Golic
Brian Glover Andrews
Ralph Brown Aaron
Danny Webb Morse
Unused Script
FADE IN:
DEEP SPACE – THE FUTURE
The silent field of stars – eclipsed by the dark bulk of an
approaching ship.
ANGLE ON THE HULL
A towering cliff of metal, Sulaco.
TRACKING DOWN the line of empty, open capsules. Frozen twilight. The final four capsules are sealed, lids in place.
ANGLE – INSIDE CAPSULE
NEWT, then RIPLEY. HICKS next, his head and chest bandaged. Then BISHOP in his caul of plastic. But the lid of Bishop's capsule is misted with hothouse condensation.
CLOSER
A tear of fluid streaks the condensation.
An alarm SOUNDS.
A monitor begins to scroll data.
TIGHT ON MONITOR
"TROOP TRANSPORT SULACO
CMC 846A/BETA
MISSION/LV-426 / RETURN
STATUS RED
TREATY VIOLATION
REF: #99AG558L5
CAUSE: NAVIGATIONAL ERROR"
Bland feminine voice of the ship's computer, as the alarm continues
to SOUND.
COMPUTER
Attention. Due to failure of navigational circuitry,
Sulaco has entered a sector claimed by the Union of Progressive Peoples.
Auxiliary systems are now on line. Course corrected. Hardwired protocols
prevent, repeat, prevent arming of nuclear warheads in the absence of
Diplomatic Override, Decryption Standard Charlie Nine. On present course,
Sulaco will exit the U.P.P. sector at nineteen hundred hours fifty three point
eight minutes.
EXT. SULACO
The ship slides past beneath us. A U.P.P. interceptor descends INTO FRAME, matching course
and speed with Sulaco. The interceptor settles on Sulaco like a wasp.
INT. INTERCEPTOR
Three commandos climb into spacesuits. The Leader opens a hatch in
the deck, revealing one of Sulaco's airlocks. FIRST
COMMANDO, a young Vietnamese woman,
scrambles down and attaches magnetic units to the airlock. SECOND COMMANDO studies a monitor, tapping out a sequence
on a keyboard. First Commando gestures from hatch: no good. Second Commando
tries again. A grating SOUND as
Sulaco's airlock begins to open.
INT. SULACO – CARGO LOCK
Darkness. Armed commandos climb through opening and descend a ladder. Reaching the deck, they fan out, weapons ready. Their leader examines the damaged dropship. First Commando gestures urgently. She's found something.
Bishop's legs, broken, grotesquely twisted, still in fatigues, the
white android blood clotted into powder. First and Second Commandos exchange
looks through their faceplates.
COMPUTER
Attention. Integrity breach, Cargo Lock 3. Security
alert. Integrity breach, B Deck...
INT. HYPERSLEEP VAULT – LEADER'S POV
The chilly aisle of capsules.
Commandos move down the line, guns poised. They peer in at Newt,
Ripley, and Hicks, but the lid of Bishop's capsule is pearl-white. The Leader
tries the controls at the foot of the capsule, where green and red indicators
glow.
Nothing happens. He opens a panel, finds an emergency lever, tries
it. The green indicators wink off. The lid rises. A dense pale mist flows out,
spilling over the edges of the capsule, revealing the ovoid of a gray Alien
egg. Rooted in the center of Bishop's synthetic entrails, the egg instantly
ejaculates a Face-hugger, which strikes the leader's faceplate in a spray of
acid. He screams, blinded by the acid, grappling with the thing as it begins to
force its way into his helmet, its tail lashing furiously. Clawing at it, he
plunges blindly back down the aisle, stumbling, smashing into the empty
capsules. He vanishes through the entranceway, his screams giving way to
frenzied gagging SOUNDS.
The First Commando scrambles after him.
INT. CARGO LOCK
The Leader writhes on the deck beside the main cargo lock. First Commando rushes in, crouches beside him, takes careful two-handed aim with her sidearm – she FIRES, attempting to kill the face-hugger without hitting the Leader. The face-hugger EXPLODES in a gout of acid; ragged holes burn through the side of his helmet. First Commando frantically works the lock controls.
As the inner lock opens, she shoves the leader over the edge with
her foot.
EXT. SULACO
Helmetless, headless, trailing a cloud of blood and acid, the Leader tumbles through space.
INT. CARGO LOCK
Eyes of the First Commando through her faceplate. Beat. Something moves, behind her. She spins, bringing up her gun. Backlit in the entrance to the vault, a black, multi-armed figure. The beam from her lamp finds it – the Second Commando, with Bishop in his arms.
DISSOLVE TO:
IN DEEP SPACE – VARIOUS ANGLES
A station the size of a small moon, and growing; unfinished sections of hull are open to vacuum. A vast, irregular structure, the result of the shifting goals of successive administrations.
MOVE IN on hundreds of windows – most of them dark. A light comes on in one
of the windows.
A phone is RINGING. The cubicle, terminally sloppy, resembles the nest of a high-tech
hamster, not much larger than a berth of a train. The walls are plastered with
a wistful collage of posters, ads, photos torn from magazines: beaches, desert,
the Grand Canyon, redwoods, blue sky – a hedge against claustrophobia and the
emptiness of space.
TULLY, sitting up in bed, knuckling sleep from
his eyes, wincing at the light; he slaps the phone console and the glum face of
OPERATIONS OFFICER JACKSON (female)
appears. She wears a nylon baseball cap with a computer light-pen attached to
the bill.
'Morning, Tully.
TULLY
Morning? Jesus, Jackson, it's the middle of my
downtime...
CLOSE ON THE CONSOLE SCREEN
ANGLE
The room behind Jackson is Achorpoint's nerve-center, the Ops Room.
JACKSON
None of us up here in the Ops Room have seen downtime
for a while, Tully. A Marine transport came in on automatic sixteen hours ago.
She bobs her head as she speaks, using the pen on her cap to move a cursor on a screen in front of her.
JACKSON
(continuing)
The Sulaco. Departed gateway four years ago with a
compliment of fifteen. A dozen marines, an android, a company representative,
and the former warrant officer of a merchant vessel...
TULLY
So?
JACKSON
So, the bio-readout gives us the warrant officer, one
– count him – marine, and a nine-year-old girl. Makes you wonder what happened
out there, doesn't it?
TULLY
So ask 'em. Wake 'em up and ask 'em. Them, not me.
JACKSON
But that's the good news, Tully. Three hours before
Sulaco turned up, we docked a priority shuttle out of Gateway. Two passengers.
Milisci, Tully. Weapons Division.
TULLY
That the bad news?
JACKSON
They want the ship pulled in, with full biohazard
precautions, by oh-eight-hundred hours. BioLab techs are priority for the deck
squad. That's you Tully.
The phone screen goes blank.
TULLY
(heartfelt)
Shit.
He begins to fumble through his sleeping bag, looking for his
clothes – disturbing SPENCE, a young technician, who sits up groggily, hugging the bag to her
breasts.
SPENCE
What? What is it?
TULLY
It's called the military-industrial complex; it's
called my ass out of bed; it's called jerking me around... Any way you wanna
call it, it's the same bullshit...
INT. CORRIDOR
Tully, groggy and irritated, emerges from his cubicle, wearing a battered leather flight jacket, its sleeves plastered with embroidered logo-patches for various products. His photo, name, job description, and number are slotted on the door in a transparent envelope – TULLY, CHARLES A. TECH-5, TISSUE CULTURE LAB.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. ANCHORPOINT – DRY DOCK
A plain of gray steel, the size of several carrier decks, walls lost
in dark and distance. Service vehicles lumber past in the b.g. Massive floods
on towers of raw scaffolding backlight twenty waiting figures, the Deck Squad.
Their spacesuits are white, clinical; over these they wear
disposable Biohazard Envelopes of filmy translucent plastic. Some are Colonial
Marines, armed with pulse-rifles or flame-throwers. Others are scientists and
technicians, carrying recording and sampling gear. Their voice, over
helmet-radio are furred with STATIC. Something CLANGS and BOOMS overhead, metal
thunder.
OFFICER (V.O.)
Deck Squad brace for pressure drop. She's in the
cradle. She's coming in.
A sudden WIND rushes across the deck, then dies. RUMBLE overhead as a monstrous hanger door rolls slowly open, revealing the
naked stars. The dark hull of Sulaco blots out the stars as it descends.
OFFICER (V.O.)
(continuing)
Entry team to secondary cargo lock.
A cherry-picker vehicle, with extended boom, WHINES up to Sulaco.
The lock SIGHS open on darkness.
BUZZ of static, indistinct RADIO exchanges, as a half-dozen lights play over
the drop-ship, the walls of the lock. Tully enters, stares around, eyes wide
through his faceplate. Beside his is a MARINE with a pulse-rifle – obviously psyched for combat.
TULLY
Lights, how come they got no lights?
MARINE
Hey, man...
He shines his light on a blackened scar on the bulkhead.
MARINE
(continuing)
Lookit that. Been some action in here...
TULLY
Action?
MARINE
Man, what the fuck you supposed to be doing here?
TULLY
Forging a new home for mankind in the depths of space.
The Marine isn't amused. Tully raises an instrument; it makes a SUCKING noise.
TULLY
(continuing)
Collecting atmosphere samples.
MARINE
So just do it, right.
He move away.
TULLY
Sure.
But he doesn't want to be alone; hustles after the Marine.
OFFICER (V.O.)
Technician Tully to the hypersleep vault, atmosphere
sample...
MARINE
Sounds like you.
TULLY
Yeah.
MARINE
Let's not keep the man waiting.
INT. ENTERANCE TO HYPERSLEEP VAULT
The Marine OFFICER holds up a tracker – one of the small motion-sensors familiar from the
previous film. Beside him are TWO MORE MARINES. The Officer raises the tracker and scans the face of the door.
EXTREME CLOSEUP
Of tracker screen: zero.
ANGLE
OFFICER
One sample, here.
SOUND of Tully's device sucking air.
(continuing)
Get another on the way in. Have they patched line in
yet?
SECOND MARINE
Yessir. Lights on in there.
The Officer presses a button.
The door slides open. Bright, white. The aisle. Empty. The row of
capsules. Tully's Marine is first through the door, gun ready, slow, careful.
Tully steps in after him, raises his instrument, takes a sample.
INT. HYPERSLEEP VAULT
The other two Marines move past Tully. Soft SCUFF of their boots on the
deck. Tully doesn't know quite what to do. Lowers his sampler, hesitates. The
first Marine reaches Newt's capsule. He lowers his rifle.
MARINE
(something startled, almost gentle in his voice)
They're here...
Eight inches of razor-sharp serrated tail plunges out through the
back of his suit as he's lifted off his feet by something we can't see. Ugly RIPPING noise as the ALIEN withdraws its stinger – blood tidily
contained by the translucent membrane of the biohazard envelope.
The stinger of a second Alien whips around the neck of one of the
other two Marines; the Alien is clinging to the ceiling. He screams. Tully's
Marine sags against the foot of Ripley's capsule, his arm across the controls –
the green indicator lights go out – as the first Alien lunges up INTO VIEW.
CLOSE
On the jaws.
ANGLE ON RIPLEY
Her eyes snap open.
RIPLEY'S POV
As the beast mounts her coffin, terminal nightmare.
ANGLE
RIPLEY
No-ooooooooooooooooooooo!
Her hands claw frantically at the smooth curve of the plastic
canopy.
The remaining Marine, crazy with adrenaline and terror, unleashes
his flame thrower. The first Alien and Ripley's capsule vanish in a napalm
fireball. The Marine spins, screaming incoherently, and liquid fire hoses the
second Alien, which drops its victim and falls burning into the deck.
The vault is an inferno. Ripley's capsule is sagging, melting.
DISSOLVE TO:
Is wheeled in under brilliant lamps. The waiting crisis team plug
bio-monitor leads and a HISSING air-supply line into sockets on the capsule. A technician with a small
hand-held power saw begins to cut away the heat-crazed canopy. Hands in
surgical gloves lift the canopy away.
Ripley lies curled in a tight fetal knot.
INT. ANCHORPOINT – MEDLAB QUARANTINE
A small white room, a white bed surrounded by medical gear. Hicks, in his underwear, is hunched on the edge of the bed, impatiently smoking a cigarette. The dressing on his head and shoulders have been changed. Spence enters. She wears a biohazard envelope over coveralls, bubble-goggles, a transparent filter-mask.
SPENCE
(lightly)
You know you can't smoke in here?
HICKS
Yes, ma'am.
He takes a puff.
SPENCE
I'm Spence. I'm not a medic, I'm from the tissue
culture lab. I have to get a sample.
She opens a small white case and takes out a gleaming cylinder.
SPENCE
(continuing)
Uh, just stick your thumb in here.
Hicks gives her a hard look, inserts his thumb; she touches a stud – SNIK! – he winces, look ruefully at his thumb.
SPENCE
(continuing)
Sorry.
(putting the tissue-sampler away)
You're the last one...
HICKS
(grabs her wrist)
The others. Ripley, Newt – they came through okay?
SPENCE
Who's Newt?
HICKS
The kid.
SPENCE
Rebecca. Rebecca's fine.
HICKS
Ripley?
SPENCE
(hesitates)
Ripley's fine, Hicks.
HICKS
Bishop. Where's Bishop?
SPENCE
(puzzled)
Bishop?
HICKS
The android.
SPENCE
(carefully, worried that she's gotten in over her head)
There were three of you. Three that I know of, anyway.
Maybe you should try to sleep now. You want the nurse? They can give you
something...
HICKS
(leaning forward, still gripping Spence's wrists)
Why haven't I been debriefed? Where's the brass?
SPENCE
All I know is, we've all been sleeping short hours since
your ship came in, soldier.
A CRASH from the corridor, a pained BELLOW, and Newt scuttles in, wearing a hospital gown. She backs into a
corner as a large ORDERLY rushes in,
clutching his right hand. Like Spence, he wears biohazard gear.
ORDERLY
Goddamn it! She bit me!
He starts for Newt. Hicks comes off the bed like he's mounted on springs, hand cocked for a trained blow. The Orderly backs off.
NEWT
(near hysteria)
Where's Ripley? Where is she?
HICKS
(straightens out of hand-to-hand crouch without losing any of the threat)
She's asking you a question.
ORDERLY
You looking to get yourself sedated, Corporal?
NEWT
Where is she?
HICKS
Now I'm asking you the question...
Spence yanks her mask down in a reflexive, very human gesture. Move slowly toward Newt, extending her hand.
SPENCE
Rebecca... Newt. Honey. It's okay. Ripley's going to
be okay. C'mon now, I'll take you, you can see her...
ORDERLY
Spence, there's no way –
He moves to stop them, but Hicks takes a very deliberate step forward.
INT. MEDLAB – ANOTHER ROOM
Ripley lies in a coma, monitored by assorted white consoles. Her forehead is taped with half a dozen small electrodes. Newt, expressionless, walks slowly to the bedside as Hicks and Spence look on.
SPENCE