Xenomorph: The Creature From the Alien Films

The xenomorph is a predatory creature that reproduces by implanting an embryo in a living host, and it is the monster the whole Alien series is built around. The cycle runs from egg to facehugger, from facehugger to a young alien that bursts from the chest, and from there to a fast growing adult. In Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, the crew of the Nostromo meets that cycle inside a derelict ship on a small moon, where a chamber is full of egg like organisms. The stages have their own explainer at xenomorph life cycle.

The name depends on the credits. The films list the creature as Alien and as Xenomorph. Bolaji Badejo is credited as Alien in Alien (1979), Tom Woodruff Jr. as Alien in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, and Trevor Newlin as Xenomorph in Alien: Romulus. The family also includes the queen (covered at alien queen), the neomorphs of Alien: Covenant, the Predalien of Requiem, the pale hybrid of Alien Resurrection and the hybrid created with the Z-01 fluid in Romulus.

Where does it come from? The films give several answers and none of them closes the question. Alien (1979) shows a derelict vessel with the fossilized remains of a giant pilot and a field of eggs. AVP: Alien vs. Predator shows Predators breeding Xenomorphs as prey inside a pyramid buried under Antarctic ice. Prometheus (2012) ends with a new creature bursting from a dead Engineer's chest, which points toward the monster of the original film. Alien: Covenant adds the android David, who releases a pathogen and later plans to use alien embryos on sleeping colonists. Treat each as that film's account of the origin, not a settled canon for the creature.

The xenomorph is credited in six films: Alien (1979), Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Alien: Covenant and Alien: Romulus. Its role shifts from an unknown threat to a weapon the company wants, then to a species other characters try to breed, farm or study. That story can be followed film by film, in the order of release, as set out in alien movies in order.

In alien 1979 the crew of the Nostromo lands to investigate a transmission. Dallas, Kane and Lambert find the eggs, and a creature leaps onto Kane's face. It later falls off and dies, and Kane seems to recover, but during a meal a young alien bursts from his chest and escapes into the ship. It grows quickly and kills Brett, then Dallas in the air ducts, and later Parker and Lambert. Ripley learns that the company's secret orders put bringing the creature back ahead of the crew, and she ends by throwing it out of the shuttle airlock.

In aliens 1986, directed by James Cameron, the moon LV-426 has been settled by colonists who have gone silent. Colonial Marines go in and are ambushed in the nest, and Burke is revealed to want embryos for profit. Ripley finds Newt in the hive and faces the queen. In alien 3 (1992), directed by David Fincher, a facehugger has reached an animal in the prison on Fiorina 161, and the alien that bursts out of it kills inmates and the prison officials. Ripley learns she carries a Queen embryo.

In alien resurrection (1997), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, scientists clone Ripley and remove the queen, and mercenaries deliver frozen humans to serve as hosts. The aliens break out, and the queen, now able to give live birth, produces a human looking hybrid. The two crossover films, AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), have their pages in the Predator franchise. They put the creature in an Antarctic pyramid and in the town of Gunnison, Colorado, where a Predalien escapes.

In alien covenant (2017) the creatures that grow from spores on a distant planet are called neomorphs. In alien romulus (2024), directed by Fede Álvarez, a group of young salvagers boards the derelict Renaissance station. A facehugger impregnates Navarro, the creature that hatches hunts the group, and the Z-01 fluid made from facehuggers leads to a human and xenomorph hybrid.

The xenomorph is defined by the people who hunt it, study it or try to profit from it, and the main figure on the other side is ellen ripley. She faces it in the first four main films, and in Alien 3 she carries a Queen embryo, while in Alien Resurrection her clone, Ripley 8, carries alien traits including acidic blood. The company, Weyland-Yutani, is the other constant. The orders Ripley uncovers in Alien (1979) put the creature ahead of the crew, Burke tries to bring back embryos in Aliens, and a team arrives for the embryo at the end of Alien 3.

The androids sit between those two sides. Ash, the science officer of the Nostromo, lets the crew back aboard and carries out the company's orders. Bishop helps save Newt in Aliens. David releases a pathogen, infects Oram with an embryo and plans to use embryos on the sleeping colonists in Covenant. The wider story of those machines is covered at alien androids. In Romulus, Andy changes loyalties when a chip from the science android Rook is installed, and that shift runs through the second half of the film.

There are smaller relationships too. Newt is the one colony survivor in Aliens. Elizabeth Shaw cuts a squid like creature out of herself in prometheus movie, and rain alien romulus fights the hunting creature on the Renaissance station. In the crossover films the relationship is with the Predators, who treat the Xenomorphs as prey and as a rite of passage.

The cat is a special case. Jones, the Nostromo's cat, survives Alien (1979) and flies out with Ripley in the shuttle. The films give no stated reason for that, so the question of why Xenomorphs ignore cats has no official answer.

The xenomorph is destroyed or driven off at the end of almost every film, but the species survives the series because someone always has an embryo, a nest or a plan. In Alien (1979) Ripley opens the shuttle airlock and the creature is thrown into space. In Aliens she uses a power loader to push the queen out of an airlock. In Alien 3 the creature is lured toward the foundry, where Ripley sets off the sprinklers and the sudden cooling kills it, and Ripley then throws herself into the furnace with the Queen embryo inside her.

In Alien Resurrection, Ripley lets her acidic blood eat a small hole in a window, and the hybrid is sucked out into space. In AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Lex and Scar drag the Queen over a cliff with a chain tied to a water tank, and a Predalien bursts from Scar's body on the departing ship. In Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem a tactical nuclear weapon dropped by an F-22 Raptor destroys Gunnison and the remaining creatures, and Colonel Stevens hands Wolf's plasma pistol to Ms. Yutani.

In Alien: Covenant, Daniels and Tennessee eject a newly grown creature into space, while David secretly carries embryos aboard the Covenant for the sleeping colonists. In Alien: Romulus, Andy kills the xenomorph that hatched from Navarro, and Rain throws the Z-01 hybrid out into the planet's rings, where it breaks apart. The status of the species is therefore unresolved. No film shows it wiped out, and the next Alien title in development is a separate project from Aaron Guzikowski, according to TheWrap, with no release date. The Romulus sequel is covered at alien romulus 2.

In my opinion, the strongest xenomorph scenes are the ones where the creature is hard to see or hard to stop, and the most useful way to compare them is by how each film makes the threat feel different. The chestburster at the meal in Alien (1979) works because the crew is relaxed and Kane seems to have recovered, so the shock arrives with no warning. The hunt in the air ducts that kills Dallas is a good example of a practical set piece built around a confined space.

Aliens trades that dread for scale. Ripley in the power loader facing the queen is the film's best known image, and it could be argued that it is the moment the series changed from horror to action. Alien 3 goes the other way, with a creature running through a prison that has no real weapons, and the molten lead and sprinkler sequence is one of the most inventive kills in the saga. Alien: Romulus gives the acid blood its best use, when Rain cuts the gravity so that she can fire on the swarm without the acid damaging the hull.

Is the xenomorph stronger than a Predator? The crossover films do not give a clean answer. In AVP: Alien vs. Predator, two Predators die and the Xenomorphs are bred as prey for a rite of passage, but the Predators are still the ones who set the terms. In Requiem, Wolf and the Predalien kill each other, and it takes a nuclear bomb to finish the job. My own reading is that the Xenomorph wins on numbers and the Predator on equipment, which means the result depends on the film, not on any rule of the world.