Movies - TV
Alien's Contract Forced Ridley Scott To Make Film Scenes He Knew Would Never Make The Cut
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
In the director's cut of "Alien," released in theaters in 2003, a previously deleted scene revealed a queen was initially not part of the xenomorph canon. This scene, as revealed by "Alien" actor Tom Skerritt in a 2019 interview with RogerEbert.com's Peter Sobczynski, was not intended to be included in the final cut, but had to be shot anyway for contractual reasons.
When it came to shooting the now classic, “Alien,” director Ridley Scott was more concerned with the pacing and tone of the movie rather than the lore. However, he still had to shoot additional scenes that were written in the script because he was contractually required to, even though he knew it would disrupt the speed and sense of panic.
Skerritt said the scene where his character Arthur Dallas was cocooned against the wall originally had footage of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley “pulling out electronics” and stopping to look at a cat before finding Arthur, who pleads with her to kill him. Thankfully, it was taken out in the original cut where Ripley just makes a dash, only to be disrupted by cocooned Arthur.