Alien, a science-fiction action horror franchise, tells the story of humanity's ongoing encounters with Aliens (xenomorphs): a hostile, endoparasitoid, extraterrestrial species. Set between the 21st and 24th centuries over several generations, the film series revolves around a character ensemble's struggle for survival against the Aliens and against the greedy, unscrupulous megacorporation Weyland-Yutani.
The original series consists of four films, Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997), and revolves around Ellen Ripley's fight against the xenomorphs (aliens) as well as that of her clone. Ripley is the sole survivor of a xenomorph rampage on the space freighter Nostromo, which leads her to a series of conflicts with the species and Weyland-Yutani. Ripley's struggle is the plot of the original series.
The prequel series, Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), depicts humanity's genesis at the hands of an ancient extraterrestrial race known as the Engineers and the indirect creators of the xenomorphs. A deadly mutagen developed by the Engineers is discovered, which is weaponized by the android David 8, to recreate and perfect the previously long-extinct xenomorph strain. The evolution of the xenomorphs is the main plot of the prequel series.
Several novel series also continue the storylines of characters from the film series, including Alien: Out of the Shadows (2014), Aliens: Vasquez (2019), and Aliens: Bishop (2023). The video game Alien: Isolation (2014), the film Alien: Romulus (2024), and the television series Alien: Earth (2025) explore stand-alone storylines.
Overview
Introduced in Alien (1979)
Ellen Ripley
Ellen Louise Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the primary protagonist of the main Alien series. The mother of Amanda Ripley and a warrant officer on the Nostromo, she and the cat Jones are the sole survivors of the expedition. After putting herself and the cat in cryosleep, she is rescued fifty-seven years later and relieved of duty by Weyland-Yutani for the destruction of the Nostromo and her outlandish claims about the Alien. After communication is lost with LV-426, Ripley is sent with a unit of colonial marines on the Sulaco to investigate; the entire expedition, except Ripley, Corporal Hicks, the orphan Newt and the android Bishop, is lost. In cryosleep on the Sulaco, Ripley is impregnated with a queen by a facehugger Alien morph; this triggers a fire, which causes the ship to crash on the prison planet Fiorina 161, killing all aboard, save for Ripley. As the sole human survivor of the crash, Ripley helps the prisoners incarcerated on the planet to defeat an Alien created from an animal impregnated by a second facehugger. Weyland-Yutani arrives to claim the queen incubating in Ripley, prompting her to sacrifice herself by diving into the furnace.
Like the rest of the original ensemble, Ripley was written as a male character in the first draft of the screenplay. Writer Dan O'Bannon noted that the genders of the characters were interchangeable, providing more casting options. When Ridley Scott was brought on to direct Alien, he requested that the character be female, in juxtaposition with the Alien and to make her survival surprising. Broadway actress Sigourney Weaver was considered for the role of Lambert when Scott encouraged her to play Ripley. With the 1986 release of Aliens, Ripley became one of the most critically praised and influential female characters in film. John Scalzi, president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, wrote in a 2011 AMC Networks column that he considered the dynamic and relatable Ripley the best science-fiction character of all time. In 2008, the American Film Institute recognized Ripley in "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains" as the second-greatest female protagonist (behind Clarice Starling) and the eighth-greatest protagonist overall.
Arthur Dallas
Arthur Koblenz Dallas (Tom Skerritt) is the captain of the Nostromo and the only human crew member with access to Mother, the onboard computer. When he receives a distress signal from the Derelict, an Engineer ship, Dallas steers the Nostromo off course to investigate the beacon. After the Alien hatches from Kane's chest and kills Brett, Dallas enters the ship's labyrinthine air duct network to lure it to the airlock and eject it into space. He is attacked by the Alien and disappears – presumed dead – leaving only his flamethrower.
In a deleted scene, Ellen Ripley detours while escaping from the Nostromo and finds Dallas alive in the Alien nest in the process of mutating into an alien egg; she kills Dallas and destroys the nest with a flamethrower at his request as an act of mercy. According to Skerritt, the scene was cut because its quality was below par and it disrupted the pace of Ripley's escape; it was included in the 2003 director's cut.
When Skerritt first read the screenplay for Alien, he declined the project, unimpressed with its writing quality and budget. After the screenplay was edited and the budget enlarged, Skerritt was approached again and signed on. Halfway through production, he approached writer and executive producer Ronald Shusett and asked if he could trade his salary for a one-half percentage point (.5 percent) share in the film. The role had also been offered to Harrison Ford.
Joan Lambert
Joan Marie Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) is the navigator of the Nostromo and the only other woman on the ship besides Ripley. Disinclined to take risks beyond her console, she resents being chosen as part of the team to explore the Derelict. After Kane's infestation by the facehugger, she berates Ripley for refusing to allow her and the rest of the team aboard. When the Alien begins to kill her crew, Lambert insists that they evacuate the Nostromo. While preparing to leave on a shuttle, Lambert and Parker are confronted by the Alien which kills them. During Ripley's ICC tribunal, fifty-seven years after the first incident, a screen details the deceased members of the Nostromo crew, including Lambert, who is identified as a trans woman.
In the original draft of Alien, Lambert provided comic relief; this attracted Sigourney Weaver, before the screenplay was edited to make her stern and humorless. Veronica Cartwright then expressed an interest in playing Ripley, auditioning for the role and meeting with director Ridley Scott. She was informed that she had "the part", which she and her agent interpreted as the Ripley role; instead, it was Lambert. Cartwright was initially resistant, since she disliked Lambert's serious demeanor, but accepted after talking with the film's producers about Lambert's being a point-of-view character for the audience. She won the 1980 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Samuel Brett
Samuel Elias Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) is an engineering technician on the Nostromo and a good friend of his engineering chief, Parker. He persistently angles for the increased-pay and bonus awards he feels are due him. While the crew searches for the Alien, Brett tries to retrieve the cat Jones; he encounters the mature Alien, which kills him and drags him into an air duct.
When Harry Dean Stanton auditioned for Brett, he told Ridley Scott he was not a fan of science-fiction or horror films; Scott replied that he was not either, but expected Alien to do well. According to Stanton, he was pleased with the film and said it and Pretty in Pink are the films for which he is best recognized. Several of Brett's scenes were deleted from the original cut, including Ripley and Parker seeing his death and his cocooned corpse in the Alien's lair; they were included in the 2003 director's cut. According to writer Dan O'Bannon, the latter scene hinted that Brett's body was becoming an Alien incubator.
Gilbert Kane
Gilbert Ward "Thomas" Kane (John Hurt) is the Nostromo's executive officer. During the Derelict investigation, he moves closer to an egg to get a better look; a facehugger attaches to him and, unbeknownst to him and the crew, impregnates him with an Alien embryo. Kane remains unconscious until the facehugger dies and falls off. At dinner afterwards, Kane goes into convulsions; an infant Alien bursts through his chest, killing him. His body was later jettisoned into space as a funeral by the crew.
Director Ridley Scott originally cast Jon Finch as Kane after John Hurt declined due to a scheduling conflict. Partway through filming, Finch had an episode of hyperglycemia (from not taking insulin to counter his Coca-Cola intake on set); Scott again asked Hurt, who accepted and replaced Finch for the remainder of the filming. Kane is most closely associated with the "chestbursting" scene. Before the scene's single take, the actors were given minimal information about its details; according to the screenplay, the "creature emerges". Hurt was connected to a prosthetic body with the exploding Alien prop tucked away with meat and fake blood. When the scene was filmed the cast reacted dramatically, with Veronica Cartwright hit in the mouth with fake blood and falling backwards.
Ash
Ash (Ian Holm) is the Nostromo's science officer, who administers medical treatment, conducts biological research and investigates alien life forms. Abruptly assigned to replace the Nostromo's previous medical officer for the return journey from Thedus to Earth, Ash is a secret android tasked by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to ensure that a mysterious signal emanating from LV-426 is investigated. When Kane is infested by an Alien facehugger, Ash violates quarantine protocol by allowing him to be brought aboard. He attempts to kill Ripley after the ship's computer, Mother, discloses that Ash's orders are to ensure the Alien's return to Weyland-Yutani's laboratories, even at the expense of the crew. He is disabled by Parker and Lambert, and his identity as an android is revealed. Ash's severed head is briefly powered back up by the crew, seeking useful information; Ash confirms his directive then assures them that they cannot defeat the Alien. The head is incinerated by a furious Parker immediately afterwards.
Ash, absent from the original screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, was conceived by David Giler and Walter Hill when Brandywine Productions acquired it. Although Giler and Hill believed that Alien required a secondary story element, O'Bannon said in the film's audio commentary that he saw it as unnecessary. Shusett praised Giler and Hill's addition of the Ash story line in the 2003 documentary, The Beast Within: The Making of 'Alien, calling it "one of the best things in the movie". In the special-edition DVD audio commentary, director Ridley Scott interprets some of Ash's inhuman behavior (such as the attempted suffocation of Ellen Ripley with a rolled-up pornographic magazine) as reflecting Freudian sexual frustration from being anatomically incorrect. Critic Roz Kaveney analyzes Ash in From Alien to The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film, seeing him as a menacing robot who exists before his creators would impose programming alluded to in Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
Dennis Parker
Dennis Monroe Parker (Yaphet Kotto) is the Nostromo's chief engineer; Brett is his assistant. On the ship, he incessantly demands bonuses for investigating the Derelict's distress beacon. After Dallas' fateful confrontation with the Alien, Parker investigates and finds the flamethrower left behind. When Ash attacks Ripley, Parker and Lambert save her and decapitate the android. After Ripley extracts the meaning of Ash's directive to allow the crew to die, Parker uses the flamethrower to incinerate his remains. He and Lambert are killed by the Alien when it ambushes Lambert in their attempt to flee aboard the shuttle, with the Alien crushing Parker and finishing him off with a head bite as he attempts to save Lambert from the Alien attack.
Yaphet Kotto was offered the role of Parker along with lucrative offers from two other productions. Although his agent advised him to decline the role in Alien because his salary was not specified, Kotto accepted the role. To enhance the on-screen tension between Parker and Ripley, Ridley Scott instructed Kotto to antagonize Sigourney Weaver on set.
Aliens
The extraterrestrial species referred to as "Aliens" (often called "Xenomorphs", a term introduced in the sequel for any extraterrestrial) are the primary, titular antagonists of the Alien franchise. Introduced in the first film, Aliens are laid as eggs by a queen. This produces a facehugger, which latches onto and impregnates its prey with an embryo. This in turn produces an Alien with some characteristics of its host which ejects itself from the host's rib cage, killing it in the process. Described as "pure" by the android Ash, the Alien's motivation is to ensure the survival of its species; this commonly entails the elimination of creatures, such as humans, who pose a threat. With rudimentary intelligence, the Aliens are difficult to kill.
When writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett brainstormed for the original film, they decided to have an Alien impregnate a male orally as a metaphor for rape. O'Bannon suggested to Scott that his collaborator from the failed Dune adaptation, Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger, design the Alien. Scott chose the sketch Necronom IV, from Giger's Necronomicon, as the basis for the Alien because of its sexual ambiguity and phallic overtones. The Deacon, a creature predating the Alien which shares several biological traits, appears in the final scene of Prometheus after it explodes from a dead Engineer's chest. The Engineer was impregnated by a trilobite conceived by Elizabeth Shaw after sexual intercourse with an infected Charlie Holloway. Designer Neal Scanlan explained in the book Prometheus: The Art of the Film that the breed borrows physical traits such as femininity from Shaw. A number of performers have played Aliens in the series: Bolaji Badejo in Alien; Carl Toop in Aliens; Tom Woodruff Jr. in Alien 3, Alien Resurrection and the Alien vs. Predator franchise; Andrew Crawford and Goran D. Kleut in Alien: Covenant.
MU / TH / UR
MU / TH / UR, nicknamed "MOTHER" or "Mother", is the artificial intelligence mainframe computer existing across several ships. In Alien, MOTHER aboard the Nostromo (MU / TH / UR 6000) awakens the crew prematurely, in order for them to investigate the signal emanating from the derelict ship. Upon Kane being infested by a Facehugger, thereby confirming the existence of a life form that could be weaponized by Weyland-Yutani, MOTHER gives Ash authorization to use whatever means necessary to keep the Alien alive, even at the expense of crew lives. With the self-destruction of the Nostromo, MOTHER's memory of the events are destroyed.
In Predator: Concrete Jungle, Mother's origins are explored: the human Isabella Borgia: after expanding her lifespan using Yautja blood founding Borgia Industries, and building the city of Neonopolis together with her son Hunter out of the ruins of New Way City, formed the biological core of the first MOTHER supercomputer, governing the day-to-day operation of Neonopolis. Her human component is eventually killed in 2030 by the Yautja "Scarface", destroying her body in the center of MOTHER's core, with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation assuming control over the city in place of Borgia Industries, and installing Isabella's granddafuther and Hunter's daughter Lucretia Borgia as the new biological source of MOTHER.
In Alien: Covenant (set between the events of Predator: Concrete Jungle and Alien), MOTHER aboard the Covenant maintains a more passive role, with her predominantly providing analytics upon request. When Tennessee attempts to lower the ship's altitude to a dangerously close proximity to the storm above the Engineer home world, MOTHER rejects the order and has to be overridden by both Tennessee and Upworth. MOTHER detects an Alien aboard the Covenant and provides the surviving crew members with information of the creature's location, as well as responding to their orders for corralling it.
In Alien: Romulus (set between the events of Alien and Aliens), MOTHER appears onboard the connected Weyland-Yutani Corporation vessels Romulus and Remus.
In Alien: Earth, Yutani-loyal cyborg Morrow contacts MOTHER onboard the Weyland-Yutani Corporation vessel Maginot.
In Predator: Badlands, MOTHER is now in charge of the Weyland-Yutani corporation, ordering Tessa to retrieve Thia from the Yautja Dek.
The character MOTHER is most commonly psychoanalyzed as be complementary to the feminist theory. The most commonly referenced pertaining to the subject is the Barbara Creed book, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, which perceives MOTHER as being complementary to the archaic mother theme of the 1979 film. Creed cites the crew members being awoken by a figure dubbed "MOTHER" in a womb-like room, without a father figure, and with the comprehensive directive to provide life support, as being the poignant indicator to support her conclusion. Likewise, in Beyond the Stars: Locales in American popular film by Paul Loukides and Linda K. Fuller, MOTHER is presented as the central focus for the context of a mother ship. As the authors describe, MOTHER maintains an intimate connection with the crew, providing a watchful eye when they are asleep, as well as a small, womb-like computer module for direct communication about sensitive matters. MOTHER is voiced by Helen Horton in Alien, Giselle Loren and Tasia Valenza in Predator: Concrete Jungle, Lorelei King in Alien: Covenant, Annemarie Griggs in Alien: Romulus, Robin August in Alien: Earth, and Alison Wright in Predator: Badlands.
Jones
Jones, nicknamed "Jonesy", is an American Shorthair who is the rodent-control ship's cat on the Nostromo. After the birth and escape of the Alien, Jones is detected by the crew and risks interfering with the ship's motion sensors (which could mistake the cat's movements for those of the Alien). Brett finds Jones in the cargo room, where the Alien kills Brett as Jones watches. When the remaining crew members prepare to escape the ship, Ripley loads Jones into a pet carrier but must temporarily abandon him as the Alien approaches her. The Alien inspects Jones but leaves him alone, since the cat poses no threat. Ripley retrieves Jones and flees with him on a shuttle. She and the cat are in cryosleep for fifty-seven years, until they are rescued. Jones remains Ripley's pet for the duration of her new employment until she departs on the Sulaco, leaving him behind. Four cats were used in Alien, with each exhibiting specific feline behaviors such as scampering and hissing. According to Ridley Scott's audio commentary on the Alien DVD, to capture Jones' fearful reaction to the Alien a screen was placed between the cat and a German Shepherd; when the screen between the animals was removed, the cat immediately hissed.
Engineers
The Engineers, also known as space jockeys, are an ancient race of large humanoids which created humanity from their own DNA during Earth's primordial era. In Alien, the fossilized corpse of an Engineer is discovered in the pilot's seat of the derelict alien spacecraft; its suit and helmet were thought to be bones, and is the first victim of the Aliens identified onscreen. The Engineers play a central role in the first prequel, Prometheus, which reveals their biology and intention to infect the human race with an alien contagion and mutagen. In the film, the last surviving Engineer on LV-223 is awakened and immediately tries to resume his mission of delivering the substance to Earth, but he is subsequently stopped by the survivors of the human expedition. Ironically he is killed by an Alien like creature created by the mutagen's effect on a human. The android David 8 pilots an Engineer ship to the species' home world, where he unleashes the mutagen against the population, which kills all the Engineers and all other non-floral life on the planet.
For the Engineer pilot in Alien, a 26-foot (7.9 m) set piece was built at Bray Studios; Ridley Scott and cinematographer Derek Vanlint's children played the body doubles to exaggerate the size of the corpse. In the audio commentary on the 1999 twentieth-anniversary re-release of Alien, Scott said that he envisioned the pilot in the original film as driving a "battlewagon" with a haul of biological weapons and wanted to explore the species' story in fifth and sixth installments of the series. In a 2012 Fandango Media interview, he described the Engineers as "tall and elegant" and representing "dark angels".
Introduced in Aliens (1986)
Dwayne Hicks
Corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn), Sergeant Apone's second-in-command, takes over when Apone and most of the Colonial Marines are captured by the Aliens and commanding officer Lieutenant Gorman is incapacitated. Hicks looks for options for holding out with the survivors of the Hadley's Hope colony until aid arrives, and he and Ripley bond when he teaches her to use a pulse rifle. He is one of four survivors of the military mission. As the survivors escape, Hicks is injured when a spray of acid blood from an Alien hits his chest and face. He is apparently killed during the crash of the Sulaco in Alien 3, after which a body impaled on a broken support brace is found in his cryochamber. In the video game Aliens: Colonial Marines, Hicks is revealed to be alive and was actually kidnapped by mercenaries working for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. His body is replaced by an anonymous victim to cover up the kidnapping, and he is rescued by Colonial Marines. This is considered canon by some, such as Randy Pitchford, but is ignored by most as the game was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and players alike.
James Remar, initially cast as Hicks, left the project ostensibly due to "artistic differences" with director James Cameron. In a Sidebar podcast, however, Remar said that Cameron terminated his contract after the actor was arrested for drug possession. Producer Gale Anne Hurd contacted Michael Biehn, who accepted the role and flew to England for filming. In an early draft of the Alien 3 screenplay, Hicks was the central protagonist and Ripley had a minor role. Since his character was killed off in the screenplay's final draft, however, Biehn was never approached to appear in that film. When he learned that he had a minor role and his likeness would be used, Biehn and his agent threatened 20th Century Fox with a lawsuit unless he received compensation similar to Aliens.
Carter J. Burke
Carter J. Burke (Paul Reiser) is special projects director of Weyland-Yutani Corporation's Special Services Division and an antagonist in Aliens. After telling Ellen Ripley about her daughter's death and hearing her account of the Nostromo incident, Burke uses the information to have LV-426's colonists rendezvous with the Derelict and trigger an Alien outbreak. He persuades her to join the Colonial Marine expedition, to destroy (not extract) specimens, as an adviser in exchange for her regaining her flight license. Burke accompanies the squad aboard Sulaco to safeguard the company's investment in the terraforming colony. His ulterior motives are discovered by Ripley; his rationale is that the Aliens are an important species they cannot exterminate and the facility is a significant investment. Burke tries to have Ripley and Newt impregnated by imprisoned facehuggers, but the Colonial Marines intervene. Although most of the survivors press for Burke's execution, Ripley protests; the Aliens cut the power and use an architectural-design flaw to break into the room. He escapes, leaving the rest of the group to die, but is confronted and cornered by an Alien in the locked medical lab and his screams are heard by those outside.
According to Reiser, Cameron cast him as a villain against type, but failed to surprise the audience owing to the character's demeanor and dialogue (appearing to be "a weasel") in his first scenes. In Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley, a 2004 literary analysis of the Alien franchise, Jason Smith and Ximena Gallardo-C. describe Burke as a "monster" who is the by-product of organizational culture and willing to have Ripley and Newt impregnated for capital gain because of their "'natural' wombs". In a deleted scene during Ripley's incursion into the Alien hive, shown in the 2010 Blu-ray edition of the Alien Anthology, she discovers a cocooned Burke who reveals that he has been impregnated; he begs Ripley to kill him, but instead she hands him a grenade for him to detonate. Burke will return in the 2024 Marvel Comics series Aliens: What If...?, in the storyline "What If... Carter Burke had lived?" written by Paul Reiser, his son Leon Reiser, as well as Adam F. Goldberg, Brian Volk-Weiss, and Hans Rodionoff, and illustrated by Guiu Vilanova, exploring an alternate continuity in which Burke survived the events of Aliens.
Bishop
Bishop (Lance Henriksen), the android executive officer assigned to the Sulaco, is primarily responsible for planetary maneuvering. When he introduces himself to Ripley, he says that his programming demands complete loyalty and an inability to harm humans (unlike Ash); Ripley is initially distrustful. After most of the Colonial Marines are wiped out by the Aliens on LV-426, Bishop is a medic and technician who ensures that the company's dropship receives Ripley, Newt and Hicks. When he boards the Sulaco, he is impaled and bisected by the stowaway Alien Queen. When Ripley defeats the Queen by opening the airlock, Bishop saves Newt. He is placed into cryosleep with Ripley, Newt and Hicks. When the Sulaco crashes into Fury 161 in Alien 3, Bishop is damaged beyond repair and thrown into the prison's landfill. Although his speech and memory are repaired by Ripley so that he can disclose the events leading to the crash, he asks Ripley to shut him down permanently, to which Ripley reluctantly obliges. In Aliens: Bishop, Bishop is once again revived by his creator, Michael Bishop Weyland.
Henriksen was one of the several actors, including Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton, cast in Aliens who had collaborated with James Cameron on The Terminator. Roz Kaveney, in her analysis of Ash in From Alien to The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film, draws parallels to Bishop as a representation of the Three Laws of Robotics. Although Ash's programming allows (and encourages) harming humans, Bishop puts human life above all else in accordance with the First Law of Robotics. Bishop was studied by LeiLani Nishime of the University of Texas Press in 2005 as a theoretical dramatization of how humans would deal with the presence of an Other, concerning Ripley's initial apprehension about being near a synthetic after her life-threatening encounter with Ash. According to an article by Anton Karl Kozlovic of the University of Nebraska Omaha, Bishop's altruistic actions (which include rescuing Newt and Ripley) contradict a trend towards technophobia in pre-1990 films.
Newt Jorden
Rebecca Jorden (Carrie Henn), nicknamed "Newt", is the only surviving colonist of LV-426. She is living in the air ducts of the Hadley's Hope compound when she is discovered by the Colonial Marines' party. Although she is in a state of shock, Newt bonds with the party—particularly with Ripley, whom she sees as a mother figure. During the survivors' escape from LV-426, Newt is abducted by the Aliens, but Ripley infiltrates the hive and rescues her from the Alien Queen. Soon afterwards, the Alien Queen confronts the survivors on the Sulaco; Newt is her primary target, but Ripley intervenes and defeats her. Newt is then put into cryosleep, only to drown in the crash of the Sulaco in Alien 3 when her chamber floods. Out of fear of an Alien infestation, her body is autopsied but drowning is the only finding.
According to Aliens's casting director, Newt was the most challenging role to cast; five hundred schoolchildren auditioned, often smiling when they read their lines. Carrie Henn was discovered by a casting agent when she was living with her father, who was stationed at RAF Lakenheath near Lakenheath in Suffolk. The agent notified the producers, and Henn was cast after her audition at Pinewood Studios. Although Henn received a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor, she did not pursue an acting career and became a teacher in Atwater, California. The creative decision for Newt to die in Alien 3 was opposed by James Cameron, who referred to it as a "Temple of Doom slap in the face".
Henn's real-life brother Christopher was also cast in the film, as Newt's brother Timothy.
William Hudson
Private William Hudson (Bill Paxton) is the Colonial Marines' comtech expert. Arrogant and overconfident, he soon cracks under the stress of the failed incursion into the Alien hive. Hudson despairs and panics until Ripley and Newt reassure him, enabling him to regain his composure. He fights to the end in the colony's operation room, where the survivors of the party make their final stand, and is pulled through a floor grate by an Alien while providing cover fire. In Aliens: Colonial Marines, Hudson's corpse was discovered in the sewers with a large hole in his chest, revealing that Hudson was impregnated by a Facehugger after he was dragged beneath the grates and later died when a chestburster erupted from his chest.