How Alien mutated from a sci-fi horror film into a multimedia universe

By Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film Studies, Bangor University
Gregory Frame, Teaching Associate in Film and Television Studies, University of Nottingham

A new life form was born on May 25 1979 when an alien exploded from the chest of a bewildered officer aboard the commercial towing vessel, Nostromo. The alien that comes to be known as the xenomorph escapes, grows, stalks and kills all but one of the ship’s crew. The lone human survivor, Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, blasts it into deep space turning it and her into icons.

We are, of course, talking about the cinematic classic, Alien.

But what was born that day was not just a horrifying monster. It would become a fully fledged fictional world that, in the four…

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