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50 free Alien trivia questions with answers. Alien has been scaring audiences since 1979, and this quiz runs the whole franchise. It starts on the Nostromo with Ripley, Ash, Jones the cat and the chestburster, follows Cameron's Colonial Marines to LV-426, lands with Fincher on the prison planet, meets the clones and mercenaries of Resurrection, then moves through the Prometheus and Covenant prequels, Alien vs. Predator, Romulus, the FX series Alien: Earth and the game Alien: Isolation. There are questions on the creature too: who designed it, who wore the suit and who first said 'xenomorph'. Easy questions ask who directed the original and what the tagline says; hard ones want the film's working title, the artist behind the chestburster, the actress who beat Weaver to the 1987 Oscar and where the Alien 3 score was recorded. Made for people who know that in space, no one can hear you scream. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the films, characters and creature, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the original 1979 film Alien?
Ridley Scott
The producers hired him after being impressed by his debut feature The Duellists.
Q 02Which actress plays Ellen Ripley across the first four films?
Sigourney Weaver
She was a Broadway performer relatively unknown in film when she won the part with her audition.
Q 03Which phrase completes Alien's famous tagline: 'In space no one can hear you ___'?
scream
The line was written by Barbara Gips, whose husband Philip designed the poster.
Q 04What is the name of the Nostromo crew's pet cat?
Jones
Four identical cats were used to play the part, and Ripley puts him into stasis alongside her at the end of the film.
Q 05Which member of the Nostromo crew turns out to be an android?
Ash
Parker knocks his head off, revealing him to be a machine acting on secret orders to bring the creature home.
Q 06What sort of vessel is the Nostromo?
Commercial towing vehicle
It is hauling a refinery platform back to Earth when it is diverted by the signal.
Q 07Which Swiss artist designed the creature for the 1979 film?
H. R. Giger
He shared in the film's Academy Award for visual effects and later got a museum devoted to his 'biomechanical' style.
Q 08Which existing artwork by the creature designer became the basis for the alien's look?
Necronom IV
Scott saw the 1976 print in the book Necronomicon and chose it for its beauty and strong sexual overtones.
Q 09What was the working title of the film before it became Alien?
Star Beast
O'Bannon disliked it and switched to Alien after noticing how often the word appeared in his script.
Q 10Which 6-foot-10 Nigerian design student, discovered in a London pub, wore the alien suit?
Bolaji Badejo
It was his only acting credit; he moved back to Nigeria in 1980 and later ran an art gallery in Lagos.
Q 11The chestburster's design was inspired by a 1944 painting by which artist?
Francis Bacon
Screenwriter Dan O'Bannon also credited his own Crohn's disease for inspiring the scene.
Q 12Which Academy Award did Alien win?
Best Visual Effects
It also took three Saturn Awards and a Hugo Award despite initially mixed reviews.
Q 13In which year was Alien added to the United States National Film Registry?
2002
It went in alongside fellow 1979 films Apocalypse Now, All That Jazz and Manhattan.
The Nostromo takes its name from a 1904 novel by which author?
Q 21Which schoolgirl with no acting experience was cast as Newt after being scouted in Lakenheath, England?
Carrie Henn
She never acted again and became a teacher, and still keeps a framed photo Weaver gave her after filming.
Q 22What is the name of the Colonial Marines' spaceship in Aliens?
Sulaco
Filming the dropship descent shook the set so hard that the roof collapsed onto the cast and crew.
Q 23Weaver's Aliens nomination was a first for sci-fi. Who beat her to Best Actress?
Marlee Matlin
The winner starred in Children of a Lesser God; Weaver did win the Saturn Award that year.
Joseph Conrad
The escape shuttle was named after another of his works, the 1897 novella about the ship Narcissus.
Q 15Who wrote the screenplay for Alien, working from a story he developed with Ronald Shusett?
Dan O'Bannon
He wanted a scary version of his student film Dark Star, and wrote it while sleeping on Shusett's couch, broke.
Q 16Whose idea was it to give the creature acidic blood, to make it 'unkillable' with ordinary weapons?
Ron Cobb
The logic was that shooting it aboard ship would let its blood eat through the hull.
Q 17What did the production team nickname the giant fossilised creature found in the derelict ship?
Space Jockey
Fox balked at building an expensive set for a single scene, so only one wall was built and the figure sat on a rotating disc.
Q 18Alien held its world premiere as a midnight screening at which film festival?
Seattle
It opened in limited US release the following day, May 25, 1979.
Q 19How many years has Ripley been drifting in stasis when she is found at the start of Aliens?
57
She learns that her daughter Amanda died of old age in the meantime, a scene cut from the theatrical version.
Q 20Which actor delivers Hudson's line 'Game over, man! Game over!'?
Bill Paxton
He landed the part after a chance meeting with Cameron at Los Angeles airport where he mentioned he wanted a role.
Q 24Which effects artist designed the alien queen with Cameron, replacing the original creature designer?
Stan Winston
He also gave the chestburster arms so it could plausibly drag itself out of a host's chest.
Q 25Which real Vietnam veteran, cast as Sergeant Apone, trained the Marines actors to handle firearms?
Al Matthews
The training mattered because the blanks the actors fired were still hazardous.
Q 26Which character is the first in the films to use the word 'xenomorph'?
Lieutenant Gorman
He uses it generically for extraterrestrial life; the credits of Alien: Covenant later adopted it as the creature's official name.
Q 27Alien 3 (1992) was the feature directorial debut of which filmmaker?
David Fincher
He has since disowned the film, telling The Guardian 'no one hates it more than me'.
Q 28Ripley's escape pod crash-lands on which planet in Alien 3?
Fiorina 161
Nicknamed 'Fury', it houses a foundry and a maximum-security prison for male inmates.
Q 29The inmates finally kill the creature in Alien 3 by dousing it in what?
Molten lead
Dillon sacrifices himself to hold the creature in place beneath the mould as it is poured.
Q 30Elliot Goldenthal said Alien 3's score sounded so disturbing partly because it was recorded during which event?
The 1992 Los Angeles riots
The making-of documentary was originally titled after one of his cues, 'Wreckage and Rape', until Fox renamed it.