"I know we're in football gear, Sigourney, but I don't think a quarterback sneak play will help."

ALIENS

The Abridged Script

Aliens
An Abridged Reading

Is your game over, man? Have this script read to you with an Abridged Reading, courtesy of Movie Snark.

FADE IN:

EXT. SPACE

CUE: "GAYANE BALLET SUITE (ADAGIO)" FROM "2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY" JAMES HORNER SCORE

A drifting SHUTTLE is boarded by SALVAGERS who find SIGOURNEY WEAVER in CRYO-SLEEP.

SALVAGER #1

Now to plunder this wreck... hey, she's still alive! And damn our luck, we are the only scrupulous deep-space scavengers in the history of science fiction. Oh look, she dropped her wallet and all the coins fell out, I should put those back.

INT. MED LAB - ORBITING FUTURE SPACE BASE

PAUL REISER and his super-futuristic POPPED-COLLAR 80S JACKET arrive to see SIGOURNEY.

PAUL REISER

Sigourney, I have bad news. You've been asleep fifty years, during which time your shuttle drifted all the way across the Galaxy.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

But in the first scene I couldn't have been going much over 25 mph. I guess either the Galaxy shrunk by a factor of 400,000 while I was gone, or you've redefined "years" to mean "centuries"...

(convulses)

...arrrgh, what's happening?!? Prosthetic... tummy... STRETCHING!

An ALIEN begins to emerge, but SIGOURNEY wakes up, it was a NIGHTMARE!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Phew, just a horrible dream... that for some reason began with all the exact same real-life exposition I was given earlier, that is so weird.

INT. CORPORATE BRIEFING ROOM

SIGOURNEY meets with A TABLE OF SUITS and THE GALAXY'S LARGEST MONOCHROMATIC MONITOR SCREEN which is presumably on loan from the MUSEUM OF ANCIENT COMPUTER HISTORY.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Listen to me dammit! The Company was evil and evilly ordered their evil android to bring back an evil alien! Why won't you evil Company people believe how evil you are?

EVIL SUIT #1

Look, you claim to have found a life form not discovered on 500 surveyed worlds. Five hundred! I mean, that's pretty much the whole universe right there, isn't it? How many planets are there in the sum totality of known space, 550? 600 tops?

EVIL SUIT #2

We're just trying to understand what happened, Sigourney, so please try to relax and enjoy the GIANT PICTURES OF YOUR DEAD FRIENDS we've been screening this whole time.

EVIL SUIT #3

Anyway, we've had a colony on that planet for 20 years, and they never found any aliens.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Huh. Did they find the enormous crashed spaceship broadcasting the powerful distress signal? That MY ship detected from way out in space?

EVIL SUIT #1

Er, no. We're hoping everyone in the audience forgot about all that.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Fine. I'll be in my room waiting for whenever you decide this movie should goddamn start already.

INT. SIGOURNEY'S ROOM

SIGOURNEY and her CAT are visited by PAUL REISER and the guy who played LT. GORMAN, and sure we could use his real name but fuck that, he's LT. GORMAN.

PAUL REISER

More bad news, Sigourney. We lost contact with the colony, and even worse all our provinces, duchies and estates got trashed. We were hoping that...

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

No! I'll never return to planet LV-223!

PAUL REISER

But the... wait, isn't it LV-426?

(shrugs)

Ah, like anyone cares. Listen, this time you'll have Marines!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

You don't understand. If I'm not careful, this franchise could define my entire career for decades to come. Decades!! I can't risk it.

LT. GORMAN

Dammit, Sig, we all know you'll change your mind, so hurry up. It's going to be over an hour of movie before we even SEE a goddamn alien at this pace.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Fine, I'll go.

(to cat)

And you, you little shit, you're staying here.

(pause)

Making you literally the ONLY character to appear in both really great Alien movies, and none of the crappy ones. Go figure.

INT. BIG TOUGH MARINE SHIP

SIGOURNEY meets the MARINES led by Grizzled Black Sarge™ AL MATTHEWS.

AL MATTHEWS

Welcome aboard, Sigourney. Remember you're here strictly as an advisor, so naturally you will come with us to the front lines instead of remaining safely in orbit.

JENETTE GOLDSTEIN

Woo-hoo, I cannot wait to start fragging shit, kicking off what is sure to be a long career of substantial film roles which this certainly won't be the apex of!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Don't be too cocky. Just ONE of those things took out my entire crew in 24 hours. Granted, they were civilians untrained in any form of combat and had no decent weapons and never mind.

INT. MESS HALL

BLACK SOLDIER GUY

Har har, we are joking about alien species! Thus establishing that we know there are all kinds of other aliens, making it even more dumb that we won't buy Ripley's story, har har.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

I don't trust you, android Lance Henriksen.

LANCE HENRIKSEN

I prefer the term "artificial person", myself. Which is kind of like a U.S. immigrant preferring to be called "fake American", but anyway, you can totally trust me. I cannot harm humans, or through inaction allow them to come to harm!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

But almost taking Bill Paxton's hand apart with a knife two seconds ago, that was A-OK?

LANCE HENRIKSEN

Well it was worth it to demonstrate my awesome superfast reflexes that I will never use.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Oh, I'm sure THAT ability will come in handy at some point. Not like my totally superfluous skill with this mech forklift suit! Yep, just a random character moment, that's all.

They reach the PLANET and ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN EVERYBODY goes PLANETSIDE leaving NOT EVEN ONE SOLITARY PERSON aboard the MAIN SHIP because these guys have EVEN LESS TACTICAL SENSE than the GAME OF RISK.

INT. SPOOKY DESERTED COLONY

AL MATTHEWS

Hm, it looks like the colonists barricaded all the doors, but something burst through the ceiling and floor as evidenced by these giant gaping holes. Dumb-ass civilians, you won't see Marines making THAT stupid mistake.

MICHAEL BIEHN

(entering)

Excuse me Sir, but we've found three small, gross, parasitic organisms, and only one of them is a human child. The others are alien facehuggers!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

A child?! No doubt she's deeply traumatized from seeing her entire family and everyone else she knows horribly killed. Only my magical estrogen powers can help her!

CARRIE HENN

Phew, you removed the dirt from my face, and with it, all my catatonic shock. Thanks! Now I can concentrate on being the cute comic relief from here on in.

Most of the MARINES go to track down the COLONISTS while LT. GORMAN monitors them from the SUPERFUN SLIDY CHAIR OF COMMAND.

LT. GORMAN

Wheeeee, slidy command chair, wheeeeeeee!!

(notices something on monitor)

Ah, Sigourney, what's all that crap on the walls?

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

I have no idea. Ridley Scott cut out the scene in Alien where I saw that before. But if you just watched the director's cut of Alien, then I do know what that is, and I'm choosing not to share that information, for some reason. You see, this is why you need to be careful with director's cuts in franchise movies.

(pause)

Oh hey, while I was rambling, they went and put themselves under the giant nuclear reactor. Damn, if only I'd seen the "GIANT NUCLEAR REACTOR" label on the map sooner!

LT. GORMAN

(into radio)

Sarge, don't let anyone fire their weapons! There is a really easy-to-explain reason for this but damned if I'm going to tell you!

INT. COLONY - UNDER THE NUCLEAR REACTOR

AL MATTHEWS

Okay everyone, hand in your one and only clip of ammo! We all made sure to bring exactly one clip, right? I'm sure our most hotheaded and battle-eager soldiers made extra sure to follow this rule, so I won't even ask them if they have backup ammo.

FEMALE MEDIC

Hey, I found a colonist! Don't worry sir, you've just been kidnapped by aliens, coccooned with crazy goo crap, and possibly implanted with an embryo. Now, where's my Polysporin?

Suddenly a BABY ALIEN bursts out of the COLONIST!

ALIENS

(appearing from everywhere)

Geez, fucking FINALLY! We weren't allowed to attack sooner, Cameron had some bullshit reason about building the suspense to a breaking point before using a chest-burst as the big release. I mean seriously, we could have killed you all five times over by now. All of which is to say, it's FUCK-YOU TIME!

The ALIENS start KILLING THE FUCK out of the MARINES, starting with the FEMALE MEDIC and, three-quarters of a second later, BLACK SOLDIER GUY!

BLACK SOLDIER GUY

(plummeting to fiery death)

AT LEAST I DIDN'T DIE FIRRRRRST

AL MATTHEWS

(being eviscerated)

ME NEIIITHHEERR STILL IT'S HARDLY A BANNER DAY FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHARACTERS NOW IS IIIIIIIT

All seems lost, but SIGOURNEY bursts in with the GIANT MARINNEBAGO and SAVES all the TOP-BILLED ACTORS!

MICHAEL BIEHN

Phew! We made it outside, and aliens won't chase us into the rain because it really frizzes up their hair, or something.

JENETTE GOLDSTEIN

Oh crap, guys, look at this giant screen! It's showing a video of our drop ship crashing!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Actually I think that's meant to be happening right in front of us. Man, is that ever fake.

(shrugs)

Eh, it's not like anyone comes to James Cameron movies for the cutting-edge visual effects.

BILL PAXTON

(shitting out spine, guts, balls)

That's just great! We're in some pretty shit now, man! Game over man! Game set and match! Check fucking mate man! They sunk our battleship! Yaht-fucking-zee man! It was Mr. Green in the Conservatory with the Candlestick!! All our base belong to them!!!

CARRIE HENN

We should go back inside. They mooostly come out at night. Moooooooooostly.

MICHAEL BIEHN

This whole fucking planet is thunderstorms and gloom 24-fucking-seven. How can they even tell when nighttime is?

INT. COLONY - OPERATIONS ROOM

LANCE HENRIKSEN

Hmm, that escaping steam tells me the entire reactor is going to explode shortly. Though bear in mind, my programming is based on those early 21st-century websites that said your itchy toe means you have cancer.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

How long have we got?

LANCE HENRIKSEN

Well if I calculate the time all the remaining story events will cover, then add ten seconds to make our escape extra dramatic, I get... six hours.

JENETTE GOLDSTEIN

Dammit, our rescue team is 41 days away, since apparently we only plan for leisurely-paced military emergencies!

MICHAEL BIEHN

And there's nobody aboard our main ship, only the remote control mechanism that would need some kind of radio to connect with! And we're stuck down here on the colony with its giant radio transmitter! We're totally fucked!

LANCE HENRIKSEN

Wait a sec... I could use... the RADIO... to send RADIO WAVES.

MICHAEL BIEHN

Bless your hypersmart computer brain! Okay, you go do that. Meanwhile I'll equip Sigourney with all the plot devices she'll need to reach the end of the movie alive.

INT. MEDLAB - LATER

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Let's get some shuteye, Carrie. Because of my recurrent alien nightmares I think we should sleep in the facehugger room.

They DO. But when SIGOURNEY wakes up, her GUN is missing and the FACEHUGGER TUBES have been knocked over!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

How the hell did I sleep through all that? Never mind, I must signal for help!

(signals frantically to camera)

CUT TO:

INT. OPERATIONS ROOM

PAUL REISER

I'd better switch off the video feed, so that nobody sees Sig and Carrie get implanted with aliens.

(pause)

Huh, so I guess the camera was still on while I was running around stealing Sigourney's gun and releasing the facehuggers into her room. Lucky nobody was watching the monitors THEN! Yup, I sure dodged an alien-auxiliary-jaws-to-the-face THAT time. As I'm sure I will continue to do. Yessir.

INT. MEDLAB

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Carrie, the facehuggers are loose! Quick, let's point our faces towards the middle of the room with our mouths open!

They almost get FACEHUGGED but the MARINES save them! They question PAUL REISER.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

So what was your big plan, Paul? The others were going to find us with facehuggers on and say "Huh, that's odd, oh well, we can sort that out back home"?

MICHAEL BIEHN

And after the facehuggers fell off and they both woke up, they weren't going to say "Um guys, we have aliens implanted inside us, little help please?"

CARRIE HENN

And we wouldn't just walk over to the nearest Medi-table and perform emergency C-sections on ourselves to remove the alien embryos?

(pause)

What? We've had that technology for decades, apparently.

PAUL REISER

Wow, that sure was a stupid plan of mine. Almost as stupid as deciding not to run off while you were all busy fighting facehuggers, but instead talk my way out.

MICHAEL BIEHN

I've had enough, I'm killing you right now!

The ALARM goes off!

MICHAEL BIEHN

Damn! Gorman, watch him, so I can kill him later. Even though in the time I gave that order, to a superior officer no less, I could have also shot him through the head.

ALIENS ATTACK AGAIN! Shockingly they BYPASS the locked doors and come through the FLOOR AND CEILING!

CARRIE HENN

AAAAAIEEEEEEE!!!!!!

MICHAEL BIEHN

(firing wildly)

DAMMIT THERE WAS NO WAY TO SEE THAT COMING AT ALL!!! RETREAT!!

ALIENS grab BILL PAXTON!

BILL PAXTON

Arrgh! Quick Michael, shoot me before they take me away, like you promised Sigourney earlier!

MICHAEL BIEHN

Huh? Fuck you, I need that ammo for myself. I just told her that to get in her pants.

The ALIENS go MAD ABOUT PAUL REISER and EAT him! CARRIE leads everyone into a vent, but GORMAN and GOLDSTEIN get cut off and surrounded!

LT. GORMAN

Guess we've got no choice but to blow ourselves up...

JEANETTE GOLDSTEIN

(wryly)

You always were an asshole, Gorman.

LT. GORMAN

Yeah, well I wasn't the one who fired my giant weapon into the nuclear reactor against explicit orders, dipshit.

They EXPLODE! The SHOCKWAVE goes along the VENT and CARRIE HENN is thrown down a TUBE onto a TRAMPOLINE that bounces her off a SHOP AWNING and into a POOL!

CARRIE HENN

AAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

MICHAEL BIEHN

Damn, they got Carrie! She's a goner...

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

NO! I am certain she's still alive, the aliens only kidnap you except when they don't! C'mon!!

EXT. OUTSIDE THE COLONY

SIGOURNEY and MICHAEL reach LANCE and the other DROP SHIP, but MICHAEL runs out of LINES OF DIALOGUE and has to stay behind. SIGOURNEY gears up with 40,000 POUNDS OF GUNS AND AMMO because while she was learning how to SHOOT she also learned SUPER STRENGTH.

LANCE HENRIKSEN

Should I come along, what with my superfast reflexes and all?

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Fuck no! Just sit here, which presumably Michael could do.

INT. COLONY - LOWER LEVELS

SIGOURNEY meanders into the ALIEN LAIR, and finds CARRIE... and the ALIEN QUEEN, OH CRAP!

ALIEN QUEEN

Oh hey there. Despite our innate cunning and such, we totally haven't clued in how the klaxons and flashing lights and alarms are a problem in any way. We figure you guys are throwing a Cinqo de Mayo party or something. Anyway, you die now.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

So how does your species work exactly? You sit here and plant tons of eggs, then hope that some spacefaring race will just happen to choose this planet from amongst billions of others, and then out of this entire planet just happen to stumble across your lair, and THEN decide to start randomly sticking their faces inside everything?

ALIEN QUEEN

Don't knock it, it's worked twice already.

(thinks)

Or is it three times? Or wait, that was...

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

(flipping out)

DON'T YOU DARE GO THERE!!

(opens fire on alien eggs)

BLLAAAAARGHH!!!!

CARRIE HENN

Sigourney? Glad you're having a catharsis, but, um, imminent nuclear explosion?

BILL PAXTON

(weakly)

Hey, over here! Remember me, I was kidnapped like three minutes before Carrie was? Maybe save me too? Hello?

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Sorry Bill, I've got all my surrogate family slots filled now. Let's go, Carrie!

SIGOURNEY and CARRIE get to the LANDING PLATFORM but the SHIP is GONE!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Damn, trapped, and with no ammo! Guess I shouldn't have shot all those eggs that were about to be vaporized in five minutes anyway.

LANCE HENRIKSEN

No we're still here! The touch of hiding below the platform and rising dramatically was my idea.

They ESCAPE and the COLONY goes BOOM!

INT. ORBITING MARINE SHIP

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Well, looks like we're safe OH SHIT THE QUEEN WAS HIDING IN THE LANDING GEAR!! So, what, in the last fifty years we all decided the "Warning, landing gear stuck" display had outlived its usefulness?!?

LANCE HENRIKSEN

(being impaled)

Arrrgh!! If only I had superfast reflexes I might have avoided that!

CARRIE HENN

(checks script, sighs)

Oh man, again? Fine. AAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

(emerging with mech armour)

GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH!

(pause)

I'm going to hear variations on that forever, aren't I.

They FIGHT! SIGOURNEY knocks the ALIEN QUEEN into the AIRLOCK SHAFT and OPENS THE AIRLOCK thus setting up THE BIT WE ALL KNEW WAS RIDICULOUS EVEN BACK WHEN WE WERE KIDS.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Take that!! Now I will hang onto this metal bar with ONE ELBOW, that being exactly ONE MORE than the number of SPACESUITS I'm wearing, against THE VACUUM OF SPACE and THE ENTIRE WEIGHT OF THE ENORMOUS ALIEN QUEEN AND THE MECHSUIT COMBINED, and strangely the air is NOT instantly ripped from my lungs, NOR is my arm simply torn in half, and now I can just climb the ladder.

(does so)

Phew! Well, what a satisfying conclusion. Back to cryo-stasis!

CARRIE HENN

But Ripley, what if some asshole screenwriter kills us all in our sleep?

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

What, after all the shit we've been through to earn this ending? Nobody would be that much of a douchebag, Newt.

RIPLEY and NEWT and HICKS and BISHOP go into CRYO-SLEEP and return SAFELY TO EARTH and live HAPPILY EVER AFTER and I DON'T FUCKING CARE WHAT ANYONE ELSE FUCKING SAYS THAT'S WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS, THE END.

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