A Timeline of the Alien Franchise's Xenomorph in All Its Terrifying Forms

If asked to name one of cinema's most effective and enduring monsters, without a doubt, most folks would rank the Xenomorph of the Alien franchise up near the top. First introduced to audiences in Ridley Scott's 1979 horror/thriller, Alien, the original, bipedal creature was violently birthed from the chest of Kane (John Hurt) and evolved from an egg to a free-standing, eviscerating monster in just under two hours./p pOriginally referred to as just an alien, it was in a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/topic/james-cameron"James Cameron/a's 1986 sequel,a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/james-cameron-aliens-xenomorph-queen-wasp-dream" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"emAliens/em/a, that the monster was first labeled as a "Xenomorph" by Colonial Marine Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope), while referencing the species from a case file. Going forward, the term became the official reference to the franchise's evolving creature, even though it's never been formally named./p pCall it whatever you want, the Xenomorph remains a terrifying concept with its skeletal, humanoid frame, elongated skull, and inner and outer jaws. Dripping concentrated acid for blood and possessing a paralyzing tail stinger, the Xenomorph was conceived to be an almost unstoppable foe that exhibits no emotions or interests, other than to propagate its species. As the Xenomorph turns 45-years-old this year, and with many of the films appearinga href="https://www.syfy.com/schedule" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"on strongSYFY/strong/a this month,let'sbi/i/btrack the origin and evolution of the monster through the franchise's expansive timeline./p pstrongFor More on Alien:bra href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-movies-scariest-scenes-prometheus"Game Over, Man! The 13 Scariest and Most Iconic Moments From the Alien Franchise/abra href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-resurrection-25-sigourney-weaver-last-ripley-role"Alien Resurrection turns 25: Does Ripley’s last gasp still matter?/abra href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-3-development-hell-alternate-versions-history"It’s a miracle that Alien 3 ever got out of development hell/a/strong/p h2The Design Origins of the emAlien /emFranchise's Xenomorph/h2 div data-embed-button="media" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.embed" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="592b67bd-6752-49f5-a2b3-4221b2afaac6" data-langcode="en" class="embedded-entity"div class="media__image" style="max-width:862px" div class="media__image-wrapper" div div img loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" src="https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/styles/scale_862/public/2024/03/gettyimages-482738457.jpg" width="862" height="575" alt="Dallas (Tom Skerritt) wears a spacesuit with a light in Alien (1979)" typeof="foaf:Image" /div /div /div div class="media__metadata" div class="media__metadata-wrapper" span class="media__caption" Dallas (Tom Skerritt) appears in Alien (1979) /span span class="media__credit"Photo: Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images /span /div /div /div /div pThe monster in the emAlien/em screenplay is technically the brain baby of co-screenwriterRonald Shusett. While trying to crack the script with co-writera href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-memory-documentary-exclusive-clip" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Dan O'Bannon/a,Shusett recounted in the emAlien/em documentary on the emAlien Quadrilogy/em box set that he remembered a troubling dream about the alien: "I have an idea: the monster screws one of them, planting its egg in his body, and then bursting out of his chest." It so disturbed both writers that they wrote it down, and it eventually became one of the most distinguishing characteristics of their monster./p pBut the Xenomorph didn't really come to life until concept artist a data-entity-href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/go-inside-the-making-of-alien-for-the-films-40th-anniversary-with-author-jw-rinzler" data-entity-title="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/go-inside-the-making-of-alien-for-the-films-40th-anniversary-with-author-jw-rinzler" href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/go-inside-the-making-of-alien-for-the-films-40th-anniversary-with-author-jw-rinzler" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"H. R. Giger/a was brought onto the film by O'Bannon and Scott. Giger's pre-existing illustration from 1976,iNecronom IV,/ibecame the figure that Scott wanted Giger to use as the design basis for the film's alien. Giger was hired to design the adult version, the implanted egg, and then the chestburster monster. When Scott approved the concepts, it wasItalianspecial effects designerCarlo Rambaldi who would turn those illustrations into functional costumes for the adult alien, and prop monsters for the younger variations. Their collaboration was so impressive thatGiger and Rambaldi won the 1980Academy Award for Visual Effectsfor their alien design./p h2The Timeline of the emAlien /emFranchise's Xenomorph Creature/h2 h2emPrometheus/em (2089 – 2093)/h2 p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yA6OKoW30Pk?si=c6Xjd0n7hEppQcNW" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pTo date, this is the beginning of the franchise's timeline introducing what will eventually become the Xenomorph. In Scott's emAlien /emprequel, a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/topic/prometheus"emPrometheus/em/a (2012),archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace)becomes unknowingly impregnated by a foreign squid-like creature. In a harrowing sequence, she performs a solo surgical extraction of the thing from her body, which lives and escapes into the ship. Her "offspring" attaches to an engineer humanoid, implants an egg, and then bursts from its chest once gestated. It's a murky visual connection to the engineer figure featured in the emAlien/em film./p h2emAlien: Covenant/em (2104)/h2 p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u5KPP6lxRVg?si=d-QMj7OTurMYesi8" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pA mystery planet is home to David the android's(Michael Fassbender) creature experiments as he seeks to create the "perfect life form." The humans who land on the planet encounter David's alien mutations, which are born from his pathogen experimentation. The film introduces a pale Neomorph alien, along with the growth iterations of the alien known as the chestburster and facehugger phases of development. The familiar adult stage Xenomorph appears in the last portion of the film, laying the groundwork for the visual evolution of the creature to connect to emAlien/em./p h2emAlien/em (2122)/h2 p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3YTIMGmZUr4?si=LKmioOnU2APQ1paK" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pFrom egg to facehugger to chestburster to adult creature, emAlien/em provides the entire gestational lifespan of a Xenomorph, as audiences watch it infect the emNostromo/em crew and then obliterate everyone, one by one. The lone survivors are Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Jonesy the cat./p h2emAliens/em and emAlien 3/em (2179)/h2 p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oSeQQlaCZgU?si=FTgxKJIwWdmbjFC3" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pAlong with the now familiarfacehugger, chestburster, and adult Xenomorph iterations of the alien, emAliens /emintroduces the Queen. A massive creature with a large, flat crest on its head, the Queen is the breeder of its colony. It finds a humid space to create a protected nest, then guards her eggs, which will eventually produce facehuggers for egg implantation in other organic hosts. She can be mobile, as shown when she leaves her nest to stop the threat of Ripley and her flamethrower./p pIn David Fincher's a data-entity-href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-3-development-hell-alternate-versions-history" data-entity-title="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-3-development-hell-alternate-versions-history" href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/alien-3-development-hell-alternate-versions-history" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"emAlien 3/em/a, a facehugger is hatched from an egg in the escape pod of the Sulaco. When the ship crashes ontoFiorina 161, the facehugger attaches to a prisoner there and births a Xenomorph that breeds more of its kind, which wipes out the installation. The film also introduces theDog Alien hybrid creature./p h2emAlien Resurrection/em (2379)/h2 p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cv7_7dSbaOk?si=W-LePkSXnZLNpSks" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pIn emAlien Resurrection/em, a cloned version of Ellen Ripley is brought to life in the future, where anAlien Queen has also been cloned.The United Systems Military (USM) is trying to breed and control aliens as weapons, and have created a lab full of mutated abominations includingahumanoidmutanthybrid called a Newborn. This evolved Xenomorph can also swim./p pstrongemWatch the many terrifying Xenomorphs in the Alien films a href="https://www.syfy.com/schedule" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"on SYFY/a throughout March!/em/strong/p