History Film / Alien40thAnniversaryShorts

* KickTheSonOfABitch: When the chestburster starts to erupt, Albrecht gets into the airlock and locks it behind her, refusing to open the hatch. A ScreenShake makes her fall against the door control causing it to open. Ward then runs over her leaving the chestburster to chew on Albrecht's face.

* ''Alone'' -- Hope, an abandoned crew member aboard the derelict chemical hauler ''Otranto'', has spent a year trying to keep her ship and herself alive as both slowly fall apart. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it all to power up the broken ship in search of human life.
* ''Harvest'' -- The surviving crew of a damaged deep-space harvester have minutes to reach the emergency evacuation shuttle. A motion sensor is their only navigation tool leading them to safety while a creature in the shadows terrorizes the crew. However, the greatest threat might have been hiding in plain sight all along.

* ''Specimen'' -- It’s the night shift in a colony greenhouse, and Julie, a botanist, does her best to contain suspicious soil samples that have triggered her sensitive lab dog. Despite her best efforts the lab unexpectedly goes into full shutdown and she is trapped inside. Little does she know an alien specimen has escaped the mysterious cargo, and a game of cat and mouse ensues as the creature searches for a host.

[[folder:''Alone'']]

* AdmiringTheAbomination: Hope looks at the adult Xenomorph in awe.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Hope lures in a salvager just to let her "companion" facehug him.
* BuildingIsWelding: Or repairing, in this case.
* CallBack:
** The chemical hauler ''Otranto'' is similar to the ''Nostromo'' in that it's a massive commercial hauler controlled by Mother. We have the long panning shots through empty rooms and the drinking birds in the gallery as in the opening of ''Film/{{Alien}}''. Macwhirr is wearing a ''Nostromo''-era spacesuit and arrives in the same type of shuttle as the ''Narcissus''. Hope does the same funny little "jog in place" bit that Ash did, and a Ripley-style last entry of her CaptainsLog.
** Hope shows the same skill with sketching as David in ''Film/AlienCovenant''. Like David she also becomes fascinated by the alien enough to see it continues its life cycle at the expense of the humans she ostensibly serves.
* CaptainsLog:
-->'''Hope:''' Post-evacuation report of the commercial frigate ''Otranto''. Day 458. I've been counting the rivets in the B Deck corridor. There are 28,582 rivets. That's two more than in the technical specs. [[AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker I will have to tell someone when I get home.]]
* CastingGag: Macwhirr is played by James Paxton, son of Bill Paxton who played Hudson in ''Film/{{Aliens}}''.
* ChestBurster: Happens [[SoundOnlyDeath out of sight]] when Macwhirr is locked in a room after being infected with a facehugger.
* CompanionCube: With no other living thing on board the ''Otranto'', Hope starts to emphasize with the facehugger, even referring to "her" instead of "it." When she realises they are both dying, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality she goes to great lengths to ensure it will complete its sole purpose in life.]] The facehugger too is drawn to Hope because there is no-one else on the ship, so it seeks out anything that approximates a lifeform.
* CutTheJuice: Hope accidentally shorts out Mother when she [[NiceJobBreakingItHero uses a fire extinguisher on an electrical fire]]. Fortunately for her, this gives her access to the Science Lab that Mother has refused to let her enter.
* CuriosityKilledTheCast: Averted, though it kills someone else down the track. Hope wants to know what's behind the locked door that [[MasterComputer Mother]] won't give her access to. A power failure gives her a chance to find out -- a living facehugger held in stasis. It looks like she will become the next victim [[DontTouchItYouIdiot when she revives the creature]], but it turns out Hope is a synthetic and is therefore not a viable host for impregnation.
* DissonantSerenity: Hope's calm response when the facehugger leaps at her.
* DyingAlone:
-->'''Hope:''' Neither of us deserve to die out here like this. So we are going to take our fate into our own hands.
* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: Mother when it short-circuits from the fire. Hope as her body starts to break down.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Hope tells Macwhirr to accept his fate like she has. Of course there's [[ChestBurster nothing dignified]] about ''his'' demise.
* FaceHugger: As the facehugger is dying, Hope has to hold it down over Macwhirr's face to ensure he'll get a FaceFullOfAlienWingWong.
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: Hope has the fragile beauty, child-like innocence, and MeaningfulName of an [[TheIngenue ingenue]]. She ends up holding a man down and shoving a facehugger over his mouth, then locking him in a room until his chest bursts open.
* FeetFirstIntroduction: Our first sight of Hope is her trainers walking down a corridor as she counts the rivets.
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: As the title suggests, Hope is trapped alone aboard her ship for quite some time. Between her failing hardware and fascination with the facehugger, bad things happen.
* TheGreatRepair: The ''Otranto'' (and Hope) is slowly deteriorating, but the impending demise of the facehugger spurs Hope to fix the engines to get it close to an inhabited region of space.
* HardWorkMontage: A quick one to show Hope scavenging the ship to get the engines working.
* LateToTheTragedy: Hope is the last surviving crewmember aboard her ship, which is falling apart beyond the frontier of humanity.
* NotMeThisTime: Unlike the prior shorts, there is no indication that Weyland Yutani is involved with this Xenomorph outbreak. The facehugger was being studied on board the ''Otranto'' however, so it's possible that a similar course of events occurred as per the first film.
* RoboticReveal: When the facehugger leaps at Hope, it grips her arm with its tail tightly enough to wound her. However the [[AlienBlood blood is white]] and the facehugger then flees. We then cut to Hope repairing her arm and surmising that the facehugger could not infect her as she was not a viable host. Though the actress does such a good job portraying Hope's synthetic "otherness," and the clues are so front-loaded, that the reveal is almost a formality.
* SecondLawMyAss: Hope is just [[AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker going through the motions]], maintaining the ''Otranto'' while waiting for a rescue that will never come. Hope doesn't start to resent this until the facehugger's deterioration starts to match her own. Eventually she attacks a human and later refuses his order to let him out of the room she's confined him in.
* SingleTear: Hope weeps a single milky-white tear when her hand twitches cause her to deface a self portrait.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: A rather dark take on this, but valid given the RuleOfSymbolism of the Xenomorph life cycle.
* SomethingThatBeginsWithBoring: Before she discovers the facehugger, Hope has resorted to counting the rivets on the spaceship just to keep herself occupied.
* SuperStrength: Hope is able to hold down a much larger man who is struggling for his life. Combined with SuperReflexes when she holds a facehugger at bay effortlessly, only receiving minor damage to her forearm from the crushing strength of its tail.
* TheUnreveal: The short ends with the fully-grown Xenomorph looming over Hope. Whether the innately hostile adult form kills her on the spot or leaves her alone is not revealed, though given that adult Xenomorphs similarly do not attack synthetics unless they have to, it is likely the adult Xenomorph left her alone.
* VillainProtagonist: Hope initially appears to be the classic FinalGirl, but she eventually allows her "companion" to complete its life cycle.
* WeaksauceWeakness: While the Xenomorph still unrealistically grows many times larger with no immediate food source, the facehugger realistically begins to die due to lack of food and no viable hosts for it to perform its function on, only surviving as long as it does because Hope notes it is very good at conserving its energy. By the time Hope has actually found a host, she has to put the facehugger to him because it's grown too weak to move.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Although the captain of the ''Otranto'' told Hope that someone would come back to rescue her, it's obvious that no-one will. Even if she is rescued, the Company doesn't manufacture spare parts for her model any more.

[[folder:''Harvest'']]

* AnArmAndALeg: When the Xenomorph tries to drag off her husband, Hannah hacks at its arm with the fire axe. This gets acid blood on her husband and the blow fails to severe the limb, but the injury does make the Xenomorph let him go.
* AsteroidMiners: The ''November'' harvests plasma from the tail of a comet. Unfortunately, with most of the crew dead, the out-of-control vessel is about to collide with the comet it's trailing, so everyone has to AbandonShip even without a generally unpleasant Xenomorph on the hunt.
* TheBadGuyWins: The Company finally gets their hands on some alien specimens.
* BaitAndSwitch: Mari appears to be the requisite ''Alien'' heroine, but is actually a RoboticPsychopath ensuring the Company gets two viable alien specimens.
* BigBadDuumvirate: The Xenomorph, obviously, but also Mari, secretly a synthetic who's only helping two survivors escape because the escape pod is already stocked with Alien eggs, just waiting for hapless, helpless hosts.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: The synthetic appears to be wanting to help the survivors only to lure them into a facehugger trap.
* BloodFromTheMouth: As is the case whenever the Xenomorph impales someone through the back, in this case, revealing Mari is an android.

[[folder:''Night Shift'']]

* BolivianArmyEnding: [[HopeSpot Rolly kills the chestburster]], only for a RedAlert and the [[FromBadToWorse sound of gunfire and screeching of fully-grown aliens]] to be heard outside.
* BrickJoke: Rolly gives Springer shit over listening to baseball games, asking "When has baseball ever helped anyone?" [[BatterUp Guess what she uses to kill the chestburster at the end...]]
* CloserToEarth: Rolly prefers [[TalkingToPlants whalesong and tending a plant]] to Springer's [[FanOfThePast baseball games]] (sorry, [[InsistentTerminology historical artifacts]]).
* CouldntFindALighter: Welles uses a blowtorch to light a cigar.
* DirtyCoward: Welles has the only firearm, but decides to abandon the man he accidentally shot and save himself. From the noise outside the room afterwards, [[DeathByPragmatism he might not have survived for long]].
* EasyAmnesia: Harper has been missing for an entire day, with only vague memories of having a nightmare. The RevealShot of a dead facehugger reveals why.
* FinalGirl: Rolly, as per the ''Aliens'' tradition. After Welles flees with the only firearm, she locks the door and [[ActionSurvivor goes hunting for the chestburster]] in the dark with an aluminum [[BatterUp baseball bat]].
* FriendOrFoe: Welles fires at the chestburster and hits Springer instead. He fires several more wild shots and only succeeds in [[DarknessEqualsDeath knocking out the lights]].
* HairOfTheDog: Finding his friend so sick he's been missing for a day, Welles goes to get him some pills so they can go on drinking.
* ImprovisedWeapon: With Welles having fled with the only weapon, Rolly grabs an aluminum baseball bat, presumably belonging to Springer.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Welles talks Springer into opening the storeroom after they're closed for the night, then accidentally shoots him in the neck.
* NothingExcitingEverHappensHere: The [[SpaceWestern High Lonesome]] Mining Colony on LV-422.
-->'''Welles:''' So what do people do for fun around this shitpile?\\
'''Rolly:''' They leave.
* PrecisionFStrike: When Rolly asks if there's a berth on his ship, Welles suggests that [[DoubleEntendre she share his bunk]]. Rolly responds appropriately and gets reprimanded by Stringer, who's just entered the room.
* RevealShot: As a large vehicle moves overhead, its floodlight illuminates a dead facehugger in the trench where Welles found Harper.
* SeriesContinuityError: The victim of the ChestBurster feels sick instead of hungry, though it's possible people impregnated by an alien would be affected in different ways. Or that he was already ill ''before'' being facehugged, for that matter.
* ShoutOut: The HandCannon that Welles uses resembles Decker's firearm in ''Film/{{Bladerunner}}''.
* SpaceTrucker: Harper and Welles.
* StickyFingers: Welles helps himself to a bottle in the storeroom.
* TrappedWithMonsterPlot: Inverted; Rolly locks the storeroom door to prevent the chestburster from escaping.
* ZeerustCanon: The text-based interface of the storeroom inventory matches TheSeventies look of ''Film/{{Alien}}''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Ore'']]

* AffectionateNickname: Lorraine exchanges these with her daughter (also a miner) as she goes off shift.
* AlienBlood: Winni is presumably killed by the Xenomorph's acidic blood, given that her death is not seen, but it immediately cuts to a burned mining tool.
* AsteroidMiners: Albeit on an exoplanet rather than an asteroid.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Hanks ostensibly reasonable actions are to preserve the life of the Xenomorph, not the miners.
* BolivianArmyEnding: All of the miners stand ready to face the Xenomorph, and the film ends, right when the creature charges them.
* BraidsOfAction: Several of the female miners including Lorraine have their hair in braids.

** Clark gets drooled on, then gets impaled and dragged into the darkness, much like Bishop in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and Axel in ''VideoGame/AlienIsolation''.
** The order that Hanks gets regarding the 'organism' is identical to the Mother scene in ''Film/{{Alien}}''.
* ChestBurster: Also happened off screen, and it evidently happened a while ago, as the alien has had time to grow to full size.
* DarkenedBuildingShootout: The Xenomorph attacks when the tunnels are lit by the helmets lights and the flashing emergency lights. Then Hanks [[DarknessEqualsDeath switches off the tunnel lights]] as well.
* DarknessEqualsDeath: Hanks turns off the lights, which allows the Xenomorph to massacre one of the miners.
* DroolHello + DeathByLookingUp: Drool falls onto Clark's helmet, and he dies on looking up to see the cause.
* DugTooDeep: The miners are worried the Company will abandon the colony because they haven't been making any new strikes of platinum. Hanks reassures them they just have to keep digging. Turns out they've already hit paydirt -- too bad it's more valuable to the Company than their lives.
* EveryManHasHisPrice: Averted; Lorraine comments that if they make a good strike and get "that bonus," she'll take her family somewhere better. Near the end, Hanks guarantees a bonus for the miners. . . '''if''' they let the Alien live. Lorraine responds "[[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules Fuck you, Hanks.]]"
* EvilDetectingDog: Dan the Dog starts barking at the monitor screen when the Xenomorph makes an appearance.
* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: Occurred to Al off-screen.
* FacialDialogue:
** When Al's body is found burst open from the inside, we get a ReactionShot from Hanks and she ''immediately'' guesses [[ChestBurster what caused the injury]].
** After turning off the lights to protect the Xenomorph from an axe-wielding miner, Hanks [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone listens in horror]] to the subsequent SoundOnlyDeath.
* GoryDiscretionShot: None of the kills the Xenomorph makes are shown directly.
* HostileWeather: Bowen's Landing is on an ice-bound planet that's cold enough to freeze your balls off, or so one miner claims.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The first miner dies this way when he looks up.
* ImprovisedWeapon: Which appear to be [[PowerfulPick pickaxes]] and [[{{BFG}} large]] [[ThisIsADrill drills]]. Were it not for the Xenomorph's acidic blood, they'd probably be quite effective.
* InUniverseCamera: When a miner turns up babbling about an emergency, Lorraine grabs a camera that she hangs on her chest so Hanks can see what's going on.
* JustFollowingOrders: Hanks appears to have more empathy than [[Film/{{Alien}} some other synthetics]] [[Film/AlienCovenant we've seen]], but [[JustAMachine that doesn't stop her]] from being willing to sacrifice the lives of the miners and endanger the colony just to obey the Company's order to protect the organism at all costs.
* MamaBear: Realising the Xenomorph will only follow them up the lift shaft and attack the colony where her daughter and grandchildren live, Lorraine stops the lift and goes to fight the alien.
* MythologyGag: The miners have that talk about the bonus situation that Parker wanted to have in ''Alien''.
* NoOSHACompliance:
** Because the miners are hungry for bonuses, they keep pushing themselves to take double or even [[TripleShifter triple shifts]].
** It's implied that the Company knows about the Xenomorph (note that Hanks instantly diagnoses the chestburster injury) but no general warning about the dangers of alien eggs has been issued.
* NothingIsScarier: As in the original ''Alien'', the Xenomorph is never seen directly or very clearly until the end of the film.
* PopulationXAndCounting: As the new shift arrives they file past a sign saying that Bowen's Landing has a population of 288, which has then been crossed out for 312. One suspects that number is about to be reduced drastically.
* ProperlyParanoid: Lorraine's first reaction upon seeing the Alien eggs is to try to shoot them on the belief they are dangerous. She quickly gets proven right, but they weren't expecting an adult Xenomorph warrior to show up.
* PracticalEffects: The Xenomorph would have had been done as someone in a suit, but the need for it to do a quick leap on the wall meant it had to be done in CGI.
* QuarantineWithExtremePrejudice: Averted; on realising what they're dealing with, Hanks shuts down the mine and orders everyone out. Justified as getting the humans as far away from the Xenomorph as possible is the [[PragmaticVillainy best way to protect both]]. It's Lorraine who insists that everyone has to stay to prevent the Xenomorph escaping.
* RevealShot: The lights go out as Winni tries to kill the Xenomorph with an axe. We then see Hanks with her finger on the switch for the mine lights.
* SurveillanceStationSlacker: The human worker in the monitoring room is actually asleep while the synthetic is doing all the work. When he leaves the room, Hanks simply locks the door to prevent him interfering.
* TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: Lorraine has pictures of cats and her daughter's baby on her locker door.
* TemptingFate:
** Clark says he should have left the colony. He's right, as he's the first to die onscreen.
** Winni exults, "I got it!" as she lands a blow on the Xenomorph in the dark. We then [[SoundOnlyDeath hear her scream]] and an acid-scorched pickaxe falls to the ground.
* WallCrawl: The Xenomorph leaps up the side of a mining tunnel to avoid a swing from an axe.
* WorkingClassHero: You can't get more blue collar than starting a shift complaining about your balls.
* YouAreNotAlone: Lorraine goes out alone to fight the Xenomorph. However as the alien monster advances out of the dark towards her, the other miners suddenly appear alongside her.

[[folder:''Specimen'']]

* AngryGuardDog: Maggie, the dog used to detect contaminated soil samples, is a synthetic Doberman Pinscher.
* ApathyKilledTheCat: Or the dog, in this case. When Maggie warns the humans about the contaminated container, Dev says they have to wait till morning to get something done about it because the people responsible for decontamination aren't going to sort it out in the middle of the night. This ends up getting Maggie killed, but at least Maggie made sure there'd be no outbreak.
* DeathByLookingUp: Averted; see below.
* DroolHello: Acid drips down from the pipes above. Julie aims her torch upwards and the facehugger leaps down at her--fortunately she's able to knock it aside in mid-leap with her shovel.
* EvilDetectingDog: Justified; Maggie is specifically trained -- or programmed -- to detect contaminated soil samples. Unfortunately this time it's not just some alien virus.
* HaveYouTriedRebooting: After the botanical lab goes into LockDown with Julie trapped inside, Dev reboots the system to unlock it, [[DarknessEqualsDeath turning off all the lights]].
* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: Alone in the lab during a long night shift, Julie listens to music on her headphones. Unfortunately this means [[FailedASpotCheck she doesn't hear]] the RedAlert and gets [[LockDown locked in the lab]].
* HeroicSacrifice: Maggie dies fighting the facehugger, getting her head and neck eaten away by acid after biting it. But this means the facehugger becomes easy meat for Julie, who then finishes Maggie off after telling her she did a good job.
* MansBestFriend: Even when they're synthetic.
* MercyKill: After Maggie's head and neck are badly damaged by the facehugger's acidic blood, Julie puts the cybernetic canine out of her misery with a blow from her shovel.
* NoOSHACompliance: The reason why a RedAlert is supposed to include a flashing red light is for situations where people can't hear a siren.
* RoboticReveal: Maggie is revealed to be a dog-shaped synthetic -- complete with milky-white "blood" -- after she mauls the facehugger and has her head and neck melted away to the bone, still-twitching and attempting to bark.
* ScareTheDog: Played with; Julie hears a couple of terrified whimpers as Maggie battles the facehugger in the darkness, but Maggie doesn't give up.
* ShovelStrike: Julie arms herself with a square shovel for lack of a better weapon, having broken her trowel trying to pry the door open. She ends up using it to kill the wounded facehugger.
* StrippedToTheBone: Maggie is stripped to her skeleton from the neck up thanks to the facehugger's acid blood, though she held on long enough to nearly kill it in turn.
* TrappedWithMonsterPlot: The TrappedInContainment version.
* TheVoice: Dev is just a voice on the intercom for most of the movie, only turning up in person after it's all over.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Dev tells Julie she shouldn't have named the dog. Turns out it's a synthetic animal.
[[/folder]]

* KillEmAll: All of the survivors are dead or guaranteed to be dead at the end of the short.

* TrappedWithMonsterPlot: The LockDown version.

* ImprovisedWeapon: Which appear to be [[PowerfulPick pick]][[AnAxeToGrind axes]] and [[{{BFG}} large]] [[ThisIsADrill drills]]. Were it not for the Xenomorph's acidic blood, they'd probably be quite effective.

* ''Containment'' -- Four survivors (Gaia Weiss, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, and Adam Loxley) find themselves stranded aboard a small escape pod in deep space. Trying to piece together the details around the outbreak that led to their ship’s destruction, they find themselves unsure to trust whether or not one of them might be infected.

* ImprovisedWeapon: The survivors have only a [[AnAxeToGrind fire axe]] to protect them.

* AnAxeToGrind: The survivors have an ax that they use against the Xenomorph, until the acidic blood of the creature wrecks it.

* CutTheJuice: Hope accidentally shorts out Mother when she [[NiceJobBreakingItHero uses a fire extinguisher on an electrical fire]]. Fortunately for her, this gives her access to the Science Lab that that Mother has refused to let her enter.

* EasyAmnesia: Nass wakes up in the escape pod, having no memory at all being here. This is also {{foreshadowing}} that he's impregnated with a Xenomorph chestburster as one of the symptoms is memory loss.

* DarknessEqualsDeath: After the botanical lab goes into LockDown with Julie trapped inside, Dev reboots the system to unlock it, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero turning off all the lights]].

* CoupDeGrace: After Maggie's head and neck are badly damaged by the facehugger's acidic blood, Julie puts the cybernetic canine out of her misery with a blow from her shovel.

* ApathyKilledTheCat: When Maggie warns the humans about the contaminated container, Dev says they have to wait till morning to get something done about it because the people responsible for decontamination aren't going to sort it out in the middle of the night. This ends up getting Maggie killed, but at least Maggie made sure there'd be no outbreak.

* SeriesContinuityError: The victim of the ChestBurster feels sick instead of hungry, though it's possible people impregnated by an alien would be affected in different ways.

* RealityEnsues: While the Xenomorph still unrealistically grows many times larger with no immediate food source, the facehugger realistically begins to die due to lack of food and no viable hosts for it to perform its function on, only surviving as long as it does because Hope notes it is very good at conserving its energy. By the time Hope has actually found a host, she has to put the facehugger to him because it's grown too weak to move.

* ''Containment'' -- Four survivors (Gaia Weiss, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, and Adam Loxley)find themselves stranded aboard a small escape pod in deep space. Trying to piece together the details around the outbreak that led to their ship’s destruction, they find themselves unsure to trust whether or not one of them might be infected.

** The alien tricks the motion detector by traveling on the deck below, just as the first [[Film/{{alien}} did while stalking Captain Dallas.

* ''Containment'' -- Four survivors find themselves stranded aboard a small escape pod in deep space. Trying to piece together the details around the outbreak that led to their ship’s destruction, they find themselves unsure to trust whether or not one of them might be infected.

* SomeoneHasToDie: Subverted; a seriously wounded Alec is dragged to the emergency shuttle, but as it will [[ColdEquation only accept two people he urges his wife to leave him behind]] and save their child. Mari then manually overrides the LockDown, but only so the shuttle will accept the alien eggs/facehuggers she has already planted on board.

[[/folder]]

* RealityEnsues: While the Xenomorph still unrealistically grows many times larger with no immediately food source, the facehugger realistically begins to die due to lack of food and no viable hosts for it to perform its function on, only surviving as long as it does because Hope notes it is very good at conserving its energy. By the time Hope has actually found a host, she has to put the facehugger to him because it's grown too weak to move.