8 Abandoned Plot Twists That Almost Ruined Famous Movies

2. The Alien Bites Ripley's Head Off & Imitates Her Voice - Alien

Alien, Ridley Scott's unabashed sci-fi masterpiece, tells the ill-fated story of the crew of a space-cruiser called the Nostromo, who touch down on a strange planet after responding to a distress signal and inadvertedly bring an alien creature on board their ship that proceeds to kill them off, one by one, in increasingly gruesome ways. At the centre of this chilling horror nightmare is one resourceful heroine named Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the only crew member who survives the ordeal and - after a long stretch of near-death experiences - manages to fire the creature into the cold depths of space. Then, left with no choice, she records a final log and places herself into cryosleep. One of the inherently great things about Alien happens to be that it features a female lead who faces a mighty challenge and overcomes the odds, of course. And yet it very nearly didn't happen that way, because the original script called for a downright awful moment that would have seen Ripley killed for literally no reason. And not just killed, mind; the plan was for the alien to bite her head off in the escape shuttle and then - in the weirdest plot twist ever known to man - sit down in a chair and record a message on the log whilst imitating her voice perfectly, which is... well, what is that, exactly? This ability wouldn't have been mentioned beforehand, by the way. Shock factor intended. It was supposed to be crazy and completely out of nowhere; a plot twist nobody could have ever seen coming. It would have also ruined everything that is great about Alien, and killed the franchise dead for the sake of a talking Xenomorph.