8 Original Movie Endings That Never Made It To Screen

Alien was a seminal film in both sci-fi and horror, with even critics who viewed the film negatively agreeing it was effective. It was also a landmark, both for the way it portrayed space travel as a blue-collar gig and the fact that it featured a strong female protagonist - something largely absent from the cinematic landscape of the era. Sigourney Weaver's Ripley has endured four decades and some embarrassing installments, yet fans were still willing to come back for the ride so long as she did.

But it wasn't always that way. Alien was originally scripted by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the former of which went on to write and direct horror comedy Return of the Living Dead and had previously worked on John Carpenter's "Alien, but with a soccer ball" film Dark Star, so his twisted sense of humour was on full display.

Aside from being surprisingly homoerotic, O'Bannon's Alien still kept Ripley as the lone survivor to do battle with the xenomorph, but it ended rather abruptly: the creature bit off Ripley's head with one quick bite, then sat down and, in true Twilight Zone fashion, recorded a message in her voice saying she was setting a course for earth.

Cooler heads prevailed, the script had a few more names added to it and the idea was all but erased.