Queen Chestburster (Alien 3 / Alien Resurrection)

Posted by Darkness on May 1, 2023 (Updated: 06-Sep-2023)

 Queen Chestburster (Alien 3 / Alien Resurrection)

Scientists remove the Queen Chestburster from Ripley 8.

The Chestburster that Ripley was carrying in 1992’s Alien 3 is a Queen Chestburster. In the theatrical version, it bursts out of Ripley at the climax of the film as she jumps into the molten lead. The Queen Chestburster also appears in 1997’s Alien Resurrection, although this was technically a result of cloning Ripley after using her blood on Fiorina 161. The clone isn’t exactly the same as the resulting Queen has human characteristics too.

Characteristics

A Queen Chestburster looks very similar to the snake-like creatures we have encountered previously although seems larger and it has a crown-shaped head.

Story

About a week after Ripley, Newt and Hicks enter hypersleep in the Sulaco, the Queen laid one last egg before the battle with Ripley. The egg hatches and a Facehugger exits which is capable of laying two two embryos. It manages to infect Ripley in her stasis tube but in the chaos, it causes a fire in the Sulaco which causes the ship to eject the survivors in an E.E.V..

The Facehugger goes on to infect a dog which causes a Dog Alien to be unleashed and the prison population has to fight for their survival. Ripley suspects that she has a Chestburster inside and has it confirms it, when 85 gives her an x-ray. Even when Ripley confronts the Xenomorph, it won’t kill her because it knows she is carrying a Queen.

 Queen Chestburster (Alien 3 / Alien Resurrection)

X-Ray of Ripley showing the Queen Chestburster.

When the remaining survivors manage to kill the Dog Alien, members of Weyland-Yutani, led by Bishop, appear and offer to save Ripley. She refuses and sacrifices herself by falling into the molten lead. As she falls in, the Queen Chestburster bursts out and she holds onto it as she falls in the lead.

 Queen Chestburster (Alien 3 / Alien Resurrection)

Queen Chestburster

In 2379, United Systems Military scientists on the spacecraft USM Auriga created a clone of Ripley, known as Ripley 8, using DNA from blood samples taken before her death on Fiorina 161. The Queen embryo inside of her is also cloned and the scientists remove the Queen Chestburster from Ripley 8 when it had matured. They raise it into a full-grown Queen Alien which produces numerous Alien eggs. Later, the Queen abandons laying eggs and creates a womb which results in the Newborn.

 Queen Chestburster (Alien 3 / Alien Resurrection)

Scientists remove the Queen Chestburster from Ripley 8.

Behind-The-Scenes

Amalgamated Dynamics, led by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, was hired to do the creature effects on Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.

In the scene where 85 scans Ripley, the effects team made four separate layers. They were all keyed in so they could lay the first layer down which was inside the back with the back of the ribcage and spine. The next section was the internal organs and another layer was the puppet of the embryo Chestburster next to her heart. They had a top level which had the ribcage over the top of that. Richard Hollander did a pass where everything was combined and as the camera moved off-axis, there was this 3D effect. The whole image was then degraded down into monochromatic and given a digital feeling.

Alien 3 Trivia: While the Queen Chestburster appears in the theatrical version of Alien 3 as Ripley is falling to her death, the scene was missing in the leaked workprint. It was also removed in the 2003 Assembly Cut. They felt that Ripley’s sacrifice would have meant more had the audience not have seen that happen. As in the theatrical version, the scene reinforced the fact that Ripley was going to die anyway regardless of what she did so it was removed to have more impact.

In Alien Resurrection, the military scientists remove the Queen Chestburster from Ripley 8. A.D.I. made a larger size of it for the closeup shot with larger pincers too. It gave them the detail that they needed to articulate the face and have the head extrude from the silicon sheath.

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