Harry Dean Stanton’s Alien Character Originally Had A Much Worse Death

Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett suffers a bleak fate in Alien, but his death originally went even further. Alien became a genre-defining work in 1979, with the “Haunted House in Space” movie bringing to life one of the greatest movie monsters, in addition to introducing Signoney Weaver’s iconic Ripley. Everything about the movie from its casting to cinematography and production design worked beautifully and naturally led to many sequels and ripoffs.

Surprisingly, Ridley Scott wasn’t invited back for Aliens, with James Cameron crafting a sequel that reimagined the concept as an action movie. Scott finally returned for 2012 prequel Prometheus, which largely distanced itself from the lore of the franchise and focused on scientists discovering the beings who created mankind. The movie was highly anticipated and while it was a success, it met with mixed reviews. Scott eventually – and begrudgingly – brought the Xenomorph back for 2017’s Alien: Covenant, which was even more divisive. Noah Hawley is currently set to create an Alien TV series for FX.

Alien 1979 features some visceral death scenes for the unlucky crew members of the Nostromo, including John Hurt’s infamous Alien chestburster scene. The late, great Harry Dean Stanton played Brett in the movie, who is the first character killed onscreen by the fully-grown Xenomorph. The build-up to the character’s demise is one of the tensest sequences in the movie, with the creature descending on Brett when he’s alone searching for missing cat Jones. The Xenomorph grabs the terrified Brett, punching a hole in his head with its tongue before pulling him into the vents.

There is a slightly extended version of Brett’s demise, which saw the Xenomorph slide its tail between his legs and slowly crushing his head in its hands before the bite. Ripley and Parker then ran into the hold when they heard his screams, with Brett’s blood raining down on them from above. The shot of the Xenomorph’s tail moving between Brett’s leg was later reused for Lambert’s demise. In the Theatrical Cut of Alien, Brett’s body is never recovered, but it turns out his fate was even bleaker.

In a major deleted scene that was later reinstated for the 2003 Alien: The Director’s Cut, after Ripley activates the ships self-destruct, she was supposed to find the Xenomorph’s nest. This is where she would find Brett’s body, which was being transformed into an Alien egg. She also finds the barely alive Dallas (Tom Skerritt), who begs her to kill him; Ripley reluctantly burns both Dallas and Brett’s body before making her escape from the doomed ship. Ridley Scott removed this scene because it was felt it slowed the pace of the finale, and there was concern over the effects in the sequence too.

Nevertheless, this particular piece of Xenomorph biology has continued to fascinate fans, though it’s still not technically canon within the Alien franchise. Brett was almost certainly dead by the time his body was used for the Eggmorphing process, but still, it makes what was already a grim fate even grimmer.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

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He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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