The alien design is credited to Swiss surrealist and artist H. R. Giger, originating in a lithograph called Necronom IV and refined for the series' first film, Alien. The species' design and life cycle have been at length added to throughout each film.

Unlike lots of other repeated enemy alien races in scifi, the aliens are not a clever civilization, but rapacious creatures with no higher goals than the propagation of their species and the destruction of life that might pose a threat. Like wasps or termites, aliens are eusocial, with a single fruitful queen breeding a caste of sterile soldiers. The aliens' biological life cycle, in which their offspring are violently implanted within living hosts before erupting from their chests, is in some ways their signature aspect. Their design purposely evokes many sexual photographs, both masculine and feminine, to explain its blurring of human sexual dichotomy.

I found this figure at a store for $10. As others have indicated, the number is gorgeous. The detail in the body and head are excellent. The tubes coming off the jaw, the action of the jaw, the body tubes and surface details are all lovingly made.

The detail under the cranial bubble might be much better. It is too smooth and it seems like some of the detail was drawn in with a pen, but this is a minor argue. In dim light, it is fine. As others have indicated, the figure's "20 points of articulation" don't work precisely as publicized, but I was ready to fix mine.

When I opened my package, just a few of the joints worked. Since I'd read other reviews here, I was careful about not breaking anything.

I exploited a small vegetable oil to lubricate everything. This helped, but the head still didn't turn, the feet did not move, and the shoulders didn't work thru their complete range of motion. Then, I attempted Evan Michael Sizemore's concept. I heated some water in the microwave and doused the uncooperative joints.

After a short soak and some careful fiddling, all of the joints loosened enough to move them. I injected more plant oil. More fiddling, and I currently have an entirely pronounced Alien with no damaged parts. In the final analysis, this isn't a toy. It is a collectible, and it has to be treated that way. It appears to be great, but it is still kind of frail and it took lots of work to make the thing pose correctly.

That coupled with the pen job on top of the head means I'm only able to give 3 stars. If you can get it for a great price and you've got the patience to sort out the joints, it is a deserving addition to any collection. The company which produces this toy must have very little quality control. I purchase this for my boy who is just now getting into judge dredd, he has got a comic where dredd does battle with alien so as many oldsters do, I determined to get an action figure for his dredd figure to do battle with ( can't have batman without joker ). Anyhow, this toy came broken! I opened the package and all seemed fine, I showed it do him and a couple of seconds later the foot came off while I watched!! The total time which elapse was perhaps 15 seconds! On closer inspection I noticed precisely what had happened...there is a ring at the ankle area where the foot slips on and a post is driven thru the 2 pieces therefore holding the foot in effect the ring had clearly been damaged in the producing process and fastened back together...I could obviously see the clean break and the 2 dabs of glue which had been place there to keep the 2 halves of the ring together.

What was I to do? The package had been opened, I could already predict the trouble of return mail and then the emails of no guarantee once opened or "how do we all know your child did not break it?" blah blah...perhaps I might have returned it without a difficulty but my son was so disappointed, all I could do was put some heavy duty epoxy on there and get alien into the battle as soon as possible. The detail was great, but if a company is selling something which is meant to be much more impressive than the average action figure than why can't they be as detailed in the QC as they're in the LOOK of the darn thing? Buy this at your own risk and confirm you have got some significant adhesives! As for myself, I should have gave more attention to the reviews, which I often do religiously when buying amazon, but hey, folks often just gotta do what they gotta do. I acquired this same toy from a different vendor. It comes in pieces that you have to put together. The back vent pipe push on pretty snug, but they are not locked on in any way at all and can be shook loose simply. The legs are separate and need to be attached at about the knee. The sockets are extremely tight and take a little effort to put. While attaching the left leg, the whole leg snapped off at the hip joint. Whatever glue or epoxy they employed in the factory ( if any ) to assemble the figure breaks loose very simply. Although the socket was disassembled cleanly, I will not appear to fix it because for who knows what reason the male / female connections are loose. Even after gluing it there's now an opening between the leg and lower body of the figure. It basically came apart on me while standing after gluing so I might need to use something more acute to mend it like JB weld.

It has appeared in the series' 2 spinoffs Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator : Requiem (2007), as well as the series' subsidiary literature and Nintendo games.

The Alien, also called the Xenomorph, is a fictional endoparasitoid alien species that's the first opponent of the Alien film series. The species made its debut in the 1979 film Alien, and reappeared in its follow ups Aliens (1986), Alien three (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997).