Newborn Xenomorph

The **Newborn Xenomorph** is a mutated human/Xenomorph hybrid featured in the 1997 action horror film *Alien: Resurrection*.

## Appearance

The Newborn Xenomorph is considerably bigger and taller than a normal Xenomorph and notably does not possess a faceless, highly elongated skull typical of the species. Instead, it has a far more ugly face, including eyes, a nose, a fleshy human tongue instead of a Xenomorph's inner jaw, and a far more humanoid skull-like face that showed only minor elongation at the rear. The creature also lacked the distinctive dark, biomechanical exoskeleton common to the species, instead being covered in soft, fleshy human-like skin.

## Powers and Abilities

* Physical strength
* Physical speed
* Physical endurance
* Acid blood

## Fate

The Newborn Xenomorph was killed by Ellen Ripley's clone Ripley 8 after she spilled her acid blood on a window and made a little hole in the hull of the spaceship, the Betty, causing the creature to be sucked violently through it and blowing its remains into outer space.

## Trivia

* The full-size Newborn animatronic puppet was originally filmed with genitals that were a mix between male and female genitals. They had to be digitally removed on studio orders.
* The Newborn's skull was made of plaster so it could be sucked out of the window into space. Cast only at 1/8-1/4" thick, it was scored into various pieces. Each piece was individually attached to a wire, so when struck against the window and cracked, each fragment could be pulled out one-by-one.
* The film takes place in 2379.
* Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to shoot additional action scenes using a fully digital Newborn creature. He wanted Ripley to be chased by the Newborn in the escape from the Betty scene, but could not realize it due to budget constraints. In the final film, a full-size Newborn creature can be seen in only one scene and almost all of the scenes involving the creature are animatronic.
* One of the concept designs of the Newborn involved the creature sporting a likeness of Sigourney Weaver's face. This was abandoned as it bore too much of a similarity to Sil, the alien creature in Species (1995).
* The physical shooting Newborn model was mounted on a crane, and incorporated a complex hydraulic system governed by a motion control computer, as well as a servo-operated face structure. The creature took 9 puppeteers to operate, and has been described as one of the most complex animatronics ever created. Jeunet was adamant that the Newborn have genitalia, a mix of both sexes. However, Fox was uncomfortable and even Jeunet eventually felt "even for a Frenchman, it's too much". The genitalia were digitally removed in post-production. While impressed with the animatronic, Jeunet subsequently expressed regret that, owing to the design, the creature was almost always seen from the waist upwards only, with just one brief shot showing the creature standing in full view.
* The Newborn creature Joss Whedon originally scripted in Alien Resurrection was drastically different to the one ultimately featured in the film. In the script, it is an eyeless, ivory-white creature with six limbs four, spider-like legs at the front with two dog-like rear limbs. It also has bulging red veins running along the sides of its elongated Alien head and an inner jaw, with the addition of a pair of pincers on the sides of its head. These pincers were used to immobilise the creature's prey as it drained its victim of their blood using its inner jaw. The Newborn was also meant to rival the Queen in size. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the film's director, later asked Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. to lean towards making the human-Alien hybrid more human than Alien.
* The Newborn was specifically given eyes to answer some of the criticism which had been made about prior iterations of how the alien could actually see, as it had no apparent eyes.
* Chris Halls created several concept sketches of creatures that blended Xenomorph and human characteristics, but the final design ultimately bore little resemblance to these. The Newborn's eyes and nose were added to improve its expressions to make it a character, rather than just a "killing machine", and give it depth as a character. Originally, the production team considered giving the creature Ellen Ripley's face, although the idea was eventually dropped for fear of comparisons with Sil from the film Species, which had been released the previous year. Another discarded idea was that of giving the creature translucent, gelatinous skin, through which its internal organs would be visible. Notably, a similar concept had originally been proposed for Alien in Alien.
* Joss Whedon originally scripted the Newborn creature as a deadly spider-like four-legged, eyeless, bone-white creature with red veins running along the sides of its head. It had an inner jaw, similar to the all the other aliens. It also had a pair of pincers on the sides of his head which were used to hold its prey still as it drained the prey of blood with its inner jaw. The creature was much larger, nearly the size of the queen alien. It was fairly intelligent and sadistic, audibly laughing as it used a soldier as a human shield against incoming weapons fire. It was also very hostile towards Ripley. Whedon was not involved in later script revisions, where the creature was changed into a "more believable" hybrid of human and alien that has a love scene with Ripley.
* The film ends with the Newborn being sucked out of a tiny hole in the spaceship's hull, an idea that was considered as a death scene for Lambert in Alien (1979), but abandoned because of budgetary constraints. It was also proposed for dispatching a minor character in one of the drafts of Alien 3 (1992).