James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) expanded the saga’s canon by introducing the Xenomorph Queen, a different type of Alien that served as the sequel’s main antagonist. Whereas Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) turns into a slasher after the Chestbuster is born, Cameron’s Aliens was essentially an action movie. Aliens was bigger than Alien in every way, from the sets to the number of Xenomorph creatures involved. Rather than facing one Alien creature inside a ship, Ripley was now fighting a Xenomorph hive consisting of dozens of Aliens.
Aliens (1986) also went for something different regarding the Xenomorphs’ design, namely with the Xenomorph Queen. The Alien Queen would be just one of many new types of Xenomorph in the Alien franchise, all of which are unique in terms of design and how their bodies work. Aliens (1986) is not the only entry in the Alien saga to feature a Xenomorph Queen, although much of what is known about Alien Queens comes from the James Cameron movie. The Alien vs. Predator lore also reveals a lot about Xenomorph Queens, expanding on the concepts introduced in Aliens.
Aliens’ Xenomorph Queen Is The Leader of The Hive
Aliens (1986) introduced the Xenomorph Queen, a special type of Xenomorph that served as the leader of the hive encountered by Ripley on the human colony of LV-426. The fact that there were dozens of Xenomorphs on LV-426 meant that most humans there had probably been captured and turned into hosts by the Facehuggers. What happened to Kane in Alien (1979) was now happening on a larger scale with dozens of humans. However, those Facehuggers implanting Alien embryos on people in LV-426 had to be coming from somewhere. Facehuggers, which act as an intermediary in the Alien’s life cycle, come from eggs laid down by Xenomorphs.
As such, Ripley and the crew of the Sulaco concluded that there was at least one adult Xenomorph laying down eggs on LV-426. Hudson was the one who suggested that there was a bigger, female Alien serving as the head of the colony, thus introducing the concept of an Alien Queen. More than an hour into Aliens, the Xenomorph Queen made her debut. While there were several Xenomorphs on LV-426 during the event of Aliens, it was easy to tell whenever the bigger, stronger Xenomorph Queen was on screen.
Toward the end of Aliens, Ripley encountered dozens of Alien eggs and came face to face with the Xenomorph Queen, confirming that there was indeed a “queen of the hive.” The other Xenomorphs treated the Queen differently and had her safety as a priority. The Queen herself valued the safety of the Alien eggs and ragefully went after Ripley after the Lieutenant burned down the Xenomorph’s offspring. The concept of a Xenomorph Queen would be revisited in both Alie 3 and Alien Resurrection, the latter of which featured a cloned Queen. Alien vs. Predator also featured an Alien Queen, although the duology’s canon status is complicated.
How The Xenomorph Queen’s Appearance Differs From Other Xenomorphs
The Xenomorph Queen’s appearance in Aliens (1986) is one of many Alien Queen designs shown in the Alien and Alien vs. Predator universes. Generally, an Alien Queen has a much larger head than the usual Xenomorph drone. The Alien creature from Alien (1979), which was a Xenomorph drone, was around 8 feet tall. The Alien Queen from Aliens, on the other hand, was 15 feet tall. The average Xenomorph drone weighs 350 Ibs, whereas an Alien Queen can weigh ten times that.
Related: How Aliens’ Nightmare Sequence Created A Ripley Plot Hole
Another difference between a Xenomorph Queen and other Xenomorphs is the number of arms. The Alien Queen has a pair of extra arms compared to the Xenomorph drones, which gives it a spider-like presence. However, the biggest difference between the Xenomorph Queen and the drones is their intelligence. James Cameron’s Aliens could not just repeat what the first movie had done, which is why the Xenomorph Queen needed to be a different “final boss” from the original Xenomorph. Aliens’ Xenomorph Queen was more intelligent than the drones, as seen when she went after Ripley driven solely by revenge. The Xenomorph Queen was even smart enough to hide in the Sulaco.
How Xenomorph Queens Are Chosen
How a Xenomorph Queen is born or chosen is a complicated question that depends on which Alien continuity is being considered. For example, there are different types of Alien eggs in the Alien comics, suggesting that a Xenomorph Queen may come from a special type of egg. That said, this does not necessarily apply to the Alien movie lore. In the Alien movies timeline, not considering Alien vs. Predator, not much is known about how Xenomorph Queens are chosen. However, the Aliens 3 novelization establishes the concept of a “Queen embryo,” which is inserted by a Royal Facehugger and originates a special Chestbuster that evolves into a Queen.
Another alternate explanation that comes from the Alien comics is that a Xenomorph Queen lays down special eggs that are hatched separately from the others. The strongest creature born out of those will then become the Queen. The Alien vs. Predator lore, which sort of exists separately from that of the Alien movies after Prometheus rewrote the saga’s canon, has some different explanations for the Xenomorph Queen. The Alien vs. Predator: Extinction game from 2003 established that a Xenomorph Queen is actually the result of a metamorphosis process that any Xenomorph Praetorian can go through. Therefore, a regular Xenomorph drone could morph into a Pratetorian and then into a Queen.
What Happens To The Xenomorph Queen In Aliens
Aliens (1986) quickly establishes that the facility in LV-426 was essentially a fusion reactor ready to explode. Bishop then learns that the reactor will explode within four hours and take the entire planet with it. This set the stage for Ripley and Hicks’ plan to defeat the Aliens – escape from the planet and let the reactor explode. While their plan worked, not every alien was killed in the planet’s explosion. The Xenomorph Queen somehow hid in the shuttle that carried Ripley, Newt, Bishop, and Hicks back to the Sulaco. Aliens’ ending battle saw Ripley in the exoskeleton loader fighting the Queen in one of the franchise’s most famous scenes.
Ripley defeated the Xenomorph Queen by using the same trick she had used 57 years ago to kill the Xenomorph drone in Alien. By opening the ship’s airlock, Ripley put herself in danger but managed to eject the Queen to outer space. The final shot of the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens sees her floating around space, suggesting the creature will soon die. While Xenomorphs can survive in vacuum for some time, the creature would eventually die. Since then, no piece of Alien lore has revisited that particular Xenomorph Queen, further confirming that the creature indeed died in outer space eventually.
