***NOTE**** This is not the original script.... I have modified it somewhat to better represent what happens in the Special Edition! HADLEY'S HOPE - POP. 159 "WELCOME TO ACHERON" A sign displays the above message. Gale-force wind SCREECHES around the steel sign, driving a freezing rain. The COLONY, b.g., is a squat complex with lots of floodlights. EXT. COLONY COMPLEX 11 The town is a cluster of bunkerlike metal and concrete buildings connected by conduits. Neon signs throw garish colors across the vaultlike walls, advertising bars and other businesses. It looks like a sodden cross between the Krupps munitions works and a truckstop casino in the Nevada boondocks. Huge-wheeled tractors crawl toadlike in the rutted "street" and vanish down rampways to underground garages. ANGLE ON THE CONTROL BLOCK the largest structure. It resembles vaguely the superstructure of an aircraft carrier...a flying bridge. VISIBLE across a half kilometer of barren heath, b.g., is the massive complex of the nearest ATMOSPHERE PROCESSOR, looking like a power plant bred with an active volcano. Its fiery glow pulses in the low cloud cover like a steel mill. INT. MAIN CONCOURSE - NEAR CONTROL BLOCK 12 A central space, laid out like a scaled-down shopping mall with no styling flourishes. We SEE a cross section of the types of people who have come to live on Godforsaken Acheron. Tough. Pragmatic. "Grapes of Wrath" faces. Calloused hands. Not too many interior decorators. Some children race in the corridor on things that look suspiciously like "Big Wheels." INT. OPERATIONS ROOM - CONTROL BLOCK 13 Jammed with computer terminals, technicians, displays... most of the business of running the colony flows through here. It's high tech but used and scrungy. Papers piled up. Coffee cup rings. DOLLY AHEAD OF LYDECKER, the Assistant Operations Manager, as he catches up to the harried Operating Manager, SIMPSON. LYDECKER Hal! SIMPSON What? LYDECKER Hey Hal! LYDECKER (annoyed) What!? LYDECKER You remember you sent some wildcatters out to that plateau, out past the Ilium range, a couple days ago? SIMPSON Yeah. What? LYDECKER There's a guy on the horn, mom-and-pop survey team. Says he's homing on something and wants to know if his claim will be honored. SIMPSON Why wouldn't his Claim be honoured? LYDECKER Well, because you sent him out to that particular middle of nowhere on company orders? I dunno... SIMPSON Christ. Some honch in a cushy office on Earth says go look at a grid reference, we look. They don't say why, and I don't ask. I don't ask because it takes two weeks to get an answer out here and the answer's always [with LYDECKER] 'don't ask.' LYDECKER So what do I tell this guy? SIMPSON Tell him, as far as I'm concerned, he finds something it's his. Lydecker... Lydecker motions to some kids on the floor, and which are using "Big Wheels." They pass A Weyland Yutani "Building Better Worlds" Sign. LYDECKER Hey! You kids know your not supposed to be on this level. No go on..... EXT. ACHERON - THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - A SIX-WHEELED 14 TRACTOR - DAY It roars across corrugated rock, blasting through soggy drifts of volcanic ash. INT. TRACTOR 15 At the controls, intent on a PINGING scope, is RUSS JORDEN, independent prospector. Beside him is his wife/partner ANNE and in the back their two kids are playing among the heavy sampling equipment. Her older brother TIM sticks his jeering face close to Newts. They are in the back or the rover playing. TIM You cheat too much. NEWT Do not. I'm just the best. TIM Do too! You go in places we can't fit. NEWT So! That's why I'm the best. ANNE Knock it off! I catch either of you playing in the air ducts again I'll tan your hides. NEWT Mom. All the kids play it... ANNE I don't care.....[cut off] JORDEN (reverently) (stunned look) Hey wait...come have a look at this, will ya! ANGLE THROUGH FRONT CANOPY ON a bizarre shape looming ahead. An enormous bonelike mass projecting upward from the bed of ash. The tractor slows. Canted on its side and buckles against a rock outcropping by the lava flow, it is still recognizable as an EXTRATERRESTRIAL SHIP. Bio-mechanoid. Nonhuman design. JORDEN Folks, we have scored big this time. ANNE Shouldn't we call in? JORDEN Let's wait till we know what to call it in as. EXT. TRACTOR 16 Jorden and Anne step down, wearing ENVIRONMENT SUITS. Carrying LIGHTS, PACKS, CAMERAS, TEST GEAR. Their breath clouds in the chill air. ANNE You kids stay inside. I mean it! We'll be right back. They trudge toward the alien derelict. They pause at a twisted gash in the hull. Blackness inside. EXT. LANDSCAPE - NIGHT 18 The tractor and the derelict are dark and motionless. The wind HOWLS around them. Tim is curled up in the driver's seat. Newt shakes him awake, trying hard not to cry. NEWT Timmy...they've been gone a long time. Tim considers the night. The wind. The vast landscape. He bites his lip. TIM (quavering) It'll be okay, Newt. Dad knows what he's doing. CRASH! Newt SCREAMS as the door beside her is RIPPED OPEN. A dark shape lunges inside! Anne, panting and terrified, grabs the dash mike. ANNE Mayday! Mayday! This is Alpha Kilo Two Four Niner calling Hadley Control. Repeat. This is Alpha Kilo Two Four Niner! This... As Anne shouts the mayday Newt looks past her, to the ground. Russ Jorden lies there inert, dragged somehow by Anne from inside the ship. There is SOMETHING ON HIS FACE. An appalling MULTILEGGED CREATURE, pulsing with obscene life. Newt begins to SCREAM hysterically, competing with the shrieking wind which rises to a crescendo as we: [Cut to Ripley smoking in her apartment]