"Few scenes in cinema are as etched in the popular mind as the moment in Alien when a phallic-shaped metal-toothed creature bursts bloodily from the chest of Kane (John Hurt), a crewman aboard the intergalactic mining ship Nostromo, before scuttling off to lurk and grow and begin killing Kane’s crewmates one-by-one. For those who saw it at the cinema in 1979, the world was split in two: the time before the chest burster and the time after. Movies would never be the same. Science-fiction had found its darkest expression. Horror had a new name – the shape-shifting, acid-dripping, all-consuming creature that fans soon labelled the xenomorph, as far from the benign bug-eyed presence of ET as it was possible to imagine. The film spawned a franchise – three more Alien films, two Alien vs Predator spin-offs, and Ridley Scott’s more recent prequels, Prometheus and Alien Covenant – that have collectively earned more than $US1.5 billion ($A2.2 billion) at the box office, and a whole lot more on video, DVD, Blu-Ray and digital platforms. It has spawned PhD theses and endless discussion and riffs in popular culture. Earlier this year, it even spawned a high-school theatre version."