#myfavouriteedits ALIEN is a masterpiece - and it includes this cut, there in plain sight. They had the coverage - so why didn't they cut around this? I admire its purity, a survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. (Alien, 1979, Terry Rawlings)

I saw it again last night and thought the same thing! A cut that I would normally try to avoid but it is imperceptible there. The scene is so good that absolutely nothing matters!

But also - it was definitely deliberate - they could have cut around this - it's not just that it doesn't matter, it's that this was a conscious decision - Like Penn and Teller explaining how they are doing their magic tricks as they do them. 🤯

I'd love to the earlier versions of the scene where they probably did try inserting a cutaway only to think "nah, remove it - it feels like a cheat with it but it feels convincing without it".

I think the unlimited, multiple versions of edits is a newer thing ... ALIEN was cut in 1979 on Hollywood Moviola and Steinbeck ... it's a different process which sometimes results in cuts like this.

Terry Rawlings is one of the unsung heroes of ALIEN. I was fortunate enough to correspond with Terry when working on Isolation. He was very generous with his time and insights. Lovely guy, sadly no longer with us.

The absence of a cut bothered me since I watched it for the first time as a teenager. Ripley could have gotten in front of the scene for a second and it would have worked

Thr way it's cut it almost looks like a silent jump scare and his neck supports just kicked in as his head reanimates.

I might be a bit dense but is there a specific cut I’m missing that you refer to? It’s a well cut scene but not sure if I’m missing something

Point proven. It's in that first shot ... they cut from the prosthetic to real head, right there in plain sight.

It's almost as if it's a documentary-like jump cut. Like it's telling you "Alright, we rebooted his systems now, let's skip that boring part. Now he looks human again"