An original M-41A Pulse Rifle? An actual xenomorph egg? They’re just some of the props from Aliens going up for auction this month.
Assuming you have plenty of space and an awful lot of money, some iconic bits of sci-fi movie history could soon be yours. Among the many wonderful items in its upcoming entertainment memorabilia auction in London, Propstore has a huge array of props and ephemera from James Cameron’s 1986 classic Aliens up for sale.
You’ll find a full-sized Power Loader arm (the yellow, clomping bit of tech Ripley famously used to battle the alien queen), which is expected to sell for between £40,000 and £80,000. There’s an original M-41A pulse rifle (estimated price: £25,000), a full-sized xenomorph egg (£10-20,000) and even the Colonial Marine armour once worn by the late Bill Paxton.
It’s easy to imagine being a millionaire, buying all of these items, and replicating a battle scene from Aliens in our kitchen. “Let’s rock!” we’d shout as we clomped about in our Marine armour.
Besides original props, there’s also James Cameron’s original shooting script, in which the filmmaker has scribbled all kinds of annotations and little sketches as he tries to block out scenes in his head. You can also see where Cameron has gone through and struck out lines of dialogue here and there – at one stage, Burke (Paul Reiser) would have said to Ripley, “You are a headcase. Have a donut.”
Inevitably, the script will come at a price: it’s been bidded up to £20,000 already, and is estimated to sell for as much as £40,000.
Read more: Aliens: Expanded review | A sci-fi classic gets a candid, incredibly long documentary
Perhaps the most fascinating Aliens lot of all, however, is a collection of videotapes. These contain all of the footage captured in those crackly helmet cams we saw in the film’s first half – they were partly what made the Marines’ descent into the xenomorphs’ nest, and the subsequent action sequence, so intense.
The lot contains 10 tapes in total, and are said to contain around two hours and nine minutes of footage in total. This means there’ll be all sorts of moments on the tapes that weren’t seen in the finished film. Indeed, Propstore’s auction listing states that none of the footage in the lot has been published before.
The estimated sale price for the tapes is between £6,000 and £12,000 – so less than a pulse rifle or a dismembered Power Loader arm, but still a little rich for our ailing bank account. Here’s hoping that the auction’s lucky winner does humanity a favour and uploads the footage to YouTube or something like that.
There are all kinds of other film-related items up for sale in Propstore’s auction – among them a duffel coat from 2014’s Paddington. Perfect for the winter months looming ahead of us.
The Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction will take place in BAFTA Piccadilly and online from 14-17th November. The full catalogue of items on sale is available here.
