OPERATION: ALIENS - The ALIENS Cartoon We Almost Got in the ’90s
James Cameron’s Aliens is one of the most beloved sci-horror franchises ever made, full of xenomorphs tearing through space marines, with R rated violence, body horror, and all that grit.
In the early ’90s there was a plan to turn that into a Saturday morning cartoon. The show was called Operation: Aliens. It never aired. But parts of it exist in the wild, and toys and merch from the franchise did make it out.
Back in 1992 while Alien 3 was being developed, Kenner teamed up with 20th Century Fox to build a whole multimedia vision around Aliens. There was a proposed animated series, action figures, a board game, and other gear.
The show would’ve followed Ripley, Hicks, Bishop, and a squad of beefed-up Colonial Marines blasting xenomorphs across the galaxy. The horror side would be dialed down, trading alien nightmares for blast effects and alien brawls.
Animation work had already begun and a Korean studio was involved in producing an animated pilot or at least animatic/commercials under the name Operation: Aliens. There were storyboard frames, production stills, artwork, title logo designs, promotional materials. But then, suddenly, Fox pulled the plug in the summer of ’92. The pilot was never shown. It never leaked.
As for why the project was cancelled, several reasons are speculated. One big factor was that Alien 3, released in May 1992, did not perform as strongly or comfortably in the public eye. Another was the sheer difficulty of sanitizing Aliens enough for kids without losing the core identity.
HR Giger’s xenomorphs, the tense atmosphere, the brutality, all of that is hard to soften. Executives likely realized that either the show would be too scary for kids or too diluted for fans.
Even though the show never aired, the merch line did. Kenner released action figures (Ripley, Bishop, Hicks, Apone, Drake among others), toy aliens of various weird forms (Bull Alien, Scorpion Alien, Gorilla Alien), a board game under the Operation: Aliens label, and comic-style mini-stories in trading cards that borrowed from the toy line’s concepts.
What we have today are some screenshots, art, title card designs, and faded rumors. Some frames from commercials made for the toy line show Colonial Marines in combat against xenomorphs on space stations. There are storyboards, unused animation portions described in lost media circles. But nothing like a full episode is available.
In a way Operation: Aliens gives us insight into how studios tried to walk a fine line in the ’90s: how to take something grown up and violent and make it toy-friendly, broadcast-safe, but still retain enough of what people loved.
Sometimes that balance worked (Rambo: Force of Freedom, Conan: The Adventurer) and sometimes it collapsed under the weight of expectation or moral scrutiny. Operation: Aliens seems to be one of the latter.
Despite never airing, Operation: Aliens has become legend among fans. The toys that did ship still carry a weird aura, action figures designed for a show that doesn’t exist. Collectors still hunt them down.
The unused art and screenshots feed speculation and what-ifs. What if we’d seen Ripley facing off with xenomorphs in cartoon form? What if kids woke up to that on Saturday morning? Man, I would’ve loved to see this animated series get made! In the end, I guess the risk seemed too high.
