Continuity mistake: During the surgery, Ripley is cut in the chest, below her breasts. When Wren checks the scar, it appears between her breasts. (00:03:25 - 00:06:45)
Continuity mistake: When we first see inside the betty where Winona Ryder's character and the guy in the chair are fixing some mechanical stuff, Ron Pearlman's character throws a knife into the dead leg of the guy in the chair. Winona sees this and puts her large spanner on top of the thing she was working on to go get the knife, but you can see that the spanner slips off the thing but we don't here a loud noise of the spanner hitting the metal floor. Also, in the next shot it is back on top of the thing. (00:14:00)
Continuity mistake: When the guard discovers metal on Johner, in the shot after Johner says, "My own recipe.", the position of Call's head is different from the previous shot. (00:16:40)
Continuity mistake: When Ripley is playing basketball, in the shot where Wren claps his hands, even though the exit is partly obscured by Wren and Gediman, you can see that Vriess and the wheelchair are missing behind them. (00:22:35)
Continuity mistake: When the whole crew of the Betty are being arrested in the Mess Hall, Christie puts his hands behind his back to get the guns on his arms. But in the next shot when Christie is behind Wren his hands are by his sides. There's no way he could put his hands by his sides without the guns showing. (00:33:25)
Continuity mistake: In the shot of Ripley smiling in her "cell" when the aliens escape, she is barefoot. After she shoots the alien, she is wearing boots, and a waistcoat that she was not wearing before. Her pants are different as well. (00:36:15 - 00:44:30)
Continuity mistake: Ripley kills the alien in the corridor after it has killed the first member of the Betty crew but there is no melting of decks or bulkheads from the creature's acidic blood. Also, the Betty crew seem unaffected by all the acid. (00:46:00)
Continuity mistake: When Ripley discovers the clones, before the close-up of the door, there's a shot of everyone walking. At this point in the film, the group consists of eight people (Ripley, Call, Christie, DiStephano, Hillard, Johner, Vriess and Wren), but there are nine people walking in this shot. The extra person seems to be Purvis, who is the second person to enter the shot. The camera only shows his feet in the beginning of the shot, and when it pans up, you can see him walking in the background. The problem is, Purvis isn't found before the next scene. (00:50:25)
Continuity mistake: Since when is invincibility a side effect from having a chestburster come ripping out of your chest? In all the previous movies, the victims were in immense pain and practically incapacitated, yet Purvis suddenly becomes the Incredible Hulk, gets shot almost a dozen times, and keeps on coming so he could attack Wren. Understandably, he was angry and adrenaline pumped, but those bullet wounds would have killed any human being, regardless of whether or not there was a chestburster about to rip out. (01:26:15)
Continuity mistake: In the scene when the new alien type newborn bites the scientist's head, just after killing the Queen, lots of blood comes from the hole in the guy's head. The alien gets all bloody in the mouth, but in the next shot the alien's mouth is clean. (01:31:30)
Continuity mistake: When Call and the newborn are in the hold of the Betty, the spattered blood on Call's face suddenly disappears. (01:35:30)
Continuity mistake: After the newborn alien kills DiStephano, it has blood on its hand. When it caresses Ripley's face, the blood is gone.
Continuity mistake: When Elgyn is going down the hallway picking up the guns, he finally comes upon a pistol. When he picks it up, there is alien slime all over it, but there is nothing else around him at all. Yet when the alien pulls him through the grating, there are gibs and assorted chunks of gore all over the place, which were not there only seconds before.
Continuity mistake: When the newborn alien is getting sucked out of the ship, the women have their hair pulled and strained in the wind. Yet, when we see a video of the women, their hair is not moving at all.
Continuity mistake: After Gen. Perez pushes the stacks of money towards Elgyn, they are right on the metallic edge of the table when the general offers a drink to Elgyn. In all of the following shots, the stacks have moved and are further in on the table, not on the metal anymore.
Continuity mistake: Ripley puts the knife in Winona Ryder's hand through her own palm. Initially there is blood on the knife and on Ripley's hand, plus a hole where the knife went through, but all three of these come and go during the next few minutes.
Continuity mistake: The scene when the surgery is performed to remove the baby alien, in the first shot shows the laser cutting below Ripley's breast area. In the next shot you can see the shape of her left breast under the surgical protective material.
Chosen answer: Well firstly the queen was probably genetically engineered, like Ripley herself. A few days might be all the time they need to have a fully grown queen created. Secondly the 8 incubated victims were only the latest batch, they had been incubating people with xenomorphs for quite a time I suspect.
lionhead
With regards to the quick growth of the alien queen, it is standard for the xenomorph in nearly every film they appear (Aliens is the only exception, the only chestburster shown in the film is quickly killed by Apone) to grow to full size in around one day. Presumably the same is true for the queen.
BaconIsMyBFF