Aliens: An Analysis

[Necronomicon II]

Whatever gets you through the void is fine my sweet juicy Ralfy 😘. I've recently had some contributions approved by 20th century studios for an upcoming book 🤐, but I'm enjoying this Burke-truther movement though.

❤️ 

[[cancerblack]]

Can we have one of these threads for every movie?

[Kradan]

We sure have one for Alien 3

Egg On The Sulaco

[Local Trouble]

Can we have one of these threads for every movie?

I think ralfy has a special grudge against this one for some reason.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I am all for discussing imperfections in the Alien films, like everything to do with the Sulaco in both Aliens and Alien³ -but do they have to be totally made up ones? 

[Local Trouble]

The company and government are not supposed to believe Ripley, but why do they send a heavily armed contingent which, according to Burke and implicitly acknowledged by Gorman, deals with particular "situations" involving "state-of-the-art firepower"? Why does Burke want to bring Ripley along? Given the point that it's a mission under "military jurisidiction," wouldn't Gorman be working under orders from superiors who, like him, have also read Ripley's brief?

Dear ralfy,

I see that you have several questions about the role of the military, Burke's actions, and what motivated them to send an armed contingent to LV-426. I believe the following explanations may provide some clarity:

Firstly, about the armed contingent, the Colonial Marines are essentially the future equivalent of today's military. They are typically deployed for a variety of missions - not exclusively related to alien life forms - and are armed with state-of-the-art firepower for almost all of them. Their heavy armament doesn't necessarily imply that they expected to encounter hostile alien life. It's more about being prepared for any eventuality, especially in this case where a colony had gone silent without any explanation.

Burke's role in all this is more complex and indeed deceptive. As a representative of Weyland-Yutani, his primary concern was protecting the company's interests. He knew Ripley's story, and unlike others, he seemed to believe there was some credibility to it - or at least saw an opportunity in investigating her claims. His motivation for bringing Ripley along likely stems from a combination of wanting her as a firsthand witness and hoping that she could help them locate the alien species if it indeed existed.

As for the military jurisdiction, Lieutenant Gorman was put in charge of the mission, but this doesn't imply that he or his superiors necessarily knew the full details of Ripley's claims. Reading a brief and fully understanding or believing the implications of an unprecedented alien encounter are two very different things. Gorman was a young and relatively inexperienced officer. He may have been aware of Ripley's account, but that doesn't mean he fully grasped its implications or even believed it.

Remember, at this point, as far as the majority of people involved were concerned, they were investigating a loss of contact with a colony. That could have been due to any number of reasons – technical failure, local insurgency, natural disaster etc. The default assumption wouldn't necessarily be an alien infestation, especially considering the skepticism around Ripley's story.

I hope this clears up some of your questions!

Best,

ChatGPT

[Engineer]

The company and government are not supposed to believe Ripley, but why do they send a heavily armed contingent which, according to Burke and implicitly acknowledged by Gorman, deals with particular "situations" involving "state-of-the-art firepower"? Why does Burke want to bring Ripley along? Given the point that it's a mission under "military jurisidiction," wouldn't Gorman be working under orders from superiors who, like him, have also read Ripley's brief?

Dear ralfy,

I see that you have several questions about the role of the military, Burke's actions, and what motivated them to send an armed contingent to LV-426. I believe the following explanations may provide some clarity:

Firstly, about the armed contingent, the Colonial Marines are essentially the future equivalent of today's military. They are typically deployed for a variety of missions - not exclusively related to alien life forms - and are armed with state-of-the-art firepower for almost all of them. Their heavy armament doesn't necessarily imply that they expected to encounter hostile alien life. It's more about being prepared for any eventuality, especially in this case where a colony had gone silent without any explanation.

Burke's role in all this is more complex and indeed deceptive. As a representative of Weyland-Yutani, his primary concern was protecting the company's interests. He knew Ripley's story, and unlike others, he seemed to believe there was some credibility to it - or at least saw an opportunity in investigating her claims. His motivation for bringing Ripley along likely stems from a combination of wanting her as a firsthand witness and hoping that she could help them locate the alien species if it indeed existed.

As for the military jurisdiction, Lieutenant Gorman was put in charge of the mission, but this doesn't imply that he or his superiors necessarily knew the full details of Ripley's claims. Reading a brief and fully understanding or believing the implications of an unprecedented alien encounter are two very different things. Gorman was a young and relatively inexperienced officer. He may have been aware of Ripley's account, but that doesn't mean he fully grasped its implications or even believed it.

Remember, at this point, as far as the majority of people involved were concerned, they were investigating a loss of contact with a colony. That could have been due to any number of reasons – technical failure, local insurgency, natural disaster etc. The default assumption wouldn't necessarily be an alien infestation, especially considering the skepticism around Ripley's story.

I hope this clears up some of your questions!

Best,

ChatGPT

Quote for increased visibility

[Eal]

The company and government are not supposed to believe Ripley, but why do they send a heavily armed contingent which, according to Burke and implicitly acknowledged by Gorman, deals with particular "situations" involving "state-of-the-art firepower"? Why does Burke want to bring Ripley along? Given the point that it's a mission under "military jurisidiction," wouldn't Gorman be working under orders from superiors who, like him, have also read Ripley's brief?

Dear ralfy,

I see that you have several questions about the role of the military, Burke's actions, and what motivated them to send an armed contingent to LV-426. I believe the following explanations may provide some clarity:

Firstly, about the armed contingent, the Colonial Marines are essentially the future equivalent of today's military. They are typically deployed for a variety of missions - not exclusively related to alien life forms - and are armed with state-of-the-art firepower for almost all of them. Their heavy armament doesn't necessarily imply that they expected to encounter hostile alien life. It's more about being prepared for any eventuality, especially in this case where a colony had gone silent without any explanation.

Burke's role in all this is more complex and indeed deceptive. As a representative of Weyland-Yutani, his primary concern was protecting the company's interests. He knew Ripley's story, and unlike others, he seemed to believe there was some credibility to it - or at least saw an opportunity in investigating her claims. His motivation for bringing Ripley along likely stems from a combination of wanting her as a firsthand witness and hoping that she could help them locate the alien species if it indeed existed.

As for the military jurisdiction, Lieutenant Gorman was put in charge of the mission, but this doesn't imply that he or his superiors necessarily knew the full details of Ripley's claims. Reading a brief and fully understanding or believing the implications of an unprecedented alien encounter are two very different things. Gorman was a young and relatively inexperienced officer. He may have been aware of Ripley's account, but that doesn't mean he fully grasped its implications or even believed it.

Remember, at this point, as far as the majority of people involved were concerned, they were investigating a loss of contact with a colony. That could have been due to any number of reasons – technical failure, local insurgency, natural disaster etc. The default assumption wouldn't necessarily be an alien infestation, especially considering the skepticism around Ripley's story.

I hope this clears up some of your questions!

Best,

ChatGPT

[Rankles75]

The company and government are not supposed to believe Ripley, but why do they send a heavily armed contingent which, according to Burke and implicitly acknowledged by Gorman, deals with particular "situations" involving "state-of-the-art firepower"? Why does Burke want to bring Ripley along? Given the point that it's a mission under "military jurisidiction," wouldn't Gorman be working under orders from superiors who, like him, have also read Ripley's brief?

Dear ralfy,

I see that you have several questions about the role of the military, Burke's actions, and what motivated them to send an armed contingent to LV-426. I believe the following explanations may provide some clarity:

Firstly, about the armed contingent, the Colonial Marines are essentially the future equivalent of today's military. They are typically deployed for a variety of missions - not exclusively related to alien life forms - and are armed with state-of-the-art firepower for almost all of them. Their heavy armament doesn't necessarily imply that they expected to encounter hostile alien life. It's more about being prepared for any eventuality, especially in this case where a colony had gone silent without any explanation.

Burke's role in all this is more complex and indeed deceptive. As a representative of Weyland-Yutani, his primary concern was protecting the company's interests. He knew Ripley's story, and unlike others, he seemed to believe there was some credibility to it - or at least saw an opportunity in investigating her claims. His motivation for bringing Ripley along likely stems from a combination of wanting her as a firsthand witness and hoping that she could help them locate the alien species if it indeed existed.

As for the military jurisdiction, Lieutenant Gorman was put in charge of the mission, but this doesn't imply that he or his superiors necessarily knew the full details of Ripley's claims. Reading a brief and fully understanding or believing the implications of an unprecedented alien encounter are two very different things. Gorman was a young and relatively inexperienced officer. He may have been aware of Ripley's account, but that doesn't mean he fully grasped its implications or even believed it.

Remember, at this point, as far as the majority of people involved were concerned, they were investigating a loss of contact with a colony. That could have been due to any number of reasons – technical failure, local insurgency, natural disaster etc. The default assumption wouldn't necessarily be an alien infestation, especially considering the skepticism around Ripley's story.

I hope this clears up some of your questions!

Best,

ChatGPT

[Eal]

Aliens: A ChatGPT Analysis

[ralfy]

Whatever gets you through the void is fine my sweet juicy Ralfy 😘. I've recently had some contributions approved by 20th century studios for an upcoming book 🤐, but I'm enjoying this Burke-truther movement though.

❤️

It's a forum dedicated to talking about work from the Alien franchise, and that's what I'm doing. In this case, the thread is about analyzing the movie Aliens, and that's what I've been doing, too.

If you want to talk about your book, you can create a new thread about it.

As for a "Burke-truther movement," I think you're part of it now because you acknowledged that Burke is working as a company rep, although I wouldn't call it that. But why "truther"? My interpretation came from analyzing the movie script in light of what sounds logical.

To recap, why would a company and government that had a long history of monetizing and weaponizing finds, as Ripley points out carefully across movies, suddenly ignore something that's in the flight recorder logs and easy to investigate (which is what Burke did)? As an aside, sounds like less of a "Burke-truther movement" and more like a "Ripley-truther movement," eh?

Next, why would Ripley ignore what is essentially the only piece of evidence she has left to defend her view, and even then implicitly accept van Leuwen's excuse? From her appearance, it looks like she became bewildered after finding out that a colony had been set up, which means they'd risk infection, too? Or maybe, going against my own stance, she didn't want to pursue the point because the only way she could defend herself is to let the company ask someone from the colony investigate the site, and thus put civilians at risk? Perhaps she raised the point to van Leuwen only because she thought that no one was on the rock, and after realizing that colonists would be at risk, decided not to push the point and thus accept her punishment. Of course, that wouldn't make sense because she would have also known that the company would investigate the site regardless of what she said.

Given such, it looks like Ripley is in a jam, because it was inevitable that the colony would be infected, or anyone who investigates the site, acquires tech and organisms, and makes mistakes. We'll see more of this point later.

Not surprisingly, Burke does have the site investigated because that doesn't require a lot of work, and the colony is infected because he does not give them more details except to investigate the landing coordinates. One wildcatter is infected, just like what happened to the Nostromo crew. It doesn't make sense for Burke to rush things unless he probably thought that at some point Ripley would tell others, so he needed to know right away. But if it's true, according to the script, that the Colonial Admin allows the company mineral rights, then it's the government that owns all surface rights, and thus anyone who makes the discovery gets a cut. In which case, it would have been more logical for Burke to tell Ripley that she believes her (as that's what he was doing throughout) and that they need to visit the rock with an armed contingent to secure the site and stop any colonists from visiting it. I think Ripley would agree with him as she realizes that there's no way to stop human beings from discovering and taking advantage of alien tech and organisms, and it's unlikely that if she disagrees they'd still continue the mission without her.

This is where what I think you believe the "truther" label comes into play: not only is Burke scheming, but so's Ripley. She figures she can at least find a way to blow up the site and thus stop them exploiting the discovery.

Anyway, that's all part of speculating how the story would have been rewritten, but it does give us new readings of an actual scene from the movie, where Ripley stops Burke from not allowing them to blow up the colony site because the mission is under military jurisdiction. Notice that the fact about the alien ship is never mentioned in the movie except during the hearing and Ripley's summary of her brief to the Marines, and I think it's assumed by fans that the ship was destroyed together with the colony.

That is, because it's under military jurisdiction, then the claim that Burke was acting alone is illogical, unless one assumes that he worked alone and merely tagged along with the military. But recall, too, that Bishop had clear instructions from Burke about the facehuggers, even though some argue that Bishop is supposed to work for the military.

Thus, we have a military tech that follows instructions from a company rep. Those are additional reasons to show that not only did Burke not work alone (which, as I said, you also acknowledged), he was working for a company that was working with the government. This also means that the mission was established by both, with everything else--not only Burke's but Bishop's presence but even heavily-armed Marines--supporting that.

Lastly, what's interesting about Bishop, especially in light of Ash, is that he's a synth that works the government (given claims made following the game Aliens: Infestation, according to one wiki entry) but also for the company (given instructions from Burke which he explains to Ripley). That would mean he would be programmed to protect human lives (which is what the military should do unless ordered otherwise) but also collect organisms and alien tech (which is what the company and even the government, which controls the military, want, i.e., following Ripley's points about the company and its bioweapons division).

This explains why he helps the human beings escape. As for the facehuggers, it was pointless to prepare them because Burke let them loose against Ripley and Newt. So what did he did to fulfill the company mission? Did he do something between repairing the transmitter and bringing down the second dropship and taking off on the latter? Can this be seen in relation to questions about eggs on the Sulaco? Oh noes.

We sure have one for Alien 3

Egg On The Sulaco

That's going to be interesting when we think about Bishop's presence, which is part of the military, and following instructions from Burke, who is part of the company, about preparing the facehuggers for company labs.

I am all for discussing imperfections in the Alien films, like everything to do with the Sulaco in both Aliens and Alien³ -but do they have to be totally made up ones?

AFAIK, most of the points raised so far come from the movie script, with a few outside it, like claims that the author is right (which means an analysis of the movie is pointless, LOL), manuals (to explain Arcturians), and games (to explain Bishop's presence).

The company and government are not supposed to believe Ripley, but why do they send a heavily armed contingent which, according to Burke and implicitly acknowledged by Gorman, deals with particular "situations" involving "state-of-the-art firepower"? Why does Burke want to bring Ripley along? Given the point that it's a mission under "military jurisidiction," wouldn't Gorman be working under orders from superiors who, like him, have also read Ripley's brief?

Dear ralfy,

I see that you have several questions about the role of the military, Burke's actions, and what motivated them to send an armed contingent to LV-426. I believe the following explanations may provide some clarity:

Firstly, about the armed contingent, the Colonial Marines are essentially the future equivalent of today's military. They are typically deployed for a variety of missions - not exclusively related to alien life forms - and are armed with state-of-the-art firepower for almost all of them. Their heavy armament doesn't necessarily imply that they expected to encounter hostile alien life. It's more about being prepared for any eventuality, especially in this case where a colony had gone silent without any explanation.

Burke's role in all this is more complex and indeed deceptive. As a representative of Weyland-Yutani, his primary concern was protecting the company's interests. He knew Ripley's story, and unlike others, he seemed to believe there was some credibility to it - or at least saw an opportunity in investigating her claims. His motivation for bringing Ripley along likely stems from a combination of wanting her as a firsthand witness and hoping that she could help them locate the alien species if it indeed existed.

As for the military jurisdiction, Lieutenant Gorman was put in charge of the mission, but this doesn't imply that he or his superiors necessarily knew the full details of Ripley's claims. Reading a brief and fully understanding or believing the implications of an unprecedented alien encounter are two very different things. Gorman was a young and relatively inexperienced officer. He may have been aware of Ripley's account, but that doesn't mean he fully grasped its implications or even believed it.

Remember, at this point, as far as the majority of people involved were concerned, they were investigating a loss of contact with a colony. That could have been due to any number of reasons – technical failure, local insurgency, natural disaster etc. The default assumption wouldn't necessarily be an alien infestation, especially considering the skepticism around Ripley's story.

I hope this clears up some of your questions!

Best,

ChatGPT

If Burke is a company rep, then that means he's not working alone.

Gorman isn't working alone, either. Who ordered him to undertake that mission?

And then there's Bishop, which according to one game works for the military but according to the movie works for Burke.

Don't waste your time with Local.

Aliens: A ChatGPT Analysis

Gorman received the full brief, and prior to that he and Burke referred to "situations" that would involve "state-of-the-art firepower." Only a Local covering up with ChatGPT will fail to connect the two.

As explained earlier, even Ripley referred many times to the company and its bioweapons division and making others expendable. They had the info on the landing site and it wasn't hard to investigate it. My guess is that they didn't want to do it themselves, so they made Burke point man. It's like using Ollie North, ie., following the OP's point about the Reagan era.

A brief doesn't imply that it's brief. LOL. That's why it's on disc. In addition, the military works via a chain of command, so that means Gorman was working under orders. To find out who's involved, consider not Gorman but Bishop, who's supposed to work for the military but follows orders from Burke.

[SiL]

Ignoring what the movie says for what you think it should say instead is not logical.

[oduodu]

what i understand under "burke".

he was an executive working for weyland yutani. not sure what his exact function inside the company was.

he heard about a creature from ripley s hearing that has never been encountered in over 300 surveyed world that bleeds acid blood .  van leeuwen states that the analysis team that went over the lifeboat found no evidence of said creature(no drooling  frozen in the ship?) but that some things were co roberated: the nostromo sat down on lv 426 for reaons unknown and that the engines were detonated for reasons unknown.  if i was burke i would be very keen to have a look at this

BECAUASE

who lands a ship of that size on a small planetoid for no good reason? the potential for damage is huge because that ship wasnt designed for landing on onregulated uneven surfaces. knowing that there was a directive then to investigate any thing that appeared as worthy of investigating at the threat of losing all the salary you were contracted for it would make me wonder what really happened there. added a spear gun stuck in the door. a space ship blown up at the expense of months of work.

so these things was enough for burke to think it worthy to take a look. the possibility for getting rich from it was real posibility.

also corporate greed was a common theme in 80 s movies.

he was just a greedy corporate exec trying to make a name for himself.

i dont think he had any pre knowledge of wy info on what happened with the special order or that they might have gleaned the existence of the derelict.

purely speculatively there i just think someone higher up in wy was perhaps able after seeing what happened to burke s directive to monitor the whole process and perhaps hide emergency calls for help. hoping that burke would continue. just my hypothesis. but not to burke s knowledge.

something else : if the rest of the crew was alive when ripley detonated the engines isnt she to be trialed for murder or manslaughter? because why was no one else on any of the lifeboats? how would no else be on the lifeboats. there were 6 other people on the ship. they couldn't over power her and get in the lifeboats? then she must have been alone. why didnt they prevent her from detonating the engines?

[Local Trouble]

To find out who's involved, consider not Gorman but Bishop, who's supposed to work for the military but follows orders from Burke.

Dear ralfy,

It's clear you're passionate about the Alien series and have spent considerable time analyzing the dynamics between characters, particularly that between Burke and Bishop. However, it seems there might be a slight misunderstanding concerning the behavior and function of the artificial person, Bishop.

In "Aliens," Bishop is portrayed as an "artificial person," an advanced android designed by Weyland-Yutani but functioning under the jurisdiction of the Extrasolar Colonization Administration (ECA) during the mission. Bishop's primary directive, much like the Asimovian "laws of robotics," would be to assist and protect human life.

When Burke gives Bishop the instructions to preserve the facehugger specimens, Bishop complies not because Burke is a superior officer or because Bishop is loyal to Weyland-Yutani, but because the request doesn't contradict his programming or put any human lives in immediate danger.

Later, when Ripley instructs Bishop to destroy the specimens, he informs her of Burke's previous instructions. This shows Bishop's programming to be transparent about conflicts in orders, ensuring that humans in charge have all the information necessary to make informed decisions.

We should also keep in mind that while Bishop was designed by Weyland-Yutani, he's not inherently programmed to prioritize the corporation's interests. His primary allegiance is to the well-being and safety of the humans he serves, in this case, under the auspices of the ECA.

In conclusion, Bishop's actions and behavior are a result of his android programming, designed to follow instructions from humans that do not contravene his fundamental directives. It's less about the chain of command and more about the parameters set by his programming.

I hope this clarifies the relationship between Bishop and the characters around him in "Aliens."

Best,

ChatGPT

[Jonjamess]

@ralfy

We aren't going to convince you are we?

But how are there many top contributers (im not a top contributer i lurked for years and only just started cobtributing!) on this forum and massive fans going against you (one person) if you are the person who is correct? The odds are against you so to speak.

Also Bishop wasn't working for Burke so I'm not sure where that's come from and your clearly having difficulty establishing the chain of command during Aliens.

Colonial administration is what the Colonial Marines are part of.

The colony is owned by both the Colonial administration and invested in by Weyland Yutani (they provide the atmosphere processers).

The Colonial administration has sent the Colonial Marines to establish why they've lost contact with one of their colonies.

The Colonial administration and therefore the Colonial Marines on the mission have jurisdiction and are in command.

Burke tags along as a WY representative as they have a financial interest in the colony as a company. This is his perfect pretense to see if Ripley's monsters exist and by this point he's pretty sure they do. He's not in charge, he's an advisor and the Colonial administration is still in charge. They own the Sulaco, they pay the Marines, they are choosing to investigate the colony.

Weyland Yutani isnt choosing to investigate the colony themselves, they  an see the Colonial administration is acting and that's fine by them. They still don't believe the Aliens are real and they still believe its something simple like a downed transmitter. They let Burke go on the mission because they aren't too concerned and at least it looks like they care a tiny bit!

Again Weyland Yutani or Burke aren't in charge of the mission, the Colonial administration and therefore the Colonial Marines on the mission are in charge. They have a larger stake in the colony as they need to be seen they care about colonist lives and colonist safety. They aren't a greedy massive corporation, they are government structured.

Bishop doesn't work for Weyland Yutani or Burke. He's a pernament member of the Sulaco crew positioned to run the ship in the absence of crew or while crew are in hypersleep or in an emergency. He's qualified to remote pilot the dropship, drive the APC etc. Bishop works for/or is owned by the Colonial administration.

Bishop only does what Burke asks (secure the dead facehuggers for transportation) because he has established they are dead and no risk to the mission or the crew. He also realises he will be informing the Colonial administration of these specimens as they would likely want to know about them, it's their colony! He doesn't ask permission from Gorman or Apone as far as we know as while they are in charge they are military and would likely go on Bishop's advice to make a science decision anyway. Now I also know when Bishop tells Ripley this Apone is dead and Gorman is out cold, however we assume Burke has asked Bishop to do this in the first instance he is studying them (before the marines have entered the hive).

That is all. Bishop isn't in on it! Bishop isn't working for Burke! Bishop just simply sees no reason at the time to go against or dispute Burkes "advice" or instruction to secure these "dead" specimens. He's very open with Ripley about what Burke has asked of him, so again nobody at that point in the movie is trying to hide anything.