Alien3: Why didn't the company just return to LV-426? +Resurrection question

[StayFrosty]

Ok, I sort of get it now.

BTW, when I mentioned stuff that came out after the movies just trying to fix contradictions within the movies themselves, I was referring to the Alien3/Resurrection stuff. But these answers for Alien/Aliens seem to be good canon. Alien3 and Resurrection are just such pathetic, dismal movies that any answers not contained within the movies themselves are worthless to me.

But still... we know from ALIEN that the company did know about the transmission coming from LV-426. Sure, I guess they don't know what was causing the transmission. But they did know it was coming from LV-426. Whether or not the transmission was still being broadcast, you would think they would have sent more of an investigation to it once the settlers arrived on LV-426. The ALIENS: Director's cut tells us that the company already knew about the derelict "alien range" before Ripley returned, so it's strange the company didn't send anyone in to investigate this "alien range". We can assume the company did have records of a transmission coming from the planet, so I think they would assume the alien range (derelict) was the source of the transmission, and thus, a reason to investigate.

BTW, I'm watching ALIEN right now (Theatrical Version) and Lambert actually says LV-426 is a planetoid and is 1200km. I guess it's bad writing or something :-(

Also.... like I said in my original post, does anyone know why the Alien in Alien3 just goes around killing everybody, instead of coccooning them in preparation for the coming of the Queen? That seems silly to me when I think about it. The dog alien was just killing off all the potential hosts.

[Xenomrph]

Sure, I guess they don't know what was causing the transmission. But they did know it was coming from LV-426.

Depends on how you want to look at it. Perhaps the signal shut off shortly after 'Alien', and since the colony on LV-426 had only been there for about 20 years, that means the signal had been shut off for nearly 40 years before the colony showed up. Perhaps they'd forgotten about it.

The ALIENS: Director's cut tells us that the company already knew about the derelict "alien range" before Ripley returned, so it's strange the company didn't send anyone in to investigate this "alien range".

They're actually saying "Ilyum range", it's the name of the mountain range the Derelict was behind. The mountain range was between the Derelict and the colony.

BTW, I'm watching ALIEN right now (Theatrical Version) and Lambert actually says LV-426 is a planetoid and is 1200km. I guess it's bad writing or something :-(

Bingo.
Likewise, there's a line about the facehugger's blood being "molecular acid" as if that's a novel trait that should impress everyone. All acid is molecular acid. It's like saying "my god, this water contains oxygen molecules!"

Also.... like I said in my original post, does anyone know why the Alien in Alien3 just goes around killing everybody, instead of coccooning them in preparation for the coming of the Queen? That seems silly to me when I think about it. The dog alien was just killing off all the potential hosts.

No real explanation, other than perhaps "Aliens are weird and sometimes do weird, counter-intuitive things". I mean you could say that the Aliens were doing similar things in the first and fourth movies, too.

[StayFrosty]

No real explanation, other than perhaps "Aliens are weird and sometimes do weird, counter-intuitive things". I mean you could say that the Aliens were doing similar things in the first and fourth movies, too.

Well... I like to think the Aliens are a lot smarter than that.

If you believe the director's cut of ALIEN, then the Xenomorph DID actually use Brett and Dallas for procreation. Brett morphed into an egg, and Dallas is to be a host for a Queen. Then there's just Parker and Lambert. Maybe the alien saw them as a threat because Parker was holding a weapon (remember, Dallas dropped his weapon BEFORE he encountered the alien). All of their shouting and crying may have seemed threatening to the alien. Or maybe at this point the alien sensed that there were not enough hosts around to start a hive, thus it resorted to eliminating them. Or maybe it was planning on using Lambert and Parker as food for itself and the coming Queen?

But, if you don't take the director's cut of ALIEN as canon, then it's possible the Xenomorph warriors are incapable of doing any kind of morphing. They cannot create eggs, or morph into a queen. Thus, the Alien had nothing else to do besides kill the Nostromo crew. But the fact that no blood was left behind when the Alien took Dallas shows something else was going on (my explanation above).

See, it's stupid that in Alien3 all this blood is left behind. It would be scarier and more horrifying if some of the prisoners were just vanishing without a trace. It doesn't make sense the way it is.

But in Resurrection, the aliens do in fact take a lot of people to be cocooned. This is foretold by Ripley when she says "there will be more". Not everyone is killed either, some are just dragged away. More and more aliens keep popping up, obviously because they have hatched from hosts.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

No one bothered to explain that in the movies, but the most popular explanation (Cameron's if I recall right) is that the Derelict got engulfed in a lava flow and the signal-emitting device was damaged.

I suppose that explanation adds more questions such as why had after all the years of not being effected by any lava flows had the derelict suddenly been caught in a lava flow after the Nostromo took off and I suppose before the star system was surveyed for terraforming

I find myself wanting to put things down to an invisible watcher who was prodding events along who's responsible for all the events that the director can't explain.

[OmegaZilla]

I completely agree, I'm bothered as well by how convenient it is that the derelict got engulfed in a lava flow precisely between the time of the Nostromo landing and the colony foundation.

[Xenomrph]

I completely agree, I'm bothered as well by how convenient it is that the derelict got engulfed in a lava flow precisely between the time of the Nostromo landing and the colony foundation.

Stranger coincidences have happened in real life. Ultimately I don't have a problem with it.

Not to mention the Derelict is visibly damaged in the director's cut when the Jordens find it.

[chupacabras acheronsis]

didn't the terraforming process cause some volcanic activity?

and how can we be sure that the signal could be picked up from any angle or distance?

[Xenomrph]

There's that, too. I'm not sure about it, but it might be that they were unable to triangulate the signal's position in the first place and just sent the Nostromo in a straight line heading along the signal's path until it encountered it, in which case MUTHUR automatically stopped the ship and woke everyone up. With the signal gone and the Nostromo MIA, the Company would have had exactly nothing to go off of and would have had no way to triangulate the signal anymore.

[StayFrosty]

There's that, too. I'm not sure about it, but it might be that they were unable to triangulate the signal's position in the first place and just sent the Nostromo in a straight line heading along the signal's path until it encountered it, in which case MUTHUR automatically stopped the ship and woke everyone up. With the signal gone and the Nostromo MIA, the Company would have had exactly nothing to go off of and would have had no way to triangulate the signal anymore.

BTW, with what you said about the script for ALIEN being partially badly written... I don't think the problem is as bad as you make it out to me. Most of the script, at least in the way it happened on screen, was pretty damn good. The truth is any script, no matter how good it is, can turn out badly if not directed and acted properly.

With Lambert saying LV-426 is a planetoid and only 1200km in diameter or whatever, she may have just been mistaken due to the stress the crew was already under. She may have just worded herself poorly. Or, for example, she may have meant that the *derelict* is 1200km from where they would likely end up landing. Things like that.

With Ripley decoding the Space Jockey signal, she very well could have been guessing. But there are a number of other theories that could work. For example, I do take it that humanity had indeed encountered other species of alien at this point, even intelligent ones. This is a whole other topic I would like to start. I base this on the fact that the Nostromo crew did not seem too excited by the fact they had found an alien spaceship (obviously, intelligent aliens), or discovered an alien race. Also, remember the "Auctirian poontang" line from "Aliens"..... and the Marines' comments about going on "bug hunts". Basically, my point is that the humans may have negotiated with other alien races to come up with a certain "warning" or "stress" signal to emit in an emergency using different algarythms (sp). So Ripley may have partially decoded the message, using assumptions from some sort of Universal system. I'm sure the Mother Computer played a part in it too, decoding the Space Jockey's voice and the "tone" of stress within the message. Or maybe, as we may learn from Prometheus, humanity did indeed encounter the Space Jockies in the past, even if the Nostromo crew did not know it. So the mother computer might have been able to translate their language.

I do agree these things are more or less "contradictions", but they're not too noticeable during ones initial viewing, and do not detract from the viewing unless you start thinking too deeply. They can be easily explained.

Two small things I don't understand about ALIEN:

- How is it that Jones the cat was able to hide in a CLOSED locker?

- Which crew member did Jones belong to?

[Xenomrph]

With Lambert saying LV-426 is a planetoid and only 1200km in diameter or whatever, she may have just been mistaken due to the stress the crew was already under. She may have just worded herself poorly. Or, for example, she may have meant that the *derelict* is 1200km from where they would likely end up landing. Things like that.

Sure, that's the easy way to write it off -- the Aliens tech manual even retcons the size to be 12,201km, which happens to be about 86% the size of earth (which correlates well with the .86 gravity that Lambert cites). It's very easy to handwave that line of dialogue, although there are some people here who take it as gospel truth that LV-426 literally is 1200km.
However, the point is that I doubt the scriptwriters were giving it that much thought when they wrote it. They put a number down on the page without thinking about whether or not it makes sense.

For example, I do take it that humanity had indeed encountered other species of alien at this point, even intelligent ones.

Humanity had certainly encountered other species (the fact that they were willing to send space-truckers to the Derelict, and that the Company had protocols for that eventuality, indicate as such), although it's debatable whether they had encountered intelligent ones.

I'm sure the Mother Computer played a part in it too, decoding the Space Jockey's voice and the "tone" of stress within the message.

I'm very confident MUTHUR was the one doing the translating, with Ripley pretty much just presenting the results.

- How is it that Jones the cat was able to hide in a CLOSED locker?

Might not have been closed when he got in it - gust of wind from an air conditioning system, or perhaps the Alien bumping into the locker, might have closed it. We don't really know but I don't think it's anything to really ponder over.

- Which crew member did Jones belong to?

Almost certainly Ripley. In fact, someone posted a screenshot in another thread of Ripley's console, and you can see a photo of a kitten taped to it. That kitten could have been Jones.

[StayFrosty]

Yep, I've seen the pic of the kitten, and I'm certain it's Jones.

I do really think that humanity had encountered other intelligent races, though, because the Nostromo crew doesn't seem very shocked that they've discovered an alien spaceship and dead humanoid beings. I guess it's possible that all the races humanity encountered were already extinct though.

Also... I wonder what this "auctirian poontang" the Marines raved about was? Was it some kind of plant with genitals? Or did they have sex with some kind of primitive ape species?

[Xenomrph]

If the EU is any indication, Arcturians are some sort of primitive humanoid extraterrestrial species.

Alternately you could interpret them as being androgynous humans on some colony, like Vietnam War soldiers getting it on with some ladyboi and then getting ribbed about it by their squadmates afterward. 'Aliens' is basically one big Vietnam War allegory, after all.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

didn't the terraforming process cause some volcanic activity?

well, if the ship's signal was damaged because of volcanic activity and then the volcanic activity was caused by terraforming, the ships signal ought to have been there transmitting away before they started terrforming, and so I think ought to have been picked up when they came to survey the planet for terraforming.

However I have no idea if there should be any particular angles where the transmission is unlikely to be picked up

[aliennaire]

StayFrosty and Xenomrph, when Lambert announced the planetoid's size of being 1200 km, she might have overlooked one "zero" character, as Van Leuwen misspelt Ripley's NOC during the hearing in Aliens, when he changed one number (14472) against the ID, which is clearly noticeable on screen behind her back (14672). Human's factor...

http://www.alienscollection.com/jamescameron.html - here is James Cameron explanation based on volcanic activity, deafening the derelict's beacon.

And about the company's proctastination to go right to LV-426 and get desirable specimen, well, I assume this didn't happen, because the company wasn't actually informed about derelict spacecraft and its laggage, since the transmition from LV-426 to the Earth takes two weeks (from the dialogue between Al Simpson and Lydecker, director's cut of Aliens), as initially company wasn't informed about the true mission purpose (from the words of Burke about the exclusive rights, when Ripley accused him in deathes of Hadley's Hope colonists).

What really puzzles me about Alien^3 is why didn't they just waste Ripley (and Morse to boot, not a big deal after Aaron's execution) in the finale to eviscerate her later, if they wanted this magnificent specimen so bad? Isn't crew expendable any more?

[chupacabras acheronsis]

they could have hit the queen.