How did Ripley survive drowning in Alien 3?

[StrangeShape]

In the novelization there are two facehuggers on Sulaco, and the one that cracked Newts tube died, hurting itself fatally with the glass

[Local Trouble]

I know, but that was Alan Dean Foster simply adapting an ambigious script the best he could.  In the actual film, the canopy of Newt's tube was cracked, but not shattered.  Then we saw a massive hole in the side of the cryotube surrounded by acid burns.



My guess is that the facehugger burned its way into her tube the same way the original one burned its way into Kane's helmet.  Subsequently, the acid spillage from this is what caused the fire, not the death of some unseen second facehugger.

IMO, of course.

[Gilfryd]

The opening credits make no goddamn sense.

[Local Trouble]

True.  It was a joke.  Sometimes you just have to accept that something is irreconcilably absurd.

I once saw someone go so far as to suggest that the company transferred Ripley and others into a Sulaco-lookalike (complete with Nostromo-style cryotubes and "USS Sulaco" painted in white on the hull) to explain the differences between the ship in Aliens and the one in Alien 3.

[Sgt. Apone]

The opening credits make no goddamn sense.

Well wasn't it supposed to be dream like? Dreams don't always make sense.

[SM]

I know, but that was Alan Dean Foster simply adapting an ambigious script the best he could.  In the actual film, the canopy of Newt's tube was cracked, but not shattered.  Then we saw a massive hole in the side of the cryotube surrounded by acid burns.



My guess is that the facehugger burned its way into her tube the same way the original one burned its way into Kane's helmet.  Subsequently, the acid spillage from this is what caused the fire, not the death of some unseen second facehugger.

IMO, of course.

Newt is never seen with a hugger attached.

[Local Trouble]

Who do you suppose this is?

[SM]

Don't know - but Newt is shown seconds later being loaded into the EEV sans hugger.

Well wasn't it supposed to be dream like? Dreams don't always make sense.

This is the simplest solution.  Real life events disjointedly impinging on Ripley's subconscious.

[Local Trouble]

We also saw Ripley.  I guess it could be Hicks.

[SM]

If you take the events as literal, then it can only be Hicks.

[Local Trouble]

Getting impaled on the safety support would also camouflage any evidence of his tube having been breached by the facehugger.

However, didn't Alien 3 establish that the facehugger can impregnate a host in a short time?  It couldn't have been attached to the ox/dog for very long either.

[SM]

The EEV crashed at 0600 and Spike got hugged shortly after. The cremation and birth of the Alien happen around 2100 hours or so.  Which sounds in keeping with the timeframes in Alien (give or take).

Ripley's impregnation is a little more clouded.

[Local Trouble]

For the theatrical cut, maybe the queen embryo was forcibly ejected from Hicks' body during his impalement, ricocheted off the ceiling of the EEV and into Ripley's mouth through the broken glass of her tube.

[Gilfryd]

Well wasn't it supposed to be dream like? Dreams don't always make sense.

True but I think Fincher could have done that without redesigning the interior of the Sulaco and throwing an egg out of nowhere and so on.

Especially after Cameron meticulously recreated the Narcissus for his film.

Not to go on an angry rant, but remember the nightmare Ripley has in Aliens on the space station? What if that really happened? What if an Alien came out of nowhere, killed a character we grew to like in the last film, and the rest of the movie was basically a repeat of the first movie... that's what Alien 3 feels like to me.

Cameron did his own thing and I felt it worked creatively. He built on what Scott did. Fincher however threw what Cameron did away and tried to do his best Scott impression. Even if Fox hadn't given him crap I still think he was inexperienced for the job.

[Local Trouble]

True but I think Fincher could have done that without redesigning the interior of the Sulaco and throwing an egg out of nowhere and so on.

I don't know if Fincher put the egg there or not, but I do know that simply cutting the egg out entirely would have solved a lot of problems.  It's far easier to explain a stowaway facehugger than it is to explain a whole egg.