Predalien: Dreads or No Dreads

[Thatguy2068]

I'm gonna be honest it makes absolutely no sense why they wouldn't be biomechanical in AvP, instead they are fleshy why would they be that? There is no indication on why they're like this they're just infected normal people, which from my knowledge no modifications to the facehuggers.

 *Look at Paul

So I'm pretty confident to say that these movies are very unreliable in terms of... Everything

Yeah the first one is enjoyable, And that's because of the action scenes, and have some pretty cool small scenes with the pyramids and the predator planet and that's about it. If you tried to think about it more than what it is it just falls apart especially the sequel.

[Xenomrph]

I'm gonna be honest it makes absolutely no sense why they wouldn't be biomechanical in AvP, instead they are fleshy why would they be that? There is no indication on why they're like this they're just infected normal people, which from my knowledge no modifications to the facehuggers.

 *Look at Paul

The real filmmaking reason is budget constraints - AvP saved a bunch of money by literally reusing the Alien props and costumes from Alien Resurrection (with alterations to the legs).

As for why they're fleshy in-universe, the easy answer is "they're Aliens and don't have a set design, they can look like that sometimes, I dunno".

While I don't think this has any bearing on the Aliens' appearance, the novelization does point out that the facehuggers were modified by the Predators to speed up their lifecycle, which explains why the Aliens were born so fast.

[SiL]

The novel doesn't say that, just that they're preserving the most robust facehuggers and letting the others burn.

[Thatguy2068]

i'm sorry about this but that absolutely makes no sense. You can't just go "there like this just because" without a proper explanation.

you know what I'm getting out of here, I'm already getting a little pissed off, And this form is turning into a flame war

[Xenomrph]

The novel doesn't say that, just that they're preserving the most robust facehuggers and letting the others burn.

Wait, I swear there was a source that said the Predators tinkered with the lifecycle to speed it up.

i'm sorry about this but that absolutely makes no sense. You can't just go "there like this just because" without a proper explanation.

That's the point, they're Aliens, they're going to do unpredictable, unknowable, incomprehensible, weird stuff. We can't (and shouldn't!) explain everything they do, it's what makes them scary.

Like that's the entire point of the final chapter of the Colonial Marines Technical Manual, a group of people get together and try to "explain" the Alien and come away with "yeah we can't do it and we were fools to try"

[SiL]

There's a perfectly valid, consistent explanation given by the films:

Aliens collect traits as they go. Scott suggested it back in the 70s.

So Big Chap is Alien - Jockey - Human.

The Runner is Alien - Jockey - Human - Dog, and you can see the biomechanical details are taking a hit.

Alien Resurrection is awash with human. AvP and AvPR, there'd be no Jockey in the mix either, so they look similar.

Covenant even bares this out with the new Alien being fleshy and largely devoid of biomechanical detailing, as Engineer/Jockey hasn't been added to the mix yet.

Aliens have a basic shape but the detailing is a product of intergenerational trait collection. Each generation builds on the last, they don't reset.

[BlueMarsalis79]

SM said this years ago, even before the Prequels existed, didn't like it then, don't like it now.

[SiL]

We've been saying it for years because

1) Scott said it

2) It explains what we see across all movies

The alternative is "it's whatever shut up". Which is fine, but when people ask for something in universe, it ticks the boxes.

[Xenomrph]

There's a perfectly valid, consistent explanation given by the films:

Aliens collect traits as they go. Scott suggested it back in the 70s.

So Big Chap is Alien - Jockey - Human.

The Runner is Alien - Jockey - Human - Dog, and you can see the biomechanical details are taking a hit.

Alien Resurrection is awash with human. AvP and AvPR, there'd be no Jockey in the mix either, so they look similar.

Covenant even bares this out with the new Alien being fleshy and largely devoid of biomechanical detailing, as Engineer/Jockey hasn't been added to the mix yet.

Aliens have a basic shape but the detailing is a product of intergenerational trait collection. Each generation builds on the last, they don't reset.

I follow the logic but I don't think it's airtight, largely due to AvP and AvPR - the human genetic mix (which still has some Jockey buried in there somewhere) in Resurrection happened to introduce precisely the same amount of human DNA as the ones in AvP, resulting in identical Aliens? And the ones in AvPR had Predator DNA mixed in, but were identical to the AvP ones from the neck down.

That and the ones in Aliens had a double dose of Human DNA (being an additional human generation removed from the one in 'Alien') but were mostly identical... except for the hands, forearms, and feet, which were *less* human? Ditto for the ones in Resurrection, which had the digitigrade legs despite having more human DNA?

Like it's a fine theory but I don't think I ascribe to it.

Also can you find Scott's quote from the 70s? I'm curious what he said.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I pettily hope Noah Hawley has Biomechanical Drones and Runners created in a lab from human and animal tissue just to kill this notion. 

[SiL]

@Xenomrph  you're missing the forest for the trees.

[Xenomrph]

@Xenomrph  you're missing the forest for the trees.

How?

[SiL]

@Xenomrph  you're missing the forest for the trees.

How?

You're getting hung up on whether it looks precisely one way or another when it's not the point. The point is if you strip out the biomechanical influence you get a very fleshy looking Alien.

The genetic cloning flushed out the Jockey genetics and left you something like what you'd see if the Alien was from a long line of humans -- like we see in AvP/R.

The Aliens in Aliens are already losing biomechanical details, noticeably in the hands and feet.

Source for Scott's quote:

https://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/1979/10/life-cycle-of-alien.html

Ridley Scott: The thing that I was always frustrated about was the absence of sense of smell with the beast. It's a real element with him, because his odor must have been incredibly powerful. I wanted a sense of a timeless, slightly decaying creature that, maybe, only has a limited life cycle of, maybe, four days like an insect. The alien life form lived to reproduce and in reproducing took on the characteristics of its last inhabitant and its new host. Thus the alien on board the Nostromo had the characteristics of the space jockey on the derelict and Kane. If the facehugger had hit the cat, it could have been a hybrid of the space jockey and the cat. When Ripley blasts off from the Nostromo with the alien aboard, it's dying which is why it moves so slowly. She kills it, but it would have died soon anyway. It's like a butterfly (Fantastic Films #12, "Alien from the inside out", An exclusive interview with the Director of Alien, Ridley Scott, part two by James Delson p30)

[Xenomrph]

@Xenomrph  you're missing the forest for the trees.

How?

You're getting hung up on whether it looks precisely one way or another when it's not the point. The point is if you strip out the biomechanical influence you get a very fleshy looking Alien.

The genetic cloning flushed out the Jockey genetics and left you something like what you'd see if the Alien was from a long line of humans -- like we see in AvP/R.

The Aliens in Aliens are already losing biomechanical details, noticeably in the hands and feet.

That's fair.
Like, it's a functional enough broad theory, but it doesn't work for me when you look at the details.

For me, trying to find an explanation when the details don't line up doesn't jive with the Alien concept - maybe we shouldn't be able to explain everything

To each their own.

[jacobo1122]

Damn, I thought we just have nice disscusion about Aliens' fashion. Let's calm down and agree that dreadlocks are cool. Or disagree, they're just our opinions, and nonet of them is better or worse than the other.