Aliens: Fireteam Elite Catch All

[BlueMarsalis79]

But surely we can be provided a reason.

[Kailem]

They could easily just say the more "specialised" castes only appear in hives of a certain age, and that the one at Hadley's Hope was too new for them to have been bred in to it yet. Which I'm pretty sure is already the explanation for a bunch of them anyway.

[SiL]

Games need new enemies to keep you engaged over twenty hours of interaction, movies don't. Throwing half a dozen Alien types into a film is kind of pointless; you'd never develop any of them enough to be interesting.

[BlueMarsalis79]

It can serve the purpose of making the shapes moving around not as instantly recognisable to the viewer, or indeed the people in the scenario itself, it can serve many in the right narrative.

[SiL]

You can do that really without new types.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Like I said it can serve many purposes.

[SiL]

I'd be interested in hearing any that can't be done with existing types.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Creating a mass of Aliens that come apart not into identical forms as in prior films but distinct ones.

[Xenomorphine]

They could easily just say the more "specialised" castes only appear in hives of a certain age, and that the one at Hadley's Hope was too new for them to have been bred in to it yet. Which I'm pretty sure is already the explanation for a bunch of them anyway.

Why would age have anything to do with all these new forms?

Besides which, here, the Nostromo/Hadley's Hope types are in the minority and being depicted as the exception to the rule, not the reverse.

[SiL]

Creating a mass of Aliens that come apart not into identical forms as in prior films but distinct ones.

You have that option with existing designs. You don't need new "types" of Alien for that.

[BlueMarsalis79]

That's not true though for the average person, we might be able to tell them apart, most of the Aliens still have nearly identical forms generally.

A Praetorian's obviously farther apart in design from a Warrior for example, than a Drone from a Runner, or either from even a Praetomorph.

So it is all about how big the creatives want that contrast to be.

[SiL]

Put a domed head next to a ridged head and people will notice. Put an AvPR design next to Giger's and people will notice.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Perhaps so, but as I said, it is up to the creatives how big a contrast they want.

[SiL]

So the answer is there's no good reason to add dozens of designs and unique types in a movie. It's entirely superficial.

[BlueMarsalis79]

The reason's only as good as can be thought of, I'm sure smarter than me can think of something superb, but a big distinction in appearance sounds like a good one to me potentially.

And that's not superficial.

It serves a purpose, whether you agree with that purpose, that's another matter entirely.