Reading up on this interesting discussion, I feel incredibly deprived having only seen the Director's Cut of
Aliens and nothing new about the other two SE's. It looks like I know what I'll be spending my Christmas gift cards on this year.
I agree that it boils down to an either-or scenario in which a queen lays eggs or a soldier carries the duty.
I still don't know if it satisfies the question of what the aliens use for sustence. In the
Alien novel, it says that they found one of the food lockers torn open, which would explain how the darling little critter got suddenly so big. But when it nabs the back of someone's brain, is that just to imobilize the victom, or is that something it eats? It clearly didn't work on Gen. Perez as he was functional enough to look at a chunk of his thoughts before he got swiftly killed a lot. (But those don't really count as genuinely complete aliens since the whole mixup with DNA occurred. They still didn't get it right, even after eight tries.)
For sake of nostalgia and continuity though, I think the space jockeys should have some level of inclusion. Obviously though it would far preceed anything before the first
Predator even. Would it possibly fit into a trade deal between the predators and the jockeys and show some involvement with primitive Earth man? It would fuel the fire that Paul W.S. Anderson started. Some may not want or like that one bit. I'm of no opinion on the matter.
Honestly, I tried not to like the series as a whole, but I can't avoid being completely fascinated by it all. It's something so bizarre, you can't look away.
