Contradicting Ripley's Account - SPOILERS

[RICH-ENGLAND]

Having now seen this film, there's something about it which seemed, for the most part, largely irrelevant to the story, but which, now being introduced, seems to contradict a very large part of 'Aliens'... I'll be putting this in a spoiler thing, just in case anyone's avoided all and any publicity. If you've seen some of the more famous promotional photographs, you're probably aware of a certain yellow visor David 8 is wearing, however.

So, not a major spoiler if you want to read on:

Spoiler

The technology to literally perceive someone's dreams is clearly in such a ready state that it can be manufactured into individual cryotubes. So, this begs the question...

Why didn't someone at Gateway Station just look at Ripley's dreams for confirmation she at least believed what she was saying? The outright sceptical doubt expressed towards her seems odd now. The impression one always got was that some suspected she might have been lying for an undetermined reason (hence, the 'no criminal charges at this time' declaration).

After all, she's being looked after by medical professionals and this same technology would have been improved and upgraded 87 years later.

At the very least, one would have expected a recording of her dreams would have been played during the board meeting. As it is, government officials and Weyland-Yutani executives are clearly going by just her word of what happened, when they have one very important investigatory tool not being used.

[close]

quite an easy one to answer, but again it would be making something up to make excuses for the needless tech in prometheus... maybe the company just wanted to cover up the events of alien, after all, they sent the orders to ash, so they knew about it.. they probably just wanted to cover it all up and make her look crazy.

but just on point, that was more needless tech, that scene really was pointless and needless, they could have done something far better without that device.

thanks

rich

I wouldn't say that scene was needless. It shows Shaw's father justifying his belief in God because it's what he "chooses to believe" thus leading to Shaws statements that the engineers engineered us because it's what she chooses to believe despite there being no evidence to support this. That scene perfectly illustrates her faith

yeah, i forgot about what it showed exactly, but stilll, they could have done it another way without having all this tech which messes with the canon of the rest of the movies.

thanks

rich

I'm confused as to why you think it 'messes with the cannon' and am intrigued to know how you would have done it better.

are you just following me around to try and troll me now?....

anyway, i will explain, just for your satisfaction and to give you some more ammo...

prometheus is packed full of technology that is way ahead of anything seen in the following movies, one big example is the auto medpod, now this tech is not available 287 years later in alien resurrection on a purpose built military ship which appears to be made for the sole purpose of cloning ripley and removing the queen embryo, surely they would have such tech or better for such an important job?.

also the medpod scene was garbage, so ridley messed with canon for the sake of a scene which was rubbish.

they could have quite easily shown the scene of shaw when she was young without having to have it come through a dream machine because as already pointed out, why wasnt it available in aliens 87 years later? even if they didnt use it to back ripley up, they sure could have used it on her to help the mission instead of taking her with them.

thanks

rich

[Xenomorphine]

Even if Ripley is conviced she is saying the truth.. that doesnt automatically make it true.

She got sent for psychological evaluation after all.. they think she's lost it.

But like I said, it now screws with the general scepticism of her moral character. That's the whole point of that subtle threat of not laying criminal charges against her "for now".

Ripley's inquest is now a lot stranger to view.

Because its a film made for the modern audience. and not the audience that original saw Aliens back in 1986.

I hate it when people take this type of thing too far. If i watch Alien and Aliens now i think the technology in that film is very dated to today's standards. AKA the map used in Aliens was using a remote control. If that was todays tect then it would be an interactive table. So even by todays standards, The tect is out of date.

Nothing wrong with a joystick. It's a valid method of control. We've got no idea how many other uses the table was for.

And I'm perfectly fine with reconciling different types of technology and why this was done, but in this case, it puts a whole new spin on a vital scene in the series. One which there was no real need to do.

Thats why. Its because its a modern movie. Nothing more. Nothign less. You can't honestly think Ridley was going to make a movie and design everything so it fits in a world that was created 20 years ago?

You'd come across better if you weren't patronising me.

I'm well aware of what you describe, but many of us hope he'd at least try to make thigns fit, considering his newest project is a part of an existing continuity. If he wanted to do new technology for the hell of it (which he seems to have), then he should've made 'Prometheus' a sequel, not a prequel.

In many ways, I'm not even sure why it is a prequel... It wouldn't have taken very much to alter it to sequel status.

Style and tecnology changes. Movie has to follow suit to appeal to the modern audience. And not just people who say it 30 year ago.

If a prequel film to promethues was ever made in the next 30 year do you honestly believe they would come up with tectnology that doesn't fit the technology we would have 30 years from now? Get over it

I'm not the one who went to pains to impress upon everyone how this needed to be a prequel. That was all down to RS. I'm simply pointing out that prequel status now makes an existing sequel very different to before.

It seems like a rather plush, scientific perk for a top of the line vessel.  Gateway Medical wouldn't really have any immediate use for it when dealing with a castaway on a shuttle.  And I'm sure she had her share of psych evals, but as others have said, even if they did subject Ripley to that, there's no reason Weyland-Yutani did not write it off as schizoid delusion - or shove it under the rug to avoid scandal.

Weyland-Yutani weren't the only body with an interest, though. And none of that changes how many clearly seemed to think she might have had an ulterior motive. That's part of what she's up against.

Technology which can view dreams might be outlawed for general use, but I don't see why it would be banned for psychological purposes. It's a valid tool.

1: She was clearly undergoing traumatic dreams.
2: A lot of money (and, presumably, families of expired work colleagues) was riding on her testimony. A lot of vested interests were involved. Powerful ones. Even if Weyland-Yutani would have preferred it brushed under the carpet, the other representatives, ICC, insurance, etcetera, would have been very interested in the validity of whether she was lying.
3: Ripley would've been even more of a candidate for the best psycho-analytical tools available, because of her exceptional status as someone who'd been in stasis for 57 years.

These factors put a really strange spin on trying to reconcile this new technology with an existing scene...

I'm not saying I can't excuse it as 'one of those things', but applying logic to the saga just became more problematic.

[Kimo]

We have Lie Detector machines, but in most cases were a crime is committed it is not used to convict someone who's guilty because it is only 95% accurate. Some people will volunteer to take a lie detector test to help clear their name but by most laws they can refuse to take it. Maybe Davids Dream reader is not a 100% accurate tool to use to find out if someone is telling the truth or if that person is full of shit. because dreams are never like reality even known some things in your dreams are close to the real thing. Maybe Ripley never had to take a dream reading because it was not law to do so?

[The Necronoir]

Technology can never go backward.
It can only be slow down.

Uh... it most definitely can, and for a whole host of reasons (usually precipitated by some sort of social collapse). They've happened frequently enough throughout human history to have garnered a name - Dark Ages - and there is precedent for them setting back technological advancement for periods nearing half a millennium. Even without such drastic occurrences, very specialised knowledge is frequently lost. Think of the construction of the pyramids, and how difficult we find it to explain how it was done with the technology of the time.

As for the matter at hand, who's to say such technology wasn't used as a standard part of Ripley's psychological evaluation. As others have said, just because she absolutely believed she was telling the truth doesn't necessarily make it so. Delusional psychosis is very convincing, which is why it's such a difficult thing to manage.

The bottom line is that the company was primarily concerned with two things anyway: 1) pinning the financial loss of the Nostromo on a scapegoat, and 2) covering up their involvement in wilfully sacrificing the crew.

[RoaryUK]

We have Lie Detector machines, but in most cases were a crime is committed it is not used to convict someone who's guilty because it is only 95% accurate. Some people will volunteer to take a lie detector test to help clear their name but by most laws they can refuse to take it. Maybe Davids Dream reader is not a 100% accurate tool to use to find out if someone is telling the truth or if that person is full of shit. because dreams are never like reality even known some things in your dreams are close to the real thing. Maybe Ripley never had to take a dream reading because it was not law to do so?

You just reminded me of something, off the record and off topic...I just want to say how much I hate that s**t Jeremy Kyle and his p**s taking show, oh and incidently, did you know he actually believes that his behind the scenes lie detector tests are 100% accurate... seriously...but we know different don't we 

[Valaquen]

Christ, maybe they did use it on her during the psych-evaluation. It was just off-screen. A dream isn't a representation of truth, it would only show that Ripley was messed up mentally. It might've been even more damning to see that her head was full of nonsense that wasn't backed up by flight recorder info etc.

I thought the gimmick was pretty silly, anyway. It reminded me of the Animus.

[ScardyFox]

I'd guess Ridley was just ignoring all the other movies so to him it was irrelevant. He always seem to resent Aliens in some kinda passive aggressive way to me.

[Valaquen]

I'd guess Ridley was just ignoring all the other movies so to him it was irrelevant. He always seem to resent Aliens in some kinda passive aggressive way to me.

Is that why he said, just this week or so, that: ""I would never ever critique or criticize that [ALIENS] because I think it was very successful and what he [Cameron] did was really good."
(source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qz_hoOQ8GQ#ws)

He also said, in the Aliens Illustrated Screenplay, that "there's also no question that Cameron made an excellent film with Aliens. It really is an achievement."

[Kimo]

We have Lie Detector machines, but in most cases were a crime is committed it is not used to convict someone who's guilty because it is only 95% accurate. Some people will volunteer to take a lie detector test to help clear their name but by most laws they can refuse to take it. Maybe Davids Dream reader is not a 100% accurate tool to use to find out if someone is telling the truth or if that person is full of shit. because dreams are never like reality even known some things in your dreams are close to the real thing. Maybe Ripley never had to take a dream reading because it was not law to do so?

You just reminded me of something, off the record and off topic...I just want to say how much I hate that s**t Jeremy Kyle and his p**s taking show, oh and incidently, did you know he actually believes that his behind the scenes lie detector tests are 100% accurate... seriously...but we know different don't we 

LOL I never had jezza in mind when typing that. now i have a bad taste in my mouth.