What are your thoughts on the Xenomorph being Glass canon in future Media?

Started by Thatguy2068, Mar 27, 2022, 09:47:35 PM

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What are your thoughts on the Xenomorph being Glass canon in future Media? (Read 4,542 times)

Thatguy2068

Has the title says What are your thoughts on the Xenomorph being Glass canon in recent and future Media? Like being kill in hordes by Marines.

Local Trouble

They always were.  That's why the acid blood was invented.

BlueMarsalis79

Recent media? Like what?

If anything it's the opposite trend, they're tougher in Isolation, and Covenant and the recent novels and RPG, than they have been in a long time.

Thatguy2068

Like in Aliens Fireteams and comics

Local Trouble

I have never played that game.

BlueMarsalis79

Fireteam's an arcade shooter, it's not remotely going for realism, so I guess that does not factor into my opinion about their various depictions any more than the arcade machines.

Marvel's Alien I loathe on principle.

Colonial Marshal

As much as I love 'ALIENS' I actually don't like the trend that started there where they just became a kind of canon fodder for the queen. The Alien in 'ALIEN' seem far more powerful, intelligent and interesting than in later media.

Local Trouble

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Mar 27, 2022, 10:14:16 PM
Fireteam's an arcade shooter, it's not remotely going for realism, so I guess that does not factor into my opinion about their various depictions any more than the arcade machines.

How do you like it?

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Mar 27, 2022, 10:14:16 PM
Marvel's Alien I loathe on principle.

Because of Sal?

BlueMarsalis79


Kimarhi

I didn't really mind Fireteam at all other than there just wasn't enough game. 

I actually think that too many writers actually mistook what happened in Aliens to a major degree.  The TC of Alien only shows something like 17 deaths of the Aliens on screen.  You can assume a handful of more in the operations battle, and maybe one or two in the hive battle (everybody but Vasquez and Drake were using sidearms or flamethrowers, flamethrowers have no range and we see no dancing on fire Aliens, and the sidearms effectiveness appeared to be very limited). 

If you add in the SE, which isn't a DC, then the sentry guns would kill quite a few more.

But just because the Aliens bottlenecked and were likely hammered in those two scenes that involved the sentrys doesn't necessarily make them insect like with no higher brain function either.  Many military forces, especially from communist parties used to sacrifice many of their soldiers to obtain military objectives. Which often meant throwing bodies at entrenched objectives. Quantity has a quality all its own-Joseph Stalin.  Do people that follow that doctrine become insect like?  Also the Aliens had a free run of the facility for weeks before the Marines got there.  You round a corner a dozen times with no incident and then suddenly on the thirteenth there is a Sentry gun.  I don't even know if it was the Aliens trying to overrun the Sentrys or if they just got caught and bottlenecked. 

People took the Marines as dropping all kinds of Aliens in their encounters, when it was meant to reflect Vietnam, a war in which US forces would be involved in firefights and not know the true nature of how many they killed because VietCong and NVA would carry their wounded and dead away and US forces wouldn't do accurate BDAs after they had been ambushed or attacked for fear the enemy might be still waiting out there for them if they did. 

In a roundabout way I actually think it is all the EU writers and to a lesser extend media fans/reviewers of the second film that made them bug like. First portraying them that way in the EU and then constantly telling people they were bugs in synopsis and reviews for the film at that time of its release and over the years, where it has kind of cycled around to being Aliens fault. When I don't think that was what Cameron was going for at all.  The TC to me especially feels like the Marines were barely escaping every encounter by the skin of their teeth until they couldn't escape anymore.  I mean the remnants of the Marines in the second film are a Marine ate up by acid and an android that was ripped in half.  More civilians survived in the movie than Marines. 

The Cruentus

I don't think they should be glass cannons, they did not start out that way in some of the games, they seemed more durable in early avp games and then suddenly they could get knocked on their ass by humans in avp2010.

As the melee fighters of the three species, they ought to be physically the strongest and toughest, within reason of course, since 10mm explosive tipped armor piercing rounds would do serious damage.  :laugh:

Kenner_Alien_Kaste

Quote from: Kimarhi on May 22, 2022, 05:23:26 AMI didn't really mind Fireteam at all other than there just wasn't enough game. 

I actually think that too many writers actually mistook what happened in Aliens to a major degree.  The TC of Alien only shows something like 17 deaths of the Aliens on screen.  You can assume a handful of more in the operations battle, and maybe one or two in the hive battle (everybody but Vasquez and Drake were using sidearms or flamethrowers, flamethrowers have no range and we see no dancing on fire Aliens, and the sidearms effectiveness appeared to be very limited). 

If you add in the SE, which isn't a DC, then the sentry guns would kill quite a few more.

But just because the Aliens bottlenecked and were likely hammered in those two scenes that involved the sentrys doesn't necessarily make them insect like with no higher brain function either.  Many military forces, especially from communist parties used to sacrifice many of their soldiers to obtain military objectives. Which often meant throwing bodies at entrenched objectives. Quantity has a quality all its own-Joseph Stalin.  Do people that follow that doctrine become insect like?  Also the Aliens had a free run of the facility for weeks before the Marines got there.  You round a corner a dozen times with no incident and then suddenly on the thirteenth there is a Sentry gun.  I don't even know if it was the Aliens trying to overrun the Sentrys or if they just got caught and bottlenecked. 

People took the Marines as dropping all kinds of Aliens in their encounters, when it was meant to reflect Vietnam, a war in which US forces would be involved in firefights and not know the true nature of how many they killed because VietCong and NVA would carry their wounded and dead away and US forces wouldn't do accurate BDAs after they had been ambushed or attacked for fear the enemy might be still waiting out there for them if they did. 

In a roundabout way I actually think it is all the EU writers and to a lesser extend media fans/reviewers of the second film that made them bug like. First portraying them that way in the EU and then constantly telling people they were bugs in synopsis and reviews for the film at that time of its release and over the years, where it has kind of cycled around to being Aliens fault. When I don't think that was what Cameron was going for at all.  The TC to me especially feels like the Marines were barely escaping every encounter by the skin of their teeth until they couldn't escape anymore.  I mean the remnants of the Marines in the second film are a Marine ate up by acid and an android that was ripped in half.  More civilians survived in the movie than Marines. 

To be fair as well, the Colonial Marines, both in the original Aliens movie and the various games, are packing some serious high-caliber fire. Even then it's not like the Aliens are 'love-tapped' by the bullets and explode into giblets, as we do see quite a few of the Drones/Warriors tank or otherwise shrug off military-grade weapons. So while they're not completely invulnerable I'd argue that mature Aliens are more than reasonably tough.

BlueMarsalis79

We see bullets ricochet when coming into contact with the Warriors heads in particular, although I do wonder if visually you can make that work with the original smooth carapace.

[cancerblack]

I think you could, although moving away from it being translucent would help sell it.

Still Collating...

In my opinion, they should be hard to kill, but not damn bullet sponges like in AFE, especially if you turn up the difficulty. There's nothing I hate more than bullet sponges cause how unrealistic they are. Studying todays rifles, I realized we have some crazy powerful stuff already. Aliens should tank a few Pulse Rifle bullets, a burst or two. The old Perry novels went the opposite way and literally had the Aliens dying and exploding after one bullet which I also hated.

Humans under adrenalin can tank a lot of bullets from pistols if they have enough mass and vital organs aren't hit. So scale that up to an Alien, they could take a few bursts of rifle burst. But nothing can survive explosive tipped rifle bullets. You'd have to have extremely tough armor, and be big and thick. So nothing less than a Crusher, Praetorian or Queen maybe could survive 30 direct hits of a Pulse Rifle. That would be unrealistic.

The danger from the Aliens comes from their speed paired with a tough exoskeleton and underutilized acid blood defense. They don't need to be shown as unstoppable bullet sponges (like in AFE), just smarter and faster (like in AVP2010). They should always try to outflank the enemy in new and creative ways. Climb walls and ceilings more. They win the numbers game. They quickly create new offspring that is battle ready in less than a day, and don't require a lot of resources.

Equipping marines, guns and training personnel? A logistics nightmare when you have a fast spawning enemy born battle ready. Marines have the firepower advantage using big big guns, but if the Aliens' behavior would get inspired by the resourceful bugs that people keep on disrespecting, there would always be one left somewhere. Hiding. Waiting. And starting again anew. All you need is one for the infestation to restart. That's the true horror for me.

And why do people hate bugs so much? Or see them as dumb? I get that comparing Aliens to bugs is silly in the derogatory sense, but Alien has always had insectile inspirations (impregnating wasp). Ants and termites are extremely fascinating, just read their wiki page for starters and you'd see how awesome they are. I don't believe that just cause the Aliens are a part of a hive, they have to be dumbed down. They can be cunning, problem solving and relentless, plus be part of a hive. Literally mix ants, termites, crazy loner wasps, and JP's portrayal of Velociraptors and you get the Alien.

I never thought of the creatures in Aliens as dumbed down, stupid, weak and "just bugs". I thought they were even more of a threat than in the first movie since they kicked the marines asses in every encounter. I was impressed and fell in love with the creature after that.     

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