The Company wasn't nefarious, until it was

Started by OpenMaw, Oct 09, 2022, 04:10:11 PM

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The Company wasn't nefarious, until it was (Read 3,770 times)

Local Trouble

Burke denied sending the colonists to the ship until Ripley produced the receipts.  He knew what he did, what he caused and that he'd be in deep shit if it ever came to light.  That's when he snapped. 

Up until he deliberately unleashed those facehuggers on Ripley and Newt, he probably wasn't intentionally evil.  I don't even think it was greed so much as fear that motivated him at that point.

ralfy

Also, there's nothing in the movie that shows that he had insider info. Likely, he got the location of the landing from the hearing, but that would have meant that Ripley and the rest of the board had access to the same info.

One also senses that he was a weaselly character even when he was talking to Ripley before and during the hearing shown. That implies that he knew that there's something to Ripley's story. After all, as shown in the movie, throughout the time that Ripley was out they had been exploring hundreds of worlds and marines that engaged in bug hunts and even encountered "Arcturians".

Overall, the company resembles many today that would take advantage of their own employees over a percentage. Remember that news about one that fired many workers even though it received record profits?

Local Trouble

But what about the flight recorder?

ralfy

What about it?

Local Trouble

You neglected to mention it.

SiL

He also neglected to mention that just because everyone else would have access to the information doesn't mean they act on it.

But his whole thing is ignoring everything that the movie says happened to create conspiracies from nothing.

ralfy

ralfy

#36
Quote from: Local Trouble on Nov 09, 2022, 05:57:16 AMYou neglected to mention it.
There's no need to mention it because that's the only source of the landing location.






Quote from: SiL on Nov 09, 2022, 06:59:14 AMHe also neglected to mention that just because everyone else would have access to the information doesn't mean they act on it.

But his whole thing is ignoring everything that the movie says happened to create conspiracies from nothing.

You're talking about yourself. I argued that he would not have acted alone, and used evidence from the movie. That's why I think the company wasn't "nefarious, until" but has been "nefarious" all along.

There's another issue to discuss in light of that, and I'll mention it in the Aliens analysis thread.


Xenomorphine

Assumptions about the company are driven by Ripley's paranoia, but as Bishop showing up after Ripley thought he abandoned her proved, it's all about 'a certain point of view'.

Burke was a greedy f**k who had clambered up the corporate ladder by looking out for number one. He wasn't necessarily the best at it, but had the capacity to be ruthless if he needed to be.

He cut corners. He tried to get sole patent. He wanted to get set up for life - just as he explains to Ripley. But his arrogance gets the better of him. He assumes others think in the same way, probably because many of those he works with do think like that. How else does one explain him thinking Ripley might actually respond positively to his offer? :)

But the company, itself, isn't an evil entity. It's completely, utterly indifferent. It's Google writ large. It doesn't care. It exists to make profit, because it's basically an apex predator of the corporate world.

Here's a relevant example: https://twitter.com/stevekrenzel/status/1589700721121058817

He's someone who worked at Twitter and goes over how the hierarchy tried to get him to do something extremely unethical. They were doing it, not to be deliberately evil, but because they thought it would give them a secret edge - which it would have, but at the cost of also being wide open to potential abuse.

The same thing's happening at Weyland-Yutani. The company, itself, doesn't care. The Alien is, potentially, very profitable, so, they want it. Now, if the right person got ahold of the Alien? Someone competent? A not-Burke, if you will.

Well, we know from 'Alien Resurrection' that the creatures do have some great exploitable traits. They mentioned new alloys and vaccines. Those are valid results! Now, Wren talks about potentially using it for "urban pacification," but that'd be ridiculous and it's classic Joss Whedon comic book fantasy. What would be the point in unleashing Aliens in the midst of a riot? You could get the same effects by shooting automatic grenade launchers - and a lot quicker.

But the company is like the USM and it has at least a reputation for cutting corners. I mean, even the USM used illegally procured human hosts. Why? There was literally no need! It was for shock factor in the script. Realistically, it would probably be more like the 'Genocide' comic portrayed, where an artificially vat-grown 'host' would suffice.

So, let's assume Weyland-Yutani get ahold of them and are even able to breed them in sufficient numbers... What happens?

Well, they exploit them. They use them up and figure out a way to get those desirable elements from synthetic manufacture. Once they do that? Alien is surplus to requirements. No need to keep them.

And the company wouldn't care. They'd get what they want and just move on.

This is the problem the EU basically has. It's written, largely, by people who feel a need to depict the company, itself, as evil for evil's sake. Some of them try to think up things they'd do with the Alien, itself, but... What is the Alien? It's a ruthlessly opportunistic parasite. It doesn't make a very good weapon, unless it's up against nothing but unarmed colonists. It isn't capable of doing anything a private military force can't already do much quicker and more efficiently.

Which is why the company wouldn't care. They individuals who run specific departments will vary in how psychopathic they are. One guy might be like Burke and be willing to do whatever it takes. Another would find Burke's activities reprehensible. Most would probably just regard what he did as wasteful and enormously counter-productive.

If he'd gone about things in the proper way, he wouldn't have got his personal patents, but the company would have likely set up a secret base around the derelict, spent years/decades analysing the technology, used droids to extract the eggs and place them under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

And all would be well. But where's the story in that? There wouldn't be one! :)

But the company wouldn't care, one way or another. They want products. Whether the relevant department head in charge of gaining control of those products is a predatory psychopath, is another matter, but they could just as easily be the complete opposite - or even be a small committee made up of several people, all with their own personalities.

The Cruentus

^Pretty much this, they were neutral. Any calamity that happened was usually do to more individual factors like a broken robot or greedy people.

Unfortunately the EU really do like to portray them as essentially supervillians, especially when there is an over the top goal involved. (in avp2010, groves mentions using Aliens to take over the galaxy and become the dominant species)

The first on screen villiany really see from an organization as a whole is the USM, which is not the company but it seems to be the standard to which future portrayals of the company go by.

As said above, the illegally procured humans was completely unnecessary. science has been using animals for years to experient on and while that has its own ethical issues, its not murdering human beings. They could have just conducted their research through legal means. It seemed to be done just for shock or to say, these guys are evil so root for their deaths.

Xenomorphine

The property suffers from the same problem 'Terminator' does. A lot of writers are tempted to make Skynet emotional and moustache twirly, because they're usually creative types and strongly influenced by cartoons where that's the norm. I've seen them compile lists of character traits for how they'd write Skynet and you tend to find things like 'childish', 'greedy' and 'temper tantrum', not realising they're turning a weaponised calculator into an anthropomorphic human.

It's similar for many who write in this fandom and want to hype up the DYSTOPIAN CORPORATION OF DOOM angle. But Weyland-Yutani wouldn't be like some nefarious Bond villain, sitting in the shadows, watching the Nostromo on a camera feed, pressing a button and going, "Kiiiiill them..." It's anonymous people crunching numbers, wanting to be efficient and not giving a shit - which is why the events are all the more tragic. Because it's a breeding ground for opportunistic f**ks who cut corners for career advancement.

They don't want the crew dead because they have a hard-on for robot murder. They literally consider them "expendable", not enemies. Weyland-Yutani, properly handled, shouldn't come across as something which is scary because it wants you dead. It should come across as foreboding because you're so beneath it that you're considered insignificant.

BlueMarsalis79

Institutions are simply apathetic to the misery they inflict.

The Cruentus

Quote from: Xenomorphine on Nov 10, 2022, 05:09:01 PMThe property suffers from the same problem 'Terminator' does. A lot of writers are tempted to make Skynet emotional and moustache twirly, because they're usually creative types and strongly influenced by cartoons where that's the norm. I've seen them compile lists of character traits for how they'd write Skynet and you tend to find things like 'childish', 'greedy' and 'temper tantrum', not realising they're turning a weaponised calculator into an anthropomorphic human.

It's similar for many who write in this fandom and want to hype up the DYSTOPIAN CORPORATION OF DOOM angle. But Weyland-Yutani wouldn't be like some nefarious Bond villain, sitting in the shadows, watching the Nostromo on a camera feed, pressing a button and going, "Kiiiiill them..." It's anonymous people crunching numbers, wanting to be efficient and not giving a shit - which is why the events are all the more tragic. Because it's a breeding ground for opportunistic f**ks who cut corners for career advancement.

They don't want the crew dead because they have a hard-on for robot murder. They literally consider them "expendable", not enemies. Weyland-Yutani, properly handled, shouldn't come across as something which is scary because it wants you dead. It should come across as foreboding because you're so beneath it that you're considered insignificant.

Yeah and such indifference and neglect happens quite a lot, so its not unrealistic, plus there is usually no real malice involved, just the indifference and occassional ignorance.

I really would like to see an Alien movie or product that is from the W-Y POV or at least drop the villian aspect and just make them more neutral and ambiguous.

Going from the first film, the orders only said something like bring back life form, all other priorities rescinded. its not an order to kill. I think Ash malfunctioned trying to interprete the orders. He has to bring back the organism but cannot if the crew is trying to kill it. So in order to do that, he has to do something about the crew and that may have conflicted with something. (assuming he had any orders/protocols/programming about looking after humans)

Whatever the case, its clear its a malfunction of some kind. Ash starts leaking the white fluid, he giggles, he starts looking in all directions of a wall after throwing Ripley and fidgeting, he tries to kill her in the most inefficient way. So yeah, company can't be blamed for it as they couldn't know what would happen.

ralfy

It exists to profit not because it's an apex predator but because it's a for-profit corporation. Its goal is to maximize profits because that's what its investors want, and is implicit in its corporate by-laws.

This is not a new phenomenon but has been part of corporations in the real world ever since they were formed hundreds of years ago. See books like The Corporation by Wooldridge and Micklethwait for details.

The catch is that companies can only do that legally, which is why they're by-laws; they still have to adhere to the laws established by authorities that govern them. That's also why they're not exactly neutral.

The problem, in this case, are internal company policies making personnel expendable. I think that's illegal.

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