I was watching Alien 3 last night and I was wondering why did military E.E.V. not have any weapons stored inside as safety measure story wise? ???
The EEV barely has enough room for 5 cryotubes. I guess it'd be assumed the evacuees would be in hypersleep during the evacuation until pickup.
I'll have to go back and re-read the CM tech manual to see what it says, but I can't remember if the EEV's were dedicated just to cryotube evacuation, or if it would be used as a normal escape pod for the Marine crew of the ship. If it's a cryo-only vehicle it would make sense(What use are weapons when an enemy would find you in cryo), but if "live" Marines could use it, it would be kind of wierd an escape vehicle for a warship wouldn't have some sort of emergency armament for evacs in hostile territory, even if it is just a survival kit with 2 stowed away Pulse Rifles. (Unless they expected to bring thier own gear)
Either that or there were weapons on board, and they got lost during the crashdown, or nobody thought to look for 'em (or couldn't access them).
Ripley would've made sure there weren't any weapons on the EEV.
The CMTM doesn't talk about the EEV having weapons - only rations and first aid supplies.
If the crew were to evacuate while awake, obviously there'd be more room in the EEV 'cos it wouldn't have any crotubes in it. Also if the crew were awake and in hostile territory, they'd be able to take weapons with them.
I know in the tech manual it talks about the EEV launch process being totally automated but I can't recall if it talks about what happens during an EEV launch when the crew is awake. I'd assume that if the crew is awake then the ship's AI/emergency systems would be smart enough to know not to dump (empty) cryotubes into the EEVs, right?
That said, in the 'Alien3' novelization doesn't it mention that the Sulaco launched ALL of its EEVs, and that one even slingshotted back around and hit the Sulaco and exploded or something?
Yeah, I don't have the manual with me right now (it's away in storage) but I can't remember if it says that the EEV's are the only escape vehicle/shuttle on the Sulaco. It's possible they are just Cryto-tube only dedicated emergency vehicles when everyone on the ship is in cryo (like how they all were on the way to Acheron), and there are other seperate escape pod type vehicles for an active crew.
Seems like a waste of space, so I would imagine the EEV's are the only escape vehicle, and if the crew is active the automated system would shut off and would need to be manually operated and ejected with the crew bringing thier own amament and materiel.
From the CMTM.
If the crew is awake the CO gives the evacuation order. The CMTM talks mainly about the crew being asleep - because that's where crews spend the vast majority of their time - and the order being given by the central computer only when failure to do so will result in loss of life. There are twenty 337 model EEVs on the Sulaco.
The novel does say all the EEVs are launched, though this doesn't seem to be the case in the film. As far as can be seen, all the other EEVs are still locked into place. Although since an empty tube is loaded into the EEV with Ripley and co, I wouldn't rule out the other empty tubes being loaded into other EEVs and then launched.
The first rule of headbite club....
Quote from: SM on Oct 20, 2010, 02:50:55 AM
Although since an empty tube is loaded into the EEV with Ripley and co,
In the movie? Huh, I never noticed that.
Quote from: Jace Madan on Oct 20, 2010, 01:29:18 AM
it would be kind of weird an escape vehicle from a warship wouldn't have some sort of emergency armament for evacs in hostile territory, even if it is just a survival kit with 2 stowed away Pulse Rifles. That's what I was thinking, even a few handguns would be easy to store inside small box as safety measure. You don't know where you going land or what you going to wake up too from cryo. They got lost during the crashdown - that is possible nobody thought to look – it would be quite ironic all that time trying to kill the alien they was some firearms somewhere stored all that time. or couldn't access themlike an access code our something?
Quote from: SM on Oct 20, 2010, 01:44:08 AM
Ripley would've made sure there weren't any weapons on the EEV.Ripley never same to be searching for anything else apart from finding bishop.
Quote from: Xhan on Oct 20, 2010, 07:17:22 AM
The first rule of headbite club....
Even in non-Cameron films! :o
QuoteRipley never same to be searching for anything else apart from finding bishop.
She has a very specific conversation about weapons with Andrews. She would've been sure before declaring they were "f**ked".
If there were weapons on board, the movie would of been over within 30 minutes.
Yeah 'cos all them armed-to-the-teeth marines really pwned all them Aliens in the second film.
Well the Marines were also ambushed, and outnumbered more than 10 to 1. When they had a better idea of what they were dealing with (like in the Ops battle) they did somewhat better. Sure it was a constant retreat, but they killed a bunch of Aliens.
In the 'Alien3' situation where the characters outnumber the Aliens 25 to 1 and the characters know the layout of the facility and can lock down corridors at will, I suspect they'd have been able to deal with the Alien pretty readily if they'd been armed. Hell, in the extended cut they managed to contain it without using any weapons at all.
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 21, 2010, 04:25:19 AM
Well the Marines were also ambushed, and outnumbered more than 10 to 1. When they had a better idea of what they were dealing with (like in the Ops battle) they did somewhat better. Sure it was a constant retreat, but they killed a bunch of Aliens.
In the 'Alien3' situation where the characters outnumber the Aliens 25 to 1 and the characters know the layout of the facility and can lock down corridors at will, I suspect they'd have been able to deal with the Alien pretty readily if they'd been armed. Hell, in the extended cut they managed to contain it without using any weapons at all.
Only the deaths of a bunch of prisoners, one of whom sacrificed himself so it could be contained.
Thing is, in a narrative sense if they DID have any weapons on Fiorina they would've been quickly negated.
And the prisoners didn't know the layout that well. They get lost more than once and eventually all die except for Morse.
Yeah, but if they were able to arm some of them (or even just Ripley) I suspect they could have shot and killed 1 Alien without losing TOO many of their numbers. The reason they all died is partly because they were unarmed and constantly fleeing.
Even if they waited until they believed Ripley's story and then made a concerted effort to flush it out and kill it, at worst they'd have lost Boggs, Rains, Murphy, Clemens, and Andrews.
Sure they're not trained soldiers, but obviously once Andrews bought it they started listening to Ripley. Ripley knows how to kill Aliens using guns, she mowed down like 6 in close quarters in the Queen's chamber with the same magazine and they almost got the drop on her. Dillon and Aaron probably know how to take care of themselves with a gun, and I bet at least a handful of the other prisoners have used a firearm before in their lives.
Point is I'm pretty sure that if the prisoners worked together they could have taken out 1 Alien using some guns.
But you're right about the narrative - in fact, wasn't there some script draft that had Hicks survive the EEV crash and he actually has a pulse rifle with some bullets, but manages to miss the Alien when he has the opportunity to shoot it?
Might've been in the Anchorpoint script.
One Alien versus a bunch of dudes with guns in a non-pressurised environment, yes, would lead to a dead Alien fairly sharpish.
Which is why it's not good having such a situation continue for any length of time if one wants an entertaining story. Have to remove the chance to simply shoot whether it's threat of acid damage, rupturing cooling systems, or minimal ammo.
I'm not sure it was the Anchorpoint script, I could've sworn there was some script that was essentially the same as what the movie ended up being, only Hicks survived the crash. He ended up being the only survivor of the movie aside from Morse, too.
But yeah, it solves the narrative problem by having minimal ammo and Hicks ends up accidentally wasting it, so they end up being back at square 1.
Don't recall any Alien3 script with Hicks other than Anchorpoint.
I have no problem with EEV not having weapons stored
1. This is like a mini hospital, it has tubes to sustain life, the bio scanners etc. Its lilke a medical capsule, not a tank
2. The universe is not at war. Why would someone assume that the safe boat would land on a hostile planet and pack it with weapons?
My only problem with EEV is the ridiculous flaw of it not being able to land (!!!), a parachute of some kind would have been logical. Its used by NASA for decades
It was damaged during the evac in the novel.
Sadly this wasn't conveyed in the film at all which made it look dumb.
Quote from: SM on Oct 21, 2010, 11:35:52 PM
Sadly this wasn't conveyed in the film at all which made it look dumb.
Unfortunately.
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 21, 2010, 11:19:56 PM
2. The universe is not at war. Why would someone assume that the safe boat would land on a hostile planet and pack it with weapons?
Well because it's a military vessel, often sent on combat operations. Sure this isn't the grim dark future where there is always war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000), but in most circumstances if a combat-ready ship is forced to evacuate the crew it's likely because of something combat-related. If you have to evacuate your combat ships a lot due to mundane mechanical failures and other non-combat-related things, odds are you designed your ship poorly. :P
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 22, 2010, 12:43:37 PM
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 21, 2010, 11:19:56 PM
2. The universe is not at war. Why would someone assume that the safe boat would land on a hostile planet and pack it with weapons?
Well because it's a military vessel, often sent on combat operations. Sure this isn't the grim dark future where there is always war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000), but in most circumstances if a combat-ready ship is forced to evacuate the crew it's likely because of something combat-related. If you have to evacuate your combat ships a lot due to mundane mechanical failures and other non-combat-related things, odds are you designed your ship poorly. :P
Yeah but the ejected EEV will more likely drift in space or end up in a very different place. Plus, the EEV's are for cryotubes, so that means the crew isnt fighting or at war or in a war zone at the time. And since there's no war in the universe (at least none was ever hinted), theres no reason to assume the rescue boat will coincidentally run into hostile situation
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 21, 2010, 11:19:56 PMThis is like a mini hospital, it has tubes to sustain life, the bio scanners etc. Its lilke a medical capsule, not a tank[/i]
I agree E.E.V is to sustain life such having bio scanners, rations and first aid. What I do question is why it did not require few firearms e.g. one or two pulse rifles or even handgun as safety precaution just in case. I 'm not saying it should be equipment with whole assembly of weapons for full scale war. Just as safety measure. Just like in AVP when Alexia questioned Adele having firearm all way in Antarctic and she explained she did not indeed using it just to have one in case.
But not everyone on Sulaco was a licensed marine. What if the ship was full of survivors? Even Ripley and Burke couldnt carry a gun. Who would know which EEV would be full of civilians or even maybe some prisoners, and which would have been filled with marines?
Or take the movie itself as an example. Lets say the EEV had a couple of pulse rifles. Now, doube Y chromosome convicts recover them...
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 22, 2010, 12:46:57 PM
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 22, 2010, 12:43:37 PM
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 21, 2010, 11:19:56 PM
2. The universe is not at war. Why would someone assume that the safe boat would land on a hostile planet and pack it with weapons?
Well because it's a military vessel, often sent on combat operations. Sure this isn't the grim dark future where there is always war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000), but in most circumstances if a combat-ready ship is forced to evacuate the crew it's likely because of something combat-related. If you have to evacuate your combat ships a lot due to mundane mechanical failures and other non-combat-related things, odds are you designed your ship poorly. :P
Yeah but the ejected EEV will more likely drift in space or end up in a very different place. Plus, the EEV's are for cryotubes, so that means the crew isnt fighting or at war or in a war zone at the time. And since there's no war in the universe (at least none was ever hinted), theres no reason to assume the rescue boat will coincidentally run into hostile situation
The point is that whatever forces a combat-ready ship to evacuate its crew is likely something hostile (since it's a combat-ready military ship generally sent into presumably-hostile situations, otherwise why bother sending in armed Marines?), so packing some weapons isn't really unreasonable.
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 22, 2010, 05:37:09 PM
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 22, 2010, 12:46:57 PM
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 22, 2010, 12:43:37 PM
Quote from: StrangeShape on Oct 21, 2010, 11:19:56 PM
2. The universe is not at war. Why would someone assume that the safe boat would land on a hostile planet and pack it with weapons?
Well because it's a military vessel, often sent on combat operations. Sure this isn't the grim dark future where there is always war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000), but in most circumstances if a combat-ready ship is forced to evacuate the crew it's likely because of something combat-related. If you have to evacuate your combat ships a lot due to mundane mechanical failures and other non-combat-related things, odds are you designed your ship poorly. :P
Yeah but the ejected EEV will more likely drift in space or end up in a very different place. Plus, the EEV's are for cryotubes, so that means the crew isnt fighting or at war or in a war zone at the time. And since there's no war in the universe (at least none was ever hinted), theres no reason to assume the rescue boat will coincidentally run into hostile situation
The point is that whatever forces a combat-ready ship to evacuate its crew is likely something hostile (since it's a combat-ready military ship generally sent into presumably-hostile situations, otherwise why bother sending in armed Marines?), so packing some weapons isn't really unreasonable.
But here's another point. Sulaco was an old, armored freighter but it was still more of a cargo ship according to Syd Mead - http://www.jamescamerononline.com/SydMeadQA.htm
It has a bunch of big guns on it, and it has onboard nukes for nuking sites from orbit (when that's the only way to be sure).
It's definitely a combat-ready ship, carrying combat-ready personnel loaded for bear (with multiple dropships filled with missiles and stuff).
If we're going with stuff not in the movies, there's always the Technical Manual that gives full specs on the Sulaco. Old? Maybe, but a cargo ship she is not.
Its not some comic book EU knowledge tho. The guy who designed it said its not a warship and never designed it as such. An armored freighter, but not a warship
And the Betty was modelled after a piece of hardware, so?
He designed it with a bunch of guns on it. Even in the interview you linked to, he uses the word "warship" to describe the interior, and he mentions the guns on the side. He refers to it as "military hardware".
Just saying, if we're going to cite non-movie stuff, I'd say the technical manual is about as fair game as Syd Mead's word. Mead's intentions might not be in-line with what's actually happening in the movie. Lance Henriksen has said that he played Bishop as if he were a 12-year-old child as a way to get into the character's head, but that doesn't mean Bishop has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
If you read between the lines, it's pretty clear the Sulaco was intended for combat. It's got a bunch of weapons on it, it's carrying a bunch of armed Marines with multiple combat-ready vehicles, and it's capable of nuking sites from orbit. It's not like they just commandeered some space freighter like the Nostromo and used it for transport, it's a military ship, sent into potentially hostile situations where Marine firepower is appropriate.
As such, odds are the reason a military ship might have to evacuate the crew is because of a combat scenario, so having guns on the EEV might make sense.
I always liked the scene in Starship Troopers when the pilots crash into the bug caves, first thing they do is get the Carbine Morita rifles stowed in the back of the ecape pod.
Plot convenience?
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 23, 2010, 04:43:11 AM
Lance Henriksen has said that he played Bishop as if he were a 12-year-old child as a way to get into the character's head, but that doesn't mean Bishop has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
The full explanation of that quote is that as a child, Lance was bullied by some of his elders, and his mentality as a child was, You're older than me - I'm going to outlive you". That pulled him through and helped him pity his aggressors. He adapted the same outlook for Bishop, whose natural lifespan exceeds that of humans. So he didn't quite mean Bishop was 12 years old in any mean, but just adopted Lance's persepctive as a 12 year old. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, just elaborating.
A more pertinent question is how did the Sulaco, a warship likely designed to take fire and weapons damage, become compromised by one drop of acid. No sprinklers? Even the bucket of a ship Nostromo didn't have that problem. There's so many loose ends with the whole EEV ejection that having no weapons aboard is almost a non-issue. A lesson worth learning with Alien 3 is that there's no satisfactory answers for just about any of its problems [outwith the usual and obvious "it's FOX's fault" line].
Well the tech manual explains it, sort of - there IS a fire-suppression system on the Sulaco, but when the fire happens in the cryogenic compartment (like what happens in the movie) then the safety system dumps all the cryotubes into the EEVs as a precaution, in case the fire suppression system couldn't deal with the fire in time.
I wouldn't rely on a source outwith the movie, a companion piece that didn't come from the movie itself, and that claims things that don't seem to be in the movie itself, made by people who didn't make the movie, etc., but that's only me, and it probably serves as a good enough explanation for most. There's still problems, like why there's no sprinklers where there are people, why the Sulaco doesn't wake up or alert its personel, or why the EEV doesn't even have a parachute for landing (they've been doing this to recoverable space craft since the 60's) -- the EEV seems designed to take military personel, probably important personel, and slam them into rock, drown them, fall apart around them, or leave them floating in space. But anyway, it's a round and round argument when it comes to the patchwork Alien 3.
I dunno, it seems like a pretty good explanation to me and it addresses the "no sprinklers" problem you brought up without much difficulty.
Like I said, to me, the only canon explanations are those present in the movie, or those explanations given by the film-makers themselves. Alien 3 was so muddled, and is so reviled by its director, that no answers are forthcoming. Using a book written by others with a liciense is one step closer to having to accept comic books or spin off novels. But again, just me. If it patches up holes for others then that's fine, but I still don't think it addresses all of the issues. [I think, somewhere, there was an explanation for the Nostromo's self-destruct being that it would avoid the ship crash-landing on a populated planet, which seems silly, considering the massive size and shock of the self-destruct, and the other explanation was that it's designed to stop corporate secrets being leaked -- which sounds equally as silly as it takes the whole corporate war thing to a ridiculously heightened level. Corporate secrects on a tug ship? But it makes some people rest easier. I just tend to accept that's how it is. No apologeticism. It's a movie, a warped reality designed to entertain. Suspension of disbelief was not destroyed along with the Nostromo :P]
Fair enough, diff'rent squids for diff'rent kids. :)
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 24, 2010, 05:11:03 PM
Fair enough, diff'rent squids for diff'rent kids. :)
:D
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 24, 2010, 05:11:03 PM
Fair enough, diff'rent squids for diff'rent kids. :)
(https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flolthulhu.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2007%2F06%2Finternet-o_rlyeh.jpg&hash=553a1a22a11a086c258d9031b616a3e78f2a2d05)
QuoteCorporate secrects on a tug ship?
There was a particularly nasty one on the ship concerned.
Quote from: SM on Oct 24, 2010, 10:17:58 PM
QuoteCorporate secrects on a tug ship?
There was a particularly nasty one on the ship concerned.
Yes, but the ship was built with this, and the crew knew how to work it.
Quote from: Jace Madan on Oct 20, 2010, 01:29:18 AM
Either that or there were weapons on board, and they got lost during the crashdown
I think I'll agree with Jace Madan theory
Quote from: #6.0 on Oct 23, 2010, 06:34:59 AM
Plot convenience?
The only truth.
Quote from: SpaceMarines on Oct 24, 2010, 05:23:39 PM
Quote from: Xenomrph on Oct 24, 2010, 05:11:03 PM
Fair enough, diff'rent squids for diff'rent kids. :)
http://lolthulhu.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/internet-o_rlyeh.jpg
Damn, beat me to it!