Quote from: SiL on Oct 23, 2022, 03:09:14 AMThe colonists being given the coordinates is in the theatrical cut. Ripley confronts Burke about it.
Burke is acting alone. Nobody takes Ripley seriously, so he takes a chance sending them out to have a look. If it works, he'll get the claim.
The DC shows us the colonists leave after the inquest. Even without the DC it's clear why this would be the case - if Burke sends them first, it validates Ripley's story and all of the government bodies step in to investigate. He says as much.
He's trying to keep it low key until he can claim the find. The problem is the colonists find exactly what Ripley said they would and they all die. As Ripley points out - and Burke takes seriously - he's responsible for their deaths.
Those together explain why he never admits to sending the colonists out before they arrive. The marines aren't sent by WY, they're sent by the government. He jumps on as corporate liaison but has no real authority.
Everyone is unprepared because Burke made a "bad call" and basically spends the movie trying to profit from it while avoiding responsibility for the loss of the colony. Nobody ever took Ripley seriously but him so everyone thinks it's a routine blackout situation. She's there "just in case" because it happened to be where she said there was a space alien, but nobody really thinks it's the case.
Burke being a selfish asshole explains what we see in the film just fine.
Where did Burke get the coordinates? If it came from Ripley's deposition, then the company and even the gov't would have known about it because that would have been used in the board of inquiry.
For Burke to act alone, then would mean that the company and gov't didn't bother to just contact the colony and verify the location of the ship. That sounds absurd, especially given the point that large amounts of money are at stake in that colony (e.g., mineral rights) and that both are more than interested in profiting from such finds and employing bioweapons, not to mention what the company was willing to do, i.e., sacrifice personnel and assets, to acquire such finds, as shown in the first movie.
Apparently, the inquest didn't end because they decide to send a military expedition, which implies that what happened might be more than just a "blackout situation."
Also, I think what Burke would have gotten was not claim of the discovery but a percentage of profits from the find, which ties up with what happened to the space truckers in the first movie, the wildcatters who found the ship, etc. Everyone involved gets a cut.
About Burke not admitting that he sent the colonists to the ship, here's what I think happened: only Burke and a small group of company and government officials are involved because bioweapons research appears to be a shady business. That's why Burke had to figure out how to bring back specimens past ICC quarantine, and why even the marines were barely briefed concerning their mission.
This might also explain why they argued that they didn't believe Ripley even though she had already given them the location of the ship, although it's absurd that Ripley didn't raise that point after they suspended her license.
This might also explain why only one wildcat group was sent, and only the colony manager would be informed of any findings: the discovery had to be limited to only a small number of people, which included Ripley.
Why, then, was Ripley asked to join the expedition? Because they wanted to make sure that the mission would be successful because she was the one most informed about the creatures? The catch is that they couldn't give more details to the marines, who also didn't take the issue seriously because they also thought that it was merely the equivalent of a "blackout situation," that is, just a "bug hunt." In addition, what else would have Ripley shared? It seems that she said everything that she wanted to say during the inquiry and in her deposition, so she was actually not needed; even disks were already prepared for the marines to study.
Why didn't they send a better-prepared team? My guess is that the comms actually didn't go down, and that the few company (including Burke) and gov't officials that were privy to colony reports knew what was happening in colony. Following Ripley's story and the Jordens' mistake in entering the ship, they knew that the colony was doomed. Thus, they sent the military not on a rescue mission but on one to recover alien artifacts; hence, an armed contingent with one synth scientist and only one company rep, and all of them couldn't be informed about the real reason why they were sent.
But didn't Ripley know the location of the derelict ship? She prepared disks for the marines, and even if Burke had scrubbed that part from the reports should could have told them about the existence of the ship and its coordinates verbally.
To avoid that complication, and given the fact that everything Ripley could tell them is already in the deposition, then they could have just avoided all of that completely and send a better-prepared expedition, consisting of soldiers and mercs involved in bioweapons research plus scientists who can carefully capture and store artifacts and specimens. Then, as part of clandestine operations, go past ICC quarantine easily.
And make sure to give Burke his cut and promote him to become one of the boys.
Quote from: SiL on Oct 23, 2022, 03:55:22 AMI imagine that's exactly what he was expecting; someone would go out, find a giant alien construction, and call back saying "Hey, we found a giant alien construction." If Russ Jordan hadn't gone inside to take a look it's entirely possible everything could've been avoided and Burke could've retired early very well off.
I'm guessing that everyone in the board of inquiry was as smart as Burke, i.e., they received the grid reference from Ripley's deposition and would have contacted the colony admin to check it out. The catch is that they didn't want too many people to know even about the inquiry because that would make it difficult for them to acquire alien artifacts and specimens for gain of function research.
At the same time, they would have been smart enough to consider the rest of Ripley's story, as stated in the deposition: they made the mistake of entering the ship and getting infected. That means they could have ordered to colony admin to select the team carefully and not to enter the ship. For some reason, they didn't say that, so a mom-and-pop wildcat pair was sent.
A more logical move would be to send a trained team to investigate. That sounds impractical, but we have to figure out where Ripley got the grid reference. By speculating on that, we can see why Ripley's story becomes believable.
Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 23, 2022, 04:37:56 AMI'd be surprised if Burke gave them even minimal instructions against investigating. If he had, Ripley might have accepted that as a "warning" instead of threatening to crucify him.
That also puts the whole investigation of Ripley to question, as the grid reference came from her.
That means this might have been an internal investigation as it involves company personnel and property, which means for members of the board the company sent its own man, Burke, and only government officials who would be privy to questionable research on alien artifacts and specimens. Otherwise, more people would know about Ripley's report.
In front of Ripley, they would make it appear that they didn't believe her even though they already got everything they needed from her deposition, including the location of the ship. And without her knowing, work with the colony to confirm her claims.
Finally, where did Ripley get the grid reference? Did she memorize it, or is it part of some logs recorded by the Nostromo computer?