Quote from: SiL on Nov 01, 2022, 09:07:55 AMHe's a director, so he might get a nice end of year bonus. But clearly whatever he'd get through official channels pales to what he thinks he'd get circumventing his bosses.
I thought similar, and likely has more people than most imagine. He also essentially represented the company in the hearing, has access to military vessels and marine teams, and appears to be the sole individual who communicated with the colony. And that's a colony co-owned by the company and government, which as revealed in the same movie is very meticulous when it comes to monitoring things, and has mineral rights to the rock. My sense is that anything found on that rock also belongs to them, but the ones who discover it get a cut from revenues, and everyone else wages for whatever work needs to be done to acquire it.
In addition, later in the movie, after being caught Burke tells Ripley that if things work out both of them will be "set up for life."
Given these points, plus the fact that he could have only gotten the location during the hearing, which means that Ripley and the rest of the board also received the same, then it's highly unlikely that he worked alone. What's more likely is that there's a small group of people in both the company and the government that are involved, coming up with special orders requiring personnel to investigate alien organisms and materials, and each of them getting their respective cuts, which they believe will be big enough that they will be rich thanks to it. In addition, those working for them believe the same.
Finally, this idea is actually what started the ball rolling for the franchise: the company through its behavior revealing that such discoveries may lead to major revenues, and everyone else, from the Nostromo crew to the colony wildcatters, insisting that they get their cuts from the same.
Quote from: Local Trouble on Nov 02, 2022, 04:37:21 AMQuote from: ralfy on Nov 02, 2022, 02:00:46 AMIs it possible that Ripley and the board didn't talk about the location of the landing because they had no information about it?
From the board's point of view, if Ripley's story was true then the derelict's beacon would have been detected years earlier by whomever surveyed the planet for colonization.
Anyone else who detected the beacon would have been able to home in on it just like the Nostromo did, so they wouldn't even need the precise landing location. But there was no beacon, so the board had no reason to believe the rest of Ripley's story.
It wasn't until Earth mysteriously lost contact with the colony that anyone besides Burke started to take her story more seriously and at least consider it a possibility.
Don't take my word for it, though. This is from James Cameron's response to critics of Aliens on page 34 of Starlog #125:
QuoteBriggs' next problem was "Why do the colonists not pick up the derelict SOS?" by which I assume he is referring to the acoustic beacon broadcasting a "warning." As some readers may know, scenes were filmed but cut from the final release version of the film which depicted the discovery of the derelict by a mom-and-pop geological survey (i.e.: prospecting) team. As scripted, they were given the general coordinates of its position by the manager of the colony, on orders from Carter Burke. It is not directly stated, but presumed, that Burke could only have gotten that information from Ripley or from the black-box flight recorder aboard the shuttle Narcissus, which accessed the Nostromo's on-board computer. When the Jorden family, including young Newt, reach the coordinates, they discover the derelict ship. Since we and the Nostromo crew last saw it, it has been damaged by volcanic activity, a lava flow having crushed it against a rock outcropping and ripped open its hull. Aside from considerations of visual interest, this serves as a justification for the acoustic beacon being non-operational.
The beacon being operational isn't necessary because flight recorders are supposed to report landing locations, and according to van Leuwen they had the lifeboat flight recorder which did report that the Nostromo landed, then resumed course.
But what happened in the movie is that the flight recorder simply reported that the Nostromo landed and then resumed course. That's it. Had it recorded the location, then Ripley would have required the board to investigate the site first before resuming the hearing. Why? Because that's the only thing that can prove her story.
And given her conversation with van Leuwen after the hearing, it appears that they didn't talk about the location during the hearing, because it's only after that that she discovers the presence of the colony.
According to Cameron, Burke got the location from either Ripley's deposition or the lifeboat recorder. But that would also mean that not only did all of them in the hearing know the same info, Ripley would have questioned the board about that, i.e., investigate the location first to confirm her story before questioning her further.
Thus, we have the ff. from the movie.
The location was known by Ripley and the board (which includes Burke) because Burke could not have gotten it from any other source. The likely source is the lifeboat flight recorder, which for some weird reason was running all the time the Nostromo was journeying.
But during the hearing, van Leuwen states that the recorder only shows that the Nostromo landed and resumed course. There is no mention where it landed, which is why Ripley had to start talking about what they encountered and what happened to them, which is pointless because there are no ship logs to support her claims. That's why the board concludes that her story can't be proven.
It's only after the investigation is closed that Ripley decides to ask van Leuwen to investigate the location; in short, she's too late. Van Leuwen dismisses her request, stating that they had a colony there for decades and it saw no ship.
Ripley is shocked to find out about the colony, which means the location had not been discussed during the hearing. If it had, then she would have not be surprised by information about the colony.
In addition, van Leuwen didn't state that they had investigated the location, only that they didn't have to because the colony there never complained. But that can also mean that they never investigated the location throughout the two decades, which is why they never reported seeing the ship.