Quote from: Jonjamess on Jun 05, 2023, 03:11:55 PMQuote from: ralfy on Jun 05, 2023, 12:41:36 AMQuote from: Jonjamess on Jun 03, 2023, 09:33:10 PMYou're missing the point about Burke acting alone! Completely missing the point! Quoting that he instructs Bishop to gather the facehuggers for return to the company labs (he even says Company labs!) doesn't mean he wasn't going to share his discovery with WY. Of course he was! He had to, he couldn't contain the Aliens himself and WY has rights over the Colony.
When I say hr was acting alone I mean in the first instance. By sending the Jordans to investigate (on his own not with WY permission) and by then joining the Marines to see why they've lost contact, that is how he's acting alone. WY don't believe Ripley, they thinks she's nuts!
Burke believes her so decides to go a little bit out of his jurisdiction and see if she really is telling the truth even though WY as a whole has dismissed her. Of course once he got his hands on what Ripley was describing he then assumed he would return to WY a hero with a huge bonus for having used his initiative and secured them a valuable bioweapon.
Apologies if I'm starting to sound a bit blunt but why is that so hard to understand? He's taken it upon himself without WY authorisation to send those colonists to the co-ordinates obviously stored on the flight recorder to see if there is something valuable there. Then he takes all the credit. Of course he wasn't going to set up his own labs or study the creature on his own! He was going to be the one to deliver it to them except WY weren't aware of his intentions as they had already dismissed Ripley!
Cameron has even stated Burke is acting alone although admittedly I'm having trouble finding the source and hope I'm remembering correctly. He states something about the board members in the hearing and how they aren't lying to Ripley and deceiving her, he says they genuinely don't believe her.
Thus Burke was acting alone. On a very basic level imagine in an everyday job you weren't asked to do something by your manager but you decide to take the risk and do it anyway, without telling them because you think it might show great iniative and you will be rewarded! Youre still acting alone, you havent shared your intentions with your management at that point. It's that!
Quote from: SiL on Jun 03, 2023, 01:44:45 AMThe movies show us that greed drives unethical behaviour that is willing to endanger the lives of people for potential profit.
They don't show us top down Company wide conspiracies where the official policy seems to be "f**k it, just kill people why not. Let's set up a colony just to murder."
Thank you, absolutely this! Spot on.
To clarify, by "working alone" I mean without knowledge of the company and the government. Given that, he was very likely working for both, and that they designated him to do so.
He would have had to share his findings with the company and government because they own the whole rock, e.g., "mineral rights". Also, in order to exploit findings one will need teams of scientists, engineers, etc., as well as labs, factories, and so forth.
Given that, plus the fact that the company and government also knew the location of the alien ship, shows that it's illogical to act alone on such matters.
Also, there was no risk involved: all he had to do was ask the colony to investigate the site. The problem is that the manager sent in a wildcatter, who ended up entering the alien ship and got infected just like what happened in the first movie.
If you think about it, there was no rush in this matter, unless those who knew about the location of the alien ship thought that if word spread then things would get messed up, e.g., leading to everyone in the colony knowing and then rushing to the site to see who gets to find the ship and get a percentage first. But since the company and government already owned everything on the rock, then all that they needed to do was designate a point man who gets a percentage, and that's Burke, especially given the point that he's part of the board of inquiry.
In which case, Burke would not have needed to contact the colony. Instead, he would have come in with a company ship and probably a team of armed escorts and techs to check out the alien ship.
Sigh.
I think you're confusing acting alone, i.e., without the need for guidance from the company, with acting without the permission of the company.
The first is likely because that's what a point man does. The second is pointless because the company and government own everything on the rock.
Is that more helpful?
Quote from: caffeine4671 on Jun 05, 2023, 08:07:33 PMThe information presented in the movies have always been a bit confusing to me. According to the movies, the company knew of the organisms existence and wanted to secure it, but by part two they've (the Company execs we see) all forgot about it?
It looks like they didn't, which is why they needed Burke to ask people from the colony to check out the location. Had they known, then there'd be no point do that because anyone sent to investigate would end up making the same mistake as the Nostromo crew, which is exactly what happened. They'd have been better off not informing the colony and just send a prepped team to cordon off and investigate the alien ship very carefully.
Also, weirdly enough, the Nostromo computer which is quite advanced such that it could operate the vessel while the crew is asleep, could not do something like automatically send information on important finds to the company, or even record what Ash got about the facehugger. Instead, during the hearing, all we hear from the board is that the Nostromo landed and then took off.
And yet for some weird reason Burke ends up knowing the location of the alien ship. That means it was included in the logs that everyone in the board and even Ripley knew, and yet for another weird reason Ripley doesn't bother to raise it during the hearing, especially given the point that it's the only piece of evidence available that could prove her case.
Worse, she raises it after the hearing, and then accepts van Leuwen's excuse.
Quote from: Necronomicon II on Jun 06, 2023, 06:19:09 AMChrist... 😂 They don't believe there is an alien ship out there, "for reasons unknown", they simply do not believe Ripley at all. They think she's batshit, hence the psychiatric probation. Yeah we're going to check out coordinates and spend resources on someone we've given psychiatric probation, that follows... WY and the ICC are separate entities, Burke only works for the WY.
Oh but that's all cover you see *X-Files music plays*
James Cameron: Burke acted alone.
Er naw!
James Cameron: Wut
The problem is that the company had protocols requiring the crew to investigate distress signal and phenomena which could be monetized. That's why Ash made it clear that if they didn't follow what the company wants, then they lose even benefits and shares from their trip. In addition, Parker even insisted that they'd get full shares from whatever is discovered and monetized.
Thus, we have a company that requires crew to act in the same way that the Nostromo crew did and yet don't believe Ripley. In addition, for some weird reason the only thing that the ship logs recorded are the facts that the Nostromo landed and took off. It doesn't mention where it landed, and even why, as that would reveal that the computer woke the crew because it detected a distress beacon.
Again, that point needs to be stressed: the computer woke the Nostromo crew and reported a distress beacon. For some weird reason, that's not shown in the ship logs, because if it did, Ripley would have stressed that strongly during the hearing, not to mention the landing location, which was also given. And yet that information was not given but the landing location was.
Meanwhile, Burke asks the colony manager to investigate the alien ship location. If that came from the ship logs, then why didn't Ripley even raise it during the hearing? Worse, she did so after she was sentenced, and then accepted van Leuwen's illogical excuse.
At this point, we're beginning to see flaws in the movie involving the Nostromo logs. Apparently, it did contain the landing location. Given that, the claim that Ripley is lying is itself batshit crazy, unless one insists that she managed to program the computer to report a non-existent distress beacon and convince the crew to land, and then during the hearing conveniently didn't talk about the one piece of evidence that would have proven that she wasn't crazy.
Is it possible that, unseen, the board did discuss the landing location? Not likely because in response to Ripley van Leuwen would have mentioned the colony, which likely didn't happen because Ripley found out about the colony only after the hearing was closed.
Last point: from what I know the government and the company are co-owners of the terraforming project and of the rock. I don't know if the ICC is part of that government, but one source argues that it's owned by WY:
https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Interstellar_Commerce_CommissionEither way, I think it works in favor of WY as the government is a partner of the company. Hence, references to bioweapons divisions. And who's the main customer of advanced armaments?
