Aliens: An Analysis

[Local Trouble]

For those who aren't already in the know, I think ralfy's politics may be influencing his argument here.  You see, he's a tankie.  Which probably means he also subscribes to American diabolism and is therefore ideologically invested in his belief that the big evil US government and the big evil US military were all in cahoots with the big evil corporation, from top to bottom.

Good luck dissuading him.

[ralfy]

Some interesting points from this FAQ:

https://www.jamescamerononline.com/AliensFAQ.htm

The allusions to Conrad should be noted, especially "The n***er of the 'Narcissus"" and "Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard" (with references to Sulaco). Also, besides Greek mythology, Dante's "Inferno" in light of Acheron. I'll consider this in the future, if only to show that I'm not doing an Ash here. LOL.

The Sulaco is automated, like the Nostromo, but that doesn't help if one's transmitter is damaged or destroyed. I can imagine that the military would have anticipated that, and come up with redundancies and fail-safe mechanisms.

Adding the queen doesn't necessarily mean changing the lifecycle of the aliens but adding what's missing. What's notable, though, is the means by which the eggs on the alien ship were harvested.

The explanation of the infestation complicates an earlier argument in this thread, i.e., the transmitter must have gone down right away, and thus Burke didn't know what happened to the colony. What happened besides Jorden being infected and the colony investigating the alien ship is that they were able to capture several live facehuggers. During all that time, it would have made no sense for the manager not to contact Burke or send a message reporting their find. I think it was also implicit that Burke gave the manager instructions and expected an answer.

With that, Burke's reason for talking to Gorman, using a military unit that appears to specialize in "bug hunts" using "state-of-the-art firepower," and asking Ripley to join, all point to the argument that Burke knew what happened and that the transmitter went down later and not immediately. With that, his excuse to Ripley, that it might simply be a "down transmitter," sounds senseless.

The idea of the alien queen's anatomy explaining how she is able to communicate with others is notable, as well as the ability of aliens to manipulate switches, etc., which is what happened in the first dropship.

The idea of aliens paralyzing victims to cocoon them is notable, too, together with the ability of aliens in their parasitic form to resemble hosts, and specialization among the hive.

The mass charge at the sentry guns implies a hive intelligence.

They only had a few motion trackers. Given Ripley's briefing and the point that military units are prepared, employ redundancies, and so on, then they would have had more of those, too. As it is, they had a lot of firepower in the first APC, and the presence of a second dropship implies that they do come up with redundancies, except that one was on the Sulaco and they lost their transmitter. This gives additional meaning to Cameron's allusions to the Vietnam war. I'll see if I can give more about that in the future.

Bishop is not only the science/tech of the Marines, he's also the XO of the Sulaco. There's no reference in the FAQ about him following orders from Burke, which was shown in the movie. This also reinforces the interesting connections between W-Y and the government.

[BlueMarsalis79]

The Sulaco is automated, like the Nostromo, but that doesn't help if one's transmitter is damaged or destroyed. I can imagine that the military would have anticipated that, and come up with redundancies and fail-safe mechanisms.

Nope, no backups, the story does not happen otherwise.

[Eal]

...You see, he's a tankie.  Which probably means he also subscribes to American diabolism and is therefore ideologically invested in his belief that the big evil US government and the big evil US military were all in cahoots with the big evil corporation...

Now I'm really glad I've ignored him. I don't need to listen to another twitter-esque rant of "only America has agency and can do bad or imperialism, those poor, poor, helpless, agency-less totalitarian countries are simply having their hand forced and are trying to help their people!".

[Local Trouble]

The Sulaco is automated, like the Nostromo, but that doesn't help if one's transmitter is damaged or destroyed. I can imagine that the military would have anticipated that, and come up with redundancies and fail-safe mechanisms.

Nope, no backups, the story does not happen otherwise.

I'd assume that there were transmitters in both the APC and the dropship. It was just shitty luck that both were completely destroyed at the same time.

[BlueMarsalis79]

And complete stupidity that no one was left on the Sulaco as a backup.

[Local Trouble]

It would have been helpful to the story if Gorman was shown insisting that Bishop accompany them to the surface despite Bishop reminding him that he's supposed to remain on board the Sulaco in case something goes wrong.  It would have been perfectly in line with Gorman's character at that point.

[ralfy]

The Sulaco is automated, like the Nostromo, but that doesn't help if one's transmitter is damaged or destroyed. I can imagine that the military would have anticipated that, and come up with redundancies and fail-safe mechanisms.

Nope, no backups, the story does not happen otherwise.

Military forces tend to do the opposite, i.e., have backups (even backup plans), especially when they do such given heavily stocked APCs. In this case, they had redundancies but only for the dropship and armaments. The second dropship could only be retrieved through remote control and the armaments were all placed in the APC, which they also used to deliver the Marines to the reactor and at the same time served as their CP.

This is where Cameron's references to the Vietnam war is helpful:

https://the-take.com/read/is-james-cameronas-aliens-really-an-allegory-of-the-vietnam-war

Cameron has also said that he used details from the Vietnam war to make the military operations feel grounded in realism and closer to the present, rather than futuristic. He told Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, "The dialog[ue] itself, the idiom, is pretty much Vietnam era. It's the most contemporary American combat 'warspeak' that I had access to. I studied how soldiers talked in Vietnam, and I took certain specific bits of terminology, and a general sense of how they express themselves, and I used that for the dialogue, to try and make it seem like a realistic sort of military expedition, as opposed to a high tech, futuristic one. I wanted to create more of a sense of realism rather than that of an interesting future."

During that war, the U.S. made it a point to make sure that their injured men were brought in for hospital care within minutes. The view then was that its military was heavily prepared logistically.

According to this, and in light of the Sulaco left unmanned:

https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Conestoga_class_light_assault_starship

the ship could carry more personnel, and is also heavily armed (which is why they could nuke the colony from orbit). Given that, they could have come up with two squads, one for each dropship, and then other personnel remaining on board the ship.

My guess is that they assumed that this would be a routine mission and that only one creature would be involved. But that would not have been unlikely as the colony went offline (apparently, they had no backup transmitters, too) and Ripley's report referred to thousands of eggs in the alien ship. Meanwhile, they would have also assumed that lots of "juicy" colonists' daughters would need saving, which would have meant the need for additional medical personnel and not just one combat medic. In addition, Burke would have more than just Bishop given the alien ship and what his company division needed.

[Stitch]

You're saying a lot of 'would have', without anything to back it up, and inferring things that I, and most others, evidently, are not.

Not saying your interpretation of the film isn't valid, but it's not one that most people share.

[SiL]

I'd assume that there were transmitters in both the APC and the dropship. It was just shitty luck that both were completely destroyed at the same time.

Yeah, Hudson says "The transmitter was on the APC, it's wasted."

The plot doesn't really hinge on the lack of backup, but the lack of communication facilities. You'd shrink the timeframes of the movie, maybe -- but even then you could easily write it to have the events of the film happening while waiting for backup to arrive. The lack of other marines is overstated in its affect on the plot itself.

[Local Trouble]

I mean, the transmitter in the APC was a given, but I'd assume there was also one on the dropship so it could, you know, communicate with the Sulaco and everyone on the ground.

That way, even if the dropship was damaged and couldn't fly, the flight crew could conceivably do exactly what Bishop did with his portable terminal from the colony's uplink.

I'm just guessing that both Ferro and Spunkmeyer were also qualified to remote-pilot a dropship, of course.

[SiL]

I figure Bishop meant "I'm the only one left alive qualified to remote pilot the drop ship"

[ralfy]

You're saying a lot of 'would have', without anything to back it up, and inferring things that I, and most others, evidently, are not.

Not saying your interpretation of the film isn't valid, but it's not one that most people share.

If my interpretation is valid, then I'm backing it up, and contrary views are invalid.


Interesting points here, especially Weaver's preference for the director's cut:

https://onthescreenreviews.com/2017/04/26/four-deleted-scenes-from-aliens-1986/

The first scene is important, but what's not mentioned is that it adds to complications for Ripley. It's not so much everything she had was gone, but that she wanted to stop the nightmares. But here's the irony: that could only take place given the mission, and that in turn was triggered by the company using their personnel in the colony in the same way they used the Nostromo crew.

The second scene is also important, but not only because it explains how the colony became infected but because what happened to the colony personnel mirrored what happened to the Nostromo crew. This reinforces the point that the company was strongly involved, as the colony manager received instructions from a top W-Y official (the latter explained by Cameron).

The third scene is helpful because it shows that the creatures are relentless and have some sort of hive intelligence.

Finally, the last scene is pointless and reminds me of similar deleted scenes in the first movie. However, one comment writer says it explains why an explosion takes place after Ripley finds Newt.

[SiL]

The second scene is also important, but not only because it explains how the colony became infected but because what happened to the colony personnel mirrored what happened to the Nostromo crew. This reinforces the point that the company was strongly involved, as the colony manager received instructions from a top W-Y official (the latter explained by Cameron).

I say this so boldly because I know he's not reading these replies, but f**king christ how can anyone be this f**king stupid?

The WY official is Burke. And only Burke. How do we know? The film explicitly tells us the order to investigate the derelict was given by him. There's a whole scene about it.

f**king hell.

[Local Trouble]

I wonder if there's anyone left that he hasn't ignored yet. He may just be monologuing at this point.