Quote from: Necronomicon II on Jun 10, 2023, 05:43:43 AMWhatever gets you through the void is fine my sweet juicy Ralfy 😘. I've recently had some contributions approved by 20th century studios for an upcoming book 🤐, but I'm enjoying this Burke-truther movement though.
❤️
It's a forum dedicated to talking about work from the
Alien franchise, and that's what I'm doing. In this case, the thread is about analyzing the movie
Aliens, and that's what I've been doing, too.
If you want to talk about your book, you can create a new thread about it.
As for a "Burke-truther movement," I think you're part of it now because you acknowledged that Burke is working as a company rep, although I wouldn't call it that. But why "truther"? My interpretation came from analyzing the movie script in light of what sounds logical.
To recap, why would a company and government that had a long history of monetizing and weaponizing finds, as Ripley points out carefully across movies, suddenly ignore something that's in the flight recorder logs and easy to investigate (which is what Burke did)? As an aside, sounds like less of a "Burke-truther movement" and more like a "Ripley-truther movement," eh?
Next, why would Ripley ignore what is essentially the only piece of evidence she has left to defend her view, and even then implicitly accept van Leuwen's excuse? From her appearance, it looks like she became bewildered after finding out that a colony had been set up, which means they'd risk infection, too? Or maybe, going against my own stance, she didn't want to pursue the point because the only way she could defend herself is to let the company ask someone from the colony investigate the site, and thus put civilians at risk? Perhaps she raised the point to van Leuwen only because she thought that no one was on the rock, and after realizing that colonists would be at risk, decided not to push the point and thus accept her punishment. Of course, that wouldn't make sense because she would have also known that the company would investigate the site regardless of what she said.
Given such, it looks like Ripley is in a jam, because it was inevitable that the colony would be infected, or anyone who investigates the site, acquires tech and organisms, and makes mistakes. We'll see more of this point later.
Not surprisingly, Burke does have the site investigated because that doesn't require a lot of work, and the colony is infected because he does not give them more details except to investigate the landing coordinates. One wildcatter is infected, just like what happened to the Nostromo crew. It doesn't make sense for Burke to rush things unless he probably thought that at some point Ripley would tell others, so he needed to know right away. But if it's true, according to the script, that the Colonial Admin allows the company mineral rights, then it's the government that owns all surface rights, and thus anyone who makes the discovery gets a cut. In which case, it would have been more logical for Burke to tell Ripley that she believes her (as that's what he was doing throughout) and that they need to visit the rock with an armed contingent to secure the site and stop any colonists from visiting it. I think Ripley would agree with him as she realizes that there's no way to stop human beings from discovering and taking advantage of alien tech and organisms, and it's unlikely that if she disagrees they'd still continue the mission without her.
This is where what I think you believe the "truther" label comes into play: not only is Burke scheming, but so's Ripley. She figures she can at least find a way to blow up the site and thus stop them exploiting the discovery.
Anyway, that's all part of speculating how the story would have been rewritten, but it does give us new readings of an actual scene from the movie, where Ripley stops Burke from not allowing them to blow up the colony site because the mission is under military jurisdiction. Notice that the fact about the alien ship is never mentioned in the movie except during the hearing and Ripley's summary of her brief to the Marines, and I think it's assumed by fans that the ship was destroyed together with the colony.
That is, because it's under military jurisdiction, then the claim that Burke was acting alone is illogical, unless one assumes that he worked alone and merely tagged along with the military. But recall, too, that Bishop had clear instructions from Burke about the facehuggers, even though some argue that Bishop is supposed to work for the military.
Thus, we have a military tech that follows instructions from a company rep. Those are additional reasons to show that not only did Burke not work alone (which, as I said, you also acknowledged), he was working for a company that was working with the government. This also means that the mission was established by both, with everything else--not only Burke's but Bishop's presence but even heavily-armed Marines--supporting that.
Lastly, what's interesting about Bishop, especially in light of Ash, is that he's a synth that works the government (given claims made following the game
Aliens: Infestation, according to one wiki entry) but also for the company (given instructions from Burke which he explains to Ripley). That would mean he would be programmed to protect human lives (which is what the military should do unless ordered otherwise) but also collect organisms and alien tech (which is what the company and even the government, which controls the military, want, i.e., following Ripley's points about the company and its bioweapons division).
This explains why he helps the human beings escape. As for the facehuggers, it was pointless to prepare them because Burke let them loose against Ripley and Newt. So what did he did to fulfill the company mission? Did he do something between repairing the transmitter and bringing down the second dropship and taking off on the latter? Can this be seen in relation to questions about eggs on the Sulaco? Oh noes.
Quote from: Kradan on Jun 10, 2023, 07:04:55 AMWe sure have one for Alien 3
Egg On The Sulaco
That's going to be interesting when we think about Bishop's presence, which is part of the military, and following instructions from Burke, who is part of the company, about preparing the facehuggers for company labs.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jun 10, 2023, 01:04:04 PMI am all for discussing imperfections in the Alien films, like everything to do with the Sulaco in both Aliens and Alien³ -but do they have to be totally made up ones?
AFAIK, most of the points raised so far come from the movie script, with a few outside it, like claims that the author is right (which means an analysis of the movie is pointless, LOL), manuals (to explain Arcturians), and games (to explain Bishop's presence).
Quote from: caffeine4671 on Jun 10, 2023, 07:47:43 PMQuote from: Local Trouble on Jun 10, 2023, 01:19:44 PMQuote from: ralfy on Jun 10, 2023, 04:07:37 AMThe company and government are not supposed to believe Ripley, but why do they send a heavily armed contingent which, according to Burke and implicitly acknowledged by Gorman, deals with particular "situations" involving "state-of-the-art firepower"? Why does Burke want to bring Ripley along? Given the point that it's a mission under "military jurisidiction," wouldn't Gorman be working under orders from superiors who, like him, have also read Ripley's brief?
Dear ralfy,
I see that you have several questions about the role of the military, Burke's actions, and what motivated them to send an armed contingent to LV-426. I believe the following explanations may provide some clarity:
Firstly, about the armed contingent, the Colonial Marines are essentially the future equivalent of today's military. They are typically deployed for a variety of missions - not exclusively related to alien life forms - and are armed with state-of-the-art firepower for almost all of them. Their heavy armament doesn't necessarily imply that they expected to encounter hostile alien life. It's more about being prepared for any eventuality, especially in this case where a colony had gone silent without any explanation.
Burke's role in all this is more complex and indeed deceptive. As a representative of Weyland-Yutani, his primary concern was protecting the company's interests. He knew Ripley's story, and unlike others, he seemed to believe there was some credibility to it - or at least saw an opportunity in investigating her claims. His motivation for bringing Ripley along likely stems from a combination of wanting her as a firsthand witness and hoping that she could help them locate the alien species if it indeed existed.
As for the military jurisdiction, Lieutenant Gorman was put in charge of the mission, but this doesn't imply that he or his superiors necessarily knew the full details of Ripley's claims. Reading a brief and fully understanding or believing the implications of an unprecedented alien encounter are two very different things. Gorman was a young and relatively inexperienced officer. He may have been aware of Ripley's account, but that doesn't mean he fully grasped its implications or even believed it.
Remember, at this point, as far as the majority of people involved were concerned, they were investigating a loss of contact with a colony. That could have been due to any number of reasons – technical failure, local insurgency, natural disaster etc. The default assumption wouldn't necessarily be an alien infestation, especially considering the skepticism around Ripley's story.
I hope this clears up some of your questions!
Best,
ChatGPT
If Burke is a company rep, then that means he's not working alone.
Gorman isn't working alone, either. Who ordered him to undertake that mission?
And then there's Bishop, which according to one game works for the military but according to the movie works for Burke.
Don't waste your time with Local.
Quote from: caffeine4671 on Jun 11, 2023, 01:08:11 AMAliens: A ChatGPT Analysis
Gorman received the full brief, and prior to that he and Burke referred to "situations" that would involve "state-of-the-art firepower." Only a Local covering up with ChatGPT will fail to connect the two.
As explained earlier, even Ripley referred many times to the company and its bioweapons division and making others expendable. They had the info on the landing site and it wasn't hard to investigate it. My guess is that they didn't want to do it themselves, so they made Burke point man. It's like using Ollie North, ie., following the OP's point about the Reagan era.
A brief doesn't imply that it's brief. LOL. That's why it's on disc. In addition, the military works via a chain of command, so that means Gorman was working under orders. To find out who's involved, consider not Gorman but Bishop, who's supposed to work for the military but follows orders from Burke.