Question: Using the motion tracker with the screen when Dallas is in the vent, is it top-down or side-view?
BaconIsMyBFF
20th Nov 2022
Alien (1979)
2nd Nov 2020
Alien (1979)
Question: The Alien brings Brett and Dallas back to its nest alive in order to create more Aliens. It seems that Brett had died in the process but Dallas is still alive. How then would the alien impregnate them without facehuggers complete with an egg?
Answer: It's possible that Brett was the only one being turned into an egg and that Dallas was merely stuck to the wall to be the eventual facehugger host.
Dallas is more than just merely stuck to the wall. He is in physical agony, his eyes appear to no longer work properly, and he has barely enough strength to muster more than a couple words. And the words he can get out are him pleading with Ripley to end his suffering.
Rather than burning Dallas to death it would have been more humane to let him blow up with the ship.
Perhaps so, but Dallas was pleading for his suffering to end right then and there. It appeared that the burning was no more agonizing than what he was going through, which means he must have been in immense pain already.
Answer: Actually the alien was using Brett and Dallas to make new facehugger eggs. The scene, only shown in the Director's Cut, shows Brett partway through being turned into an egg and Dallas in what appears to be the very beginning of this process. This scene was cut from the theatrical release and as such, James Cameron did not include this feature of the alien lifecycle in the sequel. Cameron showed the eggs are laid by a queen and the franchise has continued with this approach since Aliens and has never revisited the idea that alien eggs are created from the bodies of humans. Since this scene only appears in the Director's Cut, its status as canon remains in question. However, some fans reconcile this by theorizing that in the absence of a queen a single alien can use human bodies to create more facehuggers.
23rd Oct 2020
Alien (1979)
Question: Why wouldn't the self-destruct system have a stop button? Presumably if you wanted to abort the procedure it should be instant and not have to go through all the rigmarole of trying to shut it down.
Answer: The Nostromo is powered by a nuclear reactor. The self-destruct system simply shuts down the cooling towers, causing the reactor to gradually rise in temperature until it reaches critical mass. The cooling system can be turned back on within the first 5 minutes but after that, the reactor is so hot the cooling liquid will evaporate once it comes into contact with the system. Ripley tries turning the cooling towers back on, and she does so right before the 5 minute failsafe timer is up, but the system was still too hot to cool the reactor. This is why Ripley curses at MUTHUR, she made it back in time but a meltdown is still inevitable. Apparently the 5 minute failsafe timer is not exact to the second and Ripley actually had slightly less than 5 minutes.
I believe she just barely misses the cutoff, rather than making it but still having it be ineffective. She curses Mother out of frustration, and perhaps fury at the computer's cold indifference to her fate.
Answer: It's pretty typical in movies that in a self-destruct situation, once it's started, it is impossible to stop, for whatever reason. It's about plotting and maintaining the tension to keep the audience on the edge of their seats to see if the hero can survive. Considering how corrupt the company was, they'd expend little effort into proper safety procedures.
8th Jun 2020
Alien (1979)
Question: One thing that bugged me from a recent rewatch. When Brett comes across the Alien skin that it has recently shed, it in no way resembles what the creature looks like now, and is completely disproportionate with its size a few minutes later when it kills him. Now I know that its methods of 'growing' we are lead to believe are different to those of Earth creatures in that they are more accelerated etc...but if it is following a similar pattern to Earth animals that shed their skin shouldn't it have shed at least ANOTHER skin or maybe two to achieve its near-adult human size? And also why in 'Aliens' were no shed skins in abundance dotted around the place when it is part of the Aliens' natural life-cycle? They don't strike me as the kind of creature that would worry about leaving their shed skin around to cover up their presence?
Answer: The skin Brett finds is presumably the first skin the creature shed based on its size. There might be other skins that were shed all over the place but we never see every inch of the ship. The alien in this film primarily uses the air ducts to move around, but the film only shows the air ducts in one brief scene. There could be other skins somewhere in those ducts we never see. The same is true in Aliens. We never see every inch of the floors of the colony, they could be anywhere. The floor of the hive does have a considerable amount of debris, some of this debris could conceivably be shed skins.
That's a much more logical answer, thank you.
Answer: They shed their skin once, probably some kind of protective fleece around its immature body it disposes of, not actual skin like with a snake. These are smart creatures, yes they would hide their shed skin.
If that's the case why did the first Alien shed skin get found? If as you say they are 'smart' enough to hide their shed skin why was this one left laying around?
Because in later movies the aliens have a lot more space to shed their skins where it can't be found. Maybe they don't actually hide it, but it's logical they hide themselves as their skin sheds because they are vulnerable. The alien in the first movie simply couldn't find anywhere to hide.
28th Dec 2018
Alien (1979)
Question: After Ripley has set the ship to self destruct, she grabs Jones and hurries towards the shuttle. She then runs into the alien in the corridor, drops Jones and runs away and then tries to stop the self destruct system. Now she'd set the ship to self destruct, needed to get the hell out of there, the alien was in her way, why didn't she just blast it with her flamethrower? Ripley is not like Lambert, she's feisty and brave and I think Ripley would have done just that.
Answer: Ripley is, for the majority of this film, not "feisty and brave." She is written to be an intelligent, capable, but otherwise average person. She is for all intents and purposes an "everyman" character. She does not become the tenacious, bold heroine that defines her in popular culture until her last battle with the alien, and these character traits are solidified in the sequel. For most of the film, she is very much terrified of the alien and the prospect of fighting it head on is the furthest from her mind. At that moment in the corridor, her fight or flight response kicks in and she flees. All of this serves to make her fight against the alien in the shuttle more poignant, as she is forced to literally face her fears and defend herself. Note that while she is trying to get the alien to come out of its hiding place on the shuttle, she is soaked in nervous sweat and is singing a song to calm herself down. Would the Ripley of later films have blasted the alien to kingdom come? Of course. The Ripley in this film has yet to become the no-nonsense, composed heroine we remember at that point.
28th Dec 2018
Alien (1979)
Question: Why did the last three remaining crew members split up? Surely it would have made better sense to stay together as up until that time the alien had only attacked people when they were alone.
Answer: They felt like they didn't have enough time. Parker and Lambert stayed together to get coolant while Ripley was to prepare the shuttle and set the auto-destruct. They wanted to escape as soon as possible. Staying together would have, in their minds, lengthened the time they were on the ship with the alien.
Answer: Fair point but I don't think that the Alien would have attacked three people because when it moved in to kill Lambert it didn't know that Parker was behind it.
You're basing that on what you know about the alien from watching the films. The characters at this point have no real idea how the alien would behave. For all they know, it could start reproducing asexually and there could be six more of them on the ship.
Don't understand what you mean, sorry.
You are saying that you believe the alien wouldn't attack three people together. That's because you've probably seen the films and have a pretty good understanding of the creature's biology and behavior. The characters in the film have no idea how it behaves or how it will behave the longer it stays alive. The biology of the alien is so different from anything they've seen and they want to get away from it as soon as they possibly can.
21st Sep 2018
Alien (1979)
Question: Near the start of the film Dallas goes to mother and on the computer he scrolls down to special order 937 and then asks "what's the story, mother?" When he tapped on order 937, why didn't he see the same message that Ripley saw later in the film?
Answer: Dallas doesn't scroll to Special Order 937, he scrolls down to the "Interface" option which is coded as "Interface 2037." Interface 2037 is the program that allows the ship's captain to ask the computer questions in plain language. Ripley sees the message about Special Order 937 because she keeps pressing Mother for additional information that she is not authorized to see. Dallas probably did see the same message about "Science officer's eyes only" but thought nothing of it at the time. Dallas' dialogue to Ripley about Ash having final word on the alien seems to suggest that he did indeed see Special Order 937 and chose to follow his instructions.
Yes have rewatched it, you're quite right.
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Answer: It actually appears to orient both ways, presumably Lambert is switching back and forth between orientations. When Dallas turns; it shows on the readout as a 90 degree turn. When Dallas goes down the ladder the first time the readout shows the dot travelling downwards on the screen. It can't do both unless Lambert is switching them. And it makes sense that she would, she knows where he is because he is calling out his location as he goes. Lambert likely knows the path Dallas intends to take and switches orientations when he does. This confusing set-up is purposefully meant to disorient the audience, so they, like Dallas, have no idea from which direction the alien is coming. Lambert seems to have also become disoriented (this seems an impossible task with no line of sight) and can't give Dallas a direction to escape. She has the screen oriented so "forward" is to the right, Dallas goes down towards the alien, so she says "No! Not that way! The other way! God!"
BaconIsMyBFF