Question: How did the company know about the Alien in the first place? Presumably no-one had been there before and the signal they picked up didn't indicate the presence of an Alien lifeform.
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.
Question: Why did the shuttle craft only have room for two crew members when there are seven of them? The shuttle is mainly an escape vessel if the ship was in danger and their lives were at risk hence the stasis capsules, so there should have been accommodation for seven.
Answer: Considering "The Company" that owned the mining space ship was notoriously cheap (and corrupt) about providing their crew with necessities, it is hardly surprising they had inadequate safety equipment, like enough stasis capsules. Also, the company's real mission (known only to Ash) was to collect the alien creature at any cost while the crew was deemed "expendable," so no need to provide them with a viable escape method.
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.
Question: How was there a thunderstorm and rain inside the ship while traveling through space?
Answer: That wasn't a "thunderstorm and rain" inside the Nostromo. It was condensation dripping down from the ship's ventilation/cooling system. When searching for the cat, Brett (played by Harry Dean Stanton) removes his cap and stands beneath a cooling shaft, allowing the condensation to splatter like rain on his head and face.
Answer: What scene are you referring to?
Question: Using the motion tracker with the screen when Dallas is in the vent, is it top-down or side-view?
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!"
Answer: It was never fully explained. "The Company" had a standing directive that any signal detected which indicated alien life was to be investigated and specimens collected and returned. Failure to comply would result in the crew forfeiting their profit shares. The company apparently had previously detected the crashed alien astronaut's warning signal from LV-46 and wanted to search for alien lifeforms without specifically knowing what would be found.
raywest ★
Actually in the movie it is indicated that the company definitely knew about the xenomorphs, given Ash's directive. It is not explained how in this movie but it is in the movies "Prometheus" and "Alien: covenant." The standing directive about investigating signals was just an excuse to use an expendable crew to procure a specimen.
lionhead