Corrected entry: If you damage a fusion reactor, it doesn't explode with a thermonuclear effect. It just shuts off.
Corrected entry: When Ripley and Hicks are discussing their defence plans after the first encounter, they decide to put one of the auto guns in each of three locations, leaving one left over. When we see the guns in place they have actually used two guns in each of two locations, that is, two pairs.
Correction: Ripley discusses 3 separate locations with Hicks, but their plan is to station two guns each at two points and seal off a third. I don't believe there to be any issues with this part of the film.
Corrected entry: During the escape of Ripley and the marines from Sub Level 3, an alien lands on the APC, and smashes the window trying to get to Ripley. She brakes, then drives over the alien. Not only does the alien's acid blood do nothing in this scene, the next shot of the APC has the window intact.
Correction: The alien that breaks the APC window has red blood, probably having just mauled one of the marines. The alien wouldn't have bled acid from breaking the window, throughout the movie the aliens had to be shot a lot of times or right in the head to actually bleed.
Correction: If the question is referring to the Alien's blood after it has been squashed by the vehicle, keep in mind that the acid blood may well have been responsible for the technical problems that eventually disable the APC just a few moments later.
Corrected entry: If an alien creature comes from an implanted human, there would only be as many creatures as humans, but there are far too many aliens. Remember the tunnels with the automatic machine guns? Those guns, supposedly, killed hundreds of aliens.
Correction: The aliens were bred from the implanted inhabitants of the colony. There were plenty of them to supply the amount of aliens seen.
Correction: There's a lot of overkill from the sentry guns as they simply fire whenever they detect movement and are unable to account for size, etc. Note that the guns fire multiple rounds just to take out the single empty canister thrown in front of them for a test. So the sentry guns having fired hundreds of rounds doesn't mean they've taken out hundreds of aliens.
Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie, when Reidecker is discussing Newt's parents' prospecting claim with Al, he refers to them as "a mom and pop survey team" as if he did not know who they actually were by name. However, this remote colony had only 158 members, so they would have all known each other very well.
Corrected entry: The ‘knife trick' scene was not in the original script. Lance Henriksen, who portrays Bishop, decided to add it in at the last moment. Henriksen did not tell Bill Paxton what he was going to do to him, so his terrified screams are real.
Correction: This is mostly incorrect. The knife trick was not in the original draft but was in the shooting script. However, in the shooting script Bishop does the knife trick with just his own hand, Hudson is not involved at all. It is doubtful that Bill Paxton would genuinely scream during the knife trick because he was in little danger. The trick only looks dangerous because James Cameron sped the video up to make it seem quick and dangerous (in the process creating an obvious error when you look at Apone's rapidly bobbing head). In the close up of Hudson screaming, Bishop is stabbing the table off screen so he was likely nowhere near actually hurting anyone.
Corrected entry: After the ammo is removed when the team are under the reactor coolers Vasquez is still on point, even though her machine gun doesn't have a flamethrower capability and her hands are too occupied to be able to use one. Should have been replaced by another team member with an 'active' weapon.
Correction: True, but Vasquez's weapon is still loaded/powered and has a sophisticated sensor system which might be better at detecting enemies than naked eyes. It's still a bad choice by the command team because even if she sees something, she shouldn't be able to do anything except call it out (as far as Gorman and Apone know) or fire (which is what she and Drake actually do, against orders). But at least it's a logical error instead of a senseless one.
Vasquez's Smart gun is electric-operated, so the 2 smart gunners were taken electric sources (batteries) from them, instead of detaching 500-round drums, which effectively made them useless, but loaded still (if they didn't have spare parts, they wouldn't be able to fire against orders); as for the stupidity of actions - the chain starts long before, on Earth, since Burke wanted it to be stupid for his own purposes, he jeopardized as much as could with the mission, incl green Lt Gorman.
Corrected entry: It's true that the queen was going to use the elevator to follow Ripley and Newt as they were trying to escape. But, how would she know where the elevator stopped? It's not like there's only two levels. More so, she would have to hit the button before the first elevator even stopped to follow them up as quickly as it did. Either way, she shouldn't have been able to know where they get off and wind up on the exact same floor as Ripley and Newt.
Correction: It's not necessary that the queen knew what floor they were heading to, or even how elevators work at all. This human just killed all her eggs and is escaping by getting into a moving box. Then another moving box arrives. It's a pretty good guess it'll take the queen to the same place. And she didn't have to push any buttons - most elevators return to the main floor when not in use or if no buttons are pushed.
Corrected entry: The little girl Newt is taken and cocooned by the mother alien. Why, then is she rescued? All the other cocooned victims have been impregnated and are incubating baby aliens. Yet Ripley brings the child back in the almost certain likelihood that 24 hours after the credits have rolled, little Newt's stomach will explode.
Correction: On the chance the question is based around Ripley telling the marines they're unable to help their captured crewmates but then later deciding to rescue Newt regardless, she obviously has a personal bias having formed a motherly bond with the girl, and figures she is only risking her own life by going after her (and perhaps Hicks, but he's obviously agreed to the rescue) rather than the entire team's. As another user has stated, she is banking on reaching Newt before a facehugger can get to her.
Corrected entry: When Ripley and the others are trying to figure out what they are dealing with Ripley suggests something is laying these eggs since there must be over 100. But she knows there already are hundreds if not thousands of these eggs so there is no reason to assume something is laying new ones. (01:34:40 - 01:35:15)
Correction: Ripley is running through the logic and realizing there is something they don't yet understand about the alien's life cycle: where the eggs come from. Even if they happen to be the same eggs from the derelict ship, the eggs had to have been created at some point, by something. But how? What is this process? She may have started out talking about how the specific colonists were taken over, but by the time she asks "who's laying these eggs," she's asking about the concept, in general. Because unless the creatures were specifically bio-engineered not to be able to, they almost certainly have the ability to create more eggs.
Correction: That's exactly what she means. She's saying something must've laid the eggs, and will likely continue to lay more.
But there is no reason for her to say there must be a queen lying these eggs, she knows there are eggs, there have been eggs there for decades.
In Alien, she doesn't know that though. She and the rest of the crew don't know what they've seen and what they're up against. Yes, she knows it's an alien but that's it.
She knows there are eggs from experiences in Alien where the eggs are discovered in the alien spaceship. Yet we don't see a queen alien. In Aliens, they aren't in the alien spaceship, they're in the atmosphere processing plant. Yes they're both on the same planet but do you think the eggs walked from one location to another? There must be something laying new eggs which Ripley hasn't yet seen.
My idea is that either the colonists or the xenomorphs themselves brought the eggs over to the colony. Perfectly logical if there is no queen. Sure it's also logical to think there is a queen, as movie viewers, but my point is there is no reason for Ripley to think something is lying these eggs whilst she knows there already were thousands of eggs.
Ripley is making the (correct) assumption that because the colonists are being taken deeper into the colony, and that the aliens have built a hive in the colony itself; that the eggs found there were laid there. If the hive had been built inside the derelict spacecraft, then Ripley likely wouldn't have made that assumption.
But why not think the aliens had taken the eggs from the derelict craft and taken them closer to the incubators, thus inside the colony? I just think it's far-fetched she immediately starts talking about a possible queen whilst there is hardly any reason to do so, where did the queen come from supposedly? All they know is some people from the colony brought aliens inside them into the colony and then all hell broke loose. Her assumption is nothing more than to help the plot along.
I don't think her assumption is far fetched at all. She assumes that the eggs must have been laid by something; which is logical. She then assumes the thing that laid the eggs is continuing to do so; which is also logical. Where the queen came from in never addressed in Ripley's conversation with Bishop. The two are merely speculating that there must an alien lying eggs and it must be something they haven't seen yet. It's quite a bit of a leap to think that the aliens somehow know that there are additional eggs miles away from the colony and they should go get them and bring them back. This borders on clairvoyance. It is much more logical, based on what the characters know and see, that the eggs in the colony were laid there.
But those eggs in the derelict ship have been lying there for an eternity, even if you would only count the amount of time Ripley has been asleep since she encountered them, no reason to think at all new eggs have been laid, no reason. Thousands of eggs were inside the derelict ship, the colonists were exposed to the aliens through those eggs, brought back to their colony inside themselves (they didn't bring eggs). It's ridiculous to think something then came, a queen, and nested inside the colony, unless a queen was brought along by the colonists, but Ripley and nobody in general have any idea how the aliens reproduce. It's more logical to think the aliens can reproduce on their own, not that a queen is needed. That's more of my point, the name "Queen" being used. That's what borders on clairvoyance. We know the Aliens have extrasensory perception (as shown in this movie) so them being able to sense the eggs that far away is a lot more believable to me.
I'm struggling with understanding your reasoning for why it is so unbelievable that Ripley and Bishop deduce that something is lying the eggs. Their explanation doesn't come anywhere close to clairvoyance. They make a logical guess that eggs are laid. They deduced, along with Hudson, that the creatures behaved in a similar fashion to ants or bees. That would mean logically a queen is lying the eggs. Once again, where the queen "came from" is never addressed in their conversation because it is irrelevant. The characters have much more than a general idea of how the creatures reproduce, they know everything pertinent except where exactly the eggs come from. I'm not understanding why you say it to be more logical that "the aliens can reproduce on their own, not that a queen is needed." If you are saying it to be more logical to think of the aliens as closer to chickens than ants (i.e., each creature lays it's own eggs), that doesn't make sense because they are basing their "ants" theory on the presence of a hive.
Well all right they may have guessed how the aliens behave and reproduce correctly, they did see all colonists together and probably incubated, a nest, fine. To me its all about the idea Ripley starts talking about a queen being down there from the fact there are over 100 eggs down there. Again, she knows there are thousands of eggs on the derelict ship already. What we know doesn't work for Ripley who knows nothing about those things. They aren't even sure how the aliens got to the colony and Ripley never mentions the derelict ship that had thousands of eggs again. For all she knows the colonists had already taken eggs from the ship back to the colony, why not think that's what going on? But she immediately jumps to the queen theory, which helps her later on.
Ripley mentions the derelict and the thousands of eggs both in the inquest and again on the Sulaco, both prior to the mission starting. Once they arrive on the planet and discover the hive they deduce that it might work like an ant colony or bee hive. Ripley questions "So what's lying these eggs?" to which Bishop responds "It must be something we haven't seen yet." Hudson is the first to suggest a possible queen. This conversation doesn't help Ripley later on in the movie. She literally just runs into the queen's chamber completely by accident. The conversation is just there to plant an idea in the audience's mind that there is an alien queen. You are arguing that based on what the characters know, they should have come to an incorrect conclusion (the aliens are taking eggs from the derelict back to the colony) rather than the correct one, if they came to any conclusion at all. You also say that "what we know" doesn't apply to what Ripley knows about the creatures, except that isn't true at all. At this point, Ripley knows everything about the aliens that the audience knows. Coming up with the idea that "these things built a hive like bees do. I wonder if that means they have a queen like bees and ants do?" is completely rational.
Let's agree to disagree then. What we know as the audience is that some colonists went to the derelict ship and brought back aliens inside them, Ripley and the marines don't know that as contact was lost and Newt isn't telling anything. Where do the eggs come from? The derelict ship should be the first idea, not that something is lying them, inside the colony even. Sure something once has laid them but that could have been thousands of years ago, where would a queen come from? All this, no logical reason to assume there is a queen. That's my opinion and why I posted the mistake.
We cannot agree to disagree because your theory is incorrect. It is safe to say that Ripley would logically deduce that neither the colonists nor the Aliens are capable of bringing 150 eggs hundreds of miles back to the derelict. It not possible. And as we see, the eggs are freshly laid, glistening wet. The most logical explanation is that a Queen was birthed from one of the colonists, as later happened to Ripley herself in "Alien 3."
If the colonists didn't bring eggs back how and why did they get facehuggers into the containment tanks and had time to study them? They just happen to have caught some? If they were that much into a crisis they wouldn't have wasted time examining them. No, they brought eggs back to study them, everything was going well until some got loose and escaped underneath the processing station, including a queen. Ripley never saw the eggs amount in the colony and the old ones looked just as "fresh."
If they brought back eggs, where were they? All we saw were the facehugger specimens. Surely Cameron would have shown us eggs in addition to them. He doesn't miss details like that. As such, the two live ones were "surgically removed before embryo implantation." Remember? The dead ones were from colonist rescuers answering Newt's family's mayday call. No way did they try to bring back the eggs without having gotten inundated first. Come on man.
It's not even the point. My point was always the use of the word Queen and Ripley's blind assumption the eggs were being laid fresh.
Again, that was the logical conclusion, not someone transferring dozens of eggs hundreds of miles from the derelict to the colony. Why would the colonists waste time doing that? Put yourself in Ripley's head for a moment. You don't really believe that in all that was going down that she'd logically conclude that someone, whether it be human or alien, would travel back and forth hundreds of miles to the derelict and bring eggs, do you? Neither did Cameron.
Note that when this scene starts the characters' discussion has been going on in circles for quite some time (much like this thread!). Ripley recaps what they've deduced so far ("let's go over it again") in the present tense, describing what appears to be an ongoing reproductive cycle (which if correct would render the derelict's eggs kind of moot) and when it hits a blank she prompts for suggestions. These aren't "blind assumptions"-they're testing theories and drawing tentative conclusions.
A Queen was obviously brought along by the colonists, as Ripley was impregnated herself by one in "Alien 3."
I never denied there was a queen brought back. But certainly not in that one facehugger that got stuck to Newt's dad's face. They brought back more. They had to, they must have contained the first one.
Obviously they did bring back more. Rescuers to Newt's family were inundated with facehuggers. Two were removed surgically before embryo implantation. The other three, which may or may not have included Newt's father, successfully implanted their embryos. One of which was obviously a Queen.
I find the theory that the aliens travelled hundreds of miles out to the derelict to fetch over 150 eggs to be far-fetched. Obviously Ripley logically deduced, based on the fact that there was a hive in the processing station, that there was something laying eggs.
The colonists were told by the company to find the derelict ship and bring back eggs to study, they were told, and they had plenty of time to get a lot of eggs before things went wrong for them. Newt's dad was just an incident, they continued their research and brought more and more eggs over. Therefore there is no reason for Ripley to think those eggs are freshly made.
Nope. Simpson, in the Special Edition, was told by Burke to investigate a grid reference. No explanation. Newt's family investigates and her father is facehugged. A rescue team comes to them and several members get facehugged as well. No eggs are transferred. The Aliens, including the Queen, are borne of these colonists and the Queen lays the eggs. Period. There is every reason for Ripley to think those eggs are freshly made. I don't know where you get these crazy ideas but you are dead wrong.
So you are telling me the people rescuing Newt's family were stupid enough to enter the ship as well and get facehugged just like Newt's dad did? And then more rescuers came to rescue these new schmucks? That's even more stupid.
Stupid people do stupid things. Ever read a story of how someone goes in a manhole and is overcome by carbon monoxide or something similar? They rarely find just the one body, but usually the one or two people who go in to "rescue" the first victim.
I've got no problem with stupid people doing stupid things. I just don't know what's the problem with my theory, if it's plausible. Again, it's not even the point of my problem with the scene in question.
Newt's parents did a stupid thing too, as did Kane. Otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. It's that your theory is implausible, period. The derelict served its purpose in the story and was no longer a concern to Ripley. She logically concluded that the hive eggs were being laid by someone or something. Surely no-one else was going back into the derelict to bring back eggs after what happened. Lesson learned. Occam's razor: all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.
Corrected entry: The crew finds half a dozen face huggers in the med lab, and two of them are still alive. One tries to attach to Burke when he gets too close to the glass case. If a face hugger was able to break the much tougher glass of Kane's space suit's helmet in the first film and attach to him, why wouldn't it be able to break through this less durable glass in this film to get on Burke?
Correction: The creature doesn't break the glass to Kane's helmet, it melts its way in with acid. Presumably the liquid in the container neutralizes the acid somehow. Also, we have no idea what either the helmet glass or the container are actually made of. The container is made of a material strong enough to withstand the strength of the facehugger.
A laboratory jar that is made of material stronger than that of the faceplate of a space helmet that is designed to withstand a pressure differential like that between atmospheric pressure and a vacuum. Yes, that's going to happen.
This is both a futuristic movie and there is a 57 year gap between movies. And it isn't a "laboratory jar", it's some sort of made up stasis device. It is completely plausible that a stasis device would be more durable than a helmet made nearly 60 years prior. But the point is moot because the alien in the first film never breaks the helmet, it melts it.
Even the strongest acid cannot corrode a glass beaker, but it could easily corrode other transparent materials. It isn't a matter of how "strong" it is, it's a matter of chemistry. We don't know what the faceplates of the space suits are made of, but current day ones are made of polycarbonate plastics.
Correction: Probably because the facehugger doesn't have anything to hold on to and break the glass.
Continuity mistake: During the scene where Ripley is trying to break the window with a chair, there is a scuff mark on it before she hits it. It goes away and comes back. (01:32:15)
Suggested correction: The view from Ripley's side is looking up at the window and from the other side level where there are reflections at the same height (using Ripley as a reference) of the scuffs. There is no way to tell if the scuffs are there or not.
The Director's Cut (and maybe even on the theatrical version) on the 2010 Blu-ray removes the scratches, so I assume they were not supposed to be there initially.
Corrected entry: The marines are not allowed to fire in the reactor (which later explodes from damage caused by the APC with a 30 megaton blast), however it is described as a FUSION reactor. Fusion reactors do not cause nuclear explosions if they overheat. They can't. They just turn off.
Correction: Fusion reactors can be cooled by liquid hydrogen. If the coolant pipes are hit the highly flammable and explosive hydrogen will be released, along with radioactive tritium (no explosive value but contamination). Remember, these things are huge so we are talking about large amounts.
Other mistake: They should have had much more than only twenty-six minutes to save Newt. Bishop said that the reactor would blow in four hours after seeing the emergency venting. He said it would take forty minutes to crawl down that pipe, an hour to patch into and align the antenna, thirty minutes to prep the ship, and fifty minutes flight time. 40+60+30+50=180 minutes, gives them an hour spare.
Suggested correction: And how are you so sure everything went smoothly without problems? Any of those things could have taken longer, leaving only 26 minutes.
Revealing mistake: When the swarm of aliens drops through the ceiling panels, you can tell that Ripley and the marines don't have magazines in their rifles. It's especially visible when Ripley looks up before Hicks raises the panel and sees the aliens.
Corrected entry: Near the start, Burke gives his phone card to Ripley in her cabin, and his name is spelled "Bourke." But in the credits, his name is spelled "Burke."
Correction: On the card, it reads "Carter J. Burke." It's a bit hard to read because of the design of the card, but it does say Burke.
Corrected entry: Whilst the phrase 'Fire in the hole' may have changed in the future, it is unlikely it would have two separate meanings. For example, the first is when the APC catches fire, (as in fire in the APC) and the second is when Vasquez throws the cannister in front of the sentry guns (the more traditional meaning-i.e. throwing a grenade). Both these phrases have nothing to do with each other, but are still used in exactly the same way.
Correction: The simple act of shouting "FIRE" will get people's attention, while the knowledge of fire is one of danger. Adding the phrase "IN THE HOLE" is a message that immediately tells our brain "A place is involved". Thus "Fire in the hole" is a easy verbal short hand for "There is a dangerous situation that you need to be away so look at the direction I am pointing in, running from or looking at" which would be a bit difficult to should out quickly.
Correction: Hudson didn't say 'Fire in the hole' he said 'Fire in the hull' as in the hull of the APC.
Corrected entry: This isn't a mistake, but a funny little thing: When you look closely to Drake's an Vasquez' Auto-cannons, you can clearly see, that these are modified German machine guns, produced by Heckler & Koch. In some shots, when firing, you can also see the ammo-belts hanging out of the guns (e.g. when Drake is firing his last rounds, just before he drops the gun). These machineguns are also carried by some Stormtroopers in "Star Wars" - almost unmodified.
Correction: The auto-cannons are actually German World War II era MG-42s, according to the special edition DVD.
Correction: The Stormtrooper E-11 Blaster was in reality the Sterling smg, manufactured in the UK.
Corrected entry: The counter on a fully-loaded pulse rifle reads 300 rounds. However, a magazine of the size shown could never contain 300 rounds of 10mm ammunition.
Correction: I don't know where anyone in the movie said that the counter reads 300 bullets, because it certainly wasn't ever said in this film. The counter on the Pulse Rifle only goes up to 99. This is shown when Ripley loads it at 2 different parts in the movie: when Hicks is showing her how to fire it, and when she is getting ready to go find Newt in the hive. There was never any indication that the Pulse Rifle clips hold 300 rounds.
Correction: You sure? Cause, to me, they seemed more like a power source for the smart guns and not the ammo.
The video here shows her loading a full magazine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY2wGD6-j0Y At the 59 second point, she loads the magazine and the round indicator shows 95, not 99 and definitely not 300. The round indicator only goes to 2 digits.
Correction: Actual fusion reactors don't exist, yet. Certainly not this size. You have no idea how this reactor works. It's not unlikely it uses fissile material to operate.
lionhead