Question: Can anyone explain the airlock that the Queen gets sucked out of at the end? The location for the activation levers seems ridiculous. Ripley gets pulled in by the Queen, then starts climbing out and pulls a lever to open the outer door, then has to climb out to the top to close it. This seems like an insanely dangerous design.
Answer: The airlock was probably designed to drop out cargo in space to be taken to another ship or a space station or for astronauts to go on space walks or make repairs to the outer hull of the ship. Maybe to quickly get rid of something dangerous or deadly, like a bomb or alien monster.
Answer: The simple fact of the matter is she overrides the safety protocol of the airlock by opening the outer door manually whilst the inner door is still open. This of course is highly dangerous but necessary given the circumstances. For dramatic effect though she then climbs out of the airlock to close the inner door instead of closing the outer door first. It's possible though she can't close the outer door anymore because she overrode the system (or the outer door is now damaged) and she closes both doors at the same time after climbing back up.
Question: Why did Ripley attack the hive near the end of the film? Firstly, she had Newt with her, she knew that the planet was going to explode, she had little time to get out, and if she hadn't attacked the hive, the Alien queen wouldn't have gone after her. Ripley utterly hated the Aliens, but she is intelligent and Corporal Hicks had earlier praised her tactical thinking - attacking the hive was foolish.
Answer: In her haste to escape, Ripley accidentally entered the egg chamber and found her only exit routes blocked by xenomorphs. Correctly suspecting that the queen was intelligent, Ripley assumed a threatening posture, and the queen cautioned the other xenomorphs to back off, clearing a path for Ripley to leave. However, Ripley also suspected it was a trap and that she would be quickly ambushed by the xenomorphs when she tried to flee. Ripley thought this was her last living act; so, she defiantly blasted and burned the egg chamber, taking out as many eggs as possible before her death. As it happened, the ensuing chaos allowed Ripley to escape the egg chamber.
Answer: One of the eggs had started opening and presumably more would also begin hatching and the newly-born facehuggers would pursue and infect Ripley and Newt. That was when Ripley torched the nest. Even if Ripley had not burned the eggs, the alien queen would have chased them, wanting bodies to incubate more creatures.
Answer: Like the Queen would let her just leave. Ripley knew they would come after them, more host bodies.
No I don't think so, the queen was in the process of laying eggs through a large tube and was being protected by her warriors, so in order to chase Ripley she had to tear herself away from the tube. She did this because she was furious about what Ripley had just done and wanted to get revenge.
Answer: Ripley wasn't there by accident; she had to rescue Newt. Newt was stuck in some sort of sticky goo, so Ripley had to make her way through the nest of eggs to get Newt. Newt was being held prisoner by the queen who saw her as prey for her offspring, so Ripley got on her bad side when she destroys the nest.
Answer: I would imagine Ripley did do a bit of tactical thinking, she probably made a logical guess that if she destroyed the nest, the Queen would likely want to get revenge personally rather than getting her "minions" to do it. Fighting off one Queen would be a lot easier than fitting off a few dozen Xenomorphs.
Question: Has there ever been an explanation as to why the number "57" appears throughout the film? The number appears specifically three times: Ripley was floating in space for 57 years, the sentry guns have a model number of 571, and 157 colonists were killed. It just seems like the number comes up too many times to be a coincidence.
Answer: I have done some research looking into this, and I can't find anything about it. Only stuff talking about her being asleep for 57 years. I believe the other two occurrences are in fact coincidence. If it was meant to signify anything, it would likely have appeared more and as its own number of 57. Not part of 571 or 157.
Question: How did all the colonists get relocated to where the queen is? Do the aliens paralyze them when interacting with them? I can't imagine Hudson going there to be cocooned without struggling.
Answer: In the original script, yes the aliens have a barb at the end of their tails which is used to sting their prey and paralyze them. This was deemed unnecessary, however and the idea was dropped. We are shown an alien grabbing Dietrich and carrying her away and they do indeed just seem to strong-arm their victims and carry them, kicking and screaming the whole way. Bear in mind that a xenomorph is considerably stronger than an average human. It doesn't appear to be any more difficult for them to carry an unwilling human than it would be for a parent carrying a toddler throwing a tantrum.
Could be even more than that, they could concuss their captives or release some sort of odour that causes sleepiness. Could be anything. The captives always wake up cocooned before being impregnated so they are anesthetized at some point. We know the facehuggers anesthetize their victims, so the fully grown xenomorphs must have still have the same chemical compound as well.
The comic books and novels go into great detail regarding the chemical the facehuggers use to put people to sleep. It has a name and everything. This chemical is what causes some people to have nightmares while they are subdued. Curiously, I've never noticed them saying the adult xenomorph also uses the chemical but like you say, it stands to reason that they do. Why the movies and novels etc. ignore this element entirely is anyone's guess. It seems like an interesting element that has been consistently left out and, like you also say, people just seem to "wake up" after being cocooned but before they are impregnated so obviously they were put to sleep at some point.
Question: Why didn't they go and wait in the APC whilst Bishop piloted the drop ship down? I know Ripley destroyed the transmission so it could no longer move, but it'd be a hell of a lot easier to defend than a giant complex.
Answer: One of the drop ships crashed into the APC and destroyed it. That's why Bishop had to crawl down the pipe to the transmitter, as their portable transmitter was on the APC when it got destroyed.
Answer: The Aliens were everywhere, they couldn't make it out of the room, much less the complex.
Answer: Plus, the front window was smashed in.
Question: When the Marines first enter the hive and encounter the cocooned colonist, at what point would she have been trapped there before the chestburster emerged?
Answer: As seen in the first Alien movie, once infected, the gestation period seems to be a matter of a few days. However, considering that Newt appeared to have been alone for a period of time, the colonists may have been cocooned for a longer period before the alien queen "impregnated" them.
Answer: No one can say for sure. In the first movie I don't think we really know how long Kane had the facehugger on him before they rescued him, so with this colonist, she could have been there for months.
Question: While Hicks and Vasquez are sealing the door during the attack, you get a good look at the magazine on Hudson's rifle while he is using the motion tracker. On the bottom of the magazine a large letter "D" is visible. Does anyone have any idea why that letter is there? Is this a prop designation?
Answer: The prop designation theory is probably right. It could stand for "Dummy" rounds. We can only speculate about future military conventions and best practices, but it's not likely that a magazine would be marked in such a manner because the ammunition it contained could be easily changed depending on the mission requirements. In our time, the ammunition itself is color coded so that it can be identified at a glance.
Question: 1) If a commanding officer orders you to do something but what they ask you makes no logical sense should you still do it? I'm of course referring to Apone ordering his people to get rid of their ammo. And what are the repercussions for NOT obeying the order? 2) Why wouldn't they check for aliens coming on the ceiling? Wouldn't the ceiling ducts show up on the blueprints they looked over earlier?
Answer: 1) Of course they are supposed to obey orders. Superiors don't usually completely explain the full reason why they give a specific order, it takes too long. That's why soldiers are trained to obey orders, no questions asked. You can see what happens when soldiers don't obey orders, because they had a good reason to tell them not to fire their guns, and they got lucky they didn't hit anything that could compromise the reactor. Insubordination is a serious offense. But since these are fictional space marines we can't really know what the repercussions would be. 2) The aliens didn't come through any ducts. They were hiding in the walls, which had a similar structure and colour as their bodies (logical since they made it). The marines didn't know the aliens would be so stealthy and smart to hide in the walls. They were there for search and rescue and weren't ready to face the aliens, since they hardly knew anything about them.
I think the second part of the question is referring to the scene where Hicks checks in the drop ceiling and finds aliens there. The poster is asking how come the drop ceiling doesn't show up on the blueprints.
Question: There were less than 200 colonists living on LV-246 at the time of the marines arrival based on the Hadleys Hope sign (pop. 158 specifically). Why then did 4 sentry guns with a total of 500 rounds each run dry killing xeno's in the tunnels? There were many more after the fact. We were told 60 families but general population counts would include everyone. And given plenty of of the colonists are still "alive", incubating, there can't have been that many aliens fully grown. Where are all these aliens coming from?
Answer: One possibility alluded to in the "Aliens: Newt's Tale" comic book is that the colony had livestock and pets which could increase the number of hosts considerably. Also the guns were set up as in pairs at two locations, firing about ten rounds a second. A single alien being detected by both guns and flailing around as it dies could expend up to 100 rounds. Depending on how tactical the aliens were in their approach, it's possible that 2000 rounds of rapid fire would kill most, but not all, of 150 xenomorphs.
Answer: It could also include medical personnel, contractors who constructed the buildings and army troops. Plus transport ships coming and going carrying relief crews and new people seeking jobs.
Question: Right before Gorman starts briefing the Marines in the hangar, he takes his hat off and has some sort of symbol or something shaved into the hair on the back of his head. Does anyone know what this is or any details about why he would have it?
Answer: I can only guess, but it just looks like bald spots on the actor's (William Hope) head. It could have been from when his head was shaved it got nicked and hadn't grown in yet, or he had some previous injury where the hair doesn't grow there.
Question: I have a question regarding some of the slang used in the film. During the briefing just before the marines go down to the planet, Hudson asks, "Is this going to be a stand-up fight or another bug-hunt?" And what does Gorman mean when he says they think xenomorphs are involved? People say xenomorph is a fancy term for the species of aliens in this film series, however, it's made clear that at the beginning of the movie this is an unknown species, so that term couldn't refer specifically to them.
Answer: In addition to the other answers, I'd like to point out that xenomorph simply means strange or alien form.
Answer: It wasn't exactly an "unknown" species. "The Company," the commercial operation funding everything, knew the alien creatures existed and had wanted them as bio-weapons since the first film. It's unclear what Gorman knew but likely little more than his troops. Burke knew about the creatures and his purpose was to collect one, the same as Ash in the original "Alien." The term "xenomorph" is a general term that could be applied to any extraterrestrial non-humanoid species. Hudson is asking if they're hunting a non-sentient being.
Yeah, Gorman had no clue about the xenomorphs whatsoever. No way. The Company did, Burke is part of the Company, but Gorman isn't. He, like the others, is just cannon fodder. The term is used as you describe it though. You gotta understand that the Company itself probably doesn't know how a full-grown xenomorph actually looks like. Not until Alien 4. They just know there is alien biotech to be claimed.
Question: If the aliens cut the power in the complex, why were the lights on whilst Hudson was cutting through the floor to rescue Newt and why was the elevator working? Is this a plot hole or is there a deleted scene where they power up a backup generator or something?
Answer: He used a portable cutter to rescue Newt. The elevators could have been connected to a separate generator. Plus the power was cut off to the lights, they never said that everything was down, only the lights.
Answer: I think they just went to a different part of the complex which was on a separate generator - there probably wouldn't have been just one power source/single point of failure for the whole colony complex, and the aliens probably only cut a cable or destroyed a breaker in the lab area the marines were in.
Question: I know there's a few different releases of this film with different scenes. Has it ever been revealed how the Aliens managed to get inside the complex? Ripley states they must have missed an entrance to which Hudson replies they didn't miss anything. Is there a deleted scene, director's cut etc that shows how the aliens got in?
Answer: It's shown in the film (both versions) that the Aliens use the space in the drop ceiling to get into the complex. The drop ceiling doesn't show on the blueprints so Ripley and the Marines didn't think about it. When Ripley wonders if they missed anything Hicks replies "We didn't miss anything." Hicks is technically correct, but Ripley then says "Something not on the blueprints, I don't know." They did not account for the fact the ceiling grates aren't the actual top of the room because they made their plans based on the blueprints.
The aliens used the space above the drop ceilings to move around the complex once inside, but it is never revealed how they actually got in from outside.
Alien: Resurrection shows the aliens are happy to sacrifice one of their own to use their blood to help them escape captivity - possible something similar happened here if they knew it was worth them getting inside.
Question: Why did Ripley not yell for Newt and Bishop to hold onto something before she opened the air lock?
Answer: I wondered about this, too. Ripley may simply have overlooked doing this due the extreme duress she was under, focused on killing the creature. She intended to act quickly and save Newt if needed, but the creature grabbed onto her leg, delaying it being shot into space. Ripley may also have believed that Newt was still hiding under the grates, and that Bishop, ripped in half, was already "dead." I also think it's something of a plot hole.
I know I'm answering my own question here but when I look back at the scene, you do see her press the button that triggers the alarms before she pulls the latch to open the air luck. Probably a form of telling them what she is about to do. And looking back at the scene it's pretty obvious what she's doing, unless Newt was all of a sudden oblivious to what was happening.
Newt was not exactly oblivious, but she was a frightened child who was reacting, as would be normal for someone her age, impulsively and without much forethought. She was also unfamiliar with the ship, its operation, and probably would not know what the warning alarm was. Her instinct was to jump out of the recessed floor space to see what was happening to Ripley. I don't think Ripley turned on the alarm separately. It would just automatically go off as soon as someone started opening the hatch. It's the same as a back-up alarm on the truck.
True she's unfamiliar with the ship but even when you move to a new school or building, you're still aware of the fire alarm.
Newt had never been on the ship before and had only been there for about five minutes when the mayhem started with the alien queen. A child going to a new school might be aware of the fire alarms, but only after they are taught about safety issues by an adult and not during a panicked emergency. Newt, terrified, had no understanding of what exactly was going on when the alarm sounded or how to react to it.
Chosen answer: While the opening scene does show her in hypersleep, the moment we she her wake up (after the alien starts to push in her belly) is NOT her waking up from hypersleep, it's just her waking up from another bad dream. At that point she's been in the hospital for some time and already met Burke, but she's having nightmares. Presumably, this particular dream is of her remembering her first moments waking from hypersleep and then turning into a nightmare scene.
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