And now I painted up a set of the Khurassan beasties to go with my Colonial Marines (more on them comming sunday, they`re getting wiped atm in the Lead Painter`s League).
But, this also means I finally have to tell the world one of my biggest griefs I have with the movie...
WHERE DO ALL THOSE ALIENS COME FROM????
As w all know and learned, the process of making the beasties is that a Facehugger plants a parasite in your lungs, those grow to become a Chestburster and that becomes the Xenomorph.
Roight, so one hugger -> one chest -> one alien per humanoid.
The planet where Hadley`s Hope is located is a barren rock, apart from the terraforming there was no other indiginious lifeform (stated beginning of the Aliens movie).
Hadley`s Hope, population 128 (stated in the extended version, as we see the counter on the name plate)
One colonist we know is not inseminated (Newt), and one died after the hugger was surgically removed (Bishop says so when they found two in the testtubes of HH`s lab).
That leaves us with, and that is if not one colonist was ripped apart by the aliens attack, which is highly unlikely but we`ll give it the benefit of the doubt, 126 potential victims to become brooding cells.
One queen, 126 aliens... and one was already killed of by the colonists (the acid hole in the beginning as the Marines entered HH), so that leaves us with 125 of the beasties.
Enter the Marines under the station and the aliens attack. They encounter a colonist who just gives birth to a chestburster as they torch it. Since it wasn`t born, it couldn`t have been in the initial attack and was finished off immediatly, so that gets us down to 124.
Vazquez and Drake loosen up with their guns, and we see 3 exploding. Down to 121 now, Hicks shoots one through the head with his shotgun back in the APC after Drake before dying torched one, and Ripley drives over another melitng the APC`s drive axle. 118 of the beasts left at this point...
Anither one had died in the meantime with the crashing of the dropship...
Apone and Dietrich appear to be still alive, and Ripley suspects they are being cocooned, so up two for the beasts, 119 should be available for the meatgrinder...
... and a grinder it is when the beasts attack the survivors. The remote controlled sentry guns (extended edition) fire more then 1200 (!!!!!!!) shells into the beasts (4 guns at 300+ shells each, and one stops with only 10 on the counter, the other three depleted) and we see beasts explode on impact. Considering the guns are tracking movement and infrared (again, extended AND the Marines technical manual) it seems hard to believe they only blew apart a dozen or so.
Yet still, LOTS of beasts come crawling between the roof, and a firefight erupts in which at least another dozen are shot apart before Vazquez and Gorman blow up another three with the handgrenade in their final sacrifice. By now, the beasts should all have been exterminated, by a factor of 3 or 4 even but no...
As Ripley goes off to save Newt, she encounters yet again about a dozen guarding the hatchery, so I ask you, where DO these beasts keep comming from before the nuclear explosion seemingly wiped them all out?
And don`t get me started where that Queen ever found time to 1. Lay an egg on the Sulaco and 2. even managed to lay an egg without her `eggsac` which she left behind in the hatchery...
Fantastic post!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI see you point about the discrepancy in alien numbers. The only thing I can think of is that there must have been more visitors to the planet (like the crew in the original Alien film) who became hosts, prior to the planet being colonised, so that the alien Queen had a small army before the marines even turned up.
It's got to be the only explanation. Check out the ship with the original facehugger on. Must have had a crew, it's got to be them.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenBut then again, why the f did all the aliens turn up at the colony at that point :-)
Ye, huge hole, but a damn fine film (one of my faves).
The book is excellent too ;-)
Where do all the aliens come from.... Marokko?
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI always assumed that the colony had some animal herds like cows and pigs and those might have been mixed up with all the other humanoid ones to ass large brood. Maybe the "Wall to wall" Aliens were really a couple cow aliens walking side by side down the tunnel. Those would soak up some rounds. My big beef is why would the USCMC issue a big ass ship and have less then a platoon of fighting men to man it? Seems like a total waste of military resources for what, 20 guys and a robot. I'd say bare minimum would be a company with about another 20 Navy crew to man the damn thing.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenJust me take on the what if?
Brian
Addressing the number of Xenos killed: Do we actually SEE dozens of them liquefied by the sentry guns? No. The Xenos are intelligent but eusocial animals who don't hesitate to sacrifice individuals for the collective, so sending in only a handful of warriors to be shot to bits depleting the guns' ammunition isn't implausible. This would leave dozens of warriors alive for the remaining attacks.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenAddressing brian's questions:
[fanwank]Most of the Sulaco's mass comprises the interstellar drive and fuel, and its drive and navigation systems are automated[/wank]. As for the small complement of Marines, [overt reason] the company didn't want to budget for a massive military operation just to fix a bad transmitter or relieve an outbreak of disease/[covert reason] they needed to maintain the pretense of going in to destroy the Xenos, when (as we know) the expedition was actually sent so Burke could retrieve aliens for the bio-weapons division. The troops were expendable.
I can kinda see your point. There are a lot of reasons. You don't see all the Aliens being blasted in the tunnel by the sentry guns its just an assumption that a large number would of been killed by them.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI don't recall there being an egg on the Sulaco whose to say the face hugger weren't already hatched and attached to the queen?
As for the Sulaco's population they are not 'at war' so why would it be fully populated
You see the egg in the Sulaco`s shuttle at the beginning of Alien 3
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