craig@think.ARPA (Craig Stanfill) (10/30/85)
In article <85156@cpsc53.UUCP> dta@cpsc53.UUCP (Doug Anderson) writes about the accuracy of Alien. The science it contains is more accurate than he might think. > Space Suits are fully contained. THEY DONT EXHAUST > GASSES! Not necessarily true. You are constantly exhaling carbon dioxide and water vapor into your suit. These byproducts have to go somewhere. Into the atmosphere seems a good place. > You have an alien runnung around in a space > ship. Simple solution: > > 1) EVERYONE gets into spacesuits ALONE > > 2) open ship to vacum (they finally did this > at the end of the movie) > > 3) wait 8 or more hours > > 4) get you trusty dusty flame thrower and fry > the body of the beasty. Three problems with this. First, it doesn't particularly mind vacuum. Second, it is resistant to fire. Remember that the alien didn't seem to be so much killed by the exhaust of the escape ship as shaken loose by the blast. Third (this is most important) the alien has corrosive blood. If they killed it or shot it full of holes or whatever, its blood eats through the hull. As it happens the hull ended up with a few holes in it anyway, so they might well have been better off blowing it away and taking their chances, but they goofed. > Remember the > scene when the Captain died? They had the monster > located on a grid telling the direction and distance > from the Captain. Do they tell him though? NOOOO. he > could kill it then. make the movie real short. I think you have been reading too much SF with too many heroic characters. Alien was a movie about the working man in space; the crew was not trained in warfare. They had to improvise a good bit, and maybe they made some mistakes. Sorry for the length of the reply, but I DO think Alien is a classic both of SF and of Horror.
steph@graffiti.UUCP (stephanie da silva) (11/06/85)
> > Three problems with this. First, it doesn't particularly mind vacuum. > Second, it is resistant to fire. Remember that the alien didn't seem to > be so much killed by the exhaust of the escape ship as shaken loose by > the blast. Third (this is most important) the alien has corrosive > blood. If they killed it or shot it full of holes or whatever, its > blood eats through the hull. As it happens the hull ended up with a > few holes in it anyway, so they might well have been better off blowing > it away and taking their chances, but they goofed. > Another factor in the alien's favor is that is was an intelligent life form. I remember someone commenting to me how stupid the movie was because the people kept going where the alien was. I told her it was the exact opposite-- the alien went where the *people* were. Also, one thing that the ship's science officer brought up was that the creature was essentially nothing more than a survival machine--which more or less swung things in it's favor. I honestly can't see how anyone would think this was a terrible movie. It had beautiful sets, excellent script, plot & screenplay, excellent editing, it was well cast and the acting was top-notch (with special lauds going to Sigourney Weaver).
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (11/06/85)
In article <412@graffiti.UUCP> steph@graffiti.UUCP (stephanie da silva) writes: >Another factor in the alien's favor is that is was an intelligent life form. Are we sure about this? I got the impression that it could have been just an animal, or have relatively low intelligence. It wasn't the same species as the pilot of the alien ship, right? It was a parasite or infestation of THAT ship, too, which is why that one crashed. (Of course I have been known to be wrong... Let's see, when was that?...:-) Will