Question about the plot to Aliens (1986)

Yeah that's true, that makes sense.

Watching the movie again now, I can see why they corporation is doing things there way now, along with these explanations. Thanks for the advice everyone!

So after watching the movie again, why did Ripley confront Burke about getting prior people killed and threatened that she was going to nail him to the wall? It's not wise to make threats like that, when Burke is still a threat to her if she knows he has corrupt motives. So why didn't she just not accuse of him anything and play it cool, and wait till they got back to Earth to nail him?

And after she reveals to everyone else that Burke has ulterior motives, they don't even handcuff him or anything.

What i love about this film, is the way every scene is shot, i absolutely love how moody and atmospheric is the scene where we see the sulaco and then that jerry goldsmith music starts while watching the interior compartments of the sulaco,
And the other scene is where the marines are getting locked and loaded for the drop with that military music in the background,absolutely gets you immersed on what should be the best scifi action film along with the terminator. Brilliant stuff

Did anyone mention that Ash wasn't able to get the information regarding the company to Weyland Yutani because they were ten months away from home in the original film? The Nostromo ran on company computers but there were no satellites to send signals. If there were, then WY would have obtained the distress signal long before the events of the movie. The company probably sent the special order to plenty of other androids "just in case."

You means Ash couldn't send info to WY?
Or Ash could receive info from WY?

This is possible.
After what we've seen in Prometheus and Covenant, it's possible there's other androids out there with info on the alien.
If the chance ever arises, they'd go into "capture mode" and sacrifice any and all humans around them to get the alien.

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The WY info was built into the ship. All special orders, procedures, etc. are run by a mother computer for the ships at the factories. If Ash could send info by satellite, the company would have received the warning signal a long time before the movie, and they wouldn't send a mining team. They'd probably send marines like in the sequel, or a research team or a combination of both. And even if they did have that info, why would they wait so long to finally send colonists up there? It's possible most if not all WY ships in the franchise have those types of computers.

After hundreds of planets carried no alien life, procedures like that may have been scrapped, which explains why Bishop didn't go violent.

Ah, see, like I mentioned earlier in the thread about Ash...

Ash was a plant.
WY placed him on the Nostromo with the full intent of sacrificing the crew to bring an alien back to the company.

Ripley and Dallas have a convo early in the film... Dallas explains he's been on missions with another science officer numerous times, but on this particular mission the old science officer was replaced with Ash 2 days before they left Earth.

After Ash goes crazy, Ripley explains to Lambert and Parker "Ash was sent by the company, he's been protecting the alien all this time".
Ash was placed on the Nostromo to get the alien... "All other priorities rescinded".

Ripley explains this again as well in Alien 3... "The first time the company tried to get this creature, it was 'crew expendable'. The next time they sent in Marines. They were expendable too. They don't care about a bunch of criminals who live in the ass-end of space."

But it's heavily unlikely that they would have known that their specific destination had an alien, which means they could have replaced other officers with new androids that carried the special order.

They need human subjects for the alien though...

But with Ash being a plant, and protecting the alien... means the company knew there was something there. All they needed was human schlubs to sacrifice.

So, they program the Nostromo to fly through that area of space on its return journey to Earth... and the Nostromo would pick up on the beacon and awaken the crew, with Ash doing his secrety-secret stuff.

Bishop talks about how Ash's model was "twitchy", but all droids now have behavioural inhibitors.
Bishop himself probably doesn't even know that WY gave Ash orders to sacrifice the Nostromo's crew. He's probably just working on the information available to him that old model droids were apparently unreliable.

With WY's instructions to Ash to sacrifice the crew, he'd do it. He simply wasn't programmed to protect human life in any way. This also explains why he ignored quarantine procedures and ignored Ripley's order to keep the airlock closed when Dallas and Lambert were trying to reboard the ship with Kane.
His excuse was "Oh yes I forgot you were in charge".
He didn't forget, he was simply following WY's secret order to basically kill everyone on board and bring an alien home.

The question as to why he allowed everyone to live once they had Kane on board... is that Ash was alone. He couldn't fight the entire crew alone.
- So, allow the alien to gestate and hatch from Kane.
- Play the part of a good doctor.
- Allow the alien to kill everyone.
- If others are impregnated, it just means there's more samples of the alien for the company.
- If Ash dies, he doesn't care. He's a droid.
- The Nostromo will self pilot back to Earth.

As it happened, Ripley discovered Weyland Yutani's plan by accessing Mother after Dallas died.
Ash cannot allow Ripley to blow the whole thing open... so he attempts to kill her but is thwarted by Parker and Lambert.

Weyland Yutani knew all along about the ship, the alien, the monetary value of such a bio-weapon... and replaced the Nostromo's Chief Science Officer with a droid with a secret agenda.

Anyway, this thread is now 7 pages and I'm beginning to repeat myself

The special order could apply to any android. It's possible that they gave a lot of new teams new androids with that special order just in case and kept it quiet for obvious reasons. They didn't know. They were going on a hunch, and the idea of sending a mining team to capture an alien instead of a team of specialists (and almost ensuring that they were sacrificed for no reason at all) is poor writing on every level, and if that was in fact canonized for any reason it might just be a part of some side-novel that no one takes seriously or has even heard about. If they were alien hunting, they would be alien hunting. People in the company could be required by procedure or law to sign to confidentiality, and it wouldn't be hard to find anyone who'd be willing to keep a secret for a big buck. Risking the lives of their crew has no level of certainty. If they fought back, they could possibly kill the alien. Sending miners would be a dumb choice.

Companies work based on procedures. Before the investigated over 300 planets by the events of the sequel, they must have given special orders to many new androids before the events of the film. Ash was the lucky android who got to see an alien and he acted on orders programmed into him, whereas the other androids just didn't come across an alien.

Repeating myself again now...

They didn't send a mining team to capture an alien though.
They sent victims, with a droid who was instructed to sacrifice them.

They also weren't going on a hunch.
They replaced the original science officer with Ash, 2 days before they left Earth.

He wasn't sent specifically to make sure they died. "Crew expendable" is a last resort. If Ash was sent there to kill them, he could have killed them at any moment by say, sabotaging some of their pods before they reached the alien. Ash didn't need to use all of them. He was easily overpowered by the time he became violent, which means it was a last resort that he was forced to use because Ripley found out the truth. If they had simply brought the alien back,. there would be no need for it. If you know something, you make the best decision to ensure the return of the alien. What if the alien didn't give the crew a reason to fight back? If you hire people to capture something alive, THAT ensures the safety.

He was sent to protect the creature, all other priorities rescinded.
If that means killing the crew, then so be it.

Read the above. Ensuring safety means hiring someone to capture it alive, not give someone a reason to kill it. That's how a company works. You're argument assumes that Weyland Yutani knew more about the creature than what was realistic.

That's why a droid was on board.
A droid can protect the alien, kill humans if needed.
Like he tried to kill Ripley when she discovered WY's plan.

Repeat: WY knew about the creature all along. Ash is a plant.

If they knew about the alien, why didn't they send other people to capture it until after 57 years? Instead, they sent a bunch of colonists and they never bothered capturing the alien. The events of Aliens would have happened before Ripley was found if they knew. The fact that it took so long proves that WY had no knowledge of it. They wouldn't need some intricate plot that ended up with a body count of over 170 people and risk the welfare of a multi-million dollar establishment.

dude. lol.
I love discussing Alien(s) as much as the next fan, but seriously. Reread pages 1-4ish of this thread addressing most of this back when Ironpony relentlessly asked the same stuff.

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Alright, then I'll address that.



Ripley knew more about the creatures than anyone. He could have used her for information or for other purposes. He wasn't willing to resort to violence until his welfare was threatened by Ripley, and Burke wasn't going to risk it.



I think it all boils down to one thing: Ripley has seen enough death. After what happened to her she wanted to avoid as much of it as possible. But that's just my theory. If Ripley's traumatized, then she's going to be as protective as possible.

ROFL!!!!!!