Question about the plot to Aliens (1986)

There are a couple of parts of the plot I did not understand and was wondering if anyone could help me.

SPOILERS

Why did villain, Burke, want Ripley to come along? Basically Burke wants to get an alien back to Earth to study it, perhaps even bring multiples if he could. Ripley doesn't like these aliens and wants nothing else but for them to be dead.

So why does Burke want to bring her along therefore? Their views are complete opposite, and since Ripley has no problem protesting, she is going to be nothing but a trouble maker for him the whole way, which she was.

So why did he even want to bring her when she was just obviously going to be a problem? And he wanted to bring her bad, desperately convincing her. Why didn't he just go to the planet with the others, without even telling her, so she wouldn't protest against anything?

Also, when everyone finds out that Burke is bad, the soldiers vote on killing him, cause he is just going to be a threat if they don't. Ripley protests against this, saying they should keep him alive, and under arrest.

Why? All this is going to do is make things worse cause they would have to watch him and he could get away, causing more trouble, which he does. So why is she for keeping the threat alive, compared to everyone else?

There are other forces at play within the Alien Universe.
Weyland Utani.
See, the choices that Burke is making, aren't all Burke's choices. He's a Company Man. He does what he's told.
Go back to Alien... Ash knew all along about the Alien. He knew about the crashed ship too. The Nostromo's long serving original medical officer was replaced with Ash a few days before they left Earth.
The company knows all about the ship, the creatures et al and Ash was planted there to be sure that the mission to collect a creature was successful.


So, the conspiracy is that the suits at the top tell Burke he has to try to recruit Ripley in returning to LV-426... while there, she will hopefully die or go missing.
The other half of that conspiracy is that Ripley's 57 year popsicle trip between movies, was just a big set-up.
As said with Alien, Ash and the company knew everything... so why would they suddenly decide to set up a colony there?
It's all too much of a coincidence to be "just chance".
Sticking Ripley in a pod for almost 60 years is their way of keeping her out of the way so they can do what they need to at LV-426.


Also, while Burke is at LV-426, he tells Bishop that samples have to be taken back to the company labs, and this is all under the company's plan of course (even though Burke doesn't say that).
Ripley disagrees of course, so Burke tries to get Ripley and Newt impregnated with the Alien... and then kills the soldiers while they're in hypersleep.
Burke is an "insurance" policy for the company. He's there to make absolutely sure that the company gets what they want: A sample of the creature, no holds barred... or with "All other priorities rescinded" as Ash from Alien would have said.




As Ripley says "I don't know which species is worse... you don't see them f*cking each over for a God damned percentage".


Keeping Burke alive is human, and right. They had no idea that Burke would have been stupid enough to run and lock that door and try to escape by himself. But, well, he does.
The thing is, Burke was the one who gave the order for the colonists to go to the "grid reference" where the crashed ship is. Basically he gave the colony a frigging map to find the damned thing... and never warned them about what was there.
Burke, though probably under company orders, is solely responsible for the colony's first contact with the Alien. He has to be held responsible and answer for what happened. If they get back to Earth without Burke, the company can say what they want.
They need Burke alive as their own insurance that the truth will be outed.

__________________

1) Maybe Burke's plan was from the beginning that Ripley won't come back. She could do more damage alive and speaking out than coming to trip and "accidentally" dying.

2) Hero riding on her moral high horse, nothing more.

I'm actually more interested in some other questions that really bothered me during my latest rewatch.

Why isn't there any crew on the space ship? It doesn't make any sense that a huge ship is practically unmanned carrying only a small amount of marines. That's lazy writing 101 to prevent easy solution to nuke the planet.

Also why are the marines going in without any sort of intel about the place? Ripley figures the danger of using guns near the reactor and the result seems like no one did any work prior to the landing but went completely blind instead. And the whole idea of a nuclear reactor that's so poorly protected that a stray shot from a hand held weapon would blow it up seems little suspicious as well.

It's a good film but requires you to accept quite a few silly things to enjoy.

Just part of the way the company does things.
They all go into hypersleep... the ship is on autopilot... and the Marines run the ship once they're awake.


Again, this is Weyland Utani.
Give them no information.
See, like I said to Ironpony ^^ the company only cares about 1 thing: Getting a sample of the creature.
The Marines weren't even told that an Alien was there at all. "A Xenomorph may be involved" as Gorman says. The priority word in his sentence is "may". Might. Might be involved.
The company gave them little info about the colony, and almost no info about whether or not an alien lifeform was even present.

The thing with the Marines is a ploy to get Ripley back to the planet. If she goes, she goes... if not, they can find other ways to f*ck her over.
I mean, she was immediately discharged from service when she returned from her 57 year hypersleep and screwed over by the suits.
She was alive, the company wanted to know what she knew... then, she was discarded and discredited.



This was an unexpected turn of events tbh.
The Marines' ammunition "could rupture the cooling system", which means overheating of the nuclear reactor... and adios muchachos.
There was no way to know that the Aliens would transport the colonists to that specific area of Hadley's Hope.
This is a good point though about the Aliens themselves... are they smart enough to know this?
Or did they just go to the warmest place they could find that was underground and hidden?
I mean, they are smart after all. They were able to purposefully cut the power to the area that Ripley and the others were hiding

You just answered your own question ironpony! Burke brought Ripley along so she would convince the others to keep him alive for longer. See he knew this future event would happen and his survival or survive longer kicked in. One of the books said he was an ivf baby and they needed frog genes to fix gaps in the DNA so of course he got some future vision as do frogs. That’s just common knowledge about frogs.

I think I've watched Aliens too often.
Explaining in depth from the top of my head

Marines are not part of the company (at least as far as I know) but part of the armed forces taking orders from the government. The ship should be part of navy (or air force) and have separate crew whose responsibility is to take marines where needed. It's not like marines these days fly planes or drive(?) ships on their own.

Again, marines are not Weyland Utani. It's like sending marines today to rescue/evacuate people from some warzone. The company surely has some power but nothing in the film implies the world is completely ran by mega-corps.

How is it totally unexpected? They're going to moderately small building complex with intel about possible hostile creatures. To me it seems obvious that they'd be prepared to search the whole place and be prepared to fight anywhere.

You too? I used to watch Aliens and Robocop at least once a month when I was a kid. Seen both few dozen times

Ah, Hadley's Hope is quite a large complex tbh. 157 colonists as well.


As far as the troops not being Weyland Yutani... the company owns and runs everything.
Ok they might not have trained the troops, but WY is responsible for manufacturing basically all ships, weapons, equipment etc.
Burke even says WY manufactures the actual atmosphere processors themselves.


WY are a super-company.
They're the ones with the info on the creatures. They have corporate and monetary power over everything.


Ridley Scott's idea for Weyland Yutani is the same as his idea behind Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner.
Super-conglomerates that own and run everything, even governments.

I've never though WY to own everything. If we assume that's true though the plot makes much less sense. If they own and run everything why would they send in the marines with completely different objective with only Burke knowing the true agenda? Also if WY would own the marines why on earth would Hicks have the authority based on it being a military mission instead of Burke running the show?

Of course WY owns the terraforming station and its equipment but nothing in the film implies they're in charge of everything. Quite the opposite in my opinion, actually. The whole plot is built on the assumption that WY tries to hide their actions from the government.

After a little research... Weyland Yutani own and run everything in Space.
Like Tyrell in Blade Runner runs everything on Earth.


Weyland Yutani are basically the Space Government.


This is a good article:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/alie...line-confusion


It starts talking about the term "Xenomorph" but goes into the conspiracies of the movie, Burke's mission, Gorman's ineptitude, and to how Weyland Yutani are a secretive conglomerate.

Well as for why the spaceship has no crew, I assumed the military soldiers were also the ones doing the flying, the cleaning and the food preparations, etc.

I never saw the marines going in for accomplishing a mission. I always read them as incompetent blowhards sent in to capture an alien, die trying, or ideally be impregnated to then be brought back for study. They were told just enough to go in confident (mocking that jarhead stereotype) but not enough to realistically survive. They were totally expendable and served to only bring one home, one way or another.

I used to get so angry that the geologist in Prometheus modded his helmet to smoke. Idiot! Or worse, that the biologist couldn't read signs of aggression with the discovered serpent creature. Then I realized they're not there to actually do a good job. They're more or less bait. They were the most disposable qualified that no one would miss. And idiots to underscore it all. Same setup for me with both movies.

Just how I look at it at least.

Exactly this.
Everyone the company sends in... are totally inept at dealing with the situation.
The company wants the creature for the bio-weapons division. And that is it. A weapon. Also known as "power".


That article I posted talks about Gorman in Aliens as well.
He's the guy in charge of the troops... and he just spews jargon and big words at the Marines, talks in a harsh tone, and yet he actually knows nothing.
Hence using the term "Xenomorph" which actually means "different shape". As in, a creature with a strange form, a non-human.
Gorman doesn't know that though. It's just a word that was probably thrown at him by a corporate suit or was typed a couple times in a memo of the mission he received.

Oh, I forgot... Gorman as well... the guy in charge of the Marines.


That was his SECOND MISSION!!!!
38 simulated drops... how many combat drops?
"Ahh, 2. Including this one"


The guy is a plant.
Planted by WY because he's inexperienced.

But the thing is, is that everyone thinks they are going into capture an alien accept for Ripley, where as she thinks they are going to exterminate the aliens. Didn't Burke or the company think that maybe somehow Ripley would find out that she is not on the same page as everyone else, just through simple conversations with everyone? It just seems like a recipe for disaster to bring her. Even if Burke didn't want to bring her, didn't the company still want to bring back aliens alive?

Cause why else would the company send all those soldiers to do it then?

Ah, Ripley was told by Burke that should there be aliens there, that they were there to exterminate the creatures.
The troops were probably under the same assumption.


Like the scene when Gorman mentions Xenomorph.
"Is this gonna be a stand-up fight, Sir, or another bug hunt."
"All we know is there's still no contact with the colony, but, a Xenomorph may be involved"
"Excuse me, Sir... a what?"
"A Xenomorph"

Like I mentioned before, he says a Xenomorph "may" be involved.
They don't have any proper info on the situation... but, an alien lifeform could be involved.
They all just take it as granted that they might have to kick some ass.
Ripley, was operating under the assumption that they were there to kick ass.
Everyone had been given slightly different information, but said info led them all to believe that they were there to check on the colony, and kick ass if needed.
Burke on the other hand knew they were there to collect samples, but didn't tell anyone.

Okay thanks. But instead of misleading all these people with deliberate misinformation, why doesn't the company just get people who are actually interested in bringing a xenomorph back?

Why mislead and trick people who are unwilling instead of getting willing people? Same with the first Alien movie. Why go through all the trouble of duping the Nostromo crew into bringing one back, instead of getting people who are actually interested in the same cause and willing to do it?

Because it's basically a suicide mission.
The people who are genuinely interested in the creature, are only interested in studying it, breeding it, and using it... the capture of such a creature in the wild is just far too risky to send proper scientists in.


Alien 3 is a prime example of how the company works.
The human designer of Bishop appears, with a load of proper scientists and some well trained, informed and armed troops.
But, that was only after they had word that the creature had been captured in that room and that there was an unborn Queen inside Ripley, which meant the creature/s were easy to control.
They never knew the alien had been released afterward, and if they had known that they simply wouldn't have landed on the surface of Fiorina 161.

Why would they have to send in scientists to do the capture?

Why not send in mercenaries who are interested in capturing such a creature, and then once they got it captured and brought back to Earth, then have the scientists take over from there?

I mean if someone like Burke is willing to go on a suicide mission for what he believes, then why not find trained mercenaries who believe in the same cause?

You think that the company would learn from it's mistake from the Nostromo and say "Let's get people who are actually interested instead of trying to manipulate troublemakers".