Subject:
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Re: Alien and gravity
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Wed, 18 Apr 2001 16:21:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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97 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Fredrik Glöckner writes:
> I'm watching the movie "Alien". Why is there gravity on board the ship?
> It does not rotate to generate "artificial gravity", and there are no
> large planets around. Ok, so they do operate in a solar system, but
> they're not that close to a planet.
The ship and crew are full of gravity throughout the movie; it's a grave
situation. (I apologize.)
> It's a great movie, though.
I just saw Aliens again this weekend, and I have another question. Why
does a ship the size of New Jersey (or whatever its size--it's really big,
though) only hold a staff of a dozen marines? Much of the motivation for
putting people in hypersleep is to save life support (and boredom, of
course), so what's the rest of the ship for? It's a battleship, I imagine,
so it could house massive weapons and propulsion systems, but these weren't
needed (and, I would suggest, there was no clear reason to think they
*might* have been needed, since there was no indication of an invading,
largescale alien force, or they would have sent more than a dozen grunts!)
Dramatically, the reason there are only a dozen soldiers is so that they
can be presented with the "who'll pilot the second drop ship" conundrum, but
even this doesn't explain the huge ship. Why not send a smaller, faster
vessel, on which you could still stock sufficient weaponry?
For that matter, could Ripley really have climbed the airlock ladder
against those full gale force winds? Why not close the outer hatch from
within the airlock, using the same switch with which she'd opened it?
One other neat thing is my observation that James Cameron (along with
David Lynch and the criminally over-hyped director Tim Burton) is thoroughly
nepotistic in his casting; has Cameron made *any* movies that didn't feature
Bill Paxton and Michael Biehn (and the woman who played Vasquez and John
Connor's adoptive mother and the anonymous Irish Immigrant in Titanic?!)
Nothing wrong with sticking with your casting choices, but I'm always amused
to see where these actors turn up!
These are nitpicks, since I love the film (actually, I like all of them
but the painfully disappointing Resurrection). Still, the little details
stick in my mind every time I see it...
Dave!
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Alien and gravity
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| (...) That's down sizing for you. (...) Perhaps gravity genarators are very large pieces of equipment? (...) I'd say the propulsion systems WE'RE needed. (...) Perhaps the ship is multipurpose and designed to fight it's way into a heavily defended (...) (24 years ago, 18-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Alien and gravity
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| (...) I'd always understood it (aside from the dramatic necessities of the plot line) as a logical extension of the colonial marine mentality of "be prepared". It may well be more economical in the long run to send a ship that can do 95% of what (...) (24 years ago, 18-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Alien and gravity
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| (...) The Sulaco was sent out on a special mission. Quite a lot of the ship was unused at the time. I typed up a big ol' blurb about it here: (URL) Lieutenant, Fleebnork Division Muffin Head (24 years ago, 18-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Alien and gravity
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| I'm watching the movie "Alien". Why is there gravity on board the ship? It does not rotate to generate "artificial gravity", and there are no large planets around. Ok, so they do operate in a solar system, but they're not that close to a planet. And (...) (24 years ago, 18-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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