Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[mousepod]

Alex, I think you touched on many of the logical plot issues.

There were others, of course, which mostly had to do with the behavior of certain characters.

Spoiler:

To give one character's example: why did the geologist with the magic mapping orbs get lost if he's the one with the map? And why, if they were spooked by the mural room enough to leave did they decide to sleep there when they were trapped in the structure? And why, if they were creeped out enough to go in the opposite direction of the potential life reading, did they not run when the alien vagina snake appear out of the black ooze?

And as for the internal logic...

Spoiler:

After creating a relatively simple gestation cycle for the Alien in the first movie (egg -> face hugger -> implantation -> chestburster -> xenomorph), why did the introduction of alien biology become so convoluted in this one? As far as I can tell, the vagina snake kills one guy outright - the black oil turns another one into a very limber big-headed killing machine - the introduction of the oil (or is it a drop of something else from inside the container) makes a scientist break down but first makes him shoot alien sperm (and is this different liquid that the engineer drinks in the opening shots which seeds earth?) - and then the alien-infected sperm automatically implants into the barren womb of a female human to turn into a creature that skips the egg stage to become an instant giant squid-like face hugger that will then skip the chestburster stage when implanted into an Engineer to become a xenomorph. Why make is complicated? Unlike Alien and Aliens, where the lifecycle is used to create a greater and greater threat as the movie progresses, this one seems to fall into the horror trope of "throw the biggest shock at the audience at any given moment."

I'm sure there's more, but I'm at work now and apparently I have work to do...

[Alex]

Originally Posted by mousepod

Spoiler:

To give one character's example: why did the geologist with the magic mapping orbs get lost if he's the one with the map? And why, if they were spooked by the mural room enough to leave did they decide to sleep there when they were trapped in the structure? And why, if they were creeped out enough to go in the opposite direction of the potential life reading, did they not run when the alien vagina snake appear out of the black ooze?

Yes that bothered me at the time too. But, if I were more engaged with the movie

Spoiler:

I might not have a problem with a biologist who was completely creeped out by the overall situation but is then overcome by his professional curiosity when actually presented with an alien life.

As for the reproductive biology

Spoiler:

I'm willing to cut some slack there. I viewed the black ooze not as something with a pre-set biological path but rather as a reproductive pragmatist, a proto-ooze that warps its host in some way towards reproduction but not necessarily the same way everytime.

The "Alien" at the end may now have a fixed, simple reproductive path but the black ooze need not yet. And exhibit differently in each host.

But I'd hope some further explanation ended up on the cutting room floor. And I'm sure I'm just fanwanking what was really just a desire to do more horror tropes.

Other issues:

Spoiler:

1. If the BBAs in that facility were destroyed by the goo, what contained it again for the arrival of the humans?

2. If the intent was to deliver the goo to earth for some purpose, and the BBAs managed to contain it with just one survivor, why did he go into cryosleep instead of continuing on the mission (which was apparently his first thought on being awoken. It isn't like he killed the humans and went back to bed.

3. Why did the BBAs have such ****ty hologram technology? And isn't video recording all the activity in the faciity but then having it play back in the actual geography of the recording kind of pointless? Maybe some BBA Space Detective would like to know what happened with the 3 BBAs running down the hallway, resulting in a decapitation without actually having to run down the hallway with them.

4. The Death of Charlize Theron was a bad Warner Bros. cartoon. In cartoons, whenever a tree is going to fall on someone the character tries to outrun the length of the tree (say 100 feet) instead of just moving 15 feet perpendicular. Charlize Theron is as dumb as Wile E. Coyote (and Rapace only slightly less so).

5. Why in the world would they invent a self-service surgery machine and then "optimize" it only for women. Is memory storage really so hard to find in the space faring future? Maybe if David had been forced to leave his Blu Ray of Lawrence of Arabia at home. And then after that it didn't seem fazed by the presence of decidedly not male organs.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Alex

Yes that bothered me at the time too. But, if I were more engaged with the movie

Spoiler:

I might not have a problem with a biologist who was completely creeped out by the overall situation but is then overcome by his professional curiosity when actually presented with an alien life.

As for the reproductive biology

Spoiler:

I'm willing to cut some slack there. I viewed the black ooze not as something with a pre-set biological path but rather as a reproductive pragmatist, a proto-ooze that warps its host in some way towards reproduction but not necessarily the same way everytime.

The "Alien" at the end may now have a fixed, simple reproductive path but the black ooze need not yet. And exhibit differently in each host.

But I'd hope some further explanation ended up on the cutting room floor. And I'm sure I'm just fanwanking what was really just a desire to do more horror tropes.

Other issues:

Spoiler:

1. If the BBAs in that facility were destroyed by the goo, what contained it again for the arrival of the humans?

2. If the intent was to deliver the goo to earth for some purpose, and the BBAs managed to contain it with just one survivor, why did he go into cryosleep instead of continuing on the mission (which was apparently his first thought on being awoken. It isn't like he killed the humans and went back to bed.

3. Why did the BBAs have such ****ty hologram technology? And isn't video recording all the activity in the faciity but then having it play back in the actual geography of the recording kind of pointless? Maybe some BBA Space Detective would like to know what happened with the 3 BBAs running down the hallway, resulting in a decapitation without actually having to run down the hallway with them.

4. The Death of Charlize Theron was a bad Warner Bros. cartoon. In cartoons, whenever a tree is going to fall on someone the character tries to outrun the length of the tree (say 100 feet) instead of just moving 15 feet perpendicular. Charlize Theron is as dumb as Wile E. Coyote (and Rapace only slightly less so).

5. Why in the world would they invent a self-service surgery machine and then "optimize" it only for women. Is memory storage really so hard to find in the space faring future? Maybe if David had been forced to leave his Blu Ray of Lawrence of Arabia at home. And then after that it didn't seem fazed by the presence of decidedly not male organs.

Spoiler:

If we assume the planet is indeed a weapons research facility, then earth becomes a source for lab rats, which is why we have their DNA.

As for the BBA, If I was a lab worker and woke up to find a bunch of test rats running lose (especially ones who might be carrying the space equivalent of Ebola) I'd kill them first and ask questions later.

You could also view the "star map" as an intelligence test. Ooops, the rats figured out the map. They have gotten smart enough to escape their cage (aka earth). Time to kill this batch off.

The Engineers were stockpiling the weaponized version of the black slime so I don't think anyone/thing had to repackage it after it got loose it was already there. Obviously a little goes a long way.