Alien (1979): how did the company know about the alien?

@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Then entire point of the opening scene is that the 'Engineers' started ALL life on our planet.

I'm pretty sure that the landscape had plants on it, before they showed him dissolving.

I watched the movie twice and specifically looked out for that the second time, and saw no plant life. But, as I happen to have a high-def copy of it, I'll go back and take a look.

Quote:

And then to claim that humans are a genetic match... that defies belief.

Not at all - it depends on what you mean by 'match.' Seeing as almost all life on the planet has about 90+% of our DNA in common, it would be pretty good evidence of similar origin if we were to find an extraterrestrial life form that also had so many similarities, even if it wasn't a 'perfect' match.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Setanta,

I went and checked out Alien in Wikipedia. According to that source, they had standing orders to investigate distress signals.

It is possible that other encounters with the aliens had occurred, and all of the company's ships had androids with secret orders.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I think the scene with the Engineer dissolving was barren, but the establishing shots had plants.

I could, of course, be mistaken.

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@DrewDad,

Sure, and that's why i have no problem with this question. One suspends disbelief for fiction. The quality of the fiction is determined by how much BS you are expected to swallow. I would say that Alien didn't place a huge burden on credulity. While i enjoyed the subsequent movies, i consider all of them to be commercial exploitation. The original was a very good example of the xci-fi movie genre. The rest, not so much.

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@DrewDad,

http://www.indiewire.com/static/dims4/INDIEWIRE/89c9b29/4102462740/crop/771x541+57+0/thumbnail/680x478/http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/b4/8423b0b8ac11e19f68123138165f92/file/engineers-prometheus.jpg

I think this image is from the extended cut, but it shows plant life.

http://www.prometheus2-movie.com/media/prometheus_engineers_deleted_opening_scene.jpg

2 Replies

@DrewDad,

OK, I just had a bit of fridge horror....

If the black goo is a bioweapon designed to create "perfect killing machines" whenever it's introduced into an ecosystem...

...and they introduced it to Earth...

...and humans became the dominant top-level predator....

...then we're the "perfect killing machines" created by the Engineers...

...and that's why the Engineers want to kill off humanity.

1 Reply

@Inuit68,

This is from the plot synopsis for Alien on IMDB

Quote:

Ripley queries Mother for advice on destroying the alien, but in the process discovers that "the company" (unnamed in this film, but identified in the sequels as "Weyland-Yutani") had recognized the signal as a warning and wanted one of the alien creatures brought back for study, considering the crew expendable.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

I think this image is from the extended cut, but it shows plant life.

Having plant life in the original film would be a clincher, but it isn't really needed. The "earth" (if it *is* earth) that is depicted is definitely not from a point in geologic history when DNA was first getting organized. The scenes in the film show flowing rivers and lakes and waterfalls and a blue nitrogen sky. These are geologically modern artifacts. So there is no escape for the basic implication of the core of the plot.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

OK, I just had a bit of fridge horror....

If the black goo is a bioweapon designed to create "perfect killing machines" whenever it's introduced into an ecosystem...

...and they introduced it to Earth...

...and humans became the dominant top-level predator....

...then we're the "perfect killing machines" created by the Engineers...

...and that's why the Engineers want to kill off humanity.

See, this is the type of creativity in the story which a movie of this (intended) stature needs to express and exploit. Honestly, there are so many better themes and plots that they could have come up with, it's mind boggling how they ended up with the mishmash they did (apologies to those who enjoyed the film anyway... maybe you went in with lower expectations than I did).

0 Replies

Alien (1979): how did the company know about the alien?

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