Nerd’s Eye View: An Alien Movie Review

And it doesn’t help that his guide through air shafts is the most useless character in the movie:  Not-Ripley chick.  At least the cat is a plot device.  This chick does nothing but complain and whine throughout the entire movie.  And while Ripley has the “very important” task of pushing buttons to close the shafts behind the captain, he trusts Not-Ripley to warn him when the alien is near using a tracking device that has worse graphics then pong.  Not only does she lose the creature (big shock), but when she finds it again and the captain runs away, she doesn’t tell him he went the wrong way until the alien is right next to him!

Well, now that the captain is gone and Monster-bait is dead, Ripley is in charge.  But instead of making arbitrary decisions, she wants to discuss their options, by which I mean she asks for a discussion under the guise of making arbitrary decisions.  The other crew members surprise her with their completely not at all stereotypical opinions:  Angry-black-mechanic is angry and wants to kill it, Ash makes no comment, and Not-Ripley wants to run away in the shuttle.  Ripley argues with ABM despite them both wanting to kill it, she calls Ash useless for not making any suggestions, and she tells Not-Ripley that the shuttle won’t hold four people.

“Wait a minute!  The shuttle won’t hold four people?”

That’s right.  This ship that required seven people to run it for months at a time has an emergency shuttle that can only hold three.  Which means that the company assumed that in the case of an emergency, four people would already be dead/abandoned, or that they would take each other out gladiator style for the right to survive.  This is the company they work for. I guess jobs are still hard to find in the future?

Ripley says they will continue with the captain’s plan of shutting down every sector of the air shafts until they can lead the alien to the airlock.  Funny, I thought the captain’s plan was to stumble around in an enclosed space with a dangerous monster, but I guess I was mistaken.  Anyway, Ripley reminds everyone they need to go around in pairs for protection, a statement that is immediately followed by Angry-black-mechanic going off by himself to refuel the flamethrower.  Clearly, they will need it since it has been so effective at protecting them thus far.  Uh…no.

“So…a black guy…in a horror movie…is going off…by himself…to do a pointless task?  Goodbye, Angry-black-mechanic, we hardly knew ye.”

You would think that would be the case, but no.  Instead of giving the alien something else to snack on, the movie follows Ripley to the Mother computer.  She’s in charge now so she has access to it and can now get answers, even though the captain had access to it this whole time and couldn’t get any for himself.  I guess it just needed a woman’s touch.

Ripley starts typing her questions into the computer, (again, no Siri).  She discovers that there was a science officer eyes-only directive.  She overrides it to find that the company knew about the signal (how?), knew there was alien life (again, how?), and had planned for them to come there the entire time for the single purpose of bringing one back, even at the cost of the crew’s lives.  And you just know they aren’t getting hazard pay for it either.

After discovering this betrayal, Ripley looks up to find Ash is right beside her.  He tells her there is an explanation, but Ripley will hear none of it and pushes him against the wall.  She leaves to tell the others what’s been going on when the door is closed by Ash.  She tells him to open it, but he ignores her and begins to sweat milk.

“Hold up!  He sweats…milk?”

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