Recently (within the past two years or so) McFarlane Toys released an Aliens vs Predator box set that had a clear dome with a skeletal face on the xenomorph. Also, it was my understanding that it was more James Cameron’s decision to do away with the eyes, as well as the dome in general. But that seemed more to me like a way of covering up the eyes and not getting rid of them all together. In some comics, it seems like they’re capable of being blinded and distracted by visual cues, so without any full on explaination and disection from an official source, I think it’s hard to say that the things have no eyes. I’ve also seen an old magazine ad that had a drawing of the Alien (for batteries, I believe) and the dome was completely clear, yet they drew it with four eyes. So again, until there’s an official biopsy done on the damned things, I think it’s safe to say if you want them to have eyes, they have them under the dome…if you think it works better for you that they don’t have eyes, then that’s your call too. Personally, I think they do and have had many arguments defending my point, but whatever…
And I’d also say they have around dolphine to chimp level intelligence, but not quite human level intelligence.
My pet theory has always been that the aliens are intelligence-parasites. That is, they can tap the brains (literally) of their victims to gain knowledge. Certainly in Aliens the xenomorphs got a lot smarter at combat tactics shortly after taking some of the Marines. And perhaps the Queen is not just an egg-producer but a sort of library for all the knowledge they’ve acquired from their host species.
Not that I recall, no. He listed his special order, described the alien’s capacities and said how much he admired its purity. Then he stated Ripley’s chances, and she pulled the plug.
I suppose you could make a vague case for an implication he’d communicated with it from his saying the alien was unclouded by conscience or delusions of morality - how would he know? - but he never implied it was intelligent, and that would sort of rule out communication. Besides, you can work out where Ash and the alien are during the movie, and their paths don’t have opportunity to cross.
Ah! I got it! the statement:
“Well, you don’t see those things fucking each over for a percentage!”
from Aliens implies that Aliens are intelligent enough to not care about rising up the career ladder in a cutthroat way.
and whoever made the reply to my thing about DNA memories, good point. regardless of species, it should work for both Ripley and the Aliens. But I still don’t think its purely an Alien trait.
He doesn’t say he communicated with it, he asks if anyone tried to communicate with it. Once the thing showed up, everyone’s reaction was “We gotta kill that thing,” whereas he was asking “Why do you assume it’s violent and evil? Have you tried to communicate with it?” Eh, he was enamored with the thing, what can you say?
I had always heard they were genetically engineered by the pilot’s species for use in their civil war. That’s an interesting thought though; the aliens evolving naturally. Do you know where I could pick this book up? Also, what kind of species ate the aliens?
When the first film, Alien, came out I distinctly remember reading an article in Starlog magazine which featured an interview with H.R. Giger himself. In it he says that he originally gave the alien big, black, bug-like eyes but when someone saw the drawings they said he looked like a Hell’s Angel, all in black leather with motorcycle goggles. So he decided to remove them from the final version. He goes on a bit about how, psychologically, it makes him scarier to have no eyes, i.e. to seemingly be blind. I don’t know about that, but the article had drawings of the alien with the eyes. It wasn’t as scary, it just looked stupid (I won’t even dignify the look of the ‘newborn’ in A4 with a comment…)
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, forget the novels, comics etc. Giger says it doesn’t have eyes, than it doesn’t have eyes.
So the eyes were never an issue for Aliens. What Cameron did decide was that rather than put the smooth dome on top of the head, to leave the skeletal parts exposed. But it had nothing to do with covering any eyes. He just saw one before the effects guys had put the translucent dome on and thought it looked better that way. And it did.
They went back to the ‘porpoise head’ for Alien[sup]3[/sup] and it wasn’t as scary looking.
I think its either Aliens:book 1, or Aliens:Earth War. the story basically follows on from Aliens (the film) where Newt and Hicks are back on Earth, and the company are up to their old shenanigans, resulting in Alien infestation/invasion of Earth. Don’t qoute me on it being the right title though. Hopefully one of the comic buffs will be here to give you the details.
Amazon have a load of these, or I think they’re still in print. Or try the Dark Horse website. I borrowed it from the Library a few years back.
The things that eat the Aliens look like big Dog/Leopard things, I think. My memories hazy on this.
Well, prove me wrong matey. Go clone some Humans, have them grow up abnormally fast and see if they remember their DNA donors memories. Then do that with some Aliens as a comparison.
Subjective Sci Fi theories eh? you gotta love 'em.
The backstory to the first film is that the Alien is a weapon, as are all the unused facehugger eggs.
The ship has crashed on route to a war or insurrection.
The creative technology is organic, insofar as the Alien can be said to be organic. For example the pilot’s ship is constructed is an organic manner.
I recall it being hinted that the “Pilot” is also organically engineered, although the other possibility remained that the pilot was in fact from the engineering race.
I’ve a lot of sources for this, one is the director’s narrative on the DVD.
Certainly, there’s no rule that the aliens in the comics/novels be consistent with the films, or even across the differring films.
I didn’t like Ressurection, too unambiguous as to the nature of the xenomorphs.
Dark Horse has released dozens of comic series on them, I’m sure that their origin is explained (in one of the movies, I thought they mentioned them being created as a weapon, maybe it was the commentary on the ALIEN DVD), although for the most part they seem to be the stereotypical horror movie villain.
The ALIENS TECHNICAL MANUAL was some odd sort of fan-fic masquerading as a field manual for the Colonial Marines, I’ve got it somewhere and it gets into lots of biology-type stuff.
There was also an ALIENS role-playing game that had a supplement on them, IIRC.
The most obvious comic that deals with the origin of the Aliens is Alien:Outbreak. It provided a explanation to why the eggs were on the ship, where the aliens came from and is the comic refered to at several points in prior posts that shows the aliens home planet where they live in large hives. The problem with using this comic as a guide is that some significant changes were made with what had occured in the first two movies. Names and events are changed to better suit the needs of the comic while maintaining a decent similiarity to the films. Since its rather hard to reconcile that book and the first 2 movies it can’t really be taken as canon.
So you can find an answer to the questions of origin but you really can’t take that explanation as definative.
Actually, it could be argued that the Queen does not know how to use the lift at the power station. Rather, that Ripley was hitting any elevator buttons there were just to hedge her bets on one getting there in time. She got on one, then the other one arrives, which the Queen was smart enough to get on as well. Both probably defaultly return to the top floor(where the dropship was supposed to be waiting) without any further interaction(when ripley arrives in the hive, she hears and sees the elevator going back up).
