Aliens question. Spoily bits inside.

Why do they need Burke?

Ripley finds out Burke’s deception, the team then want to kill him, one of the team is about to do just that but Ripley tries to stop him and says “no we need him…” but just as she says it, the power is cut out and everyone is distracted by the big scary Aliens.

That’s basically the crux of the scene I’m writing from memory.

Short answer: Maybe they need him to act as a (hostile) witness, to testify in a future criminal investigation into the company’s actions. The “Company” (I forget the name) allowed (or even setup) the colonists to be attacked by the aliens without warning them. (They are guilty of “depraved indifference”?)

Ripley is rescued from her cryopod. She gives testimony to the company about the actions that occur in movie #1. While they have her on ice, they send the colonists on LV-426 to check out the reports of the Aliens [eggs].

Weyland-Yutani.

I think Ripley wanted to take him back for trial, but I’m not certain.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

I typed what was my vague recollections first.

Then I went to IMDB and read the synopsis, saw I had come close to the mark, and linked to it as an edit/addendum.

Hmmm, yeah I see, needing Burke to be a witness makes sense. Hadn’t even thought of that. Kind of optimistic viewpoint Ripley had there though. It’s on tonight and I never get bored of this movie.

Wasn’t it specifically because she wanted him to pay for his part in what happened to the colony?

I always thought that Ripley was cut off by the power going out, and she was going to say something like ‘we need him alive so he can go back and…’.

I always thought that Burke sent the colonists in on his own order, without any company authorization at all. He had it set up so he’d have exclusive rights on whatever they found, but he was off the reservation. He probably volunteered to go on the rescue mission partly to cover his tracks, at least that’s how I always figured it.
ETA sorry, no insight on the OP.

Just wanted to say I never get tired of this movie, either. Except for some of the parts where Newt gets lost and they shoehorn it back into a horror flick for a while (I think this is mostly action or maybe survival horror - after all, the protagonists make it out!)

Maybe that’s the question on Ripley’s mind in that scene: is it just Burke who’s responsible, or was he acting on orders from higher up? If he’s dead, it’s going to be harder to learn the answer to that.

Oh. We’re supposed to root for the humans?

You don’t root for Ripley? there aren’t many people in cinema whom I root for more than Ripley!

I wasn’t being serious there.

Oh. Sorry.

Slight hijack but to me the strangest thing about Aliens is the girl who played Newt never acted again. Before or since.

Or during.

Maybe she’s the sister of Peter Ostrum (Charlie Bucket from Willy Wonka).

At least you don’t see the aliens screwing each other over for a god damn percentage.

I liked her. Anyway, I rarely complain about kid actors as long as they don’t scream through an entire movie (Dakota Fanning, I’m looking at you) or make me cringe so badly I just want to curl up in a little ball (the kid who played Anakin).

Out of these two I hate Dakota more…which is why i remember her name. She was so annoying in WotW that I actively avoid movies with her to this day.

Well, you’ve definitely picked two very good targets for scorn there.

For me, the benchmark is the kid who played the kid in Shane. Love that movie though I do, I will only buy it if they release a version of it with his voice dubbed over by someone less whiny and irritating.

Like Fran Drescher, maybe.

Would you settle for Gilbert Gottfried?