The tech manual contains another interesting reference, though, made in an offhand comment, which calls back to Cameron’s original script for Aliens. In the finished movie, Ash (the “twitchy” android from the Nostromo) is said to have been built by “Hyperdyne.” As originally written, he’s outright said to have been a Cyberdyne model.
Evidently, the company either managed to survive and stay in the cybernetics business even with Judgement Day averted, or they managed to pull off one hell of a rehabilitation of their corporate image after the “unpleasantness.” (“Don’t think of it as accidentally killing three billion people…think of it as successfully killing three billion people!”)
I like this, but still suspect Burke was showing eeeevil initiative and secretively being just a bit too clever and greedy for his own good.
:: golf clap ::
Agreed.
Cameron was quite frank in interviews at the time the movie came out that it was, to some extent, an allegory of the Vietnam War. Many U.S. troops in Vietnam felt unduly constrained by rules of engagement that were intended to protect South Vietnamese civilians and “win hearts and minds.”
I got the impression that Weyland-Yutani was just one of multiple influential megacorps, but no one company really dominated Earth’s government. I do wonder what if Wal-Mart would’ve don anything differently if they were the first to discover the Xenomorphp.
So what happens when you spill (indeed, explosively spatter) the highly acidic blood of over 100 aliens in a confined space, as the robosentries accomplished?
Presumably Wal-Mart of the future doesn’t have the military contracts W-Y had. They are sort of like a shadowy Halliburton meets General Dynamics meets Microsoft of space travel. And I don’t think they dominated the government. Just influenced elements of it in unknown ways (ergo :“shadowy”).
If they controlled the government, there wouldn’t be a need for all the subterfuge and backstabbing. It would just be “USCSS Nostromo: You are hearby directed to deviate course to LV-426. Retrieve one (1) alien egg which you will secure in a hypersleep chamber and then immediately return to Earth orbit. Exercise extreme caution and initiate full quarantine procedures.”
It’s not really clear to me what Burke’s plan was. He’s an employee of Wayland-Yutani acting on the company’s behalf, so what was his plan if he did manage to smuggle an alien past ICC quarantine? W-Y would just take it and give him a pat on the back and maybe a raise and promotion. That is assuming they weren’t pissed about his role in the destruction of their very expensive colony. Sure he’s ambitious, but destroying a colony, and killing an entire Marine strike force is a bit over the top for a Senior Director of Special Projects title.
My impression is that Burke originally intended to claim the alien ship site once it was confirmed that it was there. The guy he sent there radioed back asking if his claim would be honored so obviously it was (in theory) able to be independently claimed. The guy back in the complex said that as far as he was concerned, it was the wildcat’s but that doesn’t mean much and Burke probably could have pulled that out from under him. Director of Special Projects has to have some sort of bureaucratic powers.
Unfortunately, Plan A fell through when the guy brought back an alien infestation and LV-426 ceased contact. Upon arriving, Plan B becomes returning with the two surviving facehuggers since the plan is to nuke the site from orbit (there goes his spaceship full of eggs). Ripley calls him out on it and Plan C becomes the improbable scheme of impregnating Ripley and Newt with aliens, sabotaging all the stasis capsules for the Marines and somehow explaining away how he’s the only guy surviving. Burke’s plans become increasing poorly thought out but he’s becoming more desperate and just trying to somehow salvage getting his alien pay day back to Earth.
Speaking of, the dollar values really pull me out of the movie for a moment. Granted we have no idea what the future economy looks like a hundred years from now but “42 million dollars” as a value for the Nostromo makes me snort when I hear it. The original budget for the space shuttle program was $7.5 billion and that thing was worthless for towing around space ore refineries through interstellar space.
I imagine the relationship between W-Y and the colonial marines is much like the relationship between the British East Indies company and the Royal Navy.
I always imagined Burke was flying solo, and was in a hurry to cover his tracks. 150+ dead, out major bucks even if nothing blows up.
I can see him telling W-Y, ‘I’ll go out there, it’s probably just a bad transmitter. Still, it’s an interesting coincidence, how about if I take a squad of marines and Ripley with me.’
I’m going to fanwank that at some point the currency was revalued, probably by lopping off 6 or 9 zeroes like zimbabwe did in the era of hyperinflation.
Well, those were 42 million adjusted dollars, after all, and not including payload which I expect could easily be far more valuable than the ship itself.
They do say “adjusted dollars” but that just makes me think of inflation. Like a car in 1950 costing $15,500 in “adjusted” 2015 dollars (numbers made up). $42mil in “adjusted” dollars makes me think it cost $30mil at the time, sixty-plus years ago.
The value of the dollar (if it’s even the United States dollar they’re discussing; several other countries’ currencies have the same name: Dollar - Wikipedia) could easily have gone in the other direction, all those years from now.
They were prepared to fight what they’ve fought in the past and by all appearances they have only fought other humans.
At best they were expecting this to be nothing but an equipment malfunction. At worst they were on guard for a group of colonist separatist or a rival government invasion or space banditos or synthetics at the worst. With no evidence of other ships in orbit or an invading force on the ground they had enough firepower to kill every living person on that planet and be home for lunch.
But maybe Ripley was right about IQs dropping while she was out.
She was giving them the intel they needed and they willfully ignored it. It’s not like a horror movie where the police are told a house is full of vampires but they ignore it because if they are people we can relate to based on our reality they can’t take a report of vampires seriously. But space marines exploring other stars? Even if there was never evidence of any other life encountered yet they have to expect that somewhere, sometime, someone is going to find something.
So she tells them there are aliens with acid blood and they decide to use big splatter inducing guns and dress in bullet proof vests, helmets and short sleeves. All they were missing was lipstick and a come hither look for the face huggers.
I don’t know if W-Y was any smarter or better informed then the marines or they would have sent people there to collect specimens instead of starting a colony.
I think Burke smelled an opportunity. If he brought back an alien specimen like Ripley described he would be made vice president in charge of money. If there was nothing and Ripley is just crazy, then he took care of that communications problem. It may be overkill sending in marines but, hey, better to be safe then sorry.
If there is anything that could stop “molecular acid” then Burke was stupid for not insisting the marines be prepared for biological warfare. He didn’t need any of the marines to become hosts. They were there to protect him. He just needed an egg or one of they colonists that were probably impregnated. But he wasn’t that smart. All he knew was business and was way over his head with this stuff.
Even with an arbitrary amount of re-valuing, it’s still hard to imagine a large starship costing only 42 million dollars. How much does, say, a fast-food meal cost? It wouldn’t be a very useful currency if it was too large to express such an amount. Though I suppose that there might be multiple levels of subdivisions of the dollar, such that a small purchase would be priced in cents or mills or the like.
