Why didn't Ripley recognize the alien hive? - Explained
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- Опубликовано: 23 авг 2024
- A continuity error or a careful decision from James Cameron? I take a look at why Ripley didn't seem to recognize the Hadley's Hope hive despite seeing something similar on the Nostromo...
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This is easy:
1) even Ridley Scott said the theatrical cut IS his cut and the preferred version. Therefore the “hive scene” didn’t actually occur in canon.
2) even if you consider the scene canon the hive on the Nostromo didn’t look ANYTHING like the hive in the processing station.
Either way she HADN’T seen it before. Therefore no issue.
I don’t care what really Scott says. We are the fans of his movies and we’re the ones that keep the lights on in his house so in the end fuck really Scott and James Cameron I like their movies and I’m gonna tell them what canon was canon is the cocoon scene happenedwhether Riddley like it or not, I’ll fight them over this
Yea I agree, the "hive" in the first film can not even be called a hive, at best its a "den" or something akin to a spider web for retaining the xenomorph's victims.
I fully agree with the hive looking different. In Alien it looks more bubble-like and messy, a very patchwork job and obviously nowhere near as extensive, even for how fast a lone Drone could work.. In Aliens it looks more uniform, more structured "professionally" and to me reminds me more of the Space Jockey's ship interior. And of course wide spread and everywhere, makes sense considering the numbers the Xenomorphs had to work with.
I take everything Ridley Scott says with a grain of salt. He is for some reason considered the highest authority on all things Alien, but I think it's a fair observation by many that he's lost the plot given the last two movies he's made and he does not know how to fix it.
@@TheElMuffin Even the creator of a story can end up doing wrong by it.
Examples I know of are the creator of God of War saying Kratos should be nothing more than a violent killer, ignoring the character development in not only the Norse games but even in the very first that clearly show otherwise.
George Lucas infamously mishandling the Star Wars Prequels in their execution, though that's largely been salvaged by the sheer volume of content that arose around that trilogy.
Akira Toriyama forgetting Goku had a tail.
And I don't think I need to even explain J.K. Rowling and how she forgot that she wrote a line in the books specifically calling attention to Hermione's white face, among other things.
And don't get me started on Bethesda and how they've mishandled the Fallout franchise.
It can happen to anyone.
how..... after near 40 years did i never notice the harpoon gun in the door
No kidding! And I thought I knew these films forward and backward.
Only noticed it myself 2 or 3 weeks ago... on my god alone knows how-many-eth time watching it.
Oh my god!!! Your right! 😂😂
@@Generalkenobi325. *You’re *
Same here!
I have watched Aliens over 150 times and I never knew that the harpoon gun was still stuck in the door, I love these movies.
Same 😳😵💫😳
I've made a 1/16 model of the back end of the Narcissus with Neca Ripley and Xeno Big Chap its nearly 4 ft wide and while trying to decide where to thread the cable holding the alien to the harpoon gun I've watched the scenes over and over and its the inner door shutting that traps the gun the door must slide down and clip into place because the next shot is Ripley looking through the smaller hatch at the engines firing on the creature and its twisting and seemingly floating free away -- did the cable melt ? did the acid in its body melt the spear tip and will we see Big Chaps parts or cocoon in " ROMULUS" !!!
It certainly took me nearly 20 years of watching to spot it. I guess I was always in awe of the equipment they used to cut through the door then scan the interior of the narcissus….?
Where was this moment exactly?
Really? I saw it immediately. No disrespect but how can anyone miss it?
The harpoon gun gets crushed by the door.🤷🏻
It's because she was on the Nostromo waiting for the expedition to return from the Derelict and never got the chance to see the interior of the alien spacecraft.
@00nick7 The signal was blocked inside the derelict. Otherwise, Kane wouldn't have had to describe what he saw down there and they would have witnessed Kane getting the Facehugger stuck on his face.
@@00nick7 their signal was blocked due to atmospheric interference (or Ash lying about it).
There is a nest scene on Alien dude not relating to space jockey ship
@@innerdemonpat9027 Not at the time of 'Aliens' being released, there wasn't.
It's also worth pointing out that Scott doesn't regard the 'Director's Cut' of 'Alien' to be is personal preference. The title was a marketing gimmick. His actual preferred cut is the original.
Watch the video before commenting
She haven't seen Alien Director's Cut.
Hasn’t
😂
swear lol
nice
They can add an extra line where Burke goes "So, I guess you never saw the Director's Cut, huh?"
I always figured her saying "I don't know" is more that she genuinely can't explain what it is rather than not knowing or remembering.
I agree completely. Ripley isn’t a xenobiologist or anything like that. She never studied the Alien she faced in the previous movie. She just tried to survive it. What that stuff is or how the Aliens make it is beyond her. She gave the only honest answer she could.
Yeah, it's more like a literal answer presuming the obvious and not giving any pause for the state of awe.
She also didn't see the inside of the alien ship at all. She was on the dingy for the Nostromo and was refusing to let them back into the ship due to contamination protocols. She only saw the facehugger, chest burster, and xeno itself
that's a good way to look at it.
Simplest explanation. Even fits with the novelization.
One of the greatest sequels ever made, not even directed by the same person. And why does it work? Because he was a fan, and had huge respect for the source material he was working with.
A stark contrast to the sequel films and shows we see coming out from Hollywood in modern times, where the writers and directors seem to use beloved franchises as a way to get funding for their own stories, with little respect for the source material.
it is also possible that she wasn't sure if the cocoons were part of her nightmares or something that really happened.. a psychologist would look at her description of what she encountered and say she was dealing with a traumatic loss of a colleague and possibly a lover and had invented that whole interaction as an explanation or way to create catharsis from not actually knowing what happened to Dallas. So when she is then confronted with the hive, it was a confirmation that what she experienced was real and she was reliving it in that moment.
So basically this whole movie could’ve been saved if Ripley just took her medication then the aliens were just simply go away
Yep, the sight of Dallas was entirely too terrifying for her to accept as reality. So, she told herself, it could not possibly have happened. Maybe, she decided she dreamed it in hypersleep. Then when she sees the colonist stuck to the wall, it freaks her out to the point she cannot give a coherent explanation to Gorman.
Right
Because in the Theatrical version of Alien, she hadn't seen ANY alien structures on the Nostromo, only the grown alien and the chestburster - so it wouldn't have made sense for her to recognize it.
correct : )
Because she didn't find it in Alien from the audience perspective and it wouldn't have made sense for her to recognise it.
Yeah, this is obviously the answer. The fact that this question has even been asked makes me wonder if IQs have dropped sharply over the last 40 years.
Yeah the scene was cut from the original movie and Cameron didn't consider it canon when he made Aliens.
@philp4684 nice reference
In fact, the whole question is a complete non-issue, because Ripley never even said she hadn't seen it before - she said she didn't know what it was.
She didn't know what it was when she saw it in Alien (DC), and she still didn't know what it was when she saw it in Aliens.
@@philp4684 have you listened to the audio drama Out Of The Shadow?
The biggest reason why the egg morphine scene was taken out in editing was because of "timing"
Do you self destruct sequence was counting down, and she needed to get off the ship asap or else she'd vaporized along with the ship.
She wouldn't have time to stop & do what she did
Great filmmakers are willing to cut great scenes to make a better film overall, something many modern directors/editors don't seem to comprehend. So much needless bloat in modern films.
@@Derke73 I agree. But it seems those great directors/editors have lost themselves in modernism.
I always found the timing was off, so was glad that it was included in a way. I do wish that it had been better worked into tbe original script (ie not during a self-destruct sequence).
It's chillin. The perfect organism wouldn't need a queen.
@@crazycornishcrafter well I see your point. But in this instance both having and not having a queen can still work. The fact that it's so versatile even without a queen would still give it the title of perfect organism. Is versatility of being able to reproduce like they do.
We don't know entirely what the runner alien in alien 3 was doing off screen. Perhaps converting the individuals, whose bodies of the individuals it killed & carried off with, into eggs as well as at the same time in the early stages of developing a hive.
A book, Although it's just a roleplaying game set in the alien universe, suggested as much.
@@shadowbeast2276 Yes. Having both is optimal. Interesting point re Alien 3 as well.
The Queen Alien was the best thing to ever happen to the Alien/Aliens universe.
Definitely
This 💯
no
Aliens is a sequal to the origenal theatrical release, not the extended cut. The extended cut in this case can be considered a retcon that has created a continuity gaff.
If Ripley's reply to the question, if she'd ever seen this before, were simply cut out, then both the DC of A1 and A2 would become congruent there. There would be no need to add dialogue back in about recognizing it either. Her not responding to the question and just staring at the screen would say more than any words, cleary implying she had seen something similar and was reliving the trauma, and give a slightly different context to the scene with Lt. Gorman.
Ripley was asked what the resin crap was that they were seeing on the monitors. She said she didn’t know. She could recognize it and still not know what it is. She knows it’s something that the Alien(s) make. How they do it or what purpose it serves beyond allowing them to immobilize human captives she’d have no clue. The only thing she could tell them is that it’s something the Aliens made, which would have merely stated the obvious. Ripley would know that Gorman (and possibly Burke) would just ridicule her if she did that. So, she was just honest and said she didn’t know what that was. It should be noted that what’s depicted in Aliens is far more massive and elaborate than what was seen in Alien. That could also help explain Ridley’s uncertainty. She’d only had to face one Alien, now she was looking at what several had made. She quite likely considered that she was looking at something even stranger and more horrifying than anything she’d previously encountered.
It's worth noting that Ridley Scott says in the commentary for the Director's Cut that it is NOT a Director's Cut and that the definitive version of the movie is the theatrical version in his opinion.
I don’t care what Ridley says. I say it’s canon.
Who cares what he thinks though? He didn't create Alien, he only directed it, and his two films that he actually did write were so terrible that they destroyed any credibility he has to comment on what is or is not part of Alien canon.
@@Commodore22345 That is a fair point
@@Commodore22345H. R. Giger would be proud of us for facing off against Ridley Scott.
Story is he was probably doing too much acid in 1979 as well as the editor. The editor fled up and placed the next scene after the self destruct when it was supposed to be before. Scott will never admit to this as he is a perfectionist but H R Giger from behind the grave has the final word. Aliens make eggs and queens lays eggs.
Some might say this is too semantic, but she isn't asked "Have you seen this before?", she's asked "What is that?" Her answering "I don't know" is completely appropriate and does not to my mind present any continuity problems inasmuch as you can see something alien multiple times and have no clear idea of what the precise nature of the thing you're seeing is.
My thoughts exactly. Ripley isn’t a xenobiologist, she’s a blue collar worker. Despite having seen Aliens numerous times, I’m not sure what I could have said to Gorman that wouldn’t feel like I’m just stating the obvious. I have no idea how the Aliens make all that crap or even exactly why. I mean, the cocoons for their victims is pretty self explanatory, but all this extra structure, I don’t know. It looks cool and creepy (which in the context of the film is it’s true purpose), but beyond that, like Hudson “you got me man”. 🤷🏻♂️
Any day with a new Alien theory™ video, is a good day.
Probably because the hive shown in the Alien director's cut was made by a solitary drone and is more of a "proto-hive" compared to the actual nest set up in the Hadley's Hope atmospheric processor which had been there for several days compared to the one on board the Nostromo which looked like it had only been there for a few hours.
There is another possibility: in the canon novel Out of the Shadows, Ripley and the survivors of the DSMO Marion had seen this type of hive inside an alien ship under the surface of LV-178.
In the final moments after the trip to the planet, Ripley had her memories of their time erased to the point of the escape of the Nostromo. So, when she says that she doesn’t know what that hive is, I believe she means it.
If I were to do a fan fiction, I would combine both Foster’s Alien and Tim’s Out of the Shadows and, despite her PTSD from her experience, make her an expert and inform the Marines what to expect.
That's a good point - I had forgotten about Out of the Shadows.
I'd love for them to do a movie of out of the shadows. have you listened to the audio drama?
@@ithinkitmightbe I have. Would make for a fan made anime, honestly. Have you seen Alien: Monday? I can imagine Out of the Shadows and other Alien audio stories being like that.
@@Gardner1701ohhhh Alien Anime would be cool.
I don’t think I have l, it doesn’t sound familiar, I’ll look it up.
Edit: just finished it, that was really well done, and yeah, I could see Out of the Shadows being done in that style of animation, would be awesome.
because it was in the director cut of alien
Also, maybe Ripley did not include the scene in her report, because her story would amount to admitting killing her crewmates and that would create all sorts of company mess.
Technically, the Alien did kill Dallas.
No need to complicate matters for herself by admitting to incinerating her Captain.
Well, Ripley freely admitted to scuttling Nostromo, which did see her career utterly ruined. So if she was willing the shoulder the consequences of revealing that, I highly doubt she wouldn't have also been willing to talk about roasting Dallas and Brett.
Trauma for sure plays a part and even with the deleted scenes, you can chalk it up to that. Not to mention the extended hyper sleep and its effects on the mind!
The egg morphing scene was also a tad different….the nest was sooooo much more detailed and elaborate in Aliens. The fact that she claims to not know what it is seemed like she was holding back. Like it was somewhat familiar but she’d technically never seen anything like THAT!
That's pretty much exactly the explanation I settled on. She somewhat recognises what it could be but it's much, much bigger, aesthetically different and there's too much emotional dissonance for her to give any details.
Also after being asleep for 57 years.. being on a strange planet .. realizing hundreds of family members. .. she would be in a state of shock .. not as bad as Gorman was lol .... but in her own way ... love this movie to this Day and to hell with all those negative nellys out there right
Ripley only saw the Xenomorph that was on the Nostromo. She did not see the Interior of the alien spacecraft which looked a lot like what the marines found on LV-426. Had she seen it she would have said so. Now in the Director’s Cut she DOES see it, but can we consider that as being legitimately apart of the story when so many didn’t even know that cut scene existed? In any case Ripley had no knowledge of what a hive looked like based on the 1979 original film. And there are plenty of things in the novelizations that aren’t in the movies. I can only go off of what I saw in 1979 and 1986.
Along with the trauma, I would point out that the secretions on the Nostromo are far more random. A so-called proto-hive. In the derelict spacecraft, they are far more organized and resemble those at Hadley’s Hope. However, Ripley would’ve never been aware of this. The greater level of organization is likely due to the larger and more advanced hive, and perhaps even the presence of a queen.
The 2003 Director's Cut is, you know, non-canon
It's very possible Ripley forgot. A lot of things were happening all at once, she was running on adrenaline and high stress at the time.
The most obvious answer is unfortunately the least exciting one: that the scenes where she would've seen the Nostromo hive were not released at the time and hardly anybody else knew about them either. Weaver would've known they weren't in the theatrical cut of the movie, so like a pro she did as she was asked on the set of the sequel.
I've seen on the fringes of the fandom theories of Ridley Scott having this veiled desire to make all movies taking place after his non canon by making a bunch of midquels, prequels, and interquels that contradict them. If that theory were true, him finally releasing a version with the cocoon scene intact would've been another step in that process. I don't believe it though.
Why not, we are being told these creatures are unlike anything anyone has ever seen. A species that can survive in a vacuum of space that has the same compound that you would find in a car battery that could live in a dormant state without Nourishment for a long period of time. How long did the derelict ship sit on LV-426 before the Nostromo found it. We are talking about a life form that can survive almost anything. I don't believe xenomorph can survive as long as the eggs could, but to have one make more eggs buy any means necessary. Now I can believe in that. I could see them using a fluid to transform the pray into Eggs so it can live on. Waiting for a larger population to come buy to allow a queen to be born. Sometimes the unimpossible is the possible. This is just my two cents.
Even if that is true of Scott, I’d rather consider Alien and Aliens canon and ignore the rest of his stuff than allow Aliens to become non-canon.
he actually didn’t want to release the director’s cut and said the theatrical version is the canon version which is why i firmly believe he’s trying to retcon the sequels. i bet romulus will have no mention of a queen or that anything cameron established in his film yet again. lol
Alien Director's Cut was released after Aliens so Ripley would not have known what the hive would look like. Now had the Alien Director's Cut been released before Aliens then there would have been a reason for Ripley to recognize it and if she still didn't there would be continuity error.
In Terminator 2, there is a director's cut scene where they take the T-800's chip out and flick the read-only switch off so it can learn to be more human. This is ignored by later films, particularly Dark Fate.
As regards the xenomorph, I'm fully okay with the idea that there are plenty of ways to get from lone xeno to entire hive with the queen being just one possible part of it. Xenos seem versatile like that.
I agree 💯%
@@shadowbeast2276they are after all, the perfect organism 👽
@@halomultiplayermoments3651 I agree.
And I also really have no problems accepting how versatile the xenomorphs reproduction can be.
No ways in hell am I volunteering to try attemp to try remove any chip from any nasty Xenomorph beasties....that's a fast track to an early funeral 😂
I'm not of fan of the egg-morphing concept either, but that's maybe because I've seen the theatrical version numerous times and the director's cut only a couple. As far as Ripley not recognizing the hive the answer is simple, regardless of what's canon: the hive was only just being built on the Nostromo and she didn't connect it with what she saw in Aliens. For all she knew it was how the Xeno stored its meals.
The answer is simple. Ridley Scott had no idea what he was doing. I can prove this by him inserting the unicorn scene from legend into blade runner and trying to claim that Deckard was a replicant. Nobody else thought Deckard was a replicant not even Harrison Ford.
I have also pondered this detail for decades. And reached the same conclusions. That Ripley just can't recall properly because it's trauma upon trauma. Plus, of course, what versions of Alien came out first at the time & all that. Cameron, surely, wanted to keep his film flowing & going, especially in a moment of building tension as they are about to enter the hive. That the cocoon scene was added decades later is, honestly, not Jim's problem. And he was never fond of the cocoon scene to begin with anyway.
But I can give another spinned add to Ripley as well. Maybe she answers Gorman with "I don't know" simply because she is indeed transfixed at what she is seeing on the monitors, perhaps she does remember but don't know how to describe it AND since she feels unable to give a proper explanation - just as Dean Foster suggested in the Aliens novel - Ripley goes for a tiny white lie to not disturb the military operation with a possible rant that maybe would not provide much of an answer anyway.
Hmm... My personal opinion is that when Ripley was asked "What is it?" she didn't thought to give obviously obvious answer "It is a hive.". Insted she took the question deeper in meaning - "What is the purpose of it? What it does? How was it made?" and she gave honest answer - "I don't know.". Especially given how little of it she saw on Nostromo. And if we take into account her report - she had to mention it and marines had to be familiar with report to some degree. Easy to assume that simple question "What is it?" has actually way deeper meaning. In all honesty I do not even see how this scene needs convoluted explanations. She just doesn't know anything beyond what she already mentioned in report (OR! Or part with her bumping into Nostromo Hive didn't happened, in which case she had even less idea what it is).
I love the idea that Ripley had to suppress this memory, because being a re-added deleted scene, it sorta feels that way to MYSELF.
I was familiar with the theatrical cut of the film and knew it like the back of my hand. And the first time I saw the nest scene was actually in a detached compilation of deleted scenes, outside the context of the full directors cut. And it wasn't finished either. It had the raw audio from the set, un colour graded, faded with film grain and deterioration.
And the scene itself plays out like a fever dream.
Seeing the scene on its own in that state actually chilled me to the bone.
I mostly watch the directors cut now, but every time, I'm STILL surprised when the scene happens. In my memory of the film it's almost as of this scene does and doesn't happen, which almost simulates in my head a repressed forgotten trauma.
I can very easily excuse Ripley for being too terrified to willingly remember or relive this. Of all the things she saw on the ship, I think this would have been the most otherworldly, unexplainable and nightmarish. I think anyone would suppress something like that.
The whole movie in a matter of hours. So many awful things, one after the other. Something like this would just break you.
The eggmorphing does make sence. A xenomorph warrior uses this technique to create a new hive. When the queen has hatched, it's not needed anymore, because then she will lay the eggs. The same thing must have happend on Hadley's Hope. I don't think the xenomorph, that hatched out of Newt's dad was already a queen. Sadly, none of this is explained in the movie. Cameron was right to ignore the deleted scences, because in 1986 there was no way he could have known, that these scences would become relevant in the future. Another issue was created through Prometheus. They had drones back then, that could deliver a perfect 3D scan of the surrounding area. Why didn't the marines have such drones to scout the area? Why did they have to go in blind? The answer is obvious, the technique to desplay the drones didn't exist in the 80s. But if you rewatch the series now, considering all content that has been created and is now canon, you have to wonder, how the marines did go in there so unprepared.
Goddamn non time-travellin' technics, alt-cut technics... bassterd technics, sez me.
We love Alien Theory! hope all is well brotha.
I guess that Cameron base his Ripley in the regular/theatrical version since in that time it would be very rare that most of the audience know about the delete scene, and besides the eggmorphing concept is wierd even for Alien
Dude we didn't have the internet back then. Egg morphing was cut out in 79. We into Aliens in 86 and it was amazing.
James Cameron was making a sequel to the theatrical version of alien as the Director's Cut of alien didn't exist then. He probably hadn't even seen those additional scenes put back into the director's cut. Also best alien channel on RUclips love from Australia.
EDIT: ok he did know about it as you have stated but he didn't think it made any sense and as a fan of biology and science I can say that it doesn't and the egg morphing idea is utterly ridiculous
The director's cut came 17 years after Aliens! This topic makes no sense!
Another possibility for the discrepancy is that the report that Ripley made could very easily have been filtered by Weyland-Yutani in order to make everything seem more like a relatively easy outing than a suicide mission for the marines.
The company is that duplicitous, and if they can make it sound like it's little more than a milk run, they can get away with only a small detachment of marines. And fewer people on the mission means fewer potential problems if/when Burke is able to secure a sample.
If the Marine Corps was to learn that a company of their troops had been sacrificed in such a wasteful manner, they might be less inclined to help out WY on future ventures.
The simple answer PTSD.
She sees the hive structure but her brain only links to Dallas and brett's fate.
Anyone who's been in a similarly intense situation can confirm that you focus on specific details but everything else is a blur. For example a few years ago a neighbour's kid got run over outside my home... I don't even remember jumping off the balcony just suddenly being on my knees checking his injuries. I have a vague memory of noting the father arguing with a guy and the mother crying holding the kid. Despite treating his injuries for over 2 hours I couldn't pick the kid out of a line up,
I can't tell you who was in the crowd (with the exception of my brat of a sister who was sticking her nose in all "what's going on?" And almost earning a punch to the face for getting in my way)
I can however give you every detail of the compound fracture. How I helped the paramedic set the leg. And how I spent well over an hour holding the foot in place to prevent further injury.
So Ripley not immediately recognising the hive (which itself is 100 times bigger than the one on the nostromo) isn't that big of a surprise.
There is the simple idea that the makeshift hive she saw in the missing cocoon scene didn't look like the hive she was seeing now. It was only one alien and didn't really have much time to smooth out its work. While in this case, there were multiple aliens and they had time to essentially "giger" the place up more. Adding on the possibility psychological issues that you mentioned, there may have been a bit of denial that she didn't want to admit it was happening again.
There is a little design difference of the hive of the Nostromo and at Hadley's Hope. One feels bubbled and rushed, the other feels more structural and like a hive. The nest on the Nostromo is smaller, chaotic, and singular...not from a hive mind.
Plus, let’s remember that Ripley was asked what the resin crap was that they were seeing on the monitors. She said she didn’t know. She could recognize it and still not know what it is. She knows it’s something that the Alien(s) make. How they do it or what purpose it serves beyond allowing them to immobilize human captives she’d have no clue. Ripley isn’t a xenobiologist or anything like that. She’s a freighter flight officer and dock worker. The only thing she could tell them is that it’s something the Aliens made, which would have merely stated the obvious. Ripley would know that Gorman (and possibly Burke) would just ridicule her if she did that. So, she was just honest and said she didn’t know what that was. Also, as you noted, what’s depicted in Aliens is far more massive and elaborate than what was seen in Alien. That could also help explain Ridley’s uncertainty. She’d only had to face one Alien, now she was looking at what several had made. She quite likely considered that she was looking at something even stranger and more horrifying than anything she’d previously encountered.
A little? You mean a HUGE difference. It is enough to paste the images of the 2 films side by side to realize that the differences far outnumber the similarities.
Ripley only encounters the cocooned Dallas in the Director's Edition of Alien, not the theatrical cut. Therefore, she'd have no reason to recognize it in Aliens.
I am Legend is a great example of a directors cut ending being the canon ending. They are producing a sequel using the story from the directors cut ending as a jumping off point.
Is the directors cut more like the book? I heard Mr Fresh Prince wanted that theatrical ending even though it completely negates the whole meaning of the damn title of the story. So stupid.
I never got the impression they were being turned into egg sacks in Alien, I had assumed they were being stored for food for later, like a spider and its prey. Structurally it's very different than the hive Ripley was seeing over the cameras in Aliens.
In the first film, there was just a drone with basic building skills to get the hive working, in the second there was a command structure and mass building.
I always chalked it up to that Ripley wasn't standing where the marines were. She was inside the APC safe and viewing things on a VHS quality feed on a low quality monitor in dark conditions mounted to the helmets of moving marines. she never asked them to focus directly on the hive walls like she asked previously when Hudson first opened the complex and saw the acid burned floor. When Hick's says, "Looks like they bagged one of Ripley's bad guys!', Ripley had asked one of the marines to focus his camera on the burned floor but she never asked that when they were in the hive.
Funnily enough I saw the director's cut on cable tv one time. Cable Tv. I was younger then so I wasn't even aware of the egg morphing sequence until years later. I just took the seen of where the "kill me" scene in Aliens come from. A call back.
As for the question, I like to think she probably didn't recognize it due to the size of the hive. What she saw back in the directors was smaller in comparison. Or one would think she was having a mild episode before Gorman chimed in. Probably wanted to not elaborate cause it could make things worse for her mental health.
Well, few things:
-deleted scenes are only canon when it ties into a sequel to complete continuity errors. The Terminator analogy actually correlated with my statement due to T2 also showing that concept.
-Ridley Scott confirmed that the definitive version is in fact the THEATRICAL version. Therefore, that would be the version that would be canon to Aliens.
-the director’s cut came after the release of Aliens, and most of the audience at the time would acknowledge the version shown in theaters. Now if it came BEFORE Aliens, then that would be a continuity issue and plot hole.
-novelizations are based on early scrips of the films, and are subject to errors as the movie versions would trump novel statements unless the novel correlates heavily with the film.
-even if we include the scene for the sake of the argument, there’s one problem: what she saw would’ve STILL been different. She saw a cocooning of Ash sure, but that’s DIFFERENT from a full fledged hive that had a structure different from the cocoon that she saw on the ship.
This is easily resolved by thinking about stories in terms of levels of canon. Official theatrical movies are considered “A” level. Director’s cuts are somewhere between “B” and “C” depending on whether the director considers the director’s cut to be their preferred cut. Novelizations too hover around “B” or “C.” Ridley Scott has always said that the theatrical cut is his preferred version, so the director’s cut gets knocked down a level and thus isn’t considered very highly on the canon level. So it’s not all that crazy for an “A” level canon film to disregard that cut scene as never having happened. Bottom line, trying to make all the threads of canon in Alien make sense in a completely air tight fashion is, to me, not worth the trouble and not necessary for me to have an enjoyable experience
As we saw from the last 2 movies Ridley Scott had no idea what he was doing. And it does have an effect on what is cannon.
My theory is that each Alien film takes place in a parallel universe and the theatrical version and the special edition versions of Aliens are branching timelines from the theatrical version of Alien. Another theory and this only applies if you believe Out of The Shadows is canon when Ripley's memory was erased it took out a few memories during the events of the first movie.
I feel, when she gets asked in the APC what's that, She's already in PTSD mode and its a blurry image to her. As she "has" seen it but blocked it out due to the trauma caused by the last Alien. So what she 'Is' seeing in the APC is totally new but in the deep recess of her mind she totally knows what it is, but cant process it as its happening
How did she miss that .... PTSD.
One does not remember everything in excruciating detail, sometimes you block it out
In order to make a directors cut that would motivate demand for the new revised version of an already existing product, material has to be added. The only source practically is from previously deleted scenes. This is a business decision, not a change to canon.
I love the eggmorph step in the biology. Makes sense to me that if there's a single xeno, it's directive would be to make friends and maybe the goo, like the blood is acidic and just turns people into eggs/facehuggers
I guess if we wanted to bridge the gap, we could say that, while she saw hive architecture in the first movie, she didn't actually know what it was - as in, what it was supposed to do, why it was there, etc. So she's not saying "I don't know, I've never seen it before", she's saying "I don't know what it is".
And as someone else pointed out, it doesn't really look that similar to what's shown in the deleted scene. All she would be saying if she described it is that the Aliens probably made it somehow, but like... that's kinda obvious just by virtue of the fact that it's there rather than not there. Something must've made it and it wasn't the colonists.
My thoughts exactly.
Once again, a well presented intelligent and informed presentation. Thank you.
It's not a detail I've ever really considered, but that might be because it's been a while since I've watched a version of Alien with the eggmorphing scene restored. The idea that the whole experience was so traumatizing that she just didn't assimilate that particular memory makes the most sense to me. The way it's handled in the novelization kinda backs that up in that the hive seems familiar to her, but she just can't put her finger on where she'd seen it. I also wonder if hypersleep might not play a role. In real life it's believed that our short term memories are transferred into long term memory during our sleep cycle, but maybe there is something about the hypersleep process, especially given how long she was asleep, that combined with her PTSD affected the memory encoding process.
DUDE!!! You hit all the nails!! I was just thinking..."Why has he not mentioned Terminator yet?" Then, you mention Terminator!!
I was pondering this question, too, when I rewatched Aliens. She recognized the facehuggers, back at the Med Lab, and Hicks saw those on the ground next to their eggs. And the chestburster that came out of that colonist they encountered alive. She should have had at least some idea that they were entering the nest. Nostalgia. 😱☠️👽
The two reproduction systems (queen and eggmorphing) can really coexist, just shows us how resourceful and adaptative xenomorphs can be in terms of survival in different environments or situations and that's what the Alien story is all about.
Cameron knew that most people hadn't read @alan dean Foster's novelization and hadn't seen the Director's Cut nor caught ALIEN in its first week in theaters when the cocoon scene was still in
The Dallas scene was only rumored and talked about for several years. It was not in the theatrical version and certainly was never seen in beautiful, high resolution like you show here between 1979 and 1986. At best there was a grainy black and white snapshot of Dallas in the cocoon making the rounds in sci-fi print magazines. In the original film, that never happened so it is not a continuity error, it is only error when people go back and keep changing the source material.
I always had it in my head that xenomorphs can do an egg morph but they only do it if they have no hive
I wish to thank you, Alien Theory, for presenting me to Aliens Expanded which I now own & have watched - it was a pleasure seeing it all, especially all your clips of wisdom & getting to see you in the flesh for once. And my name was indeed to be found at the end credits. I had never even known of this documentary, even less owned it, if not for you, sir. Thank you so much! And keep doing what you do here. Your knowledge & wisdom of anything Alien is universal! And impressive.
A few years ago the local movie theatre was showing Aliens. They had to add more showtimes was only supposed to be One showing at 10 pm they added 2 shows a day for the next 4 days every show was sold out tickets were 6 bucks a piece very cool to see in surround sound crystal clear picture.
This video informed me of the books take on the scene and its honestly something that was part of my headcanon and the book handles it very well. Weavers acting in the scene fits very well with it. It is a little strange to say "I don't know" but its clear from her performance by the time that they discover the colonist that Ripley still has very severe ptsd about everything and she is not able to think clearly. And yes the nature of theatrical releases matching up makes it very forgivable. You can't account for anniversary editions and deleted scene content in the future. Hell, when I rewatch Alien on streaming, its never the version with the scene. And put it down to practical effects techniques changing over the years, but it is quite different looking texturally, in both movies. Its somewhat feasible you might be unsure enough to say you saw exactly that before.
But honestly, it was never a big deal to me. She has told them there is an alien creature that bursts from its hosts and a ton of eggs in that ship near the colony, they find secretions unlike anything they are familiar with on earth, the squad don't seem that dumb. Does she really need to say, "Hey guys that could be like a place that aliens hang out. Its not normal for atmos processors to grow that. Be careful." What would change? They have evidence aliens have been inside the complex at some point. They should be ready for an encounter from then on. They still want to get eyes on the colonists, or their locators and see the situation in the processor. They are not casually walking into it with weapons holstered, chatting it up. How much more careful can they be.
I didn't know about this scene until now and I'm 38... mother loved this series... awesome
No! The REASON I clicked on this video wasn't because of THAT burning question you mentioned. I just love your videos and I saw that it was NEW.... so ... I ... clicked...
I chalked Ripley's reaction to the fact that a Queen's Lair is DIFFERENT from a couple of cocoons made by the original "worker" Xeno, and there was certainly a LOT to process visually.
The author's inserted explanation in the novel was adequate, but I prefer my own thoughts about it....
Your vids never disappoint! Thank you for rolling them out.
Seriously love your videos dude!!!
regarding T2, why did nobody follow up on the arm left in the cogs of the smelting plant.... good Arnie had his arm ripped off, and they only threw the evil Arnie arm into the steel pit. No sequel has ever addressed this.
The answer is simple: Only the theatrical release film is canonical. Filmed, but not released in the original theatrical cut do not count. Thus, she didn't recognize the hive, because she never saw it.
Sorry for the sarcasm, however if I were Ripley on seeing Dallas cocooned, my first question would be "anyone believe in quarantine now?" This sentiment was never once played out as dark humor. Knowing what one of these creatures did in 24 hours to the Nostromo, I'd be on the mission surface as an avatar ie. by remote from the Sulaco. Seeing as the drop ship was destroyed, that'd give the guys on the ground time to hunker down for rescue possibly with serious backup. I'd like to see how that serious backup deals with this..
The one thing that annoys me is that in all the Alien series, there's minimal to zero use of drones. Why go see the colonists, when a drone is suitable? Send a team of androids.. other than human life was expendable? Yeah. Predators - they show-up well equipped with drones and backup. They know how to lean into combat awareness.
Even if you did consider the added scene as canon, it's not like Ripley had the time to study it for further analysis. So when she says she doesn't know what it is in Aliens, it makes sense...from a certain point of view.
Yeah, beyond stating the obvious, that what they were seeing on the monitor was made by the Aliens, she had no idea. Ripley’s not a scientist, she’s got no expertise in the nuance of what the Aliens do. Plus, this is way larger and more elaborate than anything she saw on the Nostromo.
5:59 agreed
One for low resource environments or to get started, one for when they are ready to swarm
I don't know of any movies where deleted scenes have really been considered canon. They might be released but not part of the true story.
But they were put back in the Directors cut version so it can consider cannon.
I just love how Ripley has an adventure between Alien and Aliens. Fans of this franchise really need to listen to the audio dramas.
I got the box set (Alien 1-4) a good few years ago, and never thought to check for deleted scenes (was never interested in looking for behind-the-scenes content at the time of watching), so the Dallas scene was completely new to me! Thanks for bringing it up!
(Written at 8:02 of the video:)
As a secondary thought, I remember hearing about a book which inserts another Ripley adventure, but that her memory was wiped at the end. So maybe she lost some of the Nostromo-content as well?
When it aired on TV, I have seen a promo photo for the first movie in the TV guide where Ripley was posing in front of a wall with organic parts.
I just watched Aliens about 3 hours ago and I’m currently watching Alien 3. I love all the Aliens videos. Thanks
That flamethrower/cocoon scene is from a director's cut or special edition, and is otherwise missing from theatrical versions available even on RUclips. It was deleted because the plot for Aliens was decided at that point. Giger's original design was actually self-reproducing, and in my personal opinion, all the more terrifying and wholly alien for it. Cameron didn't consider this canon and came up with his hive/queen concept, and made the hive look like the inside of the derelict. I'm personally of the mind that the Queen concept ruined Giger's design and I wish it never happened that way.
Awesome video Alien Theory! I have been binge watching you older vids!
The factory at the end of Terminator bring a Cyberdine facility is a detail meant for when the story was a clean closed loop. Though of course it still fits in T2's more confusing timeline shenanigans as well.
Fascinating. I always assumed that because it was a cut scene that's why she never acknowledge the hive structure, but yeah, a trauma response could explain a lot. The human mind does a lot to shield itself. Fun video!
I've always thought about the difference in scale and the fact that she didn't truly know what it was the first time made her question herself.
But once she saw the live colonist, that's when she says to newt to go up front.
I don’t consider eggmorphing canon. It also doesn’t make sense to coexist with the Queen cycle considering Drones with no hive can molt into Queens.
Your the best channel. You think of things that I always wondered about and you really explore it and we'll explained. More lore videos!
Maybe there will be a way to justify this, some reason/excuse that will do the trick. Maybe something like, 1. hypersleep affects memory to an extent, or 2. the hive and cocooning of a drone is a little different in appearance than that of the alien queen ( though this is a stretch), or 3. she didn't get a good enough signal via the live video feeds to make out enough detail, or 4. Some of Ripley's PTSD created a mental block with some details, making it difficult to recall them so quickly. These are far from perfect possibilities, but you get the idea.
Or all the above at varying levels though cocooning may have been more of a emergency measure by the hive aliens on the nostromo like a cryo system as they float in space awaiting landfall on an inhabited planet of sufficient complex life.
The egg-morphing scene should have just been left as a bonus feature. I've commented on my problems with it on one of Alien Theory's earlier videos: the incomplete look of it and pacing issues, basically. Add to that the continuity error with Aliens, it's really more trouble than it's worth to try and canonize the scene. The concept will probably never show up in future official Alien projects, anyway.
This topic really exists?? The answer is quite simple: there was no alien hive in the 1979 theatrical cut. Aliens was released in 1986 and Scott released the director's cut (with the hive scene) in 2003, 17 years after Aliens. Quite obvious.
The scenes where the crew are being transformed intio eggs was removed from the original cut, so it would make sense that Ripley has no idea what the resin is in Aliens, in cannon, she technically never saw the hive structure on the Nostromo.
The deleted scene was added as a special feature much much later after the original release.
I would have thought ppl would have had more of a problem with the fact you could see the fishing line they used for the drop ship crash in Aliens before it was remastered XD
What??? Is this really a question. Isn’t it fairly obvious by watching the two films back to back???
And yes, the Director’s cut of Alien may contain cocooned individuals… it really doesn’t resemble the hive the way we see it in Aliens.
I would have to agree with you on this. In order for Ripley to be able to really recognize the hive, is for her to have been inside the derelict herself, but she never was.
The fact that Alien Theory made this video... There are clearly some - I dare say - Younger "Nit Pickers" who do ask this question... The same people who ask "I know we have Rogue One a Star Wars Story but WHY did the Empire have such an Obvious Weakness of the Death Star - IT SO STUPID!!!!"
You know, The same type of folks who think TITANIC is Just a Movie and not based on a real life event! That woudl also explain WHY the Death Star had "Such an Obvious Weakness"... Sure you Watch Titanic with the Benefit of Hindsight - The Disaster that befell the ship was AVOIDABLE, It was a VERY DUMB MISTAKE... But back when Titanic Was built - They did not know that!
The Death Star Exhaust Port, The port was NEEDED to expel excess Gas, but they never considered that a few Small One Man Fighters could pose a risk to such a Heavily defended Space Station... And why would they? Unlike the Audience they dont have any outside information... And even if they did - The chances of success were undersold by Han Solo - Great Shot kid, That was one in a Million! Add about another 10 zeroes and that's closer!
There is an upcoming "New Wave" of Younger Movie Critics who do not actually understand that you are supposed to suspend disbelief and view a movie as if YOU WERE THERE, Not watching from a distance... So they do ask these kind of questions!
Not really because the first was deleted. In reality there is no egg morphing at all. And basically that was the only egg morphing that I know of in present time.
It was released in the Directors cut version. And the egg morphing is only done by the first movies creature. From the second movie to the fourth we only see the Queen base creatures. So we don't see the morphing in those. And anything beyond these movies are just non canon spin offs.
@8:30 Yeah, I like the way the dialogue in the book elaborated on it. It should have been included in the movie, the way Ripley explained herself in the book makes the most sense
The hive scene on the Nostromo was cut not because of runtime etc. but because the director didn't want to go in that direction, it is not cannon! That is why Ripley didn't know about it. Maybe alternate universe Ripley knew, but not main timeline Ripley.
I'm with Cameron on this one. Alien is a masterpiece, and that attempted life cycle explanation was bad and unnecessary. Surely, after a while, Ridley and/or whoever was editing it, thought that it didn't make a lot of sense and just added lore out of a feeling of needing to justify the thing's continued existence. Somehow the Xenomorph craps out goo that can morph a full human into a facehugger? Or worse, that same goo could turn a person into an egg and a Facehugger, that also incubates the facehugger? Come on. It was garbage, so it got deleted. The studio and maybe some fans who had come up within thought it would be a good idea to re incorporate that scene into a later release. That doesn't change the canon. Even if Ridley himself did it, out of some annoyance that Cameron defined the life cycle of his creature, it's still not canon. If Ridley doing it makes it canon, then what the hell can we say about the Han Solo shot first scene? There are like four versions of that all done by George Lucas. Anyways, she didn't remember it because it didn't happen to the Ripley that appeared in Aliens.
I don't understand all this navel gazing! She didn't know what it was the first time (in Alien) and she didn't know what it was the second time.
Whether or not it was in Alien makes no difference to her not knowing what the hell it was.
So when asked what it was, she said "I don't know".
It makes perfect sense. What other response would you have her say?
I knew exactly what this video would be but I couldn't wait to watch it anyway because...Alien Theory.
I think the difference is that the labyrinth in Aliens was vastly different in look and scale than the wall of goo in the deleted Alien scene.