Xenomorphs - ruthless killing machines or just misunderstood?

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

But think about it. It's either him or them. He didn't really have a choice in the matter. He was simply better-equipped than they were.

Imagine he was human. In those circumstances, he would probably be the protagonist. And indeed, many movie and videogame heroes share the alien's predicament. Locked away in an unknown environment with a bunch of people that are out there to kill them, possessing a special skillset that helps them survive.

How did it know that? Until then, they had attempted no hostile action against it. Unless you call Parker's spoon brandishing an attack.

 

[Kellogs Fried Chickn]

Unfortunately the none of the films used consulting biologists - xeno or otherwise - so what they claim is not worth much more than one opinion. Each film had a different creative direction and team so you can't even compare 1 to 3, let alone anything to 2. There is no such thing as Alien lore, there are three, four if you count Prometheus, movies that are connected by the HR Giger visuals and a movie monster theme, and the dedicatedly stupid W-Y Corporation.

It's not misunderstood, we know exactly what we need to know; kill it before it kills us.

 

[DoPo]

animals also hunt to eat and multiply, but also can defend themselves when faced with danger. like a poster siad before, they are acting with no conscience whats right or wrong. they are acting whats best for their species or pack.

That's precisely what I'm getting at. It was only trying to survive given the circumstances and chose the most efficient way to do so. The crew was out there to kill him and that's a fact. Any animal would have done the same in his situation, especially the more intelligent ones. That doesn't necessarily make him a ruthless killer out there to wipe out the crew, as he's often portrayed. He's more of a survivor doing their best to preserve themselves.

And yes, I think he did display a very high level of intelligence, especially when it comes to stealth and tactical approach.

what if the crew had left it alone?
who would guarantee that it wouldnt multiply and infest the entire ship?
and then, what does that thing eat? and what if it sees the crew as food?
what if it tries to take over the ship by force? can it do that?.
can it be reason with? what if not?
you cant let something run free in a contained enviroment you live in when you know nothing about it.

the crew acted reasonable.

not strictly speaking reasonable, they just didn't want to take any chances and I guess that's alright. However, they did pose a threat to him. Many people likened the alien to an animal in the sense that it will do its best to survive and it will attack if it feels threatened. And that's exactly what happened. The alien felt threatened, he wasn't out there with the sole purpose of killing everyone.

As much as you want people to view the xenomorph from a different angle, you yourself fail to see it from the crew's angle. You make it sound like the xeno was just minding it's own business when the nasty crew people MADE HIM kill them. Now let's view that from a human perspective - one of the crew is ATTACKED by an alien organism and taken out for a while. While he does recover he is KILLED BY THE OFFSPRING. With me right now? Let's assume they did the "rational" thing and assumed the xeno was harmless. They'd be fucking stupid if they did so - from the information so far we know that the alien's reproduction involves killing a person. We could be wrong, but is this a chance you're willing to take? Are you going to bet your life and the lives of your crew on an unknown organism maybe not killing you all for procreation? Moreover, by definition it's unknown - you have no confirmation it won't attack the crew or the ship or harm each in a non-direct manner. There is also the matter of not knowing how to handle it - would offering food enrage it? What food does it eat, in fact?

So we have lots of unknown with a pretty clear example of being harmful and lots more potential to be vs some wishful thinking that it isn't. Yeah.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

snip

I understand that. I'm not saying the crew had much choice in the matter either and neither am I saying that what they did was wrong, given the circumstances.

What I'm trying to say is that what the alien did wasn't strictly speaking 'wrong' either. There's a difference (to me at least) between killing because I'm programmed to or because I want to and killing because I'm trying to survive.

What I'm doing here is trying to challenge the notion of the alien being a programmed killing machine with no other purpose than to wipe out everything that moves.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

The aliens rushed the guns for about a minute, humans have used human wave tactics in the past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack

Fun fact: Humans rushed entrenched machinegun positions en mass in World War 1...just like the aliens do. But humans arent squirrels.

And they have been shown to be tool using, opening doors, being exposed to something ONCE and knowing exactly how it works and what its consequences are.

Difference is, the human attacks had the specific purpose of taking out said MG's with no other way to get to them. The Aliens just charge them because that's the way they've been going back and forth before. It would be a very stupid human that charged up an alleyway at an emplaced machinegun when they could just find another way round, especially when taking the time to do so would have no negative consequences.

No, the alien queen does that, the warriors are trained. c.f. Nightmare Asylum.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Interesting. An Alien virgin always tastes so sweet.

The one thought that zipped through my headspace repeatedly when reading your lines was this:

You are supposed to side with the humans, not the vagina crab impregnator monster or the dickhead killer manbeast monster.

There are repeated hints and nudges and stabs at capitalist entities or the military-industrial complex to be picked up along the way, if you're so inclined. To me, it's mainly about making an entertaining movie and a microwavable dish of reflections on human nature. Oh, and I absolutey love Weaver's portrayal of Ripley, that was the most inspiring thing I've seen up to that point in time. A female hero, a warrior queen fighting a multi-phallic monster with a dickhead, a protractable mouth inside a mouth, a face like death personified and a tail that could be used to grill shishkabobs and marshmallows on an open fire or run you through like it's no business at all. Gotta love that.

There is very little 'human' and nothing 'humane' about the Alien creature, and I think if you find yourself romantically entangled with the beast, you really need to either seek therapy to dispel your detachment from the human condition or continue watching the other Alien movies, in chronological order of their respective release dates. Here's my short list for reference:

Alien: Must-see movie that continues to inspire all sorts of space horror (and nightmares)
Aliens: Must-see action movie, different from the first one, just as inspiring (less horror, more gadgets)
Alien 3: Brown weaksauce of WTF, some cheap laughs, plenty more dicks
Alien (4): Resurrection: The beginning of random chaos, writers ruining things and directors not having a clue about what's going on and why they suck
Prometheus: Fuck movies, fuck prequels, fuck origin stories.

It is absolutely natural to feel sorry for the franchise at around 3 or 4, and turn misanthropic by the end credits of Prometheus rolling. Since you're already way off my chart after seeing but the first one, I do beg you to keep us posted on what you think of the other Alien movies.

The Aliens vs. Predator abominations are not Alien movies, they're more like mental belly button fluff or those abominable things you find in the bargain bin or in the 'Vampyres vs. Werewolves' drawer. It's licensed, empty-caloried shlock for the feeble minded.

Oh, and: Fuck Ash. Ash was absolutely happy with every single human being dying or at least being turned into a cryostasis hatchery for alien warriors that would then be used and marketed as weapons of mass destruction. Bonus round: Fuck Ash!

 

[DoPo]

What I'm doing here is trying to challenge the notion of the alien being a programmed killing machine with no other purpose than to wipe out everything that moves.

Well, from what we saw in Alien, it sure seems that way. The alien ship they find with the pilot dead looks like a kind of warning that things are not safe, and then there is the warning transmission which one deploys usually when things are not safe. And, of course, there is the whole lifecycle involving killing, too. Even if it's not a "programmed killing machine" per se, it would still "wipe out everything that moves" due to that.

 

[Anti-American Eagle]

Sure sure sure. Lets assume it's father didn't intend to suicidally rape some random guy and then murder him with it's offspring. Now lets assume the offspring didn't intend to (violently and painfully) murder said random guy during it's birth. Now why did it kill another random guy (who was terrified) who was looking for a cat (who was scared shitless)? I'll just let that sink in for awhile.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

so your attempt to symphatise doesnt hold on much.

also:

Aye, the original Alien of the original movie is just meant to be a Universal Soldier, a Terminator, a Predator, the ultimate killing machine. Not much backstory, it just is... and kills everyone in sight.

Hah. I see your Naked Space and I raise with... Mr. Blobby. Enjoy.

<youtube=C-tKToKmCFU>

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

The humans could have gone the looong way around as well, slipped special forces in behind them, ect. They didnt.

The Russians did the same damn thing in world war 2! They had planes and bombs and tanks and the like, yet they still used human waves to take positions. Why? because they could.

The aliens in this case are no different. Sure they used the passage, it was quicker, and they had the numbers to take the position which they did.

Except that, you know, they couldn't because the defensive lines stretched right across Europe, the seas were full of ships and the skies were full of planes. No matter which way they went they were going to take a fuckton of casualties. Same in WWII.

All the aliens had to do was not take that 1 corridor. It wasn't quicker. They spent a minute getting shot to pieces then gave up and took a better route.

Even the drone in Alien showed intelligence without a queen there to give it a brain according to your theory. It has a MASSIVE ship that it is roaming around in, it can go where ever it pleases, but where does it go when things get loud and explody? The one, single, escape ship. The door was also closed remember, it had to open the door to get in there and yet, no queen to give it direction.

And if it was the queen giving the warriors direction, they wouldn't have jabbered at eachother to form consensus, and the other alien wouldnt have struggled when it was used to create a hole, that showed individuality AND understanding of what was going on around it and the motives of the other two.

The queen also had no reason to give a shit if one warrior was getting blasted with cold liquid, the warrior itself after one blast learned what the button did, and that it should avoid it. I tried to teach my cat to not scratch my computer chair with blasts of cold water but guess what? She was like "fuck that."

Edit: The xenomorphs are like pretty much any other force, the soldiers are pretty damn decent on their own. Smart, ingenuitive, and deadly. Even more so when you have a squad of em, But when you have a general around, they become highly organized and much more effective. That is what a queen does. She doesnt nurse maid each one along on its path "no honey dont mess with the glass, if you do the bad man will shoot cold stuff at you." she gives them a unified purpose "All xenomorphs to the escape pod bay, the humans are escaping!"

How is this relevant to being as intelligent as a human as opposed to say a dog or a chimp?

Ripley had already gone into the escape pod, then went back for the cat. Why would an ambush predator go and wait where it's prey might turn up? Beats me.

Also getting a cat to do what you want? Yeah, good luck with that.

 

[Brainwreck]

If I'm not mistaken, the xenomorphs are actually genetically engineered weapons of a sort.
As in, they were deliberately created to be literal ruthless killing machines, going above and beyond the call for brutality that a simple beast struggling for survival would operate by.

 

[AgentNein]

the xenomorphs act iike animals, you are interpreting too much in their behaviour.

They cut the power. How did they do that, they're just animals?

Also, the alien queen recognised the flamethrower, and a threat, an alien opened a door on the dropship, the queen operated the lift, one stowed away on the ship and must have operated machinery when everyone was asleep, an alien understood the freezing button thingy, and also knew that the acid from a dead alien would release them etc

And they believe that some birds learn how to use tools. Not just actions passed down through evolution, but actual no foolin' learning. I think most interesting actions by the aliens can be chalked up to either this, or just lazy writing.

 

[AgentNein]

If I'm not mistaken, the xenomorphs are actually genetically engineered weapons of a sort.
As in, they were deliberately created to be literal ruthless killing machines, going above and beyond the call for brutality that a simple beast struggling for survival would operate by.

Can we all just pretend that Prometheus never happened?

 

[Froggy Slayer]

You have to remember that the Xenomorphs are suggested to be (and outright confirmed to be, depending on which canon that you're taking) genetically engineered weapons. They're not animals; not really. Instead, they're machines, built for killing, with flesh and acid in the place of the normal metal mechanisms of war. They are no more or less to blame for killing than a genetically engineered virus would be.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Depending on the lore/ canon you read, I read that they were genetically made by the Predator to be their hunt like a fox to the royal families hunter or whatever you called. Since the Predator are like the ultimate space hunter, they made them as they are, ultimate killing machine then some emtional and feeling animal.

 

[Brainwreck]

If I'm not mistaken, the xenomorphs are actually genetically engineered weapons of a sort.
As in, they were deliberately created to be literal ruthless killing machines, going above and beyond the call for brutality that a simple beast struggling for survival would operate by.

Can we all just pretend that Prometheus never happened?

I'm pretty sure this was a thing a long time before Prometheus was even a shadow of a thought.

 

[AgentNein]

If I'm not mistaken, the xenomorphs are actually genetically engineered weapons of a sort.
As in, they were deliberately created to be literal ruthless killing machines, going above and beyond the call for brutality that a simple beast struggling for survival would operate by.

Can we all just pretend that Prometheus never happened?

I'm pretty sure this was a thing a long time before Prometheus was even a shadow of a thought.

Hmm, I don't remember that in any of the movies pre Prometheus, but perhaps I've forgotten.