Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site think.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!think!craig From: craig@think.ARPA (Craig Stanfill) Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: Alien I Message-ID: <3224@think.ARPA> Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 13:21:26 EST Article-I.D.: think.3224 Posted: Wed Oct 30 13:21:26 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Nov-85 02:49:27 EST References: <11900004@hpfclp.UUCP> <7013@ucla-cs.ARPA> <85149@cpsc53.UUCP> <987@mit-vax.UUCP> <85156@cpsc53.UUCP> Reply-To: craig@think.UUCP (Craig Stanfill) Organization: Thinking Machines, Cambridge, MA Lines: 45 In article <85156@cpsc53.UUCP> dta@cpsc53.UUCP (Doug Anderson) writes about the accuracy of Alien. The science it contains is more accurate than he might think. > Space Suits are fully contained. THEY DONT EXHAUST > GASSES! Not necessarily true. You are constantly exhaling carbon dioxide and water vapor into your suit. These byproducts have to go somewhere. Into the atmosphere seems a good place. > You have an alien runnung around in a space > ship. Simple solution: > > 1) EVERYONE gets into spacesuits ALONE > > 2) open ship to vacum (they finally did this > at the end of the movie) > > 3) wait 8 or more hours > > 4) get you trusty dusty flame thrower and fry > the body of the beasty. Three problems with this. First, it doesn't particularly mind vacuum. Second, it is resistant to fire. Remember that the alien didn't seem to be so much killed by the exhaust of the escape ship as shaken loose by the blast. Third (this is most important) the alien has corrosive blood. If they killed it or shot it full of holes or whatever, its blood eats through the hull. As it happens the hull ended up with a few holes in it anyway, so they might well have been better off blowing it away and taking their chances, but they goofed. > Remember the > scene when the Captain died? They had the monster > located on a grid telling the direction and distance > from the Captain. Do they tell him though? NOOOO. he > could kill it then. make the movie real short. I think you have been reading too much SF with too many heroic characters. Alien was a movie about the working man in space; the crew was not trained in warfare. They had to improvise a good bit, and maybe they made some mistakes. Sorry for the length of the reply, but I DO think Alien is a classic both of SF and of Horror.