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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.