"Alien" question. [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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Kam
09-12-2004, 10:36 PM
Caught this again on the starz family and noticed something (after the 500th viewing) that i didn't think of before. Now, obviously this is nitpicky, but just out of curiosity, here goes.

After the alien bursts out of john hurt's chest, it runs away. the crew goes looking for it, and when the guy next encounters it, the first crew member to die, it's huge. it's grown from the small little cute guy with the silver rapper teeth to this monster. now fine that it has such a fast growth spurt, they show its skin on the ground that it shed, BUT... wouldn't it have to eat to grow? How did it grow that much? i can understand the SPEED of growth, but it had to consume something to grow the MUCH, wouldn't it? And all the nostromo had on it was 20,000,000 tons of ore, other than food for the crew. albeit its all conjecture, and all, but was just curious if anyone else thought about this.

peace
go 'canes!
k2

eisforelectronic
09-13-2004, 12:06 AM
I cannot recall ever actually seeing an Alien feed on anything. Maybe a chunk here or there, but really they seem to just kill or gather hosts for more Aliens.

dean_martin
09-13-2004, 07:20 AM
I caught the last hour or so on Starz last night. I had forgotten how suspenseful it is. I also thought those panties made the plot holes irrevelant. Of course, I'm a simpleton.

Worf101
09-13-2004, 08:31 AM
The whole idea of the Alien shedding it's skin ala snake or insect is a fact of Alien physiology that's just thrown out there in the first film and never revisited in any of the sequels. You never see any "juvinile" Aliens. You've no idea what they eat or if they eat. They just had to get it from the "cutesey" stage to the "bad MoFo" stage as quickly as possible. There's a lot about the Alien's that's never explained unless they explained it in AVP which I didn't see. But your plot whole is quite right and well observed and never explained.

Da Worfster :o

Dusty Chalk
09-13-2004, 09:45 AM
The idea, though not perfectly implemented, is that they eat their host. The little guy should have come out of Hurt's character's body a bit more "engorged", and the first time we see the more full-grown guy, he should have been more lanky. But that's just my opinion. I'm not a director. From a director's perspective, I think the film was fine. (I.E. this was not meant to be a criticism of direction. I do believe in a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.)

I'm sure there are boards that discuss this, though. Nothing wrong with a little pedantry.

Dave_G
09-13-2004, 12:21 PM
Well, that Alien didn't get that big eating Quarter Pounders with Cheese.

I agree, they never show the Alien critter "eating" anything. But hell, Predator never "eats" anything either.

I guess if you are an outer space critter, you grow VIA Osmosis.

I guess if you don't ever have to pee or do # 2 that's not necessarily a bad thing, eh?

Dave

Kam
09-14-2004, 10:19 PM
i'm all for suspension of belief, and trust me, i still wholeheartedly buy into whatever it is that makes the mini alien jump in size to the gigantor version, i just thought it odd it never explained and on top of that, i never even noticed it until now, after years of watching this movie over and over again.

i think dusty's answer makes the most sense, the eating of the host thing, which doesn't really happen in the first one, but still makes sense.

and here's another one that just popped into my head:
So the aliens take on the characteristics of the host that they are impregnating (the ones in the first two looking alike because they are coming from humans, the third one different being out of a dog, the one in AvP, etc) So then the aliens are a constantly morphing species, you could have radically diverse species of aliens within 1 generation, say putting a queen egg onto a giraffe, and another onto a rhino, and then mating their offspring queen eggs to another animal, etc. Would be a great genetic experiment i guess in a freaky frankensteinian way. so i guess this didn't really end up being a new question and more of an observation, but, eh, what can ya do.

peace
k2

Dave_G
09-15-2004, 11:53 AM
Well in Alien 3 the alien thing hooks up with that dog and it bears a "dog alien" critter.

Plus something similar happens in Alien vs. Predator.

Dave