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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Could the Derelict from LV-426 still be intact?

Discussion in 'Archive: SF&F: Films and Television' started by sith_rising, Jan 16, 2007.

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  1. Panther50

    Panther50 Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Apr 7, 2004
    If it took them a couple weeks to get there and presumably a similar amount of time to get back. Wouldn't the alien have burst out of the father and killed the family before they had a chance to get back to the colony?
     
  2. Jedi_Master_Conor

    Jedi_Master_Conor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 24, 2005
    it depends. if you want to look at an EU perspective an Alien chestburster can remain in a host for an extended period of time if need be
     
  3. sith_rising

    sith_rising Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jan 7, 2004
    Yeah, the movies never are really clear about how long a chestburster gestates. It seems like it could take anywhere from 10 minutes to a few days.
     
  4. Boskone_Kenobi

    Boskone_Kenobi Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Feb 15, 2002
    One of the cut scenes shows Newts mom calling May Day after dragging her husband back to their RV. Presumably she was asking for an emergency aircraft to come grab them, which would have gotten them back to the colony in only mere hours.
     
  5. Jedi_Master_Conor

    Jedi_Master_Conor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 24, 2005
    good point. but it also makes you think why didn't they have an aircraft fly to the location of the derelict craft in the beginning when they went to explore the coordinates
     
  6. Panther50

    Panther50 Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Apr 7, 2004
    I don't know how official it is but I have an Aliens comic called Newts tale which shows the events of the movie from her point of view which I rechecked yesterday. In it after the father has been infected they are back at the colony within 24 hours but it doesn't show how they got back. Within that time frame the people in the colony have had time to visit the derelict themselves, had some of their teammembers become infected and returned. The Alien bursts out of this the fathers stomach shortly after and this is all within a day and a half.
     
  7. Crash_Davis

    Crash_Davis Jedi Knight star 5

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    Mar 31, 2006
    I think from the movies we can reasonably conclude a conservative estimate of approximately 12-20 hours between the initial attack by the facehugger to the emergence of the chestburster. This however, is for a standard, drone xenomorph. A queen however, takes considerably longer, probably due to the fact that it's just a more complex organism. It is the eventual egg-layer, after all, and therefore, would require more gestation time.

    Although AvP threw the whole gestation time thing out the window. Damn you, Anderson!
     
  8. rumsmuggler

    rumsmuggler Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 31, 2000
  9. Boskone_Kenobi

    Boskone_Kenobi Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Feb 15, 2002
    If they had any idea how important it was going to be to justify wasting fuel when an RV would do just as well. Remember Burke didnt tell them a thing, just to go to the coordinates and see what was up.
     
  10. Boskone_Kenobi

    Boskone_Kenobi Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Feb 15, 2002
    I never liked the queen concept anyway. Too cliche. The original idea thought up by Walter Hill (and cut out of the first movie), was that the body of a post-chestburst victim would then metamorphosis into a new egg. THAT creeps me out more than anything else, and gives a more patient sense of longevity to the Alien species as a whole. They are survivors, not fly-by-night conquerers helpless for any long-term support until a queen comes hopping along.
     
  11. Crash_Davis

    Crash_Davis Jedi Knight star 5

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    Mar 31, 2006
    Honestly, I like the theory floating around the different fan sites that Brett was becoming an egg, and Dallas was the intended victim of the eventual facehugger, who would then gestate a queen. Alot of fans use this argument to explain why the alien seemed so tired when it attacked Ripley in the Narcissus. It had expended so much energy in trying to perpetuate a queen that it was close to death.

    Of couse, this is purely conjecture, because we are taking what Cameron has created and are trying to apply it retroactively. I think originally, it was Scott's intention to show that's how the creature actually propagated the species, but Cameron's queen idea does not contradict Scott's vision, it merely builds upon it; showing us that maybe there's another way as well.

    That's what makes the creature so alien. ;)
     
  12. sith_rising

    sith_rising Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jan 7, 2004
    Boskone, I definately like that idea. Certainly makes them scarier!
     
  13. Panther50

    Panther50 Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Apr 7, 2004
    Yeah theres no reason both methods can't be valid, an alien on its own would need a way to continue the species, thats why they're such great survivors.
     
  14. Spike2002

    Spike2002 Former FF-UK RSA and Arena Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Feb 4, 2002
    They tried to explain that away by introducing the concept of "growth hormones" that the Predators used to make the xenomorphs hatch and grow faster than they would normally.
     
  15. Crash_Davis

    Crash_Davis Jedi Knight star 5

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    Mar 31, 2006
    I've read that somewhere, it just seems to me like a retroactive plot device because Anderson painted himself in the corner with the whole idea of the pyramid shifting every ten minutes, he was desperate to explain why the xeno's grew so quickly; hence growth hormones.

     
  16. Panther50

    Panther50 Jedi Youngling star 3

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    Apr 7, 2004
    If I'd had to come up with a reason, I'd just have said that the Aliens in AVP were a more evolved strand of Alien which took less time to develop then the ones in the other movies which were all based on eggs that had been sitting the derelict for a long period of time and had been bypassed by the ones used by the Predators.
     
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