Why wasn't the Nostomo an unmanned ship?
Just load it up from whatever planet they were mining the ore from, and program it to go to its destination, with a beacon on it and a stream or telemetry send out status.
shareI guess in case something unforeseen happened, like an impact that necessitated repairs or... something. The crew was kept in stasis, after all, until they were automatically awoken as a result of the emergency signal.
shareWell, the obvious answer is that it is all done for the entertainment value of the movie ... but, I mean here were are hundreds of years in their past and we just sent ... what was it $10 billion dollar telescope out to L2 way past where we can get at it or fix it if breaks.
Don't you think the android Ash could have handled anything that broke down?
The Nostromo could have had redundant systems and beacons and telemetry to tell what went wrong with it in case something went wrong, and where it was. Would have made it much smaller, simpler, and after all it was just carrying ore.
The whole idea of carrying ore between solar systems is pretty lame to begin with.
Don't you think the android Ash could have handled anything that broke down?
That's actually more to the point: why not staff the entire crew with androids? The company would be assured of the complete loyalty of their crew that way.
And if there were real people in the crew just for the sake of using them as vessels for xenomorphs, there'd be no need: Ash the Amicable Android would be perfectly capable of picking up a bunch of those eggs and bringing them to whatever populated area the company wants to experiment on.
The whole idea of carrying ore between solar systems is pretty lame to begin with.
Not if it's ore that's missing in our solar system. share
Like what?
Dilithium Crystals?
Transparent Aluminum?
Unobtainium?
There is no element that is missing in our system.
There is no element that is missing in our system.
Not yet, no. But who knows what sort of shortages there will be in future. Zinc, tungsten, lead... there are numerous rare elements which are also rarely found in exploitable deposits. share
Asteroids.
shareTrouble is there's never an asteroid around when you need one.
shareThere are asteroids and moons infinitely closer in space and time in our own solar system - and every element is represented. One small sized iron asteroid can supply Earth's needs for a century. The problem with mining the asteroids is getting them down to the surface of the Earth. It takes a lot of energy to stop thing in orbit for it to fall into Earth's gravity well, and then you have to steer and and land it
shareThere are asteroids and moons infinitely closer in space and time in our own solar system - and every element is represented. One small sized iron asteroid can supply Earth's needs for a century.
Yes, but perhaps those have been exhausted by the time Alien takes place - or perhaps owned by a different company.
Seriously, this is far from the biggest silliness in the film. The biggest one of all is the notion that a mega-corporation should be interested in alien life forms - that's usually the domain of under-funded scientists, who have to plead and beg for every scrap of funding because there isn't much money to be made from such research. And the notion of using alien life as some sort of weapon? Utterly ridiculous. What's wrong with conventional weapons and WMDs? But nooo, let's put our money into some really aggressive alien life forms we can't control. share
One does wonder who it is they think they have to fight, and how throwing zenomorphs at them would be a good strategy?
share