Here's one.
Lack of optics on pulse rifles: Heck, by 2005 almost every U.S. soldier has some type of scope, red dot, laser, holographic sight...and uses them...because they work and from a military perspective, cheap! 1986, not so much. This is still an issue in many, many SF movies.
Feel free to add to the list.
I don't know about dated, but they never explain space travel as it appears that they rely on old fashion rocket propulsion which isn't powerful enough to send humans outside over own solar system yet in this movie and in the original they're traveling beyond Zeta Reticuli which is almost 40 light years away.
shareThis is less of a problem really. Back in the '60s, Star Trek introduced non-readers to the distinction between impulse drive and FTL drive (warp drive). The 1979 Star Trek movie mentioned thrusters as well, as the smaller impuse drives used for such things as exiting space dock or changing the ships attitude in orbit. Thus rockets were always a part of Star Trek, which was always the closest we had to "realistic" space opera. (Later Star Trek ignored the distinctions and changed rules randomly, but the basics were there).
In Alien and Aliens we hear no mention of FTL drive but we have to assume it, since the use of impulse drives in the films is never shown to be continuous as it would have to be for interstellar travel. And ships arrive at destinations without any appearance of vast deceleration, so I think we can assume not only FTL drive of some sort but also "inertial dampening" to go along with the equally fanciful artificial gravity which is clearly as much a part of Aliens as of Star Trek.
If I actually cared enough about the world of Aliens to want to make excuses for the weapons, I would assume some sort of utterly trivial brain implant, linking the operators optical system to the weapon, resulting in the functional effect of a heads-up display tied into unobtrusive sighting gear on the weapon.
But at least in Star Trek/Wars you heard about the method. Alien movies just showed rocket thrusters which are useless interstellar travel.
shareThey can't cover everything. Mention of the specific technology behind their space travel would be somewhat interesting, but also entirely inessential to the film. The tech that Cameron does highlight, like the pulse rifles, the loader, and so forth, does have an essential role.
shareyeah but by not covering it they didnt get it wrong .
Feel free to assume the rockets took them to a bunch of wormholes they have mapped out (or whatever) and that did the heavy lifting distance wise.
or if you dont fancy that , once they were asleep in the pods the rockets hut off and the hyperdrive engaged.
On some level I disagree. I love, love, love clunky '80s sci fi tech. All of the sleek stuff that we see these days doesn't have the same oomph.
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