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What mistakes did the marines make in the film Aliens?

posted 3 years ago by TMC-4 (19411)
9 replies | jump to latest

https://www.quora.com/What-mistakes-did-the-marines-make-in-the-film-Aliens

They get on board the dropship to go to the planet. No one was left in the ship. Is this wise? Thankfully there was a transmitter on site and Bishop could do those things he did. What if the transmitter was damaged? What if Bishop was damaged? What if there was a fire or system failure up there in orbit with no one to respond to it?

There were 60~ families. No response from any of them. What if there was some sort of rage virus epidemic? What if everyone turned into vicious monsters? (like Dead Space). That could be 60~ violent hostiles, all with home-field advantage and surprise on their side. They send one squad only? They clearly did not send enough people.

Gorman being in command, despite his lack of experience in actual missions. Remember how he was panicking, resulting in a lot of marines getting killed and capture, and he still has the arrogance to ignore Ripley.

Gorman orders Apone to collect magazines, yet did not mention the important reason why there shouldn't have been firing. Vasquez's blatant disregard for her NCO's orders regardless if they had been told why. Vasquez was still holding and swinging her smart gun as if it had ammo, no one found this suspicious? Why did she not shoulder it?

Everyone was ignoring Ripley a lot in the beginning, the person with the most info and exp regarding the enemies they were facing.

Dropship takes off after leaving them, and lands somewhere in the same area. That place was definitely not secure. Co-pilot also left the ramp down while ... what was he doing out there anyway?

You set off to explore an alien world with unforgiving terrain and you bring along a vehicle that hugs the ground like a Lamborghini sportscar? You won't even clear most modern Earth road humps with that.

[–] wearsalan (5554) 3 years ago

When the APC and Dropship were destroyed they headed back to the colony and rebuilt the barricades. Bishop didn't help with this. They must have known (in fact they did know) the Aliens would get in. They knew that rescue wouldn't come for 17 days. They should have had Bishop remote pilot the other Dropship down whilst they dealt with the barricades. Seeing as the Aliens would have come from the opposite end of the colony to the Dropship landing, the barricades would have at least slowed them down a bit.
This was a massive fuck up on the marines behalf.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Everything was ridiculous except the special effects.
If that was an assault ship it needed a lot more drop ships.
2 would just not do it.
No real use of technology even as good as we have today ... like reconnaissance drones,
or fighting robots. They had the automatic machine guns ... but not hardly enough
ammunition. It should have been high-powered lasers.
By this time one would think they would have fighting robots, but if people had to go into
battlefields, they had the exoskeleton loaders ... why would they not have powered battle
armor with shielding?
The assault craft was not all terrain.
They would also have some kind of sensory assists ... like smell, radiation frequencies,
vibration sensors, and super powerful hearing, and translation of sounds.

Still a fun movie.

[–] degray9 (1126) 3 years ago

Actually most of the technology ideas in the movie are plausible for a military setting.

The Sulaco was not an assault craft but a transport ship designed for rapid deployment. They have the capacity for up to four drop ships, they probably decided two was a satisfactory number for the mission.

I think a recon robot might have trouble navigating down the sublevels of the reactor and into the alien lair. It was easier to have the marines sweep the bottom level themselves, the problem was when they weren’t allowed to fire their weapons near the cooling tanks. They should have pulled out then.

They also had plenty of ammunition, it was just destroyed along with the APC. Laser weapons they also had “independent particle beam” weaponry also on the destroyed APC.

Armoured exosuits also exist in this universe. They just didn’t bring any for what they thought was a light engagement.

They have motion trackers and infrared for tactical support as well.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Actually, huh?

[–] kenburke (2280) 3 years ago

Biggest mistake they made - OVERCONFIDENCE!!!

[–] ebhaynz (3527) 3 years ago

You have to suspend disbelief as these action movies are designed to be like roller-coasters.

[–] drrclavan (667) 3 years ago

The biggest mistake was Hudson asking Vasquez if she had been mistaken for man.

[–] bobbydallas (8059) 3 years ago

i thought it was clear that Gorman didn't know what he was doing, and that he was put specifically so the mission is a fail and the marines bring back the alien organism.

all blunders described are pretty much deliberate.

?

[–] Batty67 (358) 2 years ago

When the movie came out, as an U.S. Army officer cadet at the time, I was mega-annoyed with the "officer is incompetent and indecisive" cliche. I mean, he does act bravely later in the action, albeit when he's not in charge. But it has come to pass in lore that Gorman was either picked or approved because of his inexperience. Junior lieutenants have to get actual experience leading and in combat. So, with time, it's all good. Such a great movie.