MovieChat Forums > Alien Nation (1988) Discussion > Water is like hydrochloric acid to the a...

Water is like hydrochloric acid to the aliens?


Is it only salt water, or even the water that comes out the tap? And if it's only salt water, I take it it's only water that is ultra-saturated?

Good flick!

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Good question because our food is loaded with salt. So is it the salt or the combo of salt and water or the combo of sea salt and water.

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I guess prolly sea salt + water + all the micro organisms that live the ocean together, not a good soup for them :-)

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I'm thinking it was the particular saline combination found in the ocean. Plain water wouldn't hurt nor would plain salt, but just the right mixture found in seawater.

Although, maybe they just stayed away from plain salt too. Remember that they didn't eat the same foods that we do or in the same way. For instance, they had to eat their meat raw. Their bodies couldn't absorb the nutrients if the meat was cooked. Sometimes when we cook or prepare meat, we add salt, so maybe that was a factor.

One thing that didn't make sense: Ok, so Sea Water is bad for them. Why in the world, then, would they settle down in LOS ANGLES?? A city NEXT TO THE OCEAN?? You would think that they would all migrate to Kansas or something and get as far away from the Ocean as possible!

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That sounds Logical, in the same way that you can get Acids/Caustics of different strength, that can either slowly eat away at your clothes in the wash or it can burn you straight away

Hell is other People

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More jobs in L.A. maybe? Or they're less likely to be lynched by racists.

It's all part of the plan.

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Less likely to be lynched by "racists" in Los Angeles than Kansas?

Yeah, sure... Kansas is full of hate-filled bigots with rope hanging from their backpockets. Have you ever been to Kansas, PC?

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Take it easy. I don't think the earlier statement was an indictment of the state of Kansas. I have to admit, there are some very non-enlightened thinkers in the sunflower state(as I'm sure there are everywhere). There are still small towns here that won't "tolerate" blacks living in them. I once worked for a company that did business all over the state, and we had one of our black sales reps called the N word and threatened with a gun in a small town less than a hundred miles from Kansas City.

Just in case you were wondering, I've lived in Kansas since 1981.

Best Wishes,

Fitz

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They crashed near Los Angeles and were in quarantine for a couple years before being released. They didn't have any money, so they just stayed were they were. I'm sure there were some who moved away. Also, I'm sure, the movie makers wanted a big city to set the film in.
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You are not alone among strangers, a way has been chosen.

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Also the reason many movies are set in Los Angles might have something to do with the fact much of motion picture industry is located there.
True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

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And yeah, it's pretty dumb, but don't take it so seriously :)

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...............Actually it may be getting cheaper and easier to film away from the West Coast. Their filming part of the remake of "Red Dawn" in Upper Michigan, not far from where I live, even though it's set in Spokane, Washington.
True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

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Human Blood has similar chemistry to sea water.

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If you'll notice, George's front lawn is completely dead, as in he doesn't water it. I thought that was a funny touch.

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i watched the TV show and a few movies during their initial run and although i don't remember specifics, i believe fresh water is fine and only salt water hurt them.

i remember one scene where a Newcomer "Holy Man" tested his faith by walking into the ocean unharmed. i don't believe it was ever followed up on.

someone in the thread brought up food. so maybe it does have to be a certain mix of salt and water to be harmful.


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The actual line from the thugs is "sea water is like battery acid to these guys"
Battery acid is sulphuric, not hydrochloric acid

Later on Caan does say hydrochloric acid though!

:D

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The sea water / acid thing makes no sense whatsoever.

Sour milk, which the aliens drink to get high, has a pH of 4.4 and is more acidic than sea water. Sea Water has a pH of 8 and is alkaline.


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"Look! - it's the Invisible Man!"

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just a thought: the newcomers may have been engineered so that sea water is deadly, so they cant swim away from captivity. because they have been engineered for slavery.

if not there would be a quandry, you would assume for life on another planet to exist, it would follow the same path as the creation of life on this planet. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus, and water.

life is born from the sea, and you would expect if the aliens look like us they would have followed virtually the same path as us, on an earth like planet.

its hard to believe that something that may have gave birth to life on thier planet would be deadly to them as they evolved.

now you could say because they are an alien life form the same rules wouldnt apply in thier evolution and you might have to think out of the box sometimes in terms how life on other planets would exist, but if that were the case here i dont think they would take humanoid form which is so similar to ours.

or have they just thrown the sea thing in "for the story"?

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I'm sure the movie makers weren't concerned with PH balance or anything like that. Mitizibishi is right, it's just for the story.

_______________________________________
You are not alone among strangers, a way has been chosen.

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"its hard to believe that something that may have gave birth to life on thier planet would be deadly to them as they evolved." You mean like water is deadly to us, because we can drown in it?
Just to help you future postings it is spelt "their" not "thier".

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"its hard to believe that something that may have gave birth to life on thier planet would be deadly to them as they evolved." You mean like water is deadly to us, because we can drown in it?
Just to help you future postings it is spelt "their" not "thier".


Please allow me to offer you these simple, helpful tips on your journey to becoming less of a douche-bag.

1. Hyperbolic strawman arguments contribute absolutely nothing of value to a healthy discussion. I'd like to assume that 'mitzibishi' is already aware human beings can and do drown in water as s/he seems reasonably intelligent, however given how essential water in copious amounts is to our continued existence, qualifying it as "deadly" is somewhat misguided.

2. Highlighting a single spelling error in which 2 adjacent letters have been swapped not only also contributes nothing of value to a healthy discussion, it is extremely petty to make special note of a mistake so banal and insignificant.

3. If you still insist on correcting a spelling error, especially a banal and insignificant one, please ensure your own post does not itself contain errors in spelling and grammar.

For example, here is the sentence you wrote:

Just to help you future postings it is spelt "their" not "thier".

A couple proper ways to write this sentence are as follows,

Just to help your future postings it is spelt "their" not "thier".

OR

Just to help you in future postings it is spelt "their" not "thier".

The parts in bold are the corrections. Additionally, although spelt is technically correct it is more appropriate to use spelled as the past tense of the verb spell.

That is all for now, and good luck to you on your journey to becoming less of a douche-bag!!

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I always though that it was designed to be that way. You have a race of genetically manipulated workers who will do your every bidding, you must make sure that they don't escape. The over-seers control the ships and for all we know their planet could be like Earth with a large section of salt water.Programme their cells to destabilise when they come in to contact with salt water to prevent their escape. Hell they could dig a large ditch around their work site and fill it with salt water to prevent them from escaping, make it too big to jump accross and you no longer have to build fortifications or hire personel to monitor the perimiter etc...

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[deleted]

Sure hope it was only the salt water, or else they'd have been all dead or bloodied after the first rain...

there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above her shoulder

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Fresh water is critical to human life, life in general, and so is salt in limited amounts. Still sea water can be deadly to humans if they drink it because of its high salt content. In the reality of this movie the same is true with the space aliens only more so.

TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

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