how did it get there, that it's a plot hole, if there were one or two facehuggers, the queen facehugger, etc
Well obviously it is not very well explained in the movie except bits and pieces. And truth is we do not really know how the Alien creature and its cycle works. We think we know, but we do not.
Something we do know for sure though...and what we do know from "Alien3 (1992)" is that only Ripley was facehugged and it was with a queen egg. And the second thing we do know is that the Ox was facehugged later with a different kind of alien, perhaps rather a soldier type alien or a queen protector alien. Neither of these two spawns had ever been shown to us before and the infant from the Ox was considerably different from how the young ones looked in "Alien (1979)" or "Aliens (1986)", so likely this was a hint to us that this was of a different breed, aka a queen protector and not a worker “bee” like the others we had seen in the previous movies - yes yes, I know that the Aliens take gene material from their hosts and so an Ox (or dog) Alien should for this reason alone look and move differently. However, this particular Alien was born as a smaller but already functioning Xenomorph, capable of fighting from almost the beginning. The younglings in the other movies were scary looking rats, designed to hide and grow. I believe this very visual difference is there not because of the Ox DNA, but because of the nature of this Alien in particular is different. It is bred to protect the Queen, and so must be capable from the get go... anyway, this is how I take it.
Now back to how the egg came on board in the first place...As the Queen hitched a ride in "Aliens (1986)" she ensured an egg with a queen facehugger somehow - we know this for sure. If we hadn’t seen the egg I would have simply thought an actual hatched facehugger hid with her queen during the final fight in "Aliens (1986)". Alas, this was not so. We saw an egg and this means she either flung the egg while fighting or perhaps even a smaller Alien placed it stealth wise. How this egg caught a ride is unknown, but we know the Queen (or a helper Alien) did it and I remember the final fight is near the hyper sleep chambers and so perhaps perhaps, what luck :-( .... not impossible, at least. Lets say she put it there just prior to the big fight in "Aliens (1986)", and voila.
And yes, we only see one egg indeed, but perhaps there were two? We do not know. But one egg might be enough. E.g. it could be one egg containing two facehugges. Think about it; a queen egg should always have a queen protector nearby so perhaps they always come in pairs and so only one egg is needed to explain the Ox and Ripley.... or we can even speculate further and say a queen facehugger has the ability to impregnate with a queen first and later also a soldier before dying itself. I like this idea. Makes sense, I think. Plus we only ever find one dead facehugger near the Ox, don't we?
Then we see a facehugger grabbed onto someone's face. Is this Ripley?
Yes, as it is later established only Ripley was facehugged.
In a matter of seconds we see her face, convulsing, without any facehugger on it. From what we learnt in Alien, impregnation isn't that quick, is it?
Well for a normal facehugger indeed, but this is no normal facehugger as I discuss above. However I will say that even though the editing may be in just seconds, the real time may not. She could have been hugged for a longer time, we cannot really say.
Another thought: if that single facehugger got cut by the cracking glass, causing acid to pour, would this facehugger still be functional?
Yes, because we know it succeeded.
They cut it in Alien, once it's grabbed onto Kane, and it didn't die... But in this case, when it hasn't grabbed onto someone yet, would it still be alive? And even more: wouldn't it leave some kind of burn marks on whosever face it grabs onto??
Only if it would bleed on that someone's face. Since we know Ripley was the only one who was facehugged, then we know she did not get any blood on her during the facehugging. But perhaps this is also because they heal quickly? They are after all quite resilient and a likely bonus of having acidic blood may be that it quickly stops bleeding by "burning" the cuts. Who knows. We know it bleed and we know Ripley did not get any burn marks so ergo it was just a smaller cut....I think this connects the dots :)
how in hell do eggs know when to hatch??
The movies provide us with two criteria here:
1. The eggs need to mature (which is true for all eggs). How long is difficult to really say but as evidenced in "Aliens (1986)", they are not ready right after being lain – otherwise Ripley and Newt would have been sworn by them near the end in the Queen's nest.
2. Biological presence and/or movement kick-starts their cycle. Every time we see an egg hatch it is as a reaction to either movement and/or presence. I think similar to how eggs of a flea work. Their eggs can lay dormant for years until they detect a movement.... similar to Aliens, I believe.
And by the way, how is it that the glass of Kane's helmet didn't crack then and the facehugger managed to grab onto his face, despite Kane wearing his helmet?
As I remember; Kane's helmet glass sort of melted so it could get access to his face.. So a likely explanation is that the facehuggers can excrete some sort of controlled acid when attaching themselves, however without harming its host... that is what it looked like in "Alien (1979)".
Yet in Alien 3, the glass cracks and the facehugger cuts itself??
Perhaps it did not cut its self. Perhaps it excreted some controlled acid to get access to Ripley. Perhaps it first tried on Newt and for some reason chose Ripley instead. Perhaps the glass took no effect and the acid slid off? this is plausible because we actually only see the acid effect on the side of the chamber - as though it slid off from the top of the glass. Again the evidence simply tells us that it tried on Newt and succeeds somehow with Ripley, and we know they can be quite ingenious in their hunts.
Come to think of it, none of the glass on the Hypersleep chambers were destroyed by acid. Only the side of it and the floor, right? And only the shambers of Newt and Hicks were compromised. Newt's glass had cracked open (which is why she drowned) and Hicks was impaled. So perhaps the acid slid of the glass of Newt's chamber and short circuited something and Ripley's Hypersleep chamber opened because of this short circuit and thus giving free access to her face... So lets us say it first tried to crack the glass to Newt, and in this process it excreteed a bit of Acid as it normally does that slid off the glass and fell to the floor and the side of the chamber, and then.... etc etc.
Anyway, this whole thing brings me to this question in Alien 3: taking all of the above into account, if Ripley, Hicks and Newt were all in hypersleep, hence not moving at all, etc, why did the egg hatch?
They can sense biological presence somehow. Of course I agree that the circumstances of hyper sleep should keep you pretty much sealed up and so how would it know.... Either the weak heartbeats is enough or simply when Ripley tugged them all in, it detected their presence to hatch a little later.
IMO you questions can be answered and it works in the movie. However, was it me I would have not shown the egg in the escape pod as simply a hid facehugger would have made more sense, meaning it could have hitched a ride with the Queen Alien and in the final fight and then simply hid and waited to strike at the right moment. Naturally the egg is their for dramatic effect plus we are a bit unsure (not really) if any of the travellers were ever facehugged. They did it the way they did for the sake of storytelling and I dig that.
IMO "Alien3 (1992)" is a good ending to the trilogy. One horror, one action and one thriller. Well architecture*.
*[“Resurrection (2012)” was a mindbogglingly stupid mistake through and through, but it does not matter as it does not really have any effect on the brilliancy in the three first. And as always, I adore all versions of the Alien creature... even those that suck; in other words, keep'em coming Hollywood]
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