Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Feminist Movie Friday: Aliens

Transcript

Feminist Movie Friday: Aliens · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not good of stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you Production by Heart Radio, and today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are returning to our roots, our feminist movie Friday
0:23
Speaker 1: Roots anyway, and talking about Aliens, the nineteen eighty six
0:28
Speaker 1: sequel to Alien, which we talked about in great detail,
0:32
Speaker 1: and our first feminist maybe Friday. I was so excited
0:37
Speaker 1: to do that. I will not forget that you were.
0:41
Speaker 2: It was a long episode.
0:42
Speaker 1: I remember it was quite long, and I had a
0:46
Speaker 1: lot of discussion of art, imagery.
0:48
Speaker 2: Symbolism, so many vaginas, apparently.
0:52
Speaker 1: So many vaginas and phallic shapes. Yeah, so go listen
0:56
Speaker 1: to that one, because we're not going to get into
0:59
Speaker 1: that as much in this one. But it's still there.
1:03
Speaker 1: It's still very much there. I have said it before
1:06
Speaker 1: and I will say it again. I think every Alien movie,
1:09
Speaker 1: whether it is good or not, has something interesting to
1:12
Speaker 1: say about women, motherhood, babies, sexual assault, faith, and science.
1:18
Speaker 1: So yes, I oh, well, we'll talk about that later,
1:24
Speaker 1: but I think this might be the last one I
1:26
Speaker 1: make you watch. Samantha. Well, we'll understand later. So we
1:38
Speaker 1: are going to get into the themes, but we're not
1:41
Speaker 1: going to get so much into the threatening sexuality and
1:45
Speaker 1: set design and the ideas addressed around rape and impregnation.
1:51
Speaker 1: So I guess content warning that that is a part
1:54
Speaker 1: of these movies, but it is there, and see the
2:03
Speaker 1: original see our original feminist movie Friday for more about that.
2:07
Speaker 2: We need to bring it back as a classic.
2:09
Speaker 1: Maybe we have brought it back before. I guess we
2:11
Speaker 1: could bring it back again, but that was coming out
2:14
Speaker 1: at the same time as Roe v. Wade and stuff,
2:18
Speaker 1: so that had a lot of interesting politics happening. And
2:20
Speaker 1: actually this one, we're going to talk about some of
2:22
Speaker 1: the politics happening when this one came out. April twenty
2:26
Speaker 1: sixth is Xenomorph Day. Xenomorph is the name of the
2:30
Speaker 1: fully grown alien because LV four two six is the
2:35
Speaker 1: name of the moon where they find the aliens Alien
2:40
Speaker 1: and then Aliens and the first one and the second one,
2:44
Speaker 1: and yeah, the life cycle of the xenomorph is confusing.
2:51
Speaker 1: You can look up some graphs of how it works,
2:55
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's the one. The chest burster comes out
2:58
Speaker 1: of your chest and then grows into the Xenomorph. This
3:03
Speaker 1: movie does kind of relate to climate too, because they're terrorformers.
3:08
Speaker 1: It went very wrong, but yes, and I guess happily
3:12
Speaker 1: Happy Early Mother's Day. I this is what one of
3:17
Speaker 1: the articles was titled, meant that when I was researching it,
3:21
Speaker 1: Happy Mother's Day. Watch Aliens. So I have a lot
3:28
Speaker 1: of memories about this movie. Some of them aren't mine,
3:32
Speaker 1: I guess because one of my parents' first date was
3:34
Speaker 1: to see the first one, and the story goes that
3:38
Speaker 1: my dad panicked and threw his popcorn up in the air.
3:41
Speaker 1: I cried the first time I watched Alien. I think
3:44
Speaker 1: I'm mostly managed with Aliens. Longtime listeners know that my
3:48
Speaker 1: older brother played a pretty mean prank on me when
3:52
Speaker 1: I was quite young, and it basically that I was
3:55
Speaker 1: being adopted by Aliens and it scared me really badly
3:58
Speaker 1: and I couldn't even watch et. So it took a
4:02
Speaker 1: while for me to manage to watch Alien and Aliens.
4:07
Speaker 1: But now I love them and I don't know if
4:10
Speaker 1: I've ever talked about this, but the game Alien Isolation
4:16
Speaker 1: is from the viewpoint of Ripley's daughter, who, in a
4:21
Speaker 1: deleted scene from Aliens, we learn had died while Ripley
4:28
Speaker 1: was in stasis. But she's searching for her mom and
4:35
Speaker 1: the ship has an alien on it, of course, but
4:38
Speaker 1: it's like. It's widely known as one of the scariest
4:40
Speaker 1: games ever made because the alien is it's an AI
4:47
Speaker 1: that learns based on what the player does, and you
4:50
Speaker 1: really don't have any weapons. You can hide, but the
4:52
Speaker 1: alien will eventually figure out, Oh, you're just going to
4:56
Speaker 1: hide over there. And it's the scariest thing. I've never
4:59
Speaker 1: beat it. I can't do it, and it can hear you,
5:02
Speaker 1: like if you make sounds. Oh no, it's so scary.
5:06
Speaker 1: I only made it like a third of the way through. Yeah, yep.
5:12
Speaker 1: And then I also went to the exhibit at the
5:15
Speaker 1: movie in London. The Alien exhibit was quite scary as well,
5:22
Speaker 1: but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. This was your first.
5:25
Speaker 2: Time seeing it, right, No, I watched it with you.
5:28
Speaker 2: I realized we all have watched it together because I
5:32
Speaker 2: was like Bill Paxton, yes, and I remember watching him
5:36
Speaker 2: thinking it was the first one, and then I realized, oh, no,
5:40
Speaker 2: I've seen this because I also remember yelling you yelling
5:43
Speaker 2: about Basquets the his entire time. You like to yell
5:47
Speaker 2: things about movies and facts about these movies. I'm pretty
5:52
Speaker 2: sure we watched it quickly after Alien, which you told
5:55
Speaker 2: us about all the vaginas and then came into Aliens,
5:59
Speaker 2: and you told me all about Basquez. Yeah, so I
6:03
Speaker 2: do remember that.
6:04
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not the easiest person to watch.
6:09
Speaker 2: I love those facts, but that's how I remembered. Oh
6:11
Speaker 2: I have seen this, because of course I think I
6:14
Speaker 2: thought I didn't actually with you.
6:18
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, well that does sound like me, because I
6:21
Speaker 1: feel like it's hard for me to watch Alien and
6:23
Speaker 1: not Aliens. I don't have to go to the rest
6:25
Speaker 1: of them like I have to do with some other series.
6:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Alien and Aliens, I kind of it's hard
6:32
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, but they are very different to me.
6:36
Speaker 1: I think they're very different. Aliens was directed by James
6:40
Speaker 1: Cameron and is yes, distinctly different in my opinion, from
6:43
Speaker 1: the first one, which was directed by Ridley Scott. The
6:46
Speaker 1: first one is much more like a slow burn horror,
6:49
Speaker 1: and this one is an action movie complete with marines.
6:53
Speaker 1: I can kind of see the hints of Avatar peaking in.
6:56
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that was like, oh yeah,
6:58
Speaker 1: that ended up in Avatar. Sigourney Weaver reprises her role
7:03
Speaker 1: as Ripley. Even though the first film was a success,
7:07
Speaker 1: some lawsuits and general lack of faith from higher ups
7:11
Speaker 1: stalled it. So the first one came out in nineteen
7:13
Speaker 1: seventy nine. This one came out in nineteen eighty six.
7:17
Speaker 1: It took them some time. At the time, James Cameron
7:20
Speaker 1: was relatively inexperienced. I read that in a lot of places,
7:23
Speaker 1: but of rereading his resume before and it's like, seems
7:27
Speaker 1: like he had some experience, but okay, okay, relatively inexperience.
7:31
Speaker 1: There was a lot of conflict on set, mostly because
7:35
Speaker 1: of the very tight filming schedule, but in an end,
7:39
Speaker 1: the film was a critical and commercial success, and the
7:43
Speaker 1: discussion of sequels that equal or better at the predecessor
7:46
Speaker 1: it often comes up. I personally think it's up to
7:49
Speaker 1: my mood as to which one I think is better.
7:52
Speaker 1: They're pretty different. I think they're just pretty different. So like,
7:55
Speaker 1: do I want to see a space marine action movie today?
7:58
Speaker 1: Or do I want to see like a slow obernharm movie.
8:02
Speaker 1: And yes, as I said in our recent fan fiction
8:05
Speaker 1: episode a Happy Hour, I think this is a recurse
8:07
Speaker 1: of fan fiction. You can find me about it. I
8:09
Speaker 1: don't care. But this is basically he saw something he
8:13
Speaker 1: liked and was like, what if this happened? And did
8:15
Speaker 1: something completely different than the first one. So let's get
8:22
Speaker 1: into the plot first. Off baseline, these movies take place
8:27
Speaker 1: far in the future, and the characters in the first
8:29
Speaker 1: one and other ones work for Wayland Utani, which is
8:34
Speaker 1: a company produced by a merger between American and Japanese companies.
8:39
Speaker 1: Their leadership continually proves that they do not care for
8:43
Speaker 1: their workers, and one of them has interesting ideas shall
8:47
Speaker 1: we say when it comes to humanity and faith in God.
8:50
Speaker 1: That's exported in later films, but in the first one,
8:53
Speaker 1: the android and android programmed to act as a human
9:00
Speaker 1: is more worried about procuring a biological weapon, the Xenomorph first,
9:06
Speaker 1: and was placed there by the company. Ripley finds his
9:09
Speaker 1: orders and it's like secure the number one, Secure the Xenomorph,
9:13
Speaker 1: number two. Everybody else is expendable. If you remember the
9:19
Speaker 1: end of Alien, Ripley was the only survivor along with
9:21
Speaker 1: Jonesy the Cat after a Xenomorph was brought on board
9:26
Speaker 1: the ship Nostromo against her orders and she put herself
9:31
Speaker 1: in stasis. After killing the Xenomorph, she's found by a
9:34
Speaker 1: salvage crew. Fifty seven years later, the Wayland Utawanni company
9:39
Speaker 1: execs holler in for questioning, and they do not believe
9:42
Speaker 1: her claim about the alien or the eggs because they're
9:46
Speaker 1: asking her about LV four two six and she's saying
9:48
Speaker 1: they live like thousands of eggs and they're like, no way.
9:52
Speaker 1: But it turns out they do have some concerns because
9:55
Speaker 1: they have lost contact with the terraformers they sent to
9:59
Speaker 1: LV four two and yes, that's the planet she encountered
10:03
Speaker 1: the xenomorph and she immediately is like, you fools, they're dead,
10:08
Speaker 1: and they still they are like, will you come with
10:11
Speaker 1: us and a crew of space Marines and check out
10:14
Speaker 1: the situation. At first, she refuses, but eventually decides to
10:18
Speaker 1: go under guarantee that they will kill the xenomorphs. That
10:22
Speaker 1: is what they're going to do. They promise her that
10:26
Speaker 1: they will, and so she goes with the crew of
10:28
Speaker 1: Space Marines and their android Bishop, whom she distressed because
10:33
Speaker 1: of her previous experience. When they arrive, the place has
10:37
Speaker 1: clearly been through it. They find two live face huggers
10:42
Speaker 1: and these are the creepy spider like ones that attach
10:45
Speaker 1: to your face and insert their eggs inside of you
10:49
Speaker 1: to burst out of your chest, and one survivor a
10:54
Speaker 1: young traumatized girl named Newt. They track the other colonist
10:59
Speaker 1: signal to a central station and find that the whole
11:03
Speaker 1: place is covered in alien goop, and they also find
11:09
Speaker 1: a bunch of dead face huggers colonists unresponsive and cocoon.
11:13
Speaker 2: To the wall.
11:15
Speaker 1: A chest burster burst out of one of them, and
11:19
Speaker 1: the Marines kill it. Problem though, turns out there were
11:23
Speaker 1: a lot of adult aliens nearby, and they capture or
11:27
Speaker 1: kill a big chunk of their team. The leader completely
11:33
Speaker 1: panics and Ripley takes over, using their armored vehicle to
11:38
Speaker 1: get to the Marines because she hadn't gone with them.
11:41
Speaker 1: The leader hadn't gone with them either. An alien kills
11:45
Speaker 1: the drop ship rescue pilots, leaving them all in a
11:49
Speaker 1: pretty dire situation because that was their way out. Desperate,
11:54
Speaker 1: the team barricades themselves in one of the colony structures,
11:58
Speaker 1: and then a lot of things happen really quickly. Ripley
12:02
Speaker 1: learns Burke, who has been her sort of corporate envoy.
12:07
Speaker 1: He's the one who promised her that they would destroy
12:09
Speaker 1: the xenomorphs if they found them. Ordered the colonists to
12:13
Speaker 1: investigate the alien eggs for potential profit he could have
12:17
Speaker 1: made in the biological weapon sector. Bishop reveals that basically
12:24
Speaker 1: a power plant is melting down and is going to
12:27
Speaker 1: destroy the whole place. He volunteers to travel to the
12:31
Speaker 1: plant and remotely pilot a ship that is there. Ripley
12:36
Speaker 1: and Neot try to get some sleep in the lab,
12:39
Speaker 1: but they wake up to realize that Burke has released
12:42
Speaker 1: the two face huggers into the room. Ripley manages to
12:46
Speaker 1: fight them off until she triggers the fire alarm, lording
12:49
Speaker 1: the Marines, who kill the face huggers. She tells the
12:53
Speaker 1: Marines that Burke intended to get her and Newt impregnated
12:59
Speaker 1: with the zen More and smuggle them past quarantine to
13:03
Speaker 1: get his hands on this by a weapon. Then the
13:07
Speaker 1: aliens attack. Burg is killed, Gorman and Vasquez sacrifice themselves,
13:13
Speaker 1: Hicks and Hudson are subdued, Noot is taken. Ripley gets Hicks,
13:18
Speaker 1: who is kind of her love interest, back to the ship,
13:22
Speaker 1: but goes back for Newt, armed at the flamethrower. As
13:26
Speaker 1: she ventures deeper into the depths of the alien's layer,
13:30
Speaker 1: there are so many eggs. She finds Neot, but in
13:34
Speaker 1: the process also discovers the alien queen, who has been
13:38
Speaker 1: birthing all of these eggs. Ripley lights them up and
13:43
Speaker 1: furiating the queen, and the pair make it to the
13:45
Speaker 1: drop ship just as the colony is obliterated via nuclear bomb. However,
13:50
Speaker 1: the alien queen made it on board, and now she
13:55
Speaker 1: is pissed. She tears Bishop in half and go for Newt,
14:01
Speaker 1: but Ripley suits up in an exo suit, which is
14:03
Speaker 1: sort of a big mech cargo loader machine people control. Again,
14:08
Speaker 1: Avatar has a very similar thing and says her iconic
14:12
Speaker 1: line get away from her. Battle ensues and the Queen
14:18
Speaker 1: is sucked out of the air lock while Bishop protects Newt. Newt, Hicks,
14:23
Speaker 1: Ripley and Bishop prepare for their return to Earth, and yeah,
14:28
Speaker 1: that's where it ends. And then in the third one,
14:38
Speaker 1: everything is reversed because they crash land on a prison planet,
14:48
Speaker 1: a Raypie prison planet, and turns out Bishop was battle
14:55
Speaker 1: along I guess and Newt and Hicks dye uh uh huh,
15:03
Speaker 1: well damn right at the beginning immediately.
15:06
Speaker 2: Why that, why would they go through all of that
15:08
Speaker 2: to kill them all? Was this James one too?
15:12
Speaker 1: You know who it was? Who was Josh Whedon. He
15:17
Speaker 1: wrote it, he didn't direct it. I can't remember who
15:19
Speaker 1: directed it. Uh. But also that one of the a
15:26
Speaker 1: dog gets infected by one of the face eckers. That's
15:31
Speaker 1: why I would never make you watch that. Yeah, that's
15:33
Speaker 1: a brutal it was a brutal scene. It was a
15:38
Speaker 1: long It lasted a while too. They really dragged it out.
15:42
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's so like if you say it ends there,
15:47
Speaker 1: that's a nice place to let you know.
15:49
Speaker 2: What would is part of this? Did she agree to this?
15:52
Speaker 1: Yeah? She's in that one, and she's in the next one, Resurrection,
15:56
Speaker 1: where she's a clone of herself, and Winona Ryder is
16:01
Speaker 1: her daughter.
16:03
Speaker 2: See I thought writer was Hicks, not Hicks. A Newt
16:07
Speaker 2: no grown up?
16:08
Speaker 1: Well damn oh no Newt dies. Also, the actress who
16:13
Speaker 1: played Newt didn't ever do anything else, and she became
16:17
Speaker 1: a teacher. But she still has a framed photo of
16:22
Speaker 1: her and Sigourney Weaver and I guess they still correspond
16:25
Speaker 1: every year.
16:26
Speaker 3: Oh it's nice, nice, nice.
16:41
Speaker 1: A couple of quick notes about this movie that I
16:43
Speaker 1: did mention I believe in are well. I'm no one
16:47
Speaker 1: of them. I mentioned in our Alien episode I'm not
16:51
Speaker 1: going to go too much in depth in here, but
16:54
Speaker 1: the movie implies that Lambert from the first one is
16:59
Speaker 1: trans because you can see her file and it just
17:05
Speaker 1: implies that she strands. And the woman who played Vasquez
17:09
Speaker 1: was not Hispanic but had Brazilian heritage. But I believe
17:13
Speaker 1: he used makeup to look darker skinned. So those two notes. Now,
17:21
Speaker 1: the themes, obviously motherhood one of the biggest. This is
17:27
Speaker 1: like a huge theme throughout Aliens the franchise, and this
17:32
Speaker 1: I would say it's a really it's even it goes
17:34
Speaker 1: bigger in this one. It really does. So in the
17:40
Speaker 1: first one you have kind of the you have the
17:43
Speaker 1: scene of Ripley in stasis and she's wearing all whites,
17:47
Speaker 1: and you have the cat, and it's very kind of
17:50
Speaker 1: like Virgin Mary imagery. In this one, you have that
17:56
Speaker 1: because of the way the movie starts, but then you
17:58
Speaker 1: also have another scene where her face like kind of
18:02
Speaker 1: transposes onto the Earth, and so it's very like Mother
18:06
Speaker 1: Earth imagery. We're going to get into obviously the big battle.
18:14
Speaker 1: But yes, so you there is this deleted scene where
18:20
Speaker 1: Ripley learns that her child had died while she was
18:23
Speaker 1: in stasis.
18:24
Speaker 2: Oh see, I watched the director's cut.
18:27
Speaker 1: Oh so it was in there.
18:28
Speaker 2: Yes, it wasn't there. I have a picture of her
18:31
Speaker 2: and everything.
18:32
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Her name's Rebecca.
18:34
Speaker 2: No, that's the other guy's name. Her real name is Rebecca.
18:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Oh, she's in the video game, but
18:44
Speaker 1: the video game was too scared to never pay attention
18:47
Speaker 1: to anything else. Yes, but so she has she had
18:50
Speaker 1: this daughter who died, and she's she's Ripley is going
18:55
Speaker 1: through a lot of trauma. Pts.
19:01
Speaker 2: Her name was Amanda.
19:02
Speaker 1: That's the other name. I was gonna say, I swear
19:05
Speaker 1: I didn't want to embarrass myself again.
19:12
Speaker 2: Keep going.
19:13
Speaker 1: Yes, so she you know, Ripley doesn't want to go
19:21
Speaker 1: to back to this place that cost her so much trauma.
19:25
Speaker 1: She agrees. Most people agree that she agreed to go
19:30
Speaker 1: because of compassion and not revenge, because she was worried
19:34
Speaker 1: about She asked like, how many people did you send there?
19:38
Speaker 1: At sixty seventy? And she was having these kind of
19:43
Speaker 1: nightmares about what happened in her experience. And I mean,
19:49
Speaker 1: I suppose you could say to her, fear is somebody else?
19:52
Speaker 1: Another big theory is, you know, closure, It's she wants closure.
19:57
Speaker 2: Well, she wants to know she killed them.
19:58
Speaker 1: She thought, yeah, exactly, that she's never gonna have a
20:02
Speaker 1: good night's rest until this chapter is closed. So when
20:09
Speaker 1: she meets Newts, and Newts is like a really like
20:14
Speaker 1: she's small, she's young, she's got like this dull heads,
20:19
Speaker 1: pretty creepy. But her friend, it's a moment for her
20:26
Speaker 1: to you know, I don't know I have this, ah,
20:33
Speaker 1: I can I can still protect someone. I can still
20:37
Speaker 1: save someone. And that became really really important to her
20:40
Speaker 1: because they had lost all these other colonists. Everybody else
20:44
Speaker 1: was dead, and now she's got this child. Another quote
20:48
Speaker 1: I found interesting about this is from Richard Schnicknell, and
20:52
Speaker 1: he wrote, alien is about survival. Aliens is about someone
20:55
Speaker 1: else's survival. So it becomes very import and to ripleate
21:01
Speaker 1: that Newt survives, like she goes in with that flame thrower.
21:06
Speaker 1: She promised Nute she wouldn't leave her behind, and she
21:10
Speaker 1: goes into the nest with all those eggs.
21:13
Speaker 2: With the way that the director's cut goes because I'm
21:18
Speaker 2: you're telling me, I guess I'm trying to remember what
21:21
Speaker 2: I saw versus the first time versus what I saw
21:24
Speaker 2: this time. With the director's cut because my partner was like,
21:27
Speaker 2: you need to watch the director's cut. So I was like, okay, okay,
21:30
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. Two and a half hours long
21:32
Speaker 2: I did for you and him. But it it makes
21:37
Speaker 2: it sound almost this is like I think watching it
21:40
Speaker 2: from this is awake, She's just got to replace her
21:42
Speaker 2: child that she lost, that she never got to raise
21:45
Speaker 2: with this child who eventually calls her mommy like, yes,
21:49
Speaker 2: you know that. I'm like, apparently you want to watch
21:52
Speaker 2: her die? Damn.
21:55
Speaker 1: Yes. Well I think that a lot about a bunch
22:00
Speaker 1: of media that I enjoy, including The Last of Us.
22:04
Speaker 1: That is a I think that's a common trop It is.
22:07
Speaker 2: Like replacing that child lost that child, well, let's replace it.
22:12
Speaker 2: I mean, to be fair, she's replacing our parents here
22:15
Speaker 2: as well, so like it's a mutual benefit. But it
22:20
Speaker 2: still seems kind of like uh okay.
22:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I I agree completely. I think that that,
22:30
Speaker 1: especially with all the trauma involved for both of them.
22:33
Speaker 1: I think that they reached out to each other wanting
22:38
Speaker 1: those kinds of bonds and needing those kinds of bond.
22:44
Speaker 1: But yeah, oh, I can't wait to talk more about that.
22:47
Speaker 1: But one of the other things. That's obviously a big thing,
22:56
Speaker 1: and we're going to break this down in a couple
22:58
Speaker 1: of points. But when Ripley comes in and saves Newt,
23:04
Speaker 1: she sees the alien queen, which that's new that she
23:09
Speaker 1: was not in the first one. This is a new thing,
23:12
Speaker 1: and she's huge, and she has an obvipositor to lay
23:16
Speaker 1: these eggs, and there are like adult aliens waiting to attack,
23:23
Speaker 1: and Ripley threatens the eggs with the flamethrower and it's like,
23:28
Speaker 1: you come near me, then I'm destroying these eggs, and
23:32
Speaker 1: they're backing out. They're backing out, and then one of
23:34
Speaker 1: the eggs opens, which implies that maybe if face Hugger
23:38
Speaker 1: is going to jump out and come for them, and
23:40
Speaker 1: that's when Ripley lights them on fire, the eggs, and
23:45
Speaker 1: that's when the queen gets really really mad, and so
23:50
Speaker 1: you kind of have this almost mirror of mothers trying
23:56
Speaker 1: to protect their well children.
23:58
Speaker 2: Weirdly, the way I've read that scene, and I think
24:01
Speaker 2: I may have missed something was it was almost I
24:03
Speaker 2: thought was a bargain, like the alien mom was bargaining with, Okay,
24:08
Speaker 2: you're here with your child, I see you. I'll let
24:11
Speaker 2: you live, I'll hold these off and you'll let my
24:15
Speaker 2: kids live and we'll be fine. But then it felt
24:17
Speaker 2: like I'm not gonna lie. Don't get me wrong, they
24:20
Speaker 2: needed to die, but I was kind of on the
24:22
Speaker 2: alien side of like it felt like Ripley went back
24:28
Speaker 2: on her bargain their agreement by killing all of them,
24:31
Speaker 2: all of them. I'm like, oh, that's it. Yeah, I'm
24:36
Speaker 2: just kinda say that that's what it felt like. Not
24:39
Speaker 2: that I want because they did some bad things obviously,
24:43
Speaker 2: but this moment of truth was like broken, and I
24:45
Speaker 2: feel like Ripley broken.
24:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to say if she
24:51
Speaker 1: would have done it. I don't know if the egg
24:54
Speaker 1: hadn't opened, right, I'm not sure she probably would have
24:58
Speaker 1: because I think she's trauma to and wanted to close
25:01
Speaker 1: that book.
25:02
Speaker 2: She was the one that wanted a nuke the entire thing,
25:06
Speaker 2: to be sure, she was this entire like calling me out.
25:11
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And we were going to get more into
25:13
Speaker 1: that actually in a second too. But the Queen Alien.
25:18
Speaker 1: One thing I found interesting when I was researching this
25:21
Speaker 1: is that she was designed to be overtly feminine. It's like, really,
25:28
Speaker 1: I guess, I mean I didn't really get that vibe,
25:33
Speaker 1: but sure, we're.
25:35
Speaker 2: The birthing part. I don't know if I would have
25:38
Speaker 2: thought it. I think it was insinuated because she was birthing. Yeah,
25:44
Speaker 2: but I don't know if I just saw it as
25:45
Speaker 2: a being like displayed that. I thought it was a feminine.
25:52
Speaker 1: And somebody was like, well, look at how small the
25:54
Speaker 1: arms are, and I'm like, what does that mean?
25:58
Speaker 2: Well, so this was this creature, like it reminds me
26:02
Speaker 2: of a giant ant a little bit. What is it? Like?
26:06
Speaker 2: What is it taken after? What is its model?
26:10
Speaker 3: Yeah?
26:11
Speaker 2: So maybe if we knew what the creatures were supposed
26:13
Speaker 2: to be after, like are they ants? Because there are
26:16
Speaker 2: ways of knowing the queen ants versus the lit ant,
26:19
Speaker 2: or to go, queen bee versus the little bee the
26:21
Speaker 2: Milby's is that yeah?
26:24
Speaker 1: Maybe? Yeah, Well they were as a species. They were
26:31
Speaker 1: designed as a hive mind. They do. She's the queen,
26:34
Speaker 1: she would be the queen bee, and she's sending out
26:39
Speaker 1: like instructions on what to do. I'm sure there's been
26:44
Speaker 1: other inspirations, but also over the years, as they've gone
26:49
Speaker 1: to several different directors and writers, the origin of the
26:54
Speaker 1: alien is a mystery because some of them are like,
26:57
Speaker 1: oh god, did it likely religious? Uh? And others are
27:03
Speaker 1: just like this is the perfect organism that evolution created.
27:07
Speaker 1: But they definitely have the hive mind aspect. They are
27:10
Speaker 1: also matriarchal.
27:11
Speaker 2: Okay, So my question was more of like the people
27:14
Speaker 2: who created for the movie, not necessarily you are away.
27:23
Speaker 1: Listen, you were in.
27:27
Speaker 2: Here as if this is real. I'm talking about the
27:31
Speaker 2: artists who created artists. What did they take it after?
27:37
Speaker 1: Oh? Well, the artists okay, well again see the first
27:42
Speaker 1: episode we did, but they were it was meant to
27:45
Speaker 1: be like a kind of a sexual horror.
27:50
Speaker 2: Right, So do they like create these off off of like,
27:54
Speaker 2: all right, we're gonna make the body parts from like
27:58
Speaker 2: these insects. With the insects it's with this giant uh
28:02
Speaker 2: you know whatever, because to me they look like insects
28:05
Speaker 2: that with the hard shells and it's just enlarged and
28:08
Speaker 2: can truly attack. Yeah, and you've seen like insects that
28:14
Speaker 2: will burrow and lay eggs under skin. So this is
28:17
Speaker 2: where my thought was. This that's what the creatives thought,
28:19
Speaker 2: not necessarily the real life implications behind all, Like I
28:24
Speaker 2: don't know how world implications in the world, But like,
28:32
Speaker 2: I wonder, that's not that so the creation behind that
28:36
Speaker 2: you're saying the theory within world, yes is that Okay,
28:44
Speaker 2: well okay, gotcha, But also also from the outside though.
28:48
Speaker 1: They were meant to be hive minds that exists in
28:53
Speaker 1: both both reality, both reality not reality and ass Yeah,
29:03
Speaker 1: but to be fair, the world of Alien is a
29:05
Speaker 1: mess yes, yes, real messy.
29:09
Speaker 2: I was just wondering, like how this creature was thought up?
29:14
Speaker 1: Yes, well Geiger, who's the artist who did design the
29:19
Speaker 1: original Alien, and like the ship and the planet they
29:26
Speaker 1: find them on, he was basing it off a painting.
29:32
Speaker 1: But all of it was very All of it was
29:37
Speaker 1: very abstract. I don't know that there was necessarily kind
29:42
Speaker 1: of a it was a vibe. I don't know that
29:46
Speaker 1: there was necessarily like an insect specifically, but it does
29:49
Speaker 1: have that. The look of it does have that. They
29:53
Speaker 1: but they were going for they were I sound like
29:57
Speaker 1: I'm being dragged off to the white room. They were
30:01
Speaker 1: designed to be, Like the phallic shape was purposeful, the
30:05
Speaker 1: vulva shape was purposeful. They I think they were They
30:10
Speaker 1: found things that scared people on insects and worms, like
30:14
Speaker 1: scuttling spider rings, those are scary people. They unnerve a
30:20
Speaker 1: lot of people.
30:21
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, are scary and the thought of them being
30:23
Speaker 2: giant is even scarier.
30:25
Speaker 1: Yes. I don't like anything that could lay eggs inside me.
30:30
Speaker 2: That makes me uncomfortable, right right, like anything made people
30:34
Speaker 2: and they just like spew out. Yeah, those are nightmares.
30:38
Speaker 1: They are they are uh speaking of nightmares, I actually
30:44
Speaker 1: find this scene quite funny. But I love the scene
30:49
Speaker 1: when the elevator door opens and the Queen Alien is there, like.
30:53
Speaker 2: Oh yes, the fact that she knew how to function
30:56
Speaker 2: in an elevator. This is the part that got me.
30:58
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what just the idea of her
31:01
Speaker 1: like Musach playing maybe in the back she goes up.
31:08
Speaker 1: I love that. Every time I watch this movie that
31:10
Speaker 1: gets me. I forget about it every time and then
31:13
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, she's getting on the elevator. Okay,
31:18
Speaker 1: all right. Their life cycle life cycle of the Xenomorph
31:35
Speaker 1: does involve rape and violent death. There's also a lot
31:40
Speaker 1: of messaging around how you can die during childbirth, and
31:47
Speaker 1: that is really underscored in a lot of these movies,
31:53
Speaker 1: and they do explore a lot of things like fertility, birth, abortion, rape.
31:58
Speaker 1: I think this one is much more about mother hood
32:01
Speaker 1: than those things, but throughout the series, those are big
32:05
Speaker 1: those are big things. I read in a few places
32:11
Speaker 1: that the motherhood aspect was an attempt to make Ripley
32:13
Speaker 1: more feminine so audiences wouldn't think she was a lesbian.
32:19
Speaker 1: Uh huh, And then that got me thinking about things
32:23
Speaker 1: like the Laught of Us again, because I was like,
32:24
Speaker 1: this is such a popular trope. I don't I don't
32:28
Speaker 1: think I would have thought she was a lesbian just
32:30
Speaker 1: because she didn't have like a kid. But anyway, I
32:35
Speaker 1: read that, so I believe it was probably true. Another
32:40
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to touch on is that there are
32:43
Speaker 1: some interpretations of you know, these white folks are coming
32:47
Speaker 1: into alien territory where the aliens are having a lot
32:52
Speaker 1: of babies, and there's fear around lack of resources and
32:56
Speaker 1: being outpaced, and they're mining the plan for resources. I
33:02
Speaker 1: think that I get the point of this argument. I
33:05
Speaker 1: think you could well actually to death the point of
33:08
Speaker 1: this argument, though, because the aliens aren't from LV four
33:12
Speaker 1: two six either, I suppose you could argue the aliens
33:17
Speaker 1: are colonizing the bodies of people as well. I'm not
33:21
Speaker 1: going to get into all the lore. But you could
33:23
Speaker 1: further argue that white men allowed for all of this
33:26
Speaker 1: that happened and planned for it to happen. Actually, but
33:31
Speaker 1: I did want to mention that some people have that take.
33:34
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from public books. But these wasp like
33:38
Speaker 1: goblin shark mouths, terrifying, parthenogenic bitches, as Ripley calls the
33:43
Speaker 1: mother alien are simply protecting their own and their world.
33:47
Speaker 1: They are putting a stop to resource driven colonialism. They
33:51
Speaker 1: are putting a stop to interplanetary capitalism. They are putting
33:55
Speaker 1: a stop to anthropost centrism. From this vantage, the alien
33:59
Speaker 1: mother is not the monster, but is herself the final girl,
34:03
Speaker 1: fighting back against the horrific, murderous predator that is mass
34:06
Speaker 1: industry and its singular manifestations interspecies predation and extraterrestrial colonialism.
34:14
Speaker 1: In a weird way, then Ripley, Newt, and the insect
34:17
Speaker 1: like aliens are all in the same boat. They are
34:21
Speaker 1: all trying to resist capitalistic violence. The ultimate monster in
34:25
Speaker 1: these films is the capitalist system that puts everyone, including
34:29
Speaker 1: not just the human settlers or Ripley and Newt, but
34:32
Speaker 1: also the aliens themselves, in harm's way. I like this
34:38
Speaker 1: because at the end, I'm going to talk more about
34:42
Speaker 1: some of my mixed feelings about Alien as how it's
34:46
Speaker 1: presented as a creature. But I do think capitalism is
34:51
Speaker 1: like the great horror of it that know, they don't care,
34:56
Speaker 1: they put their workers in harms way and do not care. Instead,
35:00
Speaker 1: they would rather make money off of a bio weapon
35:05
Speaker 1: that they don't understand and it's gonna kill more humans.
35:10
Speaker 1: But yes, yes, I like that quote. British writer and
35:14
Speaker 1: academic Richard Luckhurst said, even if Alien was a piece
35:18
Speaker 1: of leftist science fiction, the core of its myth could
35:21
Speaker 1: be inflected the other way. Cameron's Aliens would be a
35:25
Speaker 1: defiantly Reaganite version of the story, pumped militarized libertarian, driven
35:30
Speaker 1: by a staunch defense of the nuclear family. So I
35:34
Speaker 1: thought this was interesting because because if they did add
35:39
Speaker 1: in Newt to make her more feminine, then I do
35:44
Speaker 1: think there's a point here of like, yeah, you're still
35:46
Speaker 1: like it's got these themes that are pretty leftist, but
35:50
Speaker 1: in the end of the day, like she's.
35:52
Speaker 2: Her Her whole push is being a mother, m M,
35:56
Speaker 2: a protectic mother.
35:58
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, he did throw in a lot of military
36:04
Speaker 1: although I have to say they threw in a lot
36:07
Speaker 1: of military but they kind of got theirs kick right,
36:13
Speaker 1: Like they were portrayed as people who didn't know what
36:15
Speaker 1: they were doing and they didn't listen when she warned them.
36:18
Speaker 2: Also that she had to be the one that rescued
36:20
Speaker 2: them or she was the one that went back to
36:22
Speaker 2: get them.
36:23
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. One of my favorite lions is Hudson has
36:27
Speaker 1: a lot of good lines. He's the comedic yes relief.
36:31
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite lions is when he says,
36:34
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've kept up with current affairs,
36:36
Speaker 1: but we just got our kick man.
36:40
Speaker 2: I mean the infamous line game over man, game over.
36:43
Speaker 1: Oh, classic classic. He said he didn't realize he was
36:47
Speaker 1: the comic relief at first, and he kept trying to
36:49
Speaker 1: be too serious with it. He was like, this isn't working,
36:52
Speaker 1: and James Karen was like, no, because it's supposed to
36:55
Speaker 1: be a comedic and then he's like, oh cool, Oh
36:59
Speaker 1: I see, now I see. But yeah, they do have
37:03
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of like manly military talk that
37:06
Speaker 1: they do. They talk about like rescuing virgins, but yeahy
37:12
Speaker 1: they get there kicked yep. Trauma. Another big theme this
37:19
Speaker 1: movie was allegedly meant to mirror the Vietnam War. So
37:23
Speaker 1: you have that. As I said, there's the kind of
37:26
Speaker 1: idea of confronting trauma to get closure. There's the whole
37:31
Speaker 1: idea of why didn't you believe her? From the very beginning.
37:35
Speaker 1: Ripley is saying, I'm telling you, I've told you a
37:40
Speaker 1: million times, and they knew. That's kind of the frustrating
37:44
Speaker 1: at the end.
37:45
Speaker 2: They knew something was going on, but technically she'd been
37:47
Speaker 2: asleep for fifty something years and they'd already established the
37:50
Speaker 2: whole colony. Yes, so everything was okay for a minute.
37:55
Speaker 1: But I think Burke knew he was because he told
37:58
Speaker 1: them to investigate the negs, so he knew something.
38:01
Speaker 2: Was like, Oh, they're fine, it's not a big deal.
38:04
Speaker 2: They're not doing nothing.
38:06
Speaker 1: No, let's just go check it out.
38:08
Speaker 2: It just I do have the questions, like, why did
38:10
Speaker 2: it take fifty seven years for those aliens to do something?
38:13
Speaker 2: They just wait, I don't know how to wake up.
38:16
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think there are people there. So they came.
38:19
Speaker 1: I think they came twenty years after she her whole thing. Yeah,
38:24
Speaker 1: and then I guess they didn't stumble upon the eggs until.
38:28
Speaker 2: The Aliens didn't find them well.
38:31
Speaker 1: Because they were all in the eggs and I guess
38:32
Speaker 1: that you wait until you're your person, you're gonna face
38:36
Speaker 1: hug comes around, and then when they found that place,
38:42
Speaker 1: it just went downhill very quick. There was a lot
38:47
Speaker 1: at the time when this movie came out being written
38:50
Speaker 1: about this conversation we've had several times on this show
38:54
Speaker 1: about the strong female character and that she was a
38:57
Speaker 1: strong female character. As we said in our episode about
39:00
Speaker 1: Alien she was cast. It was a gender neutral casting
39:05
Speaker 1: call and they wanted whoever, and that's why her name,
39:11
Speaker 1: at least her last name was. Her first name is Ellen,
39:13
Speaker 1: but her is kind of gender neutral. But when this
39:17
Speaker 1: one came out, because she does handle a lot of weaponry,
39:21
Speaker 1: she does a lot of piloting, she does a lot
39:24
Speaker 1: of like I guess, traditionally maddenly stuff. At the time,
39:28
Speaker 1: she was compared to Rambo a lot. She was called Rambalina,
39:34
Speaker 1: and she did like Sigourney Weaver had to take. She
39:37
Speaker 1: did a lot of training about how to handle those weapons.
39:43
Speaker 1: It was notable that the character took command from the
39:47
Speaker 1: incompetent male leader at the time. He was just like
39:49
Speaker 1: completely foundering and she said in a way, another character
39:57
Speaker 1: Hudson Phil Paxton, yes, is the over man guy. He
40:02
Speaker 1: was a complete wreck. Her love interest listened to her
40:07
Speaker 1: and let her take the lead. And people do credit
40:11
Speaker 1: this character and this movie for opening the doors for
40:13
Speaker 1: independent female leads in the early nineties. So she was,
40:19
Speaker 1: she was had, she had an impact. James Cameron said
40:24
Speaker 1: at the time that male heroes were quote commercially overused,
40:28
Speaker 1: and it was mistakes since women more than eighty percent
40:30
Speaker 1: of the time decided if people would go see a
40:34
Speaker 1: movie and what movie it would be. And he also
40:38
Speaker 1: was like, it's fifty percent of the audience, so it
40:39
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Final big theme we've already touched on
40:45
Speaker 1: it several times is economics and companies selling you out
40:50
Speaker 1: and capitalism that is throughout the series. That is an element.
40:58
Speaker 1: I was gushing to Samantha the other day that NPR
41:02
Speaker 1: recently released some stuff about this, So if you want
41:05
Speaker 1: to look that up, you can. But it's just a
41:09
Speaker 1: lot of stuff about inequality, about the jobs you'll take
41:14
Speaker 1: because you need to live, and how that company that
41:20
Speaker 1: is employing you is hiding things from you could care
41:23
Speaker 1: less about. You will cover up your death all of
41:28
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. In this one. You also see
41:32
Speaker 1: more than you do in the first one, the military
41:36
Speaker 1: industrial complex and how that plays out with the company
41:42
Speaker 1: waylan U Tawni. Specifically, it is Ripley's skill set as
41:46
Speaker 1: a lower class worker that saves her because she kind
41:48
Speaker 1: of gets mocked for doing this cargo work in the beginning,
41:53
Speaker 1: but then that's how she kills Queen Alien. There's also
41:59
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff around tech. It is kind of funny.
42:03
Speaker 1: You can find a lot of memes about this. But
42:05
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny because these movies are older and
42:07
Speaker 1: they're supposed to take place in like twenty ninety nine, right,
42:10
Speaker 1: and so.
42:11
Speaker 2: You'll be like the analog the cameras are like actually
42:16
Speaker 2: attached to the head. I'm like, oh, they can even
42:18
Speaker 2: think about like glasses that we have now that major privacy.
42:24
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, also androids and art as Bishop will say,
42:30
Speaker 1: artificial humans is a big scene throughout and what is
42:35
Speaker 1: Oh sounds so deep, No, I don't I sound pretentious?
42:38
Speaker 1: What is humanity, Samantha. That is a big theme also
42:42
Speaker 1: in these movies with the androids, but also.
42:45
Speaker 2: Apparently the androids are bad, like you told me in
42:47
Speaker 2: the third movie that it's actually bad.
42:49
Speaker 1: Yes, and then oh my gosh, is it Prometheus. He's
42:54
Speaker 1: bad too, he was Groves. Yeah, they go back and
42:59
Speaker 1: forth about the android. It's I'm really bummed, ay reversed.
43:03
Speaker 1: I'm bummed they reverse the whole thing. But that bush,
43:05
Speaker 1: come on, come on now, unnecessary, unnecessary. And then all
43:12
Speaker 1: of this kind of brings me to Alien Earth, which
43:16
Speaker 1: is a show, is a news show, and it takes
43:21
Speaker 1: place in the No, it takes place in the future,
43:23
Speaker 1: but it's because it's made now. It feels more modern
43:27
Speaker 1: day technology feels more right. Yeah. I like that show,
43:33
Speaker 1: but it like hits too close to home, which I
43:35
Speaker 1: guess is the sign of a good show. But it's
43:38
Speaker 1: basically got Elon Musk one of the characters. Definitely, that's
43:42
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, and like another company and they're warring for
43:47
Speaker 1: who can do bio experiments with xenomorph. But they also
43:54
Speaker 1: have this project where they put the minds of dying
43:58
Speaker 1: children into adult androids. And it's unsettling, No, really unsettling,
44:07
Speaker 1: but one of the things it also features one of
44:09
Speaker 1: the things I personally dislike, And when I mentioned earlier,
44:15
Speaker 1: I have this kind of conflict around my thoughts around
44:20
Speaker 1: alien as a creature. I kind of feel like alien
44:23
Speaker 1: is alien, and there's nothing you can do to reason
44:26
Speaker 1: with alien. Alien's going to kill you, that's what they're
44:30
Speaker 1: gonna do. The Alien Queen maybe is a level above,
44:35
Speaker 1: but otherwise you see an alien. That's it. That's it.
44:41
Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes in movies, like in Jaws, like
44:44
Speaker 1: Jaws is Jaws, Jaws is going to kill you, and
44:48
Speaker 1: there's some kind of terrifying simplicity in that. But if
44:56
Speaker 1: you introduce things like alien Queen or Alien Earth, now
45:04
Speaker 1: you're telling me that maybe they're not just that. And
45:07
Speaker 1: so now I've got to be like, well, well then
45:10
Speaker 1: what's going on here?
45:12
Speaker 2: No?
45:12
Speaker 1: I have to sympathize the alien all the time, like
45:15
Speaker 1: what's going on? Because I feel like sometimes you do
45:18
Speaker 1: a good old movie where it's just Jaws's Jaws, and
45:20
Speaker 1: that's all we write. And that's how I've always kind
45:23
Speaker 1: of viewed alien. Alien Earth introduces, I guess I should
45:27
Speaker 1: say spoilers, it's very new, spoilers very quick. Alien Earth
45:33
Speaker 1: introduces an element where somebody can control the alien, and
45:36
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I don't think the alien can
45:38
Speaker 1: be controlled. I don't like that the alien can be
45:40
Speaker 1: controlled unless it's going to kill you, and that's the
45:44
Speaker 1: point of the story. But I don't think it is
45:46
Speaker 1: because I think she's supposed to be the one I
45:50
Speaker 1: think is the good guy. I don't really think that
45:53
Speaker 1: she is. But that's anyway, okay. But I mean, as
45:59
Speaker 1: we've been saying, Alien is complicated, they probably don't want
46:02
Speaker 1: an easy answer. But I have to say I was
46:05
Speaker 1: not happy, like, let Alien be Alien, don't tame Alien. Yeah,
46:11
Speaker 1: come on, come on now. I also like I like Romulus,
46:16
Speaker 1: which is the new movie. That one had a huge
46:21
Speaker 1: theme of like economic disparity, but it also had Isabella
46:26
Speaker 1: Mr said in it. I like that. But I think
46:29
Speaker 1: the android in that one was good. Pretty sure that's
46:33
Speaker 1: not a spoiler because I can't remember exactly.
46:37
Speaker 2: Fair.
46:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's my rambling mess of thoughts. I clearly
46:43
Speaker 1: have a lot of thoughts about Alien Aliens the franchise
46:48
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah. Yeah, and I would love to hear
46:52
Speaker 1: listeners if you have thoughts. Have you beat the game?
46:56
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah, Alien Isolation. I don't think I'll
47:04
Speaker 1: ever read it, but maybe maybe one day you can
47:09
Speaker 1: email us at Hello at stuff whenever told you dot
47:11
Speaker 1: com you can find us on Blue Skype moll Stuff
47:14
Speaker 1: podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I Never
47:16
Speaker 1: Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise
47:19
Speaker 1: at compurou and we have a buck you can get
47:20
Speaker 1: wherever you get here books. Thanks as always too our
47:23
Speaker 1: superduce Christina or executive Prusu, my Ander contributor Joey, Thank
47:26
Speaker 1: you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
47:28
Speaker 1: Told You production by Heart Radio. For more podcasts on
47:30
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, you can check out the heart Radio app.
47:32
Speaker 1: Have a podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows