Alien, Predator, AvP (news)

The first primary cause of failure of the op was Carter Burke's willful lack of intel to allow the USCM personnel to properly plan the mission's logistics, strategy and tactics (in that order of importance). The butter bar (Gorman) was the second primary cause of failure. He had eyes on everything in the APC's command center and froze at the moment of engagement. That mission was fucked before it started.

 

I never heard that term before.

 

Which one?

 

butter bar.

 

That's a reference to Gorman's rank. He's always referred to as "Lieutenant", but he seems to be wearing a Second Lieutenant (2LT) gold bar - horizontally for some odd reason - hence the (not flattering) nickname of "butter bar", whereas a First Lieutenant (1LT) wears a silver bar.

At the time of Aliens' release (1986), the Viet Nam War was still pretty fresh in most people's minds, having only ended 11 years before. Gulf War I in Kuwait hadn't happened yet and most war films at the time were steeped in Viet Nam-era tropes. Sgt Apone is cut from the same grizzled and no-nonsense NCO's cloth, spewing forth stereotypical military cliches, "every paycheck a fortune, every formation a parade", etc.

To my recollection, the average lifespan of a 2LT upon arriving in Nam was approximately 17 seconds once his boots left the Huey's skids. This is because they were generally fresh out of Officer Candidate School (OCS), were very book-smart, but also very field-stupid. Many of them thought that being an officer meant they were walking gods on earth and didn't need to listen to their senior NCO's who had already been there a while. That was Gorman. Burke is that CIA Air America guy who always hides the true agenda of what's going on, contributing to the downfall of the mission.

Aliens is basically a futuristic Viet Nam War flick. Just replace the bugs coming out of the ceilings with Viet-Cong irregulars popping out of their tunnels and there it is.

 

And usually they are fresh from the Academy officers who think they know everything and actually know only two things: jack and shit.

 

Precisely.

 

Gorman, incompetent or just really inexperienced? (or both)

 

Both. 2LT's, by definition, are inexperienced (unless you find one of those scant few who were promoted out of the senior NCO grades). The incompetence stems from Gorman's inability or unwillingness to introspectively recognize his shortcomings and listen to those who know what's really going on (another trait that emerges from inexperience - pure vapid ego without any skill to back it up).

 

That's one of the things I like best about the Alien(s) movies, each one teamed Ripley put Ripley together with a totally different group of characters, which allowed them to take a different approach to each movie.
I think there are a lot of franchises that would have just kept doing Aliens vs Marines for every other movie once the second was hit, but they actually didn't and changed things up each time.
A group of teenagers/young adults seems like a logical choice for the next group to me, but I'm assuming there will be no Ripley this time.

 

It would have been nice to have a team of naturalists aghast at Ridley wanting to kill xenomorphs. Not company types mind you.

One CBR page had a huge computer crisis come about—explaining why so many off worlders keep getting surprised by them.

 

Nobody would be that dumb or suicidal.

 

Yeah there would be. If you live long enough, you'll realize there's no end to the profound virulence of stupid. It can't ever be cured.

 

The "actions of a few"? You mean the actions of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Beast, Wonder Man, Wasp, Hank Pym, and Hawkeye, aka basically all of the big Avengers names, and people who should have known better? In Universe and out, Avengers #200 was an absolute travesty, and I've literally never tried to see anyone dismiss it like this.

Carol Danvers was brainwashed, raped, impregnated by her rapist, gave birth to her rapist, and not only did no Avenger have an issue with it, they then sent her off to another dimension to live with her brainwashing rapist-son. Its the single most fucked up thing ever published in the main Marvel universe, and Claremont bringing Carol Danvers back and having her confront the Avengers about that needed to happen.

 

Any real / up-to-date news on Alien: Romulus yet?

 

I have to ask: why "Romulus"?

 

Jolan tru!

 

George Carlin disagrees.

And he is right. So right...

 

It'd be Grizzly Man writ large.

 

I'm really glad that the Alien franchise didn't morph into a "Colonial Marines" franchise after the second film. That may be an unpopular opinion...but i'm one of the few who likes the way the franchise has turned out.