April 17, 2026 • 47 mins
In honor of Xenomorph Day, we're going back to our feminist movie roots and talking about the 1986 classic Aliens. We explore topics of motherhood, trauma and capitalism.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not good of stuff.
I never told you Production by Heart Radio, and today
we are returning to our roots, our feminist movie Friday
Roots anyway, and talking about Aliens, the nineteen eighty six
(00:28):
sequel to Alien, which we talked about in great detail,
and our first feminist maybe Friday. I was so excited
to do that. I will not forget that you were.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It was a long episode.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I remember it was quite long, and I had a
lot of discussion of art, imagery.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Symbolism, so many vaginas, apparently.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So many vaginas and phallic shapes. Yeah, so go listen
to that one, because we're not going to get into
that as much in this one. But it's still there.
It's still very much there. I have said it before
and I will say it again. I think every Alien movie,
whether it is good or not, has something interesting to
(01:12):
say about women, motherhood, babies, sexual assault, faith, and science.
So yes, I oh, well, we'll talk about that later,
but I think this might be the last one I
make you watch. Samantha. Well, we'll understand later. So we
(01:38):
are going to get into the themes, but we're not
going to get so much into the threatening sexuality and
set design and the ideas addressed around rape and impregnation.
So I guess content warning that that is a part
of these movies, but it is there, and see the
(02:03):
original see our original feminist movie Friday for more about that.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
We need to bring it back as a classic.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Maybe we have brought it back before. I guess we
could bring it back again, but that was coming out
at the same time as Roe v. Wade and stuff,
so that had a lot of interesting politics happening. And
actually this one, we're going to talk about some of
the politics happening when this one came out. April twenty
sixth is Xenomorph Day. Xenomorph is the name of the
(02:30):
fully grown alien because LV four two six is the
name of the moon where they find the aliens Alien
and then Aliens and the first one and the second one,
and yeah, the life cycle of the xenomorph is confusing.
(02:51):
You can look up some graphs of how it works,
but yeah, that's the one. The chest burster comes out
of your chest and then grows into the Xenomorph. This
movie does kind of relate to climate too, because they're terrorformers.
It went very wrong, but yes, and I guess happily
(03:12):
Happy Early Mother's Day. I this is what one of
the articles was titled, meant that when I was researching it,
Happy Mother's Day. Watch Aliens. So I have a lot
of memories about this movie. Some of them aren't mine,
I guess because one of my parents' first date was
(03:34):
to see the first one, and the story goes that
my dad panicked and threw his popcorn up in the air.
I cried the first time I watched Alien. I think
I'm mostly managed with Aliens. Longtime listeners know that my
older brother played a pretty mean prank on me when
I was quite young, and it basically that I was
(03:55):
being adopted by Aliens and it scared me really badly
and I couldn't even watch et. So it took a
while for me to manage to watch Alien and Aliens.
But now I love them and I don't know if
I've ever talked about this, but the game Alien Isolation
(04:16):
is from the viewpoint of Ripley's daughter, who, in a
deleted scene from Aliens, we learn had died while Ripley
was in stasis. But she's searching for her mom and
the ship has an alien on it, of course, but
(04:38):
it's like. It's widely known as one of the scariest
games ever made because the alien is it's an AI
that learns based on what the player does, and you
really don't have any weapons. You can hide, but the
alien will eventually figure out, Oh, you're just going to
hide over there. And it's the scariest thing. I've never
(04:59):
beat it. I can't do it, and it can hear you,
like if you make sounds. Oh no, it's so scary.
I only made it like a third of the way through. Yeah, yep.
And then I also went to the exhibit at the
movie in London. The Alien exhibit was quite scary as well,
(05:22):
but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. This was your first.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Time seeing it, right, No, I watched it with you.
I realized we all have watched it together because I
was like Bill Paxton, yes, and I remember watching him
thinking it was the first one, and then I realized, oh, no,
I've seen this because I also remember yelling you yelling
about Basquets the his entire time. You like to yell
(05:47):
things about movies and facts about these movies. I'm pretty
sure we watched it quickly after Alien, which you told
us about all the vaginas and then came into Aliens,
and you told me all about Basquez. Yeah, so I
do remember that.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, I'm not the easiest person to watch.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I love those facts, but that's how I remembered. Oh
I have seen this, because of course I think I
thought I didn't actually with you.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yes, oh, well that does sound like me, because I
feel like it's hard for me to watch Alien and
not Aliens. I don't have to go to the rest
of them like I have to do with some other series.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, but Alien and Aliens, I kind of it's hard
for me. Yeah, but they are very different to me.
I think they're very different. Aliens was directed by James
Cameron and is yes, distinctly different in my opinion, from
the first one, which was directed by Ridley Scott. The
first one is much more like a slow burn horror,
(06:49):
and this one is an action movie complete with marines.
I can kind of see the hints of Avatar peaking in.
There's a lot of stuff that was like, oh yeah,
that ended up in Avatar. Sigourney Weaver reprises her role
as Ripley. Even though the first film was a success,
some lawsuits and general lack of faith from higher ups
(07:11):
stalled it. So the first one came out in nineteen
seventy nine. This one came out in nineteen eighty six.
It took them some time. At the time, James Cameron
was relatively inexperienced. I read that in a lot of places,
but of rereading his resume before and it's like, seems
like he had some experience, but okay, okay, relatively inexperience.
(07:31):
There was a lot of conflict on set, mostly because
of the very tight filming schedule, but in an end,
the film was a critical and commercial success, and the
discussion of sequels that equal or better at the predecessor
it often comes up. I personally think it's up to
my mood as to which one I think is better.
(07:52):
They're pretty different. I think they're just pretty different. So like,
do I want to see a space marine action movie today?
Or do I want to see like a slow obernharm movie.
And yes, as I said in our recent fan fiction
episode a Happy Hour, I think this is a recurse
of fan fiction. You can find me about it. I
don't care. But this is basically he saw something he
(08:13):
liked and was like, what if this happened? And did
something completely different than the first one. So let's get
into the plot first. Off baseline, these movies take place
far in the future, and the characters in the first
one and other ones work for Wayland Utani, which is
(08:34):
a company produced by a merger between American and Japanese companies.
Their leadership continually proves that they do not care for
their workers, and one of them has interesting ideas shall
we say when it comes to humanity and faith in God.
That's exported in later films, but in the first one,
the android and android programmed to act as a human
(09:00):
is more worried about procuring a biological weapon, the Xenomorph first,
and was placed there by the company. Ripley finds his
orders and it's like secure the number one, Secure the Xenomorph,
number two. Everybody else is expendable. If you remember the
end of Alien, Ripley was the only survivor along with
(09:21):
Jonesy the Cat after a Xenomorph was brought on board
the ship Nostromo against her orders and she put herself
in stasis. After killing the Xenomorph, she's found by a
salvage crew. Fifty seven years later, the Wayland Utawanni company
execs holler in for questioning, and they do not believe
(09:42):
her claim about the alien or the eggs because they're
asking her about LV four two six and she's saying
they live like thousands of eggs and they're like, no way.
But it turns out they do have some concerns because
they have lost contact with the terraformers they sent to
LV four two and yes, that's the planet she encountered
(10:03):
the xenomorph and she immediately is like, you fools, they're dead,
and they still they are like, will you come with
us and a crew of space Marines and check out
the situation. At first, she refuses, but eventually decides to
go under guarantee that they will kill the xenomorphs. That
is what they're going to do. They promise her that
(10:26):
they will, and so she goes with the crew of
Space Marines and their android Bishop, whom she distressed because
of her previous experience. When they arrive, the place has
clearly been through it. They find two live face huggers
and these are the creepy spider like ones that attach
to your face and insert their eggs inside of you
(10:49):
to burst out of your chest, and one survivor a
young traumatized girl named Newt. They track the other colonist
signal to a central station and find that the whole
place is covered in alien goop, and they also find
(11:09):
a bunch of dead face huggers colonists unresponsive and cocoon.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
To the wall.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
A chest burster burst out of one of them, and
the Marines kill it. Problem though, turns out there were
a lot of adult aliens nearby, and they capture or
kill a big chunk of their team. The leader completely
panics and Ripley takes over, using their armored vehicle to
(11:38):
get to the Marines because she hadn't gone with them.
The leader hadn't gone with them either. An alien kills
the drop ship rescue pilots, leaving them all in a
pretty dire situation because that was their way out. Desperate,
the team barricades themselves in one of the colony structures,
(11:58):
and then a lot of things happen really quickly. Ripley
learns Burke, who has been her sort of corporate envoy.
He's the one who promised her that they would destroy
the xenomorphs if they found them. Ordered the colonists to
investigate the alien eggs for potential profit he could have
made in the biological weapon sector. Bishop reveals that basically
(12:24):
a power plant is melting down and is going to
destroy the whole place. He volunteers to travel to the
plant and remotely pilot a ship that is there. Ripley
and Neot try to get some sleep in the lab,
but they wake up to realize that Burke has released
the two face huggers into the room. Ripley manages to
(12:46):
fight them off until she triggers the fire alarm, lording
the Marines, who kill the face huggers. She tells the
Marines that Burke intended to get her and Newt impregnated
with the zen More and smuggle them past quarantine to
get his hands on this by a weapon. Then the
(13:07):
aliens attack. Burg is killed, Gorman and Vasquez sacrifice themselves,
Hicks and Hudson are subdued, Noot is taken. Ripley gets Hicks,
who is kind of her love interest, back to the ship,
but goes back for Newt, armed at the flamethrower. As
she ventures deeper into the depths of the alien's layer,
(13:30):
there are so many eggs. She finds Neot, but in
the process also discovers the alien queen, who has been
birthing all of these eggs. Ripley lights them up and
furiating the queen, and the pair make it to the
drop ship just as the colony is obliterated via nuclear bomb. However,
(13:50):
the alien queen made it on board, and now she
is pissed. She tears Bishop in half and go for Newt,
but Ripley suits up in an exo suit, which is
sort of a big mech cargo loader machine people control. Again,
Avatar has a very similar thing and says her iconic
(14:12):
line get away from her. Battle ensues and the Queen
is sucked out of the air lock while Bishop protects Newt. Newt, Hicks,
Ripley and Bishop prepare for their return to Earth, and yeah,
that's where it ends. And then in the third one,
(14:38):
everything is reversed because they crash land on a prison planet,
a Raypie prison planet, and turns out Bishop was battle
along I guess and Newt and Hicks dye uh uh huh,
(15:03):
well damn right at the beginning immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Why that, why would they go through all of that
to kill them all? Was this James one too?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know who it was? Who was Josh Whedon. He
wrote it, he didn't direct it. I can't remember who
directed it. Uh. But also that one of the a
dog gets infected by one of the face eckers. That's
why I would never make you watch that. Yeah, that's
(15:33):
a brutal it was a brutal scene. It was a
long It lasted a while too. They really dragged it out.
But anyway, it's so like if you say it ends there,
that's a nice place to let you know.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
What would is part of this? Did she agree to this?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah? She's in that one, and she's in the next one, Resurrection,
where she's a clone of herself, and Winona Ryder is
her daughter.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
See I thought writer was Hicks, not Hicks. A Newt
no grown up?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Well damn oh no Newt dies. Also, the actress who
played Newt didn't ever do anything else, and she became
a teacher. But she still has a framed photo of
her and Sigourney Weaver and I guess they still correspond
every year.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Oh it's nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
A couple of quick notes about this movie that I
did mention I believe in are well. I'm no one
of them. I mentioned in our Alien episode I'm not
going to go too much in depth in here, but
the movie implies that Lambert from the first one is
trans because you can see her file and it just
(17:05):
implies that she strands. And the woman who played Vasquez
was not Hispanic but had Brazilian heritage. But I believe
he used makeup to look darker skinned. So those two notes. Now,
the themes, obviously motherhood one of the biggest. This is
(17:27):
like a huge theme throughout Aliens the franchise, and this
I would say it's a really it's even it goes
bigger in this one. It really does. So in the
first one you have kind of the you have the
scene of Ripley in stasis and she's wearing all whites,
(17:47):
and you have the cat, and it's very kind of
like Virgin Mary imagery. In this one, you have that
because of the way the movie starts, but then you
also have another scene where her face like kind of
transposes onto the Earth, and so it's very like Mother
Earth imagery. We're going to get into obviously the big battle.
(18:14):
But yes, so you there is this deleted scene where
Ripley learns that her child had died while she was
in stasis.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Oh see, I watched the director's cut.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Oh so it was in there.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yes, it wasn't there. I have a picture of her
and everything.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Oh my goodness. Her name's Rebecca.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, that's the other guy's name. Her real name is Rebecca.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, that's right. Oh, she's in the video game, but
the video game was too scared to never pay attention
to anything else. Yes, but so she has she had
this daughter who died, and she's she's Ripley is going
through a lot of trauma. Pts.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Her name was Amanda.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's the other name. I was gonna say, I swear
I didn't want to embarrass myself again.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Keep going.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, so she you know, Ripley doesn't want to go
to back to this place that cost her so much trauma.
She agrees. Most people agree that she agreed to go
because of compassion and not revenge, because she was worried
(19:34):
about She asked like, how many people did you send there?
At sixty seventy? And she was having these kind of
nightmares about what happened in her experience. And I mean,
I suppose you could say to her, fear is somebody else?
Another big theory is, you know, closure, It's she wants closure.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, she wants to know she killed them.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
She thought, yeah, exactly, that she's never gonna have a
good night's rest until this chapter is closed. So when
she meets Newts, and Newts is like a really like
she's small, she's young, she's got like this dull heads,
(20:19):
pretty creepy. But her friend, it's a moment for her
to you know, I don't know I have this, ah,
I can I can still protect someone. I can still
save someone. And that became really really important to her
(20:40):
because they had lost all these other colonists. Everybody else
was dead, and now she's got this child. Another quote
I found interesting about this is from Richard Schnicknell, and
he wrote, alien is about survival. Aliens is about someone
else's survival. So it becomes very import and to ripleate
(21:01):
that Newt survives, like she goes in with that flame thrower.
She promised Nute she wouldn't leave her behind, and she
goes into the nest with all those eggs.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
With the way that the director's cut goes because I'm
you're telling me, I guess I'm trying to remember what
I saw versus the first time versus what I saw
this time. With the director's cut because my partner was like,
you need to watch the director's cut. So I was like, okay, okay,
I'm gonna do it. Two and a half hours long
I did for you and him. But it it makes
(21:37):
it sound almost this is like I think watching it
from this is awake, She's just got to replace her
child that she lost, that she never got to raise
with this child who eventually calls her mommy like, yes,
you know that. I'm like, apparently you want to watch
her die? Damn.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yes. Well I think that a lot about a bunch
of media that I enjoy, including The Last of Us.
That is a I think that's a common trop It is.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Like replacing that child lost that child, well, let's replace it.
I mean, to be fair, she's replacing our parents here
as well, so like it's a mutual benefit. But it
still seems kind of like uh okay.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, yeah, no, I I agree completely. I think that that,
especially with all the trauma involved for both of them.
I think that they reached out to each other wanting
those kinds of bonds and needing those kinds of bond.
(22:44):
But yeah, oh, I can't wait to talk more about that.
But one of the other things. That's obviously a big thing,
and we're going to break this down in a couple
of points. But when Ripley comes in and saves Newt,
(23:04):
she sees the alien queen, which that's new that she
was not in the first one. This is a new thing,
and she's huge, and she has an obvipositor to lay
these eggs, and there are like adult aliens waiting to attack,
and Ripley threatens the eggs with the flamethrower and it's like,
(23:28):
you come near me, then I'm destroying these eggs, and
they're backing out. They're backing out, and then one of
the eggs opens, which implies that maybe if face Hugger
is going to jump out and come for them, and
that's when Ripley lights them on fire, the eggs, and
that's when the queen gets really really mad, and so
(23:50):
you kind of have this almost mirror of mothers trying
to protect their well children.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Weirdly, the way I've read that scene, and I think
I may have missed something was it was almost I
thought was a bargain, like the alien mom was bargaining with, Okay,
you're here with your child, I see you. I'll let
you live, I'll hold these off and you'll let my
kids live and we'll be fine. But then it felt
like I'm not gonna lie. Don't get me wrong, they
(24:20):
needed to die, but I was kind of on the
alien side of like it felt like Ripley went back
on her bargain their agreement by killing all of them,
all of them. I'm like, oh, that's it. Yeah, I'm
just kinda say that that's what it felt like. Not
that I want because they did some bad things obviously,
(24:43):
but this moment of truth was like broken, and I
feel like Ripley broken.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to say if she
would have done it. I don't know if the egg
hadn't opened, right, I'm not sure she probably would have
because I think she's trauma to and wanted to close
that book.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
She was the one that wanted a nuke the entire thing,
to be sure, she was this entire like calling me out.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yes, yes, And we were going to get more into
that actually in a second too. But the Queen Alien.
One thing I found interesting when I was researching this
is that she was designed to be overtly feminine. It's like, really,
I guess, I mean I didn't really get that vibe,
(25:33):
but sure, we're.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
The birthing part. I don't know if I would have
thought it. I think it was insinuated because she was birthing. Yeah,
but I don't know if I just saw it as
a being like displayed that. I thought it was a feminine.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
And somebody was like, well, look at how small the
arms are, and I'm like, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, so this was this creature, like it reminds me
of a giant ant a little bit. What is it? Like?
What is it taken after? What is its model?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So maybe if we knew what the creatures were supposed
to be after, like are they ants? Because there are
ways of knowing the queen ants versus the lit ant,
or to go, queen bee versus the little bee the
Milby's is that yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Maybe? Yeah, Well they were as a species. They were
designed as a hive mind. They do. She's the queen,
she would be the queen bee, and she's sending out
like instructions on what to do. I'm sure there's been
(26:44):
other inspirations, but also over the years, as they've gone
to several different directors and writers, the origin of the
alien is a mystery because some of them are like,
oh god, did it likely religious? Uh? And others are
just like this is the perfect organism that evolution created.
(27:07):
But they definitely have the hive mind aspect. They are
also matriarchal.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Okay, So my question was more of like the people
who created for the movie, not necessarily you are away.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Listen, you were in.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Here as if this is real. I'm talking about the
artists who created artists. What did they take it after?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Oh? Well, the artists okay, well again see the first
episode we did, but they were it was meant to
be like a kind of a sexual horror.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Right, So do they like create these off off of like,
all right, we're gonna make the body parts from like
these insects. With the insects it's with this giant uh
you know whatever, because to me they look like insects
that with the hard shells and it's just enlarged and
can truly attack. Yeah, and you've seen like insects that
(28:14):
will burrow and lay eggs under skin. So this is
where my thought was. This that's what the creatives thought,
not necessarily the real life implications behind all, Like I
don't know how world implications in the world, But like,
I wonder, that's not that so the creation behind that
(28:36):
you're saying the theory within world, yes is that Okay,
well okay, gotcha, But also also from the outside though.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
They were meant to be hive minds that exists in
both both reality, both reality not reality and ass Yeah,
but to be fair, the world of Alien is a
mess yes, yes, real messy.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I was just wondering, like how this creature was thought up?
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yes, well Geiger, who's the artist who did design the
original Alien, and like the ship and the planet they
find them on, he was basing it off a painting.
But all of it was very All of it was
(29:37):
very abstract. I don't know that there was necessarily kind
of a it was a vibe. I don't know that
there was necessarily like an insect specifically, but it does
have that. The look of it does have that. They
but they were going for they were I sound like
(29:57):
I'm being dragged off to the white room. They were
designed to be, Like the phallic shape was purposeful, the
vulva shape was purposeful. They I think they were They
found things that scared people on insects and worms, like
scuttling spider rings, those are scary people. They unnerve a
(30:20):
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right, Yes, are scary and the thought of them being
giant is even scarier.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yes. I don't like anything that could lay eggs inside me.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
That makes me uncomfortable, right right, like anything made people
and they just like spew out. Yeah, those are nightmares.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
They are they are uh speaking of nightmares, I actually
find this scene quite funny. But I love the scene
when the elevator door opens and the Queen Alien is there, like.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Oh yes, the fact that she knew how to function
in an elevator. This is the part that got me.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I was like, wait, what just the idea of her
like Musach playing maybe in the back she goes up.
I love that. Every time I watch this movie that
gets me. I forget about it every time and then
I'm like, oh my gosh, she's getting on the elevator. Okay,
all right. Their life cycle life cycle of the Xenomorph
(31:35):
does involve rape and violent death. There's also a lot
of messaging around how you can die during childbirth, and
that is really underscored in a lot of these movies,
and they do explore a lot of things like fertility, birth, abortion, rape.
(31:58):
I think this one is much more about mother hood
than those things, but throughout the series, those are big
those are big things. I read in a few places
that the motherhood aspect was an attempt to make Ripley
more feminine so audiences wouldn't think she was a lesbian.
(32:19):
Uh huh, And then that got me thinking about things
like the Laught of Us again, because I was like,
this is such a popular trope. I don't I don't
think I would have thought she was a lesbian just
because she didn't have like a kid. But anyway, I
read that, so I believe it was probably true. Another
(32:40):
thing I wanted to touch on is that there are
some interpretations of you know, these white folks are coming
into alien territory where the aliens are having a lot
of babies, and there's fear around lack of resources and
being outpaced, and they're mining the plan for resources. I
(33:02):
think that I get the point of this argument. I
think you could well actually to death the point of
this argument, though, because the aliens aren't from LV four
two six either, I suppose you could argue the aliens
are colonizing the bodies of people as well. I'm not
going to get into all the lore. But you could
(33:23):
further argue that white men allowed for all of this
that happened and planned for it to happen. Actually, but
I did want to mention that some people have that take.
Here's a quote from public books. But these wasp like
goblin shark mouths, terrifying, parthenogenic bitches, as Ripley calls the
(33:43):
mother alien are simply protecting their own and their world.
They are putting a stop to resource driven colonialism. They
are putting a stop to interplanetary capitalism. They are putting
a stop to anthropost centrism. From this vantage, the alien
mother is not the monster, but is herself the final girl,
fighting back against the horrific, murderous predator that is mass
(34:06):
industry and its singular manifestations interspecies predation and extraterrestrial colonialism.
In a weird way, then Ripley, Newt, and the insect
like aliens are all in the same boat. They are
all trying to resist capitalistic violence. The ultimate monster in
these films is the capitalist system that puts everyone, including
(34:29):
not just the human settlers or Ripley and Newt, but
also the aliens themselves, in harm's way. I like this
because at the end, I'm going to talk more about
some of my mixed feelings about Alien as how it's
presented as a creature. But I do think capitalism is
(34:51):
like the great horror of it that know, they don't care,
they put their workers in harms way and do not care. Instead,
they would rather make money off of a bio weapon
that they don't understand and it's gonna kill more humans.
But yes, yes, I like that quote. British writer and
(35:14):
academic Richard Luckhurst said, even if Alien was a piece
of leftist science fiction, the core of its myth could
be inflected the other way. Cameron's Aliens would be a
defiantly Reaganite version of the story, pumped militarized libertarian, driven
by a staunch defense of the nuclear family. So I
(35:34):
thought this was interesting because because if they did add
in Newt to make her more feminine, then I do
think there's a point here of like, yeah, you're still
like it's got these themes that are pretty leftist, but
in the end of the day, like she's.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Her Her whole push is being a mother, m M,
a protectic mother.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yes, yes, he did throw in a lot of military
although I have to say they threw in a lot
of military but they kind of got theirs kick right,
Like they were portrayed as people who didn't know what
they were doing and they didn't listen when she warned them.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Also that she had to be the one that rescued
them or she was the one that went back to
get them.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yes. Yes. One of my favorite lions is Hudson has
a lot of good lines. He's the comedic yes relief.
And one of my favorite lions is when he says,
I don't know if you've kept up with current affairs,
but we just got our kick man.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I mean the infamous line game over man, game over.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Oh, classic classic. He said he didn't realize he was
the comic relief at first, and he kept trying to
be too serious with it. He was like, this isn't working,
and James Karen was like, no, because it's supposed to
be a comedic and then he's like, oh cool, Oh
I see, now I see. But yeah, they do have
like there's a lot of like manly military talk that
(37:06):
they do. They talk about like rescuing virgins, but yeahy
they get there kicked yep. Trauma. Another big theme this
movie was allegedly meant to mirror the Vietnam War. So
you have that. As I said, there's the kind of
idea of confronting trauma to get closure. There's the whole
(37:31):
idea of why didn't you believe her? From the very beginning.
Ripley is saying, I'm telling you, I've told you a
million times, and they knew. That's kind of the frustrating
at the end.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
They knew something was going on, but technically she'd been
asleep for fifty something years and they'd already established the
whole colony. Yes, so everything was okay for a minute.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
But I think Burke knew he was because he told
them to investigate the negs, so he knew something.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Was like, Oh, they're fine, it's not a big deal.
They're not doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
No, let's just go check it out.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It just I do have the questions, like, why did
it take fifty seven years for those aliens to do something?
They just wait, I don't know how to wake up.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Oh, I don't think there are people there. So they came.
I think they came twenty years after she her whole thing. Yeah,
and then I guess they didn't stumble upon the eggs until.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
The Aliens didn't find them well.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Because they were all in the eggs and I guess
that you wait until you're your person, you're gonna face
hug comes around, and then when they found that place,
it just went downhill very quick. There was a lot
at the time when this movie came out being written
about this conversation we've had several times on this show
(38:54):
about the strong female character and that she was a
strong female character. As we said in our episode about
Alien she was cast. It was a gender neutral casting
call and they wanted whoever, and that's why her name,
at least her last name was. Her first name is Ellen,
but her is kind of gender neutral. But when this
(39:17):
one came out, because she does handle a lot of weaponry,
she does a lot of piloting, she does a lot
of like I guess, traditionally maddenly stuff. At the time,
she was compared to Rambo a lot. She was called Rambalina,
and she did like Sigourney Weaver had to take. She
(39:37):
did a lot of training about how to handle those weapons.
It was notable that the character took command from the
incompetent male leader at the time. He was just like
completely foundering and she said in a way, another character
Hudson Phil Paxton, yes, is the over man guy. He
(40:02):
was a complete wreck. Her love interest listened to her
and let her take the lead. And people do credit
this character and this movie for opening the doors for
independent female leads in the early nineties. So she was,
she was had, she had an impact. James Cameron said
(40:24):
at the time that male heroes were quote commercially overused,
and it was mistakes since women more than eighty percent
of the time decided if people would go see a
movie and what movie it would be. And he also
was like, it's fifty percent of the audience, so it
doesn't make sense. Final big theme we've already touched on
(40:45):
it several times is economics and companies selling you out
and capitalism that is throughout the series. That is an element.
I was gushing to Samantha the other day that NPR
recently released some stuff about this, So if you want
(41:05):
to look that up, you can. But it's just a
lot of stuff about inequality, about the jobs you'll take
because you need to live, and how that company that
is employing you is hiding things from you could care
less about. You will cover up your death all of
(41:28):
that kind of stuff. In this one. You also see
more than you do in the first one, the military
industrial complex and how that plays out with the company
waylan U Tawni. Specifically, it is Ripley's skill set as
a lower class worker that saves her because she kind
(41:48):
of gets mocked for doing this cargo work in the beginning,
but then that's how she kills Queen Alien. There's also
a lot of stuff around tech. It is kind of funny.
You can find a lot of memes about this. But
it's kind of funny because these movies are older and
they're supposed to take place in like twenty ninety nine, right,
(42:10):
and so.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
You'll be like the analog the cameras are like actually
attached to the head. I'm like, oh, they can even
think about like glasses that we have now that major privacy.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yes, yes, also androids and art as Bishop will say,
artificial humans is a big scene throughout and what is
Oh sounds so deep, No, I don't I sound pretentious?
What is humanity, Samantha. That is a big theme also
in these movies with the androids, but also.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Apparently the androids are bad, like you told me in
the third movie that it's actually bad.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yes, and then oh my gosh, is it Prometheus. He's
bad too, he was Groves. Yeah, they go back and
forth about the android. It's I'm really bummed, ay reversed.
I'm bummed they reverse the whole thing. But that bush,
come on, come on now, unnecessary, unnecessary. And then all
(43:12):
of this kind of brings me to Alien Earth, which
is a show, is a news show, and it takes
place in the No, it takes place in the future,
but it's because it's made now. It feels more modern
day technology feels more right. Yeah. I like that show,
(43:33):
but it like hits too close to home, which I
guess is the sign of a good show. But it's
basically got Elon Musk one of the characters. Definitely, that's
Elon Musk, and like another company and they're warring for
who can do bio experiments with xenomorph. But they also
(43:54):
have this project where they put the minds of dying
children into adult androids. And it's unsettling, No, really unsettling,
but one of the things it also features one of
the things I personally dislike, And when I mentioned earlier,
(44:15):
I have this kind of conflict around my thoughts around
alien as a creature. I kind of feel like alien
is alien, and there's nothing you can do to reason
with alien. Alien's going to kill you, that's what they're
gonna do. The Alien Queen maybe is a level above,
but otherwise you see an alien. That's it. That's it.
(44:41):
And you know, sometimes in movies, like in Jaws, like
Jaws is Jaws, Jaws is going to kill you, and
there's some kind of terrifying simplicity in that. But if
you introduce things like alien Queen or Alien Earth, now
(45:04):
you're telling me that maybe they're not just that. And
so now I've got to be like, well, well then
what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (45:12):
No?
Speaker 1 (45:12):
I have to sympathize the alien all the time, like
what's going on? Because I feel like sometimes you do
a good old movie where it's just Jaws's Jaws, and
that's all we write. And that's how I've always kind
of viewed alien. Alien Earth introduces, I guess I should
say spoilers, it's very new, spoilers very quick. Alien Earth
(45:33):
introduces an element where somebody can control the alien, and
I don't like it. I don't think the alien can
be controlled. I don't like that the alien can be
controlled unless it's going to kill you, and that's the
point of the story. But I don't think it is
because I think she's supposed to be the one I
think is the good guy. I don't really think that
(45:53):
she is. But that's anyway, okay. But I mean, as
we've been saying, Alien is complicated, they probably don't want
an easy answer. But I have to say I was
not happy, like, let Alien be Alien, don't tame Alien. Yeah,
come on, come on now. I also like I like Romulus,
(46:16):
which is the new movie. That one had a huge
theme of like economic disparity, but it also had Isabella
Mr said in it. I like that. But I think
the android in that one was good. Pretty sure that's
not a spoiler because I can't remember exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Fair.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, so that's my rambling mess of thoughts. I clearly
have a lot of thoughts about Alien Aliens the franchise
in general. Yeah. Yeah, and I would love to hear
listeners if you have thoughts. Have you beat the game?
Oh my gosh, yeah, Alien Isolation. I don't think I'll
(47:04):
ever read it, but maybe maybe one day you can
email us at Hello at stuff whenever told you dot
com you can find us on Blue Skype moll Stuff
podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I Never
Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise
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wherever you get here books. Thanks as always too our
superduce Christina or executive Prusu, my Ander contributor Joey, Thank
(47:26):
you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
Told You production by Heart Radio. For more podcasts on
my heart Radio, you can check out the heart Radio app.
Have a podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not good of stuff.
I never told you Production by Heart Radio, and today
we are returning to our roots, our feminist movie Friday
Roots anyway, and talking about Aliens, the nineteen eighty six
(00:28):
sequel to Alien, which we talked about in great detail,
and our first feminist maybe Friday. I was so excited
to do that. I will not forget that you were.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It was a long episode.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I remember it was quite long, and I had a
lot of discussion of art, imagery.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Symbolism, so many vaginas, apparently.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So many vaginas and phallic shapes. Yeah, so go listen
to that one, because we're not going to get into
that as much in this one. But it's still there.
It's still very much there. I have said it before
and I will say it again. I think every Alien movie,
whether it is good or not, has something interesting to
(01:12):
say about women, motherhood, babies, sexual assault, faith, and science.
So yes, I oh, well, we'll talk about that later,
but I think this might be the last one I
make you watch. Samantha. Well, we'll understand later. So we
(01:38):
are going to get into the themes, but we're not
going to get so much into the threatening sexuality and
set design and the ideas addressed around rape and impregnation.
So I guess content warning that that is a part
of these movies, but it is there, and see the
(02:03):
original see our original feminist movie Friday for more about that.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
We need to bring it back as a classic.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Maybe we have brought it back before. I guess we
could bring it back again, but that was coming out
at the same time as Roe v. Wade and stuff,
so that had a lot of interesting politics happening. And
actually this one, we're going to talk about some of
the politics happening when this one came out. April twenty
sixth is Xenomorph Day. Xenomorph is the name of the
(02:30):
fully grown alien because LV four two six is the
name of the moon where they find the aliens Alien
and then Aliens and the first one and the second one,
and yeah, the life cycle of the xenomorph is confusing.
(02:51):
You can look up some graphs of how it works,
but yeah, that's the one. The chest burster comes out
of your chest and then grows into the Xenomorph. This
movie does kind of relate to climate too, because they're terrorformers.
It went very wrong, but yes, and I guess happily
(03:12):
Happy Early Mother's Day. I this is what one of
the articles was titled, meant that when I was researching it,
Happy Mother's Day. Watch Aliens. So I have a lot
of memories about this movie. Some of them aren't mine,
I guess because one of my parents' first date was
(03:34):
to see the first one, and the story goes that
my dad panicked and threw his popcorn up in the air.
I cried the first time I watched Alien. I think
I'm mostly managed with Aliens. Longtime listeners know that my
older brother played a pretty mean prank on me when
I was quite young, and it basically that I was
(03:55):
being adopted by Aliens and it scared me really badly
and I couldn't even watch et. So it took a
while for me to manage to watch Alien and Aliens.
But now I love them and I don't know if
I've ever talked about this, but the game Alien Isolation
(04:16):
is from the viewpoint of Ripley's daughter, who, in a
deleted scene from Aliens, we learn had died while Ripley
was in stasis. But she's searching for her mom and
the ship has an alien on it, of course, but
(04:38):
it's like. It's widely known as one of the scariest
games ever made because the alien is it's an AI
that learns based on what the player does, and you
really don't have any weapons. You can hide, but the
alien will eventually figure out, Oh, you're just going to
hide over there. And it's the scariest thing. I've never
(04:59):
beat it. I can't do it, and it can hear you,
like if you make sounds. Oh no, it's so scary.
I only made it like a third of the way through. Yeah, yep.
And then I also went to the exhibit at the
movie in London. The Alien exhibit was quite scary as well,
(05:22):
but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. This was your first.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Time seeing it, right, No, I watched it with you.
I realized we all have watched it together because I
was like Bill Paxton, yes, and I remember watching him
thinking it was the first one, and then I realized, oh, no,
I've seen this because I also remember yelling you yelling
about Basquets the his entire time. You like to yell
(05:47):
things about movies and facts about these movies. I'm pretty
sure we watched it quickly after Alien, which you told
us about all the vaginas and then came into Aliens,
and you told me all about Basquez. Yeah, so I
do remember that.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, I'm not the easiest person to watch.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I love those facts, but that's how I remembered. Oh
I have seen this, because of course I think I
thought I didn't actually with you.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yes, oh, well that does sound like me, because I
feel like it's hard for me to watch Alien and
not Aliens. I don't have to go to the rest
of them like I have to do with some other series.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, but Alien and Aliens, I kind of it's hard
for me. Yeah, but they are very different to me.
I think they're very different. Aliens was directed by James
Cameron and is yes, distinctly different in my opinion, from
the first one, which was directed by Ridley Scott. The
first one is much more like a slow burn horror,
(06:49):
and this one is an action movie complete with marines.
I can kind of see the hints of Avatar peaking in.
There's a lot of stuff that was like, oh yeah,
that ended up in Avatar. Sigourney Weaver reprises her role
as Ripley. Even though the first film was a success,
some lawsuits and general lack of faith from higher ups
(07:11):
stalled it. So the first one came out in nineteen
seventy nine. This one came out in nineteen eighty six.
It took them some time. At the time, James Cameron
was relatively inexperienced. I read that in a lot of places,
but of rereading his resume before and it's like, seems
like he had some experience, but okay, okay, relatively inexperience.
(07:31):
There was a lot of conflict on set, mostly because
of the very tight filming schedule, but in an end,
the film was a critical and commercial success, and the
discussion of sequels that equal or better at the predecessor
it often comes up. I personally think it's up to
my mood as to which one I think is better.
(07:52):
They're pretty different. I think they're just pretty different. So like,
do I want to see a space marine action movie today?
Or do I want to see like a slow obernharm movie.
And yes, as I said in our recent fan fiction
episode a Happy Hour, I think this is a recurse
of fan fiction. You can find me about it. I
don't care. But this is basically he saw something he
(08:13):
liked and was like, what if this happened? And did
something completely different than the first one. So let's get
into the plot first. Off baseline, these movies take place
far in the future, and the characters in the first
one and other ones work for Wayland Utani, which is
(08:34):
a company produced by a merger between American and Japanese companies.
Their leadership continually proves that they do not care for
their workers, and one of them has interesting ideas shall
we say when it comes to humanity and faith in God.
That's exported in later films, but in the first one,
the android and android programmed to act as a human
(09:00):
is more worried about procuring a biological weapon, the Xenomorph first,
and was placed there by the company. Ripley finds his
orders and it's like secure the number one, Secure the Xenomorph,
number two. Everybody else is expendable. If you remember the
end of Alien, Ripley was the only survivor along with
(09:21):
Jonesy the Cat after a Xenomorph was brought on board
the ship Nostromo against her orders and she put herself
in stasis. After killing the Xenomorph, she's found by a
salvage crew. Fifty seven years later, the Wayland Utawanni company
execs holler in for questioning, and they do not believe
(09:42):
her claim about the alien or the eggs because they're
asking her about LV four two six and she's saying
they live like thousands of eggs and they're like, no way.
But it turns out they do have some concerns because
they have lost contact with the terraformers they sent to
LV four two and yes, that's the planet she encountered
(10:03):
the xenomorph and she immediately is like, you fools, they're dead,
and they still they are like, will you come with
us and a crew of space Marines and check out
the situation. At first, she refuses, but eventually decides to
go under guarantee that they will kill the xenomorphs. That
is what they're going to do. They promise her that
(10:26):
they will, and so she goes with the crew of
Space Marines and their android Bishop, whom she distressed because
of her previous experience. When they arrive, the place has
clearly been through it. They find two live face huggers
and these are the creepy spider like ones that attach
to your face and insert their eggs inside of you
(10:49):
to burst out of your chest, and one survivor a
young traumatized girl named Newt. They track the other colonist
signal to a central station and find that the whole
place is covered in alien goop, and they also find
(11:09):
a bunch of dead face huggers colonists unresponsive and cocoon.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
To the wall.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
A chest burster burst out of one of them, and
the Marines kill it. Problem though, turns out there were
a lot of adult aliens nearby, and they capture or
kill a big chunk of their team. The leader completely
panics and Ripley takes over, using their armored vehicle to
(11:38):
get to the Marines because she hadn't gone with them.
The leader hadn't gone with them either. An alien kills
the drop ship rescue pilots, leaving them all in a
pretty dire situation because that was their way out. Desperate,
the team barricades themselves in one of the colony structures,
(11:58):
and then a lot of things happen really quickly. Ripley
learns Burke, who has been her sort of corporate envoy.
He's the one who promised her that they would destroy
the xenomorphs if they found them. Ordered the colonists to
investigate the alien eggs for potential profit he could have
made in the biological weapon sector. Bishop reveals that basically
(12:24):
a power plant is melting down and is going to
destroy the whole place. He volunteers to travel to the
plant and remotely pilot a ship that is there. Ripley
and Neot try to get some sleep in the lab,
but they wake up to realize that Burke has released
the two face huggers into the room. Ripley manages to
(12:46):
fight them off until she triggers the fire alarm, lording
the Marines, who kill the face huggers. She tells the
Marines that Burke intended to get her and Newt impregnated
with the zen More and smuggle them past quarantine to
get his hands on this by a weapon. Then the
(13:07):
aliens attack. Burg is killed, Gorman and Vasquez sacrifice themselves,
Hicks and Hudson are subdued, Noot is taken. Ripley gets Hicks,
who is kind of her love interest, back to the ship,
but goes back for Newt, armed at the flamethrower. As
she ventures deeper into the depths of the alien's layer,
(13:30):
there are so many eggs. She finds Neot, but in
the process also discovers the alien queen, who has been
birthing all of these eggs. Ripley lights them up and
furiating the queen, and the pair make it to the
drop ship just as the colony is obliterated via nuclear bomb. However,
(13:50):
the alien queen made it on board, and now she
is pissed. She tears Bishop in half and go for Newt,
but Ripley suits up in an exo suit, which is
sort of a big mech cargo loader machine people control. Again,
Avatar has a very similar thing and says her iconic
(14:12):
line get away from her. Battle ensues and the Queen
is sucked out of the air lock while Bishop protects Newt. Newt, Hicks,
Ripley and Bishop prepare for their return to Earth, and yeah,
that's where it ends. And then in the third one,
(14:38):
everything is reversed because they crash land on a prison planet,
a Raypie prison planet, and turns out Bishop was battle
along I guess and Newt and Hicks dye uh uh huh,
(15:03):
well damn right at the beginning immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Why that, why would they go through all of that
to kill them all? Was this James one too?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know who it was? Who was Josh Whedon. He
wrote it, he didn't direct it. I can't remember who
directed it. Uh. But also that one of the a
dog gets infected by one of the face eckers. That's
why I would never make you watch that. Yeah, that's
(15:33):
a brutal it was a brutal scene. It was a
long It lasted a while too. They really dragged it out.
But anyway, it's so like if you say it ends there,
that's a nice place to let you know.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
What would is part of this? Did she agree to this?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah? She's in that one, and she's in the next one, Resurrection,
where she's a clone of herself, and Winona Ryder is
her daughter.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
See I thought writer was Hicks, not Hicks. A Newt
no grown up?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Well damn oh no Newt dies. Also, the actress who
played Newt didn't ever do anything else, and she became
a teacher. But she still has a framed photo of
her and Sigourney Weaver and I guess they still correspond
every year.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Oh it's nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
A couple of quick notes about this movie that I
did mention I believe in are well. I'm no one
of them. I mentioned in our Alien episode I'm not
going to go too much in depth in here, but
the movie implies that Lambert from the first one is
trans because you can see her file and it just
(17:05):
implies that she strands. And the woman who played Vasquez
was not Hispanic but had Brazilian heritage. But I believe
he used makeup to look darker skinned. So those two notes. Now,
the themes, obviously motherhood one of the biggest. This is
(17:27):
like a huge theme throughout Aliens the franchise, and this
I would say it's a really it's even it goes
bigger in this one. It really does. So in the
first one you have kind of the you have the
scene of Ripley in stasis and she's wearing all whites,
(17:47):
and you have the cat, and it's very kind of
like Virgin Mary imagery. In this one, you have that
because of the way the movie starts, but then you
also have another scene where her face like kind of
transposes onto the Earth, and so it's very like Mother
Earth imagery. We're going to get into obviously the big battle.
(18:14):
But yes, so you there is this deleted scene where
Ripley learns that her child had died while she was
in stasis.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Oh see, I watched the director's cut.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Oh so it was in there.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yes, it wasn't there. I have a picture of her
and everything.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Oh my goodness. Her name's Rebecca.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, that's the other guy's name. Her real name is Rebecca.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, that's right. Oh, she's in the video game, but
the video game was too scared to never pay attention
to anything else. Yes, but so she has she had
this daughter who died, and she's she's Ripley is going
through a lot of trauma. Pts.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Her name was Amanda.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's the other name. I was gonna say, I swear
I didn't want to embarrass myself again.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Keep going.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, so she you know, Ripley doesn't want to go
to back to this place that cost her so much trauma.
She agrees. Most people agree that she agreed to go
because of compassion and not revenge, because she was worried
(19:34):
about She asked like, how many people did you send there?
At sixty seventy? And she was having these kind of
nightmares about what happened in her experience. And I mean,
I suppose you could say to her, fear is somebody else?
Another big theory is, you know, closure, It's she wants closure.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, she wants to know she killed them.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
She thought, yeah, exactly, that she's never gonna have a
good night's rest until this chapter is closed. So when
she meets Newts, and Newts is like a really like
she's small, she's young, she's got like this dull heads,
(20:19):
pretty creepy. But her friend, it's a moment for her
to you know, I don't know I have this, ah,
I can I can still protect someone. I can still
save someone. And that became really really important to her
(20:40):
because they had lost all these other colonists. Everybody else
was dead, and now she's got this child. Another quote
I found interesting about this is from Richard Schnicknell, and
he wrote, alien is about survival. Aliens is about someone
else's survival. So it becomes very import and to ripleate
(21:01):
that Newt survives, like she goes in with that flame thrower.
She promised Nute she wouldn't leave her behind, and she
goes into the nest with all those eggs.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
With the way that the director's cut goes because I'm
you're telling me, I guess I'm trying to remember what
I saw versus the first time versus what I saw
this time. With the director's cut because my partner was like,
you need to watch the director's cut. So I was like, okay, okay,
I'm gonna do it. Two and a half hours long
I did for you and him. But it it makes
(21:37):
it sound almost this is like I think watching it
from this is awake, She's just got to replace her
child that she lost, that she never got to raise
with this child who eventually calls her mommy like, yes,
you know that. I'm like, apparently you want to watch
her die? Damn.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yes. Well I think that a lot about a bunch
of media that I enjoy, including The Last of Us.
That is a I think that's a common trop It is.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Like replacing that child lost that child, well, let's replace it.
I mean, to be fair, she's replacing our parents here
as well, so like it's a mutual benefit. But it
still seems kind of like uh okay.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, yeah, no, I I agree completely. I think that that,
especially with all the trauma involved for both of them.
I think that they reached out to each other wanting
those kinds of bonds and needing those kinds of bond.
(22:44):
But yeah, oh, I can't wait to talk more about that.
But one of the other things. That's obviously a big thing,
and we're going to break this down in a couple
of points. But when Ripley comes in and saves Newt,
(23:04):
she sees the alien queen, which that's new that she
was not in the first one. This is a new thing,
and she's huge, and she has an obvipositor to lay
these eggs, and there are like adult aliens waiting to attack,
and Ripley threatens the eggs with the flamethrower and it's like,
(23:28):
you come near me, then I'm destroying these eggs, and
they're backing out. They're backing out, and then one of
the eggs opens, which implies that maybe if face Hugger
is going to jump out and come for them, and
that's when Ripley lights them on fire, the eggs, and
that's when the queen gets really really mad, and so
(23:50):
you kind of have this almost mirror of mothers trying
to protect their well children.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Weirdly, the way I've read that scene, and I think
I may have missed something was it was almost I
thought was a bargain, like the alien mom was bargaining with, Okay,
you're here with your child, I see you. I'll let
you live, I'll hold these off and you'll let my
kids live and we'll be fine. But then it felt
like I'm not gonna lie. Don't get me wrong, they
(24:20):
needed to die, but I was kind of on the
alien side of like it felt like Ripley went back
on her bargain their agreement by killing all of them,
all of them. I'm like, oh, that's it. Yeah, I'm
just kinda say that that's what it felt like. Not
that I want because they did some bad things obviously,
(24:43):
but this moment of truth was like broken, and I
feel like Ripley broken.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to say if she
would have done it. I don't know if the egg
hadn't opened, right, I'm not sure she probably would have
because I think she's trauma to and wanted to close
that book.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
She was the one that wanted a nuke the entire thing,
to be sure, she was this entire like calling me out.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yes, yes, And we were going to get more into
that actually in a second too. But the Queen Alien.
One thing I found interesting when I was researching this
is that she was designed to be overtly feminine. It's like, really,
I guess, I mean I didn't really get that vibe,
(25:33):
but sure, we're.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
The birthing part. I don't know if I would have
thought it. I think it was insinuated because she was birthing. Yeah,
but I don't know if I just saw it as
a being like displayed that. I thought it was a feminine.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
And somebody was like, well, look at how small the
arms are, and I'm like, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, so this was this creature, like it reminds me
of a giant ant a little bit. What is it? Like?
What is it taken after? What is its model?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So maybe if we knew what the creatures were supposed
to be after, like are they ants? Because there are
ways of knowing the queen ants versus the lit ant,
or to go, queen bee versus the little bee the
Milby's is that yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Maybe? Yeah, Well they were as a species. They were
designed as a hive mind. They do. She's the queen,
she would be the queen bee, and she's sending out
like instructions on what to do. I'm sure there's been
(26:44):
other inspirations, but also over the years, as they've gone
to several different directors and writers, the origin of the
alien is a mystery because some of them are like,
oh god, did it likely religious? Uh? And others are
just like this is the perfect organism that evolution created.
(27:07):
But they definitely have the hive mind aspect. They are
also matriarchal.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Okay, So my question was more of like the people
who created for the movie, not necessarily you are away.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Listen, you were in.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Here as if this is real. I'm talking about the
artists who created artists. What did they take it after?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Oh? Well, the artists okay, well again see the first
episode we did, but they were it was meant to
be like a kind of a sexual horror.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Right, So do they like create these off off of like,
all right, we're gonna make the body parts from like
these insects. With the insects it's with this giant uh
you know whatever, because to me they look like insects
that with the hard shells and it's just enlarged and
can truly attack. Yeah, and you've seen like insects that
(28:14):
will burrow and lay eggs under skin. So this is
where my thought was. This that's what the creatives thought,
not necessarily the real life implications behind all, Like I
don't know how world implications in the world, But like,
I wonder, that's not that so the creation behind that
(28:36):
you're saying the theory within world, yes is that Okay,
well okay, gotcha, But also also from the outside though.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
They were meant to be hive minds that exists in
both both reality, both reality not reality and ass Yeah,
but to be fair, the world of Alien is a
mess yes, yes, real messy.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I was just wondering, like how this creature was thought up?
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yes, well Geiger, who's the artist who did design the
original Alien, and like the ship and the planet they
find them on, he was basing it off a painting.
But all of it was very All of it was
(29:37):
very abstract. I don't know that there was necessarily kind
of a it was a vibe. I don't know that
there was necessarily like an insect specifically, but it does
have that. The look of it does have that. They
but they were going for they were I sound like
(29:57):
I'm being dragged off to the white room. They were
designed to be, Like the phallic shape was purposeful, the
vulva shape was purposeful. They I think they were They
found things that scared people on insects and worms, like
scuttling spider rings, those are scary people. They unnerve a
(30:20):
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right, Yes, are scary and the thought of them being
giant is even scarier.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yes. I don't like anything that could lay eggs inside me.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
That makes me uncomfortable, right right, like anything made people
and they just like spew out. Yeah, those are nightmares.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
They are they are uh speaking of nightmares, I actually
find this scene quite funny. But I love the scene
when the elevator door opens and the Queen Alien is there, like.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Oh yes, the fact that she knew how to function
in an elevator. This is the part that got me.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I was like, wait, what just the idea of her
like Musach playing maybe in the back she goes up.
I love that. Every time I watch this movie that
gets me. I forget about it every time and then
I'm like, oh my gosh, she's getting on the elevator. Okay,
all right. Their life cycle life cycle of the Xenomorph
(31:35):
does involve rape and violent death. There's also a lot
of messaging around how you can die during childbirth, and
that is really underscored in a lot of these movies,
and they do explore a lot of things like fertility, birth, abortion, rape.
(31:58):
I think this one is much more about mother hood
than those things, but throughout the series, those are big
those are big things. I read in a few places
that the motherhood aspect was an attempt to make Ripley
more feminine so audiences wouldn't think she was a lesbian.
(32:19):
Uh huh, And then that got me thinking about things
like the Laught of Us again, because I was like,
this is such a popular trope. I don't I don't
think I would have thought she was a lesbian just
because she didn't have like a kid. But anyway, I
read that, so I believe it was probably true. Another
(32:40):
thing I wanted to touch on is that there are
some interpretations of you know, these white folks are coming
into alien territory where the aliens are having a lot
of babies, and there's fear around lack of resources and
being outpaced, and they're mining the plan for resources. I
(33:02):
think that I get the point of this argument. I
think you could well actually to death the point of
this argument, though, because the aliens aren't from LV four
two six either, I suppose you could argue the aliens
are colonizing the bodies of people as well. I'm not
going to get into all the lore. But you could
(33:23):
further argue that white men allowed for all of this
that happened and planned for it to happen. Actually, but
I did want to mention that some people have that take.
Here's a quote from public books. But these wasp like
goblin shark mouths, terrifying, parthenogenic bitches, as Ripley calls the
(33:43):
mother alien are simply protecting their own and their world.
They are putting a stop to resource driven colonialism. They
are putting a stop to interplanetary capitalism. They are putting
a stop to anthropost centrism. From this vantage, the alien
mother is not the monster, but is herself the final girl,
fighting back against the horrific, murderous predator that is mass
(34:06):
industry and its singular manifestations interspecies predation and extraterrestrial colonialism.
In a weird way, then Ripley, Newt, and the insect
like aliens are all in the same boat. They are
all trying to resist capitalistic violence. The ultimate monster in
these films is the capitalist system that puts everyone, including
(34:29):
not just the human settlers or Ripley and Newt, but
also the aliens themselves, in harm's way. I like this
because at the end, I'm going to talk more about
some of my mixed feelings about Alien as how it's
presented as a creature. But I do think capitalism is
(34:51):
like the great horror of it that know, they don't care,
they put their workers in harms way and do not care. Instead,
they would rather make money off of a bio weapon
that they don't understand and it's gonna kill more humans.
But yes, yes, I like that quote. British writer and
(35:14):
academic Richard Luckhurst said, even if Alien was a piece
of leftist science fiction, the core of its myth could
be inflected the other way. Cameron's Aliens would be a
defiantly Reaganite version of the story, pumped militarized libertarian, driven
by a staunch defense of the nuclear family. So I
(35:34):
thought this was interesting because because if they did add
in Newt to make her more feminine, then I do
think there's a point here of like, yeah, you're still
like it's got these themes that are pretty leftist, but
in the end of the day, like she's.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Her Her whole push is being a mother, m M,
a protectic mother.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yes, yes, he did throw in a lot of military
although I have to say they threw in a lot
of military but they kind of got theirs kick right,
Like they were portrayed as people who didn't know what
they were doing and they didn't listen when she warned them.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Also that she had to be the one that rescued
them or she was the one that went back to
get them.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yes. Yes. One of my favorite lions is Hudson has
a lot of good lines. He's the comedic yes relief.
And one of my favorite lions is when he says,
I don't know if you've kept up with current affairs,
but we just got our kick man.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I mean the infamous line game over man, game over.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Oh, classic classic. He said he didn't realize he was
the comic relief at first, and he kept trying to
be too serious with it. He was like, this isn't working,
and James Karen was like, no, because it's supposed to
be a comedic and then he's like, oh cool, Oh
I see, now I see. But yeah, they do have
like there's a lot of like manly military talk that
(37:06):
they do. They talk about like rescuing virgins, but yeahy
they get there kicked yep. Trauma. Another big theme this
movie was allegedly meant to mirror the Vietnam War. So
you have that. As I said, there's the kind of
idea of confronting trauma to get closure. There's the whole
(37:31):
idea of why didn't you believe her? From the very beginning.
Ripley is saying, I'm telling you, I've told you a
million times, and they knew. That's kind of the frustrating
at the end.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
They knew something was going on, but technically she'd been
asleep for fifty something years and they'd already established the
whole colony. Yes, so everything was okay for a minute.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
But I think Burke knew he was because he told
them to investigate the negs, so he knew something.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Was like, Oh, they're fine, it's not a big deal.
They're not doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
No, let's just go check it out.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It just I do have the questions, like, why did
it take fifty seven years for those aliens to do something?
They just wait, I don't know how to wake up.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Oh, I don't think there are people there. So they came.
I think they came twenty years after she her whole thing. Yeah,
and then I guess they didn't stumble upon the eggs until.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
The Aliens didn't find them well.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Because they were all in the eggs and I guess
that you wait until you're your person, you're gonna face
hug comes around, and then when they found that place,
it just went downhill very quick. There was a lot
at the time when this movie came out being written
about this conversation we've had several times on this show
(38:54):
about the strong female character and that she was a
strong female character. As we said in our episode about
Alien she was cast. It was a gender neutral casting
call and they wanted whoever, and that's why her name,
at least her last name was. Her first name is Ellen,
but her is kind of gender neutral. But when this
(39:17):
one came out, because she does handle a lot of weaponry,
she does a lot of piloting, she does a lot
of like I guess, traditionally maddenly stuff. At the time,
she was compared to Rambo a lot. She was called Rambalina,
and she did like Sigourney Weaver had to take. She
(39:37):
did a lot of training about how to handle those weapons.
It was notable that the character took command from the
incompetent male leader at the time. He was just like
completely foundering and she said in a way, another character
Hudson Phil Paxton, yes, is the over man guy. He
(40:02):
was a complete wreck. Her love interest listened to her
and let her take the lead. And people do credit
this character and this movie for opening the doors for
independent female leads in the early nineties. So she was,
she was had, she had an impact. James Cameron said
(40:24):
at the time that male heroes were quote commercially overused,
and it was mistakes since women more than eighty percent
of the time decided if people would go see a
movie and what movie it would be. And he also
was like, it's fifty percent of the audience, so it
doesn't make sense. Final big theme we've already touched on
(40:45):
it several times is economics and companies selling you out
and capitalism that is throughout the series. That is an element.
I was gushing to Samantha the other day that NPR
recently released some stuff about this, So if you want
(41:05):
to look that up, you can. But it's just a
lot of stuff about inequality, about the jobs you'll take
because you need to live, and how that company that
is employing you is hiding things from you could care
less about. You will cover up your death all of
(41:28):
that kind of stuff. In this one. You also see
more than you do in the first one, the military
industrial complex and how that plays out with the company
waylan U Tawni. Specifically, it is Ripley's skill set as
a lower class worker that saves her because she kind
(41:48):
of gets mocked for doing this cargo work in the beginning,
but then that's how she kills Queen Alien. There's also
a lot of stuff around tech. It is kind of funny.
You can find a lot of memes about this. But
it's kind of funny because these movies are older and
they're supposed to take place in like twenty ninety nine, right,
(42:10):
and so.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
You'll be like the analog the cameras are like actually
attached to the head. I'm like, oh, they can even
think about like glasses that we have now that major privacy.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yes, yes, also androids and art as Bishop will say,
artificial humans is a big scene throughout and what is
Oh sounds so deep, No, I don't I sound pretentious?
What is humanity, Samantha. That is a big theme also
in these movies with the androids, but also.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Apparently the androids are bad, like you told me in
the third movie that it's actually bad.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yes, and then oh my gosh, is it Prometheus. He's
bad too, he was Groves. Yeah, they go back and
forth about the android. It's I'm really bummed, ay reversed.
I'm bummed they reverse the whole thing. But that bush,
come on, come on now, unnecessary, unnecessary. And then all
(43:12):
of this kind of brings me to Alien Earth, which
is a show, is a news show, and it takes
place in the No, it takes place in the future,
but it's because it's made now. It feels more modern
day technology feels more right. Yeah. I like that show,
(43:33):
but it like hits too close to home, which I
guess is the sign of a good show. But it's
basically got Elon Musk one of the characters. Definitely, that's
Elon Musk, and like another company and they're warring for
who can do bio experiments with xenomorph. But they also
(43:54):
have this project where they put the minds of dying
children into adult androids. And it's unsettling, No, really unsettling,
but one of the things it also features one of
the things I personally dislike, And when I mentioned earlier,
(44:15):
I have this kind of conflict around my thoughts around
alien as a creature. I kind of feel like alien
is alien, and there's nothing you can do to reason
with alien. Alien's going to kill you, that's what they're
gonna do. The Alien Queen maybe is a level above,
but otherwise you see an alien. That's it. That's it.
(44:41):
And you know, sometimes in movies, like in Jaws, like
Jaws is Jaws, Jaws is going to kill you, and
there's some kind of terrifying simplicity in that. But if
you introduce things like alien Queen or Alien Earth, now
(45:04):
you're telling me that maybe they're not just that. And
so now I've got to be like, well, well then
what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (45:12):
No?
Speaker 1 (45:12):
I have to sympathize the alien all the time, like
what's going on? Because I feel like sometimes you do
a good old movie where it's just Jaws's Jaws, and
that's all we write. And that's how I've always kind
of viewed alien. Alien Earth introduces, I guess I should
say spoilers, it's very new, spoilers very quick. Alien Earth
(45:33):
introduces an element where somebody can control the alien, and
I don't like it. I don't think the alien can
be controlled. I don't like that the alien can be
controlled unless it's going to kill you, and that's the
point of the story. But I don't think it is
because I think she's supposed to be the one I
think is the good guy. I don't really think that
(45:53):
she is. But that's anyway, okay. But I mean, as
we've been saying, Alien is complicated, they probably don't want
an easy answer. But I have to say I was
not happy, like, let Alien be Alien, don't tame Alien. Yeah,
come on, come on now. I also like I like Romulus,
(46:16):
which is the new movie. That one had a huge
theme of like economic disparity, but it also had Isabella
Mr said in it. I like that. But I think
the android in that one was good. Pretty sure that's
not a spoiler because I can't remember exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Fair.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, so that's my rambling mess of thoughts. I clearly
have a lot of thoughts about Alien Aliens the franchise
in general. Yeah. Yeah, and I would love to hear
listeners if you have thoughts. Have you beat the game?
Oh my gosh, yeah, Alien Isolation. I don't think I'll
(47:04):
ever read it, but maybe maybe one day you can
email us at Hello at stuff whenever told you dot
com you can find us on Blue Skype moll Stuff
podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I Never
Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise
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wherever you get here books. Thanks as always too our
superduce Christina or executive Prusu, my Ander contributor Joey, Thank
(47:26):
you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
Told You production by Heart Radio. For more podcasts on
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