[Webstral]

I’ll preface my response to the “holes” in the Aliens plot by expressing an idea I failed to get across during the discussion about The Hurt Locker. Fiction is not a documentary. Aliens is a Vietnam film until the surviving Marines escape from the atmosphere processor, but it’s not a Vitenam documentary (obviously). As with all literature, events and characters are meant to stand for something and somebody. I’m sure we’ve all seen the disclaimer at the end of a film claiming that similarities between the characters and events of the film and real people and events are entirely coincidental. Although the primary motivator for putting said advisory at the end of the film is to forestall tort suits, there is a literary idea that one story stands for many; therefore, none of the characters are supposed to be exactly like real people because the characters are supposed to represent archetypes. Why archetypes? So the audience’s ability to see something recognizable and be drawn in thereby is maximized. This is good art, and it’s good marketing.

The answer to questions 1, 2, and 4 is hubris, combined with a power structure that puts people with little experience or little common sense in positions of power. It might not have made sense in a vacuum for everyone to go into the atmosphere processor, for a tiny fraction of the potential crew of the transport to go on the mission, or for everyone to go to the surface. One of the main themes of the film, though, is that in a hierarchy decisions get made at every level according to the viewpoints and needs of the people at that level. By the time all of these decisions reach the people on the ground, the effect borders on insanity. This was true in Vietnam, and it has been true in Iraq. I’d put my left testicle on the table that it’s true in Afghanistan, too.

The Company doesn’t believe there’s a real problem on LV426. The scene in which Ripley tries to defend her actions before a Company board of inquiry spells out of the Company’s attitudes very effectively. They don’t believe her story. They don’t want to believe her story. They think they have a good grip on things. Later, we find out that Burke has sent the colonists to look for the original crashed ship on his own initiative. Therefore, when Burke says that the loss of communication with the colony on LV426 could be a result of a “downed transmitter”, he’s expressing the viewpoint of the appropriate officials at the Company. One is forced to wonder whether Ripley’s inclusion in the mission is entirely the doing of some quick talking on the part of Burke, who is trying to cover his fourth point of contact in the event his little venture went sour.

Let’s suppose, then, that the Marines get sent out on the Company’s behalf. The Company doesn’t believe in the Aliens. The Company is checking off a standard procedure box. This attitude is transmitted to the government, who send a bare-bones mission to check their own box. People cost money, so a very small force under a butterbar gets sent. Before we say “That’s crazy! That would never happen!” let us think of a few of the decisions that were made in Iraq and Afghanistan that were based on keeping costs down, supporting other priorities, or just plain oversight. We sent 130,000 to Iraq instead of 350,000, and we got rid of the Army and the police. There was no centralized effort to train a new Afghan police force until Obama was elected. I won’t belabor the point.

Keeping with the Vietnam theme, units in Vietnam were woefully understrength. The small size of the force sent to LV426 is a reference to the inadequacy of the available manpower. We should remember that Aliens is fiction, not a documentary. The small size of the command that hits the ground is symbolic of the shortage of manpower in rifle platoons and companies in Vietnam.

Similarly, the fact that a mission like this is placed under the command of someone so junior is a condemnation of the power structure of the armed forces and the class consciousness of the military. Gorman has forty some-odd simulated missions, but the drop on LV426 is his second live drop. It’s good that he’s been trained, but it’s awful that a man with so little real world experience is put in charge of anything like this. However, we have a good idea how important the Marines think this mission is based on who they put in charge. Again, the specter of Vietnam rears its ugly head. I don’t know enough about the training and experience of USMC lieutenants in Vietnam, but I know the Army lieutenants were not what was needed. Still, an officer has to be in charge, so let’s scrape one off the bottom of the barrel and give him a token force so we can check the box on this little sidebar matter at LV426.

The short-handedness of the mission explains why everybody comes down. There isn’t anybody to leave upstairs. Moreover, as we have seen it’s not strictly necessary to leave someone up top. The approach of the Marines to the atmosphere processor can be explained by the presence of the newbie lieutenant. This is the same guy who had all of the ammunition collected before sending his people into the lion’s den. Utter foolishness, but understandable foolishness given the discovery regarding the heat exchangers. Gorman’s a great character in that we can very easily see and understand the conflicting forces at work in him.

I’m not going to defend or even address the presence of the facehuggers that lead to #3. That’s another story for another time.

Honestly, I don’t see any of the “holes” mentioned as holes. People in their various functions and capacities make decisions based on their perceptions of reality. Everyone down the chain has to live with these decisions. I witnessed insane monkey-ass bullshit daily in Iraq. Everyone from the President on downward made decisions and created policy that drove a reality on the ground that we all felt was markedly deficient. If I had to review my own journal, Adagio for Strings, I would say that as a work of fiction it ranks below anything done by Tom Clancy or Harold Coyle because the levels of stupidity, insanity, and ineptitude are too great to be borne by suspension of disbelief. Aliens gives us the tools we need to understand why the characters who don’t have any dialogue in the film make the decisions that lead to the material we see on the screen. We’re supposed to say “WTF?” because that’s the human experience at war.