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Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Another point is that the Colonial Marines Technical Manual was written well, well after the movie by a fairly talented and motivated fan. It's a damn fine publication, but in no way is it the movie.
For all we know, the Sulaco only held a single platoon worth of marines, one half of which was deleted for the mission to allow carriage of Ripley and Burke, which would explain why there was a spare dropship aboard.
If the ship was big enough to carry thousands of troops, would the marines really have had to carry out all the pre-mission checks and loading themselves, or would there have been specialists available as you might see on an aircraft carrier?
The size of the mess hall we see in the early stages of the movie is also an indication of the limited size and carrying capacity of the Sulaco.
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Well I think the +2000 is indicative of an emergency situation - kind of like how you could in a pinch put 10000 people on an aircraft carrier. But with that said, all we
have to go on is the CMTM. Nothing else. Who's to say there weren't squad messes, or that with the short compliment, they reconvened in a smaller nominal officers' mess? However, the presence of two dropships is a bit more compelling, although I still think it's kind of wonky to have a huge ship with only fourteen Marines on board: Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Dietrich, Apone, Wierzbaski, Frost, Ferro, Spunkmeyer, Crowe, Gorman, Bishop, then Ripley and Burke taking a berth themselves.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not putting my foot down and saying "No I'm right, you're all wrong"...I just think that James Cameron is a better storyteller than student of things military
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Now, as for the bunching in the atmosphere processor, it's human nature to group together like that in unfamiliar situations. Totally against tactical common sense, true, but those were also some very tight areas. My guess is that if they'd spread out it may have actually worked against them given the aliens could have picked them off one by one at their leisure.
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(Actually having played the Atmo. processing maps in coop Aliens v. Predator - the original from Rebellion Studios that came out for the PC in like '98 or so - this is actually kind of true...)
The 3 eggs on the dropship is something I don't buy either. The whole 3rd movie was a disappointment as far as I'm concerned. Sure there were some nice highlights, but the overall concept and storyline just didn't' hang together for me.
I had the opportunity to read the original draft for the 3rd movie a couple of years back - COMPLETELY different. Set on a space station, Ripely was injured early on and in a coma most of the duration, Hicks lives and becomes the hero and I can't remember what happened to Newt (survived I think). Bishop also got a run as well, but again I can't remember details. Ends in an evac of the station by a handful of survivors.
Some of the ideas were a bit dodgy, but as it was only a first draft....[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that was cyberpunk author William Gibson's treatment of an Alien3 draft. His take was that VERY early on, Ripley is injured by trigger happy Chinese soldiers who board the Sulaco when it, on autopilot, drifts into Chinese "space". They find Bishop and IIRC the inside of his hypersleep chamber is described as being like a terrarium - beaded with water and steam. As soon as they crack it open, its revealed an egg had developed in there (the how and why is explained later) and it is taken off. The Chinese rebuild Bishop, Ripley (comatose due to the weapons fire) is put in the infirmary, Newt is stuck in an office somewhere and Hicks bands together with some less-than-communistically-correct soldiers to rescue her once it comes clear that due to some around-fucking by Chinese scientists the Xenomorphs can now reproduce by virus. If you get the Alien "goo" on you, you'll turn in to one.