Aliens - 1986 movie (was Dog Soldiers)

[Eddie]

Gentlemen,

Please take this post as what it is, an unemotional explanation of what I consider a few key points. You may or may not agree with the importance I've assigned them.

First off, I'm not an overemotional, pubescent teenager. I didn't take any of the comments made in this thread as personal against "me." However, I do love my country and found Legbreaker's comment offensive. I dislike being stereotyped just as much as I'm sure all of you do.

Secondly, when I was commissioned in the Army, I was told I became a member of "the profession of Arms." It's a little manipulative phrase to instill a little professional pride in what we do, but it achieved its purpose with me. I do take great pride in my job and the organization in which I work. So once again, when a stereotype is posited that "all of x are only worth anything if they have y background," I responded.

Bottom line facts: a good officer is made by the sum of his parts. His initiative, his morals, his judgment, his intelligence, and his capacity to adapt. Training, education, experience, physical fitness....all of those are important, but I submit that each are part of the five broad characteristics I first mentioned; subsets if you will. What gives me the right to say that? Nothing intrinsically more than any of you, but as a Company Commander, I do get paid to rate junior officers on their performance and potential (granted, about a 75%/25% split in importance at my level). Still yet, your opinion may vary and you are by all means entitled to it.

Of the six that I rated as a Company Commander, two were super-squared away (one prior service, one a West Pointer), one had potential but lacked the confidence (prior service Air Force officer who transferred to the Army), one was like Gorman (tactically sound but lacked the experience and interpersonal skills to bond with his platoon), one was prior enlisted in the Navy and the Air Force before gaining a commission in the Army Infantry and had a bona fide Band of Brothers "we won't go to combat with him" moment in Iraq and ended up being a total shithead, and one could barely speak English and was an overpaid PVT (literally, I sent him to 13 weeks of English as a Second Language training; unsuccessfully, and had to kill his career). That is the truth of leaders, in general, not just military officers.

Granted also, as Webstral pointed out to me in a PM, I don't know anything about him other than his profile says he is a teacher in the San Francisco Bay area. Were I to take that limited knowledge and apply stereotypes, he is a liberal, homosexual who wears metallic costumes on Friday night and has his nipples pierced while jumping cars down the hills. That may or may not be the case, I don't know and most likely never will, but I have never pictured him in mind that way (and hope I never do again after writing that). However, I do know my background and knowledge base, and have seen, worked with, and been a part of the commissioning system and officer corps that he spoke about.

I should also point out, that I'm one of the group he espoused make better officers. Again, I was not personally attacked or insulted by his post and do not want to be misconstrued as feeling all butt-hurt about "him saying bad things about me."

Originally Posted by GDWFan

About this argument in particular I say if Web has problems with the commision system then he should be allowed to voice them but move them to a post dedicated to the positives and negatives of the system.

I encourage this. I have no qualms with a debate of the commissioning system. I do, however, get antsy with absolute statements based on personal opinion.

As for Eddie I agree that noone here should have to have there carreers or personal life demeaned here. However the offensive post did not call out Eddie. Web seemed to be talking more about Vietnam and Eddie didnt fight there and hes not a space marine so I dont see how he could be that offended.

I wasn't offended by Webstral's post. I just despise that argument because it's a load of crap that stereotypes all officers that aren't prior enlisted. Note that I did NOT say that Webstral is a load/piece/reeks of crap. No, Webstral was talking more about the qualities that make a good officer with respect to the commissioning process. His initial argument was replete with absolute statements of opinion and personal interpretation presented as empirical fact. Which irritates me in general, but moreso when it involves the specific argument of "No officer should ever be commissioned without being a private first!" The commissioning process was almost a subtopic in his post.

I hear that particular statement/discussion/argument every time I turn around. From enlisted guys wanting me to agree with them, from civilians that armchair general every decision made by the military, by friends and family just wanting my opinion. I make no apology for being passionate about it nor for being sick of it.

And while we're on the subject, yes, I admit that the commissioning system has its flaws. I however don't believe that the system is the culprit so much as the evaluators in said system are. The human factor of the process is where it breaks down, in my opinion. This is because the system mechanics do exactly what they are designed to do. At least in the US Army, I can't speak with authority about the other branches of the US military.

The commissioning system mandates that all officers be commissioned with 15 core subjects being trained. There are tests and evaluations to measure mastery of the materials, and most importantly, the standards are uniform throughout the commissioning sources. However, the human factor allows for subjective assessment of a cadet's/candidate's potential; which, in turn allows a hopeful officer to fake the funk for whatever duration necessary to earn said commission. By that point, the Army has invested so much into that young officer that no senior leader really has the guts to do the morally right action of telling someone that they need to find a new career. I was lucky in the fact that my BN Commander agreed with me about my two problem children.

Heinlein, in Starship Troopers (and perhaps elsewhere), presented the idea that no one should be allowed to be an officer without first seeing combat.

Heinlein also posited that no one should be a citizen without serving a minimum tour in the military.

On reflection, Apone doesn't come off so well -- he does a poor job of being a senior NCO faced with a poor officer.

Incompetence is not limited to the Officer paygrades.

I agree that ultimately the success or failure of the mission rests with the senior leadership.

I agree. That leader is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do. It's a cop-out when you're looking at it clinically, but when you analyze that the leader in charge, be he officer or enlisted, has been given the trust from his nation to take his subordinates into harm's way and return them as safely as possible, you can understand why it is still around.

I disagree. The ultimate responsibility for Gorman's command failure was Burke's greed.

No, I disagree. Judgment and Initiative by Gorman. Had Gorman exercised those two characteristics, he would have come to the decision of what was best for success of the mission. Then he would have told Burke to piss up a rope.

So, in summary, I took no personal insult at any of the comments made in this thread. I have addressed the ones that I took offense to, though. Insult v. offense may be a semantical difference, but I know what I mean even if you don't.

I also want to echo the apology for further detracting from this forum. It was not my intent and I tried to be subtle about it at first. I won't mar this forum again as this will be my last visit.

Good luck. You're on your own.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Eddie

Heinlein also posited that no one should be a citizen without serving a minimum tour in the military.

Was that specifically or just government service?

I agree. That leader is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do.

So how much blame does Gorman's superior get then?

No, I disagree. Judgment and Initiative by Gorman. Had Gorman exercised those two characteristics, he would have come to the decision of what was best for success of the mission. Then he would have told Burke to piss up a rope.

I think you are missing the point that Burke deliberately manipulated who was in charge of the Marines, so he could have an officer he could bully.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by copeab

Was that specifically or just government service?

Basically, in Starship Troopers, any service could conceivably be used. Juan Rico, the main character, once said that if a deaf, mute, and blind person wanted to become a citizen, they could have him counting hairs on a caterpillar by touch, and it would count.

The thing about requiring military service for citizenship is that you have to give everyone an avenue to military service.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It's a shame that Eddie feels the need to leave this forum, he was certainly able to add a lot information and experience to the discussions.
I do think however that nearly everybody has over-reacted a bit to what has happened this time around.

Personally I found Webstral's dissection of Cameron's interpretation of Vietnam & the US military via Aliens to be right on the mark. I never thought Webstral set about to criticize current officer training practice or indeed criticize the US Army at all because I believe he was commenting on James Cameron's criticism of the US Army and its Vietnam experience. He had some thoughts about the commissioning process and he expressed them, I understand Eddie may be tired of hearing those ideas but a simple statement of "I say the idea is bogus because..." would have been sufficient.

Many of us don't like to examine our mistakes, the government and military particularly so. Cameron uses Aliens to show what he believes are/were mistakes in the military system at the time, it doesn't mean he's right.
As for the notion that nobody should be allowed to receive a commission unless they have prior military service, I agree with the naysayers, I think the idea is wrong and probably too much influenced by Heinlein's own view of his own military experience.

I think the fatal flaw in this whole thread is a three-parter. One part has been mistaking the dissection of the movie as a representation of people's views on the real world military instead of seeing it as them using the movie as an example of what should or should not be done.
Part two was expressing thoughts in a manner that felt like people were treating the movie as if it was real world - it's just a movie, it was never going to show how a real military would have approached the objective, a bunch of boyscouts would have achieved more in real life than the completely fictional and deliberately flawed people were allowed to achieve in the movie.
The third part was people taking offence at what in the end amounts to things that better experienced people could fix simply by explaining the flaws in the argument.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not immune to any of that either but I'm trying not to get bent out of shape by it... some days I even succeed.

[Webstral]

I’ve been working on a longer, hopefully far-better considered piece than some of my previous posts to add to this discussion. Overall, though, I have to say that SSC is right in that my observations about Gorman and Cameron’s message are meant as literary criticism. Like the Army, though, I suffer from mission creep. I allowed my sentiments about the modern Army’s commissioning process to intrude on what was supposed to be literary criticism.

Webstral

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Basically, in Starship Troopers, any service could conceivably be used. Juan Rico, the main character, once said that if a deaf, mute, and blind person wanted to become a citizen, they could have him counting hairs on a caterpillar by touch, and it would count.

The thing about requiring military service for citizenship is that you have to give everyone an avenue to military service.

This idea would be worthy of its own thread. Most of us live in what are loosely, if not accurately, termed "democracies". Should we go down the road the Greeks went, linking full citizenship with some sort of service to the state, or is the currently common Western arrangement the best option? (Most Western nations have given up conscription at this point, I believe.)

Webstral

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Webstral

This idea would be worthy of its own thread. Most of us live in what are loosely, if not accurately, termed "democracies". Should we go down the road the Greeks went, linking full citizenship with some sort of service to the state, or is the currently common Western arrangement the best option? (Most Western nations have given up conscription at this point, I believe.)

Webstral

I have long thought that everyone should have to do some sort of national service. Not necessarily military service; few are cut out for that. But if you set up and same kind of college benefits and suchlike in exchange for being a hospital orderly, teacher in a rural area, doctor in some out-of-the-way place where they're lucky to get a doctor to practice, Meals-on-Wheels, be a 911 operator -- any kind of national service. Yes, there should be conscription of a sort, but it has to suit the person being conscripted, and in my mind, doesn't necessarily mean military service.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Eddie

I also want to echo the apology for further detracting from this forum. It was not my intent and I tried to be subtle about it at first. I won't mar this forum again as this will be my last visit.

Well I for one find that to be very sad. You were one of the people I was specifically targeting when I invited members of the 93Games Studio forums to come and post here too. The number of people here who value your input vastly outweighs those who do not. Please reconsider your decision. Of course if the main reason you post on forums such as this is for your own enjoyment, and you are no longer enjoying posting here, so be it.

[GDWFan]

Id also say that Chadwick at least was more of a WW2 guy than a vietnam guy. He designed Command Decision, Europa which is insanely detailed lol and gosh maybe a 100 board games. If you check his list of games they are skewed towards WW2 and the civil war. Not to mention he created the game you use to determine your war lol.

[Haven]

As a casual poster and as a casual player my interest in T2k waxes and wanes... so Kato my posting is sporadic as is a lot of peoples I'm sure so don't read too much into those stats.

That said my 2 cents is.....

This is all a buncha bullshit drama.

These forums are so tame that we take our ball and go home as well fall all over ourselves apologizing to each other for the hint of a perceived slight.

The only thing killing the traffic to this site is all the commentary over commentary over non-issues. It's like watching a 24 hour cable news channel.

I'm pissed that I even have to add to the noise .....

So everyone .... grow up. and don't take everything so personal. It's the internet.

inb4: i edit this post because it is stupid to even hit the submit button.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Haven

As a casual poster and as a casual player my interest in T2k waxes and wanes... so Kato my posting is sporadic as is a lot of peoples I'm sure so don't read too much into those stats.

That said my 2 cents is.....

This is all a buncha bullshit drama.

These forums are so tame that we take our ball and go home as well fall all over ourselves apologizing to each other for the hint of a perceived slight.

The only thing killing the traffic to this site is all the commentary over commentary over non-issues. It's like watching a 24 hour cable news channel.

I'm pissed that I even have to add to the noise .....

So everyone .... grow up. and don't take everything so personal. It's the internet.

inb4: i edit this post because it is stupid to even hit the submit button.

I agree with all you said except for two things.

I expect more from people here than on the average internet forum

and

I still stand behind my stats.

I have been a web developer since 94 and a huge part of my job is to read site access trends. A clear trend downward like that as summer ends and winter begins is very unlikely to be due to statistical chance IMHO. If I was a little more motivated I would do a Chi-square analysis (God I am such a huge nerd), but I have even more fun data to look at.

I am hoping that the drama is over and I hope that Eddie comes back at some point, but I know what it is like to lose the joy of this place to I will respect his decision.

[GDWFan]

Honestly that there are this many people that frequent this site about a game that print wise has been dead for years from a small company thats been dead just as long and have the time, effort and dedication to argue about the rules, timeline and mechanics as well as publish all the knowledge and actual useful things lol in the forum map is amazing to me and i love it.

Focusing on just the canon argument i agree that no one here forces anyone to use anything here and everyone should be allowed to post without being questioned about there motives or knowledge of the situations and rules. In some ways I see his points, Webs work was not christined canon work for its amazing contribution to the apocrypha of the game. I also have a deep love for GDW in general and if one of them didn't write it or it doesnt have a GDW logo I could never consider it canon. But the bottom line is if your pissing off the guy who runs this forum and makes it possible for the DC group and Web to propigate this information then you should step away form your arguements and keep quiet on anything not game related. Also I think Far Future should list Webs timeline in the product list on there fliers what do you think ? I live in the town its HQ'd in haha maybe ill leave a flier on the door since its just marc millers house.

[Caradhras]

I know what Haven means and agree to some degree - but I dont accept that, because it is the internet, people can be more rude.

I reckon people should have thicker skins here though - but also be mature and think about the implications of what they write before they submit it (which is the norm).

I like this place tbh.

This, of course, is just my 2 penneth.

[Haven]

Thanks for allowing me to rant with aplomb


Back on topic:

I think the Marines were written to fail.

There has been a lot of talk about stereotypes and how we all hate them etc...

But when you've got a squad of Marines to kill off in about a hour and a half film you use these stereotypes to quickly familiarize your audience with the paper thin characters without having to spend much background on them.

The audience goes, "oh there is the grizzled NCO... i don't need more explanation on him... lets see... ahh yes the green second LT... i bet that is going to be trouble."

all in my humble and likely flawed opinion of course with no offense directed towards anyone

<3

[Legbreaker]

It certainly wouldn't have been much of a movie if they'd all kicked butt.....

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Haven

But when you've got a squad of Marines to kill off in about a hour and a half film you use these stereotypes to quickly familiarize your audience with the paper thin characters without having to spend much background on them.

The audience goes, "oh there is the grizzled NCO... i don't need more explanation on him... lets see... ahh yes the green second LT... i bet that is going to be trouble."

Good stuff. The expectations of the audience are powerful tools for story-telling. In many ways, writing a screenplay or a novel is rather like conducting a military operation. There list of things that probably ought to be accomplished is much, much longer than the list of things that can be resourced. In a film with as many characters as "Aliens", there isn't time to develop all of the characters, all of the themes, and so forth. At the risk of using the US Joint Chiefs from the Second World War as literary critics, the term "economy of effort" can be applied to even so grand a film as "Aliens".

Webstral

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Haven

This is all a buncha bullshit drama.

These forums are so tame that we take our ball and go home as well fall all over ourselves apologizing to each other for the hint of a perceived slight.

So everyone .... grow up. and don't take everything so personal. It's the internet.

It's true that this site is on the Internet. It's also a private club, owned and operated by Kato. If you have been here for a while, then you know that the long-term users are here because we've been turned off by the crude, low-brow combativeness we've found in so many other locations. At the risk of speaking out of turn for my compatriots, we don't want just another Internet site. We're here because we like this one, and I doubt many of us feel the site will be improved by importing the name-calling, smack-talking bombast so readily available in so many other venues. We have grown up; and most of the long-termers here are more interested in cultivating ideas than thick skins.

It's true that sone of us spend a good deal more electronic ink trying to avoid slighting each other than we used to, and I wish it weren't so. As I see it, the assumption of benign disagreement and respect that used to be a given here has slipped somewhat. Until that assumption can be restored, we work a little harder than we used to putting ideas first. I'm fine with doing that because, like Kato, I want this site to rise above the muck-raking that buries decent discourse in other locales.

Webstral

[Targan]

I tend to self edit my posts on this forum far more than I do on other forums, for several reasons. I want my posts to be read and I am concerned that if I become known for causing trouble here, people might just skim right over my posts. I consider many posters on this forum to be my friends and I don't want to insult them or show them disrespect.

There are cultural sensibilities to be aware of. In my normal, conversational Australian English I tend to blaspheme quite a lot but I try not to blaspheme at all here. Perhaps I am being over-careful in this but I have become aware that many posters are people of faith and I get the impression that blaspheming is taken a lot more seriously in some other parts of the world than it is here in Australia.

Many posters here are current or former members of the military. In my experience military men tend to be no-bulls**t sorts of people and if they think you are disrespecting or slighting them they tend to just write you off as a fool. I'd really like to avoid that.

Finally, as with any group of people who have known each other for a while, this forum has history. There have been painful (and sometimes unresolved) episodes here and I try to steer newcomers away from (probably accidentally) stirring up matters that are likely best left alone. Lately I seem to have failed in that area though.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Targan

Finally, as with any group of people who have known each other for a while, this forum has history. There have been painful (and sometimes unresolved) episodes here and I try to steer newcomers away from (probably accidentally) stirring up matters that are likely best left alone. Lately I seem to have failed in that area though.

Don't worry mate, things 'll be apples soon enough. (Practicing my Australian slang)

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by kato13

Practicing my Australian slang

Badly. Very, very badly.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Badly. Very, very badly.

I figured that.

[kato13]

Since I just was looking up what parts made up the M4A1 puls rifle as I thought the base was a spas-12 (turns out they only used the grip). I thought I would provide a link to the Internet Movie Firearms Database for aliens.

http://www.imfdb.org/index.php?title=Aliens

For those who have not seen it is a pretty cool site overall.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Wasn't it based on the Thompson or similar smg? I didn't know they used SPAS-12 parts but now that you mention it, it is kind of obvious when you look at the grenade launcher section


Update: I've just read the entry at the Movie Firearms Database and found out it was the thompson and not my eyes playing tricks on me

[kato13]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Wasn't it based on the Thompson or similar smg? I didn't know they used SPAS-12 parts but now that you mention it, it is kind of obvious when you look at the grenade launcher section

Yeah the main gun was a Thompson and the grenade launcher was a 12 gauge shotgun.

[Legbreaker]

There were three weapons that made up the pulse rifle, the Thompson, SPAS-12 and the Remington 870.

The original had however used the MP-5 in place of the Thompson but the 9mm wasn't able to give enough of a flash so they switch to the larger calibre weapon.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by kato13

Yeah the main gun was a Thompson and the grenade launcher was a 12 gauge shotgun.

I don't understand that; in the movie, they used a 12-gauge shotgun as the grenade launcher (12-Gauge = 18.52mm), but the Colonial Marines Handbook
says the GL is 30mm. When I made up the M-41A for my Best Weapons that Never Were section, I (IIRC) pegged it at 20mm (With a tech level of 11). There is no way that GL is 30mm!

[Legbreaker]

The Aliens rulebook also states it as 30mm and I think it's mentioned as 30mm in the movie too.
Now if only they'd had a 30mm shotgun laying about they could have used for the props....

[kato13]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I don't understand that; in the movie, they used a 12-gauge shotgun as the grenade launcher (12-Gauge = 18.52mm), but the Colonial Marines Handbook
says the GL is 30mm. When I made up the M-41A for my Best Weapons that Never Were section, I (IIRC) pegged it at 20mm (With a tech level of 11). There is no way that GL is 30mm!

Since they only used the real guns for the ease in firing blank shells (for the visual effects) they could have but a 30mm port over the front of shotgun to maintain the visual appearance of a 30mm launcher.

However this

does not look 30mm to me.

[Targan]

A picture I drew of the M41A Pulse Rifle was published in the first edition of Gunmaster.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Targan

A picture I drew of the M41A Pulse Rifle was published in the first edition of Gunmaster.

Nice!