To begin with, the entire plot of the game relies on there having been a large, commercial space-station within spitting distance of LV-426 before and after the events of the first film, which basically renders just about everything that happens in both
Alien and
Aliens completely nonsensical.
True, I didn't even mention that. The only possible help you could get is actually trying to sabotage and kill you.
For all the good it will do them if it takes "lifetimes" to reach their intended victims in your universe.
To be a little less facetious, Lambert mentions that it will take the
Nostromo about ten months to return to Earth from LV-426 (a distance of about 40 light years), albeit that calculation is apparently due damage and and expenditure of fuel from landing on LV-426, so the vessel could probably arrive sooner under normal circumstances. Military starships (or perhaps just the starships of fifty years later generally) appear to have much faster FTL capability.
Correct, the xenomorphs appear to be more capable in that regard. (Not travelling of course, but surviving in extreme conditions.)
Not necessarily. There's no way to say whether xeno eggs can survive for millenia in their natural state, or whether the machinery of the Space Jockey's ship was preserving them.
And this odd infestation by space bugs has apparently wiped out the space jockeys. (Admittedly this is based on subjective interpretation and not hard evidence in the film, it may be that the derelict ship was the only one affected by xenomorphs. But then where did all the other space jockeys go?
Where did Ameilia Earhart? It's a big galaxy.
I'm just interpreting what was in the film, not expressing my own beliefs on the universe.
You are
absolutely expressing your own beliefs on the universe.
LOL
Tribbles are better "evolved."
I don't see how there's any cosmic significance to the things, that's the exact opposite of what I was saying. There is no cosmic significance to anything.
Which, ironically, leads to investing the xenomorph with a warped, sort of cosmic significance, like all of Lovecraft's weird gods evolving out of his belief in an empty, godless universe.
The universe in Alien seems nihilistic and that adds to the horror.
That is, again, you projecting your own beliefs onto something else.
"They turned off the power. How could they do that, man? They're animals man? How could they know how to do that?"
Aside from the xenomorphs actually showing evidence of intelligence and communication within the first two films, they're not just "large animals". Thematically and visually there's a strong symbolic layer to them. The explicitly sexual design, the rape and impregnation metaphor expanded to encompass males who don't normally experience that fear, the psychological pitting of two female archetypes (protective mother and vengeful fury) against each other in the original films to add a mythological element... It goes much beyond a simple 'dangerous animal' feel to something a lot more psychologically upsetting to most people.
If you're watching from the other side of a TV screen. In practical terms, the xenos are simply large, aggressive animals. They can't harm you if you're not standing within arms-reach, they can't build tools, and while they might be smarter than the average bear, even a disoriented fire-team's worth of Colonial Marines with most of their weapons and gear wrecked or inaccessible can still chew through hundreds of them.
Does it? As well from being hugely respectful of the original movie visually and atmospherically (other than changing the feet / legs of the alien which was a deliberate design decision going back on something that Scott was forced to do because of the SFX limitations of the day)...
Maybe they should have made its skin translucent and full of wriggling maggots, as was also envisioned and then dropped because of the SFX limitations of the day (specifically, the maggots kept going to sleep under the warmth of the studio lights, ruining the intended effect).
That said,
Isolation didn't just change the xeno's feet. It also changed a very stealthy, poised, slow-moving ambush hunter into a slobbering, growling, stomping monster with no subtlety or suggestiveness at all, that thumps around like a hyperactive Velociraptor, making huge amounts of noise in air vents and jumping out at the player like a cheap carnival trick. The game was
so hugely respectful of the original movie that it also blatantly violated one of the core concepts that Dan O'Bannon designed the xenomorph around in the first place by making it immune to gunfire (O'Bannon being heartily sick of the bulletproof monster cliche).
...it seemed to a very good job of fitting in with the plot and established facts of the original two movies. I can think of one thing which could be taken as a contradiction of the second movie, but that's only kind of and certainly not a contradiction just an additional unknown.
I don't think there's a single major plot-point from that game that makes any sense in continuity with the movies.
