Factual error: In the final dogfight, it is declared that the MIG-28s carry the "Exocet" anti-ship missile. This missile is around 1,500lbs and would be visible on the enemy fighters. That additional wing loading would have made them ineffective in a dogfight and they would have been easily overwhelmed by the F-14s in a dogfighting (no external tanks or heavy ordinance) configuration. Not to mention that Exocet is a French-made missile and would not be carried by a Soviet fighter.
kayelbe
9th Jun 2014
Top Gun (1986)
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: The USS Stark was hit by Exocets. Wasn't flown by the French. The Exocet was/is used by dozens of nations (albeit nearly all Western-leaning). The adversary's nationality isn't specifically mentioned, intentionally, I'd bet. The aircraft markings suggest Soviet/Communist, but again, not mentioned.
Suggested correction: While it's mentioned they carry them, it doesn't mean they had to have them, but implies they could have them.
21st Nov 2023
Flight of the Intruder (1991)
Factual error: Lieutenant Commander Cole goes to the skipper's office with his hands in his pockets and proceeds to talk to him, and not once does he remove his hands from his pockets. This is a military no-no. A person in uniform NEVER walks or talks with his hands in his pockets.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Not necessarily. 1) This was during the Vietnam war, a lot of regs are overlooked. 2) The old military phrase "RHIP" (Rank has its privileges).
I respectfully disagree. I was an officer in Vietnam during the war, and the Air Force would not tolerate it even there. Maybe the Navy was more lax.
19th Jul 2022
Pixels (2015)
Continuity mistake: When playing Donkey Kong in the competition, Cooper finishes Level 22 by jumping over the last piece holding the Ape up and then it says "GAME OVER," when he should go to the next level.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
27th Sep 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: Phoenix says Hangman is the only active-duty pilot in the Navy with a confirmed kill, but she is wrong because Maverick has 3 confirmed kills and is still an active-duty Navy pilot, even though he has been flying test aircraft. (00:25:10)
Correction: She says, "you are looking at the only naval aviator on active duty with a confirmed air-to-air kill." She isn't wrong. Maverick was not an active-duty navy aviator since three years before that moment and would not become one until near the end of the film, i.e, a week later. Second, films are allowed to show characters that make in-universe mistakes. She corrects herself near the end of the film at 1:58:20, saying Maverick is an active-duty navy pilot with five kills.
Maverick is still an active duty Naval aviator the entire time.
Active duty yes; his designator was a test pilot, not a naval aviator at the time.
People on active duty get promoted based on their service length. In this film, Maverick has not received a promotion for 30 years, and more importantly, has not scored a single aerial kill in 30 years.
He's had a few promotions in 30 years. In 1986, he was an O-3. In this film, he is an O-6. He hasn't been promoted at the same rate as his peers, for sure, but that's just who he is. He didn't want to be in a position where he couldn't fly anymore. On that note, he's not assigned to a Fighter Squadron at the beginning of the film, but to a test pilot billet - so technically, Phoenix was correct in her thinking if not her choice of words.
Cyclone graduated in 1988. 34 years later, he's an Admiral and air boss. Maverick graduated two years earlier and stayed a Captain for Amelia's entire life, despite having flown missions in Iraq, among other things. Where did all his service time go? The answer is a "dishonorable discharge." He got his service time annulled because of his escapades involving "The Admiral" (Penny's father), "the Other Admiral", and Admiral Cain. He got fired. In the real world, he'd get fired upon.
You are assuming way too much. While it's true that the Navy would likely encourage him to retire long before the events of the new movie, it's spelled out in the film that he hasn't advanced because he wants to keep flying. He's a maverick, plain and simple. If he has to piss off an Admiral to keep from getting promoted to a desk job, he'd do it.
Let me quote what you just said: "it's spelled out in the film that he hasn't advanced!" There you go. Do you know what else has been spelled out in the film? That at 00:25:10 film time, Hangman was the only active-duty pilot in the Navy with a confirmed kill.
No, it's spelled out that he is the only active naval aviator with a kill. Maverick is not a naval aviator anymore; he is a test pilot. Different designators.
12th Jan 2023
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Continuity mistake: In the first training session, Maverick eliminates both Hangman and Rooster, meaning they should return and do their push-ups and we are shown this, meaning once you have done your PT, that is it for you. However, later in the sequence, both Hangman and Rooster are shown still in the air where Hangman is talking to Rooster about his relationship to Maverick, who has been observing them the whole time.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Rooster does his pushups after the first sortie, flying with Payback and Fanboy (who made up the rules). Next up are Fritz, Harvard, and Yale, followed by Hangman, Phoenix, and Bob. Omaha, Halo, and Coyote lose next. Then Rooster goes out again but this time with Hangman. Because of their beef, that sortie ends when Maverick tells them to knock it off. Hangman technically didn't get shot down, so Rooster does the last set of pushups by himself. Nowhere is it said the day ends with one set.
Speaking as someone who has worked on pre and post-production on over five hundred films, I must respectfully disagree with this. My point is that the editing has been screwed up, as all the people who were shot down by Maverick stayed down and did not go back up again. We do not see Rooster go up again, so I have to take issue with this.
13th Sep 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: Only the USAF (via Lockheed) builds, tests and flies strategic reconnaissance aircraft like the U-2, SR-71 and rumors of a new SR-72, Darkstar etc. The Navy wouldn't be running the project.
Correction: There are several civilians on the project team. The project is past the prototype phase and is being tested. The Navy controls the purse strings, and the Test and Evaluation Squadron, VX-1, is operating the aircraft. As to why the Navy is running the project, a fictitious one in the movie? Maybe the Navy will be flying it. Maybe it's a joint project with the USAF.
21st Jun 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Character mistake: The Admiral refers to Top Gun as Maverick's final post. As Maverick is a Naval aviator, it should be referred to as his final duty station. The army uses the term post.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: "Post", in the Navy, is also used in the same manner as "adjourned" or "dismissed". It could be argued that the Admiral was stating this is the last duty station from which he will "post".
7th Feb 2023
The Terminator (1984)
Corrected entry: Reese relays a message to Connor from her son, supposedly verbatim - Reese says John made him memorize it: Thank you, Sarah, for your courage..." John wanted Reese to give the message verbatim - that's why he made Reese memorize it - so John would have said, "Thank you, mom", not "Sarah."
Correction: Not necessarily. He was an adult, in a ravaged future with the survival of the human species at stake. It's not improbable that he used the more formal/cold "Sarah", rather than "Mom."
Correction: This is an assumption of how a character should act and not a mistake. Not all people address their mother as "mom." Many address them by their name. I personally have used my parents' names when talking about them to another person. Not to mention Sarah had raised John to be a warrior and the resistance leader, which could have changed the mother/son relationship.
9th Aug 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: During the final mission, it's mentioned that a T-LAM strike from the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Leyte Gulf will precede the Top Gunners and destroy the airfield. However, the number of tomahawks shown in flight is far too many to have been fired from a single ship given how close together they are (practically in close formation).
Correction: Yes we can fire that many in a short amount of time.
Granted it's been over 20 years since I was on a Tico (a snipe at that), and we only fired a dozen in a single strike, but maybe our mission profiles didn't call for rapid succession. I would defer to someone who has more contemporary experience.
12th Sep 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: Tom plays a Captain but there is a scene in the hangar where he is wearing the rank of Lt Colonel on his shoulder.
Correction: I've rewatched this scene (I assume the one where they find out who POPS really is) in particular and there's not a really clear shot of his rank patches, and from what I could tell they were the eagle of a USN Captain.
There is no rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the US Navy. The equivalent rank (three stripes or a silver oak leaf cluster) is Commander.
13th Sep 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: The movie had Top Gun in San Diego. The Naval Air Weapons School (Top Gun) is in Fallon, Nevada, nowhere near water or an ocean. Part of the reason for this location is to have more exercises with nearby Red Flag at Nellis AFB.
Correction: All of what you said was correct. However, it can be argued this is intentional. The group of pilots are all TopGun graduates, not students. They are referred to a few times as a "detachment." My interpretation is that they were assembled by the TopGun command, but trained out of North Island. Doesn't explain the Fightertown USA banner featured prominently in a few scenes.
13th Sep 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Plot hole: How could the E-2 Hawkeye not spot the enemy helicopter? It must have been airborne for many minutes at least before attacking Maverick. But less than 90 seconds before we see the helicopter, Comanche only confirmed the two Bandits approaching. (01:40:29 - 01:42:00)
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: The helicopter is never shown on film more than 50 feet off the deck. It was previously established that the Hawkeye lost radar contact of Dagger Flight when they lowered their altitude on the approach-and they were over water at the time. The helicopter was shown exclusively within the heavily forested area which would almost certainly mask it from radar regardless of altitude.
Only the carrier lost radar contact, which is why they switched to "E-2 picture." The Hawkeye had radar contact with the Daggers all the time when they were cruising low through the narrow, forested, snowy canyon. The enemy helicopter would be as visible to Hawkeye radar as the Daggers.
I stand correction-corrected. Thanks.
23rd Aug 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: The team is required to fly at high speed due to the anticipation of 5th gen fighters intercepting them on the way out. Issue 1 - They blew up the nearest airbase, so where would these fighters come from? Issue 2 - If they expected them from another nearby base, they should have launched the tomahawks later in the mission (as it was, they would have given the enemy a major head start by blowing up the runway about a minute to early). Note: The only planes that arrive were totally unexpected.
Correction: They say in the film that the point of the runway strike is to stop new aircraft taking off, but that some will already be in the air on patrol - those are the ones which come after the US planes.
I wondered too why they attacked the airfield when they did. That attack is what tipped the bad guys off, right? Without that warning the team could have flown up the canyon with less speed, have an easier shot at the target, and climb out with less danger. Escaping without crashing into the steep mountain was perhaps the most difficult part of the mission. So why not hit the airfield after the target it hit?
That is fair, but they seemed fairly surprised when the 2 bandits appeared on radar, and the Air Boss even asked where they came from. If they anticipated patrols, he shouldn't have been so surprised. They still launched the tomahawks way too early - there was no reason not to time them to hit at the approximate time that Maverick was in position to fire. Time was stated as their biggest adversary, and the tomahawks landing early cost them decent amount of it.
My assumption was that after taking out the initial aircraft, they'd assumed that was all there were, presumably with no others on radar. The final two may well just have been further away than radar range. The missile timing is a bit debateable - given their job was to stop any new fighters taking off, and the F-18s being under the radar would keep them secret anyway, it didn't need to be down to the second. Perhaps they wanted to hit the runway early enough to give the planes time to cancel the attack if the runway wasn't properly disabled.
They WERE surprised when they appeared on their radar. That's the point of the 5th generation stealth technology! The "where'd they come from" response was spontaneous, since the radar picture was clear and then it wasn't.
31st May 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: The beginning footage shows the USS Roosevelt CVN 71 as the carrier being used for flight ops, yet they refer to it in the movie as the USS Lincoln, CVN 72.
Correction: You are absolutely correct, except it's never suggested they are the same aircraft carrier. The opening sequence is just for "flavor."
18th Jun 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Continuity mistake: In the first scene when Maverick enters the airbase on his motorcycle it is mid-morning based on the sun and shadows. When he takes off in the test jet it is pre-dawn.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: The movie sequencing/reveal is shoddy for this. Prior to him uncovering the motorcycle and heading out he slaps the calendar on the wall where it says, If I recall, "Mach 8." the day before on the calendar says something like "training" or "physical test" or something (I honestly forgot). That happens the first day ("afternoon") as shown with him on the treadmill; he sleeps on-base to get up "pre-dawn" and that's when the admiral arrives and he takes off.
This shot is likely referring to the fact that at Mach 10 he's travelling so fast towards the west that the sun (which only just set) appears to be rising again, as he outraces the darkness.
Travelling that far west would bring aircraft and pilot well over the pacific. No chance to find a lift back there.
I've watched this movie many more times since my comment. The runway assigned is "21", which has a heading of 210°, roughly southwest. This puts him facing the setting sun, but at his speed he's covering such a distance that he's actually seeing it "set" again. Even with the turn, the POV of the breakup appears still heading west. Somehow he ends up in rural (Northern?) California, walking all night to arrive at the diner for breakfast.
8th Aug 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: In all the scenes of the movie, only the aircraft carrier is shown. An aircraft carrier is part of a strike group or battle group protected by multiple ships to include cruisers, destroyers or frigates, and an auxiliary ship. All the scenes are of a single carrier and no protective ships.
Correction: The carrier strike group rarely travels close enough to be in frame, unless for a photo op or something similar. The Ticonderoga-class cruiser that fired the tomahawk missiles is shown.
31st May 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: Maverick apparently owns a P-51D Mustang, an aircraft that costs anywhere from $2-4 million dollars. He purchased this ostensibly on an O-6 salary, which maxes at around $13,000 a month.
Correction: It's not mentioned, but the few scenes showing the Mustang show Maverick performing maintenance on the plane; He restored it, which would not necessarily cost as much as if he outright purchased it. He's been flying for nearly 40 years and may have connections/friends/acquaintances who helped him get the plane.
Correction: He never had a family and he fixed it up. Pretty easy to save up that much money when you make 120k with no expenses.
31st May 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Corrected entry: Lt. Robert "Bob" Floyd Is a F-18 pilot wearing glasses. As far as I understand all fighter pilots are required to have 20/20 vision.
Correction: On top of that (which is a relatively new policy) - he's a Weapons System Officer (WSO), not a pilot, and he wouldn't have the same vision requirements, anyway.
Correction: To become a pilot, that means the candidate's vision can be no worse than 20/70 (correctable with glasses to 20/20) in each eye.
4th Jan 2020
Die Hard (1988)
Stupidity: Hans keeps a major part of his plan secret from his own team: that the electromagnetic lock will be disabled if the FBI shuts down power to the building. The mercenaries hired as muscle don't need to know the minutiae of the plan, but it seems ludicrous that Theo wasn't told. Theo states on more than one occasion that he can't proceed past a certain point and that he hopes Hans has a plan for the final lock. Evidently, Hans was keeping this information secret simply to amuse himself, which makes little sense considering how much planning went into the heist.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Or because he simply doesn't trust anyone with that kind of knowledge. He neither trusts them or cares about them, it's all him.
So he trusts that Theo would be on board with all the murder and mayhem, open all the other locks, be in a tactical lookout position when the police try to breach, and drive the getaway vehicle. But he doesn't trust Theo enough to tell him the last lock will open when the power goes out?
It's not about trust; Hans needs Theo to do what he is there for and that is all you mention up to the final lock. He has a plan for the final lock and so there's no need to discuss it with the team, since it won't be any of them responsible.
The more people that know the plan the more chances of someone talking. Especially when they are hired mercenaries.
Theo was already on board with taking hostages and committing murder. Him knowing that the power needed to be shut off to open the last lock doesn't appear to be particularly important information you would need to keep from someone to keep them from talking.
If he's the only one that knows the final step to get the money, then at least up until that moment he is absolutely indispensable to the plan and ensures no-one would double-cross him. In any case I'm not sure being more cautious than necessary really qualifies as "stupidity."
13th Jul 2017
Aliens (1986)
Corrected entry: When Ripley and the others are trying to figure out what they are dealing with Ripley suggests something is laying these eggs since there must be over 100. But she knows there already are hundreds if not thousands of these eggs so there is no reason to assume something is laying new ones. (01:34:40 - 01:35:15)
Correction: Ripley is running through the logic and realizing there is something they don't yet understand about the alien's life cycle: where the eggs come from. Even if they happen to be the same eggs from the derelict ship, the eggs had to have been created at some point, by something. But how? What is this process? She may have started out talking about how the specific colonists were taken over, but by the time she asks "who's laying these eggs," she's asking about the concept, in general. Because unless the creatures were specifically bio-engineered not to be able to, they almost certainly have the ability to create more eggs.
Correction: That's exactly what she means. She's saying something must've laid the eggs, and will likely continue to lay more.
But there is no reason for her to say there must be a queen lying these eggs, she knows there are eggs, there have been eggs there for decades.
In Alien, she doesn't know that though. She and the rest of the crew don't know what they've seen and what they're up against. Yes, she knows it's an alien but that's it.
She knows there are eggs from experiences in Alien where the eggs are discovered in the alien spaceship. Yet we don't see a queen alien. In Aliens, they aren't in the alien spaceship, they're in the atmosphere processing plant. Yes they're both on the same planet but do you think the eggs walked from one location to another? There must be something laying new eggs which Ripley hasn't yet seen.
My idea is that either the colonists or the xenomorphs themselves brought the eggs over to the colony. Perfectly logical if there is no queen. Sure it's also logical to think there is a queen, as movie viewers, but my point is there is no reason for Ripley to think something is lying these eggs whilst she knows there already were thousands of eggs.
Ripley is making the (correct) assumption that because the colonists are being taken deeper into the colony, and that the aliens have built a hive in the colony itself; that the eggs found there were laid there. If the hive had been built inside the derelict spacecraft, then Ripley likely wouldn't have made that assumption.
But why not think the aliens had taken the eggs from the derelict craft and taken them closer to the incubators, thus inside the colony? I just think it's far-fetched she immediately starts talking about a possible queen whilst there is hardly any reason to do so, where did the queen come from supposedly? All they know is some people from the colony brought aliens inside them into the colony and then all hell broke loose. Her assumption is nothing more than to help the plot along.
I don't think her assumption is far fetched at all. She assumes that the eggs must have been laid by something; which is logical. She then assumes the thing that laid the eggs is continuing to do so; which is also logical. Where the queen came from in never addressed in Ripley's conversation with Bishop. The two are merely speculating that there must an alien lying eggs and it must be something they haven't seen yet. It's quite a bit of a leap to think that the aliens somehow know that there are additional eggs miles away from the colony and they should go get them and bring them back. This borders on clairvoyance. It is much more logical, based on what the characters know and see, that the eggs in the colony were laid there.
But those eggs in the derelict ship have been lying there for an eternity, even if you would only count the amount of time Ripley has been asleep since she encountered them, no reason to think at all new eggs have been laid, no reason. Thousands of eggs were inside the derelict ship, the colonists were exposed to the aliens through those eggs, brought back to their colony inside themselves (they didn't bring eggs). It's ridiculous to think something then came, a queen, and nested inside the colony, unless a queen was brought along by the colonists, but Ripley and nobody in general have any idea how the aliens reproduce. It's more logical to think the aliens can reproduce on their own, not that a queen is needed. That's more of my point, the name "Queen" being used. That's what borders on clairvoyance. We know the Aliens have extrasensory perception (as shown in this movie) so them being able to sense the eggs that far away is a lot more believable to me.
I'm struggling with understanding your reasoning for why it is so unbelievable that Ripley and Bishop deduce that something is lying the eggs. Their explanation doesn't come anywhere close to clairvoyance. They make a logical guess that eggs are laid. They deduced, along with Hudson, that the creatures behaved in a similar fashion to ants or bees. That would mean logically a queen is lying the eggs. Once again, where the queen "came from" is never addressed in their conversation because it is irrelevant. The characters have much more than a general idea of how the creatures reproduce, they know everything pertinent except where exactly the eggs come from. I'm not understanding why you say it to be more logical that "the aliens can reproduce on their own, not that a queen is needed." If you are saying it to be more logical to think of the aliens as closer to chickens than ants (i.e., each creature lays it's own eggs), that doesn't make sense because they are basing their "ants" theory on the presence of a hive.
Well all right they may have guessed how the aliens behave and reproduce correctly, they did see all colonists together and probably incubated, a nest, fine. To me its all about the idea Ripley starts talking about a queen being down there from the fact there are over 100 eggs down there. Again, she knows there are thousands of eggs on the derelict ship already. What we know doesn't work for Ripley who knows nothing about those things. They aren't even sure how the aliens got to the colony and Ripley never mentions the derelict ship that had thousands of eggs again. For all she knows the colonists had already taken eggs from the ship back to the colony, why not think that's what going on? But she immediately jumps to the queen theory, which helps her later on.
Ripley mentions the derelict and the thousands of eggs both in the inquest and again on the Sulaco, both prior to the mission starting. Once they arrive on the planet and discover the hive they deduce that it might work like an ant colony or bee hive. Ripley questions "So what's lying these eggs?" to which Bishop responds "It must be something we haven't seen yet." Hudson is the first to suggest a possible queen. This conversation doesn't help Ripley later on in the movie. She literally just runs into the queen's chamber completely by accident. The conversation is just there to plant an idea in the audience's mind that there is an alien queen. You are arguing that based on what the characters know, they should have come to an incorrect conclusion (the aliens are taking eggs from the derelict back to the colony) rather than the correct one, if they came to any conclusion at all. You also say that "what we know" doesn't apply to what Ripley knows about the creatures, except that isn't true at all. At this point, Ripley knows everything about the aliens that the audience knows. Coming up with the idea that "these things built a hive like bees do. I wonder if that means they have a queen like bees and ants do?" is completely rational.
Let's agree to disagree then. What we know as the audience is that some colonists went to the derelict ship and brought back aliens inside them, Ripley and the marines don't know that as contact was lost and Newt isn't telling anything. Where do the eggs come from? The derelict ship should be the first idea, not that something is lying them, inside the colony even. Sure something once has laid them but that could have been thousands of years ago, where would a queen come from? All this, no logical reason to assume there is a queen. That's my opinion and why I posted the mistake.
We cannot agree to disagree because your theory is incorrect. It is safe to say that Ripley would logically deduce that neither the colonists nor the Aliens are capable of bringing 150 eggs hundreds of miles back to the derelict. It not possible. And as we see, the eggs are freshly laid, glistening wet. The most logical explanation is that a Queen was birthed from one of the colonists, as later happened to Ripley herself in "Alien 3."
If the colonists didn't bring eggs back how and why did they get facehuggers into the containment tanks and had time to study them? They just happen to have caught some? If they were that much into a crisis they wouldn't have wasted time examining them. No, they brought eggs back to study them, everything was going well until some got loose and escaped underneath the processing station, including a queen. Ripley never saw the eggs amount in the colony and the old ones looked just as "fresh."
If they brought back eggs, where were they? All we saw were the facehugger specimens. Surely Cameron would have shown us eggs in addition to them. He doesn't miss details like that. As such, the two live ones were "surgically removed before embryo implantation." Remember? The dead ones were from colonist rescuers answering Newt's family's mayday call. No way did they try to bring back the eggs without having gotten inundated first. Come on man.
It's not even the point. My point was always the use of the word Queen and Ripley's blind assumption the eggs were being laid fresh.
Again, that was the logical conclusion, not someone transferring dozens of eggs hundreds of miles from the derelict to the colony. Why would the colonists waste time doing that? Put yourself in Ripley's head for a moment. You don't really believe that in all that was going down that she'd logically conclude that someone, whether it be human or alien, would travel back and forth hundreds of miles to the derelict and bring eggs, do you? Neither did Cameron.
Note that when this scene starts the characters' discussion has been going on in circles for quite some time (much like this thread!). Ripley recaps what they've deduced so far ("let's go over it again") in the present tense, describing what appears to be an ongoing reproductive cycle (which if correct would render the derelict's eggs kind of moot) and when it hits a blank she prompts for suggestions. These aren't "blind assumptions"-they're testing theories and drawing tentative conclusions.
A Queen was obviously brought along by the colonists, as Ripley was impregnated herself by one in "Alien 3."
I never denied there was a queen brought back. But certainly not in that one facehugger that got stuck to Newt's dad's face. They brought back more. They had to, they must have contained the first one.
Obviously they did bring back more. Rescuers to Newt's family were inundated with facehuggers. Two were removed surgically before embryo implantation. The other three, which may or may not have included Newt's father, successfully implanted their embryos. One of which was obviously a Queen.
I find the theory that the aliens travelled hundreds of miles out to the derelict to fetch over 150 eggs to be far-fetched. Obviously Ripley logically deduced, based on the fact that there was a hive in the processing station, that there was something laying eggs.
The colonists were told by the company to find the derelict ship and bring back eggs to study, they were told, and they had plenty of time to get a lot of eggs before things went wrong for them. Newt's dad was just an incident, they continued their research and brought more and more eggs over. Therefore there is no reason for Ripley to think those eggs are freshly made.
Nope. Simpson, in the Special Edition, was told by Burke to investigate a grid reference. No explanation. Newt's family investigates and her father is facehugged. A rescue team comes to them and several members get facehugged as well. No eggs are transferred. The Aliens, including the Queen, are borne of these colonists and the Queen lays the eggs. Period. There is every reason for Ripley to think those eggs are freshly made. I don't know where you get these crazy ideas but you are dead wrong.
So you are telling me the people rescuing Newt's family were stupid enough to enter the ship as well and get facehugged just like Newt's dad did? And then more rescuers came to rescue these new schmucks? That's even more stupid.
Stupid people do stupid things. Ever read a story of how someone goes in a manhole and is overcome by carbon monoxide or something similar? They rarely find just the one body, but usually the one or two people who go in to "rescue" the first victim.
I've got no problem with stupid people doing stupid things. I just don't know what's the problem with my theory, if it's plausible. Again, it's not even the point of my problem with the scene in question.
Newt's parents did a stupid thing too, as did Kane. Otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. It's that your theory is implausible, period. The derelict served its purpose in the story and was no longer a concern to Ripley. She logically concluded that the hive eggs were being laid by someone or something. Surely no-one else was going back into the derelict to bring back eggs after what happened. Lesson learned. Occam's razor: all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.