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Originally Posted by FryeDwight
Thanks for showing that...boy, those two could squabble like an old married couple  !
I think they missed the fact that Newt became a surrogate daughter for Ripley and the mention of Newt being infected is almost a teaser for ALIEN3. I saw that on opening day with a friend and what a tremendous downer the first few minutes are  !
When I lived in the Chicago area (1976-79 at Fort Sheridan, sandwiched between Highwood and Lake Forest), my Dad got the CHICAGO TRIBUNE and I used to read Siskel's reviews, but He could be hard on many scary/edgy films, where Ebert was a little more accommodating. |
Well of course they would have missed Newt was a surrogate daughter because all mention of her having a daughter is removed from the theatrical version. When Ripley has a heart to heart with Newt, they edit out the convo about Ripley having a daughter.
I just saw the Special Edition and the mention of Ripley's daughter surprised me. The daughter plot does play well in Aliens, but I don't know that it was necessary.
When I saw the scene where Burke shows Ripley a pic of her daughter who died much older than Ripley, it was kinda weird for me, because in Alien, Ripley is 29, and she's doing long transport missions, so long they put the crew in stasis. Would a mother, apparently a single mother, being doing that with a young child? Seems unlikely.
The Special Edition (SE) did cover an apparent plot hole in the theatrical version (TV). In the TV Ripley says Burke was responsible for the deaths of 157 colonists. But in the corporate inquiry meeting we learn people have been on the planet for 20 years. Nobody knew about the danger until Ripley was found. But Ripley told Burke that Burke "sent them to the ship without warning them". In the TV I didn't know what she was referring to, actually, I didn't even think about it at the time. In the SE there's a couple scenes where we see Newt's parents were sent to specific coordinates for exploration/salvage, and officials okaying the parents can claim what they find. The parents find the ship and the father gets a face hugger. So, we have to put those together to guess Burke requested those coordinates to the alien ship based his review of Ripley's Nostromo story account.
I think we can also guess the face hugger Newt's father brought back was the queen. Otherwise, the colonists probably would not have laboratory face huggers in tanks. If it was just one non-queen alien, it would have gone like the Nostromo incident, the colonists would just be wiped out (with no lab face huggers), or they would have killed the alien.