So one thing which I always wondered about this 57 years; Burke says this when Ripley is dreaming. So has it really been that long?

Also if it was 57 years, IIRC that's just how long she was drifting in hypersleep. I don't think the company knew about the aliens until they discovered Ripley. They had already colonised part of the planet and it was only until Ripley gave them the coordinates to the ship that they then sent someone from the colony to investigate (Newt's family).

Maybe. But considering that Ashe had told them about the priority to bring one (or more) of the aliens back to Earth, it seems likely that the Company would have known about it then. And the ship probably reported receiving the signal as soon as it happened, etc.

Also it seemed a bit odd that Ripley's daughter had already died, and she wasn't all that old. 65 or something, as I recall. But maybe that was just so they wouldn't need to show a reunion, and it gave Ripley no big reason to stay behind, etc.

I need to watch the first Alien again but you're right, they picked up a signal so it would be strange if they had colonised the planet and not been able to pick up the same signal, especially as they were terraforming it.

But just going by what I remember from Aliens, Burke definitely mentioned he sent people to check out the crashed ship after hearing Ripleys story (the whole "it was a bad call" scene).

Regarding Ripley's daughter dying at 65; I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think she could die at that age (especially with cancer etc). But yeah, you're right it was just to further the story with her having no ties but also emphasising the affects and consequences of the first Alien on her life.

Doubtlful of this, but maybe it was a rare case of Hollywood scifi writers being realistic. You can't just slap together a deep space mission, let alone one with heavy artillery & combat capabilities, in just a matter of months or even years, or even decades. Technology and engineering notwithstanding, I doubt the Company could fund such an expensive venture especially when their last starship just went up in smoke. How many investors will be pleased about that?

Just yesterday I read that the Mars Rover found possible organic matter on the surface and collected samples, possibly the greatest discovery so far regarding the existence of life. When will we get those samples back to Earth? Hopefully, scientists say in the mid 2030s. At least 10 years to put together a simple collection ship to fly to Mars and back. Scifi rarely acknowledges the realities of putting together these colossal efforts in deep space because audiences want everything to happen fast. The only scifi I can think of which actually addressed this was 2010: The Year We Make Contact, where it took around 2 years to put together a mission to Jupiter, and even that required a very shaky alliance between the USA & Russia because only by combining all our best technology could we even hope to pull it off.

The Alien franchise is much more fantasy related than 2001/2010 of course, so I doubt the writers thought of this kind of stuff. But you never know.

In the 2010 movie, the mission had been underway basically since the 2001 movie, Dr Floyd and the other Americans were just last-minute additions. The Discovery 2 was already being built, but they had to go with the Russians once they found out that Discovery (1) would fall out of orbit before Discovery 2 was scheduled to make the trip.

The space-travel stuff in the Alien movies was far more routine, of course. The Nostromo was basically a "space truck" hauling a mobile ore refinery etc out and back. And they didn't need to build the Sulaco from scratch either, for Aliens. From the dialog etc, it was clear that the military also went on space missions fairly routinely.

@Knixon said:

In the 2010 movie, the mission had been underway basically since the 2001 movie, Dr Floyd and the other Americans were just last-minute additions. The Discovery 2 was already being built, but they had to go with the Russians once they found out that Discovery (1) would fall out of orbit before Discovery 2 was scheduled to make the trip.

The space-travel stuff in the Alien movies was far more routine, of course. The Nostromo was basically a "space truck" hauling a mobile ore refinery etc out and back. And they didn't need to build the Sulaco from scratch either, for Aliens. From the dialog etc, it was clear that the military also went on space missions fairly routinely.

You made my point. The Discovery 2 was indeed being built but it wasn't going to be ready until well past the 2 year time frame. That's why they had to collaborate with the Russians; just to get a handful of scientists to Jupiter it took the combined intellectual and technological assets of the world's 2 superpowers.

It was still far from realistic, but 2010 is the first time a major Hollywood scifi acknowledged that you can't just put together a space mission without years of planning. Given that the movie 2010 was made just prior to Aliens, it's possible that Hollywood writers were embracing a new sense of sobriety with regard to the particulars of space travel. Audiences were (albeit briefly) getting smarter and realizing the realities of space travel, not just from a physics standpoint but from a commercial one. If The Company is indeed a smart business entity, they wouldn't be so quick to throw good money after bad, i.e. the colossal failure of their first mission. Investors would've tanked that stock and it would've been decades before they could hope to touch the idea, if ever. Ever heard of the Spruce Goose?

But again, my explanation is a "real world" one and I admit the Alien franchise is fun scifi fantasy. In general it's pointless to find & plug loopholes in scifi because there are so many we readily accept. When I watch Alien I'm not watching it the same way I watch 2001 or even 2010. It's more of a Star Trek kind of vein where you just go with whatever they say.

Not so fast. The Russian mission in 2010 was already in progress too, no "combined intellectual and technological assets" required. The Russians were already going, when they went, the only change was that Floyd, Curnow, and Chandra went with them. Discovery 2 would have been at least a year later, if only due to orbital dynamics.

This is all still pretty relative to current-day situations, since we don't have space battleships cruising around waiting for something to do, but there's no evidence that the military/rescue mission of the Sulaco took YEARS to get underway. And indeed, when asked how long it would take for a follow-up rescue once the Ripley and the others were stranded by the Aliens, the answer was "Seventeen days." And, the time from when they lost contact with the colony until the Sulaco arrived was probably less than a month. Most of which was flight time, not preparation.

@Knixon said:

Not so fast. The Russian mission in 2010 was already in progress too, no "combined intellectual and technological assets" required. The Russians were already going, when they went, the only change was that Floyd, Curnow, and Chandra went with them. Discovery 2 would have been at least a year later, if only due to orbital dynamics.

This is all still pretty relative to current-day situations, since we don't have space battleships cruising around waiting for something to do, but there's no evidence that the military/rescue mission of the Sulaco took YEARS to get underway. And indeed, when asked how long it would take for a follow-up rescue once the Ripley and the others were stranded by the Aliens, the answer was "Seventeen days." And, the time from when they lost contact with the colony until the Sulaco arrived was probably less than a month. Most of which was flight time, not preparation.

You need to watch 2010 again.

Also “Discovery 2 would have been at least a year later, if only due to orbital dynamics.”

You keep repeating my point. But you’re trying to say I’m wrong? Are you just trying to start arguments with everyone who answers your question?

I'm very familiar with the movie. What do you think I'm missing?

We know you are building the Discovery 2......to go back to Jupiter to find out what happened to your men up there. Also to examine the large monolith. You know that we are building the Alexei Leonov to also go up there.

-I thought you were gonna call it the Titov.

-We changed last month. People fall out of favor. The Leonov will reach Discovery almost a year before you people are ready. My government feels it's very important that we should get there first. It's a distinction that will look splendid on the front page of Pravda. What other value it has, I don't know.

@Knixon said:

Also it seemed a bit odd that Ripley's daughter had already died, and she wasn't all that old. 65 or something, as I recall. But maybe that was just so they wouldn't need to show a reunion, and it gave Ripley no big reason to stay behind, etc.

I always took it that this scene one can only see in the "long" version of the film helps to set up an issue for Ellen that is resolved by her meeting the Newt character. I don't know how much I need to spell it out, but... come on... Ripley learns she's lost her daughter while in sus. animation or whatever you call it... Ripley cries hysterically... Ripley takes little Newt as her new "daughter," acting as her surrogate mom. It's very simple, really.

Right, so like I said, it's just Because Plot/Because Drama. It just struck me as odd that nobody - including Ripley - made any comment about her being so young etc, especially since Burke never said what she died from. Which at least suggests that it was "just old age," yet she was only 63 or something. I found that odd. If they wanted that to be the excuse, why say that Ripley was only drifting for 57 years? Just "something that makes me go hmmm..."

@Knixon said:

Right, so like I said, it's just Because Plot/Because Drama. It just struck me as odd that nobody - including Ripley - made any comment about her being so young etc, especially since Burke never said what she died from. Which at least suggests that it was "just old age," yet she was only 63 or something. I found that odd. If they wanted that to be the excuse, why say that Ripley was only drifting for 57 years? Just "something that makes me go hmmm..."

I'm just trying to explain to you why I think the daughter comes up in the film in the first place, that's all.

Well of course that's pretty obvious. I don't get why they did a fairly incompetent job of it.

They could have had Ripley out there drifting for long enough that even a young kid might reasonably have died of old age in the meantime.

They could have had the daughter go looking for Mom at some point and dying in some kind of space accident.

All kinds of options.

Heck they could have had her daughter go to LV-426 as an adult, looking for her mom; she gets killed by the Aliens, and then we have Newt being Ripley's GRAND-daughter.