Alien (franchise)/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• The Alien films are great in and of themselves, but one thing I've just recently begun to appreciate much more is the fact that H.R. Giger never gave the titular Xenomorphs a single defined gender, instead opting to make them a "horrific blurring of both sexes". Why is this so brilliant? Simple, they're aliens. These are creatures whose biology is so unlike our very own that the conventional labels of "male" and "female" do not apply to them. It also makes the aliens far more terrifying. After all, lions, in comparison, are also scary, but at least we know they have clearly defined genders.-baronobeefdip
  • When This Troper first saw Aliens as a kid, I thought the wholesale slaughter of the marines was just a Conservation of Ninjutsu thing or that the ones who died were the rookies or bottom tier. Only upon rewatching the film as a teen and adult did I really catch all the references to previous missions, the tight comaraderie within the unit, the graffiti on the equipment and realize that the marines were, in fact, the biggest badasses in the universe. Every last one of them. And it made no difference to the aliens.
    • This Troper realized something really where elite soldiers and they sent in a few elites to deal with the problem. The aliens were no match for them in technology, firepower or training. In a fair fight a Marine would easily win over the xenomorph (which we see them do), but the xenomorphs took on an unfair fight. They were able to instead use stealth to always take the marines by surprise, their superior knowledge of the facility (and ability to move throught ducts and the like) plus superior numbers to turn the fight to their advantage. This is EXACTLY what made the Vietcong win in Vietnam: No matter how much better trained the Americans were, the guerilla warfare of the Vietcong was what gave them their advantage.
  • Another xeno-related Fridge Brilliant moment is the titular aliens own behavior. These are not your typical "Take Over the World" aliens, nor do they want to be your friend. These are, in essence, wild animals. You cannot reason with, bribe, or have a philosophical conversation about the "meaning of life" with a Xenomorph. And, they're not downright evil, but are simply just trying to survive/protect their hive and/or queen. They're acting out of instinct, which makes them somewhat sympathetic while still scary as hell.

Ripley: You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a god damned percentage.

• • A lot of people wondered why the Predalien looked so radically different from the human-born aliens, whereas the dog alien from the third movie looked pretty much the same aside from some cosmetic differences. Then I realized that of course the Predalien looks so different from the ones that burst from earth-bound species, a Predator would have a DNA structure that's completely different then any creature from Earth. They evolved on two different planets and a human would share more of it's DNA with a dog then with a Predator.
• One has to wonder why elite colonel marines were killed faster then civilians on the Nostromo.Its because the people on the Nostromo were dealing with one alien.While the soldiers were dealing with dozens of fully grown Badass aliens.
  • Plus they walked into the Aliens' hive and lit one of their newborns on fire. That ticked them off pretty bad.
  • They might not have actually been that elite. The company was the ones who requested them, and they wanted a live alien. You don't send utter badasses when you want survivors. They had several lines that hinted that they may not have been the best of the best. The company might have asked the marine command for some disposable grunts and a poor officer.
• The events of Prometheus provide a plausible explanation for why Mother was able to decode some of the distress signal in Alien.