HUM 3130 Human beings and the Monsters they Create

The Aliens

19 November 2008

From The Blade Runner

• Roy’s last words/confession

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe: attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark at the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Roy Batty, Rachel and Rick Deckard

• May be read as a representatives of replicant vs human (although Deckard’s human identity is still in doubt)– Emotions (love, empathy, sympathy, love of

life) – Memory– Appreciation of their existence

• It seems that through the comparison of the replicants and the human beings in the film, we are to feel that– These replicants have more “human” qualities

than the human characters in the film– We are reminded of how we actually fall short

of the “human” qualities– The globalised commercial world is making us

more and more inhuman

• But– We are watching a film, another product of the

visual culture– What we think we see in the film is indeed

prepared for us by a director (remember the eye at the beginning of the film)

– We audience are controlled by the film directed by Ridley Scott

– Can we escape from this?

Today… the Aliens

• Alien (1979), dir. Ridley Scott

• Aliens (1986), dir. James Cameron

• Alien³ (1992), dir. David Fincher

• Alien Resurrection (1997), dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Why this series?

• The Aliens runs through 4 episodes with one central character and some basic ideas:– A hero to represent the best qualities of

human beings (interestingly, this hero is a woman)

– A very distinct contrast between two identities – human being and ALIENS

– The historical development of the film series reflects changing views and concerns about this basic question of who we are

Alien (1979)• In deep space, the crew of the commercial stars

hip Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel .

• The terror begins when Kane encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside an egg leaps out and attaches itself to his face, causing him to fall into a coma.

Horrifying discovery .... The life form they've found breeds within a h

uman host.

• As the crew attempts to hunt the alien down, it in turn hunts them.

• While searching for a safe escape, Ripley discovers the Company's secret plans to bring the alien to Earth

                                                     

                   

Alien (1979) -

Photo by Robert Penn - © 2003 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.

• Ripley ultimately finds that the alien must be destroyed, not only to save herself and her crew

• But all of MANKIND.

                                                                        

Alien (1979) - Sigourney Weaver

Photo by Robert Penn - © 2003 Twentieth Century Fox. Not for sale or duplication. All rights reserved.

Ellen L. Ripley • Warrant Officer

Ash•Science Officer

Eggs• The eggs appear to h

ave a leathery surface with four petals on top

• Open when a potential host enters its proximity

• Releasing the Facehugger

Facehugger

• The parasite that hibernates inside the egg

• Grasps the victim's head with its eight spider-like digits

• Places an embryo within the host's chest cavity.

Chestburste

• Has a symbiotic gestation period within the host

• Escapes through the host by bursting through his chest.

• Sheds its skin as it matures

Mature Alien• Has a long sleek cra

nium and a deadly secondary jaw that extends with great force and speed

• Quick and agile with great strength

Aliens (1986)

• After floating in space for 57 years, Lt. Ripley's shuttle is found by a deep space salvage team.

• Her account of the alien and the fate of her crew are received with skepticism since the planet where Ripley first encountered the alien was colonized over twenty years earlier and no evidence was found to support her story.

• When the Company loses contact with the terraforming colony on LV-426, Ripley is asked to return to the planet as an advisor with a squadron of Colonial Marines and a Company representative to investigate.

• The only survivor of LV-426, a nine year old girl named Newt. (Rebecca originally)

• The battle-hardened marines with all the latest weaponry are no match for the hundreds of aliens.

• They are forced to retreat to the Operations Center to await rescue themselves.

• Newt is captured during the retreat and Ripley goes back to save her.

• During the rescue, she encounters the alien Queen.

Ripley

Newt• Colonist • Survives the invasion

of the aliens by hiding in the air duct system, using tunnels that are too small for the aliens to enter.

• Sees Ripley as a surrogate mother.

Bishop• The Bishop android is se

nt with the Marine squadron to LV-426 to record events and act as Science Officer.

• When the Dropship crashes, Bishop remotely pilots a second ship to the surface from the Sulaco.

• He plays a key role in rescuing the last of the survivors.

Burke

• Carter Burke had worked for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation for nearly ten years.

• Sent by the Bio-Weapons Division to bring back a live alien for research.

The Warrior Aliens and Drone Aliens

• The Warrior Aliens serve and protect their Queen

• Find and immobilize suitable hosts

• Drone aliens build and maintain the nest

The Queen • Her cranium is much larger and flatter.

• Approximately two to three feet taller than the Soldier.

• Has four arms instead of two.

• Only reproductive female in the hive and directs its operation.

• More intelligent than the Soldiers and Drones.

Alien3 (1992)

• While in cryo-sleep on the journey back to Earth, a fire on the Sulaco forces the main computer to eject the cryo-capsules in an Emergency Escape Vehicle.

• The EEV crash lands on Fiorina 161, a bleak wasteland inhabited by former inmates of the planet's maximum security prison.

• Once again, Ripley must face skepticism and the alien as it hunts down the prisoners and guards.

• Without weapons or modern technology of any kind, Ripley leads the men into battle against the terrifying creature.

Ripley

• The only survivor from Emergency Escape Vehicle.

• The only female on Fiorina 161.

Doctor Clemens

• A former inmate at the Fiorina 161 Prison.

• Stayed at the prison as Chief Medical Officer.

• Has an attachment to Ripley.

Dog Alien

• Dog as host• 4 pedals• Runs fast

Alien Resurrection (1997)• A team of scientists clone Ripley from her e

xtracted DNA and removes the alien Queen embryo which was growing inside her at the time of her death.

• The scientists commission a crew of smugglers, The Betty Crew, to bring them a shipment of "hosts" to be used to grow more aliens.

• The Betty Crew meet Ripley.

• The aliens use their own acidic blood to escape from the laboratory

• Most of the military crew on board escapes leaving Ripley and the crew of The Betty behind.

• Ripley and the crew of The Betty ally to escape.

Clone #8 Ellen Ripley

• Cloned from Ellen Ripley’s DNA sample obtained from Fiorina 161

• Contains both alien and human DNA

• Carries traits from both species

Call

• Mechanic, Betty • Knows Ripley's past• Holds firm in her belief th

at all of the aliens must be destroyed.

• Possesses strong sense of humanity.

Failed Clone #1-7 of Ripley

• They range from being nearly all human to nearly all alien.

• Some are grotesque combinations in between.

The Queen

• Born from Ripley’s DNA.

• Developed a secondary reproductive system from which she grows a new breed of alien/human hybrid in a womb.

The Newborn

• A new, more dangerous breed of alien

• Womb-born• Believes that Ripley is

its mother.

Humans and/or Monsters in the four films:

• Human characters– Nostromo crew members

– Burke and the Marines

– Dr. Clemens and the prisoners

– The Betty crew

– Ellen Ripley

Ripley• In general, she is

portrayed as:A tough, independent,

strong-willed and caring woman.

Plays the role of protector.

Fight against the aliens and the company for mankind.

Ripley in different episodes

• 1st: caring, a professional

• 2nd: motherly

• 3rd: sexual being – implanted with alien embryo

• 4th: problematic –– Clones (1-8)– Her relationship with the aliens– Her relationship with human beings

Androids

• Ash:– Just an amoral machine/robot

• Bishop:– Programmed not to harm human beings– Reliable, and finally saves Ripley and the girl

• Call:– Programmed to care for human beings– Feels shame for not being human– Even asks Ripley to kill herself because of her new

hybrid identity

Aliens

• 1st: a killer• 2nd: labour distribution

– the Queen is more intelligent than the rest– A kind of comradeship among themselves

• 3rd: can use other animals to be host, will be contaminated by the hosts’ DNA

• 4th: identity confusion– Aliens start to harm one another (intelligence?)– Getting more like human

“The monstrous feminine”

• Proposed by Barbara Creed– Science fiction’s obsession with the primal

scene– The presence of the archaic mother

• Unseen• Seen as the monstrous creatures

– The text with the monsters – a negotiation of the horror in the presence of the monstrous

The archaic mother

The archaic mother is:“a mother-thing situated beyond good and evil, beyond all organized forms and all events. This is a totalizing and oceanic mother, a ‘shadowy and deep unity’, evoking in the subject the anxiety of fusion and of dissolution; a mother who comes before the discovery of the essential béance, that of the phallus. This mother is nothing but a fantasy inasmuch as she is only ever established as an omnipresent and all-powerful totality, an absolute being, by the very intuition - she has no phallus – that deposes her …

(Roger Dadoun, 1989)

• The origin of all things (the ultimate creator of all things in mythical narratives)

• Freud sees it as the pre-oedipal mother figure; while Kristeva sees it as the fecund mother and the phantasmatic mother (the black hole of death)

• The archaic mother is the sole parent in the primal scene, and she is not represented by the female genitalia (the lack), but the womb (a presence)

• Remember how Ash refers to it in Alien: “I admire its purity; a survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.”

• The archaic mother is represented in two different ways – the generative origin, but also the abyss which absorb life.

• The archaic mother is therefore not a ‘dependent’ partner to a masculine entity

The monstrous feminine in

• The company of wolves:– The counter-narrator to the traditional old wives

tale– Occupying the subject position in viewing

others as objects of desire (grandma viewing the sexual organ of the wolf, and Rosaleen viewing the male body transforming into a wolf)

– Transgressing beyond the expected behaviour and thoughts of the community

– Breaking the thresholds of the narrative spaces

After the text …

• What is your feeling about the end of these texts? Assured? Why?

Next week:

• Term Paper due

• The final text of the Semester:– Wings of Desire (dir. Wim Wenders)