History Headscratchers / CowboysAndAliens

** Gorillas, Elephants, Bats, [[AcceptableTargets Canadians, Swiss,]] [[UsefulNotes/AncientGreece Minoans]]....

** [[ActuallyPrettyFunny Funny!]]

** Gorillas, Elephants, Bats, [[AcceptableTargets Canadians, Swiss,]] [[AncientGreece Minoans]]....

*** "Transmit the detach signal"? Is that what you kids are calling it these days.
**** [[ActuallyPrettyFunny Funny!]]

*** This doesn't address the fact that, with such technology, they could either fabricate it or find a gold asteroid someplace several times the size of their ship.
**** Mining asteroids for gold might indeed work, as [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm this article]] attests. But fabrication? Gold is a chemical ''element'' -- the only way to synthesize it is with nuclear fission (which would nearly always result in a gold isotope that was ''radioactive'') or nuclear fusion (which requires far more energy than it would just to look for the stuff and mine it).

*** Historical imperial societies performed medical experiments on captive humans to learn more about their own biology. These aliens aren't human. It would be like us performing unethical experiments on cockroaches or Sequoia trees.
*** Or on lab rats and chimpanzees. These aliens still have what appear to be lungs, hearts, eyes etc, meaning that humans are similar enough to carry out a whole bunch of test on, and all without being presented any ethical dilemma.
*** They're probably looking for an easier way of killing several million/billion of us than "personally shoot and stab every single one."
*** And the bigger the sample, the more accurate the results. Handy if you're developing bioweapons or KillAllHumans RAID.

*** If she can regenerate after her body was burned, she could just as easily regenerate after an explosion. Burning is a lot more through way to destroy cells than explosions, despite being less impressive to watch.
*** To the above, nonsense. She had only been on the fire for a minute, whereas it takes more than three hours to completely burn all the combustable elements of a human corpse. Meanwhile, she was in the dead centre of an explosion strong enough to disintigrate entire alien spacecraft. Which is likely to do the more damage to a body?

* When they were battling near the alien ship, why didn't they just take the firearms from the aliens that had them, insead of resorting to guns, spears, and dynamite?

*** Unless the rifles are somehow tied into the armbands/their biology.

*** That didn't help the guy attacking Emmett at the end of the movie.
**** I think it's made pretty clear that the aliens underestimate the humans. I might have figured he would just give up and die. On top of all of that, why do we assume that the aliens are all ruthless killing machines? For all we know, that alien was a alien high school drop out who could only dig up rocks for a living.

*** For previous wars? They already fought against at least one civilization and surely they must have had wars among themselves.
*** Why surely they must have? Which real-world alien races are you using as a basis for this assumption?
*** A race that never experiences war of any kind, including war amongst each other, is even less believable than aliens.
*** Gorillas, Elephants, Bats, [[AcceptableTargets Canadians, Swiss,]] [[AncientGreece Minoans]]....
*** Gorillas fight one another. So do elephants (what do you think the tusks are for?). I don't know enough about bats to comment--nevertheless, "race" indicates civilization, not animals. The Canadians fought in World War I and II, and numerous others. The Swiss are only neutral because they have compulsory military service and the whole country is set up to kick the shit out of anyone who tries to invade. The Minoans had fortifications and defensive walls.

** Her job on the planet was more to watch out for the aliens and warn/help the locals. It presumably takes effort to shapeshift, so she preferred to stay in the form of an attractive woman so as to get the most help from the humans

*** On other side, they already had one escaped human (Lonergan), as well as at least two downed aircrafts. Of course, it could not be considered as strategic treat, however, it is definitely tactical treat. Just imagine, how we would react to such incidents if we were in place of those alien expedition? Certain security system around our main operation base in the region is totally neccessary and must have.

*** Look at it this way - why is nobody complaining that the crew of Nostromo in the Alien movie didn't have any fancy futuristic military equipment? The aliens in this film are probably like that crew - they are blue collar workers on a mining mission.
*** Moreover, if they had any military history, they would use better tactics, beginning with recon actions to evaluate the type and level of treat. In movie, they attacked distraction group of humans and in the result were ambushed, what wouldn't happen, if they had proper security zone around their base with movement sensors, video and aerial surveilance...
*** What we're seeing in the movie '''is''' the "recon actions to evaluate the type and level of threat." Remember what Ella says--these are scouts, sent to research the indigenous lifeforms and figure out how best to kill them. What they found, presumably, was a bunch of squishy people who die really easily, and whose most common weapons barely scratch their own skin. Up until the cowboys find them--with help from an alien they thought they'd wiped out--they'd been operating with impunity.\\\

* Just to point out something: mining gold from asteroids is unlikely to be viable. Heavy elements only exist in large planetoids (due to gravitational attraction during formation), not loose in space. Asteroids would only contain gold (and similar heavy elements) if they were broken off a planetoid (which is possible, but very low frequency) during a massive impact, and only then in rough proportion to that found on their originating planetoid. Recent asteroid surveys suggest that Iron through Zinc are about the heaviest elements to be found in anything above trace amounts in asteroid fields. So, if you're looking for gold in a solar system, you look at the innermost set of planets. Anywhere else is unlikely to get you much.

** Answering the question of why Ella's species was killed in the first place, that's not as hard to explain as one might think. The movie establishes that the aliens study intelligent life forms on a gold-rich planet in order to discover their weaknesses and exterminate them. Ella seems familiar with the process, implying that it may have happened to her species. The aliens probably discovered whatever was necessary to kill one of them ([[NukeEm nuclear weapons]]?, [[AppliedPhlebotinum a rare element]]? etc...), manufactured necessary tech for doing it on a larger scale, and wiped them off the star maps.

** Her job on the planet was more to watch out for the aliens andwarn/helpp the locals. It presumably takes effort to shapeshift, so she preferred to stay in the form of an attractive woman so as to get the most help from the humans

*** To the above, nonesense. She had only been on the fire for a minute, whereas it takes more than three hours to completely burn all the combustable elements of a human corpse. Meanwhile, she was in the dead centre of an explosion strong enough to disintigrate entire alien spacecraft. Which is likely to do the more damage to a body?

** If you were on a planet full of gun toting born and bred hunters, you might think twice about becoming a big easty that would need to eat copious amounts of said hunters to stay alive. It may be easier just to blend in and pick a side.

*** [[ActuallyPrettyFunny Funny!]]