Still an unanswered question about a scene in ALIEN...

Yeah, I always just figured it was the ship going haywire and starting to have internal mini-explosions. The whole thing is basically overheating, so things are beginning to explode. I think it just was Ridley adding to the immediate threat of the moment - nothing more. Definitely not Ash or any flame thrower wielding baddie.

Yeah I agree, I think it's just flame from the ship starting to overload. An environmental hazard is all IMO

Wrong forum. This is for Prometheus movie discussions. You wanted the Alien Discussions.

Thread moved :-) it will still show up in Recent Discussions on the sidebar however

Yes, I agree. I think the ship has just gone haywire and it's just fire blasting from something. It's not from a person or anything.

it was in the beginning stages of a self-destruct sequence...never thought twice about it.

Birdman, the scene does look slightly FX, but Im sure its simply an explosion generated by the ship overheating....

It was the ship overheating enough said. Go ask Ridley Scott about that and get bitch slapped.

i read in a article sometime ago, Sigourney Weaver said it was was one of the film crew firing a flamethrower at her, and was intended to appear to be part of the Nostromo's self destruct sequence. she said it freaked her out a bit, it was in essence a poorly executed live special effects fail, given the fact it clearly looks like someone in the back with a flamethrower hope this helps with your query birdman

Reading this thread made me think of another silly thing with the whole self destruct sequence. Wouldn't have made sense to have the console to set the ship to self destruct next to the escape shuttle? Seems a bit silly to have to go through the procedure and then run the length of the ship waisting precious minutes reaching the escape shuttle. What about if you tripped and broke your ankle! That would be some agonizing last minutes.

Not necessarily @Milos....consider a situation where one of the crew has an extreme case of cabin fever or loses his or her mind and just decides to set it, hop right in the shuttle and leave everyone else to die. The idea of distance between such a device and escape pods/shuttles would be necessary to prevent a event like that and ensure the crew has a damn good reason for needing to blow the whole works....not to mention that it seems clear Ripley pulls nuclear rods out of a cooling unit by raisng those mini towers......seems it is a very manual procedure.

@Craig. I agree.. And the complexity of the scuttle procedure. It is interesting that the ship is nuclear propelled and the procedure of shutting down the cooling units seems the best way to make ensure the entire vehicle explodes with minimal trace. Having the console so close to the the shuttle would entice a crewmember to initiate a procedure and take off without the rest of the crew. Been an Alien freak since I first saw it in 1979.. Definatley the best movie of all the Alien films.... Prometheus..... We are now the Gods....

'Alien' is my favorite as well man.....favorite movie of all time too...

yep

... I figured the flame was actually a kind of bounce back from Ripley as she lets the flame thrower go .... It rebounds off a wall or junction and comes back at her ....