Alien mist

It makes the most sense to me that it is a moisture barrier. Otherwise the eggs would dry out (more quickly than without it). That said, I feel that the eggs in [i]Alien[/i] are “alien” to the craft, so I don't see how/what mechanism would keep the barrier in place. It comes across atmospherically as an alarm system that might alert the eggs that potential prey is near. But again, it's difficult for me to imagine what entity/system would establish (and maintain) it if the eggs are in fact inherently unwelcome on the craft.

I agree - alarm system, keeping the cargo in tact - more importantly, allowing them to continue with incubation of some sort. Consider it the same as packing material when you send something fragile - yer making sure it stays in place without any damage, regardless of the circumstance of delivery.

It was a suspension field, once Kane broke the barrier it reacted as it was old and he was disturbing it causing an egg to become active and then he went and shoved it face into it because he was a genius

Has anyone any answer or thought as to why there is liquid running upward and then falling up off the eggs. (looks great and weird, but for decades its driven me mad as my brain finds or cannot conceive of why). As for the mist of over the eggs itself. The field over it that "reacts when broken" why does it seem that only the part of the egg-silo that Kane is lowered into that that part and seemingly only that part is lit up blue and thus indicate the field.... just seems kinda' amazingly bad luck on Kane's part!

@Grindolf I agree it seem some kind of suspention field, i guess we dont know for sure but lets look at it logically. If the Xeno or Proto Xeno layed those Eggs after bursting out of the Space Jockey then how do you acount for the Blue Mist and what its purpose seems? To me this sugests as Ridley hinted that maybe the Derelict was some kind of Bomber carrying a Cargo of Bio Weapons. That means to me logically that the Eggs (or Urns that may have changed to Eggs) was being carried by the Derelict or the Derelict landed on LV426 to Stock Up on those Eggs. I think this would rule out any potential being layed theory... so the only one that makes sence if those Eggs started as Urns would be that something and somehow what is contained in Urns become Eggs.

Another question. How do Kane and Co gain easy access to the alien ship...they walk through a hole in the side of the ship! And as for the geography of the field of eggs....surely that has to be below the craft?

my cell phone eats up my battery within 6 hours, yet this laser/ mist barrier keeps going and going and going and (enter the pink bunny).

Best part of the whole egg chamber thingy is that the position of craft vs position it flys in horizonal vs vertical. I have a hard enough time bringing eggs from the market home without any damage. yet the egg chamber is intact. SJ's kick our ass with their techno!

When I saw the movie, I always assumed the mist, or suspension field, was some type of early warning system for the eggs, telling them that a potential host for reproduction was near, bringing the eggs themselves out of stasis no matter how much time has passed.

Definitley a dinner bell

Maybe the ship was left there as a [i]fly trap?[/i] [img]http://www.worldsstrangest.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/wscache23/86d2b_4e5t3e4twe4r.jpg[/img]

An oldie this one,....but how did the facehugger get through all that glass without burning Kane's face?

what sukkal said, if you watch the documentary disc to Alien Ridley Scott (or some other person) clearly states that the laser mist is meant as a detection system that lets the eggs know a host is nearby

@colonelangus Makes sence, but also maybe it acts as some kind of stasis. Prevents the eggs from opening at any other time thats what i felt.

Yeah I disagree with Ridley (yeah blasphemy, burn me). Eggs don't need a frickin' house alarm to alert them - they should instinctively know when a prey is at close quarters. It's well-documented that the laser served no real purpose and was only included because it was left over from a Pink Floyd concert (iirc) and it looked cool. A poor way to make a movie if you ask me, but nonetheless, I prefer the laser to be a means of preserving a local atmosphere around the eggs. Providing the fluids and nutrients required to sustain the eggs, which have perished in the other adjacent pits (where no laser is present).

Yeah I disagree with Ridley (yeah blasphemy, burn me). Eggs don't need a frickin' house alarm to alert them - they should instinctively know when a prey is at close quarters. It's well-documented that the laser served no real purpose and was only included because it was left over from a Pink Floyd concert (iirc) and it looked cool. A poor way to make a movie if you ask me, but nonetheless, I prefer the laser to be a means of preserving a local atmosphere around the eggs. Providing the fluids and nutrients required to sustain the eggs, which have perished in the other adjacent pits (where no laser is present).

As far as the upward flowing stuff, Ridley explains in the commentary that he had some shots photographed with the eggs up-side-down and that was just cool looking paint falling downwards (but in the shot appearing as if it were rising). When you see Kane in the shot with them, however, the flowing stuff is going the other direction. All this organic stuff had to be constantly re-sprayed requiring the material being sprayed to be attached to the camera boom so that it could be sprayed even during shooting with the times during the spraying being cut out. They also did this for some of the Nostromo interiors which looked better freshly sprayed then moments after when it lost its glean. I've always felt the mist layer was coolest when you never saw its origin (the apparatus emitting the spread laser beam). In some shots, you unfortunately do see it coming from one source breaking the illusion that it is a layer of mist. But, in theory, the layer of mist concept with the pitching altering sound it make as it is approached/broken seems to be mechanism for the SJ crew to make sure that the payload are in perfect stasis and not prematurely hatching on them. Who knows how the events happened that lead to the "bomber" becoming derelict on LV-246. Working backwards from the chest-bursted SJ, creating the alien that melted the floor away (the hole that Kane was lowered through). I don't think that eggs were put there after the derelict crashed. This was all a simple case of the bio-warfare biting (and killing) the controller(s). The alien that popped out of the SJ perished somewhere on the ship (or planet surface) with no food. The egg stage seems the most resilient with them being able to survive through anything (and almost any amount of time). The later stages seem to be short-lived with their primary purpose being to get a colony established (with a queen being gestated (taking longer as we see in A3)). It is fascinating how the Hadley Hope infestation developed. First with Newts dad getting hugged. They obviously brought him back, it fell off, he chest-bursted ala Kane stuffing himself with chow-mein. Alien starts running around capturing, secreting, making a nest as seen in the deleted Dallas-egg footage from Alien......but at some point, more colonists would have had to have gone back to the derelict to investigate what got Newt's dad UNLESS the one hugger-->alien did do some Dallas-egg creations to create more facehuggers (such that some were captured (assumably pulled off killing the host) giving us the two live ones in the lab which Burke set on Ripley and Newt). It would seem idiotic for the Hadley Hopists to go back to the derelict such that teams at a time were coming back hugged. Regardless, the colony of aliens quickly (possibly even Newt's Daddy's "baby") became the first queen, thus making more eggs, more huggers, saving the HH-ers time in expeditioning the derelict any further. Either way, the HH explosion wouldn't have reached the derelict so we've still got said derelict with a cargo-bay full of viable eggs (minus 2).

whatever the laser mist is.... it always bothered me that kane stuck his damn hand in it. it could have been guarded by searing lasers to keep the face huggers from getting out and burn kane's curious hand right off. if there is one thing no one seems to do in sci fi and horror movies is to quit touching stuff when you dont know what it is!! this is why we should always poke things with sticks first. always poke with a stick....

belladonna: HA HA!! Well said! Most horror movies only work if there is an idiot around.

i agree 200% if there wasn't an idiot around then all horror movies would be about 10 minutes long.

I wrote a huge amount about this and for some reason, I got logged out and nothing took so here is my short version: Laser/Mist-Layer - cool effect with the smoke and sound pitching as Kane moves hand closer to it. Very memorable. I wish some cutting had been done to cover up the laser's triangular dispersal pattern back to the origin so that it was the rectangular mist that they were attempting to portray it to be. Effects aside, the purpose, I think was to make the SJ crew aware of any premature hatching before their payload could be delivered. I doubt this was their first hair-brained effort at this and I am pretty sure that the SJs had many of these ships containing full cargoholds of bio-weapons heading out in all direction with thousands of years of success.

I think the blue laser was a protection for the SJ's. If you cross that blue wall, the eggs/Facehugger can smell you (or whatever).

Ok....so how come the eggs in all the other movies dont have a lazer or mist about them? Eggs dont produce lazer light now do they? Its just that it looked cool for the movie....remember it WAS 1979