Seems like the only "its reactionary" justification is that the actor that played Newt was a white kid. That's... not very compelling.
The "cosmic horror" of it all...
The only person to come into contact with the Xenomorphs and survive is telling the universe that these are an existential threat and everybody else thinks 1) she's insane/traumatized and not thinking clearly 2) the military can easily handle any physical threat 3) the scientists/researchers can easily/safely study these creatures and 4) corporations can easily/safely exploit the Xenomorphs.
Then Ripley's proven correct.
There's no reasoning with the Xenomorphs, there's no attempt by the Xeno's to communicate in a peaceful way, the Xeno's make no attempt to avoid humans, the Xenomorphs view humans in the same way that humans view the rest of the universe as something to be used without consideration to the point of destruction. After the Xeno's face r#pe and chest burst out of every available creature possible... they don't go extinct, they don't develop into something with anything remotely close thoughts, they leave no words of wisdom about the error of over consumption... they go dormant and wait and wait and wait until the next unfortunate creature large enough to be face r#ped and chest bursted out of stumbles across it.
One of the key points in cosmic horror is often, human curiosity will always win out over humanity's sense of self preservation. Ripley knows that the correct answer is to "nuke them from orbit" because it will only be a matter of time before some unlucky human explorer, or colonist, or scientist, or miner or business exec will fuck around on a planet full of dormant Xeno eggs to kick off the who cycle again because they're thinking, "Nah... this time will be different. The leopards won't eat MY face! They've got to be pretty full from eating all those other people's faces, right?"
Sure, we can look at the Ripley/Newt vs Queen/Eggs as "two mothers defending their children/defenseless. We could also look at the Ripley/Queen dynamic as a dark reflection. Ripley wants to defend a human being who we can relate to and we assume is capable of intelligent thought, art, learning, whatever who is mirrored by the Xenomorph Queen who's children (as far as the Alien and Aliens movies show us, the audience) exist to aid the Queen for the sole purpose of consuming all life that can be bent to the purpose of mindlessly making more Xenomorphs.
Its terrifying because we can't understand any potential thoughts of the Xenomorphs. We don't know where they came from, if its possible for them to want more than mindless reproduction/consumption. They lack advanced technology but are completely able to turbo fuck any humans they come into contact with. The Xeno's were able to fuck up a ship full of space truckers in the Alien movie... but those weren't soldiers and the only crewmember expected to be capable of fighting back is a cyborg who's programmed to let the Xenos kill the crew "for science!" The Xeno's were able to turbo fuck a colony full of people so having more folks didn't help humans survive. Then the troops that were sent in knowing that there was a threat and prepared for fighting got fucked up even with all their fancy techno weaponry.
The Xeno's are less a "species" and more an inscrutable force of nature... at least until the later movies explain that they exist as bio-terminators (or the Predator comics/movies explain that the eggs are located and spread around for them to have something scary to hunt).
the little white girl comment was more of a humorous remark and not really the essence of my point
Okay, that's fair... bit of friendly fire on my part.
I just don't think the fact that something being scary and beyond our understanding is reason enough to eradicate an entire species without giving it careful thought. Wanting to kill what you don't understand is the heart of reactionary thinking.
Counterpoint, enough was understood by the characters in the story to identify a threat. I can agree that its ... knee jerk reactionary like somebody punching a person who jumped out from around a corner... but I'm less inclined to shove it into the political reactionary box.
Ultimately as a work of fiction the writer can come up with whatever justifications they want for why the aliens are bad and need to be mass murdered. Or why it's wrong to study and learn from them because only bad actors are doing it.
This feels like a good place to slap the "political reactionary" label for me. "Good guys need bad monsters to fight and overcome" makes for a pretty shallow story.
... something we don't understand and don't want to understand, the unknowable other.
I think you're wrong there in the bolded part. Cosmic horror isn't about people not wanting to understand something that is understandable because its inconvenient, its about seeing something that cannot be understood because its so different from human thoughts/wants/needs/desires that there is no way to even try to start comprehending it without destroying a human's psyche.
Seems like the only "its reactionary" justification is that the actor that played Newt was a white kid. That's... not very compelling.
The "cosmic horror" of it all...
The only person to come into contact with the Xenomorphs and survive is telling the universe that these are an existential threat and everybody else thinks 1) she's insane/traumatized and not thinking clearly 2) the military can easily handle any physical threat 3) the scientists/researchers can easily/safely study these creatures and 4) corporations can easily/safely exploit the Xenomorphs.
Then Ripley's proven correct.
There's no reasoning with the Xenomorphs, there's no attempt by the Xeno's to communicate in a peaceful way, the Xeno's make no attempt to avoid humans, the Xenomorphs view humans in the same way that humans view the rest of the universe as something to be used without consideration to the point of destruction. After the Xeno's face r#pe and chest burst out of every available creature possible... they don't go extinct, they don't develop into something with anything remotely close thoughts, they leave no words of wisdom about the error of over consumption... they go dormant and wait and wait and wait until the next unfortunate creature large enough to be face r#ped and chest bursted out of stumbles across it.
One of the key points in cosmic horror is often, human curiosity will always win out over humanity's sense of self preservation. Ripley knows that the correct answer is to "nuke them from orbit" because it will only be a matter of time before some unlucky human explorer, or colonist, or scientist, or miner or business exec will fuck around on a planet full of dormant Xeno eggs to kick off the who cycle again because they're thinking, "Nah... this time will be different. The leopards won't eat MY face! They've got to be pretty full from eating all those other people's faces, right?"
Sure, we can look at the Ripley/Newt vs Queen/Eggs as "two mothers defending their children/defenseless. We could also look at the Ripley/Queen dynamic as a dark reflection. Ripley wants to defend a human being who we can relate to and we assume is capable of intelligent thought, art, learning, whatever who is mirrored by the Xenomorph Queen who's children (as far as the Alien and Aliens movies show us, the audience) exist to aid the Queen for the sole purpose of consuming all life that can be bent to the purpose of mindlessly making more Xenomorphs.
Its terrifying because we can't understand any potential thoughts of the Xenomorphs. We don't know where they came from, if its possible for them to want more than mindless reproduction/consumption. They lack advanced technology but are completely able to turbo fuck any humans they come into contact with. The Xeno's were able to fuck up a ship full of space truckers in the Alien movie... but those weren't soldiers and the only crewmember expected to be capable of fighting back is a cyborg who's programmed to let the Xenos kill the crew "for science!" The Xeno's were able to turbo fuck a colony full of people so having more folks didn't help humans survive. Then the troops that were sent in knowing that there was a threat and prepared for fighting got fucked up even with all their fancy techno weaponry.
The Xeno's are less a "species" and more an inscrutable force of nature... at least until the later movies explain that they exist as bio-terminators (or the Predator comics/movies explain that the eggs are located and spread around for them to have something scary to hunt).
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Okay, that's fair... bit of friendly fire on my part.
Counterpoint, enough was understood by the characters in the story to identify a threat. I can agree that its ... knee jerk reactionary like somebody punching a person who jumped out from around a corner... but I'm less inclined to shove it into the political reactionary box.
This feels like a good place to slap the "political reactionary" label for me. "Good guys need bad monsters to fight and overcome" makes for a pretty shallow story.
I think you're wrong there in the bolded part. Cosmic horror isn't about people not wanting to understand something that is understandable because its inconvenient, its about seeing something that cannot be understood because its so different from human thoughts/wants/needs/desires that there is no way to even try to start comprehending it without destroying a human's psyche.
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