What An Idiot / Alien

Much of the idiocy found within the Alien franchise can easily be summed up with the following five simple words: "Don't touch that, you idiot!"

• In General:
  • Weyland-Yutani learns of an advanced alien organism and/or technology that could be a game-changer for them, and make them even more wealthy and powerful.
    You'd Expect: That they'd hand-pick a team of specialists and Marines (on a need-to-know basis) and provide a ship (or at least equip an existing ship) and equipment needed to recover said technology and a sample of the organism. Even if it wasn't legal, there would be no shortage of volunteers who'd step up either for the money or For Science! (or both).
    Instead: They send groups of unqualified civilians and/or Marines to investigate the situation, and not even tell them about what they might find, let alone equip them properly. This includes, in order, a freighter with "space truckers" completely unqualified to enact a scientific expedition, a courier ship staffed by an unaware crew (and led by an executive who has an ulterior motive) 15 years after the original incident, a family on a colony established on the same world as the original source of transmission who appears to be more interested in salvage rights, a group of Marines (led by a single Weyland representative who has his own plan) that are drastically unprepared for the threat of an overrun colony, and two separate hives on different starships, using colonists as hosts and refusing to take precautions to prevent another outbreak.
    The Result: It isn't until the events of the third film that they bother to send a specialized team in to recover the organism, but do so in a way that all but screams Obviously Evil — which has the net effect of dissuading the character (Ripley) they were trying to bring back (and recover a Queen embryo from) so much that she opts to take a swan-dive into molten lead rather than give it to the Company. What could (and should) have been a relatively-straightforward operation instead takes them nearly six decades to figure out, and they don't even get it right there, either; however, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation's general idiocy throughout the franchise could very well be justified assuming that the "David 8" Android's really the one pulling all the strings from behind the scenes all along and likewise attempting to Kill All Humans.

• Alien:
  • Kane has descended to the lower level of the derelict alien ship and sees a bunch of egg-like shapes with a protective screen/warning system of some kind over them. After falling into the screen and touching one of the eggs he sees movement inside. Finally the top opens.
    You'd Expect: That he would back away and at least draw his gun, since he knows nothing about what is in the egg, and the protective screen/warning system is a good sign that the eggs are not to be messed with.
    Instead: He leans directly over the egg for a closer look without taking any precautions.
    The Result: A facehugger comes out, gets through Kane's protection helmet, knocks him out cold, impregnates him with what becomes the chestburster, and when he wakes up later on the ship, he dies during dinner when the chestburster comes out of his chest, and it eventually grows up to be a xenomorph and wipes out the crew except for Ripley.

• Aliens:
  • Gorman has decided to enact a rescue mission to find the surviving Hadley's Hope colonists under the LV-426 atmosphere processor. He sends everyone (save for himself, Ripley, Burke and Newt) to go into the processor with conventional weapons around sensitive and volatile machinery. Ripley points out several flaws in this plan to him.
    You'd Expect: That since he's a fairly inexperienced commander (who's only been on one other real combat drop) and he was one of the people who lobbied for Ripley to come onboard as a consultant (considering that she's apparently faced these creatures before and understands their behavior better than most), he'd either listen to her concerns or wait and draw up a better plan.
    Instead: He ignores her and continues on with the mission. He waits until the Marines are knee-deep in the hive before realizing that the processor can be easily shot up, has them give all their ammunition to one man (who's the first casualty when the xenos attack) with no explanation as to why (so two disobey him because they think he's being stupid) and commands the group to use flamethrowers (in tight quarters and with 100-plus civilians possibly still alive). When all hell breaks loose he tries to give long-winded orders in a steady tone to Apone, who couldn't hear him over all the shooting (and got captured anyway). He would have lost the whole platoon had Ripley not intervened. For his part, he does admit he screwed up later on.
  • Burke is trying to bring the facehugger embryos back to Earth to present them to Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons division. However, Ripley finds out and isn't going to allow that, and the marines won't be keen on it either. He gets the idea to deliberately infect Ripley and Newt, then jettison any other survivors on the ride back to Earth. This shuts Ripley up and gives him a chance to take care of any other witnesses.
    You'd Expect: That since Burke seems to be a fairly smart guy and they're in a situation where they have to get out before the reactor goes critical, he'd realize the flaws in this plan. Even if he somehow manages to infect the pair before the reactor goes critical, they'll still be facehugged for a long period of time and will likely remain unable to travel or be moved anywhere. Someone is going to notice that they were infected.
    Instead: He releases the facehuggers in the room where Ripley and Newt are sleeping, which eventually alerts the surviving Marines, who kill the huggers and chew out Burke. The only reason he isn't iced then and there is because the xenomorphs attack just before Hicks shoots him.
  • The survivors discover that the cooling unit was damaged, and that the entire complex will be destroyed in a nuclear explosion in about four hours. They devise a plan to send Bishop up a very narrow pipe to the relay station so that he can remote pilot a dropship down to the station so they can escape. Estimating the time of each step, they realize that there's very little margin for error.
    You'd Expect: They would then come up with a plan to get the remaining seven survivors up to the relay station in time to escape. The plan would involve an escape route, estimated travel time, and possibly even contingencies for what to do if they're attacked en route. The next few hours would go by with everyone very conscientious of the ticking clock and preparing to escape.
    Instead: The remaining survivors almost entirely forget about the fact they're expecting an imminent nuclear explosion. They wander off to separate rooms, Ripley and Newt fall asleep, they discuss no known escape route, and then even welded the doors shut which lead out of their complex. Had Newt not pointed out the air shafts and that they could be used to escape, the group would have all died in the explosion even if they had survived the alien attack.

• Alien³:
  • Ellen Ripley has just now crash-landed down onto the surface of Fiorina "Fury" 161 and is also adamant that there's a Xenomorph specimen now out there on the loose someplace.
    You'd expect: That she openly inform Mr. Clemons about her current deepest darkest fears so that they and the other prison staff can have a better chance at being able to take down the lone still soon-to-be-born Xenomorph Runner right from the very beginning and likewise end up with additional survivors in the end aside from Robert Morse.
    Instead: She keeps on not ever telling anybody at all about the Xenomorph threat that's currently at hand right on up until it's already basically too late for them to be able to do anything about it afterwards.
    The Result: The lone Xenomorph Runner is soon left free to be able to attack and kill off nearly everyone within the run-down prison complex until only Robert Morse later emerges as the Sole Survivor at the very end of the film.
  • In the 2003 "Assembly Cut" of the film, Morse's tasked with watching over Walter Golic all while the lone Xenomorph Runner's currently being held within the hazardous waste containment room of sorts.
    You'd expect: That Morse not listen to anything that Golic says and likewise leave him completely physically restrained until the so-called Weyland-Yutani rescue team arrives for Ellen Ripley.
    Instead: Morse ultimately decides to let Golic go from the prison's infirmary subsection.
    The Result: Golic soon releases the lone Xenomorph Runner from the hazardous waste containment room, allowing him to attack and kill off even more people all throughout the whole rest of the old prison complex afterwards.

• Alien: Resurrection:
  • The military are experimenting on the Xenomorphs; they decide to conduct the research on a spacecraft.
    You'd expect: In the event of an emergency that kills all of the crew, the ship will self-destruct or do nothing. After all, the whole point of these tests is to make a deadly biological weapon; if something goes wrong, the worst thing that will happen is the aliens will be contained on the ship. After all, with FTL commonplace, it would be obvious—in the interests of both safety and secrecy—that the ship be far away from any population centre. Indeed, all this research is being done in unregistered space for precisely this reason.
    Instead: For some inexplicable reason, known only to the obviously lazy writers, the ship decides to fly back home in case of an emergency, thereby ensuing that everybody on Earth will be in danger as well.
  • Speaking of that protocol, the characters eventually manage to get themselves into a position where they can override or at least alter it, but cannot outright blow up the ship.
    You'd Expect: They immediately stop the ship. If that's asking too much, make it change course and crash it into the sun, or any of the several planets in Earth's solar system that definitely won't be inconvenienced by it (Jupiter, for example).
    Instead: As soon as blowing it up is no longer an option, Ripley just has the ship set to crash into Earth. Yes, Earth is a shithole, according to the characters, but it's definitely a populated shithole or the ship wouldn't be going back there. Ripley doesn't even bat an eye at what would be a massive death toll resulting from this. (What's worse — in the Fix Fic Expanded Universe novel "River of Pain", Ripley and Call's actions cause Earth to descend into a second Ice Age, which is only reversed when the remains of Weyland-Yutani Corporation use the opportunity terraform the planet and save what's left of humanity. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.)
  • During the "Swimming Xenomorphs" sequence, Johner shoots down a cloned drone that continues hanging onto Christie's right leg after dying.
    You'd Expect: Christie to shake his right leg around until the dead drone falls off of him.
    Instead: Christie completely cuts himself loose from Vriess to help him survive.
    The Result: Christie falls back down into the water and presumably drowns.

• AVP: Alien vs. Predator:
  • Scar, one of the Yautjas, decides against attacking Mister Weyland upon detecting the aforementioned human's lung cancer.
    You'd Expect: Mister Weyland to leave Scar alone.
    Instead: Mister Weyland shoots Scar with an Aerosol Flamethrower.
    The Result: Scar turns around and shoots Mister Weyland with his plasmacaster.
  • Scar kills a Xenomorph and proceeds to mark his mask and face with its acidic blood.
    You'd Expect: Scar to quickly put his mask back on before more Xenomorphs appear.
    Instead: Scar leaves his mask off until a facehugger appears.
    The Result: Said facehugger impregnates Scar with a chestburster. Said chestburster soon leaves Scar's body, grows into a Predalien, and rampages across Gunnison, Colorado, forcing the military to kill it with a nuclear missile.

• Aliens: Colonial Marines:
  • Red Shirt Keyes discovers in his last moments that he is the victim of a chestburster, as it rips through his chest while the team is crossing the umbilical back to the Sephora.
    You'd expect: With the xenomorph already having ripped through his chest, him to simply do nothing and die. There's not much else he can really do.
    Instead: He takes out a grenade and blows himself up, creating an explosive decompression, killing a fellow marine for literally no reason at all, nearly killing Winter and Keyes and causing the flight recorder data he just fought through the ship to obtain to be destroyed.
  • In the Stasis Interrupted DLC, the main plot ends with Hicks and Dr. Levy successfully transmitting part/all of the former's distress call recorded on the Sulaco, just before the duo are recaptured by Weyland forces. In addition, the soldiers have managed the seemingly-impossible feat of capturing a live Queen. The soldiers, including Michael Weyland, aren't completely certain whether the distress call was successfully sent back to the Colonial Marines.
    You'd Expect: For two things to happen: (1) move the Queen offworld, as she's a distinctly-valuable specimen that may be in danger of being released or destroyed by any enterprising rescue parties sent by the Colonial Marines, and she functions as a source of creating new specimens for the Company; (2) execute Hicks (as they are implied to have done with Levy, and actually did with Stone) because You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.
    Instead: The researchers hole up the Queen in the middle of their complex, with few-to-no security measures in place to stop her from escaping and wreaking havoc in the event of a power failure or sabotage. Additionally, they spend several weeks moving Cpl. Hicks from site to site, making it possible for Winter and O'Neal to rescue the soldier during the events of the main game — and ascertain much more intel on W-Y's activities.

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