As someone who has read that Spaihts draft, it's very clear that a lot of the problems that people had with the script (particularly from the characterization standpoint) were present in his draft. He confirmed it was genuine. Go ahead and read it yourself. If anything, Lindelof's draft resulted...
I mean, I think he's just absolutely brilliant at writing (and directing) spectacle. And not necessarily mindless spectacle, as he is smart enough to ground it all in his story to a certain extent. His major action set pieces are typically payoffs to character arcs in some regard, which is kind...
I don't think anyone has ever accused James Cameron of being a good screenwriter ;)
But regardless, I still don't think that line from ALIENS is out of character or bad in some way, which is what the original comment was saying.
I also very much disagree, but I'd love to hear an expanded reasoning as to why its out of character.
It's essentially the payoff to her whole arc in the movie (well, in the special edition, at least).
I never thought that the Space Jockey used the xenomorph as a weapon. I figured it was just a "what happened to this giant thing is about to happen to the crew of the Nostromo" kind of thing. A bad omen, of sorts.
I think that the original Space Jockey was very, very clearly a giant weird...
They answer most of those questions in great detail.
The Guy Pearce question has long been answered, though. Weyland used to have "young man" scenes and "old man scenes," so they needed a young actor. After casing Guy Pearce, they ended up cutting all the "young man" scenes and were left with...
I use "This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off" for the occasional voicemail or e-mail closer. I bounce back and forth between that and "Your friend in time," in e-mails.
It's ALL in the writer's commentary. Having just finished it, they explain just about everything in great detail. It's kind of surprising given how closed off they were around the time of release.
I'm listening to Damon Lindelof's commentary now, and he actually addresses that very thing. The short of it: it's not smart, but a deleted scene explains that he's literally just like that, evidently. Sometimes he just goes all "Science!" and can't help himself.
Is it a good explanation? Not...