question about alien one

[thelastmccabe]

I just rewatched alien, and I can't figure out why Ripley tries to stop the self destruct sequence at the end, and I remember not understanding that the first time I saw it either. I don't have the special ultra super edition if that matters. I know this movie isn't totally airtight, but I feel like this ought to have an answer. I think it's b/c the alien is either:

a. right in her path to the escape shuttle
b. on the escape shuttle itself already

And along with either of those it's right next to her freakin cat she can't live without, so she figures she better stop the self destruct because she's not going to get by that thing and get her cat. But if she stopped the self destruct, what did she plan to do then? Go back and ask it to move? and then walk all the way back and start the self destruct again, and then walk all the way back and hope it was still gone? I guess I might not be thinking that straight either in her position. But that part of the movie really puzzles me....
thanks

 

[Banana]

stupid cat.

 

[cavemanmoron]

Originally posted by: Banana
stupid cat.

:Q

 

[2cpuminimum]

It's on the escape shuttle. She is still trying to save herself.

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: 2cpuminimum
It's on the escape shuttle. She is still trying to save herself.

so she figures she'll jettison the shuttle with the nasty beasty and stay on the ship, but that plan is only good if she stops the ship from self destructing


? like that?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

She never thought it was on the escape shuttle, she saw it waiting near the shuttle.

So....

Option #1 = keep going for the escape pod (certain death)
Option #2 = wait around for the ship to blow up (certain death)
Option #3 = go back and stop the self destruct and the figure out what to do

So, she chose Option #3 because it didn't lead to immediate death. I'm not sure what she planned to do after she did that.

I actually think it might have been a good idea for the whole crew to originally just start heading back towards earth and lock themselves in their sleep chamber things. (naturally we see in Aliens (2) that they are pretty good at smashing doors down, but the original alien did nothing to show that it was capable of something like that, so I think it would have been a much better idea than trying to go into the vents (although it would have made for a pretty boring movie ).

She could have also gone back to where Lambert and Parker had died to get the Flame thrower to try to scare it away from the path of the shuttle eventually.

I think she was just trying to buy herself some time to think of something to do.

EDIT: Oh, and they never really had to blow up the ship. I know if it was me in this situation I'd me more worried about getting off the ship and saving my own skin than getting off and blowing up the ship to kill it. I think as long as I wasn't in any personal danger I wouldn't really care if I left it alive on an empty ship.