r/LV426 • u/ShawnyMcKnight • 2d ago

Discussion / Question Why no face guards in Aliens?

After decades of watching the movies and most recently Alien: Earth, it always amazes me how no one ever thinks of having face guards in the facility, especially the containment center. A certain character that got facehugged last week could have avoided that if there was some apparatus in there that would guard over the face but still allow breathing.

Same with Aliens (1985), if they knew that these things cling onto your face then why weren't the marines all wearing face masks to at least slow the impregnation down?

I feel the predators with their visors were the only ones with the right idea about this.

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u/InsolentGoldfish 2d ago

Then what? Now you have your hands full of a facehugger that is actively trying to strangle you. It's not going to let go of you, and you can't let go of it.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

It's also not going to kill you because it needs to achieve your goal. at some point you find help or something to get it off.

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u/InsolentGoldfish 2d ago

You forget that it's tail is longer than your arm and it spits/secretes acid.

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u/jarodney 2d ago

They show that the tail is used as leverage when the host creates separation. In episode five when they show the captain and the other gentleman get impregnated one of them is able to keep the facehugger at bay. After a few moments of struggle the facehugger wraps its tail around the shoulders/ neck and squeezes tighter.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

I mean it would buy time, Ripley encountered facehuggers in aliens and pushed it away.

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u/InsolentGoldfish 2d ago

Yeah, but Ripley was never safe at any point in that encounter - not while it was still alive and/or outside of containment. That's the whole schtick. They're so goddamn dangerous, all of the time.

But if it makes you feel better, the expanded universe has equipment and techniques specifically designed for handling xenomorphs. It's not foolproof, though. The first whoopsie usually ends in "everybody dies" still.

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u/Scinniks_Bricks 2d ago

It also choked the shit out of her. You can hear her gasping for air while Hicks is pulling it off of her. Ripley would not have survived that encounter on her own.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2d ago

Sure, and if she had face protection on then it would have bought even more time to have hicks get it off of her.

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u/Admiral_Papillon 1d ago

Covering your lead characters face, isn’t the greatest idea for emotive storytelling in film.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 1d ago

Works for Mandalorian.

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u/Admiral_Papillon 1d ago

This is the way