Watching Aliens, the part where they all wake up from cryo together and all the ritualized griping is absolutely masking this...
Watching Aliens, the part where they all wake up from cryo together and all the ritualized griping is absolutely masking this ‘Nam vet “we’re only good for war” cameraderie, the whole Soldier of Fortune vibe, I only just get that
Of the franchises that reacted to Reagan, Rambo: First Blood II was “what if we refought ‘Nam but seriously and won”, Aliens was “what if we refought ‘Nam with all our new toys and still lost”
what if we treated Vietnamese people as alien horrors with whom we could never communicate and whose motivations make them utterly incompatible with civilized human existence because god knows that would help us make prudent decisions that would lead to favourable outcomes.
This is a thing I sometimes see said seriously (and I don’t think argumate is being very serious), which seems to follow from an unspoken assumption that analogies are transitive and complete.
So if the grunts in Aliens are analogous soldiers from ‘Nam, then their enemies must be analogous to the Vietnamese (because analogies are complete), and every aspect of the Xenomorph is also a property of the Vietnamese (because analogies are complete).
I’ve never seen it done with this particular show before, so points to kontext for novelty, but I have seen it done in all seriousness with LotR and Orcs : POC, and in Firefly with Reavers : Indians.
I mean, “zombies” and analogs (Mad Max/Fallout/Borderlands raiders, etc) are 100% homomorphic to Indians, they’re how we tell stories of a small civilized band setting off to tame the savages and establish civilization – the same way we used to tell constantly, in realtime – now that we don’t have a contemporary setting