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Was Dallas hideously incompetent as a captain?

posted 4 years ago by TMC-4 (20494)
28 replies | jump to latest

1. He landed his ship to investigate a purported distress signal without properly identifying if it is indeed a distress call

2. He didn’t scan the planet’s surface from orbit (A capability that they shown as having available to them as they were able to detect the location of the vessel “in distress”) -

3. He didn’t cut short the “rescue mission” when it was clear that there was no one to “rescue”

4. He didn’t fix the ship

5. Not quarantining Kane, even after the facehugger fell off

In short, Dallas violated the basic operating procedures that his company demanded that he follow, brought an unknown organism onboard thus exposing his crew to multiple dangers, and then when faced with the alien danger, he didn’t shutoff areas where it might have been hidden to isolate it from the rest of the vessel.

https://www.quora.com/Was-Dallas-a-bad-captain-in-Alien/answer/Jon-Mixon-1

[–] TheReccher (344) 4 years ago

1. Whether or not it was an S.O.S. signal wasn't important. What mattered is that the signal indicated the existence of a possible alien life form. The clause in their contract mandated that this would be investigated whenever this possibility arises.

2. The item that broke the ship's leg was nothing more than a small rock. There's a difference between a giant ship and a small rock. We don't know if the scanner would trace a detail that innocuous.

3. Maybe it was more obvious to you. But he didn't investigate the entire derelict space craft.

4. Not his job. He's a coal miner, not an engineer. And the ship was fixed enough to get them home. You can drive a car with broken window and dented doors as long as the engine and exhaust works.

5. You have a point. This is where Dallas truly exposes his hypocrisy.

[–] Philhelm (517) 4 years ago

I don't think Dallas was incompetent, especially since he and the crew were being undermined by Ash.

Points 1 - 3 can be explained through the following dialogue. The crew would forfeit all shares by not investigating a transmission from possible intelligent alien life.

Ash : There is a clause in the contract which specifically states any systematized transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin must be investigated.
Parker : I don't wanna hear it...
Brett : We don't know if it's intelligent.
Parker : I wanna go home and party.
Dallas : Parker, will you just listen to the man?
Ash : On penalty of total forfeiture of shares. No money.
Dallas : You got that?
Parker : [chuckling] Well, yeah.
Dallas : All right, we're going in.
Parker : [to Brett] Yeah, we're going in, aren't we?

However, Dallas should have quarantined/frozen Kane as Parker suggested.

[–] degray9 (1126) 4 years ago

He didn’t scan the planet’s surface from orbit

Actually they did scan the planet in a deleted scene, they determined its atmosphere, size, rotation, and gravity which meant they could walk on the surface. This scene was restored in the director’s cut when they listen to the transmission.