That's very queer, since I'm of the completely opposite opinion. When the characters split up at the end of The Thing, there is no real reason for them be acting so tactically lazy. It devolves into: "bump in the night? I should go off and investigate by myself."Robotron wrote:I've always felt irritation for Alien in the form of the "split-up syndrome" that permeates the movie and keeps the characters unsympathetic throughout. The Thing is one of the few slasher films, that I've seen anyway, that attempted to provide a passable reason as to why the characters would be willing to leave each other while under such an intense assault from a monster (and strangely enough, Roger Ebert criticized The Thing for that very syndrome and later put Alien on his great movies list).
Alien, on the other hand, maintains a strict logic concerning every character isolation. Let's take Brett first. He's isolated because he is sent off to get the cat. This might sound ludicrous, but think about it: no one wants to go chasing after a cat when it's on the loose, it's a tedious job; the laziness of the other two and their desire to fob the dull task off on Brett is understandable. Of course, there is an alien loose on the ship, but again if you think about it, the creature was about the size of a cat and had no arms and legs the last time anyone saw it. It's hardly something you'd be afraid of coming out and killing you (if it even could kill you at that size). At the very least, you'd be less concerned about running into it by yourself, especially if your friends are just a couple of compartments away. Thus Brett's death occurs because of a crucial lack of information, not merely because it is required that he die and the plot sets him up to do so in an illogical fashion; on the contrary, there is a good deal of logic to it.
Dallas' death occurs because there is an odd number of people and the only feasible plan requires one of them to be isolated. Since the people watching the monitors at the end of the pipes probably shouldn't be alone, naturally the person going in to flush the beast out is alone. They actually discuss this very isolation; Parker, who is pretty gung-ho in addition to being upset by Brett's death naturally volunteers to be the one in the pipes; but Dallas, being the captain and making that very conventional captain decision of "I wouldn't put my men through anything I'm unwilling to do myself," makes the decision to be the one. Thus his isolation comes out of character rather than arbitrary plot necessity. And, anyway, the scene is redeemed merely by that moment where Dallas realizes this plan was stupid and tries to run out of the pipes.
The final "split" actually takes a turn you wouldn't expect, and the person who is alone, Ripley, is not the one attacked: it is the group of two who have stuck together, and whose regard for the other the alien uses, setting itself between them to prevent being fired upon.
Anyway, all of that seems more thought-out than the pretty conventional group-splits that occur in The Thing, where people wander off by themselves for no real reason.
Michelle Forbes is in it, too, so that puts it over the top, for me.
