>>212455643
>Plus an incompetent general or whatever Gorman was
gorman wasnt exactly incompetent, you can see a little competence start to build up by the end of the movie by some of his decisions

he was just absolutely green, inexperienced and fresh out of the academy. The marine platoon was also not rookies, they were seasoned soldiers with some of them at the end of their tour. They just lost their NCO immediately which decapitated command as gorman was not up for the job

reason gorman was even put on this detail was also not unreasonable. Command assumed it was a downed transmitter fault they lost contact with colony and sent the baby lieutenant out with a small, single marine platoon to do some practice doing real dropship deployments and basic command experience on the ground. If they had taken Ripleys warnings seriously there sure as shit wouldn't have been a single marine platoon on that gigantic ass ship. There would have been a single man, a one man army, the best of the best