Sigourney Weaver is an acting legend who’s been making movies for half a decade; but no matter what she does, she will always be most remembered for her role as Ellen Ripley in the first four Alien films. Ripley became a horror and action movie icon, not just because she was a woman, but because her character is a complete badass who could rival anything Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone was doing at the time. Ripley was such an integral part of film history that the American Institute named her the eighth-greatest hero of all time. Sigourney Weaver hasn’t appeared in the Alien franchise since 1997’s Alien: Resurrection. Although she has previously said that she was done playing Ripley, in a recent interview with Deadline she said she’d consider coming back if the script was right. You can’t help but be excited about the possibility, but once the shock wears off, so does the excitement. The Alien franchise has moved on from Ripley and doesn’t need her anymore, recently evidenced by Fede Álvarez‘s Alien: Romulus. It’s time to let its greatest hero rest forever.
The Alien Franchise Suffered For Holding On to Ellen Ripley
There had been several alien attack movies before Ridley Scott took his shot in 1979. Those were often rather cheesy, with bad effects, and thin heroes played entirely by men. Alien was different, coming off as a slasher in a haunted house rather than another sci-fi movie, with the monster shown only in glimpses. Then there was our protagonist, not a muscle-bound man spitting one-liners, but a rather normal woman who is special not because of any ability, but because of her bravery. When shit hits the fan, Ripley, even though she’s scared, takes the fight to the xenomorph and lives to see another day. In James Cameron‘s Aliens, which came out seven years later, the character is somehow even cooler, becoming a mother figure to little Newt (Carrie Henn) while also destroying aliens and egg nests with flamethrowers and grenade launchers. Eat your heart out, Arnold.
Aliens worked so well because it took the premise of the original and turned it up to eleven. Where do you go after that though? When Sigourney Weaver returned as Ripley for Alien 3, the same success wasn’t found for a multitude of reasons, from the controversial opening scene to studios interfering with David Fincher‘s vision. Even if Alien 3 had turned out better, its heroine was starting to become a gimmick bordering on a parody of herself. What do we do with Ripley now? How about we shave her head and put her in a men’s prison? When Ripley died at the end, it was a wise move, yet Sigourney Weaver was back again in 1997 for Alien: Resurrection. Hey, how about we bring Ripley back from the dead as a clone?! The sequels could have started telling a different story, but it’s as if producers were afraid to because they put everything into Ripley. The best part about the franchise had started to become the worst.
Later Alien Movies Have Succeeded Without Sigourney Weaver
After Alien: Resurrection, Sigourney Weaver was out and the series had to find a new approach. They found it by finally giving fans what they had wanted to see for years, pitting the Xenomorphs against Predators in 2004’s Alien vs. Predator. Now, the end result wasn’t that good of a movie, but at least it was doing something different. Just as important, audiences still turned out even though they were fully aware that Ripley wouldn’t be around. Alien vs. Predator made $80 million during its theatrical run, which was all the proof needed that the franchise could move past its star. Studios being studios, as they love to fall into the same trap of repeating the past, were wrong about the public’s interest in an AvP sequel, with Alien vs. Predator: Requiem being a dud that only hauled in half the amount of its predecessor.
Still, that didn’t have 20th Century Fox running to Sigourney Weaver, begging her to return. There was supposed to be an Alien sequel bringing her back, one that would have wiped away everything after Aliens, with Neil Blomkamp in the director’s chair, but it sadly never happened. However, that didn’t mean the franchise was destroyed because of it. Instead, Ridley Scott came back for 2012’s Prometheus, a Ripley-free prequel that had the highest box office gross of the franchise. The main complaint ended up being that there were no xenomorphs. It was more monsters and horror we wanted, not Ripley, so Scott’s followup, Alien: Covenant, made sure to bring them back. This year’s Alien: Romulus returned to the roots of horror over mythology, giving us even more killer aliens. That led to an impressive $42 million opening weekend for a movie where Ripley is alive but nowhere to be seen.
‘Alien: Romulus’ Proves the Franchise Doesn’t Need Ripley
Alien: Romulus was at its best when it did its own thing, but it was at its worst when it gave into fan service. Most moviegoers have long ago become sick of movies treating us like we’re dumb as if we’ll only care about a new movie if you give us Easter eggs to the old ones. That scene of Andy (David Jonsson) saying “Get away from her, you bitch” isn’t something to cheer over, but to shake our heads at.
The problem isn’t that we want our movie heroes to return, even if they’ve been killed off. We’d rather have something new, but the issue is the creative direction sequels often take. Ellen Ripley gets a lot of comparisons to Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Laurie Strode from the Halloween movies. Both were ordinary women who had to rise to conquer impossible monsters, and both became so legendary that the franchises they were in couldn’t let them go. Curtis was killed off twice, but she still kept coming back because the sequels were so bad that only she could save us. Halloween H20 is fun, but Halloween: Resurrection becomes meaningless because Michael Myers can’t be killed. 2018’s Halloween was a good time, but the sequels failed because they were just more of the same. Who cares if you bring back the past, if you stick it in a dull present?
If Sigourney Weaver does decide to come back to the Alien franchise, we will cheer her on as she blasts some xenomorphs. But what kind of plot would she be put in? What purpose would she serve other than to go back to the past rather than move forward? Just like with Halloween, bringing Ripley back means retconning sequels. That would be an admission that some movies in the franchise are so bad they shouldn’t exist, rather than embracing them and learning from what didn’t work. If Ripley returns, so much has to be erased, and Alien goes back to being about her. It was never supposed to be about Ripley but the world around her that she happened to be a part of. It’s that universe and its monsters we seek out, not one human. It’s time to put Ellen in her pod and let her sleep forever.
Alien: Romulus is in theaters now.
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