The death of Ripley's daughter is a critical plot point. These creatures have, in essence, already robbed her of the chance to be a mother once, and it'll be over Ripley's dead body if they succeed at doing it again.Ĭameron's Aliens made more sense to me once I saw the director's cut version. That pivotal moment near the beginning of the film better informs the ferocity of Ripley's maternal instincts once she encounters Newt (Carrie Henn), the lone survivor of a colony set up on the planetoid that is home to the derelict ship carrying the alien eggs. Had the film been released at the length Cameron had intended, which would have included an unwisely excised sequence in which the audience learns that Ripley had a daughter who passed while the character languished in hypersleep, she might've actually won. The fearlessness with which Weaver threw herself into this hardened incarnation of Ripley was so convincing that it would win her a well-deserved Academy Award Best Actress nomination, which was all the more impressive considering that science-fiction films rarely registered with the Academy outside of the technical categories. And while Linda Hamilton eventually transformed from a shrinking violet into a no-nonsense heroine at the end of his previous picture, The Terminator (1984), in Aliens (1986) Ripley would be his first fully-realized depiction of "I am woman, watch me kill and kill again" empowerment. But, as he has ably proven since, scale doesn't bother him. An infamous purveyor of the tough-mama persona, Cameron was still at a make-or-break moment when he was handed the reins for his first studio film. But while Weaver went on to become a sought-after leading lady in films like The Year of Living Dangerously and Ghostbusters, her career path met a fortuitous juncture when it dovetailed with that of director James Cameron. But, apparently, I still have Ripley in my acid blood.įrom the DVD Journal's review of The Alien Quadrilogy:Īs the last woman standing at the end of Ridley Scott's bloodbath, Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley earned the audience's respect for outlasting her more formidable-looking costars, while also winning the… er, hearts of men everywhere for doing it in an outrageously skimpy pair of panties that amazingly retain the power to titillate in this era of the imagination-less thong.
The Apple TV got a quiet update this week for March Madness. Though there are always naysayers for every Apple hardware releases, I think we can all agree that the reintroduction of the iPad 4 and 8 GB iPhone 5C isn’t anything to get excited about.