Alien is a 1979 sci-fi / horror, starring the wonderful Sigourney Weaver, directed by Ridley Scott. I consider it to be one of, if not the, greatest works of sci-fi ever created for the big screen, many of the most memorable scenes in the sci-fi genre come from this film, such as the alien attached to the man’s face or the alien bursting from a man’s stomach. The film tells the tale of a crew manning a space freighter.
The crew is awakened from their sleep by the ship’s computer which tells them about a distress beacon coming from a nearby moon. Upon investigating the shipwreck on the moon a crew member discovers a bunch of Alien eggs and winds up a victim of the aforementioned alien face attachment. Every aspect of this masterpiece of sci-fi is executed flawlessly and atop the mountain of success Alien forged for itself lies a masterful portrayal of the character Ripley by Sigourney Weaver.
Ellen Ripley’s Voice of Reason
Throughout the film she is a voice of reason, even from the beginning. While some of the crew investigates the wreckage, operating under the assumption that they are responding to an SOS signal, Ripley discovers that it is indeed not an SOS, but a warning. She mentions this to Ian Holm’s character Ash and tells him how she wants to inform the investigating crew about the warning, to which he responds “what is the point?..”
If she had indeed caught up with the investigating crew to warn them, maybe Kane’s character (played by John Hurt) wouldn’t have wound up with an alien pancake stuck to his face.
The Alien’s Deadly Arrival
After Kane gets the alien attached to his face, the investigating crew on the ground rushes him back to the ship, which is undergoing repairs from a bumpy landing. Upon their arrival, Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) requests for Ripley to open the airlock, she inquires about Kane’s new facial addition and reminds Dallas that there are procedures in place for decontamination and is hesitant to allow him on board due to the possibility of the unidentified organism “infecting the ship”.
Here we are faced with more foreshadowing and more of Ripley’s correct and calculated opinions being stifled by mansplaining. She attempts to (rightly) disobey the direct order from Captain Dallas to “open this door right now,” and is undermined by Ash who opens the door, allowing the crew, and the unidentified alien, aboard the ship. Smooth move Ash.
Betrayal and Expendable Crew
A whole bunch of alien hide-and-go-seek then occurs and then we find a determined Ripley on a mission to get answers from the computer. She discovers that the true nature of the mission was changed to retrieve the alien life form and deliver it back to earth, with the crew listed as “expendable.” In one of her only displays of raw emotion, Ripley cries for about one second, then goes back to warn the others of their new status in the eyes of their employer.
After that moment, she is on a complete warpath to destroy her enemy and leave with the remaining crew in the escape ship.
Ellen Ripley’s Warpath and Survival
Towards the end of the film, we are left with only Ripley and the cat, Jones. Their way into the escape ship is initially blocked off by the alien and she goes back to unsuccessfully try and cancel the self-destruct sequence they had engaged earlier. Eventually they are able to board the escape ship and leave before the main ship explodes. Mission accomplished, right? Wrong. Just as Ripley begins to get undressed for the long sleep back to earth, she realizes the alien is still with her.
She space suits herself up and then gasses the alien out of a small space it wedged itself into aboard the escape ship. The alien then gets in front of the airlock door where ripley super-badassedly shoots it with a space harpoon gun. She opens the airlock, the whole ship depressurizes, and the alien is finally blasted off into space oblivion after getting roasted, medium-well, by the ship’s engine.
The Cat, the Airlock, and Ellen Ripley’s Legacy
Sigourney Weaver’s performance is a masterful one. She portrayed her character with such skill and accuracy, it’s hard to even attempt to imagine anyone other than her playing that role. She showed the emotional restraint that I would imagine to be present with a stoic space Captain, and when her role did indeed call for a more emotional response as we saw during her character’s realization that their lives were expendable, she was able to communicate those emotions perfectly as well, without overshadowing the previously established space captain stoicism. All of that professionalism and badassery she displayed, sharply contrasted by her love towards the cat at the end, it just felt very convincing and wholesome.
Speaking of, I’m not too sure how the cat survived the airlock being opened in the escape pod, but if I had to guess, it was respect for Ripley’s accomplishments over the last few hours that somehow made that cat stay attached to her. I would defy all physics and common sense for her too, Mr. Cat. Overall, I loved her entire performance and she will always be atop my list of favorite, most badass women in sci-fi and horror.