| Ellen Ripley | |
|---|---|
| Alien character | |
 | |
| First appearance | Alien (1979) |
| Last appearance | Dead by Daylight (2023) |
| Created by | Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett |
| Portrayed by |
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| Voiced by |
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| In-universe information | |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Lieutenant (First Class) |
| Family | Alan Decker (grandson of Ripley 8) |
| Spouse | Alex (first husband, deceased) Paul Carter (second husband, deceased) |
| Children |
|
| Clones | Ripley 8 Ripleys 1–7 |
Lt. Ellen Louise Ripley, usually referred to by her surname, is a fictional character and the originalprotagonist of theAlien film series, played by American actressSigourney Weaver. Considered one of the greatest characters inscience fiction film history, the character earned Weaver worldwide recognition, and remains her most famous role to date. Although she was originally conceived asmale for thefirstAlien film, directorRidley Scott decided early in production to make her a woman.[1][2]
Alien (1979) and its sequelAliens (1986) were heralded for challenginggender roles, particularly in thescience fiction,action, andhorror genres. Weaver's performances are also highly praised: forAliens, she earned her firstAcademy Award nomination forBest Actress,[3] which is now seen as a landmark since the Academy, to that point, had given little recognition to the genres of science-fiction and horror. For her role in the franchise, Weaver has also been nominated for aGolden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, aBAFTA Award for Best Leading Newcomer, and fourSaturn Awards for Best Actress, winning one forAliens.[4]
Ripley is often considered one of the most significant female protagonists in cinematic history, and is a prominent figure in popular culture. Today, Ripley's influence extends beyond that of the original film franchise; she has appeared in novels, comic books and video games.
Ripley is introduced as awarrant officer aboard theNostromo, a spaceship en route to Earth from Thedus. Having been placed instasis for the long journey home, the crew is awakened when theNostromoreceives a transmission of unknown origin from a nearbyplanetoid. Following their landing, an unknown creature infiltrates the ship, and kills every other member of the crew. Ripley is the only member to escape from theNostromo prior to its explosion, which she deliberately started to kill the monster. However, she discovers that theAlien is also aboard the ship's shuttle, but expels it into space before putting herself in stasis for the return trip to Earth.
57 years later, Ripley awakes from her stasis. Her testimony regarding the Alien is met with extreme skepticism; she loses her space flight license as a result of her "questionable judgment," and finds out that her daughter,Amanda, has died of old age. However, after contact is lost with a colony on LV-426 (the planet where her crew first encountered the Alien eggs), Ripley accompanies a group of Colonial Marines to investigate. They find the planet infested by many Aliens, who wipe out almost all of the marines. Ripley finally escapes the planet withCorporal Dwayne Hicks, theandroid Bishop, and Newt, a young girl who is the last surviving colonist. Back on theSulaco, they are soon attacked by the survivingAlien Queen, which is finally expelled into space by Ripley. Ripley enters hypersleep alongside the three other survivors for the return to Earth.
TheSulaco launches an escape pod containing the four survivors, which then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, an abandoned foundry facility and penal colony. Ripley alone survives the crash. Unbeknownst to her, an Alien egg had been aboard the ship. Once hatched in the prison, the creature begins to kill inmates and guards, but strangely refuses to kill her. After rallying the inmates and preparing the defense against the creature, Ripley discovers the embryo of an Alien Queen growing inside her, thus realizing why she had not been attacked. After having killed the Alien bythermal shock, Ripley sacrifices herself by diving into a gigantic furnace just as the alien Queen begins to erupt from her chest, aiming to exterminate the final trace of the Aliens and prevent the Weyland-Yutani Corporation from using it as abiological weapon.
200 years after her death, scientists clone Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and surgically retrieve the Alien Queen embryo from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study on the spaceship USMAuriga, using kidnapped hosts delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to flee to theBetty. They must destroy theAuriga, lest it make its emergency landing and unleash Xenomorphs on Earth. Ripley is taken to the Alien nest, where the Queen gives birth to a Newborn, a Xenomorph with human traits. The hybrid Alien recognizes Ripley as its mother and kills the Queen. Ripley escapes to theBetty, where she tearfully kills the Newborn when it is discovered aboard attacking the other survivors. TheAuriga crashes into Earth, destroying all the remaining Xenomorphs in a massive explosion. From the windows of theBetty, Ripley look down at Earth and, when asked what she wants to do next, says, "I'm a stranger here myself." In an alternate ending, theBetty lands in a ruined Paris.
After directorNeill Blomkamp announced on February 19, 2015 that his next film would be a fifthAlien movie,[5] Weaver confirmed on February 25 that she would reprise her role as Ripley in the film.[6][5][7] On January 21, 2017, in response to a fan question on Twitter asking what the chances were of his Alien project actually happening, Blomkamp responded "slim."[8][9] In April, Scott said he did not think the film would ever be made. He elaborated that there was never a complete script, just a 10-page pitch, that Fox decided they did not want to pursue any further. Commentators have noted this goes against Weaver's and James Cameron's statements about reading Blomkamp's script for the film, although it is possible Weaver and Cameron were referring to the pitch document.[10] On May 1, 2017, Ridley Scott confirmed that the fifth film is not happening.[11] An alternate ending forThe Predator displaying a Weyland-Yutani Corp pod containing Ripley (played by Breanna Watkins) wearing a Weyland-Yutani breathing apparatus shaped like an Alien Facehugger was yet one among several references intended to further connect thePredator films to theAlien films.[12][13][14][15][16][17]
Ripley has two cameos in the "Stasis Interrupted"DLC for the game. In this prequel campaign, Ripley is seen being impregnated by a facehugger and also appeared recreating the same final scene ofAlien 3. The game also revealed that Hicks actually survived the events ofAlien 3 as he was retrieved by another Colonial Marines team, with the body in the stasis chamber that crashed being another marine who was knocked into Hicks' pod during a firefight, dying when the EEV crashed. Ripley, Newt and Bishop's pods were ejected while Hicks had to go with the other Marines.
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In 2014, Weaver reprised her role as Ripley for the first time in 17 years for a voice cameo in the video gameAlien: Isolation, centered on Ripley's daughterAmanda, and more extensively in its twoDLCs set during the events ofAlien.[18][19] This game, set 15 years after the events ofAlien and 42 years before the events ofAliens, features Ripley's daughter Amanda. Amanda was originally introduced in the extended version ofAliens, when Ripley learns that during her 57-years long stasis, Amanda grew up, married, and died. In the game, Amanda investigates potential clues regarding her mother's disappearance, and goes to the space stationSevastopol in hope to find answers. Near the end of the game, Amanda ultimately finds a vocal message from her mother (voiced by Weaver), who added a personal message to theNostromo's final log entry at the end ofAlien addressed to Amanda, in which Ripley explains the true nature of the disappearance of theNostromo, tells her she loves her, and hopes that she will get to hear this someday.
Weaver also reprises her role more extensively alongside several other original cast members in the game's two DLCs, set during the events ofAlien. Ripley is joined by Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Ash (Ian Holm, likeness only), allowing the player to play through two iconic scenes from the film. With the Nostromo Edition pre-order, the "Crew Expendable" bonus content allows gamers to play as one of the surviving crew members just after Brett's demise to entice the Alien to the ship's airlock. In the "Last Survivor", Ripley initiates the self-destruct sequence before escaping on theNarcissus.[18][19]
In the web animated seriesAlien: Isolation, Ripley was voiced byAndrea Deck in voiceovers for Ripley's final moments to her daughter.
Two hundred years after Ripley's death, a clone of Ripley is successfully produced aboard the spaceshipAuriga. Her DNA proved difficult to separate from that of the alien that was inside her during the events ofAlien 3, so the first six clones were useless monstrosities. The seventh clone turned out human enough to warrant an attempt at retrieving the alien inside her, but this also ended in failure. The eighth clone proves successful, and becomes the central character of a new story. However, the separation was still not perfect. Number 8 has enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, and an empathic link with the Aliens, and the aliens have slightly more human traits, including a browner skin coloration and changes to their reproductive cycle. Number Eight learns to talk and interact with humans, but soon Aliens escape their confinement and kill most of the crew. She escapes from her cell and later meets and joins a group of mercenaries; developing a close relationship with their youngest member, Annalee Call. The now fully-grown Alien Queen, having developed a womb because of Ripley's DNA, gives birth to a human-Alien hybrid, who kills the Queen and imprints on Number Eight as its mother. After escaping theAuriga in theBetty, Ripley kills the newborn Alien by using her own acidic blood to burn a hole through a viewing pane, causing the creature to be sucked violently through the small hole and into thevacuum of space, saving Call. In a scene included in the extended edition of the film (referenced in the events ofAlien: Sea of Sorrows), theBetty lands on Earth and Ripley and Call discover thatParis is desolate.
The comic bookAliens versus Predator versus The Terminator continues the storyline of Ripley 8 afterResurrection, seeing Ripley 8 allying with the Predators to defeat both a new wave of Aliens and a group of Terminators created by a long-dormant Skynet program to reinvent itself if it was destroyed, culminating in Ripley 8 apparently sacrificing herself to destroy the original super-soldier/Terminator.
At the beginning ofAlien: Sea of Sorrows, set 200 years after the events ofAlien Resurrection, it is revealed that the crashing of theAuriga at the end ofAlien Resurrection caused the destruction in Paris seen at the end of that film. Additionally, the protagonist of the novel, Decker, is stated to be a descendant of Ellen Ripley, but there are several hints throughout the novel revealing that Decker's grandmother was actually Ripley 8 (mainly his empathic abilities, the fact Amanda Ripley-McClaren is stated to have had no children inAliens, and when Decker is shown a picture of Ripley, he says that she is not the person he sees in his head).
Ripley's life and career have been extensively expanded on in various spin-offcomics andnovels, many of which were written before her death onFiorina 161, providing instead a chronology continuing on from the end ofAliens. In the Dark Horse novel series, Ripley appears at the end of Book 3,The Female War; but subsequent books, in order to bring the book continuity in line with the film continuity, reveal that she is actually an android created in Ripley's likeness and given false memories. All novels were rebooted in 2012, meaning the only canonical books featuring Ripley areOut of the Shadows (by Tim Lebbon),Sea of Sorrows (by James A. Moore) andRiver of Pain. InOut of the Shadows, Ripley is woken from stasis 37 years after the events ofAlien, fights Xenomorphs alongside several miners, and is put in stasis again the end of the book with her memory of these events erased to spare her from the worst of the psychological trauma she has experienced. Ripley is mentioned repeatedly inSea of Sorrows, which stars the grandson of Ripley 8, and appears inRiver of Pain, which takes place before and during the events ofAliens. AnAudio-Animatronic Ripley was featured in theAlien scene ofThe Great Movie Ride atDisney's Hollywood Studios atWalt Disney World from 1989 to 2017.
Ellen Ripley is often featured in lists of the best characters in film history: in 2008,American Film Institute ranked her as the eighth best hero in American film history in theirlist of the 100 greatest heroes and villains,[20] the second highest ranked female character afterClarice Starling. In 2009,Entertainment Weekly ranked Ripley fifth on their list ofThe 20 All Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture, calling her "one of the first female movie characters who isn't defined by the men around her, or by her relationship to them."[21] The same year, she was ranked #9 onEmpire magazine's compilation ofThe 100 Greatest Movie Characters in 2008 and #5 in 2015,[22] being the highest ranked female in both.
She was ranked eight onPremiere magazine's list ofThe 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time,[23] with her Defining Moment being "Ripley's nervy refusal to open the ship's hatch so that Kane (John Hurt) can be admitted - with a thing attached to his face." She was the third highest ranked female of the list, afterAnnie Hall andScarlett O'Hara. She was ranked 57 onFandomania's list of the100 Greatest Fictional Characters.[24] In 2009,MTV selected her as the second Greatest Movie Badass Of All Time,[25] the only women withSarah Connor, ranked sixth. In 2011,UGO Networks ranked her the 75th Hottest Sci-Fi Girl of All Time.[26] and websiteTotal Sci-Fi ranked her first on their top of the 25 Women Who Shook Sci-Fi, stating "one of the most iconic characters in cinema history" and "one of the most critically analysed characters in the history of cinema." In 2011,Total Film ranked her the best female character of any film.[27]
For her performance inAlien, Weaver was nominated for aBAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles and aSaturn Award for Best Actress.[4][28] Although her performance had already been acclaimed in the first film,Aliens gave worldwide recognition to Weaver: she was the third horror actress in history (afterEllen Burstyn forThe Exorcist andSissy Spacek forCarrie) to be nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Actress.[3] She also received a nomination for theGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama, and won the Saturn Award for Best Actress, the first award in her career (except a minor award, the Mystfest Award for Best Actress, won forHalf Moon Street).[4]
Weaver was also co-producer of the third and fourth films of the franchise. Although they were less successful critically, Weaver's performance was praised: she received her third and fourth Saturn Award for Best Actress nominations for both films and a nomination for aBlockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress – Sci-Fi forAlien Resurrection. Although she didn't win awards specifically forAlien 3 andAlien Resurrection, she won theHasty Pudding Woman of the Year Award for her acting work during the 1997 film year, includingAlien Resurrection,The Ice Storm andSnow White: A Tale of Terror.[4]
Weaver won aDVDX Award for Best Audio Commentary (New for DVD) for her audio participation, among numerous other members of the crew, in the audio commentary ofAlien in its 2003-reissue inAlien Quadrilogy.[4] On his presentation speech about Weaver before rewarding her for her overall career with the Heroine Award at the2010 Scream Awards,Aliens directorJames Cameron stated her main participations in film history as theAlien franchise,Ghostbusters andAvatar.
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