MovieChat Forums > Aliens (1986) Discussion > One thing I always think about when I wa...

One thing I always think about when I watch this movie...Ripley?

posted 5 years ago by Jehosaphet (1063)
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She's been in cryo-sleep for 57 years, wakes up to find out that her daughter has died...the lady has nothing at all...nobody. She's completely alone in a world that's likely changed drastically since she went to sleep, with no loved ones, friends...literally everyone is a stranger. Its hard to imagine that kind of loneliness, I think.
And if it weren't for this expedition...where could she have gone, what could she have done with herself? Her previous life is over...she's got no home, no job...the only thing she has now is this group of people she's been assigned to consult...and they've already bonded with each other through previous missions, battles or whatever.

Its no wonder she was willing to risk her life for Newt...she had nothing else to live for, really.

Anyway, just kind of a weird exercise in bleakness, trying to imagine how alone she must have felt, its a very unnatural state to be in.

[–] AZ (62) 5 years ago

It's the king of thing people don't often think of with movies like this because they're basically horror movies where characters exist to be killed off or traumatized.

Ok sometimes people do think about these things with horror stories and make melodramatic and plodding movies from it. They try to make the horror and villains "realistic" and more relatable, and explain away the mystique and intrigue. Horror works best when it's strange though. The Alien movies almost work on an archetypal level where things aren't exactly realistic and characters (their traumas) aren't given a ton of on screen exploration. Yet there is a mystique to them. They make you wonder and fill in the blanks when it comes to the characters... like about Ripley. It's good when a movie leaves you thinking more about its characters than say a convoluted plot in which the writers were too lazy or stupid to make sense of.

Had they all survived Alien 3 what would their lives have been like? Would they be able to go on normally or would the company hold them for questioning? Would they be put away indefinitely or even killed for their knowledge of the alien and the company corruption? I like to wonder about that because even without the aliens the universe looks like a harsh place. Ripley, Hicks, and Newt might find other challenges.

[–] MichaelJPollock (813) 5 years ago

That loneliness is addressed in a vary mature way in Alien3 I feel, when Ripley tells Clemence she's been "out there a long time" and asks if he's attracted to her ("In what way??", "That way..."). I think I prefer horny-Ripley to mother-goose-Ripley.