Ok.Ripley has now escaped from the aliens, TWICE. She has gained a child that she can dispel her maternal warmth to. She has pushed aside her prejudices to save a droid. She has ran a gazillion miles away from the aliens. She deserves a damn break. Nope.
In a way, I should have seen it coming. Twice now Ripley had been the one to go to the aliens. The aliens were just staying put, pooping out those eggs. The first movie her ship had answered a distress call from the first group that got entangled with the aliens. Second time, she was saddled with a gun blazing group that just set fire to everything in sight. From the perspective of the aliens, I would be plenty damn pissed. I would go after them too.
Just not in the way that the movie contrives it.
The last time we left our hero, Ripley, the a droid (i can never remember his name), and Newt were safely sailing through space away from the super duper awesome Queen that they just left in a burning inferno. A BURNING INFERNO. Somehow, some-damn-how, the Queen was able to place an egg on the landing gear which was able to enter the ship.How?? How??? HOW?!?!??! No answer. All we see are headache-inducing cuts of a flashing pod with broken pods and random readouts.
My first thought: this has become an artsy fartsy movie. hmmm...lemme see....ahhh. Directed by David Fincher. Same director of "The Curious Case of Bejamin Button" and "Fight Club". I have not seen "Fight Club" (Ow...ow...I know...it's on my too-watch list) but the style of the movie makes so much sense. Alien has a sci-fi theme similar to Kubricks. Aliens was explosion orgasm of fun. And now we get artistic style of violence with splurts of deep emotions and humor.So...back to the movie.
Ripley lands on a prison planet inhabited by prisoners that have become religious zealots .Hey, they have been isolated on planet with barely any security. After all the murderous riots die down, they must have strives for some sort of order in their lives. It turns out that Ripley is the only female on the planet. This arouses some resentment and frustration in the prisoners. This could have easily turned into a rape-sorrow story if it wasn't for one vital thing. Ripley is now carrying an alien. And here's an added twist: her incubation time is taking longer because she's carrying a special kind of alien.
Then the movie becomes a survival story. Where the first two, she was surrounded by people that she could trust in friendship (Alien) or power (Aliens), she has no reason to trust these prisoners. In the end, they all work together for the common goal of defeating the alien.Just for good measure, the Company still wants the alien. Now they want Ripley with the alien.
Ok.I know I'm bashing on this. I really hated it after I first watched it. I was indignant at Ripley having sex and the weird religious prisoners, and the bloody egg getting into Ripley. But then I thought about it.And I have come to appreciate it as a good conclusion to the trililogy ( it's a trilogy dammit!!! the fourth one is a drunken-induced mess). If I follow Ripleys psyche, she goes from leading a pretty trangquil life to seeing the brutal lives of her comrades ripped apart to witnessing firsthand the horrors of what space can emit to realizing that she missed her daughters life to almost gaing sanity in Newt then having Newt ripped away from her. Ripley has been thrown into the blender of shit and spun until the motor burned out. It is no wonder that she loses her characteristics that we have come to admire and love from the previous
movie.What human can withstand all those horrors in such short of a time. Your morals would have splintered into oblivion. If ( just play along here) I was her place, I would have been grabbing on to any human being for some sort of contact. Any contact. I do have mention that I really dig the idea of the alien taking some attributes of the being that it incubates from. So when the other egg (which I still don't fully understand how the hell that happened) hatches from a bovine creature,it's a four-legged creature ( I would definitely recommend everyone to watch the behind the scenes for the previous ideas for the creature- the greyhound idea was absolutely adorable!).
So this movie wasn't my favorite but I can definitely appreciate what it was trying to pull. This movie really splits fans apart but it makes sense. I really love the idea that it began with Ripley and the Queen and it would end with Ripley and the Queen.
WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T HAVE BEEN KEPT THAT WAY!?!?!?!?
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