Skull Movies scene 2 / Robin Pen
> best tale as a hero. Indeed, with Ripley’s help, I developed a respectable empathy with the characters of this film which I simply couldn’t muster for its forerunner. In Alien3, the group are treated as a broken and estranged remnant of humanity, while in Aliens they are de-humanised and comic collection of pathetic, cardboard pod-people. Newt, oh yes poor Newt (she got newted from orbit); I did appreciate the death and autopsy of Newt. It seemed appropriate for her to be disposed of so graphically: She became the sacrificial ewok that allowed Ripley’s characterisation to be freed and to run its natural course. And, partly because of this, I believe that Alien3 was a better piece of feminist SF than Aliens. People have praised Aliens for its Earth Mother gone a-Schwarzeneggering attitude, which I think is fairly sad – simply a gender-swap for that repulsive Hollywood construct, the indestructible God-hero of Vendetta. Aliens used motherhood as an excuse rather than a valid theme, and Newt was simply a dialectic tool to propel Ripley’s sudden macho transformation (a significant shift in attitude from Alien, where she was hard because, in space, you have to be hard). Just compare Ripley in the closing scenes of Aliens with Arnie in Terminator 2 (both Cameron films); the similarity is quite amusing. I don’t see feminism here, I see fetishism; a mere prop for Aliens’ true narrative intent; an emotional salve for frustrated wet-dreams about kicking the ass of the invisible, drooling monsters lurking under beds - audience participation as mass hysteria. In Alien3 Ripley is a vehicle for exploring our fear of death. Ripley’s relationship with death through Dallas, the rest of the Nostromo crew, her daughter, Hicks and Newt becomes the foundation on which to build a complex character who must face up to her own
end. The entire film, both through its visuals and pacing, parallels Ripley’s emotional and intuitive state as her story draws to a close. Indeed the director, David Fincher, intended that the film be stylistically structured around the Kubler-Ross five stages of death: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, nudging the audience through these stages as