You've just voiced something I've only recentky started to think about: the first 3 Alien movies don't exactly follow traditional movie trilogy formula in a way that second and third installments are kinda inverted so middle chapter is the most optimistic and up-bit one while the final is dark and depressing. You've mentioned Star Wars OT. I would add to that Dark Knight and Kung Fu Panda trilogies.
The thing with first 3 Alien movies is that they were never intended as one cohesive story. Each instalment was a one-off and represented unique style and vision of its director
Quote from: Highland on Aug 19, 2021, 12:56:29 PM
The Alien took her friends, her family, her new friends, her new family, then her life.
I'd say that's a definite loss. It would have been a brilliant installment in a bigger picture, but as the end? It's a no from me.
OK, on her personal level Ripley definetly lost a lot. But what you've listed didn't just happened in Alien 3 - it happened through the course of 3 movies. Ripley loses something in each one: she lost her friends in Alien (I think its safe to assume Nostromo's crew were her friends), in Aliens she lost her family, specifically her daughter plus she lost her job, was proclaimed insane, became an outcast in a world where nobody recogmises her anymore.
You can argue she lost the most in Alien 3 in a form of Newt, Hicks, Bishop and finally her own life. But as SiL and I pointed out on a bigger level she had the last laugh and essentially said "f**k you" to Alien and Company while saving the universe and humanity from Alien's plague. Her jumping in a vat of molten lead is not a suicide - it's clear act of defiance