Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Jul 19, 2016, 05:18:36 PM
It's not that the female lead role needs to be switched up. It's that the Alien films need to stop being a self-parody. If you want to have a strong female lead, bring back Ripley. There's nothing like the real thing. And then free the other films of the yoke of the strong female lead so they can explore a new originality.
We weren't talking necessarily making the lead a man but making it so the Ripley-alike isn't automatically the survivor. It's becoming far too predictable.
Quote from: CainsSon on Jul 20, 2016, 12:57:34 AM
How did you like AVP, AVP-R and Prometheus? As of wrapping on this, COVENANT is the 4th entry in the franchise (or 2nd if you don't count AVP stuff, like I don't) without Ripley. People keep saying do something different without Ripley but it has yet to really work.
All of which tried to have Ripley-likes. All 3 films attempted to go for strong female leads. It wasn't that they didn't work because they weren't Ripley, it's that they didn't work because they were poorly written/cast/performed. Weaver and Ripley's inclusion doesn't make it an autowin. We have Alien 3 and Resurrection to prove that. Now, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Alien 3 but it's not a good film. There's stuff in Resurrection I like but it's not a good film either.
Quote from: windebieste on Jul 20, 2016, 03:58:24 AM
Exactly. 'ALIEN' was originally written for any of the 7 characters to be either gender. Imagine what a headf*ck a female Ash would have added to the movie?
Story, story, story. Good writing will bring good characters. Cliched and tired character tropes avoided, all the better.
And that wasn't even done for any deep meaning other than "they'd never see that coming!" I don't want to see it coming in Covenant or the other films! Give me a well written, well performed and well directed film, don't give me tropes.
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My point is that Ripley is reliable. She sells tickets. Her return sells tickets and it pleases fans. Of course ANYTHING with ALIEN in the title sells tickets and while I like Prometheus and am excited about Covenant, I would take a Ripley led film, on par with ALIEN 3 over those films ANY DAY. I do not think PROMETHEUS is as good as ALIEN 3, apart from maybe a technical, film-craft perspective. I find ALIEN 3's use of subtext, art direction, score, Sigourney's performance and Fincher's direction to be the best in the franchise. Though I agree the script is a huge problem.
The point I am making is you already have films without Ripley. The AVP films - I don't count, but PROMETHEUS doesnt attempt to recreate Ripley in Shaw and people hate that film. Same goes for AVP 1. We already have films without Ripley and people don't like those either.
How can we say, in the same breath, that Covenant and Prometheus don't excite you, but we dont want Blomkamp's film with Ripley because we prefer they move on without Ripley next. Thats a contradiction. They've moved on without her already.
If you have specific things you want to happen in the script, then just say, "I dont care about Ripley or Engineers, just give me more Colonial Marines and things blowing up." That's perfectly legit.
This was all in response to whether Blomkamp's Alien is worth getting excited for. And I don't think that the argument works to say move on without Ripley. We already did. Covenant is the 2nd film, at least, without her. Imagine A:R without her. That would be 600x worse than it is now. I stand by my statement that Ripley is the only interesting thing in that film.