Welcome to the Aroundtable’s newest review section entitled: Icon. We decided to introduce this section in order to showcase our favorite actor or character in films.
You may ask yourself, what makes us consider our choices for our Icon series? Simply put, to us, it’s someone or something that defines a genre or ingrains itself into our lives by making him/her/it a reference point. It’s someone or something that lives on long after the movie/TV show is finished. So Aroundtable is proud to present our first installment of ICON.
Thirty-seven years ago, Ridley Scott’s Alien was unleashed on the world and introducing us to Ellen Ripley; played by relatively unknown Sigourney Weaver. Weaver’s mesmerizing portrayal of Ripley made her a bona fide movie star but more importantly, redefined the way women were portrayed in action and Sci-Fi films.
In 2014, Sigourney Weaver was asked to comment on the film’s legacy and the impact of the Ripley character. According to Sigourney Weaver: “I always felt that the decision to make Ripley the survivor was not made out of any great feminist sentiment.” the Oscar-nominated actress said. “It was, ‘No one will ever guess that this girl will end up being the survivor.’ It wasn’t a statement of any kind, but he really made it work”.
Regardless of the statements validity, that plot twist from director Ridley Scott and screenwriters Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, in making Ellen Ripley the last survivor on the Nostromo in 1979’s Alien, resulted in creating the First Lady of science fiction.
Weaver went on to star in the sequels: Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997). Through-out all these films and not to forget multiple screenwriters, one thing remained consistent, Ellen Ripley. Ripley represented a self-reliant female protagonist that was a fully competent member of the crew and was never reduced to a role of sidekick or eye-candy. Ellen Ripley set the standard by which all women who step into this genre are compared to.
It is with great pleasure that the Aroundtable inducts Sigourney Weaver ‘s Ellen Ripley as our first appointee in our Icon series.