Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Sigourney Weaver dived headfirst into her career defining roles in the Alien franchise at her NYCC appearance over the weekend. Joined by co-star Veronica Cartwright, she discussed Ripley, the challenge of coming back for Aliens and Alien³ and how the franchise’s cachet within Hollywood changed so completely. The article about it, which can be read here, is fantastic and Weaver and Cartwright are both on top form. There’s one section in particular that really jumped out at Alasdair and we’re going to start there:

“Walter Hill is a very good friend of mine, and he wrote 50 pages where Ripley would be now, and they are quite extraordinary. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I have had a meeting with Fox, Disney, or whoever it is now,” she told the crowd at New York Comic Con on Friday. “I said I have never felt the need. I was always like, ‘Let her rest, let her recover.’ But what Walter has written seems so true to me as very much about the society that would incarcerate someone who has tried to help mankind.”

Added the star: “She’s a problem to them, so she’s sort of tucked away. Anyway, I think it’s a very strong first 50 pages, and I’m thinking about working with Walter to see what the rest of the story would be.”

For those of you unfamiliar, Walter Hill is a pillar of modern American action cinema. He’s directed The Driver, The Warriors, Southern Comfort and both 48 Hrs movies, and wrote on the first three Alien movies alongside countless others. He’s written, directed, produced, done every major job you can in the field. Some of it’s not worked too well, but Hill is so prolific that the good far outweighs the bad.

That, coupled with his experience with the field and Weaver’s own trust of him has broken down a lot of my deep reluctance to see her return to the role. Weaver, more than anyone involved, has earned some time off from Xenomorph wrangling and the two endings Ripley has got to date are both fitting for the character.

And yet…

The idea of Ripley being an incarcerated political prisoner of sorts is so interesting. As is the implication that this occurs after the Xenomorph has become public knowledge and the solar system has rebuilt. The old Dark Horse comics, now reprinted by Marvel, did years of interesting work with this. There’s also the irresistible sense of this righting a lot of what went wrong with Alien Resurrection, presumably picking up with Ripley 8 on a post-collapse Earth. Patron Saint or Harbinger? Herald of the Xenomorph or its Nemesis? Also as excellent blogger the Spaceshipper has pointed out, the series is now full of long-lived characters and a conversation between Ripley and Prometheus’ David would be quite something to see.

There might actually be something here. Weaver, Hill and the people with money clearly think so and honestly if Weaver is up for it then why wouldn’t we be? It’s got close before, with Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 in early stages before the franchise continued with the direction it took with Prometheus. Like then, it’s early days here, but as Weaver said, meetings have happened so we’ll see what comes of them.