In 1986, “Aliens” changed action movies forever, because it asked one question: “How do you depict a female lead in a male-dominated genre?” These are the words of Fandor Keyframe (via No Film School) in their latest video essay, “Why Aliens is the Mother of All Action Movies,” which demonstrates how Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, went from an “independent, resilient and resourceful” final girl in the tradition of other horror films before Ridley Scott’s “Alien” to the badass gamechanger in James Cameron’s sequel. It was accomplished with two simple changes: the genre switched from sci-fi horror to sci-fi action, and the thematic focus shifted to motherhood.
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Contrasting with the hyper-masculinity found in action flicks starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, “Aliens” served as a template for modern action heroines and made Ripley the mother to those strong female characters, the ones eventually seen in “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” (also directed by James Cameron), “Kill Bill” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” to name a handful. Through the mother-daughter relationship she shares with Newt, as well as her trauma and grief found from her own deceased daughter, Ripley is defined by her complex emotions as much as she is her take charge attitude and cool professionalism. That’s the ultimate key to her impact on film history, particularly blockbuster filmmaking. It helped to prove herself as one of the most complex, emotionally driven and layered movie protagonists ever. This is explored more thoughtfully in the well-edited six-minute video essay, so give it a watch.