Hall of Fame: Ellen Ripley
Selecting the first female entrant into the Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame was kind of a big deal. There were long lines of people last month at many of my local schools and churches of people just waiting to find out who had been selected. Strangely enough, they kept chanting for some broad named Hillary, who must be a mega action star overseas or something but I was too busy researching the possibilities of just who might be honored by us this year. Narrowing down our list of favorites to be inducted this year meant sliding a couple of ladies to the back burner (a move I mastered years ago) but I think that Ellen Ripley is the type of super badass that has earned her way into any action-related Hall of Fames. It was only a matter of time before she brought those dark curls and acidic juices into our BPA HOF!
Sigourney Weaver stepped into the role of Ellen Ripley; seemingly just another female character in a science fiction genre film dominated by men, and dominated that alien prick and saved the life of that precious kitty at the same time. She was like a 1950’s fireman who killed aliens and wore little bitty underpants. Alien would become a horror/sci-fi classic and turn this actress and her soon to be action superstar character into a household name.
Ripley’s biggest problem was always trusting the same people who kept throwing her back into another human massacre. I mean, check out that picture above and just know that it could have easily come from a John Woo or Michael Bay movie but instead it’s of a motherly figure caring for her little baby bear. Aliens, to me, is one of the most perfect movies ever made. There isn’t one character that I would re-cast if given the option and none of it would have been possible without the amazing lead of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley.
In Alien 3 she got up close and personal with another Alien but this time it was on a penal colony filled with a bunch of dudes. Like Demi Moore and Natalie Portman after her, she buzzed her hair off and took what was definitely a mediocre movie (compared to the first two) to the next level. Few sequels can successfully go from having dozens of aliens in one movie to just having one in the next and get away with it. It means that more of the weight was carried by the actors and the brunt of it was on the bald head and shoulders of Ripley.
Over the years Ripley has gone through all the various stages of loss and post traumatic stress that a person can experience. She watched her crew get wiped out. She woke after a 57 year hypersleep to find her daughter dead and her life once again under extreme risk of being turned into a living cocoon. She landed on a prison planet and led and unarmed attack on an alien and then was cloned and re-lived all of the above again only this time she almost got eaten by the half-alien clone of herself. I bet her psychiatric bills are out of this world!
Whether she’s blowing aliens out of airlocks, fighting massive queen aliens with a robotic forklift, or doing a swan-dive into fiery magma, Ellen Ripley is a trailblazing badass of epic proportions. I would put her on the same list as Darth Vader and Captain Kirk as the most iconic of characters from the science fiction genre. She was a character that even little boys wanted to be, and now she’s the first person with female parts to be inducted into the Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame.
