Alien Resurrection (1997)

Alien: Resurrection (1997) is an American Science Fiction film, the third sequel to Alien (1979). 200 years after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone. Along with a crew of space pirates, she must again battle the deadly aliens and stop them from reaching Earth. The film was directed by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The leads are played by Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, and Dominique Pinon.


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 54. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 53. Winona Ryder in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 52. Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Sigourney Weaver, and Winona Ryder in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 51. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions, Zoetermeer, no. FA 461, 1997. Photo: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Poster image of Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder.

The new Aliens prove smarter than usual

Alien: Resurrection (1997) is set 200 years after the events of Alien³. Using blood samples, a group of scientists aboard the USM Auriga creates a clone of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). The scientists work for the company United Systems Military, a kind of successor of Weyland-Yutani from the previous films. Like its predecessor, this company has set its sights on using the Aliens as a biological weapon.

Since Ripley was carrying the embryo of an Alien queen when she died, the scientists hope to obtain such an Alien embryo by cloning it. The plan succeeds and an Alien queen is extracted from the Ripley clone. The clone itself is kept alive for further research, while a nest of Aliens is created through the Alien Queen with a series of hosts kidnapped by smugglers for the first time in two centuries.

The smugglers find Ripley aboard the ship. The youngest member of the group, Call (Winona Ryder), recognises her name. Meanwhile, the new Aliens prove smarter than usual. Soon they escape and pose a threat to everyone aboard the Auriga. Most of the people on board are killed.

Ripley and scientist Dr. Wren (J.E. Freeman) realise that the Auriga is programmed to return to Earth. When the ship arrives there, the aliens will be released on the planet. Ripley, now with part alien DNA and superhuman powers, tries to escape with the smugglers of the spaceship before it reaches Earth.

During their escape, Ripley discovers more about the Aliens; for example, the new Alien Queen has part of her human DNA and is now able to produce living offspring without the need for eggs. The Aliens thus created see Ripley as their mother.

Eventually, Call turns out to be an android. She can break into the Auriga's computer system and programs the ship to crash into Earth in the hope that the crash will kill all the aliens. Just before the impact, Ripley and the last smugglers are able to escape with another ship.


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 50. Winona Ryder in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 55. Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Winona Ryder Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 56. Winona Ryder, Sigourney Weaver and Leland Orser in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 57. Publicity still for Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 59. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).

Resurrecting Ripley

20th Century Fox hired Joss Whedon to write the script for Alien: Resurrection as they were impressed with his previous work. Initially, Fox wanted the film to revolve around a clone of the Newt character from Aliens (James Cameron, 1987). Whedon wrote a short script around this idea when Fox decided to try to have Ellen Ripley return in the film.

At first, it was a bit of a mystery how to make an Alien 4, as Ripley died in the previous film, Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992). In the 1990s, cloning was in the spotlight, and that became the basis for the resurrection of Ripley and the xenomorph. Whedon personally found it difficult to incorporate Ripley's return into the script.

Sigourney Weaver, who had played Ripley in all the previous films, initially saw nothing in yet another return of her character. She felt it would be too much of the same. However, she was so impressed by Whedon's script that she agreed to play the role again. It was her idea to give her character some new characteristics, such as the Alien DNA. Weaver also gained mention as a co-producer and an $11 million salary as a result of her input.

Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated (ADI) was hired to provide the effects for the film, and to design the Aliens for the film. In the previous Alien sequels, H.R. Giger's original Alien (Ridley Scott, 1986) design had already been reworked, for example, the creatures in Aliens (James Cameron, 1987) had a ribbed skull roof (in the previous film it was smooth), the chestburster had arms and the eggs looked different. In Alien³, they went a step further, turning the Alien into a reddish-brown, lightning-fast quadruped.

For the fourth instalment in the series, some changes were made again. In the past, the legs of the aliens were never shown, because in terms of joints they were clearly human. Because in 1997 the computer was now available, digital Aliens could be fully portrayed. To give them a more animal-like appearance, an extra joint was added to the ankle. The tail was also made flatter, as a paddle for the swimming scenes in the film. The old hissing and screeching noises were replaced by growling and roaring, and the Alien eggs were made much more mobile. The appearance of the eggs was brought back to that of the original Alien.

Alien: Resurrection was shot at Fox Studios in Los Angeles. Filming lasted from October 1996 to February 1997. Jeunet had difficulty finding a studio as the production of Alien: Resurrection coincided with several other films such as Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1997).

Jeunet wanted to emphasise Ripley's new powers, including in a scene where Ripley throws a basketball through the net in a gym without looking. This shot is real. Sigourney Weaver insisted on doing it herself, though it was said to be almost impossible to do without a machine or digital ball. When it was done, actor Ron Perlman was so impressed that he started cursing in amazement while the camera was still rolling. This 'character break' could be cut out without losing the scene.

Alien: Resurrection officially premiered on 26 November 1997 after a preview in Camarillo, California. In North America, the film grossed $47.7 million, making it the least successful film in the franchise in America. Internationally, the film did better. Its worldwide box office was $161.2 million. Like Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection was met with mixed reviews.

Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun-Times: "The 'Alien' movies always have expert production design. Alien Resurrection was directed by the French visionary Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children), who with his designers has placed it in what looks like a large, empty hangar filled with prefabricated steel warehouse parts. There is not a single shot in the movie to fill one with wonder - nothing like the abandoned planetary station in Aliens. Even the standard shots of vast spaceships, moving against a backdrop of stars, are murky here, and perfunctory."


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 60. Winona Ryder and Ron Perlman in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 63. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 64. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


British postcard in the Mini Series by Lilliput Production, London, no. 505. Sigourney Weaver in Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).


Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A-433. Sigourney Weaver and Carrie Henn in Aliens (James Cameron, 1996).


British postcard in the Mini Series by Lilliput Production, London, no. 502.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

Alien (1979)

"In space, no one can hear you scream" is the tagline of the Sci-Fi Horror classic Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). A close encounter of the third kind becomes a Jaws-style nightmare when an alien invades a spacecraft. Alien stands as one of the more thought-provoking, yet utterly terrifying horror films ever. Sigourney Weaver is amazing as Ellen Ripley, who became an iconic character in film history. The film won an Oscar for special effects, including the alien designed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger.


Spanish postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 465. Photo: Sigourney Weaver in Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). Caption: Alien el 8 pasajero.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 464. Image: Spanish lobby card for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). The Spanish title is 'Alien, el octavo pasajero'.

What should the monster look like

It is the year 2122. The U.S.C.S. Nostromo (Italian for "mate"), a commercial cargo spacecraft, is flying to Earth with several million tonnes of ore on board. The ship is manned by seven people and a sophisticated computer, which the crew call "Mother".

The crew members are the men Dallas, Ash, Kane, Parker and Brett and the women Ripley and Lambert. The crew is woken up from hibernation by the ship's Mother computer to answer a distress signal from a nearby planet. Capt. Dallas's (Tom Skerritt) rescue team discovers a bizarre pod field, but things get even stranger when a face-hugging creature bursts out of a pod and attaches itself to Kane (John Hurt).

Over the objections of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), science officer Ash (Ian Holm) lets Kane back on the ship. The acid-blooded incubus detaches itself from an apparently recovered Kane, but an alien erupts from Kane's stomach and escapes. The alien starts stalking the humans, pitting Dallas and his crew (and cat) against a malevolent killing machine that also has a protector in the nefarious Company.

While still a student at the University of Southern California, scriptwriter Dan O'Bannon had teamed up with director John Carpenter to make a comic science fiction film called Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974). His experience making this film gave Bannon the idea of making a similar film, but with a horror theme instead of a comedy.

A few years later, he began writing a screenplay around this idea. Around the same time, Ronald Shusett began working on a screenplay that would eventually become Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990). He contacted O'Bannon after seeing Dark Star, after which the two decided to work together on Alien. However, O'Bannon had not yet thought about what the monster should look like.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 466. Image: Spanish lobby card for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). The Spanish title is 'Alien, el octavo pasajero'.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 467. Image: Spanish lobby card for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). The Spanish title is 'Alien, el octavo pasajero'.

Ripley's forceful horror heroine

Swiss artist H.R. Giger's alien design and Carlo Rambaldi's visual effects for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) creepily meld technology with corporeality, creating a claustrophobic environment that is coldly mechanical yet horribly anthropomorphized, like the metallic monster itself. Director Ridley Scott keeps the alien out of full view, hiding it in the dark or camouflaging it in the workings of the Nostromo.

Lucia Bozzola at AllMovie: "Signs of '70s cultural upheaval permeate Alien's future world, from the relationship between corporate capitalism and rapacious monstrosity to the heterogeneous crew and Ripley's forceful horror heroine. However, the intense frights and gross-outs are credited with making Alien one of the biggest hits of 1979 (it premiered on the two-year anniversary of Star Wars); Giger, Rambaldi, et al. won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects."

Alien went on to spawn some genre-bending sequels: the actioner Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), the dark prison drama Alien 3 (David Fincher, 1992), and the exotically grotesque Alien Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997). In 2003, a director's cut of Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) was released in cinemas, with some additional scenes. The franchise now counts seven films.

Roger Ebert: "Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in the romance of finding the alien, and still less in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to "Special Order 24" ("Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded") is succinct: "How do we kill it?" Her implacable hatred for the alien is the common thread running through all three "Alien" sequels, which have gradually descended in quality but retained their motivating obsession."


British postcard in the Mini Series by Lilliput Production, London, no. 505. Sigourney Weaver in Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Photo: publicity still for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Lucia Bozzola (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

Sigourney Weaver

American actress Sigourney Weaver (1949) rose to international fame with her role as Ellen Ripley in the Alien saga. After her breakthrough in the Science Fiction blockbuster Alien (1979), she became one of Hollywood's major female stars during the 1980s and 1990s. Weaver often plays strong, independent, and driven women. She was nominated for an Oscar for Aliens (1987), Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (1988) and Working Girl (1988), and her tour-de-force performance in the Broadway play 'Hurlyburly' (1984) earned her a Tony Award nomination. Weaver has actually won more than ten film awards, including two Golden Globes and a BAFTA Award.


Spanish postcard by Coleccion Estrellas Cinematograficas Cacitel, S.L., no. 34.


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 54. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


British postcard in the Mini Series by Lilliput Production, London, no. 502.

Alien

Susan Alexandra 'Sigourney' Weaver was born in New York, in 1949. Weaver is the daughter of television producer and president of NBC Pat Weaver and British actress Elizabeth Inglis. She changed her name to 'Sigourney' at the age of 14, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's book 'The Great Gatsby'.

She graduated from Stanford and Yale, in the same class as Meryl Streep. In the 1970s, she acted in experimental and classical plays, including those by her former classmate Christopher Durang. Because of her height (she is 1.82 metres), she was often ignored by most producers and directors. In 1976, Weaver got a role in the soap opera Somerset.

The following year, she made her film debut: she appeared for six seconds in Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977). However, it made many people sit up and take notice. She had her first starring role in Madman (Dan Cohen, 1978) starring Michael Beck. Her breakthrough followed in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). The part of Ellen Ripley became her most famous role and made Weaver one of the greatest actresses of the moment.

She continued her career with drama films such as Eyewitness (Peter Yates, 1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir, 1982), with Mel Gibson. In 1984, she played her first comic role as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984). In 1986, the first sequel to Alien was released. In Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Weaver portrayed Ripley as an intelligent, powerful woman. The film was an even greater commercial success than the original and she was rewarded for her role with her first Oscar nomination.

She was also nominated for an Oscar for her roles as the animal rights activist and zoologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist (Michael Apted, 1988) and her delicious performance as a double-crossing, power-hungry corporate executive in the comedy Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988). She missed out on the award all three times but did receive Golden Globes for the latter two films.


Spanish postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 465. Photo: Sigourney Weaver in Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). Caption: Alien el 8 pasajero.


British postcard in the Mini Series by Lilliput Production, London, no. 505. Photo: Sigourney Weaver in Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).


Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A-433. Sigourney Weaver and Carrie Henn in Aliens (James Cameron, 1996).

Resurrection

Sigourney Weaver reprised the role of Dana Barrett in the sequel Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman, 1989) and played Rebecca Gorin in the reboot Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016). Weaver also reprised the role of Ellen Ripley in the films Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992) and Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Winona Ryder, as well as in the game Alien: Isolation (2014), the latter of which marks the actress' return 17 years after her last appearance in the franchise.

Weaver collaborated with Ridley Scott again, appearing as Queen Isabella in 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and appeared in the Roman Polanski–directed Death and the Maiden (1994), in a major role opposite Ben Kingsley. For her role in The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997), she received her fourth Golden Globe nomination and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. In 1999, she co-starred in the hilarious Science Fiction comedy Galaxy Quest (Dean Parisot, 1999) with Tim Allen and Alan Rickman.

Then followed a decade in which she continued to appear in films but also had multiple voice roles in animated films, including The Tale of Despereaux (Sam Fell, Rob Stevenhagen, 2008) and the Pixar films WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) and Finding Dory (Andrew Stanton, 2016). She also worked in several documentaries, such as the BBC series Planet Earth (2006) and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016).

During the 2010s, she made a major comeback in the cinema with supporting roles in the blockbuster Avatar (2009), which marked her reunion with James Cameron, and in the historical blockbuster Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, 2014), starring Christian Bale, for which she reunited with Ridley Scott.

She made a lasting return with the Sci-Fi thriller Chappie (Neill Blomkamp, 2015), the fantasy film A Monster Calls (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2016), and the TV mini-series The Defenders (2017). Last year, she returned as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Jason Reitman, 2021). Sigourney Weaver married director Jim Simpson in 1984, with whom she had a daughter in 1990.


Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions, Zoetermeer, no. FA 461, 1997. Photo: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Poster image of Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder.


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 59. Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).


Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 52. Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Sigourney Weaver, and Winona Ryder in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).

Sources: Wikipedia (English, Dutch and French), and IMDb.