10 Alien Mistakes Neill Blomkamp Should Totally Erase
5. Ripley: The Clone
When 20th Century Fox decided that, oh wait a minute, they actually wanted to make another movie in the Alien franchise, they found themselves faced with one rather critical problem: Ripley was dead. And who would really want to see an Alien movie with Ripley at the helm? Nobody, that's who. As a result, the studio were forced to come up with a way to bring her back to life in order to continue the series and keep the fans happy (or not, depending on which way you look at it). With a prequel off the cards for obvious reasons, they eventually went with "let's bring her back as clone," which - as far as narrative conveniences go - felt pretty lame. But what other choice did they have, all things considered? Anyway, the Ripley glimpsed within the frames of Alien: Resurrection isn't actually Ripley, but a version of the famous character cloned from the DNA of the original. For Blomkamp's movie, this simply won't do - and he knows that. He has to find a way to ensure that the Ripley in Alien 5 is the same Ripley from Alien, Aliens and Alien 3 - not some shameful impostor going by the name of "Ripley 8" with neat basketball skills.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.