2. Alien 3 - Ripleys Death
There are very few films that I hold in as much contempt as Alien 3. After two brilliant, ground breaking and progressive films, we are given this. A movie that decides that it would be good idea to wipe out all the story development the series had made up this point by killing off two of the characters we had loved from Aliens in the opening moments of the film. It was clear that there was no way to top Ridley Scotts Alien as a horror film, so James Cameron made an action flick instead. As it wasnt a horror film there was no need to conform to the sole surviving woman trope, as such we were given Hicks and Newt and the series progressed to another level. Only for that progression to be thrown away inside the first few minutes of Alien 3-any hope for this movie is immediately lost- even with the geek rage glasses removed it simply isnt very good. Setting all my hatred for this movie aside, the death of Ripley is done well. Having been caught by the Alien Ripley is confused when it lets her live, because of this she has herself scanned and discovers that she is impregnated with the embryo of an Alien Queen. Having discovered that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is coming not to help but to use the Alien as a weapon, Ripley makes the choice to sacrifice herself rather than let the Alien threat grow. She throws herself into a furnace, with the alien busting out on the way down. Ripley holds onto the queen and the two are eviscerated. This is a true moment of heroism, a genuine and understandable sacrifice from a pioneering and legendary heroine. Whilst this moment would have been more powerful if there were any other important characters left to acknowledge it, the death was still a noble and reliably defiant action from Ripley. She refused to bow to Weyland, she refused to be used and she went out how we always thought that she would, triumphant. Of course the impact of this moment- which I consider to be the only good thing in the movie- is immediately wiped out by the next sequel in the series Alien Resurrection, which gives us a clone of Ripley and as such renders her death meaningless. A lot of people, including me would argue that this is karma for what it did to Hicks and Newt.