1. Aliens (1986) - "Get Away From Her, You Bitch!"
Set the scene. It's gloomy, it's dark, it's a scene of pure Lovecraftian horror - a young girl, terrified, brave and facing a monstrous creature of acid blood and snapping jaws and pure unbridled terror. A heroine, the ultimate sci-fi heroine, emerges from the darkness - armed and so very, very dangerous. And then that ultimate, iconic line: "Get away from her, you bitch!"
Aliens defies its mere convention of a sequel - it's stronger, leaner and meaner than its sequel. Hell it even changes genre, albeit in a tentative side-step rather than a full blown hop. It isn't purely about scares, it's also about action and adventure and danger and heroics, rather than survivalist horror. Point in fact, as enjoyable as the first
Alien film is, its sequel is even better. James Cameron is in his element here - heroic women, mothers and mother figures, fighting and battling and triumphing evil. Hell, the entire film has been leading up to this shining moment of fist-in-the-air-punching glory - Ripley returns to fights the ghosts of her past, the ones who robbed her of her friends and of her family on Earth, and soon finds a daughter surrogate in adorable and plucky Newt. Sigourney Weaver owns the role of Ripley here - she's broken and brave and dark and searching for a chance at redemption, at a chance of feeling connected and human again. In Newt, Ripley finds that chance of connection and when she faces off against the Alien Queen, it's two mothers, having killed or tried to kill each other's children (directly or indirectly), standing off. That's why Ripley has often been touted as the ultimate hero - she's a Greek myth archetype sprung to life. The ultimate survivor, the one who must undergo a journey of catharsis and who finds her chance at salvation at the clutches of the venomous Xenomorph mother, an acid-blooded Medusa. And with her battle cry of "get away from her, you bitch", Ripley is restored to ass-kicking, world-saving, indestructible glory in a moment as inspiring and grin-inducing as anything we've ever seen. Just as a true hero should be.
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