If You Are a Die-Hard Fan of Alien's Amanda Ripley Then This is the Right Place For You. Know All About Her!

Aliens: Covenant is out in early 2017 and here’s what you need, to know about the series and one of the most influential characters in the series, Amanda Ripley.

The Aliens Series Legacy:

Caption: Aliens(1979) poster

Source: Wikia

The aliens series started with Alien in 1979 and followed with Aliens in 1986, Aliens 3 in 1992 and Aliens: Resurrection in 1997 as well as the prequel to the series Prometheus in 2012. The series mostly consists incidents related with an  artificially created Alien species known as “Xenomorph.”

Using the then-popular concept of “Probing” and “Parasitical reproduction” creator Ridley Scott created the idea of an alien that used a host to reproduce and used the host’s DNA to create a new offspring, the offspring then inherited character from the host as well, evolving infinitely in doing so.

The real horror came from the depiction of the Alien. An avid fan described how Ridley's image of aliens in the movies looked much terrifying than anything else. The fan with the Reddit username Stereotypy points out

On a neanderthalic level it is everything that humanity craves combined with everything humanity fears in a predator-prey manner.

The first movie was a big hit and the first sequels “Alien 2” and “Alien 3” were more so.

 The series spawned multiple spinoffs books, films, and games including the hugely popular “Predator” and “Aliens vs. Predator” series which were later mixed in with the original movies plot and was made Canon about the story.

Although the recent movies and games were not exactly the best  ( *cough* cough* Aliens: Colonial Marines *cough* *cough*), it's still a beloved series and quite enjoyable.

Let me summarize the events that take involves the heroics of Amanda Ripley. (Before I start, I would like you to note that the events and stories are all over the timeline as  the amalgamation of Prequels and Sequels is quite confusing.)

The Story of Amanda Ripley:

Amanda Ripley is the only daughter of Ellen Ripley, the original protagonist of the Aliens series. Ellen’s actions and her story was portrayed in the first three movies of the series.

Ellen's battle with Weyland-Yutani, Conglomerate, and aspirations of Evil Companies in both fiction and reality, who want to weaponize the aliens with utter disregard to human safety and the Xenomorphs is what initially pushed the story.

Amanda’s story was portrayed in not a movie but in the 2016 game of Aliens: Isolation. I played the game myself just weeks after its release and the game was impressive. A mix of Amnesia and Outlast with some other new mechanics such as the gadget building feature along with the story and the portrayal of Amanda Ripley was quite breathtaking.

Caption: Amanda's face off against the Alien

Source: IGN.com

The game starts off with Amanda receiving info about her mother and a chance to know what happened. Growing up without her mother ever since the young age of 10 (when Ellen Ripley leaves on Nostromo in the first movie) affected her greatly, and she wanted some answers.

Eventually, Amanda is involved in the Sevastopol Station’s Xenomorph incident. She joins a team of Weyland-Yutani researchers (Surprise, Surprise~) to investigate the station when they face the Xenomorph and his onslaught of horror. 

The station is eventually overrun by a horde of Xenomorphs and ultimately survives while the entire station’s crew and her coworkers do not.

After the events, Amanda married into the McClaren name and took the surname “McClaren” as well and passed away on December 23, 2178, at the age of 66 from cancer.

2 Years after her death, Narcissus, the shuttle Ellen Ripley used to escape the horrors in Nostromo is found and Ellen is awoken from her hypersleep. She inquired to Weyland-Yutani executive Carter Burke about Amanda, and he presented her with an image of Amanda as an old woman, revealing to Ellen Amanda's fate.

Amanda Ripley’s nature
Amanda is heavily based on her mother’s, character and she’s similar in a lot of ways. A strong willed woman with a deadpan sense of humor and the ability to calmly analyze the situation and adapt to it. Although she is initially horrified with the Aliens, she eventually adjusts to their existence and learns to deal with them.

The portrayal of Amanda Ripley in "Alien: Isolation" is done by Welsh actress Kezia Burrows.

What’s interesting is that the picture of Amanda, which Ellen recovered, is the picture of Sigourney Weaver’s real life mother, Elizabeth Inglis.  Amanda's, character physique was also based on how Inglis looked in her youth.

Caption: Amanda Ripley at an old age

Source: Alien(1979) special edition

Though Amanda was one of the major characters of the franchise, there were contradictions whether to place her character in the franchise considering all traces of her were removed in the first movie due to budget and length issues but was later added on in the special edition.

Modern Speculation of Aliens series

The aliens series were quite popular when they were released, and everyone loved the Aliens vs. Predators. But the opinions on the Alien series has highly plummeted after over years of movies and games containing nothing but mediocrity, and unoriginal content and ideas. Prometheus was great, but anything else has been quite disappointing to the fans of the series. Hopefully, the next movie will bring about change.

Aliens: Covenant

The new film in the series which is a prequel the events in the original movies is set to be released in 2017. News and the poster for the movie has just been unveiled.

Caption: Aliens: Covenant poster

Source: Reddit

The poster is a picture of Xenomorph blended in a back background. It shows how good H.R.Giger's design for the Xenomorph when you can just insert its face in a black image with the text pasted "Run" and it's still a great poster.

The movie is being directed by original creator Ridley Scott himself, and we’re more than excited to enjoy the out of the world horror movie.