The Resurrection of Ripley

leading from: 

 Alien Resurrection

 

a) The Giler solution

Alien 3 had been filmed, Ripley has died. How can another Alien movie starring Sigourney Weaver as Ripley go on?

Sigourney said to David Giler on the night of the wrap party on Alien 3  "I'm gonna miss this character"

Giler replied "don't be silly, this character is you know, she'd just had her chest ripped out in a pit of fire and you know and all the rest of it. So we start Alien four , we go to some laboratory some place and they open up a drawer, and they've got your fingernail clippings in there. And they clone you and you're a whole new one. "

"Really?" replied Sigourney

Giler continued "We could bully them. If anyone wants to bring you back we can do it."

Sigourney wasn't saying no to this but on the other hand, she wondered just how many times could the character of Ripley wake up to the same situation over and over again and win, and then go back to sleep and then have the same thing happen in the next movie

Giler would later have somebody came to him and say "I think they are talking about making another Alien", and when somebody came to ask him how he thought it should be done, he would have an idea.

b)  Joss Whedon resurrects Ripley
Joss Whedon for his Alien 3 script devised an idea that the new character Ripley 8 is cloned from blood samples taken from her taken on the planet Fiorina by the Doctor there, and the reason that she is cloned is because she had an alien inside her.


Source Quotes

David Giler on the possible return of Ripley

1. David Giler: If everyone loves this movie, there will be a fourth one. It's science fiction, there are nine million ways to bring Ripley back, or to do other stories. (CFQ:V22,:N6:p14)
2. David Giler: Sigourney told me on the night of the rap party on Alien Three that she was gonna miss this character. I said "don't be silly, this character is you know, she'd just had her chest ripped out in a pit of fire and you know and all the rest of it. I said so we start Alien three, we go to some laboratory some place and they open up a drawer, and they've got your fingernail clippings in there. And they clone you and you're a whole new one." "Really?" "We could bully them. If anyone wants to bring you back we can do it." And it's pretty much like that. Somebody came to me now and said, I think they are talking about making another Alien and you know, somebody comes and asks me how I think it should be done, I've got an idea. (report from the interview of Alien Evolutions)
3. Starburst: So this is finally the end of the line for Ripley?
   Sigourney Weaver: Well, If Walter (Hill) and David (Giler) and all those guys can come up with some amazing scenario where Ripley could be reconstituted from her finger nail clippings, I'm  not saying no. It's just that how many times can the same character wake up to the same situation over and over again and win, and then go back to sleep and then have the same thing happen in the next movie. ((Starburst #170 "Sigourney Weaver: Three Times a Lady" interview Part 3)
   
   
4. How Ripley was brought back
   
   a) GEDIMAN: How did we get you? Blood samples from Fiori 16. On ice. (Alien Resurrection script)

   b)  CALL: Christie, she's not human.  Wren cloned her because she was carrying an alien in her.  (Alien Resurrection script)
   

Joss Whedon injects vampiric blood into the script

Leading from:
Alien Resurrection

a.) Joss Whedon who wrote the script for Buffy The Vampire Slayer and produced the series by that name wrote the script for Alien Resurrection. He introduced a new alien entity into the story called "The Newborn".

People who have heard about his work might wonder what personal themes he has brought into the film and assume that he somehow integrated the idea of vampires into the script. The newborn turns out to be an albino alien creature that drains the blood from its victims.

However the vampiric quality of this entity was soon written out of the story when they couldn't afford to create a newborn as he had imagined it. At present no artwork depicting Joss's vision of the newborn is know to the public.

1. The description of the entity in the script is as follows

   "An alien, to be sure, but nothing we've seen so far, its forelegs arch 
   out of its back like spiders legs, its back legs set on enormous 
   haunches, thick and powerful.
   Its head is long, eyeless, like the others, but along its white expanse 
   red veins, coming out of the skin and running like thick black hairs to 
   the back.
   It has retracted pincers at the side of head that come out when its 
   tongue does.
   Its much bigger the the others, nearly the size of the queen herself.
   And it's bone white."

2. It's method of killing involves draining the blood as shown here when it kills a soldier

   "pincers SWING out and pin either side of his head.. His eyes go wide as: Its tongue SHOOTS into his throat. Stays there, and we watch it drain the blood from his body. We can see it, see its stomach swell, red tinged, as his body goes"

Giger's letter to 20th C Fox regarding Alien Resurrection

leading from
HR Giger

 Giger's letter to 20th C Fox no.1 (November 13th 1997)
Giger's letter to 20th C Fox no.2 (December 19th 1997)