Although the sci-fi horror movie Alien was tremendously dark and may have set the bar for subsequent genres, Ripley admits that the film’s ending should have been considerably darker.
The main character of the first four Alien movies, Ellen Ripley, was introduced in the first movie as essentially a “space trucker.” Ripley served on the crew of the Nostromo, a spacecraft that returned valuable minerals from other worlds to Earth. After receiving a distress signal from an undiscovered world that would later be known as LV-426 in the film Alien, Ripley and the rest of the Nostromo crew were obliged to investigate.
A handful of the crew discovered an abandoned alien ship with a hidden chamber packed with enormous, odd eggs when they descended to the planet’s surface. After more examination, a Facehugger emerged from one of these eggs, attached itself to one of the crew members’ faces, and impregnated him with a Xenomorph. This alien species would later come to be known as a Facehugger. However, it could have been far worse. This incident catalyzed the horrifying events of the film and, in fact, the entire franchise.
In Mark Schultz and Mel Rubi’s Aliens vs. Predator vs. The Terminator #1, readers are introduced to a universe immediately following the Alien Resurrection events.
A group of freedom fighters in need of her assistance approach a homeless Ripley8 (the Xenomorph-hybrid clone of Ellen Ripley) as she sits alone against a sewer wall in this universe.
I almost didn’t sign on for run on the Nostromo,” Ripley8 revealed as she pounded her head against the table she was sitting at. When they explain the situation to Ripley8, a group of scientists is attempting to create a more advanced version of the Xenomorph species through cloning and cybernetic enhancements.
Without Ripley, the Alien Series would have been significantly darker.
In this comic, Ripley confesses out of weariness and shock that, after all this time, she still has to deal with Xenomorphs and the people who believe they can control them. Inspiring an intriguing thought, though, is what might have happened if Ripley hadn’t been on the Nostromo. Ripley is the only survivor in the original Alien movie to kill the Xenomorph before it is brought to Earth.
Furthermore, Ripley is solely to blame for the extinction of the Xenomorph species in Alien, and her demise in Alien 3 results in eradicating the last known Xenomorph in the cosmos. Ripley prevents Weyland-Yutani from obtaining the Xenomorphs, saving humanity from its arrogance. However, if she hadn’t been on the Nostromo, the synthetic Ash would have been able to convey the alien specimen to Weyland-Yutani, and the business would have had access to the Xenomorph from the beginning.
It has been established throughout the Alien franchise that humanity, specifically Weyland-Yutani, was the series’ principal antagonist. If Ripley hadn’t agreed to join the Nostromo crew, this antagonist would have won, proving that Alien almost had a far darker ending.
