The Ultimate Scifi Heroine

[Stephen of Borg 2]

To me, these two are the toughest girls there are on screen, especially in scifi. You may have a different opinion, so choose other and tell you gets your vote. Remember, this is a vote on the character (not the actress).

 

My vote goes to Sarah Connor. Despite the first movie, she became a really strong character by the second film and afterwards. She takes a lot of risks to protect her son, which in turn will end by protecting humanity itself.

Edited August 22, 2008 by 7

[DaboGirl 7]

 

Ellen Ripley. No doubt about it.

[Eratosthenes 0]

Hehe, I thought this was for the drug. Oh well, I'm clean anyway.

 

I voted Sarah Conner...that might be partially because I've only ever seen half of one scene of the original Alien, I think...or was it?...*ducks*

[DaboGirl 7]

I voted Sarah Conner...that might be partially because I've only ever seen half of one scene of the original Alien, I think...or was it?...*ducks*

 

Eratosthenes or 007 if you ever have any free time just look up Alien & Aliens vs. Terminator & Terminator 2 on a respectable critics website Jeffery Lyons, Roger Ebert, Gene Sisckle, Joe Bob Briggs and let me know how many stars and whatnot.

 

And just an FYI James Cameron directed Aliens, Terminator & Terminator 2. Ridley Scott (Blade Runner/Gladiator) directed Alien.

 

In 1987 Sigourney Weaver was Nominated for an Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role as Lt. Ellen Ripley.

 

[Stephen of Borg 2]

this isn't about critical acclaim anyway, it's just about personal favorites. Rotten Tomatoes gave Terminator and T2 100%, and Alien only got 97%.

 

This is just an imo poll;)

[DaboGirl 7]

this isn't about critical acclaim anyway, it's just about personal favorites. Rotten Tomatoes gave Terminator and T2 100%, and Alien only got 97%.

Only 97% on 'Rotten Tomatoes'? Well, that is certainly pretty subpar.

How many Ocar nominations did Linda Hamilton rack up for playing the role of Sarah Connor?

 

 

Amigo, your are 'Cherry Picking' your match up. How about Terminator 1 vs. Alien?

I love Terminator1 & 2, however Alien & Aliens I just feel are superior as far as artfully made cinema.

I realize neither one was the FX driven juggernaut that T2 was.

Edited August 22, 2008 by DaboGirl

[Theunicornhunter 2]

To the first question - ultimate scifi heroine; I'd have to go with Col. Samantha Carter.

 

For the poll question "Bad A in a movie" - are those the only two scifi heroines from movies - that in itself is disturbing - we need more female role models.

 

I'll vote for other as soon as I think of one.

[DaboGirl 7]

Movie Review Query Engine

Based on many critic's reviews they are available at the site below.

 

Terminator ratings:

51% Excellent

35% Good

12% Fair

2% Poor

 

 

Alien ratings:

69% Excellent

22% Good

7% Fair

2% Poor

 

Link: http://www.mrqe.com/

 

Note: I'm guessing it was the same two lame critics that rates each as poor.

Edited August 22, 2008 by DaboGirl

[Eratosthenes 0]

Hehe, you seem ready to go into battle over this, DaboGirl. I know Alien is supposed to be great and I want to see it, and I'll probably love it...in the end I'd probably have a hard time deciding anyway. I appreciate different characters fo very different reasons.

[DaboGirl 7]

 

Sure this entire poll is "IMO" and "IMO" Sarah Connor in the original Terminator really wasn't even all that amazing. It's in T2 that she became this force to be reckoned with.

 

 

Ripely's character shatered stereotypes and barriers that others could follow in her footsteps after.

I might be wrong, but name me a big studio Sci-Fi/Action movie with a female lead 1970s or before. The Terminator movies that came after don't even fit that bill. Sarah Connor was never the star 'Arnold' was the star of those movies.

 

 

Who was the star of the Terminator movies?

[A l t e r E g o 9]

I have gone to films on a critics word a film is good then walked out of it 'cause it stank. This is about personal opinion for whose badder.

 

 

Both have faced incredibly dangerous foes for which the fate of Humanity lies in the outcome but in a side by side comparison, based on what I've seen of both so far; Ripley wins. Lets break down the two's accomplishments:

 

Connor defeated one T with assistance from someone specifically sent to help her, and some good luck.

Another with assistance from a 'good' T, again sent to help her. Without all that help and good luck she and mankind would be deader than door nails imo. Anyway, She also had and raised a son, who is the true hero here, right? So Connor, unless we see something mighty spectacular from her in TSCC rates only an "Eh" from me.

 

Ripley fought the Alien(s) over, what, hundreds(?) of years, eventually becoming part Alien herself and despite that and at the cost of her own life, did eventually save mankind from the Alien. That's Bad A..! Imo of course.

[DaboGirl 7]

I voted Sarah Conner...that might be partially because I've only ever seen half of one scene of the original Alien, I think...or was it?...*ducks*

 

My dear, sweet Eratosthenes you know I love you right?

You seem like a very bright young man that always posts good stuff.

 

To borrow from miss TUH you are casting an uninformed vote. Eratosthenes have you ever in your life argued with someone about some issue or event and they have made up their minds and you have 1st hand experience with it and they have never seen it or experienced, but yet and still they they have made up their minds? Well, you are freely admitting that is what you are doing. You can't vote twice, but do yourself a favor go pick up the Alien DVD.

[Eratosthenes 0]

I will. And thank you! I feel loved and I needed that boost.

 

As far as the voting, if it were a vote that carried weight for anything, I'd definitely do my research first. :biggrin: As for Alien, I think I've seen the climax and that's all...and it was at least 8 years ago (when I was 11 at the oldest) so i don't remember much, but I do remember thinking that she was pretty darn cool.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

Odd, isn't it, when we had the thread for favorite male scifi star - we had ourselves a bit of a droolfest and everybody was happy.

 

Since we've delved offtopic.

 

I actually didn't care for either series of movies Terminator or Alien - I forced myself to set through the 1st Terminator - bored out of my mind and that chick screamed and screamed and screamed. The character Sarah Connor is much better in the tv version - which I also didn't really care for.

 

And while Alien was certaintly intense - it was ultimately little more than Jaws in Space in other words - avoid being eaten or killed by the creature.

 

So which is most kick *butt*? well, does it matter because I question the very premise that being kick *butt* is the defining quality for the ultimate scifi heroine - which brings me back to Col Carter who is a combat trained military officer with a PhD in astrophysics who can make a mean souffle. Now, that's a role model.

 

Perhaps 007 should have simply asked "who's your favorite female scifi character?"

 

And maybe we should start a petition for more scifi heroines.

[DaboGirl 7]

I forced myself to set through the 1st Terminator - bored out of my mind and that chick screamed and screamed and screamed.

That chick was the one and only Sarah Conner.

 

And while Alien was certaintly intense - it was ultimately little more than Jaws in Space in other words - avoid being eaten or killed by the creature.

Roger Ebert mentions the same Jaws comparison, however he calls it a great movie. I felt between Ridley Scott & H.R. Geiger they really set a unique dark/complex tone for the film.

 

 

Alien (1979)

 

 

by Roger Ebert

 

"Alien" has been called the most influential of modern action pictures, and so it is. - Roger Ebert

 

Variety noted a few years later that Weaver remained the only actress who could "open" an action movie, and it was a tribute to her versatility that she could play the hard, competent, ruthless Ripley and then double back for so many other kinds of roles. One of the reasons she works so well in the role is that she comes across as smart; the 1979 "Alien" is a much more cerebral movie than its sequels, with the characters (and the audience) genuinely engaged in curiosity about this weirdest of lifeforms.

 

 

At its most fundamental level, "Alien" is a movie about things that can jump out of the dark and kill you. It shares a kinship with the shark in "Jaws," Michael Myers in "Halloween," and assorted spiders, snakes, tarantulas and stalkers. Its most obvious influence is Howard Hawks' "The Thing" (1951), which was also about a team in an isolated outpost who discover a long-dormant alien, bring it inside, and are picked off one by one as it haunts the corridors. Look at that movie, and you see "Alien" in embryo.

 

In another way, Ridley Scott's 1979 movie is a great original. It builds on the seminal opening shot of "Star Wars" (1977), with its vast ship in lonely interstellar space, and sidesteps Lucas' space opera to tell a story in the genre of traditional "hard" science fiction; with its tough-talking crew members and their mercenary motives, the story would have found a home in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction during its nuts-and-bolts period in the 1940s. Campbell loved stories in which engineers and scientists, not space jockeys and ray-gun blasters, dealt with outer space in logical ways.

 

Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in the romance of finding the alien, and still less in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to "Special Order 24" ("Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded") is succinct: "How do we kill it?" Her implacable hatred for the alien is the common thread running through all three "Alien" sequels, which have gradually descended in quality but retained their motivating obsession.

 

One of the great strengths of "Alien" is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The (I'm trying to say a bad word but can't)ing by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").

 

A recent version of this story would have hurtled toward the part where the alien jumps on the crew members. Today's slasher movies, in the sci-fi genre and elsewhere, are all pay-off and no buildup. Consider the wretched remake of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which cheats its audience out of an explanation, an introduction of the chain-saw family, and even a proper ending. It isn't the slashing that we enjoy. It's the waiting for the slashing.

 

Hitchcock knew this, with his famous example of a bomb under a table. (It goes off -- that's action. It doesn't go off -- that's suspense.) M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" knew that, and hardly bothered with its aliens at all. And the best scenes in Hawks' "The Thing" involve the empty corridors of the Antarctic station where the Thing might be lurking.

 

"Alien" uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh throughout the movie: It evolves the nature and appearance of the creature, so we never know quite what it looks like or what it can do. We assume at first the eggs will produce a humanoid, because that's the form of the petrified pilot on the long-lost alien ship. But of course we don't even know if the pilot is of the same race as his cargo of leathery eggs. Maybe he also considers them as a weapon. The first time we get a good look at the alien, as it bursts from the chest of poor Kane (John Hurt). It is unmistakably phallic in shape, and the critic Tim Dirks mentions its "open, dripping vaginal mouth."

 

Yes, but later, as we glimpse it during a series of attacks, it no longer assumes this shape at all, but looks octopod, reptilian or arachnoid. And then it uncorks another secret; the fluid dripping from its body is a "universal solvent," and there is a sequence both frightening and delightful as it eats its way through one deck of the ship after another. As the sequels ("Aliens," "Alien 3," "Alien Resurrection") will make all too abundantly clear, the alien is capable of being just about any monster the story requires. Because it doesn't play by any rules of appearance or behavior, it becomes an amorphous menace, haunting the ship with the specter of shape-shifting evil. Ash (Ian Holm), the science officer, calls it a "perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility," and admits: "I admire its purity, its sense of survival; unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."

 

Sigourney Weaver, whose career would be linked for years to this strange creature, is of course the only survivor of this original crew, except for the ... cat. The producers must have hoped for a sequel, and by killing everyone except a woman, they cast their lot with a female lead for their series.

 

Variety noted a few years later that Weaver remained the only actress who could "open" an action movie, and it was a tribute to her versatility that she could play the hard, competent, ruthless Ripley and then double back for so many other kinds of roles. One of the reasons she works so well in the role is that she comes across as smart; the 1979 "Alien" is a much more cerebral movie than its sequels, with the characters (and the audience) genuinely engaged in curiosity about this weirdest of lifeforms.

 

A peculiarity of the rest of the actors is that none of them were particularly young. Tom Skerritt, the captain, was 46, Hurt was 39 but looked older, Holm was 48, Harry Dean Stanton was 53, Yaphet Kotto was 42, and only Veronica Cartwright at 29 and Weaver at 30 were in the age range of the usual thriller cast. Many recent action pictures have improbably young actors cast as key roles or sidekicks, but by skewing older, "Alien" achieves a certain texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers but workers, hired by a company to return 20 million tons of ore to Earth (the vast size of the ship is indicated in a deleted scene, included on the DVD, which takes nearly a minute just to show it passing).

 

The screenplay by Dan O'Bannon, based on a story he wrote with Ronald Shusett, allows these characters to speak in distinctive voices. Brett and Parker (Kotto and Stanton), who work in the engine room, complain about delays and worry about their cut of the profits. But listen to Ash: "I'm still collating it, actually, but I have confirmed that he's got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. He has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions." And then there is Ripley's direct way of cutting to the bottom line.

 

The result is a film that absorbs us in a mission before it involves us in an adventure, and that consistently engages the alien with curiosity and logic, instead of simply firing at it. Contrast this movie with a latter-day space opera like "Armageddon," with its average shot a few seconds long and its dialogue reduced to terse statements telegraphing the plot. Much of the credit for "Alien" must go to director Ridley Scott, who had made only one major film before this, the cerebral, elegant "The Duelists" (1977). His next film would be another intelligent, visionary sci-fi epic, "Blade Runner" (1982).

 

Though his career has included some inexplicable clinkers ("Someone to Watch Over Me"), it has also included "Thelma & Louise," "G.I. Jane," "Gladiator" (unloved by me, but not by audiences), "Black Hawk Down" and "Matchstick Men." These are simultaneously commercial and intelligent projects, made by a director who wants to attract a large audience but doesn't care to insult it.

 

"Alien" has been called the most influential of modern action pictures, and so it is, although "Halloween" also belongs on the list. Unfortunately, the films it influenced studied its thrills but not its thinking. We have now descended into a bog of Gotcha! movies in which various horrible beings spring on a series of victims, usually teenagers. The ultimate extension of the genre is the Geek Movie, illustrated by the remake of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which essentially sets the audience the same test as an old-time carnival geek show: Now that you've paid your money, can you keep your eyes open while we disgust you? A few more ambitious and serious sci-fi films have also followed in the footsteps of "Alien," notably the well-made "Aliens" (1986) and "Dark City" (1998). But the original still vibrates with a dark and frightening intensity.

[GhostofMajorHayes 10]

Other. Commander Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5.

[Dukat 0]

I'll have to go with Ripley. Connor may have been one tough lady but in T2 and the Sarah Connor Chronicles she did have a Terminator as her bodyguard and Kyle Reece before that. Ripley survived when there was no one else.

[Sara_Paris 0]

Ellen Ripley

 

 

 

I totally love them both but I voted Ripley. She kicked arse and took names in all the Alien movies!

[PhaseSniper 0]

To the first question - ultimate scifi heroine; I'd have to go with Col. Samantha Carter.

 

Sam Carter all the way!

[DaboGirl 7]

I will confess that I am completly unfamiliar with Samantha Carter, but I have seen all of B-5 and Susan Ivanova, while a decent character, doesn't really crack my top 10 list for 'The Ultimate Scifi Heroine', but to each his or her own.

 

Peace,

[PhaseSniper 0]

I will confess that I am completly unfamiliar with Samantha Carter,

 

You need to watch SG-1! If there's one series I might like better than Trek it's Stargate.

[Sheikhengku 0]

I Voted Ellen Ripley!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

Kara Thrace! (female Starbuck)

[Bethlehem 8]

Violet --- in Ultraviolet.