The third movie kind of fucked this up by making Ripley want to kill herself, and then doing it. I know Sigourney probably wanted out but it's still a pretty shitty send off for that character, especially with the edition that Newt, Bishop and Hicks all died so her badass efforts in Aliens amounted to nothing.
3 could have been interesting with an all male prison suddenly having to deal with this rapist alien parasite, but it infects a dog and a woman shows up to deal with it anyway. *disappointing trumpet noise*
Dog? DOG?! Oh no - you saw the Theatrical Cut!
More seriously though - I don't know if that's the only version you've seen but the Assembly Cut runs over thirty minutes longer and the majority of that is character moments. It's immeasurably better and on top of that, it's more coherent as well - fewer characters who just vanish from the script without explanation for example.
Those differences aside, I don't see the third movie undermining the Ripley character. It's a bit jarring when she suddenly proposes sex with Charles Dance's character but the theme of self-sacrifice, the competence, I think it's all there. This is a woman who went back for a
cat after all.
I get the sentiment about Newt and Hicks' deaths because I felt it too when I watched the movie. However, and I know this isn't an original sentiment, it is a horror franchise and more than just that, it's a Cosmic Horror franchise. Cosmic Horror being a specific genre epitomised by H P Lovecraft's works where the horror comes from the uncaring indifference of the Universe to us.
If you compare with say the horror films of Guilermo del Toro such as The Devil's Backbone or The Labyrinth of the Fawn, they are scary and have moments of horror (the latter in particular has some brutal scenes) but they're also a journey in which the protagonist finds meaning and a resolution of some kind. Ridley Scott's original vision is in accord with that. Whether it's the sheer hostility of the xenomorph in the first or the fact that the Engineers seem not to care for their creations at all. Everything comes down to a horror in which the Universe is cold, uncaring and humanity is isolated and unprepared for everything that's out there. Prometheus and Covenant follow on from that and Romulus despite flaws, also keys into it with Rook's speech about Man never being meant for the stars, that the species is too weak, too fragile. It's Cameron's Aliens which bucks the trend and brings in meaning and Hero's Journey.
All that to make the point that whilst Newt and Hick's deaths are a gut punch, they're also very on-brand for Cosmic Horror. Finch's film threads the needle by preserving much of the bleakness of the wider franchise but giving Ripley's death some meaning. I honestly like the film a lot.
So long as it's the Assembly Cut.
It's a horror franchise about rape. First film has people dying by being raped and their rape baby killing them from the inside. Third film is another horrifying scenario where the person kills themselves to make sure that the rape baby is never born. But she's at least dying to prevent Weyland Yutani from taking advantage of the alien parasite (before it was retconned). It's supposed to be excruciating and awful.
Yes, it has strong rape themes. One of the most interesting being that it's an inversion in that the xenomorph impregnates male characters. That's meant to add an extra layer of horror for male viewers as on some level sexual roles and violence is reversed. The xenomorph is often characterised as female, though Cameron kind of reasserted more normal roles by creating the queen which is explicitly characterised as female.
I'd rather have the horror of Alien 3 than the girl power stupidity of "get away from her you bitch!" and Ripley having the arm strength to hang on while an alien queen and power loader are being sucked out of a space vacuum.
Minor quibbles on this example: She's not supporting the weight of the queen and the loader with one arm. They're being
blown out into Space by the force of the air and being outside the ship at least partially at that point, probably aren't subject to the ship's artificial gravity. Now it's still enough force to move the queen and loader but given neither have anything to stand on, it doesn't need to be anywhere near 1G to be moving them. Also, Ripley's trainer (sneaker for the yanks) comes off. Between a braced armlock around the ladder rung and a bit of elasticated shoe, I put my money on the former.
Not disagreeing with your point, just nitpicking your example as I think Aliens is an excellently done film. Just not as in keeping with the sub-genre.
And I think all can agree that whether you like Ripley's "Bitch" line in 2 or not, it's infinitely less stupid than Andy repeating it in Romulus for Memberberries.
