“You’ve been in my life so long I can’t remember anything else”

Twenty years ago, Ripley first encountered the Alien and, the conflict concluded, she sank back, seemingly triumphant, into hypersleep. The “sole survivor of the Nostromo” was “signing off ”—but not for long. The popular imagination was stirred, a huge fan base generated-and the academy, unsurprisingly, responded swiftly to this extraordinary film with its two unusual protagonists. Here was a six-foot-tall heroine, strong, slim, and resourceful, facing up to her monstrous Other in the darkness of deep space and in a future seemingly dominated by a peculiarly unpleasant militaristic mode of supraglobal capitalism. This potent mix provoked fans and film-scholars alike into different modes of activity-and made the studios aware of the vast commercial potential of their new product.