Ripley is one of the most iconic characters in all of science fiction and her influence in the Alien universe is felt in every single installment of the film franchise and even a great number of the comic book continuations, so the idea that she wouldn’t even be included in the first movie seems unthinkable. Well, unthinkable or not, that is exactly what almost happened as revealed in the comic book adaptation of the original Alien screenplay.
Throughout the film Alien, Ellen Ripley proved she was intelligent by uncovering the company’s plans to sacrifice the entire crew for the sake of an alien creature and also physically capable by going toe-to-toe with the Xenomorph and even successfully defeating the beast by shooting it into the vacuum of space. That badassery then carried over into the sequel film Aliens and then again in Alien 3. Not only that, but Ripley was a character who remained awesome even after her death as her clone in Alien Resurrection, Ripley 8, was a human/Xenomorph hybrid who could kill Xenomorphs with her bare hands–and all of this almost never happened, at least, not to Ripley.
In Alien: The Original Screenplay by Dan O’Bannon, Cristiano Seixas, and Guilherme Balbi, readers are introduced to the crew of the Snark rather than the Nostromo, but not before readers are given some background about the story they’re about to read. In the title page where the creative team is credited, there is an excerpt describing the circumstances of this screenplay and the reason it looks so different from the movie. According to the comic, this series is an adaptation of Dan O’Bannon’s original 1976 screenplay which was written before the involvement of H.R. Giger or other influential people responsible for making Alien what it is today. While the aesthetic of the ship, aliens, and locations are totally different from the movie, the absence of Ripley is still the most shocking difference–so how much of the franchise would have actually changed if this version made the cut? As it turns out, not that much.
At the beginning of the limited series, a woman named Roby Martine loosely fills the role of Ellen Ripley, though Ripley’s character is pretty effectively spread out among a number of other crew members on the ship. However, in the final issue of the series, Martine is a perfect stand-in for Ripley in every way. Martine is the final survivor after shooting the Xenomorph into space and goes into cryosleep while snuggling with her cat, and that is how the series ends–which is exactly like the first movie. Based on the ending of this comic, the main difference between the original screenplay and the final film in terms of Ripley was her name. If the franchise moved forward from there, it would have been Martine fighting alongside Colonial Marines and becoming a hybrid clone instead of Ripley, which may seem like a huge change to the franchise since Ripley has become such an iconic character, but in truth, the essence of that character would have lived on all the same no matter what her name ended up being in the final version.
So, with Alien not including Ripley in the original screenplay, how much did the story change? Honestly, not that much, which really goes to show how impactful a character Ripley really truly is and hammers home the fact that without a ‘Ripley’ there would be no Alien–so while Ripley isn’t technically in the original story, her essence is still the driving factor behind what makes Alien so great.
