Sigourney Weaver: The Original and Best Alien-Huntress

Watching Prometheus this weekend got me to thinking about Alien, the sequel that isn’t a sequel to Ridley Scott’s lastest deep-space odyssey. And thinking of Alien got me to thinking of how hot Sigourney Weaver was and will always be to me. With a lot of the younger audiences today, they don’t necessarily know just how magnificent an experience it was to meet these leading ladies the first time in a darkened room knowing nothing about them. And Sigourney was one of my major, major movie crushes back in the day.

Tall, lithe and fearless, Sigourney was the perfect leading lady for Ridley Scott’s Sci-fi horror masterpiece, Alien. She had the soulful eyes, the tall, slight yet imposing frame and kick-your-Alien-face-in-attitude at the end that made her an instant star. But it wasn’t until James Cameron’s follow-up, Aliens, that I fell completely head over heels for Sigourney.

Aliens, the adrenaline-fueled Bug Hunt of the last century was my saving grace when I was working as a pot-washer during the summer at a local country club. Back then I was so hungry for money that I’d gobble up every double shift I could get. My saving grace was the three hour break I would take in-between and run across the freeway to catch the matinee of Aliens. Sigourney was there, the uber-Space Mom who defended surrogate-daughter Newt against all Alien threats – then went back in for more to destroy all Momma-Aliens kids. And the epic battle scene where she straps on the exo-skeleton front-loader and goes all womano-a-alieno is still one of the hottest kick-your-ass heroine vs alien scenes ever to be shot! I mean, I went back every day and watched Sigourney for three weeks straight! That’s how much I loved the portrayal of Ripley and Sigourney at the height of her powers.

Prometheus is a different movie from Aliens and Alien. Principally, there aren’t the action scenes and motivation that the original Ripley had to wipe out the Alien before they destroy everything she loves. And that’s the difference when you’re talking about a star-role that defines a career as broad-reaching and diverse as Sigourney has had. She was born to play Ripley. Ripley could not have been played by anyone else. Simply put, she will always be remembered as a sexy, fierce feminist from the future who saved us from a terrible fate, over and over again. And there’s nothing sexier than that.

Noomi Rapace: The New Swedish Sphinx

Noomi is beautiful. Noomi is strong. She inherits the legacy of Garbo on her own terms. Her animal magnetism brought her to international stardom the same way Garbo’s did. The big difference is Garbo never kicked anybody’s ass. She shot people, sure. But lighting them on fire? No so much. Still, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had a vulnerability to her. Lisbeth Salander was a complex character. Her pathos was purely and utterly perfect to the times in which she exists. And nobody (sorry, Miss Mara) could touch Noomi’s performance – especially in the first movie.

Now Noomi is in America and fluent in English ( a lot faster than Garbo did, maybe because Garbo made silent movies when she first hit our shores). Noomi has been in the Sherlock Holmes piece of crap, yet came up smelling like a rose. But her true American star turn will be in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. And I think she’s going to be HUGE. Like, Ripley in Aliens huge. That’s a lot of pressure for any actress, but not Noomi. She’s got such a work ethic and professionalism – I really think she could pull off any role she set her mind to. Maybe someday she’ll tackle the most demanding role imaginable and play the original Swedish Sphinx – Garbo. Now that I have to see!!