Amanda Ripley (character)

Conception and creation

A deleted scene from the film Aliens, which was later included on DVD releases, reveals that Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) has a daughter, Amanda. She was ten years old during the events of Alien, but grew up, married (taking on the surname McClaren) and died during her mother's 57-year stasis between the events of the first two films. A picture of Amanda as an elderly adult is shown to Ripley. The picture is actually Weaver's real-life mother, Elizabeth Inglis. The scene was cut from the film due to 20th Century Fox's concerns about length. Weaver was furious at the removal, considering it to be crucial to Ellen Ripley's character development in the film, taking on a protective mother role to the young character Rebecca "Newt" Jorden. In James Cameron's 1983 Alien II treatment for what would become Aliens, Amanda (then unnamed) was alive, but old and crippled. When her mother contacted her from the Gateway Station, Amanda blames her for her absence.

For the video game Alien: Isolation, most early development was done with a female test dummy, with it being "almost just an assumption" that the lead would be a female character. The game chose to focus on Amanda. The developers wanted Amanda to echo some of her mother's traits, while being her own distinct character. Examples given of how she mirrored Ellen Ripley included her determination, while also initially being colder than Ellen. Isolation utilised performance-capture acting in an attempt to bring believability to its characters.

Fictional biography

Amanda was conceived during a layover between haulage trips. Though this contravened Weyland-Yutani policy, her mother was not disciplined and the pregnancy was allowed to come to term. Amanda was delivered in a home birth. She was ten years old when Ellen Ripley disappeared aboard the Nostromo. According to the canonical novel Alien: Out of the Shadows, Amanda's father walked out on her and Ellen when Amanda was three years old. Ripley had promised Amanda that she would be home for her 11th birthday.

In Alien: Isolation, 25-year-old Amanda Ripely is an engineer for Weyland-Yutani (W-Y). Ripley was approached by W-Y synthetic Christopher Samuels, who informed her that the flight recorder of the Nostromo had been discovered by a salvage ship, the Anesidora, and taken to Sevastopol Station, a supply depot in orbit around the gas giant KG348. Believing that it will provide her closure, Ripley accepts a place on the recovery team, travelling on the W-Y ship Torrens.

According to Aliens, Amanda at some point married, taking on the surname McClaren, but had no children. She died on December 23, 2177 from cancer. Ripley was cremated and interred at Westlake Repository, Little Chute, Wisconsin.

Reception

The character's critical reception was mixed. Despite criticizing much of Isolation, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN stated she Amanda a "clearly defined tough-as-nails personality befitting of her mother." Danielle Riendeau of Polygon praised Amanda Ripley from a feminist perspective as a worthy successor to, as well as the best female protagonist since, Ellen Ripley. Riendeau would later go on to call 2014 "the year women characters rule" for the number of promiment women in video games, further praising the game's ability to tie playing Amanda into its gameplay.

Wired's Matt Peckham criticised the choice to have the player character as Ellen's daughter, calling it a "narrative cheat", and found the ultimate pay-off "hurried and a little forced." Peckham praised having a female player character, however, calling it "wonderful playing as a strong, clever, self-reliant woman." Jeff Marchiafava from Game Informer criticised the character, feeling that she "exhibits little growth or personality." Blake Peterson, writing for Game Revolution, felt the game failed to ever develop Amanda or connect the player to her emotionally, commenting that she "soon feels like a placeholder" for the more iconic Ellen Ripley.