Amanda Ripley (character)

Amanda "Amy" Ripley is a fictional character in the Alien franchise. The daughter of the protagonist of the film series, Ellen Ripley, Amanda is first introduced in the extended version of Aliens. Amanda Ripley is the protagonist of the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation, which is set 42 years prior to Aliens.

Conception and creation
A deleted scene from Aliens, which was later included on DVD releases, reveals that Ellen Ripley 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 older adult is shown to Ripley. The picture is actually Sigourney Weaver's real-life mother, Elizabeth Inglis. The scene was cut from the film due to 20th Century Fox's concerns about length. Sigourney Weaver was furious at the removal, considering it to be crucial to Ellen Ripley's character development in the film.

In Alien II, James Cameron's first 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.

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.

Alien: Isolation
15 years later, now an engineer for Weyland-Yutani, 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, Samuels offers Ripley a place on the recovery team; Ripley accepts. The team is separated by debris during an EVA crossing. Once aboard Sevastopol, Ripley discovers that civil order on the station is almost non-existent. She convinces a survivor, Axel, to help her contact her team. Axel describes the presence of a "killer" aboard the station, and is soon killed by a strange and unknown monster. Ripley reunites with Samuels and Weyland-Yutani executive Nina Taylor and the trio meets Marshal Waits and his deputy Ricardo, who bring them to a safe area on the station. Ripley discovers that the Alien creature was brought aboard by Captain Henry Marlow of the Anesidora, who is now in their custody. Waits directs Ripley to lure the Alien creature to a remote section of Sevastopol, but detaches it before Ripley can escape. Ripley uses an EVA suit to space-jump back to Sevastopol, leaving the Alien to die as it is sucked into KG348's gravity well.

The androids aboard the station abruptly begin to slaughter the remaining population. Ripley finds Samuels and discovers he is attempting to interface with the station's artificial intelligence, APOLLO, to call off the slaughter. Samuels is only successful in opening up access to APOLLO's control core for Ripley, and is deactivated by APOLLO's countermeasures. In the core, Ripley discovers that Weyland-Yutani purchased Sevastopol and directed APOLLO to protect the Alien at all costs regardless of human casualties. After informing it that the Alien is dead, Ripley is directed by APOLLO to the station's reactor core. Ripley descends to its maintenance area, where she is horrified to discover a nest teeming with Aliens. She escapes the hive and initiates a reactor purge to destroy the nest, but multiple Aliens escape into Sevastopol.

Ripley discovers that Taylor and Marlow escaped the slaughter on the Anesidora. Hoping to use the ship to escape Sevastopol, Ripley pursues them. Onboard, she discovers a personal message to her from her mother explaining what has become of her. Marlow appears and attempts to overload the Anesidora ' s fusion reactor, which will destroy both the ship and Sevastopol. Taylor and Ripley subdue him and work together to stop the detonation. They are unsuccessful, and Taylor is killed by an electrical overload. Ripley escapes before the Anesidora detonates. The explosion damages Sevastopol's gravity stabilizers, destroying its orbit and causing it to begin falling into KG348.

Ripley manages to contact the Torrens, the ship that brought her to Sevastopol, for extraction. After allowing the Torrens to dock, Ripley attempts to space-jump to the ship, but is diverted when an Alien abducts her to a new hive, which she escapes. Ripley helps the Torrens detach from Sevastopol and throws herself into the ship just before Sevastopol burns up in KG348's atmosphere. Aboard the Torrens, Ripley makes her way to the bridge, but discovers an Alien aboard. The Alien corners her into the airlock, which she opens, sending them both into space. The game's final shot is of Ripley floating adrift in space, awakened by a flash of light.

According to Aliens, Ripley survived the Sevastopol incident, and 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
In Isolation, Amanda has received mostly positive reception. Despite criticizing much of the game, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN stated that "Amanda is likable, with a clearly defined tough-as-nails personality befitting of her mother, Signorney Weaver's Ellen Ripley." Danielle Riendeau from Polygon.com praised Amanda Ripley from a feminist perspective as a worthy successor to Ellen Ripley.