Well, they specify that they're listing heroines, so the Borg Queen would be out. But I agree that Cordelia, Fred, Faith and Seven of Nine should be contenders for the list.
^But Catwoman is on the list and they speak of her as the villain in Batman Returns. (Although I would disagree and say that Batman Returns isn't a Batman comic book movie but a gothic fairy tale centering on Catwoman.)
True, so they're contradicting themselves there. Although Catwoman isn't the kind of outright villain that the Borg Queen is. She's been more of an anti-hero for the past couple of decades. And I agree that Batman Returns is a Gothic fairy tale, but it's still a Batman comic book movie, and Batman, Catwoman and the Penguin all play central parts.
What's interesting is that Ripley was originally written as a male character, and after changing the casting, almost no dialogue was changed. It really wasn't until Aliens with the mothering instincts with Newt that we saw any traditional female attributes for the character.
The Ellen Ripley character was incredible... glad she was #1. As to the rest of the list... meh!
Something that I have always been impressed with is how the writers for Ellen Ripley handled the change from "Alien" to "Aliens". In the first film, the emphasis was placed upon her strength of command. She was not in command of the Nostromo, but she still had command presence and was able to make the tough decisions and so on with nary a reference to her being female. Then we switch to the second film and while she still has many of the same characteristics that were highlighted in the first film, now we get to see that mothering instinct brought forth. And the character doesn't suffer one iota. In fact, she is even more admirable.
In the first film, her characterisation in the script is more accident than planning. Originally the whole crew (including Ripley) was male and at some point they hit on the idea that one or two of the characters could be interchanged with females, then they decided to make Ripley one of them. I don't think her dialogue was significantly altered, if at all. There is a purity in that though, because sometimes (not always) "strong" female characters can be written a little self consciously, to the point where the writer overcompensates and we get landed with the cliche tough chick. Ripley was written as a mid-ranking flight officer, gender not an issue since the initial assumption was that it was an all male crew. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the only acknowledgement that there are female crew members on the crew is in the way Parker acts towards Lambert and that seams to come more from the actor than the page.
Oh I tell a lie, there is Ash's odd attempted rape scene and I assume that came in the later drafts, after Ripley & Lambert were feminised. Had Ripley still been a man at that point, that'd be a whole other scene...
Oh I tell a lie, there is Ash's odd attempted rape scene and I assume that came in the later drafts, after Ripley & Lambert were feminised. Had Ripley still been a man at that point, that'd be a whole other scene...
So they where originally going for some guy in his undies acting all scared and getting in a cheap space suit to space the alien at the end? Glad they changed it...
That scene makes sense regardless of gender.
Nah, the break was made with Ripley. In Sarah Connor's debut she ran and was hardly more of the "I am woman, hear me roar" icon then the 30 minute workout girl wearing the walkman that Arnold blew away early in the movie. You might as well say that Thrace/Starbuck couldn't have been without Sheeba? from Admiral Caine's battlestar in original BSG, Xena, the next Brooke Shields Mila from Resident Evil and on and on and on.
Janeway hasn't had as much impact on the television landscape as Buffy.
And the appeal's pretty simple. It's just really fun. You could go on about multiple levels of metaphor and how daring the writers could be, but the "fun" thing pretty much sums it up.
Very nicely put. Janeway's impact is strictly in Trek, but outside of Trek, the character is surpassed by a variety of others where impact on sci-fi overall is concerned.
Megan Fox may be popular, but her character in TF is by no means an iconic SF&F heroine, which is what the list is supposedly setting out to cover.
And she says as much. Read one of the tons of interviews out there with her now, like Entertainment Weekly's. I paraphrase lightly, but she says there's no acting or characterization involved. Her role is to run, scream and sometimes scream while running.
That's not the stuff of memorable sci-fi women, no less anything on an all time list.
That's not the stuff of memorable sci-fi women, no less anything on an all time list.
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Megan Fox said in one interview that she asked Michael Bay for direction in a particular scene and he replied, "Be hot."