With the combination of audience antipathy towards “Alien 3,” the disappointing box-office grosses (though it still made plenty of money throughout the world) and the fact that the main character had just committed a spectacular and seemingly irreversible suicide in the previous film, most people assumed that the “Alien” saga was as dead as Ripley and were therefore surprised a few years later to learn that not only was a fourth film, “Alien Resurrection,” going into production, it would even star Weaver. Compared to the tortured productions of the previous installments, this one came together with relative ease. Having impressed Fox executives with his screenplay for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and his uncredited work on “Speed,” Joss Whedon was hired to write a new “Alien” film, and, with Ripley dead, he elected to focus it around a clone of Newt. The studio liked his work enough but asked him to redo it as a story involving a clone of Ripley instead and Weaver was impressed enough to agree to do the film. After considering such directors as Danny Boyle (then hot off of “Trainspotting”), Bryan Singer, Peter Jackson and David Cronenberg (the mind reels as to what the latter might have done at the helm of an “Alien” film), the producers once again elected to go with an up-and-coming talent by selecting French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who had caused an international sensation with his visually stunning fantasies “Delicatessen” (1991) and “City of Lost Children” (1995), to make his first English-language film. Along with a supporting cast that included the likes of Ron Perlman and Dominque Pinon, both of whom had worked with Jeunet before, Dan Hedaya, Michael Wincott and Brad Dourif, the then hugely-popular Winona Ryder was brought in to serve as Weaver’s co-star.

As was the case with “Alien 3,” audiences and many critics were less than impressed with “Alien Resurrection” and while it would prove to be a hit internationally, it was by far the lowest-grossing entry in the series in the U.S. And though the film is undeniably flawed in parts, there is far more about it to admire than people were willing to admit to back in the day. The recurring decision to put the films in the hands of emerging filmmakers with distinct visual styles continued to pay dividends with the selection of Jeunet. Of course, the fact that the guy who made “Delicatessen” and “City of Lost Children” would make an extraordinary-looking film was probably not a shock but, more importantly, he brought a welcome degree of humor—albeit of the jet-black variety—to the proceedings (though never to the extent of making fun of itself) that had not been on display in the earlier installments and which was especially welcome after the uber-bleak “Alien 3.” In addition, he also displayed a flair for the big action beats as well with an extended sequence with Ripley and the others trying to dodge a pair of creatures while swimming through a flooded kitchen being the unquestioned highlight. As for the monsters themselves, one might think that they would have lost the power to shock by this time, but the film still has a couple of tricks to play, most memorably with the arrival of an alien-human hybrid that is grotesque, to be sure, but strangely lovely at the same time, especially as seen through the eyes of Ripley, who is technically its mother.

It was the chance to play a variation of Ripley that contained aspects of the very same monsters she had been battling in the previous installments (not to mention the inevitable truck full of cash) that lured Weaver back to the series and her performance here is inspired. Although she looks and sounds like our beloved hero at first glance, she manages to suggest throughout in subtle ways that there is indeed something else inside of her. Not only does this lend itself to a number of amusing moments—the most famous of which is when she uses her heightened skill set to land a seemingly impossible basketball shot—but also causes viewers to wonder exactly where her true emotional loyalties lie and whether she might indeed side with the aliens after all. She also gets a couple of very nice dramatic moments as well, such as the sequence when she accidentally stumbles upon the cloning lab and discovers the earlier versions of her that went bad for various reasons, and the surprisingly poignant one where she dispatches the hybrid alien in order to save Earth but then sheds a maternal tear as it hurtles out into the cold of space. Weaver also has a killer closing moment as well when, after having finally landed safely on Earth, Call asks Ripley what she plans to do now and, with a perfect line reading, she responds “I’m a stranger here myself.” Like the ending of “Alien 3,” it is an oddly beautiful moment and one that allows one of the most beloved characters in genre history to bring her story to a fitting and much-deserved conclusion.