I backed into watching “Alien” years later, after seeing “Aliens” upon its release with my grandparents. As I grow older, the two films entwine into one strand of Ripley DNA. She has post-traumatic stress, but even broken down, she knows who she is. She’s assertive, and doesn’t get pushed around. She has accessible strength.

Viewed as an adult, “Alien” is both ahead of its time and squarely of its time. There’s sexism on the Nostromo that we might not have noticed before the #MeToo movement, or maybe we did and just rolled along with it because it seems like that’s the way things would always be. There are nude pinups on the bulkhead and sex talk at the table, even with women on the crew, and no one objects or bats an eye, because hey, space travel is rough, and some men will be men. The camera ogles Ripley in that closet, squarely on her thighs and her panties while she steps into her spacesuit, something I didn’t absorb as a child, because as Scott says on a director’s commentary, studio execs wanted more sex in the movie. I suppose they missed what the creature looks like when it bursts from Kane’s chest, or how it assaults the crew to reproduce, how Ash attacks Ripley with one of those rolled-up porn mags, trying to suffocate her into silence once she knows where his loyalties lie.

Weaver based her portrayal on an environmentalist friend who “just goes forward and gets things done.” She’s not an automaton who barks orders but feels prickly, flawed and human. She’s so sure of herself, even after Parker (Yaphet Kotto) blasts steam over her words, or Lambert calls her a bitch, or Dallas condescends. Scared, sweaty, and singing, not glamorous or feeling so brave herself, Ripley pulls herself together out of sheer will because there’s no other way.

Earlier this year, Weaver surprised the cast and crew at North Bergen High School in New Jersey when they staged “Alien” as a play, complete with costumes made from recyclables. One boy—playing Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) by the looks of the Hawaiian shirt—called out, “You’re my childhood hero,” and pushed through the crowd to give her a hug. I wonder when he saw the film in its entirety, if he’d ever been listening down the hall at first like me.

All I know is that I was a little girl scared of the dark, and I am still not the bravest of the brave. But I always come back to this woman who doesn’t give a damn if she’s disliked. Ripley in her world helps me feel brave, comforts me. She’s in control of her space, something relatable when worries seem to overwhelm, like when I was a new mom scared witless with a newborn in the hospital for three weeks. I can handle myself, she says in “Aliens.” But we knew she could from the beginning. She could give up, or be frozen with fear, except she won’t because she’s too stubborn, too determined, not to survive. Whatever insecurity lies in her blood isn’t like acid; it doesn’t eat her away.

So Happy Birthday, Ripley—the beyond “Alien” queen.