She is found floating in space 50 years later, and gets asked to return to the same planet with a unit of space marines to check on a colony. Ripley would survive being on a ship with a homicidal android and an alien that systematically kills her entire crew before she was able to escape. Her portrayal of Ripley would change the way women were seen in science fiction, as her character was not the damsel in distress. Where the Predator franchise was a sci-fi and gun action flick, Alien was a sci-fi horror slash thriller whose hero was a then-relatively unknown actress named Sigourney Weaver. But like her character and Ripley before her, it wasn’t about big guns or brawn it was about surviving, and after summer was done, AVP ended up amongst the top 20 of summer films of that year. Predator faced some stiff competition in the action space: the Greek epic Troy starring Brad Pitt and Eric Bana, Matt Damon’s The Bourne Supremacy ,Will Smith’s sci-fi action flick I Robot, and more. So not only was Sanaa being tapped to lead the movie, she was also being tossed into a summer opening. Predator is sci-fi, it is also action, and summer is when Hollywood tends to throw out their big action blockbusters. She had also built an impressive resume with roles in The Wood, The Best Man, Life, NYPD Blue, Moesha, Brown Sugar and many others. And outside of her brief role as Blade’s mother in the original movie with Wesley Snipes, she had built a career playing the girlfriend, the sister, and “the pretty one” in various roles across TV and film. But Sanaa wasn’t an action hero.īefore AVP, she was most known for her role as Monica in Love & Basketball. She easily glides from hard-ass adventurer to nurturer without getting pigeonholed. But to her credit, her role provides the few moments of depth, character-building, and a sense of humanity seen in the film.

When Sanaa Lathan was chosen to helm Alien vs Predator, it wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms. Predator release on August 13, let’s celebrate the often overlooked part that Sanaa played in the sci-fi revolution. So as we highlight the 15th anniversary of the Alien vs. Lathan has led the way for the likes of Hannah John- Kamen in Killjoys, Kelita Smith in Z Nation, and other women of color to not only star, but carry shows and movies. While we cheer for the women of color leading sci-fi roles on TV and movies today, let us not forget it was Lathan’s role that helped break the force field that had regulated women of color to support roles in the past. What is often overlooked is Lathan and her place in science fiction history.

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