Ok, so wanted to pick up a few things from what Frantz said earlier and his views on bleak endings..
I see what your saying, but i think it's a very simplistic way of viewing it. yes a lot of films put a bleak ending in to gain critical credibility, but what Ridley scott has always done IMO is put himself in the position of "this is real, and if it's real, how is it inevitably going to end or what is the most realistic ending" obviously for a given value of real dealing with a film set in space.
As i've said before one of the scariest film's i've ever seen had no sex, no swearing, no gore, and it was rated a 15 in the uk because the psychological horror was enough to warrant 15 rating. But it all depends on context, I don't want to see Sadism, torture and gore that is pointless either. IMO hostel was a poor excuse for a "horror" film. The first saw was excellent because it was mostly to guys in a room, but after that, saw 2 onwards, they just became about more and more sadistic traps for the viewers titillation (yes i do have that little faith in the general movie going public). But when guys here say we have would like everyone wiped out at the end, it's because that's most likely what would happen in the circumstances. Alien was one of the greatest films of any genre, but the end, the very very end was a cop out. Now ridley did his best and made it terriying, but at the end of the day the hero won out in circumstances which were nearly impossible to win out against. granted we wouldn't be sitting here now discussing prequels and sequels.
What I'm saying is, it's all about context, and in the context of this film we are looking at body shock style horror, where the horror comes from the origins of life as a whole. The inferences there, are that what kind of creatures would the creators of life be, just how much value would we hold to them, and if he were beginning to look like rivals what would they do to maintain supremacy? would they have any qualms ripping us to pieces anymore than we would feel bad putting insecticide into an ants nest or putting salt on a slug when it's damaging your plants?
We don't rail for a bad ending because "it'll be cool that everyone dies" or "it'll mean lots of torture or sadism" we want a bleak ending because in the case of the alien series, it's entirely appropriate.
Your payback idea is actually a good spot, but it's what we're talking about in an ending that's bleak. Look at the Thing, yes they won, but we can only assume Childs and Macready froze to death. I don't think there was anything happy about the bladerunner ending, at leastin the case of the directors cut. The original version had a badly tacked on expository voice over by Ford and a studio approved sunshiney ending which i personally think was a dream anyway (the earth is polluted and devastated, everyone left for the colonies because it was so bad, so where the hell did the sunshine, tree's, and glistening lake come from).
On Ridleys Scotts age being a factor.. Ridley Scott is true to his art. If the context of the film requires "hope" then you get it, if it doesn't, then you don't. Gladiator as a specific case, well he'd spent so much time developing max as a character, and having you empathise with and had done such crappy things to him throughout the film, that he couldn't not give him his family back at the end. I don't think we every saw ripley in the same way, or thelma and louise etc. Black Hawk down was a real event, fathers and sons and brothers died, to potray that any other way would have lessened their memories.
Context
