Alien 5 Delayed "Pending" Alien: Paradise Lost

[Perfect-Organism]

That's exactly my point, Hicks and Newt had be relevance to the film.

But they didn't have to be relevant to the film. The first three Alien films (and subsequently Resurrection) are Ripley's story, not theirs.

Here in lies the salient point of differentiation between Han Solo's death and theirs.

Han Solo has nothing to do with the argument I was making. Someone said the deaths of Hicks and Newt weren't integral to Alien 3, when that couldn't be less true. That's all I was saying.

This is why the general public mostly dislikes or even disregards Alien 3, while they like the new Star Wars.

The general public disliked the film because it was bleak and depressing, and that's not what they wanted after the high-octane action of Aliens. I'm willing to bet only the hardcore fans really care that much about the fates of two specific supporting characters who had already served their purpose. Even now, flicking through critical reviews online, most don't even seem to mention the deaths of Hicks and Newt among the negative points they single out. Seems the majority of the people who disliked it were more bothered by the overall tone than anything else.

And again you're overlooking the fact someone else pointed out earlier that the film actually did really well outside of America, especially in Europe. For all intents and purposes, it made just as much money as Aliens did, it just did it in different parts of the world.

The one film fulfilled the promise of a good Star Wars sequel (for most people) while the other left a bad taste in most people's mouths.

I'd argue Star Wars wasn't a "good" sequel at all. Just like Jurassic World, it was really a very bland movie that relied almost entirely on the franchise name and recycled ideas. Take all those away and there was almost nothing left. But because of the title, there was no way it wouldn't make money.

I'd agree with you on the last bit about Star Wars and Jurassic World doing as well as they did based on the name of the franchise.  They could do no wrong from a numbers perspective, but time will tell how the fans really feel about the films.  Anyway, you are illustrating my argument that the reason for Alien 3's success is basically that it rode the coattails of Aliens.  There was no way it could fail after Aliens did so well.  So those numbers don't mean its a good film, much like the numbers for the new Star Wars can't tell the same story.

This sub-debate started with a comparison of Han Solo's demise to the demise of Newt and Hicks and its tough to say that the latter's deaths were any more than cheap tricks.  They needed the characters out of the way and it seems the fallout from that was an unwanted element that the film was saddled with, whereas the Han Solo death was the hingepoint of the new Star Wars.  Bottom line is, you could tell the tale of Alien 3 without the deaths of the 2 characters at the beginning and it would be basically the tale of Alien.  You couldn't tell the tale of the new Star Wars film without the death of Han Solo being central.  So OT, I know.  Sorry folks...

[predxeno]

Can you forward me to a link saying so?

Easier to just read the scripts. They're all on here.

Eric Red has them all turned into Eggs aboard the Sulaco. David Twohy unceremoniously kills everyone off before the story even starts. Vincent Ward has them killed aboard the Sulaco by Aliens before Ripley launches in the escape pod. Finally the shooting script has them die in the EEV crash.

Only Gibson kept the characters alive.

Okay, the scripts are naturally VERY long and trying to find the information I'm looking for is like looking for a needle in a haystack; if you could, directing me to the correct pages would be very helpful.  Also since you seem to be an expert on the subject, could you list every script that has Hicks and Newt die?  You've already listed 2 out of 10 scripts on this site that has Hicks and Newt die (I didn't find the Vincent Ward script you mentioned ), that's currently only 1/5 of all available scripts on this site, let alone ever produced.

[Corporal Hicks]

Just an FYI but all those scripts on the website are all the ones that are readily available online.

The only scripts where Hicks and Newt survive are the 2 William Gibson drafts that were done first. Then no-one survived until Vincent Ward came along and it was Ripley who survived, no-one else. And then it moves on to all the scripts done by Hill and Giler that also see Ripley return. So only 2 scripts had Hicks and Newt survive and they were the very first 2 by William Gibson.

In regards to killing them off - yeah, there's no getting around the fact that when production started on the film they didn't know who would be returning. They didn't even know if Weaver would come back. And at the end of the day, it didn't save them money because Biehn received more for that one picture of Hicks than he did for the entirety of Aliens.

They made it work for the film though. It sets the tone for the film and it greatly informs Ripley's character for most of the film. But they could have done it differently to the same effect - have them lost and adrift in space, for example.

[HuDaFuK]

Okay, the scripts are naturally VERY long and trying to find the information I'm looking for is like looking for a needle in a haystack; if you could, directing me to the correct pages would be very helpful.

I'm afraid I can't, I don't have access to them right now and to be honest I'm not sure they had page numbers at all (and others have been copied into Word from .pdf which likely messed up the page numbering anyway).

Also since you seem to be an expert on the subject, could you list every script that has Hicks and Newt die?  You've already listed 2 out of 10 scripts on this site that has Hicks and Newt die (I didn't find the Vincent Ward script you mentioned ), that's currently only 1/5 of all available scripts on this site, let alone ever produced.

Well first was William Gibson, who did two very different versions of the same basic story, both featuring Hicks and Bishop as the lead characters and both having Ripley and Newt survive (although Ripley's comatose throughout).

Next was Eric Red, who did one script, in which Ripley, Hicks and newt are all found Eggmorphed aboard the Sulaco in the opening scene - it's not entirely clear if this scene is meant to actually be a real event, or simply a nightmare based on what happened, but either way the implication that they're all dead is the same.

Following Red was David Twohy, who doesn't even mention the characters or the previous movies with the exception of a photo of Ripley labelled "deceased" seen on a monitor in one scene. Thinking back, Hicks and Newt aren't mentioned at all, but again the fact the story is so disassociated (and that Ripley is stated to be dead) made me feel like everyone else was supposed to be dead and disposed of.

Then came Vincent Ward and John Fasano's famous wooden planet script (credited to just Fasano on here), in which Ripley states Hicks and Newt were killed by Aliens aboard the Sulaco before she fled in the escape pod.

That accounts for the first five Alien 3 scripts on this site. The final five are all various drafts of the shooting script, which basically just merged Ward's story with the prison setting from Twohy's script. These have differences here and there, but the story is basically the same as the final film in each one and crucially they all have Hicks and Newt die in the EEV crash right at the start.

EDIT: The Corporal basically just beat me to it

But they could have done it differently to the same effect - have them lost and adrift in space, for example.

I'm not sure I actually agree with that. It's the fact Ripley definitively knows they're dead that moulds her character. If there was any chance they weren't dead, it would probably change her outlook.

[predxeno]

Whenever horror movies kill off main characters at the beginning of the story; it's less for plot value and more often for shock value, which is actually rather cheap.  The movies that do this that I can remember are The Grudge (2 & 3), Cabin Fever 2, and Hostel 2.  The Outbreak and Hostel series were both started by Eli Roth and their characterization is nothing except sickening gore and no redeeming story whatsoever.

But they could have done it differently to the same effect - have them lost and adrift in space, for example.

I'm not sure I actually agree with that. It's the fact Ripley definitively knows they're dead that moulds her character. If there was any chance they weren't dead, it would probably change her outlook.

Alan Dean Foster, author of the novelization of Alien 1-3, wanted to keep Newt alive but trapped in a damage hyperspace capsule where it would be unsafe to wake her until technology had evolved sufficiently enough to release her safely.  This would give Ripley a cause to fight for and a reason for sacrificing herself at the end; doing so would give Newt a brighter future to wake up to rather than doing it for the human race (where she says in Aliens that she didn't know which species was worse, the Aliens or us).  In this context, I'd say killing Newt off wasn't the best choice they could have made for the movie.

[Perfect-Organism]

So um, yeah, that Alien 5 sure seems like its going to take a lot longer to gestate now that we have Alien: Covenant in the works...  Any idea ho many scripts it took to get where we are today with the Covenant script?

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

So um, yeah, that Alien 5 sure seems like its going to take a lot longer to gestate now that we have Alien: Covenant in the works...  Any idea ho many scripts it took to get where we are today with the Covenant script?

Back in October 2014, the "Prometheus 2" script was already at 15 drafts. Goodness knows how many revisions it's had since. But not really that unusual for a Hollywood movie though.

We only know of one Alien 5 script draft that has been completed so far.