I'm not endorsing the idea of Blomkamp retconning A3 and A:R this way. Matter of fact, I fully expect him to simply ignore them, as seems to be the most common line of thinking these days.
However, if we were to entertain the idea that A3 and A:R were nightmares, whose would they be? We've got Ripley, Hicks and Newt as possibilities. Call me crazy, but I think Ripley would be beyond nightmares. At the end of Aliens, she seems like she'd be the most at peace with what has happened to her. She's faced the monster and defeated it. Twice. Newt is only 11, and is bound to need some time to get over her experiences of isolation and horror at the death of her family. Hicks just watched his whole squad get decimated in lest than two days and suffered very painful injuries himself. I think the latter two are the dreamers.
I always imagined A3 as Hicks' nightmare. Think about it, if he fulfills the 'father' role in the small family unit of Aliens, that means that his role is that of the protector. What could be more nightmarish than the idea of dying through a mere happenstance while Newt drowned one cryo-tube away and watching as Ripley was left to fend for herself on a planet full of criminals and murderers, all the while carrying one of those monsters inside her. Sounds like something that would wake Hicks up in the middle of the night. That idea of helplessness really fits him in the context of a nightmare, I think.
A:R, I think, would qualify as a nightmare of Newt's. The idea of Ripley being more powerful than everyone else on the ship, her having some kind of connection to the xenos, another pseudo-daughter plotline with fellow female survivor. The idea of all the soldiers being of little difference against the xenos. The scene with the xenos in the water(given how Newt was drowned in A3, and she was abducted by the xenos while she was in the water). And it ends with 4 survivors, including Ripley, pseudo-daughter(Call as Newt), a synthetic(Call as Bishop), someone who can't use their legs(Vries as Bishop) and a grunt who flirts with Ripley(Johner as Hicks). It's almost like a fairy tale. Very childlike, in a way.
As for Bishop, I think he was dreaming Prometheus. Scientific themes but full of philosophical stuff, an Android who gets amputated as one of the main characters.... Of course, he may have been dreaming AVP due to the serious damage he suffered at the hands of the Queen. Micheal Weyland looking like him, the queen dying again. Kind of an android's lazy revenge fantasy.
Thoughts?
