The (Almost) Resurrection of Rebecca “Newt” Jorden

[SiL]

I'm reasonably sure people were pissed off about Hicks and Newt dying and wanting them back before you were born.

I never heard anyone pine for Linda Hamilton's return by contrast.

[Neila]

I'm reasonably sure people were pissed off about Hicks and Newt dying and wanting them back before you were born.

I never heard anyone pine for Linda Hamilton's return by contrast.

But that's no use if your hopes are completely undermined.

In the case of A5, the enthusiastic shouts would have quickly turned into never-ending lamentations.

The enthusiasm for Dark Fate wasn't necessarily about Hamilton, but rather that Cameron and Arnie were once again working as a "team" on a new Terminator.

[SiL]

All of this applies to Prometheus - intense hype about Ridley returning to sci fi and Alien, great opening weekends, then massive drop offs when word of mouth hit.

Cameron had already poisoned the well with his endorsement of Genisys. People were already sus.

Alien 5 with Hicks and Newt back would have had a fantastic opening.

[Neila]

which no one denies.

I can only imagine that it would have turned into a wave of outrage very, very quickly.

It's true that people were skeptical in Cameron's case, but it was hyped several times as a possible return to old strengths, which unfortunately isn't that rare anymore.

There were also enough people who were skeptical about Blomkamp in advance.
long before the real ideas came to light.

[Corporal Hicks]

Ever since I first heard about this concept, I've always wondered how it would work. And like the many Alien 3 scripts, this is one of those developmental footnotes that I think the finished product did a much better job with. Cloning Ripley 8 just worked so much better imho - with it being their way to get one of the Aliens.

It's still really interesting to me to know about this, though. I'm grateful to Jorge for taking the time to answer my questions and flesh out the information from Whedon's biography.

[Acidforblood75]

The alien universe is as unforgiving and harsh as any universe and people die. Having both newt and hicks die made sense as both would've been superfluous on a prison planet. It would've been disconcerting to have a young girl stuck in that environment.

Story wise Ripley was only cloned because she had a queen and was only brought back for that. Newt didn't have any alien so there was no reason to try and clone her or hicks. It could only have been Ripley.

What alien resurrection did was have Ripley sacrifice be null and void as the queen was brought back anyway as well as Ripley herself.

It reminds me of the emperor returning in rise of skywalker undoing anakins sacrifice in jedi.

[SM]

If it's 200 years later and the only way they could get an Alien was via imperfect cloning, then it's the opposite of null and void.  She won in Alien 3.

Then she won again.

Every piece of media that has a multitude of Aliens running around post-Alien3 made the sacrifice null and void.  But the alien universe is as unforgiving and harsh as any universe I suppose.

[solace97]

It would have made much more sense if the opening scene in A:R just immediately introduced Ripley, the Queen, a cloned newt and hicks with no context whatsoever and a single piece of dialogue saying, "Somehow the gang returned."

[Acidforblood75]

It would have made much more sense if the opening scene in A:R just immediately introduced Ripley, the Queen, a cloned newt and hicks with no context whatsoever and a single piece of dialogue saying, "Somehow the gang returned."

This isn't palpatine in rise of skywalker. Lol

Making a movie 6 years after aliens meant that Carrie Hehn would've been about 17 or so. The only options were to recast newt or kill her off. Technology wasn't advanced enough to deep fake newt for a whole movie and having her on that planet would've been cringey with prisoners who in some ways were more dangerous than xenomorphs.

[solace97]

Or just have the film fast forward a bit in the timeline to have an older newt

[BlueMarsalis79]

Passing the torch's lame in science fiction with the tone of Alien imo tbh.

[Elmazalman]

Passing the torch's lame in science fiction with the tone of Alien imo tbh.

*Incinerator Unit*

It's a lame idea for any film or television show.

[solace97]

Passing the torch's lame in science fiction with the tone of Alien imo tbh.

Seems to be what they're trying to do with Rain

[SM]

There wasn't any to pass the torch on though.  It was widely understood that was the intent with Resurrection, but it obviously didn't happen.

[Acidforblood75]

Or just have the film fast forward a bit in the timeline to have an older newt

Had they reached an outpost safely we could've seen all 3 6 years later.