10 Deleted Scenes That Actually Improve Movie Characters
3. Ripley's Dead Daughter - Aliens (1986)
A deleted scene from the 1986 theatrical version of James Cameron's all-out, guns-out sequel Aliens (which was included in the subsequent special edition release) reveals that Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has a daughter, Amanda.
In a scene that was perhaps the genesis for a similar sequence in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, Ripley is handed a photograph of her now-deceased daughter as an old woman. In a tragic twist, Ripley reveals she promised to be home before Amanda's eleventh birthday, prior to the events of Alien (1979).
Granted, this is not a paradigm-shifting revelation for Ripley as a character, as through the series we see her show grit, compassion, love and a ship's-load of vengeful anger, but it does supply an additional dimension.
For Aliens, it provides the drive for Ripley's seemingly impulsive actions throughout the rest of the film, as well as shining a light on an additional facet of her maternal relationship with Newt - the young girl who is the sole survivor of a Xenomorph-infested colony on the moon Acheron (LV-426).
As a little extra salt in the wound, this revelation of Ripley's daughter also makes Newt's death at the beginning of Alien 3 all the more tragic.