10 Insulting Ways Characters Were Killed Off Between Horror Movies

For nearly 40 years, cinephiles have been debating which is better: the isolated and restrained frights of Alien or the rousing action-horror adrenaline rush of Aliens. Of course, there isn’t necessarily a correct answer, yet the snarky brashness and adorable vulnerability of Corporal Hicks and 12-year-old Newt – respectively – certainly give Cameron’s classic some points.

After all, both audiences and tough-as-nails heroine Ellen Ripley care deeply about Newt’s survival and history as the movie progresses. In fact, the entire ending revolves around Ripley facing off against the Xenomorph Queen to rescue Newt, and before he’s gravely injured, the charmingly tough Hicks – who’s also Ripley’s love interest – is there to help.

After the trio are reunited, they enter cyrosleep as their ship returns to Earth. Thus, Aliens’ final moments allude to rewarding outcomes, if not a full-on surrogate family dynamic, for the trio.

Foolishly, Alien 3 immediately undoes the promise of that climax – and tarnishes moviegoers’ goodwill – by revealing that Newt and Hicks died while sleeping due to their escape pods crashing. Specifically, Newt drowns in the ocean of Florina 161 while Hicks is impaled by a support beam.

It’s a clumsily tone-deaf and lazy way to begin Alien 3 with superficial shock value, and the fact that Ripley doesn’t even get to say goodbye to either of them is equally unforgivable.