10 Movie Sequels That Pointlessly Took Away Things Fans Loved

10. Newt & Hicks - Alien 3

It's depressingly common for movie sequels to kill off beloved characters, either due to the actor demanding too much money to return or simply refusing to come back as a result of "creative differences."

But in the case of David Fincher's Alien 3, the decision to kill off Aliens' much-loved heroes Newt (Carrie Henn) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) was not in any way motivated by financial or practical concerns.

Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) surrogate daughter and best pal respectively, Newt and Hicks are given off-screen deaths at the very beginning of the movie, dying when their escape pod crash-lands on the prison planet Fiorina 161.

Though undeniably ballsy, it was a creative call which infuriated not only fans, but also Aliens writer-director James Cameron, who called it a "slap in the face."

Once actor Michael Biehn learned that he wasn't being asked back for Alien 3, he demanded almost as much money as he was paid for his entire role in Aliens for his likeness to be used in the sequel - and he got it.

Beyond the obvious shock factor, eliminating two fan favourite characters who Ripley fought so hard to save in Aliens felt like an insult to invested fans.

This resulted in franchise novelist Alan Dean Foster planning to have Newt survive the crash in his novelisation of the movie, only for writer-producer Walter Hill to insist that he not alter the established narrative.

Though William Gibson's earlier Alien 3 script, where both Newt and Hicks survive, has been adapted into both comics and audiobooks over the years, there's no undoing the cinematic stain that the movie left upon the franchise.

Yet things got arguably even worse in Alien: Resurrection, which went entirely the opposite direction by negating Ripley's sacrificial demise - easily the best part of Alien 3 - and centering the movie on her clone. Oof.