Having a little girl (played by a different actress due to the gap in filming so may have been a bad actress) running around with Ripley (and quite what she would have done in the story???) could have been more annoying than her getting killed off.
Discuss?
What could Newt have done in A3? Would a different little girl (the female Jake Lloyd??) been more infuriating?
"What are you, some kind of doomsday machine, boy?"
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In my opinion, you need the loss of Newt to convey the bleak situation that Ripley finds herself in. The audience hated Newt's death, and that is exactly the point. It brings you in the right mood (depression, loneliness and despair) straight away.
It's funny how people praise shows like Game Of Thrones and now Walking Dead for being so ground breaking, ruthlessly killing favorite characters, yet people still can't forgive A3 for killing Newt.
in fact, Ripley would actually have had a huge reason to survive and get off the planet, to be reunited with her newfound family, until the realisation that she was impregnated and doomed.
Poor Newt. But if she hadn't died, the prisoners mourning her wouldn't have been fully humanised on film. Her end was arguably metaphorically like that of shrugging off life, as if a calculation occurred that her life's fleeting pleasures would never make living worth it enough. Ripley is kind of synonomous by association with being a bringer of death. Anyway , Alien 3's a far more vicious film than Aliens and having a young girl screaming would result in her instant end in Alien 3's world of cruelly dashed attempts at redemption and you can't have the alien killing a child without that getting people more upset than is worth it. It would be a jumped the shark moment - nothing would really matter anymore after that. As it is, Newt's end was presumably relatively painless.
shareThe point of the story was to break Ripley down and take everything away from her. Newt surviving wouldn't do that.
shareI think it could have worked with Newt alive. It just would be a slightly different film.
Here's my pitch:
The final film tried to humanize and show some transformation in the prisoners. I could see an interesting take on the prisoners helping to protect Newt (an innocent child) in pursuit of bettering themselves. Perhaps they ultimately fail and we still get to see the mourning of her but Ripley tells them their efforts have already proved that they've changed for the better. I could see that happening maybe midway into the film before the final showdown. It's what sets everyone straight about how important it is to kill the alien. Ripley would obviously feel the moment as would Hicks. The prisoners would feel like failures in what could have been their shining moment of redemption.
In modern day standards we probably don't want Newt to just be a completely helpless mess. Clearly she would still be a child but she is the most vulnerable so I think some leeway could be given. Perhaps a scene of her using her old skills from Aliens crawling and evading the alien and hurting it somehow could prevent some campy damsel in distress/helpless child scenario.
As for Hicks...since most people want him to stay alive I think it'd be best to have him injured but still helpful. He wants to protect Newt and Ripley but Ripley says she can protect herself. Hick to his own accord mainly keeps an eye on shifty prisoners who have their eyes on the only two females on the planet. Maybe he sacrifices himself at the very end to kill the alien. Bishop...perhaps could just stay as a head/torso and the group uses him to connect and interface with the facility systems to close and lock doors, navigate, etc.
If done right I think that could have been a decent film.