As bizarre as it sounds, 2018’s The Predator almost managed to undo the most hated death in the entire Alien franchise. To most movie viewers, David Fincher is best known as the director of modern masterpieces like Se7en, The Social Network, and Fight Club. However, for a select few viewers, the director will always be known as the man who killed off Newt and Hicks. Alien 3’s hated Newt and Hicks deaths occur before the sequel’s story even begins, with the duo dying off-screen while Ripley’s spaceship crashes. This set up Alien 3 as a far darker sequel.
However, many viewers were unimpressed with this drastic tonal shift after the triumphant ending of Aliens, and Alien 3 never won back the crowd after this drastic opening salvo. Alien 3 is still ranked low among all the Alien movies, and the consensus among critics and fans alike is that the sequel wasn’t thrilling or original enough to justify its uber-bleak, hopeless tone. Neil Blomkamp’s canceled Alien 5 promised to retcon the widely reviled deaths, according to a post on the fan site Alien Vs Predator Galaxy, but this was not the only time that this nearly happened.
The Predator’s Scrapped Alien Connection Would’ve Undone Newt’s Death
Newt’s Alien 3 Death Would Have Been Retconned In The Predator’s Ending
While it might seem strange, one of The Predator’s alternate endings promised to bring back Newt as an adult and retcon her tragic death. The Predator’s third act was infamously messy, undergoing extensive res-hoots after test audiences didn’t like the original conclusion of Shane Black’s 2018 franchise reboot. One of the proposed endings for The Predator revealed that Ellen Ripley and an adult Newt were the Predator Killers sent to kill the Predators taking over Earth, a twist that would have complicated the timeline of both franchises immeasurably. Notably, Sigourney Weaver wasn’t lined up to reprise the role of Ripley.
Undoing Newt’s death and making her into a time-travelling Predator Killer sounds fun, but the idea would have been almost impossible to justify.
Instead, Ripley’s cameo would have seen her masked throughout and her idenтιтy would have been revealed by a name tag. Although The Predator’s alternate ending would have brought back a beloved supporting character from Aliens, it is a good thing that The Predator didn’t retcon Newt’s death in its ending. The twist simply made no sense in logical terms and, as a result, felt like a case of the franchise’s creators cramming in references to the Alien mythos solely for the sake of impressing fans. After all, Reply and Newt were born decades after The Predator’s events ended.
Why It’s Good That The Predator’s Ripley & Newt Cameos Never Happened
The Predator Was The Wrong Time and Place To Retcon The Infamous Death
Undoing Newt’s death and making her into a time-travelling Predator Killer sounds fun, but the idea would have been almost impossible to justify in the established world of the series. For one thing, there is no canonical human time travel in the Alien franchise, but Ripley and Newt would have needed to travel to a time years before they were born to appear in The Predator’s ending. For another, neither Ripley nor Newt ever encountered a Predator before, so there is no reason that the Alien franchise’s beloved heroines would be singled out as Predator Killers in The Predator.
Source: Alien Vs Predator Galaxy
