Sometimes a key actor can’t — or won’t — return for a sequel, so the filmmakers decide to write his or her character out of the series. Maybe they’ll reduce it to a phone conversation in which you can’t see or hear the actor, or perhaps they’ll resort to letting us know that the character died sometime between the sequel you’re watching now and the previous installment. Or perhaps they killed off a character in the original film without knowing how popular that character would become, so for the sequel the writer has to figure out some kind of ludicrous way to bring him or her back. Perchance the writers think they’re really clever, they’ll play this card: “The events in the first film were only the beginning — there’s much deeper stuff going on here that you never knew about (neither did we, of course).” In the world of television it’s called “jumping the shark,” but in cinema I call it a Lame Sequel Premise. (The following article contains many spoilers, so proceed with caution.)
Alien³ (1992): Newt and Hicks died in hypersleep.
Had anyone told me that the director of this mess (also known as “Alien 3,” or “Alien Cubed,” or whatever else you want to call it) would end up being one of my favorite filmmakers, I would’ve laughed in their face. Granted, David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac) lost creative control while making the movie and now virtually disowns it, but still, the opening of Alien³ is beyond unforgivable: we find out that Rebecca “Newt” Jorden (Carrie Henn) and Corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn), two beloved characters from the previous installment, 1986’s Aliens, died during hypersleep. Aliens’s director, James Cameron, reportedly called this plot development “a slap in the face” of the franchise’s fans, and that’s precisely what it felt like to this fan. As far as I’m concerned, the series consists of Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979) and Cameron’s sequel and that’s where it ends. I’m not even going to get into the lame “Ripley was cloned” business that made 1997’s Alien: Resurrection possible.
Off-Screen Character Death Lame-o-meter Rating: Should’ve Quit While They Were Ahead.
