Word: newt
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Arriving at their destination, they find the colonists' space station deserted, except for Newt (Carrie Henn), a traumatized child who is the only survivor. The first film had merely mobilized Ripley's basic fight-or-flight instincts. The presence of Newt allows her to discover stronger, higher impulses, gives her positive rather than negative emotions to act upon. The audience too has a much stronger rooting interest in Ripley, and that gives the picture resonances unusual in a popcorn epic...
This is little Newt, the only survivor of the human colony. The role is endearingly played by Carrie Henn, 10, winner of a talent search among American girls living in England, where Aliens was filmed. She looks like a Dickensian waif and turns out to have the soul of one as well, brave and clever but never self-sentimentalizing. She is discovered as a silent little creature, scuttling through air ducts too small for the aliens to penetrate, living an almost rodent-like existence. Her plight would be enough to touch anyone's heart, but in this context, only Ripley...
Instead of the standard horror movie romance subplot, Cameron introduces an alternative human emotion--motherhood. In their search for the alien hordes, the team discovers a little girl named Newt, played by the show-stealing Carrie Tern. At first, she is frightened to death, but gradually allows Ripley to get close to her. During the course of the movie, Ripley and Newt work together to protect each other from the monsters, developing a not-too-sentimental mother-daughter relationship...
...motherhood theme forms the basis for the movie's conflict. The aliens are the disgusting progeny of a huge, grotesque mama alien, enraged by the destruction of her babies by the earthlings. To revenge herself upon Ripley, the mother alien steals Newt away from...
...FIERY BATTLE, the two mothers face off in defense of their children. Mother alien rears up and snarls at Newt with her four sets of teeth as Ripley screams, "Get away from her, you bitch!" Their encounter takes the movie beyond the standard realm of good vs. evil, humanizing the conflict, and heightening its fear-inducing power...