Rebecca Jorden, better known as "Newt", was a major supporting character in the sci-fi horror film Aliens. She was a young girl living on the Hadley's Hope colony on the planet LV-426. When the colony was overrun by Xenomorphs, most of the colonists, including Newt's entire family, were taken and impregnated with alien embryos, leaving Newt as the only survivor. She was portrayed by Carrie Henn.
History[]
When Xenomorphs overran Hadley's Hope, Newt survived by hiding inside the colony's extensive ventilation system, making herself a den near the operations center. She remained in hiding for weeks while the rest of the colonists were either killed or taken to the alien hive to become incubators.
When Ellen Ripley and the Colonial Marines squad led by Lt. Gorman arrived at the colony, they found Newt hiding in the ducts via their motion trackers. After Private Drake almost accidentally shot her, Ripley pursued Newt into the vents and eventually calmed her down. She was later given a check-up by the squad's Hospital Corpsman, Corporal Dietrich, who found Newt was malnourished but otherwise physically fine. The young girl was initially mute, but eventually began talking to Ripley, telling her her name.
A short time later, the Marine squad led by Sergeant Apone breached the Xenomorphs' hive inside the colony's atmospheric processing building. There, they found that most of the colonists were already dead and the one survivor they found died in front of them when she birthed a Chestburster. Xenomorph drones then ambushed the team, killing some and capturing others. The few that managed to get out alive rejoined Ripley's team at their APC and they fled back to the landing pad where the unit's dropship was waiting. However, an alien had killed the flight crew and destroyed the dropship, leaving the survivors no option but to turn back to the relative safety of the operations center.
Despite only being a child, Newt assisted the Marines in fortifying the administration building where she could, helping them carry equipment and move supplies. As the survivors bunkered down to wait until Bishop could remotely pilot a second dropship from the Sulaco to the surface, Ripley and Newt slept in the colony's medical facility. While they were sleeping, Burke freed two live Facehuggers being stored in the med lab, intending for them to impregnate Ripley and Newt and thereby obtain Xenomorph specimens for Weyland-Yutani. While the two were trapped in the room with the creatures, Ripley used her lighter to set off the fire alarm to get the Marines' attention. The Marines arrived and took care of the Facehuggers.
Before Burke could be dealt with, a horde of Xenomorph drones attacked the operations center. Newt tried to lead Ripley and the others out through the ventilation ducts, but Gorman, Hudson and Vasquez were lost during the escape. An explosion led to Newt being forced into a shaft that led to the colony sewers. While the girl waited for Ripley and Corporal Hicks to reach her, a Xenomorph snuck up on her and captured her, taking the child back to the hive in the atmospheric processing station.
Fortunately, Ripley would come to Newt's rescue and prevented the girl from being impregnated by a Facehugger. With time running out before the processing station self-destructed, they tried to make their way out, but accidentally wandered into the hive's central hatchery where the Xenomorph Queen resided. As the Queen's guards approached, Ripley raised her flamethrower, threatening to destroy the eggs within the chamber unless the aliens kept back. As Ripley and Newt backed away into the exit, a nearby egg opened. Before the Facehugger inside could emerge, Ripley turned and torched it with the flamethrower before doing the same to the other eggs. Ripley left behind an M40 grenade inside the hatchery that destroyed the remaining eggs while she and Newt fled.
Just before the processing station exploded, Bishop had managed to remotely deploy the secondary dropship from the Sulaco and picked up Ripley and Newt. Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop returned to the Sulaco, unaware that the Alien Queen had latched on to the dropship as it ascended. The survivors thought they were finally safe after landing inside the Sulaco's hangar, but the Queen then impaled Bishop on her tail and bisected him. While Ripley ran for the other end of the hangar, Newt tried to hide beneath the floor grating as the Queen tried to reach for her. Ripley returned in a Power Loader exoskeleton and fought against the Queen, ultimately defeating the monster after ejecting it into space. With the Queen dead, the survivors were seemingly safe and they entered hypersleep capsules for the long journey home.
Death[]
Although Newt survived the events of Aliens, she would perish during the time period between Aliens and Alien 3. While the Alien Queen had been jettisoned into space, a Facehugger had managed to get aboard the Sulaco and caused a fire aboard the ship while Newt and the others were in hypersleep. Bishop was able to jettison the hypersleep capsules inside an escape pod which would crash-land on the planet Fiorina 161. Newt's capsule was damaged in the crash and flooded, causing the girl to drown in her sleep. Ripley would be the only one of the LV-426 survivors to wake following the crash and was devastated by Newt's death.