Dwayne Hicks

Fictional character biography

Corporal Dwayne Hicks and his unit were selected by Lieutenant Gorman to be dispatched to the planet LV-426, accompanied by Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke and Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of the USCSS Nostromo. Hicks, like the rest of his crew, believed the mission was a waste of time and that Ripley's claims of alien lifeforms were nonsensical, expecting only a communications breakdown at the Hadley's Hope colony. The group discovered a lab containing Facehuggers, holes in the floors from Xenomorph acid blood, and a young girl named Newt hiding from the creatures.

The marines descended into the colony and found the Xenomorph hive, where a colonist gave birth to a Chestburster that was set ablaze by Sergeant Apone, awakening the aliens and triggering an attack. As the squadron was massacred, Hicks, along with Privates Hudson and Vasquez, escaped back to the APC with Newt. With Apone deceased and Gorman unresponsive, Hicks assumed command of the survivors: Ripley, Hudson, Vasquez, Newt, Burke, Gorman, and the android Bishop.

Ripley and Hicks devised a plan to destroy the complex with a nuclear strike from orbit. Before the survivors could return to the Sulaco, a Xenomorph killed pilot Corporal Ferro and crashed the aircraft into the APC. The group scavenged wreckage and retreated to the Operations Center, where Bishop revealed the Atmosphere Processor would explode in hours due to damage from the crash. Hicks formulated a plan for Bishop to remotely pilot the second dropship from the colony transmitter.

During this, Hicks instructed Ripley on using the M41A Pulse Rifle. He later responded to a fire alarm in the medical lab, finding Ripley and Newt trapped with two live Facehuggers.

Production

Remar, a struggling drug addict, was arrested for possession of illicit substances, prompting James Cameron to fire him and hastily cast Biehn. Due to his late casting, Biehn could not customize his combat armor as other actors had done. He rejected the padlock heart motif he was given, joking it was like a giant bullseye on his chest. Remar still appears briefly in the finished film in a wide shot in the Xenomorph hive, with his back to the camera, making it nearly impossible to tell the difference between the two actors.

Stephen Lang also auditioned for the role but did not get it; Cameron later cast Lang in his 2009 film Avatar. In William Gibson's initial script for Alien 3, Hicks and Bishop were to become the main protagonists, deployed onto a space station, with the script ending on a cliffhanger setting up the next installment on Earth; this script was rejected. While Biehn did not object to Hicks being killed off, he objected to the character being killed at the start of the film, believing Hicks should have appeared alongside Ripley to develop their relationship before dying.

Biehn later filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox for unauthorized use of his likeness in the film. James Cameron has expressed dislike for the treatment of Hicks, Newt, and Bishop in Alien 3. Hicks was set to return in Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5 project, with Biehn reprising the role alongside Sigourney Weaver, but the project went through development hell due to Ridley Scott's prequel films and was cancelled after the Disney-Fox merger.