What if Hicks died on screen in a later sequel?
I still like Alien 3, but like many others, I was peeved about Hicks and Newt being killed off. Others argue that Ripley needed to be alone against the Xenomorphs. While I think this is over exaggerated, the idea of Ripley battling alone is compelling.
Along that train of thought... What if Hicks was killed off differently? For me, as a fan of Hicks (and Newt), it was never that they died so much as how they died. It reeked of rewrites, cheapness of Fox's part, and was pretty insulting. But I understand the argument that they needed to be removed from the plot somehow
I don't think Hicks needed a cheesy heroic death, but he deserved better than off screen circumstance. It's interesting to note that Michael Biehn first thought the character was going to be killed pre-credits via a chestburster and thought that was insulting. I agree. Don't kill him offscreen, don't kill him via chestburster, but don't give him a cliche hero death...
He could have been killed by the prisoners, an alien, or by some other means. I always thought he should have been in the film helping Ripley and growing closer with her only to be killed by the company somehow.