Aliens 1986

As Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) emerges from a 57-year slumber, she’s met with skepticism by her employers at Weyland-Yutani Corporation regarding the destruction of the Nostromo and the sinister force that drove her to destroy it. The corporation remains unconvinced of the Alien’s deadly potential, dismissing Ripley’s claims that it spawned thousands of eggs on LV-426, an exomoon where human colonization efforts are underway. Undeterred, Ripley warns that if these eggs reach Earth, humanity would face extinction as the Aliens gestate inside living hosts.

Meanwhile, on LV-426, the Terraforming colony Hadley’s Hope has thrived for over two decades, with 60-70 families adapting the planet’s atmosphere to make it habitable. However, when an exploration team accidentally triggers the Alien breeding process by disturbing the eggs, the horrors that unfold will test the very fabric of human existence.

As contact is lost with Hadley’s Hope, Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) and Colonial Marine Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope) turn to Ripley for assistance. Initially traumatized by her previous encounter with the Alien, Ripley initially refuses to accompany Burke and a Colonial Marine unit to investigate the disturbance on LV-426. However, recurring nightmares about the creature eventually compel her to join the expedition, with one condition: that the Aliens be destroyed, not captured.

As Ripley boards the USS Sulaco alongside Colonial Marines and android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), her apprehension is palpable. Her troubled past with the traitorous Ash has left her wary of artificial intelligence, particularly after being forced to confront the horrors she experienced during her 57-year ordeal in stasis.

The expedition’s drop-ship delivers them to the surface of LV-426, where they find the colony eerily deserted. Signs of a desperate struggle are evident throughout, with makeshift barricades and containment tanks holding two live face-Huggers. Amidst the devastation, the crew discovers a lone survivor: a traumatized young girl known as Newt (Carrie Henn), who managed to evade capture or death by utilizing the ventilation system.

As they search for signs of life, the crew uses the colony’s computer to locate the colonists, only to find them gathered beneath the fusion-powered atmosphere processing station. With corridors covered in Alien secretions and an air of foreboding, the stage is set for a desperate battle against an enemy that will stop at nothing to ensure its own survival.

As the marines delve deeper into the heart of the desolate station, they stumble upon the colonists, eerily suspended in a state of dormancy, unwittingly serving as nurseries for the Aliens’ offspring. The discovery sparks chaos when the newborn Alien is brutally slaughtered by the marines, prompting the extraterrestrial entities to awaken and unleash a merciless counterattack that claims several lives and snatches others from the battlefield. Amidst the mayhem, the inexperienced Gorman falters, allowing Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to seize control of their vehicle and stage a daring rescue mission to liberate marines Hicks (Michael Biehn), Hudson (Bill Paxton), and Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) from the jaws of death. As they flee the nest, Hicks orders the drop-ship to recover the survivors, but a stowaway Alien brutally murders the pilots, sending the vessel crashing to the ground.

With their situation growing increasingly precarious, Ripley, Newt, Burke, and the remaining marines barricade themselves within the colony’s walls. However, their respite is short-lived, as Ripley discovers that Burke has been orchestrating a clandestine operation to exploit the Aliens for personal gain, deliberately sending the colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship where the Nostromo crew first encountered the deadly eggs. Confronting him, Ripley threatens exposure, but Bishop (Winona Ryder) intervenes, warning the group of an even greater peril: the power plant has been severely damaged during the battle and is on the cusp of detonating with a cataclysmic force equivalent to a 40-megaton thermonuclear weapon. Undaunted, Bishop volunteers to embark on a perilous journey through treacherous piping conduits to reach the colony’s transmitter and remotely pilot the Sulaco’s remaining drop-ship to the surface.

As night begins to fall, Ripley and Newt succumb to exhaustion in the medical laboratory, only to awaken and find themselves trapped with two face-Huggers, which have been released from their tanks. Ripley triggers a fire alarm to alert the marines, who launch a rescue mission that ultimately claims the lives of the alien creatures. However, this small victory is soon tempered by the revelation that Burke has been secretly manipulating events to ensure the impregnation of Ripley and Newt with Alien embryos, allowing him to smuggle the deadly cargo past Earth’s quarantine controls. Moreover, he plans to eliminate the remaining marines during the return trip, rendering them powerless to contradict his version of events.

Before the marines can exact justice upon Burke, the electricity is abruptly cut, and Aliens burst forth from the ceiling, snatching Vasquez and Gorman in their deadly grasp. Hudson, Burke, and Newt are captured, leaving Ripley as the last bastion of resistance against the relentless onslaught.

As Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the gravely injured Hicks (Michael Biehn) stumble upon Bishop in the second drop-ship, a sense of desperation washes over them. Refusing to leave behind the vulnerable Newt, Ripley’s maternal instincts kick into high gear as she hastily constructs a makeshift weapon. With her newfound determination, she ventures back into the heart of danger, this time to rescue Newt from the treacherous processing station where the Alien queen (royal jelly-like substance) slumbers in her egg chamber. The air is thick with tension as Ripley and Newt confront the formidable monarch, her eggs bursting forth like a deadly, writhing entity. Ripley’s boldness sparks a chain reaction: she annihilates the eggs, infuriating the queen who tears free from her Ovipositor, sending them fleeing in terror. With the queen hot on their heels, the unlikely quartet - Ripley, Newt, Bishop (Lance Henriksen), and Hicks - converges on the drop-ship, narrowly escaping the colony’s destruction as a nuclear blast ravages the landscape.

On board the Sulaco, the relief of their narrow escape is short-lived. The Alien queen, secretly stowed away on the landing gear of the drop-ship, unleashes her wrath upon Bishop, cleaving him in two like a sacrificial offering to the merciless universe. Newt’s life hangs precariously in the balance as the queen closes in, only for Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to intervene with an Exosuit cargo-loader, expelling the beast through the airlock. As the dust settles, Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the badly battered Bishop opt for hyper-sleep, their weary bodies surrendering to the crushing weight of their ordeal as they embark on the long journey back to Earth.