Synopsis for
Aliens (1986)

(scenes in red are only in the Special Edition)

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor from the previous film, having escaped in the lifeboat of the mining ship Nostromo after the alien destroyed the rest of the crew. The film begins with the lifeboat, floating through space. The interior shows Ripley still in cryogenic sleep. The lifeboat is intercepted by a salvage vessel, which returns Ripley and Jones (the cat belonging to the crew of the Nostromo) to Gateway Station, a facility orbiting Earth. When she regains consciousness in a medical bay, she is visited by Burke (Paul Reiser), a representative of Weyland-Yutani (the "company" that Ripley worked for in the first film). Burke gives Ripley some terrible news: she has been in hypersleep for 57 years, her ship having drifted aimlessly through space until the salvage vessel discovered it. As Burke tells her this, Ripley shows clear distress and discomfort. Jones hisses at her as she starts to convulse in the bed. Burke calls for medical attention, and the staff try to restrain Ripley. She pleads with them to kill her, before pulling her shirt up to reveal something pushing out of her stomach. The scene changes to Ripley waking bolt-upright in bed, clutching her chest, revealing the scene to be a dream. A nurse on the monitor next to her bed asks her if she needs something to help her sleep, but Ripley declines. The nurse featured in her dream, and Burke's appearance in the next scene confirms the validity of much of the dream sequence. He tells a devastated Ripley that her daughter (only a child when Ripley left with the Nostromo) has passed away from old age while she has drifted through space.

Weyland-Yutani takes legal action against Ripley because she admits to destroying the Nostromo. They deny any knowledge of the alien creature she encountered, and treat her as if she is mentally unstable. The board revokes her flight license and submits her to psychometric supervision. Ripley is shocked to learn that the planetoid her crew discovered, now known as LV-426, has been colonized by terraformers, who are creating an atmosphere to make the air breathable.

Shortly thereafter, at the colony on LV-426, the colonists receive company orders to investigate an unsurveyed part of the surface. One of the surveyors, together with his wife, son and daughter (Carrie Henn), discovers the derelict ship (as seen in Alien). He and his wife go in, but after a very long while, the wife comes back and calls for help on the radio: her husband is lying on the ground with a creature attached to his face (those who have seen Alien will recognise it as a face hugger).

Released on her own recognizance, Ripley takes work running loaders and forklifts, work that is clearly beneath her. Some time passes and she is visited by Burke, who is accompanied by Lt. Gorman (William Hope) of the colonial Marines. Burke tells Ripley that contact with the colony on LV-426 has been lost, and that the company would like her to act as an advisor to a squadron of Marines traveling to the planetoid to investigate. Burke will come along, as the Company co-financed the colony. As incentive, Weyland-Yutani has agreed to reinstate Ripley as a warrant officer if she goes. Ripley refuses, as she dreads going back to the place where she first encountered the alien, and because she is still frustrated that nobody at the Company believed her earlier story. But as her nightmares continue, she feels that if she does not go on the mission, she will never regain her confidence. She calls Burke, and when he assures her that the mission to LV-426 is to eradicate the Aliens, not to study or capture them, she gives in.

The soldiers, accompanied by Ripley and Burke, arrive with the ship Sulaco and orbit the planet. After awakening from hypersleep, seasoned veteran sergeant Apone (Al Matthews) quickly takes command. Ripley discovers that she and the Alien threat are not taken seriously by the marines on the mission. One tough female marine named Vasquez (Jeanette Goldstein) refers to Ripley as "Snow White", and the soldiers seem to regard her the same as their inexperienced ranking officer, Gorman. Ripley is also dismayed to learn that an android named Bishop (Lance Henriksen) has accompanied them on the mission; she mistrusts androids ever since her encounter with Ash, and she has an angry confrontation with Bishop when he tries to befriend her. But she gradually begins to impress the soldiers, offering to help them load their drop ship and displaying her expertise with the large power loader. Cpl. Hicks (Michael Biehn) takes a special interest in Ripley, impressed with the strong personality she reveals.

Taking the drop ship from the Sulaco to the planet, they fly over the colony, which is a gigantic man-made structure. One of the soldiers, private Hudson (Bill Paxton) is loudly boasting about his courage and the supreme firepower that they have at their disposal. Burke explains that the facility is an "atmosphere processor" designed to make planets suitable for human life. The ship lands and deploys an armoured personal carrier (APC) with the marines before taking off again. The marines exit the APC and enter the man colony complex. They sweep the building with motion trackers, but find the building deserted ,save for a few laboratory guinea-pigs. Inside, the soldiers discover evidence of a battle, including several barricades and acid-burns on the ground, but conclude the building is safe for now. Gorman, Burke and Ripley enter the building, but Ripley is visibly affected by bad memories. In the medical lab, they finally happen upon evidence of Ripley's story: in a series of stasis tubes, they find several "facehugger" organisms, the life stage of the Alien creature that attaches itself to the face of a host. Two of them appear to be still alive. Ripley and the others make an even more startling discovery: a little girl, about eleven years old, who has survived the alien assault on the colony. She runs away at the sight of the marines, but Ripley succeeds in winning her trust. Initially, the girl is non-communicative, seemingly in shock, but Ripley gets through to her and discovers that her name is Newt (she is the daughter of the surveyor family, as seen in a scene at the beginning of the Special Edition). Newt tells Ripley that her parents and the others are dead, victims of the Aliens.

The cocky Pvt. Hudson tracks the colonists by using homing devices embedded in their skin, and discovers that the entire population seems to be crowded underneath the primary heat exchangers of the facility. The team take the APC to the atmosphere processor, where Apone and the marines get out and Gorman remains to coordinate the sweep from a distance. Upon investigation, they discover an alien hive containing the dead bodies of the colonists, cocooned as hosts for the alien parasites. One colonist is yet alive, but an infant Alien (a "chestburster") bursts its way out of her chest. The marines kill it with a flame thrower, but the sudden stir awakens the dormant adult Aliens, which are concealed inside the walls. They begin to surprise-attack the marines, quickly decimating their numbers. Gorman, who is unprepared for battle, begins to panic, and Ripley takes control, driving the soldiers' APC back into the nest to try and rescue the survivors. She recovers Vasquez, Hicks, and Hudson. Gorman is knocked unconcious as Aliens attempt to infiltrate the vehicle; Ripley drives the APC out of the facility, crushing several aliens along the way and driving straight through a closed metal door. This destroys the APC's driving axle, rendering the tank immobile.

The survivors discover that several of their missing colleagues are still displaying life signs on the monitor. Ripley assures them nothing can be done, as they are being coccooned like the rest. She suggests taking off and nuking the site from orbit, but Burke protests, as he is concerned about the dollar value of the facility. "They can bill me," Ripley replies. Cpl. Hicks, who is now in command, seconds Ripleys' motion, and they summon the dropship. However, an Alien that has slipped on board kills the pilots in mid-flight, and the ship crashes.

Ripley and the others are stranded, and Hudson is starting to annoy the group with his incessant desperations. Newt warns them that they should take cover because the aliens come at night. They retreat back into the facility, where they survey their limited remaining weaponry. Amongst this are two sentry guns, remote operated rifles that can automatically seek out targets. A rescue team can be expected no earlier than 17 days, so the survivors decide to fortify the barricades and seal off all possible access routes for the Aliens. The plan is quickly brought into action, and the sentry guns are placed at strategic locations where the Aliens are expected to try and enter the building. A test shows they function optimally.

Hicks gives Ripley a small locator to wear on her body, so he can find her anywhere inside the complex. Ripley puts Newt to bed. Newt wonders about what happened to her mother, but Ripley can't give her the answer. She tells Newt about her own daughter, who has also died. Ripley puts her locator on Newt, so she can always see where she is.

The group is discussing the Aliens, and their way of reproduction: humans are used as hosts for the facehuggers, which come from an egg; but what produces these eggs? Hudson proposes a large, dominant female, a Queen, such as in an insect colony. Ripley orders Bishop to destroy the two remaining facehuggers, but he tells her he got orders from Burke to keep them alive. Ripley confronts Burke about it; after checking the colony log, she learns that Burke was responsible for sending the colonists to the alien ship, when he learned about it from Ripley's testimony at her trial. Ripley blames Burke for not warning the colonists about the danger, and Burke tries to convince her to smuggle the two alien facehuggers back to Earth for sale to Weyland-Yutani. Ripley refuses and angrily vows to expose Burke's treachery.

As Ripley exits the room, the alarm sounds: the Aliens have arrived at the first set of sentry guns inside the access tunnel. The guns kill many Aliens, but they quickly run out of ammo; the Aliens' numbers are vastly superior. Bishop calls in that there is another problem: The reactor starts venting air. They learn that damage to the structure has caused it to malfunction; the cooling units have failed and the facility will explode in a huge nuclear explosion within hours. After another one of Hudson's cries of despair, Bishop offers to crawl through a small conduit which will lead to the uplink tower, which he can use to remote-pilot the Sulaco's second dropship to the surface.

The second set of sentry guns empties its ammo into the hoard of Aliens, and it seems to repel them; but the creatures may have started looking for other ways in. Hicks promises Ripley he will not let her die by the Aliens. He then gives Ripley a brief course in how to use a pulse rifle, and their attraction to one another is obvious by now. On her way back to Newt, Ripley passes by Gorman, who has regained conciousness, and is clearly embarrassed by his earlier behavior. She proceeds to Newt and finds her curled up asleep, hiding underneath the bed. Instead of waking her, Ripley joins her underneath for a nap, laying her pulse rifle on the bed for safe keeping.

Meanwhile, Bishop has reached the uplink tower, and is preparing the other dropship for departure. Ripley wakes up to find two stasis tubes on the ground: the two facehuggers have escaped. They are locked inside the lab and the pulse rifle has been removed. Ripley and Newt are attacked by the scurrying facehuggers, but Ripley manages to signal the others by triggering the fire alarm with her cigarette lighter. Hicks, Hudson, and Vasquez rescue them just as a facehugger attempts to attach itself to Ripley's face. Ripley knows it must be Burke who was acting in retaliation. Ripley suggests that Burke intended to 'impregnate' herself and Newt with the facehuggers, then murder the other Marines in their cryotubes. He would emerge back at Earth as the only survivor, since she and Newt would die from the aliens inside their bodies.

As they debate what they should do with Burke, the power to the facility is cut and the aliens launch an attack, circumventing the barricades by climbing through the crawlspace over the ceiling. As the remaining marines take on the Aliens, Burke slips away and prevents their escape by sealing the med lab door; however, he is killed by an Alien that has found a way inside the med lab. Newt finds an alternate escape through the air ducts. Hudson is taken by several Aliens coming up from the floor grid, and once inside the vent, Vasquez and Gorman sacrifice themselves when Vasquez is disabled by an injury. Together they trigger a grenade that decimates the pursuing Aliens, but the explosion causes Newt to fall through a ventilation shaft that leads to the bottom of the facility. Ripley and Hicks take the stairs to the basement, but Newt is snatched by an Alien before they can rescue her. Ripley screams in desperation, but remains determined to rescue Newt; she knows the aliens will not kill Newt, but will cocoon her to await a facehugger. She and Hicks take the elevator up, but an Alien jumps in before the doors close. Hicks kills the creature, but is severely wounded by the Alien's acidic blood. Ripley drags Hicks out through the complex main doors and they meet up with the rescue ship that Bishop has piloted on remote, but Ripley demands that Bishop take her back to the atmosphere processor to rescue Newt.

Bishop flies the dropship into the atmosphere processor, which is now beginning to overload, and lands on a high platform. Ripley arms herself with a pulse rifle and a flame thrower, ignoring Bishop's warnings that the explosion is imminent. She says goodbye to the wounded Hicks, who, as a sign of trust, tells her his name is Dwayne; Ripley tells him she is called Ellen. Ripley returns to the Alien hive, takes an elevator down and leaves signal flares on the ground as she infiltrates the basement. She uses the locator signal to find Newt, but only finds the detached locator. She collapses to the floor, struck with grief, but hears Newt scream: the girl has been coccooned and is threatened by a facehugger. Ripley kills the creature and several Aliens coming in, and frees the girl. While escaping with Newt, Ripley stumbles into an egg chamber that houses a monstrous alien, the Queen of the hive. Several warrior Aliens close in on them, but when Ripley threatens to destroy the eggs, the Queen orders them back non-verbally. As the facility begins to overheat and disintegrate, Ripley destroys the eggs and Aliens, severing the Queen from her huge egg-sac that is attached to its lower body.The Queen furiously pursues Ripley and Newt, who just make it back to the elevator. As they arrive on the platform, they find that the dropship has left already. While the surrounding complex is quickly exploding and collapsing, another elevator door opens, and the Queen comes out. Ripley intends to leap to their deaths rather than let the Queen kill them, but then the second dropship comes hovering over the platform, and Ripley and Newt are narrowly able to get on safely and on time. The dropship carrying Ripley, Newt, Bishop and Hicks barely escapes as the processing facility explodes in a massive mushroom cloud.

Back on the Sulaco, Bishop says he had to sedate Hicks for the pain. Ripley makes peace with Bishop, thanking him for saving their lives. Suddenly, Bishop is speared from behind by a huge tail, and ripped in half at the waist by the Queen: she has stowed away by hiding inside a landing pod bay. She advances menacingly towards Ripley and Newt, and they scatter. Newt dives under the flooring, but the Queen starts ripping it up until she has the child cornered. Suddenly, Ripley appears, inside the large forklift powerloader. The exoskeleton-like machine makes her an even match for the giant Queen, and they clash. Ripley grabs the Queen and attempts to dump her into the ship's airlock, but she gets dragged down into the lock with her. Ripley barely manages to climb out, opening the outer lock door to deep space, and somehow pulling herself back into the Sulaco and closing the airlock, while the Queen is sucked out into space. Bishop, now only an upper torso, congratulates her: "Not bad for a human" as Ripley and Newt hug.

The film ends as Ripley prepares Newt, Hicks, and what's left of Bishop for hypersleep for the journey back to Earth. She assures Newt she can sleep all the way, and that they both can dream. They are both in deep sleep as the credits start rolling.