Of course the entire genre of cosmic horror is reactionary by its very nature, except when there is enough self-awareness to subvert or satirize the genre's reactionary logic, as in Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. But James Cameron's Aliens has no interest in self-critique, sharing a lot more in common with Heinlein's original novel.
Xenomorphs have only ever defended themselves from human colonizers invading their home, but we're expected to see them as evil, the scary other. The aliens must be bad because they pose a threat to us. Oh, and because they're ugly.
At least in the first Alien, the human crew members are sympathetic because they are merely surviving a situation they didn't want to be in, put in peril by a corporation sacrificing them for profit. Humans, not aliens, are the true villains of the film.
But in Aliens, our hero Ripley goes back to the moon with a special team of Colonial Space Marines to kick some alien ass. While this is ostensibly a mission to save a group of endangered colonists, Ripley has no interest in a search-and-rescue mission. She only agrees on the condition that they go there to kill every last Xenomorph.
Ripley is more than willing to exterminate an entire species to save one little white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. In fact she still wants to genocide them even after safely escaping.
Ripley: I say we nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure
Burke: This is clearly an important species we're dealing with, and I don't think that we have the right to arbitrarily exterminate them.
Ripley: Wrong!
be sure of what, Ripley? you can just fucking leave. don't go back to the moon with all the Xenomorphs on it. seems pretty easy to me
now of course it turns out that Burke doesn't actually care about the Xenomorphs, he only wants to exploit them for profit. while this is keeping with the corporations=bad theme from the first movie, now we're supposed to think corporations are bad for... not wanting to do genocide? because of course no good person would be against murdering an entire species for no reason, only a villain would propose such a thing.
Now I'm not saying you can't enjoy Aliens, it deserves its status as one of the best action / sci-fi films of all time, and I'd argue these problematic reactionary themes actually make it more interesting and morally complex, giving us much to analyze and critique, elevating it above an average popcorn movie. Just please don't take it at face value.
Ripley is no longer the hero, even if she's portrayed as one. In Alien she is the scratched liberal, and in Aliens she is the fascist who bleeds. In a tragic turn, she has become the villain of the story. She reacts to her own trauma and loss of motherhood with mass murder, by killing another mother's babies right in front of her, and we're all supposed to clap and cheer, instead of asking why these humans are there in the first place.
I’ve heard a lot of bad stuff about it mainly due to the cgi of the dead actor, but it’s ableist too? I was already annoyed it existed since they made this instead of another Ridley prequel but I didn’t realize it was that bad
Yeah, they make a synth character a Rain Man-esque caricature and treat the whole concept of synths as a stand-in for intellectual disabilities/autism/neurodivergence; he gets treated like shit and used and abused much how real people who belong to the aforementioned groups are abused in real life (I think you could argue there are strong parallels with shock therapy, forceful restraint, etc. and straight up emotional abuse and manipulation). The movie basically says he deserves it because he isn't a "real human" and the movie expects us to sympathize with and root for the other characters who treat him like shit. It wouldn't feel so bad, however, if the film makers didn't make it seem they sympathized with him and acknowledged that the way he is treated is unjust and gross in the beginning of the movie only to pull the rug out at the end with how they handle his character.