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.
Okay, I shouldn't be commenting more but:
The corporation is bad because they want to use the aliens as biological weapons and sent Ripley's crew and the colonists to the planet as guinea pigs. That's why the middle manager wants to keep them alive.
right so I understood that perfectly well and it's what I mean by "only wants to exploit them for profit". my point was not that Burke is actually good. the point is that by having the villain be the only one to advocate against extermination, the audience is expected to view that position as inherently wrong. only someone with ulterior motives would believe such a thing
it's similar to what happens in a lot of superhero trash where the villain is seemingly motivated by fighting injustice but then he kills a bunch of babies or something to assure us that it's bad actually
I would argue that Aliens does have a more complicated morality than you're suggesting.
In my view, Ripley wanting to wipe all the aliens out may not be the most moral reaction to experiencing all her co-workers being killed by a sexual assault monster and then witnessing the aftermath of hundreds of people being slaughtered by that species of sexual assault monsters, but I think it is understandable that she'd feel that way. The thing is that the movie actually does call into question whether this is the right thing to do when it draws an explicit parallel between the alien queen and Ripley- the queen is protecting its offspring in the same way that Ripley is protecting her surrogate daughter, which complicates the morality of this conflict and its result. In the end, the entire conflict is the result of a corporation seeking profit, creating a situation that spiralled out of control.
It's why I compare it to Avatar- James Cameron understands that people's moral decisions aren't usually the result of taking a view from a divine perch of perfect politics, but from an accumulation of their experiences and the material reality they face. Jake Sully is not the hero of Avatar because he's a great person- if he still had his legs and was just hired as a grunt on Pandora then he would have been just another genocidal colonial soldier. He had a very specific set of experiences that made him sympathize with the Na'Vi, and Ripley had a set of experiences that led to all her actions in all the movies. Like, sympathizing with the Xenomorphs or valuing their existence would be really hard for anyone who had to actually deal with them.