List of Alien Characters - Aliens

Aliens

• Sergeant Al Apone

Sergeant Apone (Al Matthews) was the squad leader of the team that went to investigate LV-426. Apone was far more liked and respected than his C.O, Lieutenant Gorman. During the first incursion into the atmospheric processor, he enforced Gorman's orders not to use pulse rifle and smartgun ammunition. Shortly after finding a still-alive cocooned colonist whose chest bursts to reveal an alien, Apone grabbed a flamethrower from Frost to incinerate it. Aliens ambushed the marines shortly after, and in the confusion while trying to communicate with his squad, he is grabbed by an alien. Apone's importance to the squad is shown in this scene, as the squad loses unit cohesion shortly after his capture, and Gorman freezes up. Hudson later points out that the readouts on the APC show he was not killed in the attack; thus, he was presumably impregnated by an alien and either died when the atmosphere processor exploded or from an alien fully gestating in his body.

• Bishop

Bishop (Lance Henriksen) was the android executive officer assigned to the Sulaco and was primarily responsible for planetary maneuvering. Unlike Ash, he was loyal to his seniors, colleagues and especially Ripley. Although Bishop tried to be friendly to Ripley, she did not trust him until he had proved himself.

The Marines from the Sulaco — along with Ripley, Bishop, and company executive Burke (Paul Reiser) — set down on LV-426 and discover that Aliens have killed almost all of the colonists. The Aliens then kill Burke and most of the Marine contingent. Bishop does not engage in combat, however, instead acting as a medic and tending to other support functions. Bishop saves Ripley, Newt (Carrie Henn), and Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) by piloting their dropship out of the exploding atmosphere processing station. However, upon landing on the Sulaco, Bishop is ripped in half by the Alien queen that had attached itself to the dropship. When Ripley opens the airlock to expel the Alien queen into space, Bishop saves himself and Newt. Afterward, he is placed in hypersleep with Ripley, Newt, and Hicks.

• Carter J. Burke

Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) was a corporate executive who befriended Ripley at the Gateway Station following her return from hypersleep (his business card identifies him as Special Projects Director of the Weyland Yutani (Space) Corp's Special Services Division). After revealing that Ripley had been frozen for 57 years, (and, in the special edition, that her daughter had since deceased) he comforts a heartbroken Ripley and wins her trust. When contact is lost with the colony on LV-426, Burke persuades a reluctant Ripley to join the military expedition as an advisor, in return for him helping her regain her flight license. She finally agrees when he assures her that the mission is to destroy, not study, the aliens. He accompanies the squad aboard Sulaco, presumably to safeguard the company's investment in the terraforming colony.

Once on the colony, Ripley discovers Burke's ulterior motives. She learns from Bishop that Burke had ordered him to preserve all alien specimens for transportation to company labs, and she also discovers that it was Burke who deliberately sent the colonists to investigate the derelict spacecraft where the Nostromo crew had first encountered the alien, having been told about it by Ripley. Furthermore, when Ripley suggests they take off and nuke the site from orbit, Burke reasons, against Ripley and Vasquez, that the Aliens are an important species and they do not have the right to exterminate them or to destroy the multi-million dollar facility.

Ripley confronts Burke, and realizes that his intention all along had been to make himself rich by exploiting the alien's potential for research and bio-weapons. Following this, he specifically targets Ripley by planning to infect her and Newt with alien embryos to smuggle the aliens past quarantine and then sabotage the Marines' cryo-chambers. He locks Ripley and Newt in a room with two facehuggers and then turns off the room's security camera, although Ripley manages to alert the Marines and they are rescued.

The Marines plan to kill Burke but are interrupted by the aliens approaching the medlabs. In the chaos, Burke escapes and seals himself off from the pursuing marines. An alien then attacks him from behind and he is not seen again. In a deleted scene which was also excluded from the Director's Cut, whilst searching for Newt in the alien nest, Ripley finds a cocooned and impregnated Burke, who begs her to help him. Ripley hands him a grenade as she walks past.

• Private Tip Crowe

Private Crowe (Tip Tipping) is one of the first marines killed when the platoon is attacked in the alien hive. He dies when the ammo Frost was carrying explodes and he was hurled into a wall, breaking his neck. He was barely seen in the entire movie and he was given only one line of dialog.

• Corporal Cynthia Dietrich

Corporal Dietrich (Cynthia Dale Scott) was the corpsman who gave Newt an examination after they found her. Dietrich later became the first victim of the Aliens when her Marine squad entered the hive (atmosphere processing station). When grappled by an alien, she accidentally used her flamethrower in panic, killing Frost and igniting the bag of ammunition he was wearing. It is presumed that she became cocooned by the Aliens to be impregnated by a facehugger and killed by the atmosphere processing station's explosion or possibly from an alien fully gestating in her body.

• Private Mark Drake

Private Drake (Mark Rolston) was the smartgunning partner of Vasquez. The two marines shared a special bond. While covering the marines' evacuation to the APC, he was killed during the first encounter with the aliens, when Vasquez shot an Alien beside him, and he was covered in its acidic blood.

• Corporal Colette Ferro

Corporal Ferro (Colette Hiller) was the dropship pilot, staying with the craft during the alien ambush. When Corporal Hicks ordered an evacuation from the planet, Ferro was ambushed and killed in midair. The alien that had sneaked onto the dropship had already killed Spunkmeyer. Her death is not shown but blood is visible on the windshield of the dropship just before it hits the ground. The Director's Cut of Aliens shows a brief shot of the dropship's cockpit from outside, with Ferro's blood being spattered across the glass.

• Private Ricco Frost

Private Frost (Ricco Ross) was a trooper in the Sulaco unit that investigated LV-426, and acted throughout the movie as a jokester. Frost was the driver of the unit's APC. He seemed to have a good friendship with some of the marines including Hicks and Hudson. During their investigation of the Alien hive, Frost was given the task of carrying the platoon's ammunition when they entered the hive under the nuclear reactor. He was killed when Corporal Dietrich accidentally triggered her flamethrower and he fell over a rail. He was armed with a Flamethrower, which he relinquished to Sgt. Apone just before his death.

• Lieutenant William Gorman

Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope) led the ill-fated mission to LV-426 until the first encounter with the aliens. As he was recruited by Burke (likely as an unwilling pawn, as Burke's secret agenda is to retrieve an alien sample) the marines do not take kindly to Gorman (Hicks complains that their lieutenant is too good to eat with his men). He was inexperienced, having gone through 38 simulated drops, but only one previous combat drop. He is also slow to understand situations and often needs things explained to him. When Ripley points out that he's sending his men into combat under the colony's heat exchanger, he needs Burke to explain to him in simple language what happens if the cooling system of a fusion reactor is damaged. Gorman provided command and support to the marines when they first secured the abandoned colony, and when they explored the atmospheric processor. When the aliens sprung their ambush, there was confusion and disarray among the marines who were no longer responding to Gorman's orders, causing him to lose his cool. In Ripley's subsequent rescue attempt, Gorman was knocked unconscious by falling objects. Vasquez blames Gorman for Drake's death and tries to strike him, being held back by Cpl. Hicks.

Gorman later regains consciousness, having deferred to Cpl. Hicks as they planned their defense of the colony. Gorman assisted the marines in killing the face-huggers attacking Ripley and Newt. When the aliens assaulted the operations room, Vasquez was injured during their attempted escape, Gorman volunteered to go back and get her out, but his pistol ran out of ammunition. Realizing that they are trapped by aliens, he assisted her in becoming a martyr by setting off one of his grenades, earning him the gratitude and respect of Vasquez. Her last words to him—"You always were an asshole, Gorman"—were said in a genial, almost affectionate, manner, meaning that Gorman could simply never do anything right even in trying to do something good.

• Corporal Dwayne Hicks

Corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn, who took over the role after one week of shooting from James Remar) was one of the Colonial Marines who took charge when the squad's Sergeant Apone was taken alive by the Aliens and commanding officer Lt. Gorman was knocked out. He was later wounded after a burst of acid from an alien encounter began to burn through his armor.

While not comfortable taking over the role as squad leader, his demeanor, unlike the machismo bravado of other squad members showed a thoughtful intelligence. Sincere and impartial, he was open to any suggestions as to how to defeat the Alien invasion. During the holdout after surviving the first alien encounter, it becomes clear that a bond of mutual respect and affection (perhaps something stronger) developed with Ripley (as seen demonstrating to her the operation of the pulse rifle). He is among the four remaining survivors in Aliens. Hicks is killed at the beginning of Alien 3 after being impaled by a broken support brace during hypersleep.

• Private William Hudson

Private William Hudson (Bill Paxton) was the squad's jokester and computer tech expert. He seemed arrogant and overconfident of his squad's firepower and abilities. However, he soon cracked under large amounts of stress after most of his Marine squad were taken during the Alien attack in the hive. Later on, he was able to pull himself together and regain his composure. Like Vasquez, Private Hudson bravely fought to the end in the colony's operation room where Ripley and the rest of the few remaining Marines made their last stand. At the last minute, he was pulled through a floor grating by an Alien while he was providing cover for Ripley, Newt and the rest of his fellow Marines as they escaped. It was presumed he was taken to the hive to be cocooned and impregnated in the nest which was later destroyed by the nuclear explosion.

• Rebecca "Newt" Jorden

Rebecca "Newt" Jorden (Carrie Henn) was the only survivor amongst the colonists of LV-426. She had been living in the air ducts within the compound and was discovered by the marines after they picked her up on the motion tracker. Newt bonded rather quickly with the marines and it was her strength of mind, for somebody so young, that helped to bring Hudson back from the brink of despair. She is killed at the beginning of Alien 3 when her spacepod crashes into Fiorina's ocean during hypersleep and she drowns without regaining consciousness.

• Ripley

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) goes with the Marines to LV-426 as a civilian adviser, having encountered the aliens previously.

• Private Daniel Spunkmeyer

Private Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash) was the dropship chief weapons officer. He stayed with Ferro at the dropship and was either killed by an Alien that sneaked on board or perished in the dropship's crash.

• Paul Van Leuwen

Van Leuwen (Paul Maxwell) was the chairman of the Interstellar Commerce Commission board that reviewed Ripley's case concerning the destruction of the Nostromo in Alien. He dismissed Ripleys's claims of a hostile organism and then decided to have her flight license revoked, as well as putting her through months of medical evaluations.

• Private Jenette Vasquez

Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) was a smartgunner on the Sulaco, partnered with Drake. Vasquez survived the hive and helped seal off the complex from the aliens. She fought together with Drake and killed many aliens during the attack. She was injured when acidic blood from an alien that was shot at point blank range landed on her leg disabling her. Gorman and Vasquez together put their hands on a live grenade to avoid being taken by the aliens. Scholar Judith Halberstam, in her book titled Female Masculinity, wrote that the character is a strong example of female masculinity in film. The Aliens: Colonial Marines comic book limited series features her younger sister (Carmen Vasquez), also a Marine.

• Private Trevor Wierzbowski

Private Wierzbowski (Trevor Steedman) is barely seen at all in the film. He is injured when the ammunition bag, which had been carried by Frost, detonates and is then attacked and either killed or taken by an Alien off-screen. It's presumed he died shortly after since Hudson did not mention his vital signs when he noticed Apone's and Dietrich's. He was armed with a flamethrower. The novelization by Alan Dean Foster states that Ripley liked Wierzbowski.

• Mary

Mary is the cocooned colonist whom the Marine squad discovers alive in the hive. She pleads with the Marines to kill her, as Corporal Dietrich tries to comfort her. She subsequently dies when a chestburster erupts from her and her body was torched by Apone.

• Russ Jorden

Russ Jorden (Jay Benedict) is Newt's father, one of the "wildcatters" whom Operating Manager Al Simpson sends beyond the colony to search for a derelict ship (Space Jockey’s spacecraft) on vague orders of Carter Burke back on Earth. Russ Jorden and his wife went inside the Space Jockey’s derelict spacecraft to investigate, and discovered the ancient Alien egg nest, where he was then implanted by a facehugger. He is the second known human to be implanted by a face hugger since Nostromo crewmember Kane's discovery of the Alien egg nest and subsequent facehugger implantation 57 years earlier. He only appears in the Special Edition version of the film.

• Ann Jorden

Ann Jorden (Holly de Jong) is Newt's mother. She accompanied her husband inside the discovered Space Jockey's derelict ship and presumed to have discovered the ancient Alien egg nest inside the ship. She later drags her husband's body (who was implanted by a facehugger) back to the family's tractor to radio for help from the colony. She only appears in the Special Edition version of the film.

• Timmy Jorden

Timmy Jorden (Christopher Henn) is Newt's brother. He keeps his little sister company in the family's tractor as their parents investigate inside the Space Jockey’s ship. Tim is the only person who calls Newt by her real name, Rebecca. He only appears in the Special Edition version of the film.