10 Greatest Unspoken Horror Movie Plot Points

James Cameron's Aliens may lack the comparative restraint of Ridley Scott's moody predecessor, but it's certainly a film densely packed with meaningful character shading all the same.

Case in point, the mid-film scene where android Bishop (Lance Henriksen) is examining a facehugger on Hadley's Hope and is suddenly interrupted by Marine Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash).

Bishop coldly turns his attention to Spunkmeyer and quickly dismisses him, before looking him up and down and turning back to the facehugger, which he then refers to as "magnificent."

Obviously the scene is intended to make us question Bishop on one level, and be suspicious that he could be another malevolent droid, ala the first film's Ash (Ian Holm), waiting in the wings.

But for many fans, there's more to it than that - just like Ash, Bishop is actually fascinated with the facehugger and can't help but see humans as inferior by comparison.

Though Bishop is obviously ultimately a heroic character, this moment seems to show his pleasant facade slip just a little and demonstrate him capable of the same "thoughts" as Ash, even if his programming is thankfully markedly different.

Like Ash, there's an admiration for the facehugger and and comparative indifference towards humans, though in Bishop's case he's at least been programmed to be loyal to the Marines, rather than view them as expendable in the quest for preserving the Xenomorphs.

We'll never know precisely what's going on in Bishop's head, being an android and all, but Cameron clearly wanted to imply that there's far more happening under the hood than we might initially assume.