I'm old enough that I saw Aliens in the theatre, with my Dad. I remember he had a similar perspective to you. His comment was how the original alien was smarter than than the crew, but in the second movie the aliens are just dumb animals. This may be true, but for me the second movie is one of my all-time favourites.
Don't forget the instances where they display intelligent behavior. Such as turning off the power, operating elevators, the alien queen telling the drones to back off.
I don't think operating an elevator (etc.) compares to hunting down and decimating the entire crew (almost) one by one. Such behavior is so far more advanced than anything we see in the second movie. There is a real sense that the alien is just plain smarter than everyone in the crew, and in the end ripley just has to run for it. None of this happens in the second movie, where it's just a slaughter fest.
> His comment was how the original alien was smarter than than the crew, but in the second movie the aliens are just dumb animals.
In the first movie, there was only one Alien and it acted more like a lone hunter. In the second movie, there were lots of aliens and they acted like a hive. I think that it's possible for both of these to be consistent with each other.
