Indeed and to me it was also clear in alien covenant its not truly xenomorphs we are dealing with both Davids version which might be a prototype or a different breed completely depending on how one intercept the movie and the novel, and dont come here with: novel dont count etc when the novel seem to be taken as canon for alien and aliens in the streams from avpgalaxy. Back to point: covenants proto xenomorphs was very different in their design and more flesh and no biomechanical and from what they did they were SUPER aggressive towards anything and it identified the crane as an enemy to attack.
Which our normal xenomorphs wouldnt as they like to watch and learn before striking and they can tell machine apart from living beings.
So I wouldnt take covenants aliens as evidence of xenomorphs being dumb and defencless.
The rest I agree with Sil on with his points.
In alien big chap showed curiousity, thinking and planning, it was only when it was hibernating onboard the ferry when it was caught off guard with the gas and kinda tight spot so getting out will take a second or two and Ridley scott wanted it to be slow due to in his mind: xenomorphs only live a day before dying.
Aliens, the xenos used swarm tactic on the sentry guns and didnt know at first what they can do, we never see them die on mass or running straight at the sentries but jumping around and trying to get away from its fire, the sentries are likely targeting anything that moves: so any dead xenos limbs and parts that is still moving after they were killed: are still being targeted. In their second attack they change tactics and learn. They didnt lose many as we see the motion tracker showing still 80+ xenomorphs coming for them in the end battle.
Plus they know how electricity work, and to take out their drop ship first and they were smart enough to cut communication and taking over the colony.
rather impressive inteligence on them.
IF I count alien resurrection novel we see they are very smart, not human level but primate level and that is scary.
What AVPR did was to dumb them down to below 2 digit and make them defenceless and also weaker just for making the plot work with the predator to be super good and better, dumbing them down on purpose, which is the difference here.
5,56 and pistol ammo can now kill xenos when we know from aliens and weyland report, anchorpoint essays and other sources you need armour pericing to be able to properly effectively kill them, in aliens just one of them took a lot of pulse rifle ammo or sentry gun fire before dying.
Wolf holds two aliens in their throats with his hands, while the two xenos have their arms and legs free and tail and could stand up from the height wolf lifted them but director thought: nah they cant do anything lol. Like they forgot they have arms, legs and a tail and can still reach the floor with their legs if they wanted....
Amongst other dumbing them down when they could easily have killed wolf if they were anything like a normal xeno or one from avp 2004 movie.
