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surprised there isn't a thread here for this already.
pretttttty stoked to see this one. its got great reviews so far!
Alien is one of my faves, so im glad to see theyre bringing it back to the beginning..
to be fair I liked prometheus and covenant a lot too. but hell ya to bringing it full circle.
Active Member
Just saw it last night and I really loved it, apart from the final act. They completely took an ending from another (not so well received) Alien movie and made it... worse? Truly dissapointing as this movie truly rocks in all other aspects. The atmosphere is eerie, the sets are amazing, the lighting is to die for and I really liked our two main characters. Fede Alvarez is a real fan of the franchise and this is what we have been waiting for.
Is it unique? No. Does it do anything we haven't seen before? Not really. But is it 100% Alien? It is!
If you don't like it you will really have to ask yourself what you wanted to see, what you wished for and what you're expectations are with the Alien franchise. Romulus doesn't really work as a sequel to the first movie, but makes total sense if you have seen all the other movies before.
My ranking so far:
Alien
Alien 3
Aliens
Alien Romulus
Prometheus
Alien Ressurection
Alien Covenant
Throbbing Member
For me, the answer to that question was Prometheus for the most part. It had that sense of discovery that the first film had. The charting of unknown waters and it stood out as one of the few original films in the franchise. It's also one of the few good RS late career films I think. Maybe not perfect but it gave us Michael Fassbinder as an android, so there's that. Covenant then just seemed to be a lesser version of the same thing that was more watered down and catered to all the fans that didn't get what Prometheus was going for. As a result I've got pretty low expectations for this new one. I'll probably just wait and stream it. At least Prometheus was an attempt at an original story. I tend to dislike all the newer, watered down horror remake-uels or whatever we're calling them now that homogenize the story and update the visual aesthetic for this new cgi, adhd generation (I'm looking at you Hellraiser remake!). Glad people dig this one though.Originally Posted by dlb
Gotta say, your ranking is nice. I have a lot of love for Alien 3! My controversial Alien franchise opinion is that Aliens is one of the most overrated, beloved movies of all time. It's sooooo wack compared to the first one. James Cameron is overrated. Yes, dude makes billions with his movies and pleases mass audiences but I'll die on this hill. Aliens sucks. It lacks everything that was great with the first one. It's a hop, skip and a jump away from Rocky franchise cheese levels. If not for the cool art designs from the first film it would be nothing at all to me. Alright, maybe I'm being harsh but it just gets so much love I feel the need to balance the scales some.
Alien
Alien3
Prometheus
Aliens
Alien Resurrection
Alien Covenant
If Romulus is better than Resurrection, I'll be happy enough. Sigourney Weaver's Ripley is the heart of the franchise though and it's always going to fall short of the OG. Franchise horror is very much a love-hate affair.
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I loved Prometheus except for the people being really stupid (especially the DC which is amazing). Absolutely hated Covenant.
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Saw it last night. I haven't simultaneously loved and hated a movie this much since MI: Dead Reckoning.
Unintelligible Whispering
After reading a summary of Romulus, and remembering my sheer disgust after coming out of Covenant, which was the movie which affirmed my decision to never again give money to a beloved franchise based solely on its name, I've decided to give this a wide berth. I don't want to believe we're in Greatest Hits mode to the point where we're recycling shit wholesale, from iconic lines right up to plot points from fucking Resurrection. It feels really creatively bankrupt.
I can't help but think about how even though I found Prometheus lackluster, I respected its ambition if not the stupidity of much of its characters. I find myself wishing that even if it and especially Covenant weren't all they could have been, that Ridley Scott would still get his chance to finish his trilogy. That piece of crap David needs to get his.
BADGERS
Haven't seen this yet... Haven't seen one of these in a while actually. But it always feels like they're chasing after the experience of the first movie... Or that's how it's seemed to me. Why not the second one?
Active Member
Watched it again tonight, this time in German to catch some details I missed before and to focus on the background, and I have to say I liked it a bit more. I just love the production design, Wallfisch's soundtrack, the lighting, the effects, and our two main characters—who are far more relatable than in any of the previous films. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Was it pure fan service? Yes and that's what some people seem to really dislike but where movies like Deadpool and Wolverine are praised for. Was it even necessary to have been made in the first place? No.
But I loved being back in the franchise and it's a hell of a ride that even on a second viewing had me on the edge of my seat. And I'm still not 100% sure about the third act. While I had some issues with Prometheus and even more with Covenant, I too would have been intrigued by where the story could have gone or at least how it might have concluded some of the new ideas Ridley Scott introduced. But Romulus for me is the perfect fan piece for those who can't let go and still love the franchise, mainly the first two movies. And it hit home with me very well. It's a total homage to Alien and Aliens, with a bit too much of Resurrection mixed in, but I appreciate it for what it is - a cool sci-fi movie that looks great and has some horror thrown in there. And considering how few quality sci-fi films we’ve gotten recently—like how The Creator flew under the radar—Romulus stands out. And let's be honest, the franchise went a little perverted and decadent after the first two movies really quickly.
Now, some are clamoring for Neil Blomkamp to have his shot at the franchise. But trust me, that would come with the same issues people have with Romulus and apart from District 9 he's not a good director in my opinion. The key thing missing in Romulus—and what truly ties everything together—is Ellen Ripley and her connection to the Alien. That's a fact and I've read a couple of comics and played most of the games and apart from Alien: Isolation it all has been very lackluster honestly.
So right now I'm very happy even if I would have handled a couple of things a tad differently than Alvarez did. Mainly the third act, some less references to the whole franchise and a tad more gore. But the latter rarely makes movies better as we have experienced with the AvP movies.
A solid 7/10 for me and my ranking from above remains the same.
Last edited by dlb; 08-18-2024 at 05:05 PM.
Active Member
Honest question: What the hell is up with the WIDESPREAD hate for Prometheus and Covenant? (Even saw that Lustmord posted this weekend about Romulus and how the thinks Prom/Cove are trash)
I loved Alien ever since I was a kid. Aliens is ok...but felt like what happened to First Blood with Rambo: First Blood Part 2 (drama turned action movie). Alien 3 is what it is and you like it for what it is or you don't. Alien Resurrection... sorry but worst in the series.
I didn't see Prometheus until it came out on blu-ray, day one purchase and I LOVED it. The score was great, the shots and scenery were beautiful and a great change of pace from the standard dark, ship interiors. And unironically, I thought the concept was cool! "Lets go back to HOW these alien creatures even came to be." Yes, the idea of a superior human race that created it to destroy this human race (us) is a little far fetched... but so is an Alien movie.
Also though Covenant was a cool follow-up and I really liked the further explanation of the Engineers and their role in this whole thing. Again, scenery and score were great.
Guess I just don't understand the hate because to me it feels refreshing that Ridley decided to do something different with the story instead of the same ole same ole "insert people from ship A, into ship B, to deal with Alien". When I saw the plot summary for Romulus, I was like... "wait... so its literally Alien...again".
I don't know. I have a riot shield in front of me as I press "Post" haha let me have it! hahaha
Last edited by Reznor2112; 08-19-2024 at 08:41 AM.
Active Member
I loved prometheus and I enjoyed covenant. Alien resurrection is dumb and stupid but I enjoy it once every half decade or so.
Alien is supreme. Aliens is fine. but it's not my fave. my lackluster opinion may have more to do with my dislike of James Cameron's attitude in general. Dude has come off as a complete blowhard in recent years and its tarnishing my opinion of his films in general.
Alien 3 is pretty enjoyable for me as well, regardless of finchers distain for it.
I dont care for any of the AVP movies. they dont even register in the canon for me.
I look forward to seeing Romulus this week. Wife and I are locking down a sitter for later this week so we can grab dinner and a movie.
I am surprised my wife wants to see this one. if it weren't for that, I would have snuck out day 1 to check it out.
Stubby Member
Beyond based take. Some days I think Aliens has got to be the most overrated film ever. Turns a perfect horror movie into a bloated "action" movie where you have to endure glacial pacing and James Cameron dialogue/characters to get to few bits of action that are overrated anyway and turn Xeno into canon fodder.
Professional Wrestler
Big fan of the alien universe (and predator, for that matter) I unironically have been able to enjoy every film. Though, Covenant was pretty disappointing, I was still happy to get a new film with more to the story...however, since seeing Romulus this past thursday, I've since rewatched covenant and actually found it way more enjoyable -mainly due to Romulus answering some unasked questions we had in Covenant.
that being said, I f'n loved Romulus and will probably be seeing it again at a drive-in this sunday.
Unintelligible Whispering
There are a few reasons for this, some fair, some not. Prometheus wanted to explore some grand concepts - our place in the universe, our creators and our relation to them, us as creators in comparison to our creations - and it was all too much for what people were expecting from 'An Alien Movie'.
The second problem was that it leaves a lot of questions unanswered - which may or may not have been intentional or planned for a future instalment or whathaveyou.
What was the black goo (answered in Covenant)?
Why did the Engineers want to kill us, their own creations? (A: Because according to Ridley Scott, Jesus was an Engineer sent to teach humanity and we murdered him for it - some Engineers wanted to forgive us for it, others to exterminate us, and there was a conflict between factions over it).
Why was David putting black goo in drinks (Answered in Covenant - he's performing unethical research of his own and is apparently dangerously fucking insane as a result of being made too human).
How did the black goo cause so many different mutations? (A: It's...apparently a hyper-evolutiunary accelerant...maybe?)
Why would you run in a straight line away from a donut-shaped rolling ship? (A: ???????)
And of course, how are a bunch of trained scientists - biologists, geologists - so bad at their jobs, that they're taking off their helmets and sticking their faces up to plainly hostile penis snakes and getting high and etc. Etc. That's a major problem - most of the Prometheus cast is just really, really dumb, having more in common with silly slasher kids with their sex drugs and rock and roll getting killed by the killer with a hockey mask.
In Alien, and Alien 3, you had a group of simple labourers completely unprepared and outclassed for what they encountered. In Aliens, you had a bunch of very skilled gung-ho marines who think they're hot shit and their arrogance is their undoing because they're dumb enough to go in guns blazing in enemy territory (in a director-acknowledged direct allegory for the Vietnam war.)
So when you have a crew that's supposed to be comprised of trained, competent professionals, the best of the best - having them act like morons undermines them as characters and sets them up to just be fodder. Hardly anyone in Prometheus feels believable barring Shaw and David.
So that's Prometheus. And then Covenant comes along...
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-19-2024 at 09:18 PM.
Unintelligible Whispering
So they heard a lot of the backlash against Prometheus. And they considered what it was people were expecting from '°An Alien Film'.
And it feels like they heard all the wrong criticism because, well, rather than continue Shaw and David's journey together to meet their creators, what we're going to do is put that aside, abbreviate it maybe. Ridley still wants to tell David's story, but maybe we don't need Shaw. So we're just going to kill the protagonist of our last film, our new Ripley, offscreen. And we're gonna kill off the Engineers. Our focus is now David as a god-complex having android who wants to replace humanity with a better, perfect species in his crazy view. So the movie presents David as essentially being the creator of the Xenomorphs - and there was a mural in Prometheus which actually depicted a Queen, so no, they existed prior, he's re-creating them. Maybe. We don't ever clarify that.
There's also the fact that, you know, the Aliens are frightening because they're unknown, and fear of the unknown is one of the things that makes them work, so exploring their origins is shaky and unwise ground. But anyway.
So we're abandoning Shaw's narrative and taking on David's. And because we need to make it more recognizeable, we introduce a whole new batch of cannon fodder - I mean, characters - who we can kill in all the familiar Alien ways - who are still walking onto foreign planets with no helmets with only the word of their highly advanced android that the atmosphere is okay, there's nothing to be worried about. And within half an hour people are slipping on blood and shooting guns in places full of explosive material (why do I hear the Benny Hill theme?) and soon they're sticking their faces up to eggs they are told have live specimens by very shifty androids we already don't trust. Also, shower sex murder scene.
It's hard to be engaged with your cast when they're so goddamned dumb and they die like horror movie teens. What was the line from Aliens? "Dipshit colonists?" Alien and Aliens set better standards with their characters than this.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-19-2024 at 08:40 PM.
Unintelligible Whispering
Anyway, the net result is that Covenant feels like such a wild swing away from Prometheus, halfway a compromise between what Scott wanted and what the studio told him to make - another Alien movie with all the facehuggers and bodybursting one expects.
And personally - I find that disappointing, because for all of its flaws, I was interested in that narrative. But it was too much, delivered poorly, received poorly, and then subjected to heavy revision to the point of being unrecognizable. And we're left with a broken, disconnected, unresolved narrative and a compromised vision, and now that the series is with Disney, who specialize in crafting safe product, that story, already fragmented and broken, is probably never going to be resolved in favor of stuff like Romulus- for whatever that's worth.
TL; DR:
"It's too different, it sucks" -> "It's more of the same, it sucks."
Last edited by Shadaloo; 08-19-2024 at 09:09 PM.
Active Member
Totally agree with your write-up Shadaloo. I thought the store in Prometheus was awesome, and really well done. Covenant took the bad parts (stupidity etc) and somehow made it way worse. That's why I hated it so much.
I feel like there was a ton of studio interference in that one too mainly because of doubling down on the dumb scary movie element.
Active Member
Nice write-up indeed -- some things I never considered.
One thing thoughAnd of course, how are a bunch of trained scientists - biologists, geologists - so bad at their jobs, that they're taking off their helmets and sticking their faces up to plainly hostile penis snakes and getting high and etc. Etc. That's a major problem - most of the Prometheus cast is just really, really dumb, having more in common with silly slasher kids with their sex drugs and rock and roll getting killed by the killer with a hockey mask.
One COULD argue that a bunch of scientists, geologists, biologists WOULD make stupid mistakes in the in field a real-world scenario vs. behind a desk doing research.
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Sure, but then it has to be in the text of the script that the real world scenario is causing them to forget their training. Or if like they're kind of shitty scientists that Weyland was able to get on board because they're pariahs in their field or prisoners or something and therefore have nothing left to lose, and that's why they're loose cannons. But the text is basically that these are the scientists Weyland and his team chose because they're the best of the best (albeit a little quirky), so when they start doing incredibly stupid shit, it feels completely out of left field.
Prometheus feels like a trilogy of ideas shoved into a two hour movie; the majority of the things in it don't have the time to properly be set up and/or paid off. What we're left with is a mishmash of themes and lore scotch taped together with way too many characters, many of whom feel like they're just doing whatever the script needs them to at any given time.
AUDIENCE: Why doesn't Charlize just run to the side away from the crashing ship instead of in a straight line?
RIDLEY: *shrug* Because in the script it says she dies.
Active Member
Scott is a solid filmmaker that puts visuals and atmosphere above (historical) accuracy, story or plotholes. And whenever he's working with a great script or people that do care about this stuff, his movies tend to become great movies. He's a visual artist, not a writer.
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It's a fine popcorn horror movie with a wacky third act. Fun in the moment, but one I won't be thinking about too much after the fact.
I think my thing, too, is that this one felt more like a Rogue One-type movie where I can feel the fan-servicey moments more than an original take. There are moments designed for the audience to be like that Leo pointing at the TV meme.
Say what you will about Alien 3 and Resurrection, but those at least feel like unique movie experiences.
Active Member
I mean fair but I guess what I am getting at is... at least in my mind...just because a scientist is labeled the best of the best...doesn't make them smart in a survival scenario. Einstein probably would've done some silly shit too if a facehugger jumped on his mask haha.
Not to sound insulting to the scientific community but there is a difference in book-smart and street-smart and I don't think the characters in Prometheus were chosen by Weyland for their street smarts, but because they were experts in their scientific fields. Maybe I am just being dumb at this point lol
Charlize Theron running in a straight line was silly... but ... I mean, who the fuck knows what a real human would do in that scenario. Everyone has a plan until they get hit. All logic can go out the window quickly in a survival situation, especially a fast one.
Active Member
Right, but good screenwriting is not, "I mean who knows what someone might do in this situation." Good screenwriting is setups and payoffs and actions that logically make sense within your story world. For instance, tell me early on that Charlize is a character who buckles under pressure, so running in a straight line then makes sense instead of being something people are still laughing about 12 years later.
For instance, in Jon Spaihts' original Prometheus script, they find an actually harmless worm and are super excited about finding life on the planet, so later when they see a bigger worm, it at least makes some kind of sense why the xenobiologist would go up to it excitedly.
A lot of the issues with the story come from Spaihts' original script being reworked by Lindelof, and then Lindelof's script being chopped up for time constraints, so you have a copy of a copy of a copy thing going on, where every idea along the way was left in but without enough time to properly be supported.
A lot of Prometheus apologists say things like, "well, actually the reason for this thing is clear in the lore if you pause at 37:52 and look at the art on the walls," or "this character's actions may have been motivated by..." Like, I'm all for mystery and open ended questions in a movie, but if people are just laughing at dumb character decisions and bogged down by too many themes and ideas, then there's a huge problem on a script level.
Also, to be clear, for anyone here who loves Prometheus, that's great!
Also also, I'll digress since this is supposed to be a thread about Romulus (which is also a script with too many ideas but which is able to handle them in a more cohesive way).
Last edited by Toadflax; 08-22-2024 at 01:34 PM.
Administrator
Romulus attempts to play with the references to all 6 canon films and also Alien Isolation and neatly pulls it off, IMO. I don't even have that much of an issue with the final act, apart from it being a bit formulaic. But so is the entire series.
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Throbbing Member
^^^
Things really came full circle in this thread. David Fincher of Alien 3 fame to Nine Inch Nails to Romulus becoming a corporate cash grab copy of a copy of a copy....
Only By Night
I guess I can understand to an extent why people like this movie so much, but I cannot drink the kool-aid.
This franchise lost the plot a long time ago, so lets reference every single Alien film, and cram member-berries down your throat. When Andy says the famous line, and yes... I understand the context of why he said it, but come on man. If you're simply entertained by this sort of stuff that franchises seem to be doing more of these days, then fine. But I am at the point where I want something that doesn't feel like it needs to cater to every single fan to make it enjoyable.
The first half had something, and then it goes completely downhill from there. The film is filled with nothing but recycled ideas, and again, forgettable, dumb characters. Andy was the only saving grace of the film, and they even somehow managed to fumble that. There are severe problems with Prometheus, and Covenant, but at least there was some originality in those films. Also, do we really need to have a female lead character, every...single... movie? It is bland to the point of being completely tasteless; Change it up.
I love the Alien atmosphere, and the Xeno's, face-huggers, all of that. I guess I am to the point where I really cannot watch the same shit over, and over, just for the sake of being entertained with certain things. But this is just tiresome, man.
All I'm going to say about this film.
Active Member
I just got back from the theater, and I don’t know. It was ok. It felt really strange though. Like, the characters didn’t feel “real.” Everything with the exposition felt forced and rushed, and when they did flesh out characters it felt like it was an obvious attempt to make you dislike something about them. Then the aliens show up, and it feels like we’re supposed to be familiar already with their whole thing and what they’re about, so it just rushes through that and throws everyone into the scenario, where it turns into a hokey sort of spook house routine.
Other issues I had with it would include spoilers, so I’ll avoid that, but they really didn’t need to re-use lines from the OG movies, or recreate iconic shots… And I guess it goes with the feeling about the disingenuous nature of the characters, but the dialog in general felt phoned in. And did we really need the lead character to be a repackaged Ripley?
And, yeah, I’ll avoid spoilers, but the final 20 minutes or so made me suppress some laughter. Overall I enjoyed myself, I liked it better than Prometheus, and I didn’t see Covenant… but this ranks pretty far below 3 for me, and my ranking goes chronologically. The first is the best, then Aliens, then 3, then… well, then this I guess. By comparison as a film though, Alien 3 towers over this.
Active Member
Finally saw it last night. I needed some distraction.
I liked it. I don't know if I loved it. I'm in a weird head space with the loss of my parents. So I will likely need to revisit it.
told my wife I'm glad she didn't go with me. As she's pregnant and well. I won't spoil it for ya. But yikes.
Throbbing Member
I enjoyed it. The first half definitely more than the second. The xenomorph "chrysalis" scene was tense and right up there with the best scenes of the franchise.
But oh boy all those forced call backs and lines, wow. Like, who the fuck, why, WHY? Is this actually drawing more crowds? "Hey you should see this movie! I didn't like it but they say the line! They do the thing!!". If a movie otherwise sucks and is getting blasted, are people seeing it just to do the Di Caprio meme? I just don't see the point. It's one thing to be formulaic, but are these total 5, 10, 15 seconds of eye-rolling, forced moments so critical to the formula that no producer stops to think that "Hey, maybe we can NOT do this and the movie will lose absolutely nothing and be just as successful"? No?
Throbbing Member
Saw Romulus last week, was sadly unsurprised at how thoroughly unimpressed I was, and now I’m feeling inclined to discuss the series as a whole. Rant incoming, my apologies. Spoilers for all the films follow.
As someone who has loved Alien since he was very young and for whom Prometheus remains probably the single most disappointing cinematic experience of my life, I feel like I am uniquely equipped to answer this! But Shadaloo and Toadflax already did a pretty good job of breaking that down in my absence so I’ll try not to reiterate their points too much. And no disrespect to your opinion but it makes me glad someone else hates those movies when there has been so much trash talking of Aliens in this thread!
The original 1979 film is top shelf in every respect, about as close to perfect as a film gets. Making a sequel that was even vaguely in the same realm of quality was a monumental task, and yes Alien is by far a better film than Aliens. But James Cameron's Aliens is still an exceptionally innovative, beautifully crafted and drawn sequel. Specifically the Director's Cut / Special Edition, which is undeniably the better, more effective version. It credibly builds off of the first film and feels exceptionally consistent with its universe and yet does not simply endeavor to recreate what made the original great, resulting in a very different film that still feels perfectly at peace with the original. And it follows up Alien's amazing cast of characters with a phenomenal role for the returning Ripley and a pretty goddamn great new cast of its own. This was OG Terminator era James Cameron, not the guy who became obsessed with chasing technology over any even vaguely interesting story or characters, and he used to be an extremely talented storyteller. Yes, the aliens being so easily dispatched after the first film can feel like it diminishes Ash's perfect organism, and I do wish the horrific eggmorphing concept deleted from Alien (and restored in the name-only Director's Cut of that film) made its way back into the creature's life cycle at some point in the franchise, but the hive and the Queen felt like a natural direction, gorgeously executed. It's too bad Giger wasn't involved in Aliens but that he had such good things to say about the Queen illustrates how well it maintained fidelity with the original while being wildly different.
Alien 3 is a mess and it's too bad we'll never get to see what David Fincher would have made with actual creative control. But even considering its sloppiness, the major glaring plot hole running through the whole film's backbone (the chestburster in the original busts out of Kane an hour or two after he regains consciousness at most but Ripley goes the entire duration of Alien 3's story with one inside her!), and a cast of characters way too heavy on anonymous interchangeable bald guys (maybe that's where they got the idea for the fucking Engineers in Prometheus lol), it's really not all that bad. The controversial move of killing the other surviving characters is brusque and graceless but bold and could have worked with a better, more fleshed out group of characters. Charles Dance and specifically Charles S. Dutton are strong additions but beyond their characters (and perhaps poor dumbass "85") it's a pretty meh follow up to its predecessors in that regard. A Director's Cut for Fincher would mean a full remake, but in lieu of that there is the extended workprint version, which is definitely the better film.
Alien Resurrection... it is what it is! It's very out there, ridiculous, and silly, and tonally it feels completely out of step with the rest of the series. But I'll give it this, there are some interesting ideas therein - mercenaries hired to hijack sleeping space travelers so they can be used as alien hosts in military experiments is a nice starting point for a story, the pre-Firefly Whedon screenplay is clearly an early gestation of those concepts, and as wacky and strange as the half-alien Ripley and the Newborn and stuff like that was, it at least played with its themes in an interesting way and seemed like it was endeavoring to say something, however odd and overly horny it was. It’s not a good movie but it’s an interesting failure if nothing else. As opposed to, sigh, Prometheus…
To understand how disappointing Prometheus is, one needs to understand what it was like for us huge Alien fans before that movie came out. The promise of Ridley Scott returning to the franchise, those incredible trailers so heavily rooted in referencing the sound design and iconography of the original film (specifically its legendary trailers, which Prometheus intentionally channeled at every turn), the amazing cast, it seemed too good to be true and ultimately it was. There are very few truly great prequels, and the few that do exist (like Better Call Saul and Furiosa) not only maintain fidelity and consistency with the original they serve as a companion to, they add to their stories in such a way they actually feel like they elevate the original. I thought the end of Prometheus was going to be basically where we could imagine the story of Alien beginning but Prometheus doesn’t just utterly fail to maintain consistency with the films its seeks to be a prequel to, it actively undermines aspects of the original. That perfectly otherworldly space jockey they found in the original? Yeah that was just an oversized white guy in a weird looking suit, who is somehow genetically identical to humanity. Haha, yeah, no it fucking wasn’t. And not only does the film’s massive holes bar it from meaningfully connecting to Alien - it fails to even conclude its own story. The idea of “At the Mountains of Madness in space and it’s also an Alien prequel” had potential but they failed to deliver on either side of that premise. They didn’t give us a sledgehammer of a terrible revelation about the origins of mankind, and they definitely didn't give us an Alien prequel.
Basically as previously stated what began as an actual Alien prequel script titled Alien: Engineers became a victim of Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof, who got ahead of themselves and started doing that whole “let’s think more about the movie we’re planning to make next than the one we’re making right now” *cinematic universe* brand of thinking that has ruined so many blockbuster films over the past decade. I should have been more concerned when they were talking about what would be next before Prometheus was even out, because that’s not how you make a good story. And what we got was not a good story. What we got was Prometheus, a film that was so poor and nonsensical as a Alien prequel that ultimately its connection to the series seemed more dictated by marketing than anything, and even evaluated on its own merits as a film was a half baked mess that failed to tell a complete and coherent story, populated by a largely anonymous gaggle of idiots whose only memorable qualities were how dumb they are.
This is such a terrific point that cannot be overstated. In the original Alien, Kane is the least developed, but the little we see of him indicates that he's a bit overeager, the first one awake, the first volunteer, the one insisting they need to go on. It kind of follows that he'd do something as foot-forward reckless as sticking his face so close to an alien egg. By Prometheus and Covenant the characters are defined by their moronic moves, rather than those moronic moves being borne of actual characterization.
What a waste of a spectacular cast, Noomi Rapace did her damndest but her character was such a nothing who had literally no arc by the end of the film. Fassbender was the only interesting part and even then his character’s behavior really made no sense - there was viral marketing that seemed to suggest Yutani was planning corporate espionage on the Weyland expedition, which could have explained David’s actions AND set up the eventual merger that made Weyland Yutani, but that’s neither here or there in the final film and by Covenant the explanation just seems to be “David is special!” The black goo is a perfect metaphor for the movie - unlike the alien life cycle in the first film which was so naturally conveyed, the black goo kind of just does whatever the movie needs it to, with no rhyme or reason or take away other than “it does bad stuff” and by the end of the movie we have very little reason to even care anyway.
And then there’s Covenant. Hoo boy. If you hate Prometheus, you’ll find little to like here because it’s ultimately just a roundabout sequel to that film that makes either the same mistakes or entirely new ones. And if you liked Prometheus or were at all invested in its feeble story, how could you possibly be satisfied with how Covenant follows it up? Like I hope you weren’t invested in Elizabeth Shaw at all because Alien: Covenant might as well be called David II, a story about the most pontificating bore of a neurodivergent android and the extremely stupid people who stumble upon his pretentious experiments with godhood. Prometheus has some legendarily stupid character behavior so it says something that Covenant is far more egregious in that category - once again, the majority of the cast are either completely lacking depth or are solely defined by their idiocy. Billy Crudup’s character may be one of the single dumbest characters I can recall in this kind of film, to the point that when I consider his fate and the offscreen fate of the notably faithful Shaw, it feels a lot less like wry commentary on how faith can be manipulated and a lot more like a sloppy diatribe about how religious people are easily used morons. Even as an atheist I found it supremely reductive and condescending. As with Prometheus, it’s mostly just really tedious and dull, and when you reach the umpteenth scene of Michael Fassbender talking to another Michael Fassbender you mostly just wish Ridley had just made a goddamn Blade Runner follow up since he’s clearly way more interested in the God/man relationship between man/machine than the cold commodification of life by corporate entities (paralleled by the alien’s invasive and sexual appropriation of the life it encounters) that the Alien films are more concerned with. In the end, not only is every character too stupid to beat David - we’re also left with a conclusion that again fails to bridge these bastardized prequels with the original film. It’s so funny, I remember seeing the Prometheus trailers and thinking the crashing Engineer ship was going to end up being the derelict ship they found in Alien, but even by the end of Covenant there’s more questions then answers as to how all this dumb shit happened before the first film.
Enter Romulus. There was a lot of hype when the first trailers came out and I wanted to hope, but I remembered Prometheus, and how I was right to not even bother with Covenant, and the fact I think the Evil Dead remake is generally meh and overrated. It was hard though, I love the early films so and I wanted to see the series return to form, so as the reviews came out and were more positive than I expected, I decided to use a free ticket voucher I got one time when a showing got screwed up. And I’m glad I didn’t pay for the experience because once again, Romulus is another dud that added nothing to the series in my opinion, and with even less personality and weird ambition than Scott’s awful not-prequels.
The first act is the best but there’s problems from very early on. On paper, I liked where they were going but their characterization of the mining colony felt so ham-fisted and on-the-nose, with the excessively oppressive conditions feeling almost comically evil and more like a location in a Disney Star Wars show, out of step with the steely corporate sheen and commercial artifice that characterized Weyland Yutani previously (would probably have been more consistent and believable to have it be a different megacorp, a smaller one with worse PR, and more interesting if Weyland Yutani was perhaps even mistakenly thought to be better). And again on paper, the idea of working class folks trying to escape to a better life has potential on paper and ties to the themes of the series, but the execution is wholly lacking. Cailee Spaeny’s Rain is such an obvious main character that I never once feared for her safety, and her character arc is so featureless and devoid of any flourishes of identity or nuance. Rather than being interested by her or her relationship with her artificial brother, I was more just curious how Rain’s father managed to acquire and program a sophisticated and expensive synthetic as a miner who was so impoverished and lacking for aid that he died of the lung disease endemic to the job. David Jonsson is clearly very talented but the character just did not work for me, especially not his arc. I mean there is no arc. When he’s reprogrammed by WY, they could have gone the Spielberg route of having him fight his programming and be true to “himself”, or they could have had it be an effective metaphor for how unchecked capitalism can turn our friends and families into pawns, into enemies (again, something a more interesting story could have explored with the human characters tempted by the idea of a WY reward). Instead he walks in programmed one way, is reprogrammed to be bad, and then after he is rendered prone he is programmed back again. I guess the arc is supposed to be Rain resolving not to leave him behind. Fascinating.
It’s sad that once again the rest of Romulus’s characters are featureless or obnoxious and stupid. I mean, that pregnant lady went through so much terrible trauma through that film, and all the while I just felt so bored and depressed because I didn’t know anything about her at all, nor did I care. She was just there to have bad stuff happen to her for a duration of the film, without ever feeling developed enough to actually be a character, and that is just creatively empty and un-stimulating filmmaking and storytelling. Just look at the idiotic human-alien offspring that dominates the film’s final act. It’s remarkably similar to the generally scorned Newborn creature from the final act of Alien Resurrection. But in Alien Resurrection, the Newborn and the way it feels Ripley to be its mother, and Ripley wrestling between her disgust for the aliens and her guilt over abandoning yet another surrogate child (albeit one from hell), it made at least some thematic sense and was somewhat interesting. Romulus has nothing really to say or add to the themes of sexual predation, birth, and motherhood that pervade the series, beyond regurgitating them for shock value and repurposing the franchise’s classic setpieces into a thinly veiled appearance of newness. As many of you have said, the callbacks and references are genuinely cringe-worthy in their superficiality.
And that’s all before getting into the hideous affront to nature that is “Rook”, the heinous digital simulacrum of Ian Holm that has to be the worst digitally added “deepfake” likeness I have ever seen, all to accommodate the existence of a character that disallows continuity with the original rather than preserves it. If the whole purpose of androids like Ash on the Nostromo is that they are plants for the company nobody suspects, why would WY have tons of Ash-looking androids all over the place? If Ash was a mass produced android like David, the whole idea of planting him undetected on the Nostromo would be ludicrous. There was literally no reason that character needed to be Ian Holm, it was just creative bankruptcy enabled by dubiously applied new tech. Alien: Romulus is indeed the story of an evil company messing with something that should have been left dead, but that company is as much Disney as it is Weyland Yutani.
Oh, and the way some fans dislike Aliens for making the titular creatures cheap and disposable? Covenant and Romulus are far greater offenders there. The creatures in Aliens wipe out an entire colony and almost the entire marine squad. The two aliens in Covenant live for no more than ten minutes before being fairly easily dispatched. In Romulus they look better but they seriously do almost nothing. I think there’s only one real kill made by them in the entire film, shortly before a single character is able to kill almost all of them with one rifle in a single hallway. The ultimate insult is that the inciting incident of the film is the OG Big Chap being retrieved from stasis in space (an idea I always considered but the Nostromo debris was a ludicrous way of idiot-proofing its origins to the audience) and still being alive - but not being featured at all! We see it get recovered dramatically in the opening and by the time we see it again it’s already fucking dead. Bring back the most iconic creature from the best film just to kill it offscreen. Between all that in those two films and the stupid not-xeno at the end of Prometheus (by the way, the canon explanation for what happens to that thing is that it became a fucking mountain which is so flippant and inexplicable it is perfect Prometheus lore), god have the Alien films of the past two decades been absolutely obsessed with doing their iconic titular monster dirty.
Anyway, tldr, my hot take is that the only truly great and worthwhile Alien project of this century is also the only one Sigourney Weaver (not to mention most of the 1979 cast) had any inclination to be involved in - Alien: Isolation. Now that is an experience worthy of the series.
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