*BEWARE SPOILERS* Alien: Romulus

Apart from some cringe inducing callbacks, I enjoyed it. Really could've done without the cg head, though.

I wasn't crazy about the Predator design in Prey, but the movie defibrillated a franchise that was very near death and for that, I'm grateful. Couldn't believe how much love a Predator film was getting in 2022, even from casual viewers.

Yea it was a damn good movie. I enjoyed it very much

Rotfish said:

I wasn't crazy about the Predator design in Prey, but the movie defibrillated a franchise that was very near death and for that, I'm grateful. Couldn't believe how much love a Predator film was getting in 2022, even from casual viewers.

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Prey is a really good movie. Definitely exceeded all my personal expectations. If Romulus even comes close I'm going to be both happy and surprised...

ZE_501 said:

Well, there's a strong possibility there's nowhere to go, when I think of what made the original two films great.

You set them loose on a populated planet you basically have a zombie movie. Realistically, what else could you do that wouldn't kill the mystery?

Not saying it's impossible but it's a tall order. Kinda like an attempted sequel trilogy from a certain other franchise.

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Gonna sound like a broken record, but there is story to be had....they are just not creative or daring enough...
See the Dark Horse Comic series....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_(Dark_Horse_Comics_line)

Hollywood is just risk averse and lazy.

lordnastrond said:

Prey is incredible. 10/10, easily my second favourite Predator movie after the original.

Honestly - before Prometheus I would have said the Space Engineer/ship was the way to go in terms of expanding the scope.
Not all aliens in the Alien franchise are Xenomorphs after all.
But Ridley kind of put a hard bullet in the back of that idea's head, until it all gets rebooted and rewritten/redesigned in the future.
But if they do revisit the Engineer concept then they need to do away with all the human-esque qualities they've given them - make them strange and other and unknowable, lovecraftian or in a word Alien - something like the Shimmer from Annihilation, something so far from our own understanding.

But honestly - you dont really need to reinvent the wheel, you just need really good characters.
That in my opinion is why every Alien movie after Aliens suffered - an absense of good characters, in Aliens 3 they killed off Ripley's supporting figures and indeed quite a bit of Ripley's own humanity - a problem compounded in Resurrection with the Alien-Ripley hybrid, and pretty much all the new characters in later films are just so poorly written in comparison, and instead the Xenomorph has become the central focus.
Great horror has you invested in the characters and their story/world/survival.
Create a new and great protagonist who isn't just diet-coke Ripley and I think thats half the work done there.

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Easy way around the Engineer problem is already in Prometheus. Engineers are humans. 100% genetic match. The suited ones are also different in size and proportions from the Space Jockey in Alien. The Space Jockey also looked like an actual corpse.

The engineers design pitch IIRC was also future space travelling humans, again reinfircing that they are human.

The engineers are early uplifted humans taken from earth who are adapted to space travel through generations of adaptation and biotech, basically shaped by the new environments they inhabit. They stole fire (bio accelerant goo) from the gods (Space Jockeys) who they served. They tried to become gods as seen in the opening of Prometheus where they appeared to be trying to create (or destroy) life on the mystery planet (a planet that already had trees etc so had life, so either they wanted to create more advanced creatures or what we thought was a scene of creation was actually an attack on the unseen beings of that planet).


Basically, you can introduce the gods: Space Jockey (but give them a proper name). Make them more lovecraftian and mysterious.

The murals in Prometheus already depicted classic Xeno hands, face huggers, eggs the deacon etc alongside other biomechanical beings, so David didn't create the Xeno, he only remade it in the form seen in Covenant using whatever mix of the goo from the canisters. Any one of the other pictured creatures could be the next xeno in future alien movies.


As for the Xeno itself, the only way to stop it getting stale now is to reintroduce mystery. To do that you can't change the visual appearance otherwise you are basically doing a different creature, you need to alter its behaviour and expand on its life cycle or abilities (which does allow for some limited alterations of visual design since it is the same species just further along). Egg morphing from the 1979 movie deleted scenes could make for some horrific sequences if done right and again would be a new behaviour to the general audience.

The original concept of the alien had it be a blood thirsty monster in the early period of its life then later become sentient and more almost monk like in later existence, sort of a disciple to a cult of death. You could borrow from that by having an aging xeno as it continues its life cycle become something smarter and more sadistic or bizarre.

Space Jockeys likely created them so perhaps they serve a purpose other than just bitey monsters. Have characters witness xeno behaviour change in the presence of the Jockeys. Have the queen alien be what happens when a Jockey is facehugged so that egg morphing or other methods are needed and how they reproduce in absence of queens.

Maybe xenos don't just destroy but terraform the worlds they are let loose on and much like egg morphing victims they can eventually become parts of the enironment and even buildings/bio machinery, like how they were on the walls in Aliens. Perhaps that was early stage of the process.

There are ways to keep it fresh, just gotta figure out which ideas are good and will work on screen when executed correctly and which are bad and just won't work.


Even if you decide to do the same cat and mouse thing again, there are ways to keep it fresh. Change the tone. Use creative lighting. Play with the environment. Have characters that defy tropes by doing everything correctly yet still lose because the aliens are just that dangerous. Have some characters form a death cult offering sacrifices to a lone xeno snd offering be the main cast. Just don't rely on memba berries to carry a franchise as that gets old by the second movie you try it with.

prey was one of the most perfect movies .
amazing cast. really amazing cast, amazing setting, really good suspense and tension. an amazing cute protagonist. really good pacing.
great horror action scenes. amazing attack by the predator.

its one of the greatest movies I have ever seen.
and it could work with alien if you set the aliens on a small farm town like the movie critters.

jaztermareal said:

Easy way around the Engineer problem is already in Prometheus. Engineers are humans. 100% genetic match. The suited ones are also different in size and proportions from the Space Jockey in Alien. The Space Jockey also looked like an actual corpse.

The engineers design pitch IIRC was also future space travelling humans, again reinfircing that they are human.

The engineers are early uplifted humans taken from earth who are adapted to space travel through generations of adaptation and biotech, basically shaped by the new environments they inhabit. They stole fire (bio accelerant goo) from the gods (Space Jockeys) who they served. They tried to become gods as seen in the opening of Prometheus where they appeared to be trying to create (or destroy) life on the mystery planet (a planet that already had trees etc so had life, so either they wanted to create more advanced creatures or what we thought was a scene of creation was actually an attack on the unseen beings of that planet).


Basically, you can introduce the gods: Space Jockey (but give them a proper name). Make them more lovecraftian and mysterious.

The murals in Prometheus already depicted classic Xeno hands, face huggers, eggs the deacon etc alongside other biomechanical beings, so David didn't create the Xeno, he only remade it in the form seen in Covenant using whatever mix of the goo from the canisters. Any one of the other pictured creatures could be the next xeno in future alien movies.


As for the Xeno itself, the only way to stop it getting stale now is to reintroduce mystery. To do that you can't change the visual appearance otherwise you are basically doing a different creature, you need to alter its behaviour and expand on its life cycle or abilities (which does allow for some limited alterations of visual design since it is the same species just further along). Egg morphing from the 1979 movie deleted scenes could make for some horrific sequences if done right and again would be a new behaviour to the general audience.

The original concept of the alien had it be a blood thirsty monster in the early period of its life then later become sentient and more almost monk like in later existence, sort of a disciple to a cult of death. You could borrow from that by having an aging xeno as it continues its life cycle become something smarter and more sadistic or bizarre.

Space Jockeys likely created them so perhaps they serve a purpose other than just bitey monsters. Have characters witness xeno behaviour change in the presence of the Jockeys. Have the queen alien be what happens when a Jockey is facehugged so that egg morphing or other methods are needed and how they reproduce in absence of queens.

Maybe xenos don't just destroy but terraform the worlds they are let loose on and much like egg morphing victims they can eventually become parts of the enironment and even buildings/bio machinery, like how they were on the walls in Aliens. Perhaps that was early stage of the process.

There are ways to keep it fresh, just gotta figure out which ideas are good and will work on screen when executed correctly and which are bad and just won't work.


Even if you decide to do the same cat and mouse thing again, there are ways to keep it fresh. Change the tone. Use creative lighting. Play with the environment. Have characters that defy tropes by doing everything correctly yet still lose because the aliens are just that dangerous. Have some characters form a death cult offering sacrifices to a lone xeno snd offering be the main cast. Just don't rely on memba berries to carry a franchise as that gets old by the second movie you try it with.

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See, good ideas right here.....

Hollywood hack can learn a thing or two.

Don't remember if I've posted this here, but I believe the original Alien movies are really the Ripley movies. Alien may have given us a great monster, but Aliens gave us a great character and that's been a huge part of the franchise's relevance.

Dutch from Predator is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the biggest movie stars of all time and arguably the biggest of the '80s, yet he's not nearly as iconic as Ripley (setting aside his one-liners). And no Predator sequel has attempted to recreate Dutch, whereas every Alien film since 2011 has had a Ripley copy, complete with short hair. On at least a superficial level, the studio seems to understand the importance of character with Alien. They just don't know what to do with that insight.

I plan to go see this. Heard good things and it's about time Alien gets a movie with the spirit of the first. Plus I also liked Prey also definitely want to see one take place in feudal Japan.

Luisenigma1 said:

I plan to go see this. Heard good things and it's about time Alien gets a movie with the spirit of the first. Plus I also liked Prey also definitely want to see one take place in feudal Japan.

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They really ought to make anthology series for both Alien and Predator. Or something like True Detective, where it's a different story each season.

85% on RT and 71 on metacritic right now.

edit: up to 89% on RT now.

I haven’t been reading the reviews, but just glancing at the tag lines and some utter moron has put a major spoiler in their’s on Metacritic.
so be careful if you want to remain unspoiled going in.

I think it was good. Nothing special. Romulus is like when you put every other movie together from the franchise and there you go. You have seen everything already. It really gives nothing new at all but it is put together well. It really does not need to exist and it feels like a fan film but I had a good time. 7/10.

So reviews either seem to be:

“This is great, feels just like the earlier Alien movies”

or

“Ugh this is just a retread of and too similar to the earlier Alien movies”

chrisstbh said:

“This is great, feels just like the earlier Alien movies”

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Kids who have never seen an Alien movie on anything but their phone and video games.

chrisstbh said:

“Ugh this is just a retread of and too similar to the earlier Alien movies”

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Everyone else.

Rotfish said:

They really ought to make anthology series for both Alien and Predator. Or something like True Detective, where it's a different story each season.

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I think films like this were it's self contained stories with small mentions to other films is best. You aren't restricted with the world because a director would have free reign on how to tell that specific story.

Wor-Gar said:

Kids who have never seen an Alien movie on anything but their phone and video games.



Everyone else.

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So it’s both but also neither?

Rotfish said:

On at least a superficial level, the studio seems to understand the importance of character with Alien. They just don't know what to do with that insight.

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Something for everyone to consider is that it's not like people haven't tried over the years. Talented people too. An Alien film that is going to grab people and put them on the edge of their seat has to be a coin flip. In the original, you were dealing with working class tool pushers, no real weapons, no training for something this lethal. It was a perfect killing machine they knew nothing about and the only lessons learned were paid for in blood. ( i.e. With Dallas, it's non viable to try to hunt it in the maintenance tunnels/access shafts systems, but someone had to die to eliminate that option ) But the crew knew the ship, they did have some advanced technology on their side and they, for a short while, had greater numbers. But still, in the end, it could plausibly look like a coin flip.

In Aliens, had the Marines had true foresight into the situation, with better leadership, with a different strategy, they would have straight up massacred all those xenomorphs. So the film had to even it all out. Take away most of the firepower, take away most of the personnel, take away the APC and drop ship, still leave behind the incompetent Gorman, force the "advisor" into a role she was promised would never happen. Then have them all sitting on a ticking time bomb while being cornered. The sentry guns trimmed the xenomorph numbers and again, you had a coin flip.

You need specific conditions to slow down an Alien to the point where it's a coin flip again. You also need circumstances where it's not just 20 humans armed with pulse rifles chewing up that Alien at a distance and the film ends in 15 minutes. An Alien can move fast, it can climb, it has acid for blood, but it can't teleport though heavy bulkheads. It might get to the point of being clever, but not strategic like a Predator. So people have tried different treatments and pitches. Alien in a prison ( used but arguably wasted at a certain level), Alien in a oil rig. Alien in a cargo shipping vessel. ( How about Alien in the Nakatomi building? ) A lot of concepts just take you back to square one and force you to go over old ground. You can make it environmental, which is much easier on the writers such as putting an Alien in the Arctic, or in the extreme desert or underwater. And while that helps the coin flip situation, it creates a budgetary and logistical burden on the back end.

For example, I've said before and probably to you @Rotfish , that one of the best parts of Alien Resurrection was the underwater scene. Humans moved differently. They had new limitations. Their weapons worked differently. Their ability to fight had to change. But the Aliens had limitations too. The acid for blood has a different wrinkle, They can swim fast but you don't get the total crazy Deion Sanders of xenomorphs effect as you do in Alien Covenant in the open field that turns humans into instant absolute cannon fodder. But the logistics of filming an Alien film that's a large majority underwater is a big undertaking. You can cover a lot of ground in current times with SFX, but extensive water shoots are very hard and very expensive. It's also hard on the cast and now you start to prune your potential cast from performers who won't want to deal with it. ( Just like actors and actresses who turn down roles because they refuse to squeeze into a suit or spend 6 hours a day getting makeup and prosthetics slathered all over them)

Someone shouting, "Just do something creative, have some imagination!" isn't going to be enough here. With other IPs and concepts, maybe that works, but here you have to set the conditions to maintain the audience's suspension of disbelief with already so much ground covered in so many previous films. If you don't have a concept that gives you a logical path to that "coin flip", then you've removed your writers room from having a fighting chance. If the writing fails, nearly all the time, the film with fail badly with it.

I won't assess this as "Difficult But Not Impossible"

I would rather frame it as "Being Cornered Narratively To The Point Where The Few Workable Concepts Have Such Huge Logistical Tradeoffs That No One Will Finance It"

And, unfortunate as it is to say it, Ridley Scott didn't exactly help matters much with Covenant and Prometheus. He just made everything harder for future concepts. But it was his baby to kill in the first place.

And I agree, once Cameron closed off the Ellen Ripley character arc in a complete and organic way ( especially through the Aliens Special Edition version), there wasn't much room left to take the series without her. The various proxies for her just aren't the same and can't resonate the same way with viewers.

just give me xenos in a farm or a city. no more spaceships. enough.