*BEWARE SPOILERS* Alien: Romulus

Khev said:

Fair enough.

To me the company spokesman (Rook) seemed to be cut off from "Network" (to reference a term from previous films) probably due to the malfunctioning hardware on the station and was solely operating on his previous protocols ("do what's best for the Company.") In both A1 and A3 the Company seemed to be calling remote audibles in real time and I never got the impression that that was happening in this film. So if any recovery crews had been sent after the initial disaster I'm fine with Rook not being privy to them.

But this is all theory over what happened off-camera so your interpretation and assumptions are equally valid.

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I think Rook (and the entire station for that matter) was cut off from any communication. If I remember correctly, he says Andy will take the goo down to the planet and contact WY from there.

Do we need everything to be explained in detail?

abake said:

I think Rook (and the entire station for that matter) was cut off from any communication. If I remember correctly, he says Andy will take the goo down to the planet and contact WY from there.

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Yes, he does. For all we know the Station was just as "off grid" at that point as the Nostromo wreckage was, and it took the Company *decades* to locate it. So the Station only being found when it drifted into the colony's orbit and picked up by the short range scanners is totally fine by me.

chrisstbh said:

Do we need everything to be explained in detail?

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No we do not.

Wor-Gar said:

What about the fact that this incredible "goo" was simply left behind by The Corporation and no one tried to go get it. They couldn't muster a small corporate force on the corporate planet below to retrieve this amazing stuff from the station right over their heads?

Did I miss that explanation...?

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Alvarez said the prequel comic he co-wrote will explain what happened on the station prior to the start of the film, at least with the Big Chap.

On one hand, one could argue it's not great writing to need a comic book to provide additional context. On the other hand, we're talking additional context. That particular question doesn't need to be answered for the movie to work. We could imagine any explanation ourselves, even that multiple attempts to retrieve the goo were made and only resulted in the growth of the hive onboard.

Wor-Gar's published fan letter in Star Log Magazine, 1979: "How come what happened on the Derelict wasn't explained? I hate it when things are left to the imagination. Ridley please make a movie spelling out exactly who the Space Jockeys were and whether the one in the movie was wearing a suit or not. I'm sure it will be AWESOME to know those details! Also if you're friends with George Lucas please ask him to explain how exactly the 'Force' gets into people's blood. Thanks!"

Khev said:

Wor-Gar's published fan letter in Star Log Magazine, 1979: "How come what happened on the Derelict wasn't explained?

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I actually loved that, and hate that sequels have had a go at trying to explain it.

But I know you know this.

On that note, I could care less how they located the alien body in space. I go with that. I agree certain things don't need explanation.

But like characters that need a little backstory, I feel the outpost just left abandoned needed a little backstory, that's all. If I was in the writing room, I would have raised my hand on that one. But on finding the alien, yeah, I'd boo and heckle the guy who raised his hand on that one.

Yea isn’t the charm of alien putting pieces together and trying to guess what took place?

Alien 1- those engineers
Alien 2- the colony takeover
Alien 3- newt and crew dying
Alien resurrection- **** that movie

It's crazy that the alien hybrid at the end was a real dude in a suit. I thought it was full CGI.

It isn't about mystery vs having everything explained, it is about not creating plot holes where something logical is missing. Not knowing the origin of the space jockey doesn't have any effect on the enjoyment or logical progression of the movie, is a natural mystery. What happened to it can be clearly inferred by the evidence on screen so does not need to be spelled out.
The super fast development of the creatures in a space of minutes is a new addition to the franchise so needs an explanation in order to not come accross as lazy and contrived. Meanwhile the apparent lack of any retrieval operation by the company goes against their established pattern of behaviour and interests. There is no evidence of any such operation having taken place on screen either. No dialogue aludes to one. So it becomes a plot hole, a gap in the logic of the universe. It is an unnatural mystery that takes away rather than adds to the movie. It doesn't make the events more mysterious, it makes the audience question the competence of the company (and by extension the writers) when they ask "why hasn't the company sent ANYONE to retrieve the research/ samples??? A throwaway line could have been enough "there must be 80 people here (in the hive), how are there so many?" "Maybe some of them arrived here after" and camera can pan to some weapons and gear strewn around. Terrible example but you get my drift. Something that takes only a couple seconds and that gives the audience clues enough to piece together a picture of what must have happened, that someone must have been sent but they failed. Suddenly the company isn't so stupid, but the threat on the station is further established and the audience isn't distracted by a very obvious question.

BeefEaster said:

It's crazy that the alien hybrid at the end was a real dude in a suit. I thought it was full CGI.

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Imagine if he wore the prosthetics to go trick or treating.... the hundreds of traumatised kids...

jaztermareal said:

The super fast development of the creatures in a space of minutes is a new addition to the franchise

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No it isn't, that was done in Covenant and possibly as far back as AvP. But since for me those movies don't "count" I like that the synthetic goo allows for an easy explanation as to why the creatures in Romulus would advance at a different rate than the ones in the first three films.

Khev said:

No it isn't, that was done in Covenant and possibly as far back as AvP. But since for me those movies don't "count" I like that the synthetic goo allows for an easy explanation as to why the creatures in Romulus would advance at a different rate than the ones in the first three films.

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IiRC AvP was unclear about the time it took but was suggested to be hours.

In Covenant I really don't recall how long it was supposed to be for the chest burster to reach adulthood so can't comment on that mess of a movie but keep in mind that when I say aliens growing to full size in minutes I am not referring to minutes in screentime but rather minutes in the reality of the story. Also, it isn't just the time taken but the mass gained. In Alien it can be inferred that during the time the burster was missing it was feeding on stuff in the ship such as pests, food stores (wasn't it lurking in storage?) Or even the hull itself. In Aliens again a lot of time had passed and there were colonists, pets, food stores and other materials to gain mass from. In Alien 3 again the alien was missing for some time and again there was a lot of food for it to grow.

In Romulus the burster in the space of minutes enters a coccoon then pops out fully grown. The slendermorph is birthed, crawls away and minutes later is a full grown man. There is no obvious way for it gain mass, no signs of any food stores ravaged, no sign of a coccoon eating away at the hull or anything, they just grow like magic.

Even if we to agree that previous bad films did it, that does not make it a good idea or something believably possible. It stretches suspension of disbelief into realms of magic only Niel Breen could conjure

The xeno that burst from the guy on the ship in Covenant grew to full size and killed the two people in the shower just a couple minutes later. Do I include that movie in my own personal head canon? No, but it is official lore. Regardless, Romulus presented an explanation that suffices well enough in my mind without needing to rely on subpar entries as precedent which is nice.

And the growth of xenos has *always* bordered on "magical" since 1979 (look up Roger Ebert's original bitching and moaning about that very element from back in the day) but most tend to see it as a positive since it leans the genre more heavily into Cthulhu-esque horror than straight sci-fi.

Khev said:

The xeno that burst from the guy on the ship in Covenant grew to full size and killed the two people in the shower just a couple minutes later. Do I include that movie in my own personal head canon? No, but it is official lore. Regardless, Romulus presented an explanation that suffices well enough in my mind without needing to rely on subpar entries as precedent which is nice.

And the growth of xenos has *always* bordered on "magical" since 1979 (look up Roger Ebert's original bitching and moaning about that very element from back in the day) but most tend to see it as a positive since it leans the genre more heavily into Cthulhu-esque horror than straight sci-fi.

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Was it minutes from burst to killing folk in shower in Covenant or minutes of screen time? If the former then that was just as stupid.

Taking the speed of alien develpment in Alien (hours possibly days) to the literal minutes in Romulus is stretching things from plausible for Alien life to absolutely ridiculous. It is ok if you like it but it is still very stupid and could easily have been fixed multiple ways, but the film failed to do so. The ever increasing speed of gestation and growth are diluting the horror of the reality of the life cycle. Suspension of disbelief requires plausibility.

jaztermareal said:

Was it minutes from burst to killing folk in shower in Covenant or minutes of screen time? If the latter then that was just as stupid.

Taking the speed of alien develpment in Alien (hours possibly days) to the literal minutes in Romulus is stretching things from plausible for Alien life to absolutely ridiculous. It is ok if you like it but it is still very stupid and easily have been fixed multiple ways, but the film failed to do so. The ever increasing speed of gestation and growth are diluting the horror of the reality of the life cycle. Suspension of disbelief requires plausibility.

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I've already explained why I disagree with all of the above so no need to repeat myself.

The Alien didn’t burst out of Lope and grow to full size in minutes in Covenant, it was a few hours.
There’s a time problem with it bursting out of Oram though, which was a few hours but the editing made it seem like minutes.

jaztermareal said:

Was it minutes from burst to killing folk in shower in Covenant or minutes of screen time? If the latter then that was just as stupid.

Taking the speed of alien develpment in Alien (hours possibly days) to the literal minutes in Romulus is stretching things from plausible for Alien life to absolutely ridiculous. It is ok if you like it but it is still very stupid and easily have been fixed multiple ways, but the film failed to do so. The ever increasing speed of gestation and growth are diluting the horror of the reality of the life cycle. Suspension of disbelief requires plausibility.

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You’re right up to a point, but take the Thing for example. You’ve got an alien organism that can reform itself at a cellular level and increase mass. It’s bonkers if you think about it, and doesn’t make a lick of sense.
The suspension of disbelief works on how much a movie draws you in, and that’s down to your own sensibilities as well.
Some look at Star Wars and think it’s one of the greatest movies ever made, others think it’s a load of old guff with no basis in reality.

chrisstbh said:

Do we need everything to be explained in detail?

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The end goal is to detach Ridley Scott from new canon/the entire IP as fast as possible. Alvarez and other have to stay in some guardrails and need some homage, out of respect for the original conception and films, but Scott has clearly lost his fastball. He can't be trusted anymore to safeguard the IP.

The more Alvarez can explain now, the more he quietly takes away from Ridley Scott's ability to still mine the franchise. Kind of ruthless how it works. But it's how it works. Francis Ford Coppola knows his daughter is simply waiting for him to die, so she can remake the Godfather Trilogy and try to salvage her own directing career.

MeatHookGekko said:

The end goal is to detach Ridley Scott from new canon/the entire IP as fast as possible. Alvarez and other have to stay in some guardrails and need some homage, out of respect for the original conception and films, but Scott has clearly lost his fastball. He can't be trusted anymore to safeguard the IP.

The more Alvarez can explain now, the more he quietly takes away from Ridley Scott's ability to still mine the franchise. Kind of ruthless how it works. But it's how it works. Francis Ford Coppola knows his daughter is simply waiting for him to die, so she can remake the Godfather Trilogy and try to salvage her own directing career.

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I'd be fine if Alvarez simply gives us one more film, showing the havoc created by bringing the cannisters to the new colony, and then have the series permanently put to rest (outside of ALIEN Earth obviously.) Hopefully his next film is along the lines of Furiosa, a great film that bombs and ends the franchise, lol.