*BEWARE SPOILERS* Alien: Romulus

Khev said:

slept with the same woman as their father

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Lucas put alot of ... strange ideas into Indiana Jones.

Wor-Gar said:

Lucas put alot of ... strange ideas into Indiana Jones.

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No kidding. Lucas is probably kicking himself for selling the company before he could have Indy search for Epstein's Island.

New VFX Artists React video focusing on Romulus.



They break down several effects, but what's particularly interesting is the Ian Holm stuff which starts around 5:28. The unusual choice to apply a deepfake to an animatronic instead of a real person, what works about that approach, what doesn't, etc. I thought the shot of him crawling on the desk was especially clever in just how many practical elements were used.

Honestly I thought that the CG Holms had a bit of a "Johnny Cab" vibe, which while not at all convincing, kind of fit the aesthetic of the setting and film IMO.

Khev said:

had a bit of a "Johnny Cab" vibe

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Hey now...

Okay all this chatter had me in the mood to check out the movie for the first time on disc and yep, once again (third viewing overall) I enjoyed every minute of it. Even the stuff that people understandably call flaws didn't bother me.

That said there were two new things that stuck out this time, both that I thought were cool (TLDR: Just some things I noticed that probably no one will care about, lol)

1. The final shot of the film is an almost *exact* reversal of the first shot. Instead of a starfield with a black shape coming into view and lighting up to reveal the salvage drone (traveling from left to right) it ends with Rain and Andy's ship's lights going out and becoming a black shape against a starfield, traveling right to left. Cool little bit of symmetry there.

2. Something that struck me about Alien 3 when I revisited it a couple months back was how the Company did *not* execute Morse at the end. Now do we really have any idea just *what* they do with him? Obviously no. But they didn't just kill him on sight, which indicates to me that they at least wanted to take a little bit of time to explore whether or not that would be necessary. Which also indicates that the Company doesn't hold grudges and isn't just murderously evil for evil's sake.

Moving forward to Romulus it is mentioned and even shown that Company androids post-ALIEN do indeed have inhibitor chips that prevent them from harming humans, even to the point where the androids themselves believe they're incapable of harming humans, until they are faced with that very specific choice of having multiple humans in danger, with some surviving *only* if others die. In that case the androids will always act (or refuse to act) in favor of the greater number of humans surviving.

Couple that with Rook's statements that the entire reason they were experimenting with Xeno DNA was to find a way to make humans become more like the "perfect organism," allowing them to adapt and survive in almost any condition, just like the Xenos do. Which suddenly creates an entirely new and fascinating perspective on the "crew expendable" mindset of the Company in previous films. According to Romulus the Company has never been about benefiting itself for its own sake, but rather for the betterment of humanity as a whole, the true "greater good" as it sees it.

Now it doesn't mean that the Company isn't also infected with any number of slimey and selfish "Burkes" or members who want the Xenos as bioweapons to squash their enemies, but they aren't *all* like that. And to me it just creates this awesome food for thought with regard to wondering just what the motives for the Company really were in any given film. Maybe Bishop II in Alien 3 really *was* telling the truth, and really *did* want to help Ripley, while simultaneously trying to extract more DNA that they lost on the Romulus. To be fair we didn't need Romulus to wonder this about Biship II, but the revelation that the Company wanted the DNA to help humanity instead of mass destruction does make the possibility he was telling the truth that much more plausible.

Maybe Burke was just the "bioweapons" opportunist, who knows. Romulus still shows that the Company can be shady AF, like at the beginning of the film where we learn that there is apparently fine print in miners' work contracts that allows those same contracts to be extended for any number of years against the workers' wills, but again we get to wonder to what degree that shadiness manifests, and for what greater purpose, justified or not.

To me it just gives the entire first "trilogy" (and Romulus as well) an extra level of verisimilitude and immersion because I can see how even normal, pragmatic people who are aware of Company practices might still think it's in their best interests to try and work the system and use the benefits of what the Company offers to their advantage since the it really isn't just a straight up "evil" organization.

Oh and in case ScoutingForToys is reading this far I did pay extra attention to the pulse rifle training scene and he did specify that it was an M-44 as opposed to the M-41A used by the Marines in ALIENS. So definitely a "newer" model, even though Marines decades later will still be using an older variety. Not that we're still debating it, I just thought it was interesting that they mentioned the model number.

Another thing, one of my very favorite scenes out of all the Nightmare on Elm Street films is in the second one where the one kid is trapped in his own bedroom as Freddy is being "birthed" out of the main character just a few feet away. The kid's all freaking out and trying to open the door while his parents are frantically trying to do the same on the other side. That scene just always hit me as being extra freaky due to how prolonged it was with Freddy not rushing at all and just being all nonchalant as he came into being while the kid could do absolutely nothing to escape.

I felt a similar vibe when Kay was trying to get the door open in Romulus while the fully formed Xeno was slowly coming out of its cocoon after killing the guy right next to her. Very cool.

Khev said:

2. Something that struck me about Alien 3 when I revisited it a couple months back was how the Company did *not* execute Morse at the end. Now do we really have any idea just *what* they do with him? Obviously no. But they didn't just kill him on sight, which indicates to me that they at least wanted to take a little bit of time to explore whether or not that would be necessary. Which also indicates that the Company doesn't hold grudges and isn't just murderously evil for evil's sake.

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Didn't the computer log at the end say the custodial presence was terminated? I always took that to mean Morse was killed.

Khev said:

Couple that with Rook's statements that the entire reason they were experimenting with Xeno DNA was to find a way to make humans become more like the "perfect organism," allowing them to adapt and survive in almost any condition, just like the Xenos do. Which suddenly creates an entirely new and fascinating perspective on the "crew expendable" mindset of the Company in previous films. According to Romulus the Company has never been about benefiting itself for its own sake, but rather for the betterment of humanity as a whole, the true "greater good" as it sees it.

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It's not for the betterment of humanity as a whole, though. Just sounds like they just want a more resilient work force.

Which begs the question, why not use more droids? They don't drop like flies in the mines, nor do they care about getting transferred.

Khev said:

To me it just gives the entire first "trilogy" (and Romulus as well) an extra level of verisimilitude and immersion because I can see how even normal, pragmatic people who are aware of Company practices might still think it's in their best interests to try and work the system and use the benefits of what the Company offers to their advantage since the it really isn't just a straight up "evil" organization.

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Very true, the impersonality is what makes it so chilling. Weyland Yutani are not mustache-twirling villains, they just view everyone and everything as a resource to be exploited. Even in a world plagued by a species as destructive as the Aliens, nothing is more sacred than the Company's bottom line. Capitalism and corporatism taken to dystopian extremes. And they hold enough influence that no one can do anything about it.

It did tickle me that in the extended cut of Resurrection, the military scientists mention that Weyland Yutani was eventually "bought out by Walmart". I don't know if they meant it literally or as a figure of speech, but as silly as it sounded at first, that really is the way these things can go. Cold and unceremonious. Doesn't matter how big you were yesterday, something else can always swallow you up by writing a larger number. The individuals affected in the process are hardly even statistics in the long run. Yet if you look close enough, you might find a story as dramatic and meaningful as Ripley's.

Rotfish said:

Didn't the computer log at the end say the custodial presence was terminated? I always took that to mean Morse was killed.

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I don't recall exactly. Regardless of what it said, why take him back to the ship to kill him when they could have just ordered him to be finished off and tossed into the furnace. I'm assuming that the computer log would just be the "official" Company statement. I wonder if the novelization elaborated on that at all.

A lot of villains do their best work for the "greater good".

Wor-Gar said:

A lot of villains do their best work for the "greater good".

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Oh yes, and those tend to be the best ones. Darth Vader became infinitely more interesting to me in ESB after his whole "we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy" spiel that retroactively made ANH Vader even cooler and Romulus has done the same for Weyland-Yutani. As I've said a number of times Alien 3 *hinted* that the Company might be one of those more interesting villains but Romulus sealed the deal (in my mind obviously.)

Rook also gave me a very distinct David-vibe: very condescending of humans, seeing us as weak and ill-prepared for the universe at large. Which also harkens to Ash's gushing appraisal of the alien as the "perfect organism, unclouded by conscience or remorse". Those damn W-Y artificial persons really hate our guts. Except for the Bishop model...

abake said:

Rook also gave me a very distinct David-vibe: very condescending of humans, seeing us as weak and ill-prepared for the universe at large. Which also harkens to Ash's gushing appraisal of the alien as the "perfect organism, unclouded by conscience or remorse". Those damn W-Y artificial persons really hate our guts. Except for the Bishop model...

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And Andy obviously. Even with his updated directive he didn't take the same glee in fulfilling it that the Ash models did.

As for David, I'm in the camp that doesn't consider Prometheus/Covenant canon, and to me Rook's comment about Weyland searching the cosmos for the root of life or whatever he said was just a throwaway line along the same lines of Red Skull mentioning Hitler searching for trinkets in the desert in The First Avenger. An obvious reference to Indiana Jones, but one that doesn't automatically link the two franchises together. That's my own head canon anyway.

Wor-Gar said:

Hey now...

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holy **** wtf is that?

I just saw this. My first impressions are mixed. Probably the best alien movie to come out in a long while. I like the overall tone, main character and the synthetic guy were great, good suspense and action. But the unnecessary callbacks were annoying, including the Ash thing which looked really bad. I also dislike the theme going back to the 90s of having wacky and ugly alien hybrids.

But most importantly, I really hated the connections to the prometheus movies. I don't like what Scott did with those, I don't like the black goo, I don't like the connections between the engineers and the aliens, and I kind of hate that this is going to be a major focus of the franchise moving forward apparently.

I would have preferred they steer clear of that junk and just focus on the aliens. Oh well.

karamazov80 said:

But most importantly, I really hated the connections to the prometheus movies.

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Nothing in Romulus requires you to pretend that those films are canon though.

Khev said:

Nothing in Romulus requires you to pretend that those films are canon though.

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While you could try to watch it that way they were clearly meant to be connected. It had the goo and the hybrid looks just like the ones from those films. Hard to disentangle those things. I would have found it more rewarding had it been a soft reboot (or return to form) that moves away from that nonsense in my opinion.

karamazov80 said:

While you could try to watch it that way they were clearly meant to be connected. It had the goo and the hybrid looks just like the ones from those films.

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But it could also be goo and a hybrid *not* from those films. And I don't say that flippantly. Yes, you and I and everyone who's seen Prometheus know that that movie is what first introduced those elements. But I think of it as a "soft" connection, and therefore an optional one as well.

It's like Bill Burr mentioning Canto Bight by name in Mando Season 1. A lot of people who accept Mando as canon but totally dismiss the ST just pretend that in the context of Mando, Canto Bight is just some other random planet, or if it is a casino planet then it's part of some other "reality" than the ST, since no one actually needs to watch the ST to enjoy or understand Mando. That same principle can be applied directly to those brief lines of dialogue in Romulus IMO.