*BEWARE SPOILERS* Alien: Romulus

[Wor-Gar]

The Queen is also out there in the void, wiggling her little legs and screaming...





























... waiting for Fede!

 

[ZE_501]

I was depressed leaving the cinema after Covenant. That film is gross and such a downer.

I can't remember Covenant. Like ... nothing at all. It left no lasting impression.

 

[ZE_501]

Since it took them 20 years I'm fine with it. Same with the odds of Ripley herself being found (which has never bothered me in ALIENS.)

At least Ripley was inside a technological life raft and presumably more detectable than what should have been a corpse in the black void of space.

You know in 45 years I've never considered that the original xeno should have been vaporized. I guess I always assumed that we were to believe that it was blown clear enough away from the Nostromo blast and was always just out there somewhere.

I seem to recall thinking it was damaged by the engine exhaust and eventually destroyed in hard vacuum.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Picking up the alien in space... is as silly as finding Luke's hand and lightsaber.

 

[JAWS]

I do wish he hadn't included the "get away from her you *****" line because watching them chronologically means Ripley will now say it second and that was just too big of a moment for her to make it a chronological rehash IMO.

I wonder if Romulus 2 will show all the havoc caused when a team locates the Queen floating in deep space, lol.

Not sure he could have delivered that line any worse

Almost like he was confused


Or maybe the actor was about to vomit cause he knew how stupid it sounded

 

[JAWS]

The positive feedback for this film from fans and critics is as baffling to me as the positive feedback TFA received upon its release.

I will say that Alien Romulus is better than TFA.

Woopiefuckingdoo

 

[JAWS]

I'm on team "original alien got blown away from the Narcissus but didn't necessarily die" crew.

I imagined it just drifted in space and hibernated, waiting for someone to pick it up.

It was trying to take a snooze onboard Ripley's escape ship after all, until that ***** woke it up.

That’s what I always thought also. Just out there floating in space and pissed off as hell

 

[Khev]

I will say that Alien Romulus is better than TFA.

You're damn right it is.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Say that again in 3 years.

 

[Khev]

As if society will exist in three years.

 

[Khev]

Not sure if this was posted yet:



Enjoyable interview. Fede Alvarez's fandom definitely comes through and he's clearly more thoughtful and imaginative than, say, the brothers who directed AVP-R (which I'm only mentioning because they also came to their project as fans making the kind of movie they wanted to see... but their understanding of what makes the franchise work was juvenile, as was the resulting film).

What an awesome story. For those who didn't watch the video he was just making short films in Uruguay about giant monsters attacking cities and he started posting them on YouTube as an easy way for his friends and family to watch them. Then Kanye West stumbled onto one of the videos and shared the link and suddenly Hollywood was calling him to come up and make real movies, lol.

Then after he saw Prometheus he was just chatting with one of Ridley Scott's producers as a fan and was sharing what he thought would be cool things they could do in future sequels (that would later appear in Romulus.) He wasn't asking to be involved, just sharing ideas. Ridley Scott caught wind of it and asked to meet him and share those ideas further and then eventually offered the job for Romulus.

So in both cases, breaking into the industry and directing an Alien film, Alvarez was not promoting himself, not trying to become "successful" or trying to make anything his own or wanting to twist an IP into his own image. He was just working hard doing what he loved and the doors opened for him. That's awesome.

 

[JAWS]

Say that again in 3 years.

I am curious to see what people think about this film in three years.

I personally believe it will walk in TFA footsteps where people start to catch on to its emptiness.

However it will still be better than TFA.

 

[JAWS]

You're damn right it is.

Oh my. With as much as you love the ST, Alien Romulus must be your fav movie.







Poor Khev and his depleting film taste.

 

[JAWS]

Every horror movie needs that one guy you can't wait to see die horribly.

Alien didn’t need it.

 

[JAWS]

The director hired the creature team from ALIENS to come back and do this one.

The whole movie was filmed in chronological order. Very cool.

Alec Gillis was the creature designer

He also did AVP, AVP:R, Alien Resurrection and Alien 3

Alien 3 was the only Alien design I liked out of those films. Of course HR Giger was a part of that one also (early on)

I’m not a fan of the others. Most if not all of the others suffer from that dumb looking oversized mouth.

 

[Wor-Gar]

 

[Khev]

Oh my. With as much as you love the ST, Alien Romulus must be your fav movie.

I don't even know how to properly articulate my current feelings on the ST. I just don't have the energy or inclination any more. Short version is that when they came out I saw them as mixed bags that I loved (like ROTJ), now they're more mixed bags that I'm largely apathetic toward. It's also hard to separate them from all the recent garbage LFL has been churning out.

Romulus has an interesting premise, gorgeous visuals, great music, a tight running time, a really likable lead, some really cool new sequences, no significant plot holes, no screwing up the lore, no idiot characters. It also has no annoying "message" and is a satisfying self-contained story that doesn't feel like a soulless ad for a franchise reboot or X amount of spin-off films. With all that going for it I find it pretty easy to forgive things like a misplaced callback here and there or a creature's mouth that opens a little too wide in one or two scenes.

ALIEN and ALIENS are straight 10's but I'd probably give Romulus a solid 8 along with Alien 3. Though unlike Alien 3 it does nothing that straight up pisses me off.

 

[JAWS]

I don't even know how to properly articulate my current feelings on the ST. I just don't have the energy or inclination any more. Short version is that when they came out I saw them as mixed bags that I loved (like ROTJ), now they're more mixed bags that I'm largely apathetic toward. It's also hard to separate them from all the recent garbage LFL has been churning out.

Yep… Ducky was right all along

These films needed some backup projects like TCW was for the PT

Mando flirted with it but ultimately Disney avoided any ST controversy.

All the shows beyond Andor have left me empty as a SW fan.

I pretty much dislike all Disney SW accept for Andor and RO. Although I did like parts of other shows but the bad outweighs the good.

Romulus has an interesting premise, gorgeous visuals, great music, a tight running time, a really likable lead, some really cool new sequences, no significant plot holes, no screwing up the lore, no idiot characters. It also has no annoying "message" and is a satisfying self-contained story that doesn't feel like a soulless ad for a franchise reboot or X amount of spin-off films. With all that going for it I find it pretty easy to forgive things like a misplaced callback here and there or a creature's mouth that opens a little too wide in one or two scenes.

Unfortunately it does feel soulless to me due to its lack of original ideas and lack of characters I cared for.

But I’m happy for its success. Means we should get more Alien movies. They got to get it right again at some point.

 

[Wor-Gar]

I pretty much dislike all Disney SW accept for Andor and RO.

Pretty much. Although I doubt I'll ever revisit Andor season 1.

So that leaves RO.

which is great. but after nearly a decade, Disney has given very little... and yet it has taken so much away.


In the end, I got RO... and a bunch of dolls from Hot Toys.

 

[Solidus]

I just finished seeing Romulus earlier in the evening at the Regal Cinema in Union Square. Have to say, I went in with low expectations, but came out satisfied after seeing the movie. The cinematography, sound quality and monster designs were fantastic.

I thought it was good that the characters had backstories, and that there was actual world-building attempted in showing a Weyland-Yutani colony. That said, I didn't care too much for the side-characters, but Rain and Andy complimented each other well; there was good character growth between the two in the short time they were featured. Andy seemed oddly conflicted about his programming at times, which may imply that there was either some self-awareness involved in his decision-making, or his constant reprogramming had left some deleterious effect on his psyche. His presence in the story also prevented Rain from becoming a typical "Mary Sue" character - which has been the recent flavor of movies in the past decade.

Rain seemed to have been a character clone of Ripley (in terms of what she does in the film, and not her personality). Although, that may have been a good, safe thing to do for the story, since attempts to introduce a stronger female lead into the Alien-verse, would've been insulting to Ripley's legacy. And although the actress did an okay job with the role, I'm not sure if I'd be interested in seeing her in another movie.

The horror aspects of the film were handled well, in my opinion. There's a scene where an Alien was being "birthed" from a cocoon - which was implied to be its final stage of growth. I thought that it was a fairly good addition to the franchise, because we've never actually seen the transition of a chestbuster to a fully grown "adult". There was a also certain appropriateness of seeing the Alien's phallic-shaped head force its way out of the detached, utero-cocoon, as its hands tore free and crackled into shape. There's just something disgusting and vile about that imagery that suits the Xenomorph's physiology and behvior quite well.

As for the "Slendermorph" - I didn't find it terrifying by itself from the leaked footage. But, once I saw its origins - black goo that mutated Kay's unborn baby, it completely changed my perspective on it. That thing was the stuff of nightmares (especially it's creepy tendency to smile as it stares down at its victims - akin to a newborn infant, looking merily at a toy it wants to play with). I thought it was definitely handled better than the Alien-hybrid from Resurrection.

Anyways, that's it for now. I'd give the movie a 7/10. It's definitely third place for me in ranking of the Alien films - with Alien and Aliens being the top two. I believe that Romulus did what it needed to do, in order to reintroduce this franchise after several disappointing entries (even if that meant rehasing the "greatest hits" of Aliens). It didn't disappoint.