Nope it’s not Star Trek and there’s no Neutral Zone. It’s a standalone story set between Alien and Aliens. Can’t link to the trailer at the moment but it definitely looks more horror than action.
Interesting.
The trailer feels similar to the original movie in terms of mood, and I mean that in a good way, but with the adrenaline cranked up to 11.
The problem with that it is essentially retreading the same story, and while their are only so many fundamental plots available, repeating them in the same milieu becomes tedious. Alien worked (and holds up still today) because of the unique blend of interpersonal dynamics, conspiranoia about why the crew was sent to investigate the signal, and the dank industrial/medieval set design and dressing. Although anyone watching the film today knows that Ripley is going to be the surviving character it is never foreshadowed in film and the death of Kane and then Dallas is still shocking and suspenseful. Because of the limitations of special effects and the time restrictions on filming (exacerbated by the British crew refusing to work overtime and insisting on their tea breaks) the more elaborate scenes of the alien in full view were cut, and the alien appears only a handful of times, typically only for a few frames or in deep shadow until the very end of the film. In Aliens, the xenomorphs appear more frequently in full view, but the tension there was more in the countdown of the reactor overload, and then the surprising false ending and final mano a garra fight. Every Alien-related entry since Aliens has been derivative at best, and often dull or unintentionally hilarious as the characters make the absolutely dumbest things over and over again, actually spurring tropes like “The Prometheus School Of Running Away From Things” and “Curiosity Killed The Cast”.
This trailer looks good from a production standpoint but it already shows too many chestbusters and xenomorphs even within a seventy second trailer, and the voiceover of a guy saying, “Run!” makes it almost seem like a parody or fanfic. I suspect that like Alvarez’s Evil Dead remake, this is going to be a very pretty film that aspires to reproduce the feel of the original but just manages to miss the mark in every way.
Stranger
Anyone else seen it yet?
I went last night and saw it in IMAX. I thoroughly enjoyed it but reading some reviews and other message board commentary, I can’t entirely disagree with some of the criticism although for me what they disliked I found to be some of the best parts of the movie.
The movie is set between Alien and Aliens, and it starts much closer to the end of Alien in the timeline. As such I think they did a really good job with the movie’s esthetic, tone, settings, visuals and score, to be closer to Alien. It felt like all the technology, equipment, ships, uniforms/attire, xenomorph(s), etc., all fit right into the same timeframe as Alien. I hate when prequels have more advanced tech than their originals (coughStar Wars Prequelscough).
There is a lot of fan service in this movie, a whole lot. This is one of the criticisms I see about it but for me it really worked. I wanted an Alien movie again. Not a farce like Alien Resurrection, not a philosophical exploration of faith and creation like Prometheus. I wanted a derelict ship, face huggers, xenomorph(s), and action/horror for a couple hours and it delivers all of that. Is much of that delivery done in a way that is throwing bones to fans by using subtle and obvious settings and scenes that call back to the rest of the franchise? Yep, absolutely and with one exception it’s done brilliantly! I was enjoying the visual feast of finding little easter eggs in the background of scenes or watching scenes that gave me big nostalgia for some of the iconic moments in the other movies.
Okay, remaining comments could fall into Spoilers so…
Science Officer Rook - Reading a lot of people upset at the use of the late Ian Holm. As I understand it, it was done with permission from his family, etc. Seeing “Ash” again was something I never expected. I loved it even if the CGI/AI/Whatever wasn’t the best at times. I didn’t have any ethical issues with this in Rogue One (Tarkin, Leia) and I didn’t have any issues here (Ash/Rook).
Fan Service/Easter Eggs:
- Drinking bird toy in background was also on the Nostromo in the opening scene of Alien, in Alien 3, and in Alien:Covenant. Any others?
- Science Officer Rook/Ash. Ian Holm’s portrayal of Ash in Alien was masterful. I loved seeing, if at times poorly done via CGI, that model android with the same mannerisms and speech in the form of Rook again.
- Alien Isolation (video game) save points (Emergency phones?) on Romulus station.
- “I prefer the term Artificial Person” - Andy / Bishop.
- “Get away from her you bitch!” - Andy / Ripley (This is the one fan service in the movie I really did not like. It just did not work although it got a small amount of laughter in the theater)
- Rain and Xenomorph in elevator shaft. Shot was framed to pay homage to Xenomorph/Ripley shot in Alien 3 after the doctor is killed. Rain/Ripley head turned aside in fear, Xenomorph threateningly close to her face.
- Rain and Ripley emerging from elevator with pulse rifle to confront the xenomorph (Ripley to get Newt, Rain to get Andy).
- Mother - Alien, MU/TH/UR - Alien: Romulus.
- Science Officer Rook - Refusing to open the door because it may allow a contagion onboard that would kill them all. Loved this role reversal of Ash allowing them in in Alien over Ripley’s objections.
- Final act paid homage to the final act in Alien Resurrection with an equally disturbing creature but executed much better than Alien Resurrection.
- Connection to black goo from Prometheus/Covenant. I didn’t care for this but that is more about me and my general dislike of Prometheus and Covenant and what that introduced in terms of canon and origins.
Things we learned that were new (I think):
We got more insight into early interest by WY in the xenomorph. Rook explaining how their mining colonies were failing due to recurring illnesses/cancers, environmental reasons, etc., and how humans have not evolved for a life of space exploration/terraforming.
We got to see a new step in the lifecycle of the xenomorph. In past movies it seems there was always the open question of how the xenomorph went from a chest burster to a full xenomoprh. Here we get to see the chrysalis stage and re-emergence.
Okay, I could go on here but… anyone else see it yet? Thoughts?
I liked it but didn’t love it. I didn’t mind the references except for one specific line (which you mention above which took me out of the story) and I liked how it looked like the same setting as the first two movies.
The most horrifying thing in it was the colony it was set on. I never saw the universe of Alien as that dystopian (it was more like the Expanse. There was some good and some bad). I felt bad for everyone living there. It made me think of the old school nerd debates about whether Alien could be set in the Blade Runner universe.
I think they absolutely ruined the movie with the whole “we are going to crash in 45 minutes” thing. Going from facehugger to fully grown xenomorph in 10 minutes or so was ridiculous, but even that paled to the fully grown thing at the end. You also take away any chance to explore the creepy derelict space station, build up any suspense or even give you a chance to get to know any of the characters. Plus it makes that ticking clock the main conflict, with the aliens as a secondary obstacle. It could have been a great movie, it just tried to ramp up the danger too much instead of just focusing on the alien.
It was really bad. I think he should have calmly said, “You are not what’s best for Rain.” Would have gotten a chuckle and been in character.
First, it is a shame that they spent so much time making references to the other Alien movies. I have no idea why they did that other than being directed to by the studio. This actually loses this movie almost a whole star rating from me. It was weird.
However, this is a great and very fun Alien movie when it isn’t busy making references and so forth. I like the director’s Evil Dead movie much more, but this movie was really great. Felt like a really solid Alien sequel.
If you like Alien and Aliens, this is pretty much a really excellent followup to those, though I believe this is a interquel, taking place between those two movies. Anyway, probably the best standard Alien sequel other than possibly Aliens.
I still liked Covenant and Prometheus more, which are really quite different, almost from another franchise. What can I say? I really like the Synth storylines and was actually quite happy this new movie did contain one.
I had heard from a few people there is a really bad CGI effect in this movie. You know what? There really is, one of the most unacceptably bad effects in a major, big-budget movie I’ve seen in awhile. I’ll spoiler-post it since it contains mild(ish) spoilers.
Ian Holm’s synth shows up and the digital re-creation of Ian Holm is worse than even Rogue One’s attempt at Peter Cushing, which looks downright amazing compared to this. And Rogue One was almost 8 years ago now. Why did Ian Holm look so bad? Did they run out of time?
I did not think the CGI on that was bad at all. He was severely damaged and their monitors are extremely shitty.
Did I not understand the monster at the end? Did she really give birth to a creature and within two minutes it was full grown? Doesn’t that seem awfully fast?
Yes, like everything else in the movie.
They could have explained this away with a line in the movie about how they had been tinkering with the breeding cycle to speed it up but they went with “get away from her… you… bitch” instead.
I saw Borderlands, which was clearly taken away from the director and re-edited down and made totally PG-13, turning it into a pretty lame and dull movie.
Alien: Romulus seems like Disney was there watching and making sure it includes all these various things to give callbacks for the audience to remember. It isn’t as bland as Borderlands, but I wish they would just let directors make the movie they want.
It is funny how the deep fake that is getting so much buzz (being vague for spoilers) was completely lost on me. I didn’t notice who it was calling back to at all.
There was the scene with the rat and it had explosive growth in the video. Then there was the quick cut as Rain, Andy, etc., left the lab to the rat’s enclosure which was smashed with the very large rat-o-morph’s decayed body.
That being said… the Alien franchise has always had growth cycles to fit the plot/story and hasn’t been too consistent, right? Kane in Alien took a decent amount of time (24+ hours-ish?) from initial face hugger incubation to the chest bursting meal scene. It was not clear how much time passed from that event until Dallas meets the full grown xenomorph but it appears to be within hours, not days. It seemed incubation was much slower in Aliens as we see a colonist so it presumably was days/weeks but we didn’t get any chest burster to grown xenomorph in that movie to see how they handled the growth cycle. Alien 3 seemed slow incubation for Ripley, fast growth for the xenomorph that came from the dog or an ox depending upon version. And of course Alien Resurrection had the Ripley-Queen-Baby got pretty damn big pretty damn fast.
What was really bad was the pause halfway through the line. The entire cinema filled in the blank just in time to drown out the actual dialogue.
I finally got around to seeing this now that it’s on Disney +. It’s a perfectly servicable movie. While I agree with the many criticisms I’ve read here, I enjoyed the movie well enough. The set design and effects were pretty good and the basic plot interesting enough. I’m shaving points off for the weird timeline of the xenomorph gestation, the instant alien at the end, and the unnecessary callback.
As for the science officer: I didn’t care for the use of Ian Homles. It’s disrespectful, unnecesary, and undermines the first movie. In the first movie, the original science officer of the Nostromo is replaced by Kane, who is secretly an android. If you have a bunch of androids who look like Ian Holmes running around then why would you use that model to sneak an android onto a ship?
I just finished watching it. I agree with all of the praise and criticism of the movie.
I did laugh at the line but @Mahaloth had a better line.
I must like it because I want to explain the Ian Holm synthetic. My take is that he is first generation of that model. IIRC, Aliens has a synthetic based on Lance Henrikson, who shows up as its creator in Alien 3. If that’s correct, I would say they have models, like Andy, Rook, etc and before they are known, they can be used in crews that haven’t seen the new model yet. Once revealed, they are in the open. Equally, it could be that it was just the crew of the Nostromo that didn’t know about the Rook model and Ash didn’t tell.
I have not seen Covenent and Prometheus.
I don’t know why this is disrespectful or undermines the first movie to have Ian Holm’s likeness used. I don’t understand that.
I also liked how well the tech could fit after Alien but before Aliens.
My critiques, besides the fast growth, where does it get the mass for the wall stuff, much less itself? I read the readings on the cryo fuel they grabbed had a lot but the others weren’t empty. I don’t know why taking that one out started the thaw process on the face huggers. Plus, it seemed to be a bank of five as well but maybe it was only two. The other one had at least one light indicator, if not two, which would seem to be enough.
Now I’m going down the rabbit hole of tech. If the cryo is slowly running out, they have to be marked by priority. In that case, wouldn’t lower ones be thawed while more important get the cryo?
I also agree that I felt bad for the colonists and had no idea how dystopian the society was. The adding of time because they could really hit hard. All too real.
Thanks for the discussion!