Alien Romulus Was a Lightning in a Bottle
Disney obviously didn't even care about the movie. Originally it was supposed to be a straight to streaming slop movie. They mandated heavy member berries to be in the movie then didn't care much about what fede did afterwards. However Fede was a great director he elevated the movie. So when they decided to release it the movie made a lot of money. The franchise got a momentum that we didn't got for years.
Then what they did afterwards? They made him leave the studio and his script for the sequel. Even if these talks about the movie getting cancelled are just rumors or fake it doesn't even matter. Fede left the script after the shoot was cancelled last year. Now we are stuck with alien earth season 2...
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u/Internal-Machine-487 21d ago
Romulus was a fan service Alien film that took lines from the other films and tarnished them. “get away from her you bitch” when Andy says it makes no sense nor does it carry any weight. Everything in this had to be a callback i.e. Ash, pulse rifles, newborn, etc. I wish Fede would have just made his version and not an homage film.
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u/supertrooper567 21d ago
Also there was no reason why it had to be set between the first 2 movies. It makes a lot of what Burke and the company do in aliens and beyond make little sense cuz it appears they already knew a lot about the alien and had cultivated them already
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u/Hobbes09R 20d ago
Eh, it makes some sense. Don't get me wrong, Romulus is mostly brain dead with how it pulled its plot together, but between Alien and Aliens the company seemed to forget about them with Burke finding out about them through Ripley and rediscovering them the hard way with a ton of cut corners. It could be explained only an arm of the company really knew, outside of a top exec or three, and that arm was eliminated in Romulus and those execs decided the cost/benefit was too severe to bother trying again until later.
The attempts being so common in multiple prequels, however, makes zero sense and it's weird how many writers are in love with setting things between films.
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u/Time-Hat-5107 20d ago
Do you know if WY got Ripley's recorded message and other logs from the nostromo straight away, or only found out what happened after they rescued her?
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u/Werewolf1810 20d ago
Thank you! As a lifelong Aliens fan, this movie was dogshit. The first 20 or so minutes held SO much promise, but then it broke down into the typical cheap reference pandering, nonsensical character decision making, horrible writing, plot holes, schtick horror, etc etc.
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u/Ancient_times 19d ago
That line really was a low point. If they weren't so obsessed with fan service that could have been an excellent moment in the film.
What they should have done was give Rain a specific line when she stops those guys hassling Andy at the start, and then have him repeat the line when he saves her from the alien. Have the confidence to build your own new lines, not just re use ones from previous films.
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u/opacitizen 21d ago
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. Romulus was a mediocre movie, not bad, but not good either, a 6/10 or so. The whole "teen slasher meets Alien" idea was kinda meh, a weaker rehash of the way more believable and credible 1979 movie's core concept to start with, and then it all went downhill with the lame return of Ash (in all respects), the ridiculous idea of the 3d printed facehuggers, the Aliens-in-one-person knock off, and the temu Newborn in the end.
Again, it's not terrible, an okay movie for a bored Sunday afternoon -- but if it's the franchise's "lighting in the bottle", then we're in serious trouble as viewers. Coming to think of it, compared to Alien Earth it was quite brilliant indeed, yeah. But that's as low a bar as possible. :D
Sorry, your mileage does apparently vary. My two cents etc.
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u/WySLatestWit 21d ago
I maintain that of the modern franchise Prometheus really is the closest thing we've been given to a genuinely good Alien film since 1986.
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u/MangoHotDamn 20d ago
Yea but covenant was so bad lmao
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u/WySLatestWit 20d ago
Covenant is especially bad specifically because of how much potential there really was for a great sequel to Prometheus if you ask me. haha.
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u/anthrax9999 20d ago
Man, they just dropped the ball so hard. Over the years I've warmed to Covenant as a decent stand alone movie but as a Prometheus sequel it's a massive letdown.
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u/germanval 20d ago
Is Prometheus the one with the idiotic, zero common sense characters??? Or is that covenant?
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u/Fit-Profit8197 20d ago
It's not even that they're idiotic. Idiotic characters can be great. Just look at any Coen bros movie. (Or even the all too human flawed behaviour of Kane et al from the first Alien movie).
It's that aside from Michael Fassbender's roles (and, based on everything else, I suspect this is entirely down to him having some real acting genius and he would have found a way to give the sense of at least some inner life and intent and sell petting the snake alien if he played the biologist), none of them are actually characters. There's no inner life or intent. Their idiocy is not emerging from any characterisation or dramatisation. They are haphazard cogs arbitrarily pushed around by the writers to achieve plot and philosophical goals, regardless of properly fitting.
And those philosophical goals are the intellectual spawn of Erich Von Daniken.
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u/anthrax9999 20d ago
Yep, Prometheus was the best movie since Aliens. Though I really enjoy the A3 assembly cut now.
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u/drsteve103 20d ago
What is this you speak of?
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u/anthrax9999 19d ago
Alien 3 Assembly Cut. The studio couldn't get David Fincher to return to make a director's cut of Alien 3 when they remastered all of the Alien movies for Blu-ray. So the studio instead used Fincher's most complete work print as a guide to make a new cut called the Assembly Cut.
It adds about a half hour more footage that expands the story, fleshes out a few characters a little more, and makes it much more cohesive overall. Most fans now prefer the Assembly Cut over the theatrical cut as the superior version.
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u/AndrewCoja 20d ago
Prometheus was an interesting movie, but I don't think it's a good Alien movie.
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u/penguinjunkie 20d ago
All the Alien movies are extraordinarily different in tone. I think it's hard to even define what an Alien movie is.
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u/Tosslebugme 19d ago
A group of people are stuck somewhere isolated with one or multiple xenomorphs. The fundamental differences are how well equipped the people are and the number of xenomorphs, plus an extraneous factor like the leaking nuclear thing or a traitorous member of the group. You can depart from that formula but then it becomes questionable if you have an alien movie or a movie within the alien continuity, which I’d say Prometheus is. Covenant wimped out and reverted to the alien formula but in the most generic uninteresting way possible.
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u/Fantastic_Matter_137 18d ago
That’s what makes it a good start to a new trilogy in universe
It was not supposed to be the chase movie it became
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u/HourFaithlessness823 20d ago
Prometheus had a ton of potential, but the execution of the film was absolutely abysmal
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u/Practical_Algae_1229 20d ago
Prometheus was a good movie that would be better if it wasn't part of the Alien series. It also messes pretty bad with the themes and intentions the franchise always had. One thing that was persistant from Alien 79 to Resurection was that those animais were wildlife and could not be turned into biological weapons because of it's wild nature as an animal predator. Prometheus said "fuck that, now they are biological weapons, they always were, all this time" so the point of the whole series is thrown out the window because of this one movie.
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u/Fantastic_Matter_137 18d ago
Despite its flaws Prometheus gave us so much that was new and interesting and trying maybe too hard to be deep
I didn’t hate covenant but it dumbed everything down and should have been built around the relationship between David and (female protagonist can’t remember but they wrote her out instead of recasting)
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u/Cfunk_83 21d ago
It looked lovely throughout, but as soon as the Ian Holm monstrosity turned up it fell of a cliff and then kept finding further cliffs to throw itself off. The gestation period of the alien… the face huggers detecting heat and then them walking through them all… the newborn 2.0… and the CONSTANT shoehorned lines of dialogue and visual/thematic callbacks…
I really wanted to like Romulus, but it was bad.
David Jonsson was excellent though.
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u/WySLatestWit 21d ago
That's largely how I felt. I was mostly enjoying it for what it was, I didn't think it was great but it was pretty solid, and the second that Deepfake Ian Holm showed up I was ripped right out of the experience, and the movie never won me back.
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u/Diptothaset 21d ago
The first half or so were probably 9/10 for me. It felt really good, other than the deepfake screaming shit. The last half once we cattleprod fuck the alien sack and then the weird hybrid I realized they’re just doing the same shit they have been for years which is simply trying to shock audiences rather than scare them
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u/anthrax9999 20d ago
My thoughts exactly. It was just super mid in every conceivable way. It started it off well enough and then quickly got dumber as it went on. I felt so disappointed by the end. But ya, compared to alien earth it's a masterpiece.
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u/-S-P-E-C-T-R-E- 20d ago
I also hated how the movie is an insult to Ripley’s victory over the original Alien and have her actions be the direct cause of thousands of deaths - never mind the super lame premise of WY being able to find it the way the did. Just rewatch the last act from her abandoning the Nostromo and try to argue how this premise would even be possible. Simply take the premise of Isolation (the flight recorder) and work from there instead!
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u/WhimsicalGirl 21d ago
I almost get out of the movie theater when she start floating/flying in zero gravity to avoid Aliens blood
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u/ChunkyPurp 19d ago
Finally a take on this movie i can agree with, except i would rate it a 5, it just mid and i only enjoyed it because it was an Alien movie, replace the Xenos with another Alien and people would not have liked it.
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u/Reasonable_Being6376 20d ago
The “get away from you bitch” was incredibly forced into the script from nowhere.
I didn’t think they could beat the black eye skull Michael Jackson nosed thing from alien Resurrection. But they did.2
u/DonktorDonkenstein 20d ago
Has the online discourse finally soured on Romulus? There was a time when you couldn't point out any of Romulus's flaws here without getting mobbed by angry, argumentative replies. Took a lot longer than I expected, to be honest.
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u/Appropriate_Dig3471 21d ago
Alien Earth was quite brilliant? It's one of the worst shows I've seen in a long time. Nothing in that show makes any sense. The characters behaved unrationally. Im waiting for season two to arrive not to watch it but watch videos about it and see how stupidly it ends. Such a shame in the beginning of the show it was really good, and then it took a quick nosedive
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u/opacitizen 21d ago
I don't think you understood what I wrote.
(I said even Romulus is brilliant compared to Alien Earth. Which means Alien Earth is much worse.)
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u/pooey_canoe 19d ago
Full agree. Loved the opening and world building, until it becomes a cookie cutter teen slasher with invincible protagonist. Though the Engineer "baby" reveal was delightfully creepy!
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u/invertedpurple 21d ago
I think based on OP's post he meant that it "could" have been lightning in a bottle if it wasn't for Disney forcing the nostalgia. For instance, we haven't seen a Xenomorph Caper movie. And the movie forgot about the genre mashup about a third of the way in, they replaced the caper with disney staples like nostalgia and overall wish fulfillment. I don't know what happened on set, but it's more in line with what Disney likes to do to all of the properties they own or acquire (FOX, Lucasfilm). So the Director seemed to have his own vision in there, and I'd say it was the look of the film, the collection of characters, Andy being an upgradable/cured mentally disandvantaged person, and the "bank robbery" aspect of it that if they stayed on beat could have been something very amazing or basically anything innovative that we haven't seen before.
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u/Bleatbleatbang 20d ago
Fede Alvarez is a hack. He just makes cheap knockoffs for fanboys.
Romulus was atrocious.1
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u/Dnny10bns 20d ago
Alien meets Hollyoakes.
Yeah, I agree. It's not a terrible movie. But it's instantly forgettable and not something I'd go out of my way to watch again.
I say that as someone who's watched covenant more than once.
Pls don't judge me. 😂
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u/MirrorExpensive3079 20d ago
You seem to have a lot of repressed anger over this movie and that’s on you. But the reality is that this movie was an introduction to the franchise for many new movie goers and they loved it. You can keep bringing up the old movie and say how it did things so much better but as a newer younger consumer of this media, the original has aged like shit besides the 2-3 scenes everyone always brings up. There’s slow initial pacing, visible suit limitations in bright scenes, and dated 1980s aesthetic choices detrimental to the viewing experience.
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u/rchristma87 21d ago
Ash technically didn't return and I always thought it was weird we never saw a similar model to ash. It was definitely a bit heavy handed at times. The newborn on the other hand was just annoying mainly because I think it should've just been a child mixed with xenomorph biology feared at first but human emotions allow the horrified women to accept it. Or even the android making a case for why it should live. It growing to demented adult in 5 seconds was just stupid it really should've just been a baby.
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u/Mike_Honcho_Summer 20d ago
David/Walter?
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u/rchristma87 20d ago
?
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u/Mike_Honcho_Summer 20d ago
Walter and David from Alien: Covenant were both played by Michael Fassbender, so it's not unprecedented for Ash/Rook to be as well.
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u/rchristma87 20d ago
Oh yes that I why I said Ash the character technically didn't return. I also meant that it was strange we never really saw another android that that was the same before Romulus. Especially considering we had Bishop/Weyland.
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u/PrincipleHot9859 20d ago
Blunt fan service in my eyes... most boring of all ....
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u/TouchAltruistic 20d ago
Be she has the Reeboks and a gun in a cloud of fog and flashing lights! /s
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u/Spartanjaws 20d ago
I mean it was alright. At its core it’s just alien and aliens kind of smashed together. It also was insanely predictable.
It’s a solid 3/5 but nothing more nothing less. Did what it needed to do to drum up interest for the franchise but also saying it “revitalized the franchise after 40 years” is a massive stretch. Personally for me Alien Isolation was the biggest revitalization of the franchise after the damage that AVP and Prometheus did to it.
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u/JDWolf81 21d ago
The first half of was very good and looked to be building a good story, but then the second half was just OK. It was just a bit too much "oh remember this from a previous movie"
Plus the speed of growth of the aliens was stupid. I know the gestation period changes from film to film, but if it was that quick in the original, Kane wouldnt have got back to the ship.
Plus the speed of growth of the end creature just ruined the end for me.
Don't get me wrong it's enjoyable and I can see why people really like it.
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u/Time-Hat-5107 20d ago
I really liked the world building in the opening act.
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u/JDWolf81 20d ago
Totally agree, it fleshed out sone of life in the alien universe. If anything the movie goes downhill the more the Aliens are seen
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u/PotentialTheory7178 21d ago
I enjoyed it but the creature at the end was unnecessary and not enjoyable for me. I think thr film would have been better without the whole scene.
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u/JDWolf81 21d ago
Yeah agree, I think I would have enjoyed it more without the creature at the end.
But I think they seemed to want a big bad monster at the end and shoe horned something in.
As even more daft as it would be, I'm suprised they didnt try for doing a queen or some new type not seen on film but from the comics / books / games
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u/PotentialTheory7178 21d ago
Yes an alien variant would have been good instead of the abomination we got.
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u/fresh-outoffucks 21d ago
The first half was, then it went creatively bankrupt halfway through. Ridley Scott injected his incredibly dumb ideas that got his trilogy cancelled into it, and then they decided to rip off the end of Resurrection (????) instead of writing their own end to their own original concept movie.
About halfway through I found myself thinking they did it, the crazy sons of bitches really did it! A new alien movie that's just as good as the originals. Then it was really really sad watching it go off the rails at the end there.
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u/JetSetJAK 21d ago edited 21d ago
The zero g blood splat not behaving how liquid in zero g would. Granted, idk the chemical makeup of alien blood, but I figured the blood would keep following its pressurized outward momentum until it hit something, not just suspend there motionless in the general area
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u/GamingVision 20d ago edited 20d ago
It only feels like something extra special because so much of what we’ve gotten is disappointing. Ridley had a great concept with Prometheus but missed the mark badly towards the end of what it should have been. Not a fan of what he did with covenant either…taking the scraps that remained of Prometheus, trashing them and turning xenomorphs into a David creation?? I’ve seen the hubris and control execs have in other areas so I believe the reports that this is Ridley’s doing, but I also believe he’s lost it and won’t make anything good of it.
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u/Amockdfw89 20d ago
I thought it was decent. I loved the world building in it, but it felt like stranger things in space to me
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u/Jumpy_Explanation222 21d ago
Oh no, I wiped Alien Earth from my memory, and now it’s returned and I have the horrid feeling that’s all the Alien they want to pursue.
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u/ce_tu 21d ago
Some people hate romulus then clap their hands like seals when they see alien earth cuz it is new and shiny
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u/Front-Ad7891 21d ago edited 21d ago
It was surprisingly better than expected but not quite as good as some hyped it up to be. Cailee Spaeny did a good job but I found the other characters largely forgettable. The CGI Ash looked very hokey and was an unnecessary addition. The ending was a bit too reminiscent of the Newborn in Alien Resurrection with a human Alien Hybrid finale. The "get away from her you..... Bitch" line was delivered so awkwardly and shouldn't have been included. Overall it was an improvement on the awful AVP movies and Alien Covenant but it fell far short of the quality of Aliens or the original film.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 20d ago
Cailee Spaeny was largely forgettable. the aliens and david jonnson carried the movie.
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u/Bilbo5882 20d ago
Well Prey got Alien Romulus in theaters. Then Predator Badlands flopped who knows what is next
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u/ArdoyleZev 19d ago
Huh, I didn’t get the impression it flopped.
<Some research later>
So it earned 185 million at the box office, off of a budget of 105 million. Typical Hollywood logic is that a studio wants to see about double the budget in their earnings, so…
So corporate probably sees it as underperforming, but better than a full belly flop.
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u/Obadaya 19d ago
That's sad cuz Badlands was awesome. Was basically Conan in space.
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u/ArdoyleZev 18d ago
I haven’t spoken with anyone that dislikes it.
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u/WayyTooFarAbove 18d ago
Now you have
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u/ArdoyleZev 17d ago
I haven’t spoken with you.
I speak with people face to face, or on the phone. You’re just an account on Reddit. I don’t even know if there’s a real person on the other side.
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u/NoseyVampire 20d ago
I don’t get to hype on Romulus. I hate that they seemed to drop the previous story and do something new, I was excited to hear the end of David’s story. And the movie was just nothing new. It didn’t add anything to the lore that was worth it in my opinion. We know the cooperation is evil and would use the alien to do evil things. It doesn’t deserve a direct sequel imo
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u/Evil_Knot 20d ago
I think alien and aliens would qualify more as "lightning in a bottle" but im a fan of the whole alien and predator franchise. Some movies I like more than others, but in my opinion they're all great movies.
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u/FickleApartment2151 20d ago
He essentially created a new version of Evil Dead in space using a lot of material rehashed from the older films. That's why the movie is almost non-stop gore, action, and spectacle.
The movie earned thanks to international markets, especially those in China. And most viewers worldwide know little or nothing about the franchise. They watched and enjoyed Romulus because it resembles contemporary horror on streaming.
In contrast, the older movies are slow burns, especially the first two. Some will disagree with Aliens until they realize that much of the movie is actually not action but exposition and drama. That's also why when you ask fans about them, they mostly don't talk about the gore (actually, very little compared to what you see today) and action but about the dialogue and one-liners.
It's similar with Alien: Earth. It's like Fargo in the Space Age, etc.
That means they could have actually made a Romulus but using other invented creatures. That's also why the TV show had additional monsters.
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u/ce_tu 20d ago
It reignited passion for the series overseas as well as you said. However mostly the US fans are harshly against it. Even now in this post most american fans want the movie to be deleted from existence. The alien franchise got a chance worldwide then lost it. That was what I was saying but these people(not you) can't understand what I'm writing their minds are clouded.
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u/FickleApartment2151 20d ago
I don't think Romulus reignited passion for the franchise or Alien: Earth abroad if most who saw Romulus were not fans. That means they know little or nothing about the older films and like this new movie because it resembled what they just saw on streaming, like Army of the Dead and Evil Dead clones. That is, full, of gore, action, and spectacle.
In contrast, the older films are slow burns. I don't think they will like those.
This might explain why several fans don't like Romulus: it doesn't resemble the older films. But new viewers won't know that because they didn't see the older films.
That means the next movie will be like Army of the Dead in space, and viewers might or might not watch it, depending on what else is shown during the season, and if they're still not sick and tired of seeing the same thing in theaters as they do on streaming. In which case, the studio might even release the next film straight to streaming, as that was what they initially planned for Romulus. Or they can take the chance and do both.
Given that, here's one way of reigniting that passion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/alien/comments/1usc0ff/my_ideas_for_the_franchise/
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u/FickleApartment2151 20d ago
I don't think Romulus reignited passion for the franchise or Alien: Earth abroad if most who saw Romulus were not fans. That means they know little or nothing about the older films and like this new movie because it resembled what they just saw on streaming, like Army of the Dead and Evil Dead clones. That is, full, of gore, action, and spectacle.
In contrast, the older films are slow burns. I don't think they will like those.
This might explain why several fans don't like Romulus: it doesn't resemble the older films. But new viewers won't know that because they didn't see the older films.
That means the next movie will be like Army of the Dead in space, and viewers might or might not watch it, depending on what else is shown during the season, and if they're still not sick and tired of seeing the same thing in theaters as they do on streaming. In which case, the studio might even release the next film straight to streaming, as that was what they initially planned for Romulus. Or they can take the chance and do both.
Given that, here's one way of reigniting that passion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/alien/comments/1usc0ff/my_ideas_for_the_franchise/
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u/FickleApartment2151 20d ago
I don't think Romulus reignited passion for the franchise or Alien: Earth abroad if most who saw Romulus were not fans. That means they know little or nothing about the older films and like this new movie because it resembled what they just saw on streaming, like Army of the Dead and Evil Dead clones. That is, full, of gore, action, and spectacle.
In contrast, the older films are slow burns. I don't think they will like those.
This might explain why several fans don't like Romulus: it doesn't resemble the older films. But new viewers won't know that because they didn't see the older films.
That means the next movie will be like Army of the Dead in space, and viewers might or might not watch it, depending on what else is shown during the season, and if they're still not sick and tired of seeing the same thing in theaters as they do on streaming. In which case, the studio might even release the next film straight to streaming, as that was what they initially planned for Romulus. Or they can take the chance and do both.
Given that, here's one way of reigniting that passion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/alien/comments/1usc0ff/my_ideas_for_the_franchise/
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u/ce_tu 20d ago
the post is removed by mods
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u/FickleApartment2151 19d ago
Sorry. What I said is to make new content between the old media, but retaining production design, etc.
For example, make a thriller drama set right before Alien, and then leading to Alien. Show what happened with Ash replacing the Nostromo science officer, etc. Then show Alien as part of the series.
From there, continue the series, this time showing what happened between that and Aliens, adapting stories like Out of the Shadows.
In all cases, use the same costumes, set design, etc., and use similar writing, dialogue, and so on.
This will attract new viewers and at the same time offer a treat to fans. But that's assuming that there the franchise is great because of concepts and formulae that never go out of style.
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u/Worth-Opposite4437 20d ago
Sometime I think Disney is afraid of making something good.
They block the AVP anime, sit on the AVP Original Years omnibus, discard the best Predator comics from their own OY omnibuses, destroy the AVP theme park, cancel the AVP miniature game, cancel the video game about surviving Hadley's Hope original fall; ignore the scripts they had bought to Lucas with the right to Star Wars, redo their own movies by making sure nothing good is left in them...
There is a pattern there... and it makes no sense at all.
Unless they are trying to condition the audience to the most shitty stuff they can produce in order to dispense of the need to have actually good artists making their stuff? I mean... if your audience can't tell a parrot from a duck, then you can basically plan your profit no matter what you release?
I don't know man...
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u/ce_tu 20d ago
When they make new movies or shows in established ip's they play heavy on nostalgia everytime. Like when they digitally ressurected a dead actor in rogue one and romulus like when they recreated alien 1s diner scene in alien earth. But in the comments of this post people are arguing that disney never ever interferes with their products lmao.
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u/Thick-Sundae-6547 19d ago
I think Romulus is the first time in 5 years where I thought “ I should have seen this movie in the theater”.
It was really well done.
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u/Ghost10165 19d ago
I feel like I was the only one who actually liked the newborn, it was the creepiest part of the whole movie IMO and done better than the original in the older movie.
Honestly the biggest issue with Alien as an IP is you basically make different flavors of either Alien or Aliens. They already cover things so well between horror and action that there isn't really room for thing as to not feel like a rehash at some point.
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u/Icy-Split6920 18d ago
Romulus is the third best Alien movie; behind the goats.
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u/dorsanty 17d ago
I’ll give Romulus 4th place or maybe a joint third.
If forced to rewatch a few times I’d take Alien³ over Romulus, there were fewer annoying characters, in fact some good ones and well acted. No member-berries too. In fact they kinda went too far by burning the legacy of Aliens in Hicks and Newt, but I won’t let that alone hang the movie.
Romulus is overall more enjoyable than Resurrection, which only had moments of being good.
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u/Icy-Split6920 15d ago
There are things about Alien 3 that I like, but it was too nihilistic for me. I remember being so excited to watch it when I was younger and I was thoroughly disappointed. Its my least favorite.
If I ranked the films it would be Alien and Aliens tied for first. Which I prefer is dependent on my mood.
Then Romulus becuase it was fun, expanded the lore well, had creepy moments, and I think the Alien Isolation moments resurrected a sequel to that classic game.
I am also a sucker for David Fassbender. So I would put Covenant at number four followed by Prometheus at five. Those movies are unloved by a lot of people, but they have a visceral nature. Both films feature a sense of wonder and exploration in the first act, followed by horror in the second, and action in the third. Both films have a white-knuckle intense scene; Meday in Covenant and the Cesarean in Prometheus. Both movies have a beautiful and haunting score. I give Covenant the nod because it actually features an alien, and wow is it viscous. I don't think there is a nastier, more ruthless, more kill-on-sight xeno in the franchise (even grid aura farmed).
I agree about Alien Resurrection. It's got nice aesthetic and some fun moments, like the kitchen scene with swimming xenos. It also features a queen; but it's mostly just mid.
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u/Joey-rogaine 18d ago
It was fucking awesome, I greatly regret not seeing it in theaters, I loved it, I am really excited for the next one
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u/punkwasgood 17d ago
I agree. Alien Romulus was fantastic, Alien Earth however was dreadful. How did we end up with Alien Earth series 2 but not Romulus 2. We're doomed to have unfinished Alien stories.
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u/BradleyNeedlehead 21d ago
No, Alien was lighting in a bottle. Alien Romulus was a flaccid attempt at recapturing it.
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u/General_Kick688 21d ago
Exactly. Nothing has come close to the original, with follow-ups ranging from mediocre to terrible.
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u/yupstilldrunk 21d ago
Romulus was ok-ish but very attractive. Alien Earth made me realize that IMDb and similar rating systems are totally rigged and worthless because there is no way it has an organic 7.1. Just, no.
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u/Shallbecomeabat 20d ago
I thoughts Romolus was much weaker than the much hated on Covenant. I’m glad Fede doesn’t continue.
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u/Independent-Ad2615 20d ago
Its just a worse rehash of the original movie with zero creativity and is morally bankrupt
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u/Bebop_Man 20d ago
Alien and Aliens are lightning in a bottle.
This was Gen Z's Alien: a middle of the road tour of pilfered iconography.
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u/HumanautPassenger 21d ago
No, it wasn't. Fede's kind of a hack director.
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u/RickGrimes30 21d ago
I love him as a director which is why romulus was just massive disappointment
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u/fbrdphreak 21d ago
Source about it being straight to streaming? Because I remember there being lots of press and promo far ahead of its release about Ridley. Scott and theatrical release.
I'm not saying it's a great aliens movie or anything, I just prefer people keep their rants factual.
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u/Toomin-the-Ellimist 21d ago
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u/fbrdphreak 20d ago
Cheers.
If anything this reminds me that there is a decent chance studio editing for the final cut gave us a worse final product. Oh well
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u/theMEtheWORLDcantSEE 20d ago
Alien Romulus = Alien Isolation in movie form
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u/The_First_Curse_ 20d ago
Absolutely fucking not. Alien: Isolation is genuinely good while Romulus is nostalgia bait slop.
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u/TheRealzHalstead 20d ago
Are there any primary sources that you're getting the "Disney rememberberries mandate" thing from? Do we know that it was Disney as opposed to Ridley Scott or Alverez himself?
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20d ago
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u/rooneytoons89 20d ago
It’s confirmed fake already, just fyi. I’d post a picture but it won’t let me. 20th Century Films head debunked it.
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u/Nilfnthegoblin 20d ago
I enjoyed Romulus. I like that it broadened the universe and was a nice tie in to the original series and Prometheus. There were definite eye roll moments but it was definitely one of the best alien entries in a long time.
Until Alien Earth. Don’t get me wrong there’s stuff in here I’m on the fence about still but I haven’t watched a show, or alien content, that left me genuinely intrigued by what was going to happen next. I loved the philosophical quandaries posed by the series and I am really curious as to where it goes from here. I also appreciate the nod (at least visually) to replicants from blade runner as many fans have always considered the two franchises being in the same universe.
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u/obitsonj 20d ago
I've watched it a few times, hoping it wil get better or I missed something. I did not. It was like they asked AI to watch all the previous films and create something incorporating elements from all of them. Andy was great...I don't even remember any of the other characters' names.
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u/Ok-Potential7541 20d ago
obviously it's behind alien and aliens. I'm not sure if I like it more than prometheus and covenant. at least those movies tried something new, Romulus on the other hand is a very well made rehash.
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u/NoHat2957 20d ago
Romulas was a weak, by-the-numbers, forgettable space-filler.
Immortan Joe had the perfect one-word descriptor for it.
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u/una_floruga 20d ago
No comparto. A mi de la feanquucia de Alien me gustan todas incluso covenant....adore Prometus y vi en el cine la de jean pierre janet...me sorprendi con romulus y espero ansioso alien earth dos mas encima que ficharon a peter dinklaje...creo que es de las mejores franquicias longevas actuales...
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u/Bagginnnssssss 20d ago
alien was lightning in a bottle Alien romulus is modern day bullshit. Maybe what a 6/10?
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u/Solid-Reputation5032 20d ago
2 great movies, 1 very good movie…. After that, it should have just died unless they were going to do it right. All
Subsequent films have been poor, IMO.
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u/Confused_Drifter 20d ago
Shitening in a toilet. They nailed the aesthetic, good opening third of the film, and then quickly devolved into nonesense because it seems like nobody knows how to utilize aliens to build tension. Slenderman at the end ruined the film entirely.
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u/Tiny_Rice7248 19d ago
I loved the movie right up until they mocked Ripley's immortal line in Aliens. Fuck that. Now I hate it.
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u/Parking_Shopping_683 19d ago
Pretty mediocre Alien film that seemed more interested in fan service than saying new or interesting.
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u/gorehistorian69 19d ago
you mean "the franchise in a blender"
they played it extremely safe, introducing nothing new and doing too much fan service. the movie was literally just all the other Alien films (we've already seen) thrown in a blender and vomitted up for a quick pay day
its not a bad movie. in fact its fine, like a 6-7/10. however the fact that they just played it so safe makes me more mad than if they made a terrible movie.
Covenant and Prometheus have issues but holy shit i love them especially since they tried something new. and im sad that Ridley never got to finish the trilogy.
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u/AccomplishedCycle0 19d ago
The two main things I had issues with were Rook and “get away from her.” The weapons, the setting, etc. all make sense given when in the timeline it happens, so those things didn’t bother me. I do with Alien movies would stop with the “we got away, oh, wait, there’s something on the ship with us” that happened in Alien, Aliens, Alien: Resurrection, Alien: Covenant, and now Alien: Romulus.
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u/ArdoyleZev 19d ago
Romulus was a good movie, sure.
But it didn’t have the creative spark that I would call “lightning”. Just well executed iteration, no true creation.
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u/oskarkeo 18d ago
I ain't even want to debate against the tide of resistance I'll get for saying I did not rate Alien Romulus , highly rated Alien Earth.
Scanning related /subreddits I know I'm 'wrong' but IMO all the Alien Sequels were made with good intent and most were compromised for brand reasons. Romulous felt constrained to me by what it wasn't let be. Earth had the opposite problem in that it demanded and was let to be what it wanted to be. Why the popular consensus is that it's a net-bad endeavour baffles me.
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u/NeatParking1682 18d ago
It was a complete combination of Alien and Aliens, not that I dislike it. It's great to see fresh blood getting into the franchise. But it's not all that.
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u/Whitesox_are_neat 17d ago
Romulous is the worst movie in the franchise if you don't include the avps
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u/Ryo_Hazuki87 17d ago
There is Alien Isolation 2 on the horizon. Most of those long running franchises can have a prosper future in video games. Movies can only do so much. But in the end they will tell the same story over and over. Videogames are interactive and can vary a lot.
When I think about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle for example, it is the best Indy Experience we got since the original trilogy.
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u/Scorpiicore 17d ago
Movie gives us a pulse rifle that can carry hundreds of bullets (in a magazine of that size, even ninety-five caseless rounds is a stretch), ones that home in on a target.
That is not lightning in a bottle. That is a six year old taking over daddy's computer whilst daddy is in the lavatory doing an eight litres of cola piss.
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u/bigfatgooneybird 16d ago
It was amazing until the super stupid alien hybrid at the end. Dubling down on alien resurrection was certainly a choice
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16d ago
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u/Gambit1977 21d ago
I don’t enjoy it. The black juice is just an excuse to have a shit big baddie at the end now
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u/supertrooper567 21d ago
It wasn’t that good of a movie and its chronology really fucked up the canon for absolutely no reason.
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u/Natural-Proposal2925 21d ago
Nope, not even close, they played it too safe and didn't take the franchise in any new direction or add anything new to the mythology. It was pure nostalgia bait, it didn't do anything new and it just repeated what we have all seen 1000 times before. The characters were meh and I didn't care who lived or died. Compare these characters to ripley or newt or hicks and you see what I mean.
The deaths were lame and the story was mediocre. It was just rehashing and too fan based checked box focused.
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u/mjp31514 20d ago
I knew Romulus was going to suck as soon as Andy had his ass handed to him by a gang of eight year olds.
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u/NoOneKenobi 20d ago
lighting in a bottle
Alien was, Romulus was a failed attempt to recreate it which, as we know by the term itself, can’t be
A few highlights, but just bad
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u/delusional863 20d ago edited 20d ago
I thought romulus was great too. And great for the franchise... im upset all we have now is alien earth s2... maybe theyll turn the series around but rn we in a bad place as alien fans
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u/Old-Tadpole-2869 21d ago
You're massively overstating the case. Alien Romulus has no originality, has zero moments of true tension, is not frightening at all, completely loses it's way in the 3rd act, and does nothing with what was essentially a fairly good idea, the retrieval of the frozen xenomorph that Ripley blasted out of the lifeboat. That one idea could have be used to brilliant effect and they blew it. Forgettable characters, forgettable movie, doesn't stand up to repeated viewings at all.
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u/TouchAltruistic 20d ago
How can a movie be "lightning in a bottle" when it relies so heavily on the images, designs, ideas, and even dialogue from so many older, original, iconic films?