Alien: Romulus (2024) (film review).
Have you noticed with film franchises and even with the odd TV series that if they can’t advance into the future, they place stories in the past or reboot the entire thing? Undoubtedly, they do this in the hopes of attracting new viewers by featuring actors they may recognise and incorporating more contemporary special effects. Of course, it also means new directors and writers don’t quite know what to do next either. I’m writing this build-up before watching the 2024 film ‘Alien: Romulus.’.
With the ‘Alien’ franchise leading up to the 1979 film, any xenomorph connections, as with the ‘Predator’ films, had to end in such a way that no one would remember the events in the future. The Nostromo flight, according to Google, was in 2122, yet the 2012 film ‘Prometheus’ was set in 2089, which already had faster-than-light travel. Things move fast in this reality. The 2024 film ‘Alien: Romulus’ is set in 2142, while Ripley had had a long cryosleep. As such, it has to avoid news getting back to Weyland-Yutani or even entering local myths or messing up ‘Aliens’ timeline 37 years later.
One would also have to surmise that the Engineers had more than one facility creating bio-weapons or more than one of their spaceships carrying eggs around doing whatever next? They probably opened one of the eggs in their alien spacecraft and infected one of the engineers. It’s unclear why only the pilot survived. Of course, the 1992 film ‘Alien 3’ in 2179 and the 1997 film ‘Alien: Resurrection’ in 2381 both reveal the existence of the xenomorph, marking significant time jumps. Could it have taken that long to clone Ripley nine times? You do have to wonder why no one bothered to go back to LV-426 to look for the original Engineers spacecraft, as it had to be far enough from Hadley’s Hope explosion to survive.
Lets look at the new film. Beware spoilers.
The Jackson’s Star Mining Company operates in a state of perpetual darkness. Although it’s not fully explained, the employees of Weyland-Yutani are in a contract where their hours can be extended, and Rain Caradine (actor Cailee Spaeny) finds that instead of being able to complete her contract, they’ve added another 5 years, and she is now to work in the mines. These are the same mines where her parents met their untimely deaths from lung cancer. Her father must have been smart as he put back together a junked synthetic person called Andy (actor David Jonsson) to protect her while he was dying.
Some of her friends are also eager to escape Jackson, but they require Andy to override the MU/TH/UR systems in order to transport them to a nearby starship with empty cryotubes, where they can rest for the nine-year journey.
The first thing they find on board the Romulus is that there’s only 6 years of fuel, and the place is a wreck. With Andy reinitiating the computer systems, they discover that they’ve been to Zeta2 Reticuli and found the xenomorph in space. The xenomorph remains alive, merely awaiting the ideal conditions to awaken. They resurrect a damaged android called Rook to get more information and are determined to complete the mission of combining xenomorph and human DNA to make humans better able to survive in space.
A side note here: I thought that when Ripley zapped it into space and ignited the motors, she vaporised it. Even more confusingly, we know that xenomorphs carry a single egg, but we don’t understand how they could produce so many eggs without a mother breeding them. Later, the information says they did some 3D modelling of the facehuggers. Unless they had difficulty introducing the egg into the body, why have the facehuggers at all? Can you really 3D process their blood? Also, a lot of these facehuggers are not in their eggs but roaming the spaceship looking for prey.
From this point forward, the focus shifts to survival and the elimination of the remaining cast members. If you want a game, count and identify references to the other “Alien’ films. Even on Jackson, we see the ducking glass figure and cornbread from the start. Picking out these Easter eggs is far too simple and becomes a distraction rather than doing something different with it. Naturally, the technology of the Romulus is comparable to that of the Nostromo, suggesting that spacecraft continue to function until they malfunction. You would also think the Romulus would have better emergency lighting. Of course, where are the mechanics when you need them? I’m also surprised they named the spaceship Romulus, especially as it’s used frequently in the Star Trek franchise. Undoubtedly, a review of science fiction names would have prompted further consideration. We should have made better use of the Romulus’s implicit pairing with the Remus.
Andy can be reprogrammed with a new disc or migrated between androids. I wonder why this went out of style or if Bishop could have worn it again. Although the example of what happens in this film is likely to be seen by few other people, it must have happened elsewhere with dire results, restricting the other androids from knowing this option.
Weyland-Yutani remains steadfast in their disregard for human life in their experiments. Building better lives for others is unlikely to be promoted in their press campaigns.
There are plenty of extras! 11 minutes of 2 extended or 2 alternative scenes show the edit or different choices.
‘Return To Horror: Crafting Alien: Romulus’ runs at 25½ minutes and is just that as production and cast discuss a new take on the franchise. You also get to see the various aliens in development and SFX people who contributed to this film. There’s also a better indication that the human scientists have been playing with the xenomorph genome and wanting to make man superior by adding it to ours.
‘Inside The Xenomorph Showdown’ at 11 minutes has director Fede Alvarez, the producer, and the cast describing the end sequence. As much as possible, they went for physical rather than digital effects.
‘Alien: A Conversation’ at just over 9 minutes has director Fede Alvarez chatting with producer Ridley Scott, who cites ‘2001’ as a major influence on the 1979 film.
Will I watch the film again? Indeed, I am highly likely to rewatch the film, this time without the influence of my reviewer’s bias. Would I watch it in a date sequence? That I’m less sure about—or, at least, until there’s a sequel doing some sort of tidy-up here.
GF Willmetts
December 2024
(pub: 20th Century Fox, 2024. 1 blu-ray disc 119 minute film with extras. Price: about £14.99 (UK). ASIN: BUY403500ISVES)
cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fear and Aileen Wu
check out website: www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/alien-romulus
