Spoilers Alien: Earth Spoiler Thread
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
...and yet, Weyland-Yutani just doesn't seem to get the message.
W-Y is like me entering a lot of these discussions. This time, it will be different!
...it's never different.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Romulus wasn't terrible. It wasn't amazing, but that still puts it way above a huge chunk of the extended Alien universe.
After Alien : Earth, the Alien project I have the most hope for is Predator: Badlands.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I just finally watched Alien: Romulus.
What a mixed bag!
I didn't think an Alien movie could make me re-appraise Resurrection and go "Huh, maybe I was too hard on Resurrection..." but Romulus sure did.
The Good
- Cailee Spaeny - She may be tiny unlike our dear Sigourney, but like Sigourney, she actually has a ton of screen presence and can genuinely act (also saw this in Civil War)
- Visual design - It was generally good and felt very on-point and really felt like one unified ship.
- Sound design
- Rook's lines
- The zero-g pulse rifle scene
- Initial character motivations and setup
- The first 30-40 minutes of the script
- Andy's actor when he was doing Andy-Andy
- Crashing into the rings of the planet
The Bad
- All the other actors overacting wildly - I know almost of these people can definitely act, because they're mostly British actors and I've seen them in other things! But my god what was going on? What did Fede Alvarez, because it is on him, tell them? They were literally all turned up to 11 at almost all times, and not even in a normal horror movie way! Awful.
- Andy's actor when he was doing Company-Andy
- The script after about 30-40 minutes in - That went downhill incredibly fast writing-wise (except Rook)
- Character motivations after the initial setup
- Failure to understand less is more - convinced that more is more - surely if one facehugger is scary then 30-50 feral facehuggers is scarier and not just kind of silly and generic sci-fi looking?
- Failure to understand how horror works on a basic level (very surprising given the director!)
- The lol-worthy alien-human hybrid. We know this sort of thing can be scary. Resurrection's one was gross and super-creepy. This just looked like a low-end bad guy from a generic AA space horror game called like "Death Planet: Fear What You Face" or something.
- The hilarious use of incredibly obvious underground-station escalators in one totally unnecessary shot they should 100% have cut (looked like the ones from Canary Wharf or somewhere but I'm told they're similar ones from Budapest) and served zero purpose beyond making go "Wtf?!?!?!?!"
- Every other action scene except the zero-g pulse rifle scene, including but not limited to "facehugger water polo", "facehugger dodgeball", "whoops I kicked the controls" (what an implausibly lucky ending - they could at least have had someone hack the ship to land it like that), and "Oh no now I must fight generic alien-man in a grain silo"
- The end of the zero-g pulse rifle scene
The Ugly
- The word for word callbacks to much better movies - This was the first time in like, years and years a Hollywood movie actually made be cringe with embarrassment for the movie and the people involved with it, but "Get away from her... ... ... you bitch" (no exclaimation point intended) absolutely made me have to pause the TV, get up and walk around a bit, because my god, I felt bad for the actor, I felt bad for Fede Alvarez, I felt bad for the crew that had to record that.
- Rook's CGI - Jesus wept did they try and use gen AI for the face not just to modify the voice or something? That was so bad, and I'm told that the Disney+ version is a huge upgrade from the theatrical version where it was claimed he looked like a bad PS3 game. Every single time I saw him I was basically dragged hard out of the movie by the feeling I was seeing a terrible, terrible PS4 game. They could easily have used a robot skull animatronic and the same voice and done so much better.
- No possible sane explanation for why they have literally hundreds of facehuggers just like, in places all over the station, based on what we're told happened.
I'm kind of mad because if they stuck to the initial premise, they could have a really strong, character-oriented, genuinely scary horror movie, but it was just of over-the-top silly business and bad fan service. Which sadly still makes it one of the better Alien movies.
Last edited:
pukunui
Legend
Mind you, I have not seen Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection. I have also not seen the AvP movies (except for clips on YouTube). As you probably know from other threads, I'm not a big fan of the original Alien. I do, however, like Aliens and Alien: Covenant, and I can sit through Prometheus.
I'm not as critical about the media I consume as @Ruin Explorer is,* but I enjoyed Alien: Romulus for what it was. Yeah, Rook's CGI face was questionable** and the hybrid monster at the end was not great ... but overall I liked it. It was a decent entry in the Alien franchise. I particularly liked the creeping past the facehuggers scene and the zero-g acid blood scene. I'd give it a B grade.
*although I always enjoy reading your takes; they can be pretty educational!
**not just because of how bad it looked but also because of the plotholes it introduced and the potential ethics of posthumous AI acting - I know Sir Ian's family were OK with it but still ...
I'm not as critical about the media I consume as @Ruin Explorer is,* but I enjoyed Alien: Romulus for what it was. Yeah, Rook's CGI face was questionable** and the hybrid monster at the end was not great ... but overall I liked it. It was a decent entry in the Alien franchise. I particularly liked the creeping past the facehuggers scene and the zero-g acid blood scene. I'd give it a B grade.
*although I always enjoy reading your takes; they can be pretty educational!
**not just because of how bad it looked but also because of the plotholes it introduced and the potential ethics of posthumous AI acting - I know Sir Ian's family were OK with it but still ...
Last edited:
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I rewatched all of the Alien movies ahead of Romulus, and I think everyone's brains have edited out their memories of Resurrection, which has way more goofy comedy in it than I think anyone remembers, much of it centered around how hairy Dan Hedaya (Carla's ex-husband from Cheers) is without a shirt on.
I definitely agree with a lot of the issues with Romulus -- every time they had a callback line, I wanted to punch a studio executive -- but at least it knew what kind of movie it was trying to be. Resurrection didn't want to be a horror movie, might have wanted to be a comedy (and I don't think we can blame Joss Whedon's script punch ups for Hedaya wandering around in a tank top), maybe thought it was an art film or something ...
Honestly, don't rewatch it. If you have good memories of Alien3 or Resurrection, don't destroy those with the reality.
I definitely agree with a lot of the issues with Romulus -- every time they had a callback line, I wanted to punch a studio executive -- but at least it knew what kind of movie it was trying to be. Resurrection didn't want to be a horror movie, might have wanted to be a comedy (and I don't think we can blame Joss Whedon's script punch ups for Hedaya wandering around in a tank top), maybe thought it was an art film or something ...
Honestly, don't rewatch it. If you have good memories of Alien3 or Resurrection, don't destroy those with the reality.
Laurefindel
Legend
I’m not rewatching Alien 3. I’m still mad at them…
Ruin Explorer
Legend
You say that like it's a bad thing! Those are both good things!
Right? I'll rewatch Resurrection. I'll even rewatch Prometheus, which permanently robs me of a few points of IQ every time I see it (twice so far), but at least it has style and David and I can fast-forward through the ancient aliens drivel (which sadly Scott actually believes) and laugh at the running away scene. That's something. Alien 3 got nothing but attempts to damage a previous story and bad ideas for a movie (to be clear, William Gibson's ideas for Alien 3 were also ghastly - why did everyone have terrible ideas in 1992? I mean that's a self-answering question I guess).
Laurefindel
Legend
‘92? It’s really been that long? I mean, I know it’s not last year’s movie but going on 35… damn.
wicked cool
Hero
I saw the better cut of alien 3 with the changed beginning/cow and watched with subtitles and I liked it a lot more
Thing I loved about Romulus was the return of a crew member from alien (same character but different). If they edited out the last baby it would have been much better
I think alien earth is better than most
Thing I loved about Romulus was the return of a crew member from alien (same character but different). If they edited out the last baby it would have been much better
I think alien earth is better than most
Similar Threads
