Alien Video Essay: th-cam.com/video/eLsGWZkyBm8/w-d-xo.html Alien Video Essay #2: th-cam.com/video/xepj0Sbb8xE/w-d-xo.html Eric's Links: Echoes of Olympus Mons 2024 Edition: dl.bookfunnel.com/1cw07o2uyb Links to Books and Socials: linktr.ee/EricMalikyte
"The whole thing behind Ancient Aliens is that humans are the most special boys..." Thank you, I've been trying to put that into words for some time now. Alien says "The universe is so vast and unknowable to your tiny little mind that you can't even begin to parse out what this Space Jockey was up to much less what his cargo was for." But Prometheus says "Actually you and the Space Jockey and the xenos, yeah you're all like cousins or something. Small universe, huh?"
@@crazisoldier4267 It is. Alien is cosmic horror- humans are as important as an ant sh¡t, they can't even begin to comprehend their place in the universe but Prometheus etc puts humans at the centre of some big, dumb space opera & makes them literally related to their own gods!
Alien 3 is absolutely referenced - Just after the Alien catches Rain with its extremely thin and skeletal tail that would have 100% snapped Rain's back like a twig at the velocity, it Screams at Rain like it did in Alien 3 at Ripley, then the Elevator falls and everyone in the theatre cringes.
Another Alien 3 reference is Navarro's shaved head, and she says a little prayer like the Alien 3 space monks. Edit: I just realized the overhead sprinklers are an Alien 3 callback.
It also gets the very first reference of the entire movie with the 20th Century fanfare turning into a dark and scary theme at the end, just like Alien 3
Yeah, screams at her like at Ripley in Alien 3 was my thought seeing that, except the alien doesn't kill Ripley 'cause it knows what she's carrying ... unlike Rain. The constant callbacks kept taking me out of the movie
Thank you. I'm almost done with the third section (compiling my notes on At the Mountains of Madness and all that). It just soared past 8k words, and there are five parts planned in it...so it's gonna be a long(er) boy. lol
The member berries and recycled dialogue were annoying, and then that blue laser mist pissed me off so much that I almost threw my popcorn at the screen 😠
I agree with you on some things about Prometheus and Covenant but I still enjoyed them. At least they tried to do something different with the franchise. But this movie I was actually excited for after seeing the trailers and about 30-40 min in I could tell it was the force awakens of alien movies. By the end I was highly disappointed. This could have been great and they couldn’t resist unnecessary callbacks.
Kane CLEARLY SAYS “A CAVE A CAVE OF SOME SORT” this is the flaw that came after the first movie that no one seems to address. Those eggs are not in the ship, never were.
Just shows how you can see a movie hundreds of times and still not remember everything related to it. It's honestly not that surprising, since human memory is really unreliable. I'll have to re-watch that scene.
In official novelisation of Alien it’s stated that the cave was deep under ground level. So either way derelict design had more levels and was partly buried underground or it did landed on cave system for some purpose.
Or maybe just ignore it. Novelizations are usually written earlier in the production process, because you can churn out a book over a weekend, the go into writting way before the movie releases. And often use outdated scripts as basis. Apparently the one used for Alien novelization still had some of that Star Beast DNA left over. Back when there were still the Derelict, the Pyramid, and the cavernous urn chamber beneath it. And as for Kane's line in the movie proper? He's a space trucker not a geologist, nor an archeologist, he's not exactly an authority on what he's looking at.
@ a little too far with the Kane credentials ie “geologist” but in the book he had an instrument that told him diamonds were in the cave. Seems to me when he says “a cave of some sort” he is in awe and trying to describe he no longer thinks he’s in the derelict.
Me and my fiends call it Alien: Memberberries. I think all the call backs will hurt the rewatchability of this movie as it gets older and older. Definitely not a classic like the first two.
No monster design will top the Hybrid from Alien Resurrection. What a disgusting, hideously frightening creature. I love the detailed and animated face design. In the final confrontation, it has the femdroid trapped, it feigns a sad/empathetic expression, which doesn't work, in which its face rapidly transforms in to a 'demon on meth'.
Prometheus and Covenant should just be stricken from canon. The ideas they brought to the table drag every good thing around them down. Romulus would have been a better movie without the baggage of being connected to Prometheus. They did a good job with setting up something that could exist as its own thing in the alien franchise and had some great ideas but I wish they replaced everything related to Prometheus and some of the "greatest hits" with something new and interesting, like expanding on the Xenomorph's ability to adapt and evolve. There are so many interesting and terrifying directions that could be explored but aren't because of how iconic the traditional xenomorph is.
The worst part of all the Hollywood vandalism of this IP is that I've read several examples of things that would work very well, never mind the missing second act; Hadley's Hope. I would particularly point to Alien Phalanx as an example of this. A new setting entirely, but one that works well, and that could be tied back to the "real world" quite easily for more story. When it comes to Alien I've long realized that any decent ideas will be studiously avoided in favor of: 1: Jump scares. 2: capitalism is bad, 3: humans are bad or 4: cheap tie-ins with other, inferior franchises. No other ideas may be had over here! Now get working on Cable Guy vs Aliens, pronto!
I find it both interesting and disheartening how highly people think of the "Alien: Romulus". Personally, the many plot points like instantly growing aliens going from facehugger to adult in the space of like 5 minutes in-movie-universe time is just flat out immersion breaking, I couldn't enjoy the movie at all. And the final scene with going from newborn to 3 meters tall in the span of in-movie-universe ten seconds was just too much. Especially so since those jumpings of sharks weren't even needed for the plot to happen as it did, it was just film makers not caring. For me, the move was a great start, horrible second half, overall a meh out of ten.
I agree that casual viewers will have a better time than serious fans. As someone that knows almost every aspect of the previous Alien films, and I didn't hate the prequels as much as you, but I was so frustrated by the end of Romulus. The characters were mostly uninteresting, but I can get past that. What I hated was the overwhelming amount of unnecessary fan service that constantly pulled me out of the film. From the uncanny valley CGI to bring back a dead actor, to the out of character lines that were shoehorned in from previous films (I counted at least 4 times), to even recycling the climax of Resurrection, which I have hated for 26 years...I was just sad by the end of this, with the thought that all we have left is to recycle even the bad ideas.
The problem with this take is that it ignores pretty much all the points I made in the video. I think I was pretty fair to the movie's strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't sound like you're a fan of cosmic horror, from what you said here. You're fully entitled to your opinion, but so is OP.
You never mentioned Lovecraft. Plenty of people enjoy the Alien films and are fans of Giger who have never heard of Lovecraft. It's an easy assumption to make. You can hardly criticize the video if you haven't bothered to watch it. I know what I'm talking about, considering I'm a published author of Lovecraftian horror fiction. There's no need for you to be so hostile.
@@storyrant just ignore @Fiveash-Art . He's making bad faith arguments. I'm surprised he was honest enough to admit he didn't even watch your video, before commenting.
the reason i loved romulus is twofold : 1) The music is also EXCELLENT. Particularly when they're getting attacked while looking for the cryofuel. 2) Im Uruguayan
I agree that it is incredibly well made from a visual and auditory standpoint. I'm curious what I and everyone else will think of the story later on down the road once the film's aged a few years.
@@storyrant I personally think it's going to be liked well into the years. It has some flaws of course but it feels good, and a good homage to the originals too. Then again, im totally biased! xd
The problems with Prometheus and Covenant are that Scott wanted to shift directions and focus on the nature of man and creation by centering on the Synths. Then he saw that the xenos sell better and had to course correct. This is a perfect example of waffling on your own vision mid project. He should have rode this horse until it wasn't selling anymore and then started a new series (maybe same universe) to explore the nature of humanity and the soul with David.
Start of the movie shows them finding a hibernating xenomorph. Movie ends (like many of them have) with blowing the Xeno (Longboy) into the void. There's no reason any of these cant be picked back up by Weyland.
Except that space is really, really, really big. We have trouble finding near Earth asteroids and stuff, so finding a random humanoid sized creature would be really difficult unless there was some kind of transponder in the Nostromo's nuked remains. This of course entirely depends on how close or far away from LV-426 and the gas giant the Nostromo and tanker was before self-destructing. The point, though, is that because space is, really, really, really big, we should be able to find Xenomorphs and other nasty creatures in other places, and don't necessarily need to retread all this familiar ground in these films.
@@storyrant they found the nostromo and Ripley, separately after YEARS of drifting. So, not so big, I guess. Plot armor says that if they need to find the long boy, they will. Which I'm sure they'll think is easier than leaning into the "Engineers seeded the galaxy with horrors." For plot reasons, space is as big as they need it to be.
There's a homage for Alien 3's musical que , when the 20th Century Fox logo appears on screen in Romulus.. This film grossed over 300 million dollars on a 70$ million dollar budget.. In the end , people just want more of the same apparently.. Andrew Johnson carried the film on his back as Andy the Android.. And as Jay stated in The Half of the Bag review , once again the most interesting dynamic from the recent Alien films are the Android characters.. It goes to show you how much of a trend setter Ridely Scott truly is.. The David character influenced Fede Alvarez so much , to the point where he had to create an interesting Android character for his film.. Not to mention what has come before , Ash , Bishop , etc..
I mean, that's all well and good (I personally do not think it's that simple), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make these things better, and it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't exercise constructive criticism of these films.
@@lucasjacks3594definitely a nod.. but why? The only time an Alien should ever scream in anyone's face is if the Alien is guarding it's future.. Alien3.. even then it really made no sense If you measure that behavior against all other times an Alien interacts with people. If it was near a person it was silent and there was no escaping it. I think the absolute best display of the Aliens behavior and scream is from Alien3 when Ripley is tugging at it as it defends itself in the corner, then completely changes it's behavior when Dillon grabs Ripley.. the franchise needs more of that, and far less comic book moments and callbacks.
@@storyrant possibly.. but, as shown in Aliens, and cut from Alien... A host is taken and cocooned then face hugged. I can't recall an Alien being nice enough to just hang around and make sure things happen in its favor, which was a super enormous flaw in Alien3. The Alien would have just taken Ripley cocooned her ass to a wall and guarded her. In Romulus I'd expect the same for the simplicity of the audience being afraid of being caught and for a simple unmistakable chain of events that are easy to read.. to me it was more nerdy super hero comic book fluff... Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't fit the nature of the Aliens behavior in the original 2 films.. except when the queen gets pissed.
I have to say this and I need people to understand this: the OG space jockey IS NOT FOSSILIZED! Captain Dallas is a trucker, not a scientist. The fact that he calls it that illustrates he doesn’t know what he is looking at. For something to be fossilized, it needs to be underground, or at least in a physical medium.
Except, fossilization is the process of organic bones and material being replaced by sediment and that sediment becoming rock, etc. Space may not have a similar process, but the vacuum of space can have similar effects. If the ship suffered decompression and exposure to space, then a version of fossilization can indeed happen, and the specimen would be preserved. In addition to this, it's entirely possible that part of the process of the chestburster's maturation is draining the host's resources, which, while a bit of a stretch, could be used as a tool to explained how it fossilized. The fact it appears to be fossilized can be the source of a wild mystery when you think about it, BECAUSE it ordinarily shouldn't be possible.
Not really a spoiler here, but Alien 3 gets the **literal** first reference of the entire movie, with the 20th Century Fox Fanfare drifting off into a more dark and scary ending, just like Alien 3 did 👍🏻
I thought it was okay, solid 7/10. Some fun set pieces, like the acid part which was brutal. Yeah the characters were extremely forgettable, the only character I remember was andy and it was due to the performance. One part that bothered me a lot was when the xenomorph saved the girl. I found it so odd that it would wrap its tail around her, instead of impaling her. Then proceeds to have a staring contest with her. I haven't seen this scene talked about, then again I don't spend very much time in alien spaces lol. I thought this channel was bigger than it is, scripts are stellar. I guess it makes sense since you are a writer. So far I have seen your alien sequel video, and the one about the ancient aliens.
The big problem is character building, and the acid bit was the most jarring for me. Where did this tiny girl learn advanced zero-grav acid-avoidance on a deprived miniing planet? Was this her first time? That entire elevator scene was just completely over the top Mary Sue shenanigans that I can not in good conscience condone. Hell, the last twenty minutes of the movie. I think you might be confusing visual spectacle with quality. They're not the same. There's a reason Ellen Ripley didn't so much as touch a gun until the end of Aliens. She had no combat training, or even much, if any, inclination for violence in the original script. She was a pedantic nurse basically, and so whatever she did needed to be coherent with that. A survivor, but a pedantic nurse survivor. And they stuck to that basic principle of good writing until almost a full movie had been spent in the company of space marines. We even saw her "training" for about three seconds, but it was enough to establish at least a base level to explain her later relative competence with guns. This ground work was not done with Rain at all. As far as we know she had never touched a gun before, never seen an alien before, never fought an alien before and definitely never dodged acid clouds in a weightless state before. Yet she did all of that and more. So shitty writing again, which is now the norm in Hollywood.
I liked it well Enough. The Thing About interjecting One's one, "What if.." scenarios into Something, is that.. in Never Ends. If They Killed The New Born with The Lab Chemicals, then it's Reveal would've been Less Impactful; because The "Group", would've still had to Deal with The Xenos afterwards. It'd be like offering Appetizers, After you've already seen The Person Eat Dinner. 🤷😐 The Assumptions would Never End. The Airlock-kill is an Olden Goldie. No Sense in Fixing what is Not Broken. What SHOULD BE "fixed" if Not, "Interject" is a Rival Conglomerate Company; to that of Weyland-Yutani's Level. Cause their Incompetency is getting Downright Comedic at This Point.
I admit, when it come to the Alien franchise, I'm a purist. The 1979 ALIEN will always be my favorite, followed closely by ALIENS. I haven't even bothered to watch ALIEN ROMULUS in a theater and I'm not even sure I'd even pay to stream it. Even though Fede Alvarez took pains to replicate the look of the original film, the characters, IMHO, are still a far cry from Ripley, Dallas, Parker et al. They remind me too much of stereotypical death-fodder characters in FINAL DESTINATION or other movies of extreme violence. I've been criticized about not giving ROMULUS a chance by watching it but I know what I like, and I'm not interested in watching a movie that relies so much on referencing previous Alien movies.
@@storyrant Actually, I just made a liar of myself today. After posting my comment, ALIEN ROMULUS came up on my feed as a TH-cam bootleg, free to watch. Free of monetary obligation, I said "WTH" and watched it. Now that I've seen it in full, my opinion of AR really hasn't changed. I did like the look of it, but I still have little empathy for most of the characters, aside from Andy and Rain. For me to enjoy a movie, it has to run on all cylinders of story, atmosphere, characters, ability to capture my imagination and hold my attention, etc. AR is simply an imitation of what I loved about the first movie. Thank you for your post, StoryRant. I love hearing detailed and thoughtful movie analysis. You certainly deliver.
Well, it looks good. And that is basically the only positive thing I have to say about it. it is rife with memberberries, so anything good in it other than the acting, visuals and sound was all basically stolen from the other movies. It is the least disgusting Alien movie in many years, but that also isn't saying a whole lot. Nor much of a reason to go watch it. After one viewing I have it as the fifth best and fifth worst Alien movie yet made. Better than Resurrection, worse than Alien 3. Somewhere in there.
Can't wait for the Alien saga to be even further bogged down and diluted in more needless explanation, lore, and convoluted plotting. I think Romulus will be the last alien film I'll see, now that Scott is so come home about continuing his "genius" Prometheus saga. Really, someone needs to get Power Of Attorney over him before he does more damage.
Romulus would have worked for me if it didnt give the audience so much information up front, as the plot is progressing. This is a two-part critique. The first part being Andy, and the second being the space spooge/Black Goo. The Black Goo shouldnt be in these movies, but its inclusion in Romulus (in isolation to the previous films) is the least offensive iteration thus far, because none of the characters have any idea what it does or where it's from. TMI part one: Andy. It completely kills the tension that Ian Holm (Rook) just tells the audience (through telling it to Andy) that his protocols have been re-written. Its enough to plant the seed when he starts acting differently and then let the audience and characters figure it out on their own. By giving the audience the information too early, the tension is massively reduced because we _know_ that Andy is going to do something fucked up before the characters figure out that he's not on their side. TMI part two: the effects of the Goo/Serum. Barring outside knowledge of how fucked up the goo is, similar to Andy, the near-immediate revelation that the goo will cause a creature to develop xenomorph traits kills any and all tension that comes from the offer that Andy lays down to inject Kay with the goo/serum. Because we _know_ it will cause something fucked up to happen. And it also ties back to point 1, where if we _don't_ know these things, we can maybe think of potential vectors for the situation to get worse. As an example, if we _don't_ know for certain that Andy is compromised, then maybe he genuinely thinks it will help, and we dont have a reason to distrust him until his protocol revision is revealed, at which point we can perhaps assume that he's lying and this is part of some fucked up experiment. But by revealing that he's compromised _and_ that the serum is bad news _and_ that his primary goal is to get the serum back to the colony, then the best explanation is that he's just an idiot and didnt immediately clock the giant mutated rat thing on the table.
DUDE! Cicadas hatch and live underground for 13 or 17 years. They don't hibernate all that time! In fact, what the Xenomorphs do isn't hibernation. The facehugger eggs just lay dormant for millions of years- that's not hibernation.
@@storyrant It's just a rather imperfect analogy. If Xenomorphs are like cicadas, that would imply that they emerge from their eggs as little Xenomorphs, live that way for 13, 17, one million years, before mating and dying in the span of a week. I think the better analogy would be hornets and wasps (queen and all), but versions of those creatures whose eggs lay dormant for millions of years. Cicadas lay dormant for no one (and they're kinda stupid even by entomological standards). As you can tell, I am a big fan of cicadas due to their benevolence (seriously, they aren't harmful to anyone). I am a big fan of Xenomorphs for the complete opposite reason.
Or better yet...for the facehugger part- the cicada killer wasp or even the Ichneumon wasp. Of the latter, Charles Darwin said, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars." Real life doesn't get more Lovecraftian than that :)
I don't know where else to say this but since you mentioned Alien Isolation I have to share something that personally disappointed me. I was fully expecting a scene like what happened to me in Alien Isolation. Where I'd blasted the xenomorph with the flame thrower a dozen times, but ran out of ammo. So I'm running up the stairs when the xenomorph pops down from a vent I wasn't watching right in front of me. And it loomed over me for a solid second. Staring at me and the flamethrower it didn't know was empty. A full second of wondering if this creature knew I was bluffing or if I was doomed. And with the way that I thought they were foreshadowing during the movie with them mentioning the guns might scare a xenomorph off from a direct attack, and having them count down the ammo during the hallway scene. I was practically salivating to see a moment like that realized on the big screen. The xenomorph staring the hero down as if calculating if she's just waiting to shoot or if she's out of ammo, and the hero sweating bullets wondering if the xenomorph is going to call her bluff. P.S I have nowhere else to say this, but I feel like each alien movie has made the facehuggers dumber and the xenomorph life cycle faster. Like seriously, a facehugger laid eggs in a character and less than an hour later it's bursting out, and even less time later the full grown one is stalking them.
the way the space engineer’s suit, especially how the nose piece connects, is just so cheap… the original version was a fully integrated, truly biomechanical design; this was just a cheap copout o_O
As a big nerd and alien fan I thought this movie was good but not great. I hated this pass at the new born. I glad the movie made money and hope that means better alien films are on the horizon.
I would love to see the hero killing the final xeno, by sacrificing libs making it, an eye for an eye scene. The Hero chose the part of the ship that has the More Layers, floors. One of the quest will have to bring the xeno from the bottom of the ship, to the highest level. Then they fight. Creating holes through floors as they go. So HE cuts (cause we need a man protagonist for the next one, please) one xeno legs but acid burn his own 🦵, then he sacrifice one arm to cut the xeno arm. Then an eye for an eye. Fight end right before the final bottom floor so the carcass of the dead alien is for all to see. Take a picture, capture the moment, send to Wayland with a big middle finger. 😊 He survive the movie. Make a sequel where he has robot part upgrade for his lost limbs and teach newbies how to not get kill. Maybe not. 😅
@@storyrant The Beast Within doc is the source. Hill was the producer on the OG film and basically major driving force behind the movie getting made, including a crucial script rewrite that turned Star Beast into Alien and got the project green light from the studio. So no Hill, no Alien more or less. He added the whole Ash plot, tightened the character dynamics and rewrote the dialogue. Original script is more of a Planet of Vampires riff with It The Terror from Outer Space full on AIP vibes all the way as told by Hal Ashby which is intriguing on its own terms but needed more gestation to which Hill and Giler contributed greatly.
@@storyrant you're welcome. Rinzler's Making of and McIntee's Beautiful Monsters are great sources. Rinzler's is basically Lauzirika's film on paper. And also Heavy Metal's Book Of Alien as urtext that Rinzler greatly fleshed out. I guess you've seen Memory, check out Giger's book about his adventures during production. If anything it reinterprets the whole thing as some stoner vibe epic. For a guy with that kind of aesthetic Giger was quite chill.
@@storyrant there are a few but my favorite is the laboratory to the hive that stretch of the movie. See Weylands Mad scientists experiments and what happened to them. Then Ash speaking what happened and then Offspring and after that cocoon and around the boarding of space station. Basically, all the new things. How about you?
The cinematography, the VFX work, and the visual references to Alien: Isolation. The video explains what issues I had with the film, though. Basically any reference to Prometheus or Covenant is going to sour me on the experience because they're antithetical to the themes of the original Alien film and Dan O'Bannon's authorial intent. I have an hour long video essay that explains why a lack of cosmic horror focus ruined subsequent sequels to Alien. Might want to check that out if you have any interest in what makes the original film really tick. :)
This movie made such a bad impression on me. While I agree most effects look good, Rook looked godawful. How many millions were wasted on CGI fan service which serves no purpose outside nostalgia and is distracting and non-immersive to look at? And the characters are AWFUL. Andy is the best, but easily the worst android in franchise history. Then all of the action scenes are derivative of better scenes in other Alien movies (the acid tunnel was nice, but that amount of acid would’ve fuuuucked the ship when gravity came back on… did that happen??)This movie succeeded in returning the franchise to its horror roots in ALIEN, but ALIEN was always more than that, and ROMULUS never comes close.
I think the acid did cause a hull breach once the gravity was turned back on, though. And yeah, while the performances are all really good, the characters are all super one dimensional. We really needed more time with them. Rook didn't bother me as much, because it looked like his whole body was drained of fluid? But I see where people are coming from on that front too.
@@storyrant Thanks, I remembered a shot in space showing part of the ship coming apart but I couldn’t remember why. I enjoyed the movie, and compared to many other franchises (especially horror-related) it was a great seventh entry. I never considered Rook being exsanguinated, that’s interesting! Great review man! Subscribed
I always try to bring a nuanced discussion to media, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. And welcome aboard. :) If you want to help spread the video's wings, sharing will help (since apparently Romulus is a high competition subject. lol)
Alien introduced the Alien. Aliens introduced the Queen ( Something Ridley dont Like) Alien 3 Shows that not only Humans can be used as Hosts. Alien Romulus implied the Idea that all Lifeforms that we see in that universe have the same origin. All other Alien movies are very Bad for the whole Story Ridley wanted to Tell. In His mind the Alien was just a small part of the whole Story. But the success of the franchise sabatage him. His Story is told in the movies: Blade Runner, Alien and Prometheus. He wanted to tell a Story about life and its Goals and other philosophic topics. I think He dont wanted to give us answers. He wanted to Open our mind for some crazy possibilities. What If Aliens are Just a different concept of life created to reach a Goal . Humanoids are Just a different creation. The ways are different but the Goal is maybe the same. Do we really have a free will or do we just following a programm thats deep in our DNA? What is a god? Is immortality a sin? Cause IT would mean the death of Fürther development of life? It could be such a nice Project but sucess killed once more the creativity of a artist.
Nowadays I feel like people who are fans of any original form of content, hate on any remakes of them just for the sake of hating. It’s okay to enjoy new things, nerds… just saying
Fantastic analyse! Dead on point and very layered. I myself am not a fan of this big mess and I recently posted an indepth analyse mirroring pretty much all you said! I also compared the last three Alien films to the Disney Star Wars trilogy at the end of my video. I get your Force Awakens comparison. Keep it up!
This video just came up for me, I saw this at the cinema and really enjoyed myself. Although I totally get why people didn't like the number and type of callbacks, I liked them. I had no issue with the use of Rook, especially knowing that it was with the permission of the family, I also didn't mind Andy using Ripley's iconic line as I felt the context was different. Cailee Spaeny said she channelled Ripley for her performance, I think this was inaccurate and unnecessary. I didn't feel she was Ripley but also feel she was strong enough to be her own lead. I really cared for Rain and Andy, the others were cannon, or rather alien, fodder. Although I am from the UK and the accents were accurate, they still felt so performative and i simply couldn't wait for those 2 gits from London to just die horribly. It was great pacing, great acting great action. Like many people, I hate the Black Goo, the Human-looking Engineers and Hybrids. I've always thought that the Aliens should be alien. The issues with this movie are what it has inherited from the 4th movie and on.
Yeah, I fully acknowledge my issues with the callbacks won't resonate across the board, but I'd feel dishonest not mentioning them. And to be fair, if the black goo was used like William Gibson intended (see my first Alien essay for details) it could have worked. In my next one, you'll learn why Prometheus seemed obsessed with Ancient Alien bs. :)
@@storyrant It's important to cover it, especially when so many people do feel it is the wrong kind of fan service. I have the flip situation with Adrien Brodey doing Arnie's lines from Predator because that made my blood boil. This has often come up in regards to CGI to other dead actors. Peter Cushing in Star Wars and Harold Ramis In Ghostbusters. Neither case bothered me, feeling their appearances were more suitable than (respectively) recasting or not appearing at all. As with Holm, I understand where people issues come from. Whether it be politics or movies, have another point of view is great. Even if you don't change your position it often forces you to critically think about why you feel the way you do. Again, great vid.
Yeah, in general it's kind of creepy to do this with dead actors, but I actually think that doing so with Harold was a lot more respectful, helped by the fact it was totally silent. This made it feel a lot more like a send-off and tribute.
And AND how are these characters able to find this space station flying by but no one else did? And they can’t leave but just fly up and out of the atmosphere?? Dude Hollywood is officially dead
While I'll give you that it's strange the Weyland-Yutani employees on the ground don't detect the derelict space craft, the idea isn't that the characters can't leave physically (though, not having cold-sleep capabilities is essentially a death sentence) it's that the social structures put in place basically make them slaves to Weyland-Yutani. So, leaving the planet could be seen as an attempt to skip out on "paying" their debt. Ever hear of indentured servants? This could have been better fleshed out in the story if the film wasn't so focused on speed running these kids onto the derelict.
Ranked on the appropriate scale of -100 to 100, Alien 97 Aliens 92 Alien 3: 5 Resurrection -10, AvP 2 AvP 2 : -50 Prometheus- 84 Covenant -100. Romulus: 0 I base this natural and ingenious scale on what adds to and takes away from. As you can see, Romulus is by far the least disgusting Alien movie since AvP, but is almost award winning when it comes to adding absolutely nothing to the series. Mathematical precision! One might almost call it the most comprehensively pointless movie ever made. Neither art or vandalism.
5:08 this is level 99 yapping, just admit that the movie is good.. none of what you said at this point made any sense. You even admitted that the only reason you don’t like this movie as much is because it’s tied to 2 other films that you don’t like. Come on, dude.
I think this film was great considering the last good film was made two decades before my birth and considering what the franchise has become since alien 3 this was as good as we could ask for
I loved the first two thirds of the film but was bored during the last third. It felt like JJ's first Star Wars film, nothing original in plot or dialogue but the visuals kept me going for the most part. Absolutely hated the slender man segment, graphically better than Alien3 baby but utterly stupid growth speed. The scan me QR code won't open for me btw.
i really hate the Prometheus reference. they must stop dipping into that poison well. Also, can Alien films just STOP with the fake out pre-ending? it's very tiresome and very uninspired. i did enjoy this movie, but i probably wouldn't rewatch it multiple times as i've done for the original and Aliens.
The only thing im tired of? Every single movie ends with the alien being sent out into space or the earth equivalent..into the ocean (avp) Like we can’t think of a new way to kill the final alien
I disagree completely that ancient aliens is all about how humans are the most special. I usually see ancient aliens sci fi showing how insignificant humanity is because there are higher beings way above us that see us as little more than ants or maybe experiments … which is 100% up there with the spirit of loveceaftian horror.
I mean, you're free to disagree, but if you've been exposed to the Ancient Astronauts conspiracy theory popularized by the show and Erik von Daniken, then you'd know they're very different. The conspiracy theory (which Scott was really obsessed with as you'll find out in my next Alien essay) is all about how aliens gave us civilization and technology. They take an active role in our development and that's just not really compatible with Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The entities in Lovecraftian horror stories are unknowable and completely disinterested in us. The best way to describe it would be the kind of interest you might take in an ant colony rather than another intelligent species fostering the development of a less developed one. Does that make sense?
@@storyrant I have watched every single episode, read chariot of the gods. It’s my favorite sci fi setting. I would recommend you go back and re look at this theory because yes sometimes it is oh look humans are so special. But quite often it is stories of how humanity thinks we are special and then quickly finds out we are insignificant which is totally lovecraftian. The two sci fi settings are not by definition opposites. You can have both together. StarCraft 1 is an example of ancient astronaut theory where the xel’naga create other races (but not humanity). The xel’naga go through and guide a few races (not just Protoss and Zerg) and eventually only put their focus in on the small section of the Zerg under the overmind and then also focus on the Protoss, and the humans find themselves as just tiny critters amongst powerful beings that are pretty unknown. The idea of ancient astronaut theory is very much wide spread in sci fi now so it is not just one hundred percent stuck and canonized by chariot of the gods and the Mr. Tsoukalos “aliens” guy. This would be the same argument as someone coming to you and say if it is not identical in troupes to Lovecraft then it’s not cosmic horror. Ancient astronaut theory within sci fi just says there were ancient beings that were beyond the comprehension of humans or a lesser group of beings that could couldn’t comprehend what they were seeing and confused science for magic. Even in the tv show ancient aliens it gives examples where the ancient astronauts DID NOT help humanity and DID NOT take an active role in their development but merely visited. Even chariots of the gods talks about this by bringing up the indigenous of Australia. Anyway keep up the great videos. I am thoroughly enjoying these and using them as background sound for me while I paint. (I disagree on some things but I hope it doesn’t come out as aggressive or hateful. English ain’t my first language)
That's the other thing that was terrible about this movie the alien life cycle it was way too quick, The girl gets face hugged and like 30 seconds later it's bursting out of her chest completely effing up timeline for the Zeno's life cycle😂😂😂 this movie is a joke on so many levels
This movie sucked so bad and I love how nobody is talking about how when the main actor fell down the shaft after the 0G scene the alien catches her but doesn't eat her sets her gently on the ladder to set up for member berries this movie was a joke, not to mention the RC car facehuggers facehuggers not moving with their legs, terrible practical effects, and one big problem at the end which you are touching on beautifully you do not use the worst ending in the alien franchise in the new film I'm speaking about alien resurrection and that horrible ending😂😂😂😂😂 I'm still waiting for that alien prime movie where it's just different aliens subtitles throughout the whole thing nothing but CGI and close up models, and subtitles like the alien games did super alien war on the home planet Edit This guy's a quack stop praising alien Romulus it was a shit movie, it was just member berries I can no one see that
Alien: Romulus - a plot hole and continuity error fest, maybe as a subpar fanfic it might be somewhat watchable, but as an actual movie in "Alien" franchise, it is nothing more than a travesty and a fucking trash, just like everything else that came out after "Alien3".
As far as special effects, cgi, sets, etc it was all incredible as well as the acting but the deep fake of Ian Holme was garbage and unnecessary and the overall story was a little uninspired and repetitive so overall it was like a 7-8/10
Have you played Aliens Dark Descent ? I would be curious what your thoughts on that would be. I love the prequels and am well aware that I am a minority in the community
I've only played Isolation. I don't get a ton of time to play video games these days, unfortunately. But, I did just pick up the Alien TTRPG from Free Play!
A visually impressive Alien film with yet another dumb and infantile plot. Lazy writing that's so far removed from Lovecraftian horror that it just makes you laugh. Every scene is "Remember alien 1? Remember alien 2? Remember alien 3? Remember alien 4?" Ugh. Also, The Shadow Out of Time is better than At The Mountains of Madness and I'll fight you any day about it! ;)
What some Ridley Scott haters conveniently forget is O'Bannon's script, at one time called Starbeast, had been on the desk at Fox for years but they didn't want to make it. It was Scott and his vision that convinced Fox to not only make Alien, but also doubled the original budget. There's also some wild misconception that Gigers involvement was all down to O'Bannon which isn't true at all. In fact Fox were not keen on hiring Giger to begin with, but Scott had a number of meetings with him about his vision for Alien and his book was the catalyst that convinced the studio to bring Giger on board.
Scott haters also won't admit the only alien films that are HORROR are the ones directed by Scott. Every other film isnt horror. They need to admit they just want the franchise to be an action one.
If you listen to what we're actually saying, you'd realize we don't hate Ridley Scott. But Alien was far more than just "his" movie. It was a team effort. Whether you like Dan O'Bannon's original script or not, he is the original creator. It wasn't just Scott's ideas that transformed Alien into the masterpiece it of cinema that we know and love, there were other writers and re-writes along with Scott's involvement that created the perfect storm for what Alien would become. But, seriously, what do Prometheus and Covenant even have? Sure, they're horror films, but they're shallow films with terrible writing. Like them if you want, no one's stopping you. And personally, it's great that you enjoy them so much. I'm not hating on that. But to suggest that we don't have a point about the prequels is ignoring the simple fact that they are extremely divisive, and it's only natural that people like myself would want to figure out why that is, and how they could have been done better.
Had to wait to watch this until I saw the movie... It certainly was a movie. I thought it looked phenomenal and looks like it cost twoce as much to make. But the ian Holm deepfake was awful
I refuse to watch it. I don't need to see the 6th completely unnecessary cashgrab follow-up to a masterpiece of cinema that never needed a franchise in the first place.
I mean, I get where he's coming from, though. After so many disappointing sequels and prequels it's so easy to get jaded. And while I do not think Alien Romulus is the holy grail of franchise storytelling (that title clearly belongs to Terminator Zero, holy shit go watch it), I still think it's worth at least one viewing so you can come to your own conclusions on it.
@@storyrant I'm in the super minority on this, but I'm religiously biased against any sequels to Alien. It's my second favorite horror movie of all time and the only horror movie to make me cry out of fear. I watched Aliens one time and absolutely hated it. I saw nothing more than just an excuse for James Cameron to boost his career on the success of his first Terminator movie. In doing so, he sacrificed all the mystery, horror, and suspense surrounding the titular villain of the first film in favor of action, action, and more action. Aliens lost me hard upon the revelation of the Queen. So now the aliens are basically soldier ants protecting a queen? What a disappointment. In fact, why even bother explaining it?! The reason the alien was scary in the first film was how little we knew about it. As HP Lovecraft said, the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. For 7 years of its existence, all of the unanswered questions surrounding the alien could have been answered with the imagination of the audience that watched the film. That's the beauty of suspense! But no. Cameron just HAD to b*stardize HR Giger's perfect creation for his own gain. All of these subsequent directors (including Ridley Scott himself) have failed to realize one thing: You can't add to what's already perfect and expect it to be better. That's like adding flowers to the Mona Lisa.
David created a form of the Xenomorphs. He did NOT invent them or is the original creator of the alien. This is constantly a criticism of the films and its baseless. They were bioweapons/bio slate swipers of the engineers.
And, pray tell, where in the film (Covenant) is this shown? Because as the film is, David absolutely claims to be their creator, and the film makes no effort to explain otherwise.
@@storyrant aliens claimed that the company did not know anything about the first encounter of the Xenomorph, Romulus made it clear that the company knew everything about what had happened. They even had the alien from the first movie on the ship to prove it.
@@storyrantALIENS ruined everything for the franchise. Ruined the androids making them friendly. Ruined the company making them inept instead of evil. Made the alien familiar by turning them into a space insect infestation and ruined the tone by making it action. And I'm glad they refused to include the queen in Romulus and Scott's prequel films Prometheus and Covenant.
Alien Video Essay: th-cam.com/video/eLsGWZkyBm8/w-d-xo.html
Alien Video Essay #2: th-cam.com/video/xepj0Sbb8xE/w-d-xo.html
Eric's Links:
Echoes of Olympus Mons 2024 Edition: dl.bookfunnel.com/1cw07o2uyb
Links to Books and Socials: linktr.ee/EricMalikyte
Newborn is scarier than the Xeno.
"The whole thing behind Ancient Aliens is that humans are the most special boys..."
Thank you, I've been trying to put that into words for some time now. Alien says "The universe is so vast and unknowable to your tiny little mind that you can't even begin to parse out what this Space Jockey was up to much less what his cargo was for." But Prometheus says "Actually you and the Space Jockey and the xenos, yeah you're all like cousins or something. Small universe, huh?"
No, that's literally not true.
@@crazisoldier4267 It is. Alien is cosmic horror- humans are as important as an ant sh¡t, they can't even begin to comprehend their place in the universe but Prometheus etc puts humans at the centre of some big, dumb space opera & makes them literally related to their own gods!
10:25 it’s neither “Prometheus file” or “Prometheus five”. Rook calls it “Prometheus fire” in reference to the myth.
Alien 3 is absolutely referenced -
Just after the Alien catches Rain with its extremely thin and skeletal tail that would have 100% snapped Rain's back like a twig at the velocity, it Screams at Rain like it did in Alien 3 at Ripley, then the Elevator falls and everyone in the theatre cringes.
Ah, yeah, I guess that does count.
Another Alien 3 reference is Navarro's shaved head, and she says a little prayer like the Alien 3 space monks.
Edit: I just realized the overhead sprinklers are an Alien 3 callback.
It also gets the very first reference of the entire movie with the 20th Century fanfare turning into a dark and scary theme at the end, just like Alien 3
Yeah, screams at her like at Ripley in Alien 3 was my thought seeing that, except the alien doesn't kill Ripley 'cause it knows what she's carrying ... unlike Rain. The constant callbacks kept taking me out of the movie
This is such a well thought out review! I can't wait for your next Alien video essay :P
Thank you. I'm almost done with the third section (compiling my notes on At the Mountains of Madness and all that). It just soared past 8k words, and there are five parts planned in it...so it's gonna be a long(er) boy. lol
The member berries and recycled dialogue were annoying, and then that blue laser mist pissed me off so much that I almost threw my popcorn at the screen 😠
What was the blue mist?
I agree with you on some things about Prometheus and Covenant but I still enjoyed them. At least they tried to do something different with the franchise. But this movie I was actually excited for after seeing the trailers and about 30-40 min in I could tell it was the force awakens of alien movies. By the end I was highly disappointed. This could have been great and they couldn’t resist unnecessary callbacks.
Kane CLEARLY SAYS “A CAVE A CAVE OF SOME SORT” this is the flaw that came after the first movie that no one seems to address. Those eggs are not in the ship, never were.
Just shows how you can see a movie hundreds of times and still not remember everything related to it. It's honestly not that surprising, since human memory is really unreliable. I'll have to re-watch that scene.
@@storyrantI took it that the 'cave' was within the derelict ship.
In official novelisation of Alien it’s stated that the cave was deep under ground level. So either way derelict design had more levels and was partly buried underground or it did landed on cave system for some purpose.
Or maybe just ignore it.
Novelizations are usually written earlier in the production process, because you can churn out a book over a weekend, the go into writting way before the movie releases. And often use outdated scripts as basis.
Apparently the one used for Alien novelization still had some of that Star Beast DNA left over. Back when there were still the Derelict, the Pyramid, and the cavernous urn chamber beneath it.
And as for Kane's line in the movie proper? He's a space trucker not a geologist, nor an archeologist, he's not exactly an authority on what he's looking at.
@ a little too far with the Kane credentials ie “geologist” but in the book he had an instrument that told him diamonds were in the cave. Seems to me when he says “a cave of some sort” he is in awe and trying to describe he no longer thinks he’s in the derelict.
Me and my fiends call it Alien: Memberberries. I think all the call backs will hurt the rewatchability of this movie as it gets older and older. Definitely not a classic like the first two.
Yeah, I think once the hype dies down, a few years down the line, people will start rethinking their opinions on it.
No monster design will top the Hybrid from Alien Resurrection.
What a disgusting, hideously frightening creature. I love the detailed and animated face design. In the final confrontation, it has the femdroid trapped, it feigns a sad/empathetic expression, which doesn't work, in which its face rapidly transforms in to a 'demon on meth'.
Prometheus and Covenant should just be stricken from canon. The ideas they brought to the table drag every good thing around them down. Romulus would have been a better movie without the baggage of being connected to Prometheus. They did a good job with setting up something that could exist as its own thing in the alien franchise and had some great ideas but I wish they replaced everything related to Prometheus and some of the "greatest hits" with something new and interesting, like expanding on the Xenomorph's ability to adapt and evolve. There are so many interesting and terrifying directions that could be explored but aren't because of how iconic the traditional xenomorph is.
The worst part of all the Hollywood vandalism of this IP is that I've read several examples of things that would work very well, never mind the missing second act; Hadley's Hope. I would particularly point to Alien Phalanx as an example of this. A new setting entirely, but one that works well, and that could be tied back to the "real world" quite easily for more story. When it comes to Alien I've long realized that any decent ideas will be studiously avoided in favor of: 1: Jump scares. 2: capitalism is bad, 3: humans are bad or 4: cheap tie-ins with other, inferior franchises. No other ideas may be had over here! Now get working on Cable Guy vs Aliens, pronto!
I find it both interesting and disheartening how highly people think of the "Alien: Romulus". Personally, the many plot points like instantly growing aliens going from facehugger to adult in the space of like 5 minutes in-movie-universe time is just flat out immersion breaking, I couldn't enjoy the movie at all. And the final scene with going from newborn to 3 meters tall in the span of in-movie-universe ten seconds was just too much. Especially so since those jumpings of sharks weren't even needed for the plot to happen as it did, it was just film makers not caring. For me, the move was a great start, horrible second half, overall a meh out of ten.
I agree that casual viewers will have a better time than serious fans.
As someone that knows almost every aspect of the previous Alien films, and I didn't hate the prequels as much as you, but I was so frustrated by the end of Romulus.
The characters were mostly uninteresting, but I can get past that. What I hated was the overwhelming amount of unnecessary fan service that constantly pulled me out of the film. From the uncanny valley CGI to bring back a dead actor, to the out of character lines that were shoehorned in from previous films (I counted at least 4 times), to even recycling the climax of Resurrection, which I have hated for 26 years...I was just sad by the end of this, with the thought that all we have left is to recycle even the bad ideas.
@@Fiveash-Art way to go in just avoiding my entire point and arguing something that wasn’t my even point.
The problem with this take is that it ignores pretty much all the points I made in the video. I think I was pretty fair to the movie's strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't sound like you're a fan of cosmic horror, from what you said here. You're fully entitled to your opinion, but so is OP.
For some reason, TH-cam isn't automatically tagging who I'm replying to. My reply was to Fiveash-Art, though. Just in case it's confusing.
You never mentioned Lovecraft. Plenty of people enjoy the Alien films and are fans of Giger who have never heard of Lovecraft. It's an easy assumption to make. You can hardly criticize the video if you haven't bothered to watch it. I know what I'm talking about, considering I'm a published author of Lovecraftian horror fiction. There's no need for you to be so hostile.
@@storyrant just ignore @Fiveash-Art . He's making bad faith arguments. I'm surprised he was honest enough to admit he didn't even watch your video, before commenting.
the reason i loved romulus is twofold :
1) The music is also EXCELLENT. Particularly when they're getting attacked while looking for the cryofuel.
2) Im Uruguayan
I agree that it is incredibly well made from a visual and auditory standpoint. I'm curious what I and everyone else will think of the story later on down the road once the film's aged a few years.
@@storyrant I personally think it's going to be liked well into the years. It has some flaws of course but it feels good, and a good homage to the originals too.
Then again, im totally biased! xd
Worth it just to hear the words "Space Spooge."
Yessssssss. 🤣
The problems with Prometheus and Covenant are that Scott wanted to shift directions and focus on the nature of man and creation by centering on the Synths. Then he saw that the xenos sell better and had to course correct. This is a perfect example of waffling on your own vision mid project. He should have rode this horse until it wasn't selling anymore and then started a new series (maybe same universe) to explore the nature of humanity and the soul with David.
Start of the movie shows them finding a hibernating xenomorph. Movie ends (like many of them have) with blowing the Xeno (Longboy) into the void. There's no reason any of these cant be picked back up by Weyland.
Except that space is really, really, really big. We have trouble finding near Earth asteroids and stuff, so finding a random humanoid sized creature would be really difficult unless there was some kind of transponder in the Nostromo's nuked remains. This of course entirely depends on how close or far away from LV-426 and the gas giant the Nostromo and tanker was before self-destructing. The point, though, is that because space is, really, really, really big, we should be able to find Xenomorphs and other nasty creatures in other places, and don't necessarily need to retread all this familiar ground in these films.
@@storyrant they found the nostromo and Ripley, separately after YEARS of drifting. So, not so big, I guess. Plot armor says that if they need to find the long boy, they will. Which I'm sure they'll think is easier than leaning into the "Engineers seeded the galaxy with horrors." For plot reasons, space is as big as they need it to be.
There's a homage for Alien 3's musical que , when the 20th Century Fox logo appears on screen in Romulus..
This film grossed over 300 million dollars on a 70$ million dollar budget.. In the end , people just want more of the same apparently..
Andrew Johnson carried the film on his back as Andy the Android..
And as Jay stated in The Half of the Bag review , once again the most interesting dynamic from the recent Alien films are the Android characters.. It goes to show you how much of a trend setter Ridely Scott truly is.. The David character influenced Fede Alvarez so much , to the point where he had to create an interesting Android character for his film.. Not to mention what has come before , Ash , Bishop , etc..
I mean, that's all well and good (I personally do not think it's that simple), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make these things better, and it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't exercise constructive criticism of these films.
13:41
you know, a horror parody movie where Long boy is the monster would do quite well lol
I support this. Make it a spiritual sequel to Dark Star.
I thought the scene in romulus where an alien screams in rains's face was a nod to alien3 when the alien screams in ripley's face.
I could see that. I think that's happened a few times throughout the franchise, but I could be wrong.
@@lucasjacks3594definitely a nod.. but why? The only time an Alien should ever scream in anyone's face is if the Alien is guarding it's future.. Alien3.. even then it really made no sense If you measure that behavior against all other times an Alien interacts with people. If it was near a person it was silent and there was no escaping it. I think the absolute best display of the Aliens behavior and scream is from Alien3 when Ripley is tugging at it as it defends itself in the corner, then completely changes it's behavior when Dillon grabs Ripley.. the franchise needs more of that, and far less comic book moments and callbacks.
I think it was doing that to distract Rain from the face-hugger that was about to impregnate her.
@@storyrant possibly.. but, as shown in Aliens, and cut from Alien... A host is taken and cocooned then face hugged. I can't recall an Alien being nice enough to just hang around and make sure things happen in its favor, which was a super enormous flaw in Alien3. The Alien would have just taken Ripley cocooned her ass to a wall and guarded her. In Romulus I'd expect the same for the simplicity of the audience being afraid of being caught and for a simple unmistakable chain of events that are easy to read.. to me it was more nerdy super hero comic book fluff... Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't fit the nature of the Aliens behavior in the original 2 films.. except when the queen gets pissed.
Yeah. I hadn't thought about the cacooning behavior before.
I have to say this and I need people to understand this: the OG space jockey IS NOT FOSSILIZED! Captain Dallas is a trucker, not a scientist. The fact that he calls it that illustrates he doesn’t know what he is looking at. For something to be fossilized, it needs to be underground, or at least in a physical medium.
Except, fossilization is the process of organic bones and material being replaced by sediment and that sediment becoming rock, etc. Space may not have a similar process, but the vacuum of space can have similar effects. If the ship suffered decompression and exposure to space, then a version of fossilization can indeed happen, and the specimen would be preserved. In addition to this, it's entirely possible that part of the process of the chestburster's maturation is draining the host's resources, which, while a bit of a stretch, could be used as a tool to explained how it fossilized. The fact it appears to be fossilized can be the source of a wild mystery when you think about it, BECAUSE it ordinarily shouldn't be possible.
It was a very good looking movie and I enjoyed the first half.
Not really a spoiler here, but Alien 3 gets the **literal** first reference of the entire movie, with the 20th Century Fox Fanfare drifting off into a more dark and scary ending, just like Alien 3 did 👍🏻
I thought it was okay, solid 7/10. Some fun set pieces, like the acid part which was brutal. Yeah the characters were extremely forgettable, the only character I remember was andy and it was due to the performance. One part that bothered me a lot was when the xenomorph saved the girl. I found it so odd that it would wrap its tail around her, instead of impaling her. Then proceeds to have a staring contest with her. I haven't seen this scene talked about, then again I don't spend very much time in alien spaces lol. I thought this channel was bigger than it is, scripts are stellar. I guess it makes sense since you are a writer. So far I have seen your alien sequel video, and the one about the ancient aliens.
The big problem is character building, and the acid bit was the most jarring for me. Where did this tiny girl learn advanced zero-grav acid-avoidance on a deprived miniing planet? Was this her first time? That entire elevator scene was just completely over the top Mary Sue shenanigans that I can not in good conscience condone. Hell, the last twenty minutes of the movie. I think you might be confusing visual spectacle with quality. They're not the same. There's a reason Ellen Ripley didn't so much as touch a gun until the end of Aliens. She had no combat training, or even much, if any, inclination for violence in the original script. She was a pedantic nurse basically, and so whatever she did needed to be coherent with that. A survivor, but a pedantic nurse survivor. And they stuck to that basic principle of good writing until almost a full movie had been spent in the company of space marines. We even saw her "training" for about three seconds, but it was enough to establish at least a base level to explain her later relative competence with guns. This ground work was not done with Rain at all. As far as we know she had never touched a gun before, never seen an alien before, never fought an alien before and definitely never dodged acid clouds in a weightless state before. Yet she did all of that and more. So shitty writing again, which is now the norm in Hollywood.
I liked it well Enough.
The Thing About interjecting One's one, "What if.." scenarios into Something, is that.. in Never Ends. If They Killed The New Born with The Lab Chemicals, then it's Reveal would've been Less Impactful; because The "Group", would've still had to Deal with The Xenos afterwards.
It'd be like offering Appetizers, After you've already seen The Person Eat Dinner. 🤷😐
The Assumptions would Never End.
The Airlock-kill is an Olden Goldie. No Sense in Fixing what is Not Broken.
What SHOULD BE "fixed" if Not, "Interject" is a Rival Conglomerate Company; to that of Weyland-Yutani's Level. Cause their Incompetency is getting Downright Comedic at This Point.
I admit, when it come to the Alien franchise, I'm a purist. The 1979 ALIEN will always be my favorite, followed closely by ALIENS. I haven't even bothered to watch ALIEN ROMULUS in a theater and I'm not even sure I'd even pay to stream it. Even though Fede Alvarez took pains to replicate the look of the original film, the characters, IMHO, are still a far cry from Ripley, Dallas, Parker et al. They remind me too much of stereotypical death-fodder characters in FINAL DESTINATION or other movies of extreme violence. I've been criticized about not giving ROMULUS a chance by watching it but I know what I like, and I'm not interested in watching a movie that relies so much on referencing previous Alien movies.
Hey, that's totally fine. I did enjoy my experience in Imax, but I imagine my opinion on the film will further sour with time. But, we'll see.
@@storyrant Actually, I just made a liar of myself today. After posting my comment, ALIEN ROMULUS came up on my feed as a TH-cam bootleg, free to watch. Free of monetary obligation, I said "WTH" and watched it.
Now that I've seen it in full, my opinion of AR really hasn't changed. I did like the look of it, but I still have little empathy for most of the characters, aside from Andy and Rain. For me to enjoy a movie, it has to run on all cylinders of story, atmosphere, characters, ability to capture my imagination and hold my attention, etc. AR is simply an imitation of what I loved about the first movie.
Thank you for your post, StoryRant. I love hearing detailed and thoughtful movie analysis. You certainly deliver.
Well, it looks good. And that is basically the only positive thing I have to say about it. it is rife with memberberries, so anything good in it other than the acting, visuals and sound was all basically stolen from the other movies. It is the least disgusting Alien movie in many years, but that also isn't saying a whole lot. Nor much of a reason to go watch it. After one viewing I have it as the fifth best and fifth worst Alien movie yet made. Better than Resurrection, worse than Alien 3. Somewhere in there.
Can't wait for the Alien saga to be even further bogged down and diluted in more needless explanation, lore, and convoluted plotting. I think Romulus will be the last alien film I'll see, now that Scott is so come home about continuing his "genius" Prometheus saga. Really, someone needs to get Power Of Attorney over him before he does more damage.
It’s not very good let’s be honest
Romulus would have worked for me if it didnt give the audience so much information up front, as the plot is progressing.
This is a two-part critique. The first part being Andy, and the second being the space spooge/Black Goo. The Black Goo shouldnt be in these movies, but its inclusion in Romulus (in isolation to the previous films) is the least offensive iteration thus far, because none of the characters have any idea what it does or where it's from.
TMI part one: Andy.
It completely kills the tension that Ian Holm (Rook) just tells the audience (through telling it to Andy) that his protocols have been re-written.
Its enough to plant the seed when he starts acting differently and then let the audience and characters figure it out on their own.
By giving the audience the information too early, the tension is massively reduced because we _know_ that Andy is going to do something fucked up before the characters figure out that he's not on their side.
TMI part two: the effects of the Goo/Serum.
Barring outside knowledge of how fucked up the goo is, similar to Andy, the near-immediate revelation that the goo will cause a creature to develop xenomorph traits kills any and all tension that comes from the offer that Andy lays down to inject Kay with the goo/serum. Because we _know_ it will cause something fucked up to happen.
And it also ties back to point 1, where if we _don't_ know these things, we can maybe think of potential vectors for the situation to get worse.
As an example, if we _don't_ know for certain that Andy is compromised, then maybe he genuinely thinks it will help, and we dont have a reason to distrust him until his protocol revision is revealed, at which point we can perhaps assume that he's lying and this is part of some fucked up experiment.
But by revealing that he's compromised _and_ that the serum is bad news _and_ that his primary goal is to get the serum back to the colony, then the best explanation is that he's just an idiot and didnt immediately clock the giant mutated rat thing on the table.
DUDE! Cicadas hatch and live underground for 13 or 17 years. They don't hibernate all that time! In fact, what the Xenomorphs do isn't hibernation. The facehugger eggs just lay dormant for millions of years- that's not hibernation.
And how exactly does this change my point?
@@storyrant It's just a rather imperfect analogy. If Xenomorphs are like cicadas, that would imply that they emerge from their eggs as little Xenomorphs, live that way for 13, 17, one million years, before mating and dying in the span of a week. I think the better analogy would be hornets and wasps (queen and all), but versions of those creatures whose eggs lay dormant for millions of years. Cicadas lay dormant for no one (and they're kinda stupid even by entomological standards).
As you can tell, I am a big fan of cicadas due to their benevolence (seriously, they aren't harmful to anyone). I am a big fan of Xenomorphs for the complete opposite reason.
Or better yet...for the facehugger part- the cicada killer wasp or even the Ichneumon wasp. Of the latter, Charles Darwin said, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars." Real life doesn't get more Lovecraftian than that :)
@@storyrant Way to get overly defensive over a minor correction. God damn, dude, get a grip.
I don't know where else to say this but since you mentioned Alien Isolation I have to share something that personally disappointed me.
I was fully expecting a scene like what happened to me in Alien Isolation. Where I'd blasted the xenomorph with the flame thrower a dozen times, but ran out of ammo. So I'm running up the stairs when the xenomorph pops down from a vent I wasn't watching right in front of me. And it loomed over me for a solid second. Staring at me and the flamethrower it didn't know was empty. A full second of wondering if this creature knew I was bluffing or if I was doomed.
And with the way that I thought they were foreshadowing during the movie with them mentioning the guns might scare a xenomorph off from a direct attack, and having them count down the ammo during the hallway scene. I was practically salivating to see a moment like that realized on the big screen. The xenomorph staring the hero down as if calculating if she's just waiting to shoot or if she's out of ammo, and the hero sweating bullets wondering if the xenomorph is going to call her bluff.
P.S I have nowhere else to say this, but I feel like each alien movie has made the facehuggers dumber and the xenomorph life cycle faster. Like seriously, a facehugger laid eggs in a character and less than an hour later it's bursting out, and even less time later the full grown one is stalking them.
the way the space engineer’s suit, especially how the nose piece connects, is just so cheap…
the original version was a fully integrated, truly biomechanical design; this was just a cheap copout o_O
I'd love for your review of Alien: Isolation to be about the story. Very few reviews try that.
I mean, that's probably what I'd end up doing.
As a big nerd and alien fan I thought this movie was good but not great. I hated this pass at the new born. I glad the movie made money and hope that means better alien films are on the horizon.
I would love to see the hero killing the final xeno, by sacrificing libs making it, an eye for an eye scene.
The Hero chose the part of the ship that has the More Layers, floors. One of the quest will have to bring the xeno from the bottom of the ship, to the highest level. Then they fight. Creating holes through floors as they go.
So HE cuts (cause we need a man protagonist for the next one, please) one xeno legs but acid burn his own 🦵, then he sacrifice one arm to cut the xeno arm. Then an eye for an eye.
Fight end right before the final bottom floor so the carcass of the dead alien is for all to see. Take a picture, capture the moment, send to Wayland with a big middle finger. 😊
He survive the movie. Make a sequel where he has robot part upgrade for his lost limbs and teach newbies how to not get kill. Maybe not. 😅
3:42 they not either 😢
Dont forget Walter Hill. His rewrite made the movie more or less.
Which film are you talking about? Alien? I didn't see him mentioned in the documentary I recently watched.
NVM, he's connected to Aliens apparently.
@@storyrant The Beast Within doc is the source. Hill was the producer on the OG film and basically major driving force behind the movie getting made, including a crucial script rewrite that turned Star Beast into Alien and got the project green light from the studio. So no Hill, no Alien more or less. He added the whole Ash plot, tightened the character dynamics and rewrote the dialogue. Original script is more of a Planet of Vampires riff with It The Terror from Outer Space full on AIP vibes all the way as told by Hal Ashby which is intriguing on its own terms but needed more gestation to which Hill and Giler contributed greatly.
Interesting, I'll have to add this to my next Alien essay. Thanks for the info, man!
@@storyrant you're welcome. Rinzler's Making of and McIntee's Beautiful Monsters are great sources. Rinzler's is basically Lauzirika's film on paper. And also Heavy Metal's Book Of Alien as urtext that Rinzler greatly fleshed out. I guess you've seen Memory, check out Giger's book about his adventures during production. If anything it reinterprets the whole thing as some stoner vibe epic. For a guy with that kind of aesthetic Giger was quite chill.
I liked it a lot.❤
What was your favorite part?
@@storyrant there are a few but my favorite is the laboratory to the hive that stretch of the movie. See Weylands Mad scientists experiments and what happened to them. Then Ash speaking what happened and then Offspring and after that cocoon and around the boarding of space station. Basically, all the new things. How about you?
The cinematography, the VFX work, and the visual references to Alien: Isolation. The video explains what issues I had with the film, though. Basically any reference to Prometheus or Covenant is going to sour me on the experience because they're antithetical to the themes of the original Alien film and Dan O'Bannon's authorial intent. I have an hour long video essay that explains why a lack of cosmic horror focus ruined subsequent sequels to Alien. Might want to check that out if you have any interest in what makes the original film really tick. :)
This movie made such a bad impression on me. While I agree most effects look good, Rook looked godawful. How many millions were wasted on CGI fan service which serves no purpose outside nostalgia and is distracting and non-immersive to look at? And the characters are AWFUL. Andy is the best, but easily the worst android in franchise history. Then all of the action scenes are derivative of better scenes in other Alien movies (the acid tunnel was nice, but that amount of acid would’ve fuuuucked the ship when gravity came back on… did that happen??)This movie succeeded in returning the franchise to its horror roots in ALIEN, but ALIEN was always more than that, and ROMULUS never comes close.
I think the acid did cause a hull breach once the gravity was turned back on, though. And yeah, while the performances are all really good, the characters are all super one dimensional. We really needed more time with them. Rook didn't bother me as much, because it looked like his whole body was drained of fluid? But I see where people are coming from on that front too.
@@storyrant Thanks, I remembered a shot in space showing part of the ship coming apart but I couldn’t remember why. I enjoyed the movie, and compared to many other franchises (especially horror-related) it was a great seventh entry. I never considered Rook being exsanguinated, that’s interesting! Great review man! Subscribed
I always try to bring a nuanced discussion to media, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. And welcome aboard. :) If you want to help spread the video's wings, sharing will help (since apparently Romulus is a high competition subject. lol)
Shut up, nobody is ever happy with anything.
Alien introduced the Alien.
Aliens introduced the Queen ( Something Ridley dont Like)
Alien 3 Shows that not only Humans can be used as Hosts.
Alien Romulus implied the Idea that all Lifeforms that we see in that universe have the same origin.
All other Alien movies are very Bad for the whole Story Ridley wanted to Tell. In His mind the Alien was just a small part of the whole Story. But the success of the franchise sabatage him.
His Story is told in the movies: Blade Runner, Alien and Prometheus.
He wanted to tell a Story about life and its Goals and other philosophic topics.
I think He dont wanted to give us answers. He wanted to Open our mind for some crazy possibilities.
What If Aliens are Just a different concept of life created to reach a Goal . Humanoids are Just a different creation. The ways are different but the Goal is maybe the same. Do we really have a free will or do we just following a programm thats deep in our DNA? What is a god? Is immortality a sin? Cause IT would mean the death of Fürther development of life? It could be such a nice Project but sucess killed once more the creativity of a artist.
Its a good movie. Not terrible. Not pitch perfect either thou.
I agree. But we'll see how people regard it in a few years.
Nice cover. :o
Thank you, Owl. :)
I think it can only be fun if you never watched Alien imo
Nowadays I feel like people who are fans of any original form of content, hate on any remakes of them just for the sake of hating. It’s okay to enjoy new things, nerds… just saying
Me: Says a movie is good, but not great. Them: YOU'RE JUST A HATER! 🙃
Fantastic analyse! Dead on point and very layered.
I myself am not a fan of this big mess and I recently posted an indepth analyse mirroring pretty much all you said! I also compared the last three Alien films to the Disney Star Wars trilogy at the end of my video. I get your Force Awakens comparison.
Keep it up!
Thanks! The next Alien essay is on the way and is looking like it's going to be over an hour long. :)
@@storyrant My pleasure. OOF! That's long. I know from personal experience just how challenging the longer videos are to make! Good luck.
I'm hoping to get 1 hour long video out a month in the future, but we'll see how realistic that goal is.
@@badger.phippshello again:) but I also agree with this as well some aspects but I agree with it
@@Shadow.fan24 haha he found me on another video. Legend haha
This video just came up for me, I saw this at the cinema and really enjoyed myself. Although I totally get why people didn't like the number and type of callbacks, I liked them. I had no issue with the use of Rook, especially knowing that it was with the permission of the family, I also didn't mind Andy using Ripley's iconic line as I felt the context was different. Cailee Spaeny said she channelled Ripley for her performance, I think this was inaccurate and unnecessary. I didn't feel she was Ripley but also feel she was strong enough to be her own lead.
I really cared for Rain and Andy, the others were cannon, or rather alien, fodder. Although I am from the UK and the accents were accurate, they still felt so performative and i simply couldn't wait for those 2 gits from London to just die horribly. It was great pacing, great acting great action. Like many people, I hate the Black Goo, the Human-looking Engineers and Hybrids. I've always thought that the Aliens should be alien. The issues with this movie are what it has inherited from the 4th movie and on.
Yeah, I fully acknowledge my issues with the callbacks won't resonate across the board, but I'd feel dishonest not mentioning them. And to be fair, if the black goo was used like William Gibson intended (see my first Alien essay for details) it could have worked. In my next one, you'll learn why Prometheus seemed obsessed with Ancient Alien bs. :)
@@storyrant It's important to cover it, especially when so many people do feel it is the wrong kind of fan service. I have the flip situation with Adrien Brodey doing Arnie's lines from Predator because that made my blood boil.
This has often come up in regards to CGI to other dead actors. Peter Cushing in Star Wars and Harold Ramis In Ghostbusters. Neither case bothered me, feeling their appearances were more suitable than (respectively) recasting or not appearing at all. As with Holm, I understand where people issues come from.
Whether it be politics or movies, have another point of view is great. Even if you don't change your position it often forces you to critically think about why you feel the way you do. Again, great vid.
Yeah, in general it's kind of creepy to do this with dead actors, but I actually think that doing so with Harold was a lot more respectful, helped by the fact it was totally silent. This made it feel a lot more like a send-off and tribute.
And AND how are these characters able to find this space station flying by but no one else did? And they can’t leave but just fly up and out of the atmosphere?? Dude Hollywood is officially dead
While I'll give you that it's strange the Weyland-Yutani employees on the ground don't detect the derelict space craft, the idea isn't that the characters can't leave physically (though, not having cold-sleep capabilities is essentially a death sentence) it's that the social structures put in place basically make them slaves to Weyland-Yutani. So, leaving the planet could be seen as an attempt to skip out on "paying" their debt. Ever hear of indentured servants? This could have been better fleshed out in the story if the film wasn't so focused on speed running these kids onto the derelict.
Ranked on the appropriate scale of -100 to 100,
Alien 97
Aliens 92
Alien 3: 5
Resurrection -10,
AvP 2
AvP 2 : -50
Prometheus- 84
Covenant -100.
Romulus: 0
I base this natural and ingenious scale on what adds to and takes away from. As you can see, Romulus is by far the least disgusting Alien movie since AvP, but is almost award winning when it comes to adding absolutely nothing to the series. Mathematical precision! One might almost call it the most comprehensively pointless movie ever made. Neither art or vandalism.
5:08 this is level 99 yapping, just admit that the movie is good.. none of what you said at this point made any sense. You even admitted that the only reason you don’t like this movie as much is because it’s tied to 2 other films that you don’t like. Come on, dude.
Mixed lol, if you took all the alien movies and put the best parts into one movie then you’d have Romulus, not even a rewrite a stolen movie
So like...every Tarantino movie if you've seen more than a generous dosage of cinema?
@@treborkroy5280 gotta put QT in a higher category, his directing skills are better honed
@@Yadickhead He just uses filming techniques from other directors and rehashed scenes and imagery again from other films.
I think this film was great considering the last good film was made two decades before my birth and considering what the franchise has become since alien 3 this was as good as we could ask for
I think it's easy to feel like that's the case...but I also think there's nothing wrong with asking for more out of Hollywood.
I loved the first two thirds of the film but was bored during the last third. It felt like JJ's first Star Wars film, nothing original in plot or dialogue but the visuals kept me going for the most part. Absolutely hated the slender man segment, graphically better than Alien3 baby but utterly stupid growth speed. The scan me QR code won't open for me btw.
i really hate the Prometheus reference. they must stop dipping into that poison well. Also, can Alien films just STOP with the fake out pre-ending? it's very tiresome and very uninspired.
i did enjoy this movie, but i probably wouldn't rewatch it multiple times as i've done for the original and Aliens.
What do you do with a pregnant alien character, you have the alien rip her apart limb from limb and the kid! It's freaking aliens movie for fuck sake
2:35 Andy isn’t her brother he’s an android her father programmed and left behind for her lol
Who she considers to be her brother. How is that hard to understand?
“Opinions can be nuanced” proceeds to make hour long videos shitting on things 😂🎉
The only thing im tired of?
Every single movie ends with the alien being sent out into space or the earth equivalent..into the ocean (avp)
Like we can’t think of a new way to kill the final alien
I mentioned this in my second massive video essay on the subject. "Blow it out an airlock, it's the only way to be sure."
@ yea I realized that after the comment I just wasn’t up to that part yet haha
Someday, I'm gonna have to turn that into a t-shirt. lol And awesome! Hope you enjoy! :)
I disagree completely that ancient aliens is all about how humans are the most special. I usually see ancient aliens sci fi showing how insignificant humanity is because there are higher beings way above us that see us as little more than ants or maybe experiments … which is 100% up there with the spirit of loveceaftian horror.
I mean, you're free to disagree, but if you've been exposed to the Ancient Astronauts conspiracy theory popularized by the show and Erik von Daniken, then you'd know they're very different. The conspiracy theory (which Scott was really obsessed with as you'll find out in my next Alien essay) is all about how aliens gave us civilization and technology. They take an active role in our development and that's just not really compatible with Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The entities in Lovecraftian horror stories are unknowable and completely disinterested in us. The best way to describe it would be the kind of interest you might take in an ant colony rather than another intelligent species fostering the development of a less developed one. Does that make sense?
@@storyrant I have watched every single episode, read chariot of the gods. It’s my favorite sci fi setting. I would recommend you go back and re look at this theory because yes sometimes it is oh look humans are so special. But quite often it is stories of how humanity thinks we are special and then quickly finds out we are insignificant which is totally lovecraftian. The two sci fi settings are not by definition opposites. You can have both together.
StarCraft 1 is an example of ancient astronaut theory where the xel’naga create other races (but not humanity). The xel’naga go through and guide a few races (not just Protoss and Zerg) and eventually only put their focus in on the small section of the Zerg under the overmind and then also focus on the Protoss, and the humans find themselves as just tiny critters amongst powerful beings that are pretty unknown. The idea of ancient astronaut theory is very much wide spread in sci fi now so it is not just one hundred percent stuck and canonized by chariot of the gods and the Mr. Tsoukalos “aliens” guy. This would be the same argument as someone coming to you and say if it is not identical in troupes to Lovecraft then it’s not cosmic horror.
Ancient astronaut theory within sci fi just says there were ancient beings that were beyond the comprehension of humans or a lesser group of beings that could couldn’t comprehend what they were seeing and confused science for magic. Even in the tv show ancient aliens it gives examples where the ancient astronauts DID NOT help humanity and DID NOT take an active role in their development but merely visited. Even chariots of the gods talks about this by bringing up the indigenous of Australia.
Anyway keep up the great videos. I am thoroughly enjoying these and using them as background sound for me while I paint. (I disagree on some things but I hope it doesn’t come out as aggressive or hateful. English ain’t my first language)
Another blow on Alien Resurrection. 🤦♂️
Alien Resurrection is an absolute masterpiece compared to the pedestrian Alien Romulus.
Resurrection is not good at all. Romulus is better
@@moon-moth1 same man. Romulus hybrid is much better.
It’s the best one! I love this movie. I did not actually expect it to be so good, but I am happy it is.
This movie is without a doubt, unequivocally, not the best alien film.
@ fully disagree. It has all the best qualities of Alien and Aliens with amazing SFX. And the acting is great across the board.
That's the other thing that was terrible about this movie the alien life cycle it was way too quick, The girl gets face hugged and like 30 seconds later it's bursting out of her chest completely effing up timeline for the Zeno's life cycle😂😂😂 this movie is a joke on so many levels
This movie sucked so bad and I love how nobody is talking about how when the main actor fell down the shaft after the 0G scene the alien catches her but doesn't eat her sets her gently on the ladder to set up for member berries this movie was a joke, not to mention the RC car facehuggers facehuggers not moving with their legs, terrible practical effects, and one big problem at the end which you are touching on beautifully you do not use the worst ending in the alien franchise in the new film I'm speaking about alien resurrection and that horrible ending😂😂😂😂😂 I'm still waiting for that alien prime movie where it's just different aliens subtitles throughout the whole thing nothing but CGI and close up models, and subtitles like the alien games did super alien war on the home planet
Edit
This guy's a quack stop praising alien Romulus it was a shit movie, it was just member berries I can no one see that
Alien fans will never be happy
Alien: Romulus - a plot hole and continuity error fest, maybe as a subpar fanfic it might be somewhat watchable, but as an actual movie in "Alien" franchise, it is nothing more than a travesty and a fucking trash, just like everything else that came out after "Alien3".
As far as special effects, cgi, sets, etc it was all incredible as well as the acting but the deep fake of Ian Holme was garbage and unnecessary and the overall story was a little uninspired and repetitive so overall it was like a 7-8/10
My favorite Lovecraft's story is the nyarlathotep
A short one, but a good one.
@@storyrant i also thought the get away from her you bitch line was so fucking cringe sorry not sorry
Yeah. Could have just given him his own line.
For sure
Have you played Aliens Dark Descent ? I would be curious what your thoughts on that would be. I love the prequels and am well aware that I am a minority in the community
I've only played Isolation. I don't get a ton of time to play video games these days, unfortunately. But, I did just pick up the Alien TTRPG from Free Play!
@@storyrant it’s an amazing read enjoy!
This movie was disappointing. It's an Alien movie and the xenomorph is hardly in the film. The ending sucked.
Lost me at the thumbnail.
It's the 20th one I made, and it's the only one getting clicks. Basically what it says: References to Alien: Isolation work: The new hybrid does not.
A visually impressive Alien film with yet another dumb and infantile plot. Lazy writing that's so far removed from Lovecraftian horror that it just makes you laugh. Every scene is "Remember alien 1? Remember alien 2? Remember alien 3? Remember alien 4?" Ugh.
Also, The Shadow Out of Time is better than At The Mountains of Madness and I'll fight you any day about it! ;)
AR wasn’t that good. it was just mediocre. a lot of dumb creative choices and a really stupid 3rd/4th act doomed this installment.
What some Ridley Scott haters conveniently forget is O'Bannon's script, at one time called Starbeast, had been on the desk at Fox for years but they didn't want to make it. It was Scott and his vision that convinced Fox to not only make Alien, but also doubled the original budget. There's also some wild misconception that Gigers involvement was all down to O'Bannon which isn't true at all. In fact Fox were not keen on hiring Giger to begin with, but Scott had a number of meetings with him about his vision for Alien and his book was the catalyst that convinced the studio to bring Giger on board.
Scott haters also won't admit the only alien films that are HORROR are the ones directed by Scott. Every other film isnt horror. They need to admit they just want the franchise to be an action one.
If you listen to what we're actually saying, you'd realize we don't hate Ridley Scott. But Alien was far more than just "his" movie. It was a team effort. Whether you like Dan O'Bannon's original script or not, he is the original creator. It wasn't just Scott's ideas that transformed Alien into the masterpiece it of cinema that we know and love, there were other writers and re-writes along with Scott's involvement that created the perfect storm for what Alien would become. But, seriously, what do Prometheus and Covenant even have? Sure, they're horror films, but they're shallow films with terrible writing. Like them if you want, no one's stopping you. And personally, it's great that you enjoy them so much. I'm not hating on that. But to suggest that we don't have a point about the prequels is ignoring the simple fact that they are extremely divisive, and it's only natural that people like myself would want to figure out why that is, and how they could have been done better.
Too many nods to the previous films. Getting clichéd..
Alien 3 (DC) is far superior, everything other than the original trilogy is lame.
There is no director's cut of Alien 3, only an "assembly cut." The director disowned the film.
Had to wait to watch this until I saw the movie... It certainly was a movie. I thought it looked phenomenal and looks like it cost twoce as much to make. But the ian Holm deepfake was awful
It certainly was. I'm wondering how I'll react to a rewatch in the near future.
I refuse to watch it. I don't need to see the 6th completely unnecessary cashgrab follow-up to a masterpiece of cinema that never needed a franchise in the first place.
All I can say is, you’re missing out.
I mean, I get where he's coming from, though. After so many disappointing sequels and prequels it's so easy to get jaded. And while I do not think Alien Romulus is the holy grail of franchise storytelling (that title clearly belongs to Terminator Zero, holy shit go watch it), I still think it's worth at least one viewing so you can come to your own conclusions on it.
@@storyrant I'm in the super minority on this, but I'm religiously biased against any sequels to Alien. It's my second favorite horror movie of all time and the only horror movie to make me cry out of fear.
I watched Aliens one time and absolutely hated it. I saw nothing more than just an excuse for James Cameron to boost his career on the success of his first Terminator movie. In doing so, he sacrificed all the mystery, horror, and suspense surrounding the titular villain of the first film in favor of action, action, and more action. Aliens lost me hard upon the revelation of the Queen. So now the aliens are basically soldier ants protecting a queen? What a disappointment.
In fact, why even bother explaining it?! The reason the alien was scary in the first film was how little we knew about it. As HP Lovecraft said, the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. For 7 years of its existence, all of the unanswered questions surrounding the alien could have been answered with the imagination of the audience that watched the film. That's the beauty of suspense!
But no. Cameron just HAD to b*stardize HR Giger's perfect creation for his own gain.
All of these subsequent directors (including Ridley Scott himself) have failed to realize one thing: You can't add to what's already perfect and expect it to be better. That's like adding flowers to the Mona Lisa.
I don't comment on TH-cam videos for films I'm not interested in. What's it like doing that with your free time?
@casesoutherland4175 the fact that any movie has made you cry out of fear is hilarious 😂
$350.9 million box office with a $80 million budget, and mostly positive reviews prove otherwise.
lol..or,or they could make a new space meph using the alien acid and science base lol.
Huh? Did you mean Space Meth? I think that would go hard, honestly.
Let's not give them ideas lol rl stuff is terrible enough. ^^
The force awakens...oof.
Yeah...kind of paints a picture, doesn't it?
@@storyrant I knew it was gonna be bad when the chapter was named after if.
David created a form of the Xenomorphs. He did NOT invent them or is the original creator of the alien. This is constantly a criticism of the films and its baseless. They were bioweapons/bio slate swipers of the engineers.
And, pray tell, where in the film (Covenant) is this shown? Because as the film is, David absolutely claims to be their creator, and the film makes no effort to explain otherwise.
That James Cameron Film is no longer cannon.
Aliens? Dude, fans would REVOLT if that was the case.
@@storyrant aliens claimed that the company did not know anything about the first encounter of the Xenomorph, Romulus made it clear that the company knew everything about what had happened. They even had the alien from the first movie on the ship to prove it.
You're assuming they would openly admit to it.
@@storyrant 👁️ 👄 👁️
@@storyrantALIENS ruined everything for the franchise. Ruined the androids making them friendly. Ruined the company making them inept instead of evil. Made the alien familiar by turning them into a space insect infestation and ruined the tone by making it action. And I'm glad they refused to include the queen in Romulus and Scott's prequel films Prometheus and Covenant.
Tried to watch. More screamings of an angry fanboy. Bye. Not following.
Spunkmyre
THEMES IN SEQUALS DON'T HAVE TO MAXTI! UMMM, ALIENA VIETNAM ALLEGORY. WTF YOU TALKING ABOUT. OOOOFFFF SWING AND A MISS! EMBARRASSING