@@hardcutreviews "Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create… life."
Its the best idea scense the original movie prometheus was the best movie scence the original movie and dont take away from the original at all it builds it up acctually
Its the best idea scense the original movie prometheus was the best movie scence the original movie and dont take away from the original at all it builds it up acctually
@user-hf3bp2gy6d The good idea from Prometheus is that of the Engineers. I just feel that it should have been its own movie rather than being shoehorned into the Alien franchise. They created us and we created androids. Great concept. Lots there to work with.
Weyland-Yutani has better odds of winning every lottery on Earth, 10,000 times in a row, than EVER finding that Xenomorph floating around in outerspace. 😂😂
@@hardcutreviewsand yet here you are moaning that it wasn’t what you wanted in an alien movie, but hey continue on insulting other fans for what they like.
@@markwebster7435they're not insulting fans, they're insulting consumers. Marvel created a generation of movie goers who don't care about the art of movie making, they only care about nostalgia and cameos and mentions of characters and stories past. They're not fans, they're the tik tok generation who want immediate gratification at the expense of story and creativity
If you hate Prometheus and Covenant for the black goo trope, it's worth pointing out that it's not even original. The first X Files movie did it back in '94 (?) And did it better.
I 100% told everyone to go see it in a theater just to appreciate the level of craft that went into making the movie and the experience. But I also told all my Alien friends to be ready to basically see a really, really, good cover band do an "Alien Franchise Anthology" concert exceptionally well, and that means "ALL of the Alien franchise".
Sometimes the band is too old and too philosophical *cough Ridley Scott, to make the old songs sound as good, or make a good new song... thanks Fede Alvarez, for making a top 3 alien film either way.
It switched off auto pilot because of the cryopod emergency. It doesn’t just switch back on to auto pilot, she switches it back on. And Rook didn’t tell her to inject the black goo into her neck.
This came up in another comment thread. You’re right about the Rook injection. One of misremembered that part. The autopilot thing, sure. We saw it once and probably missed that moment taking down a note. Usually we don’t do straight out of theater reviews. We sit on it for a day so we make less mistakes but we don’t really do anything beyond a few notes and just have a casual convo. Appreciate the callouts.
Romulus was depressingly exactly as expected. The back story introduced from Prometheus is so unnecessary and makes the universe smaller. All these sequels ever needed to be was Jaws in space in a different setting.
Fuck why couldn't they commit to the isolation inspiration and go smaller scale? Hated that they switched gears to more of an Aliens/Alien Resurrections circus show at the end.
I agree completely, but I would say that Isolation is anything but small scale. The Sevastopol station, alone, is massive and if brought to life in a film, it would be the biggest setting for an Alien film.
I wonder if Ridley Scott was responsible for the Prometheus slop injected into Romulus. Black goo and the last 10 minutes of the movie would have lifted it from a 7 to a 9 for me.
@FilipSmallPP Except you could use that criticism for Prey, yet people generally liked that movie. If the point was to go back to the horror roots they could have made a decent suspenseful and tension filled horror movie that felt like Alien. I mean it's not like the movie wasn't already super derivative anyway. They basically just crammed the first 4 movies together into one.
@@hardcutreviews I’ve never seen two dorks whinge about a good movie ever how about shut the hell up and go outside to a gym or something life’s too short
They dont care about the franchise, Cameron's sucess damaged their egos beyond recovery. All Scott's garbage orbits around his failed efforts to erase Aliens sucess.
Totally agree with more or less everything you guys have said here. I went with 3 of my mates to see it and we all had similar negative comments of the movie. A big disappointment.
Holy crap, I had strong criticisms, but you guys picked it to pieces. lol My real complaint is how recycled this movie is. I was enjoying the 1st act, but once we met the uncanny valley CGI of a dead actor, it was just a constant beat-down of fan service with old lines and the re-purpose of the climax from "Resurrection", which I have hated for 26 yrs.. Be your own movie!!
@@czechball6641 you don’t think I understood that? lol The CGI didn’t look good, and it was only done to make you applaud like a seal that they brought back something from before. He even said reused lines from the previous movie. That on top of all of the other fan service call backs that were stuffed in. Maybe you don’t know the previous movies, which is why it didn’t bother you.
Appreciate your review! You guys remind me of RedLetterMedia from 10 years ago. Their current review of Alien: Romulus felt lazy and a little bit boring to watch. The set, editing, etc. is fantastically done and the pace of your conversation is just a joy to watch. Looking forward to more honest reviews in the future!
Never noticed (until now) how all Ridley's movies avoid the Queen Alien. Even in Romulus, there is a "hive," but not really a colony functioning in service to the Queen and their reproduction.
The only problem with this Alien movie is Ridley Scott. Really. If this movie had been allowed to be... Almost like a Dark Horse one off, where it was just these characters dealing with the alien, it would have been good to great. Unfortuantely, plugging in those contrived elements in the third act basically ruptures the good will of the audience. I also have to say, I actually agree that it should have been the big chap by himself. If you're going to bring that thing back... DO SOMETHING WITH IT. It's like they brough the corpse of the movie Alien into the movie to parade it around for a minute, and then it was gone. If the movie had been structured where the team boards the station, discovers slowly over the film what happened, and as they go to get the cryo-fuel they wake up this thing, which had been hastily frozen... and now they're trapped on the station, with multiple ticking clocks, IE: They have to get off before the station crashes and that the company will be coming to get rid of them and recapture the Alien... and they have to improvise and get creative in dealing with the creature.... I don't know, that owuld have been better than what they did, in my view. It's important for the Alien to be treated as a serious threat. The moment you start dropping hordes of them on the characters, you either need to have the human body count rise rapidly, or you have to get your characters to safety, fast. Having a dozen aliens and a body count of one, doesn't bode well for the aliens.
I would have cut out the... Black Goo... it adds nothing to the film Engineer New Born altogether... it's just dumb Birthing Scene... It's missing the baby growing, and reactions, it's an adult before anyone can even get to the Egg... English swearing... it sounds out of place Extended... Escape from the planet... my friend has a spaceship on an indentured servitude planet... how ... they should have just had them just steal it Intro... how come the Sulaco is in one piece, after Nuclear explosions. They should have just found the one Ripley blasted out of the Airlock instead Why the Spacestation is derelict... on a Weyland owned planet, they couldn't send a single ship to check it out, or stand guard on it Added... Spacestation crash onto the planet, for more Xeno's in sequel Ridley Scott needs to keep his fingers out of the Alien writers room, he is a good director, but his Alien writing is currently garbage... that's why the films last act is soo bad. But at 86 Years old, he wont have too many films left in him, and the Alien franchise can return to just Aliens again.
Instead they should have had Ash speak. With the crew panicking in a frenzy asking how to escape. Then catches on fire and melts. That's how they should have done it.
I've been getting pumped for Alien movies for decades and I've been disappointed for decades. At this point I'm a sucker after a new trailer is released. Love the first half of this movie but I couldn't roll my eyes more during the second half. Wanted to walk out. The drop off was crazy.
You mentioned the 5 minute gestation from facehugger to chestburster, but the full size alien developed from the chestburster even more quickly, and the hybrid developed from a football sized egg sack to full size in just a couple minutes. Development takes place at the speed of plot. In the original Alien story, the alien raided the food lockers on the Nostromo before developing into Big Chap.
Indeed. In the original film, Ash mentions something about the Alien's extremely high nutritional requirements. I mean, how can the tiny alien chest-bursting embryo thing grow into an 8-foot monster within a few hours without massive intake?
They destroyed the movie will all this BS... I agree about the music tho ... I was expecting OG sounds and got garbage. I feel the really problem here is Scott as always destroying this franchise even further. Best part of the movie was the trailer and likely the only real part Fede got to do.
On the rainbow scale - you guys didn’t think there was a barely disguised prejudice subplot with Andy, being a black guy, set upon by the obnoxious white guy, and being set apart from the others and who will ultimately be rejected at the group’s desired destination . Also Andy’s dumb child-like character whilst essentially being a ‘slave’ to the needs of the humans was a little ‘Masser’ like, don’t you think?
Yeah, you can make that connection for sure. He’s also not the first android to be treated lesser than in this universe. The fact that he was damaged goods also played into his treatment. You can definitely make that claim, we just didn’t feel slapped in the face with it. Also, we don’t organize our thoughts before we record, lol. We just wing it so the conversation flows naturally and sometimes we miss some stuff.
@@TheHitchDawk Thanks, dude! Appreciate the comments and support.
3 หลายเดือนก่อน +10
we can't just have a cool alien movie, it has to be a wanna-be 2001 we can't just have a cool historical conqueror movie, it has to be about his relationship issues with scott, I'm pretty sure gladiator 2 will be lame too
Ridley in his direction used to be tethered to truth and to beauty in a way that naturally bore good artwork in reference to both, he had a willingness to consider and observe human nature, history, etc, in a way that inspired the work and anchored it broadly to what was depicted within. The themes that came about in the films were evident in the observation of the things that occurred within the films. Not sure what happened but he seems disconnected from whatever muse he had before, now his themes are all ham fisted and inserted into the films in a way that appears at odds with the natures of the things within them, and it damages the art. If I can actively see "oh, that must've been ridley's meddling" in the middle of watching a film for the first time, that's probably a bad sign. That, and he just as a person doesn't seem to care. Apathy never makes for good work.
I think the reasoning behind it has been vague but it seems like a spring to a trap almost. If something breaks the beam the eggs know to hatch, like in the original.
Ridley Scott always seemed to lean toward the alien being an experimental bioweapon of some sort, Cameron made them an animalistic hive species in Aliens, the writers of the original Alien screenplay considered them to be the feral remnant of a dead alien civilization adding a tragic element. Everybody thought of them differently.
Ridley Scott also thought Blade Runner would be better if Deckard was secretly a replicant the whole time. He's as bad at understanding what makes his own movies good as George Lucas is.
I finally found a review that completely feels 100% the exact same way I did about this movie. The views, edited in clips, everything is just dead on. Believe me, I wanted it to be great along with everyone else, but the reality is that it is not. The way some have bought into the hype is ridiculous, completely ignoring the flaws because it's the current "thing" or lack of anything better to watch.
Woke millennial hipsters who grew up receiving participation trophies and being praised for being awesome without putting in the work... all think they can write complex sci-fi like the Alien franchise
That's what happens when there's a writers strike it seems. But I think I could write a better alien movie where they make a hybrid alien where instead of using face huggers they cut out the middle man and just have the aliens hump the humans face instead. One hundred billion box office smash baby!
It's not the black goo it's the fact that the alien didn't eat the main character when it caught her and set her gently on the ladder just so the movie could continue, also the wheels of the facehuggers could be seen terrible practical effects I've seen movies with less money do more such a shame
I've seen the alien catching her criticism a few times but I thought it was clearly shown why in the movie.... It catches her and holds her as a facehugger crawls towards her, she's just killed a heap of them, it doesn't want to waste her body when it could be used to gestate a new xenomorph
So, why isn't anyone else wondering why Rose is pregnant with her cousin's baby, and both her cousin and brother have British accents, and she does not?
The problem with having another model of Ash is in the first film they had no idea Ash was an android. Not only that, if you watch it again they seemed shocked that androids were a thing.
That's a great point. Ash does feel like a unique model in the original. If there were other Ash models walking around one of the crew may have run into one. By the time Aliens rolls around 57 years later, synthetics seem common place on crews.
@@hardcutreviews This is true. When Parker knocks Ash's head off, he says something like "it's come kind of robot". as if robots existing isn't common knowledge. Of course, Ridley changed that with Prometheus.
Great review guys, I can honestly say this was the first ever Alien film where I was bored the longer it went on. I'm done with the series after this, deciding to have the black goo as the be-all and end-all of everything is the final nail in the coffin. I too was deceived into thinking this was going to be more Alien than Prometheus but they stealthily subverted my expectations. And the news that Alvarez wants to make an AVP movie? No, just stop now, please (by the way Fede, good luck getting Ridley on board with that one mate)
Actually, the xenomorphs were initially thought to have been part of a 'temple' that the derelict crashed in to on LV426 before it was even terraformed. So the Juggernaut never tried to 'control' any aliens! Where did you hear that story?!
If the last 40 minutes of this movie was not the biggest pile of schlock I don't know what is. It's like Ridley went and complained and whined to the studio and they were like, "Oh okay we'll put Prometheus and Covenant stuff in there" and then the studio execs were like, "Oh make sure to throw Aliens stuff in there too. We need pulse rifles and multiple aliens and that line!" And all the Hollywood exec idiots that DEIsney hires were like, "OH YAH AWESOME" and that was that.
The movie for me could have almost been an average alien movie; my believability/immersion was tested when the Nostromo wreckage & the Xenomorph Ripley sent into deep space SOMEHOW got found when the ship blew up THREE TIMES and should have been reduced to atoms as well as the Xenomorph being in some cocoon to "survive" but I told myself to still give it a chance.... But the moment they leaned too much into the past with the unnecessary Ian Holm cameo, cringe uses of dialogue callbacks, and overreliance on homage to the point of almost being predictable as it went on REALLY held it back. I definitely agree the Production Design, Cinematography, and Practical Effects (when they are used) are the best things about the movie; but the movie really tried to satisfy everyone (even the fans of the movies that are objectively mediocre to bad) and ended up satisfying almost no one at all overall imo.
That's why there is a alternative cut for this movie named "Alien Romulus [Edição-CSJ]", that edition has less references to the other movies, less deep fake and less endings. And the cocoon is found in deep space, with no wreckage visible.
As soon as I saw they were being directed to a special lab by Rook my heart sunk. I knew the bullshit was coming. I lost interest after that and just waited to hear the pulse rifle in IMAX.
@@SmokeNGunsBBQthat gun's existence destroyed the believability of the film set immediately after it. So horrible a decision. Design is already off kilter from the start, but what it does is better fit for after aliens than before.
Love your review guys, you absolutely nailed it on every point and I felt almost exactly the same. But I always knew this movie would never get close to the classics with Alvarez and the cast he chose. The trailer though, wow..that final trailer was a 9/10 for me (dialogue and the lame London accent by Bjorn made me cringe bad though, and I'm British - 'summfin in the f'kin wort-ah'). Too bad the movie didn't turn out like that. Really glad you also picked up on the fairly generic score by Benjamin Wallfisch. I knew when I saw his named attached also, that the score would be very standard and lacking it's own identity like our first three films. I fear until Ridley is out of the picture, any movies in this franchise are unfortunately going to be tainted with the black goo, and it's very likely that shit will pop up in Alien: Earth as well. I actually like Prometheus, (I hate Covenant) but only because I completely remove that movie from the franchise, for me it's a very cool standalone sci-fi.
@@hardcutreviews i don't remember alien lore had a magical pill that made every human smart. dumb people do exists. in the prometheus they not just exist they there for a reason, its in the plot
@@anubusxactually covenant ruined the mystery, though there still is mystery, you don’t build a shrine the a creature you created, in the vase room the mural on the wall is of a alien. The story line could be the engineers came accross a xenomorph and they found its life creating properties, so the whole david created the alien was bullshit.
Idk, it felt like Rook was lying his ass out in the exposition scene in my eyes. Like he's saying "we need this to make humans more survivable to space" But in reality WY only want it to accelarate pregnancies and growth of human children, like what happened with the pregnant lady. Which also ties into the labor shortage they seem to be having on the mining colony down below. I might be reading way too into it but like- a souless company trying to make humans into labor factories seem to track, doesn't it?
They just adapted the plot to the sense of modern struggle young people feel (property values vs incomes, etc). But it makes no sense considering Aliens is set in the future and working conditions were shown as fairly decent 80's standards.
Nonsensical because he's ripping off the idea of the nexus 6 replicants from Phillip K. Dick. Most offworld operations wont need so much people. Mostly automatization. The cost of shipping food and water would be astronomical.
After 3rd viewing : Nostalgia 100%, mood and environment 100%, facehugger action 100%, xenomorph action 80%, Prometheus black goo and hybrid alien 15% 😢 not needed... 85% of this movie was freaking fantastic and I was smiling ear to ear, until black goo and stupid engineer looking hybrid monster... Similar to the one we got at the end of alien Resurrection,... All in all a great movie though and maybe I'll see it a 4th time at the theater 🍿🫶👽 Aliens 1986 Alien 1979 Alien 3 Alien Romulus AVP part 1 Prometheus (Alien covenant, AVP part 2, and alien Resurrection.. Ummmm....👎LOL)
First act was ok but this Disney disaster went south fast, how is it in a secure biolab there is an opening large enough to pass the usb stick to upgrade Andy , such a stupid movie overall
The whole alien gestation period is unfortunately something most contemporary directors just want to bypass and excuse by saying "iT's An AlIeN" just to move the plot forward. I'm hoping the series that they're doing takes it's time with stuff like that.
The beginning is bother some due to the whole lore of the Alien surviving comes from an interview Ridley gave. Unless you saw it then it does not make sense. I like how you guys hit on the Isolation focus. The new alien stage reminded me of the first Species that HR was a designer for. While it is new to the franchise, it's been done before. Thoughts?
So what you're saying is you didn't like Prometheus and Covenant? 😂 I do like Prometheus but Covenant, although has it's positives is much harder to defend. Your disdain for the prequels connection in Romulus is totally fair. When it started going in that direction I was thinking do they really need to this? A lot of people are gonna hate it but I was on board for it. In the end it's a 8/10 for me. 2 off for terrible cgi rook, plot hole or two that irritated me, gestation period and lazy exposition.
The major flaw in this is that they accelerate life cycle of the Xenomorph, and they show to much again about how it transforms from face hugger to Xenomorph, The whole trick is that you tell the story around a human contracting the Xenomorph from face hugger to the birth (chest burst). You have to slow the story down. The story is the story. Alien 2 was brilliant because you could appreciate that there was a considerable amount time for that process to occur giving Ripley being in cryosleep and waking up 50 yrs later. When she woke she asked the board how long were the colonist on the planet and the response was " the colonist had been colonizing there for a x amount of years. It was brilliant especially since no other director has been able to reproduce this effect. Who gives a shit about black goo and engineers. They should have retold the story again maybe for this generation, but not add to it with all this androids, goo, and engineer shit. Another strategy would be just to be not to make another one. The franchise ended with Ripley jumping into the incinerator.
14:35 in the theatre I kinda explaned weak state of the facehuggers to myself, but it still dumb. You can say, that facehuggers are weak because they were extracted from weak, beaten and damaged Big Chap. But it was physical damage, not genetic. Sooo… still dumb
Guys, guys , guys. Raine going back for Andy is another one of hollywood's predictive programming stunts. They want the public to become comfortable with forming emotional relationships with AI. Not too different from the movie Her, and Bladerunner 2049 with Ryan Gosling's relationship with the hologram AI named Joi.
Warning folks don't go see this one twice, I did and the seams are bursting on a second viewing. Don't even try to understand how the physics work in this movie. And for God's sake can we can the black goo inclusion. Movie looks to be heading for a decent profit however, good holds in most territories, pity about the second week drop in North America. My son asked me this morning what I wanted for Father's Day, easy , a decent writer for an Alien movie.
Haha, it crushed that opening weekend because of the bait and switch. Only way to work that lore in without turning people off. Let’s hope your son knows where to find those writers.
@hardcutreviews womp womp. If you agree with this guys whiney comment, then you are a manchild too. The movie wasn't bad aside from some of the unnecessary quote callbacks, you two are just being overly negative and almost spoiled, like you expect them to make an Alien move as good as the original, which is nigh impossible.
I definitely like Prometheus and Covenant. I like getting an origin story for the aliens. The David character carries those movies also. That character gives you history into the evolution of the synthetics we see in Bishop and Winona’s android. The problem I have with this movie is it does really serve a purpose. I went in hoping for the film that fills in the gap between Covenant and Alien. I wanted to know how the species ends up on the derelict ship. Instead we got a movie that seemed to be made for the purpose of fanfare. The horrible special effect of the Ash/Rook android completely derailed the film for me. It was so jarring that it pulls you out of the experience. I don’t have any sympathy for bad CGI in this day and age. We get better deep fake videos on the internet. There’s no excuse for Hollywood to mess that up.
As far as you guys not liking the sped up gestational periods or being able to get a face hugger off without killing the host not being possible well hate to burst your bubbles but in the expanded universe with novels, comics and audio books/graphic audio it's been stated and shown that there is no exact time table on gestational periods it all depends on the host and their DNA...also these are face huggers grown in a lab from the black goo...I'm guessing they made improvements or something to speed up the process. But yeah, gestational timeframe isn't set in stone and there's been successful removals of face huggers and embryo removals in expanded universe.
It doesn't matter what "expanded universe" stuff says (most of that was probably null and void as soon as Prometheus came out and disregarded all of that anyways). All we have are the films to tell us the rules (AvP does not count). As terrible as Resurrection is, it still follows all of the BASIC rules set forth by the first film. Any "sped up gestational periods" is there only because it's convenient for the plot to move forward. It's lazy as hell.
I so wanted to like this movie, but you absolutely nailed its problems. Ash/Rook could have been a cool, subtle nod to the original. In Alien, Ash was cool, quiet, and chillingly rational. Here, he's a babbling exposition machine that all but cackles maniacally as he goes about his evil business. All the tension and drama of the first half is absolutely thrown out of the airlock because Fede wanted to make Alien and Aliens all in one, meaning that suddenly we get Aliens all over the place (although they're really just cannon fodder) in place of the suspense that came with the hunt. The lift sequence is plain stupid and the "get away from her..." an unearned call back that comes off as goofy. All that said, had the movie stopped with all three of the surviving characters getting away on the shuttle, it might have been a decent enough film, albeit flawed. However, that Hollywood obsession with boss battles means there has to be something more, and that something turns out to be a ridiculous CGI cross between an alien and a blue Jason Statham. It's so utterly stupid it sucks you out of the film, leaving you wondering what on earth all the practical effect creators must have felt about the final reel. At least Alien Resurrection had the novelty of being original (if pretty damn bad). This film hasn't one original idea to its name. Even the much-vaunted face huggers ('they're more vicious!" "They've got fingernails") only manage to claim one victim, and that being pretty half assed. The rest are batted away like some high-stakes game of Little League. Overall, this entire movie is a perfect example of how to take something that looks cool and flush it straight down the space loo in a despaired attempt to tie together a bunch of threads that would only ever have been better had they been left dangling. So, yes, really good review - good effort guys!
A babbling exposition machine, lol. 100%. Say what you want about Alien 3 and 4 but at least they stood as their own films. Alien 3 wanted to stand on its own so much it erased any connection to Aliens in the first 5 minutes of the film. They even shaved her head. This started out promising but then had to rely on everything that came before to keep it going. That 3rd act… the Alien 4 / Prometheus mash-up was a massive middle finger. Here are the 2 worst things we can think of merged into one scene.
JFC, just watched this movie. What a train wreck. The most frustrating part is there's a good movie to be found in here, just like Prey; but it's smothered in member berries and convoluted scenarios that don't make a lick of sense. Even the worst Alien comics are miles ahead of the incompetence of these modern writers.
I think they missed a very easy way they could have kept the good parts of this film (the suspense, action and return to the original Alien type "feel" to many parts of this movie), got rid of the need for the overly convoluted explanation for the research station existing, wrapped up the prequels and ended the black goo stuff (which I hate) all in one go. You could have literally had the same story as in this movie up until they find the alien infested ship in space, but instead of finding the research station, they find the colony ship we ended Alien Covenant in. David (Fassbender's character) had been creating aliens from the colonists as we expected him to, but the aliens he created have turned on him and killed him (in the same way he turned on his creators and killed many of them), and the ship is now drifting aimlessly in space as a result (as was the space station in Romulus). This way the prequels are somewhat respectfully wrapped up, the knowledge of the black goo can die with David and we don't have to return to it again, the franchise can move on and the characters in this movie still have a whole ship full of aliens and face huggers to play out the rest of this movie with. The only reason I assume they didn't do this, or something similar, is Scott's continued involvement with the franchise? Maybe he is hoping one day he might still get a chance to finish his prequel? I think this movie is a case of two steps forward and one step back, it's certainly a big improvement on the prequels, but I think they have to cut out any links to the prequels/the black goo etc (and thus probably Ridley Scott's involvement in any future projects) to get the franchise fully back on track.
Scott will never let this go. His origin lore has become more important than the story that made this franchise successful in the first place. Closing the door on the prequels in this would have been nice but they just can’t do it for some reason.
@@hardcutreviews But surely the property belongs to Disney, not Scott? I get that Universal bought him back to do the prequels as "Alien" as a franchise had hit a rut and lost credibility with Alien Resurrection, and they felt that getting him back would restore interest and credibility to the franchise. But, as we all know, in reality the opposite of this actually happened, he ended up taking franchise to an even weaker position than it was post-Alien Resurrection with his prequels. Surely they must recognise that and, as a result, must part ways with him?
It’s under the umbrella of Disney but it was still produced by Scott Free. He’s been around long enough that it’s not difficult for him to meddle with it unopposed.
The Black Goo is basically the get-out-of-jail card for the modern Alien writers. For whatever contrivance, no matter how stupid or contradictary it is, the Black Goo is the go-to reason. ¿How much do the Chestbursters take to grow? Black Goo! ¿Who actually created the Xenomorph? No one, but the Black Goo! ¿Why do the Xenomorphs constantly change from biological to biomechanical? Black Goo! ¿Why can the Engineers now grow out of humans despite being different species? Black Goo!
Never really saw the alien movies, I enjoyed this universe so much I’m watching everything now and I think the order helped me a ton. Very fun movie but a lot of these things would bother me if I was a long time fan
So can someone explain the xeno birth scene? Why did it go from chest burster to the wall vagina birthing pod? Shouldn’t they just grow from burster to xeno?
They’ve always just shown shedded skin. This was an attempt to give a little more insight into the process of how it goes from 1 foot tall to 7 feet tall inside of an hour. Got to always be expanding that lore!
I like Romulus except for the sh-tty black goo and the freaky offspring. I agree with your assessment 100%. The black goo and hybrids ruin every movie it's in. Ridley, just say no bro. Just say no.
I mostly enjoyed this movie at first, and tried to ignore all the negative aspects. Now the more I sit with it the more it pisses me off and leaves me disappointed. You’re right, it was a total bait and switch. Which makes me more pissed. We were led to believe it was a complete return to form of the original two and then of course they had to shove Prometheus crap into it. I wonder if that was a Fede thing or a Ridley thing? And the cgi face is baffling and unforgivable. And the dna altering black goo nonsense is predictive programming/social conditioning for…. things we won’t talk about here…. They’ve been feeding that to us for a long time now and are only pushing it harder as time goes on.
The movie started to nosedive long before the black goo showed up, that was honestly the least of its problems. I'm okay with weird science fictiony stuff, but when characters don't behave in a compelling way, nothing exciting is happening, and there is no depth or meaning to any of it then that is a problem. It was just a vehicle for memberberries and Ridley Scott's ego, because he can't get over the fact that almost no one liked his prequels. One easy way to see why this movie falls flat, just watch the OG chest burster scene in the '79 Alien movie, then watch it in this movie. The original looks painful, no matter how many times you see it it affects you. The new one, it looks like she has a bad case of dehydration and you feel nothing. It's like the special effects of the x-ray wand were trying to compensate for the flat and lifeless character direction.
Picking up the original xeno from the wreckage would have been the better movie, Realising it wasn't dead and then seeing it was turning itself into a queen and allowing it to develop, then all hell breaks loose!!!
Have kay mutate again in a post credit scene where she becomes a proto queen for a new hive she biths several eggs(ovamorphs), than your idea where they find the craft to retreve the accelerant than facehugger time and a whole new outbreak its not original but it would fit perfectly for a sequel to romulus.
Uncanny, virtually identical thoughts on this movie to mine. I additionally didn't like that after the chestburster scene, the alien went into a cocoon. Since when does it do that? Just seemed to be an excuse for some gross body horror. The more they mess with Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's work, the worse they screw it up. The franchise needs a complete reset, cast aside everything that came after Aliens and start from there. And who already had a vision ready to go? Neil Blomkamp.
Fede Alvarez and Ridley Scott did one of those pompous 1-on-1-interview-each-other-and-talk-about-ourselves-being-artists videos on TH-cam recently. Then you find out Fede’s “vision” is doing stupid callbacks and references to previous Alien movies. Yeah, you’re a total genius Fede. 🙄
Ridley Scott has made two of my all time favorite movies, the original Alien and Blade Runner. I have always suspected that he crafted those two masterpieces by accident, as everything he has done since has been mediocre or outright atrocious.
If he hadn’t tried to merge the two very different universes then the prequels might have stood on their own as an interesting exploration into humanities origins. But he didn’t. And they suck.
But there's alot of graphic novels and comics that expand the franchise talking about the engineers and the black goo and even brings in predators too.
Im confused about the part where you say rook tells her to inject the goo... pretty sure she just does it herself while she's in the elevator alone. Andy only briefly mentions it's technically supposed to be synthesized and should in theory help her heal. Idr rook convincing her to take it
@@hardcutreviews do you really want an autistic rant about Scott, Damon Lindelof, Jon Spaihts and da Engineer? Prometheus is only good if you pretend it's an Italian Alien rip off from the '80s.
Wow, this is the best discussion about the problems with this movie. Thanks for this. I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying. Especially about how they couldn’t help themselves and brought in the black glue and the whole ash thing and too many forced fan service, etc. I really wanted to like this movie and I did through most of the first two acts. But the third act in the ending completely just ruined it for me. It’s unfortunate because I think there’s a lot of good things in this movie but as a whole just crashes and burns.
The movie had a lot going for it. Best tonal and atmospheric Alien film we’ve gotten in years. But when you strip away all the callbacks and references and forced goo plot points, you’re left with a very plain and average film. Thanks for the comment.
The addition of prequels & exposition isn't bad because very action needs downtime no less scavenger crew motives not about origins of life. The ordeal wasn't painful, but I can argue knowing the pathogen helps their way out of mining colony & fixing Andy, if the company doubts them.
YES! Finally someone not gushing over the wat the film was shot. Dammit any film in the ALIEN (or Halloween, Exorcist, etc) franchise should be shot in 32mm, not the glossy HD digital. Sure they can build the sets to look retro but in many films it looks way too "Netflixy" which is ironic since this was originally bound for HULU. Didn't hate the film but the characters, callbacks and WTF tie-ins to Prometheus really dropped it imo
This video is probably the most comprehensive breakdown of this film on TH-cam. You guys have officially dethroned RLM as the leading duo-chat review channel.
We cut out 50% of our rant, too. lol. We went way more into depth on a lot of stuff but I don’t think even our fans would sit through that for 80 minutes.
Black goo is Ridley Scott’s midichlorians.
He just won’t let it go. At least Lucas had the good sense to never mention it again after TPM.
@@hardcutreviews "Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create… life."
Its the best idea scense the original movie prometheus was the best movie scence the original movie and dont take away from the original at all it builds it up acctually
Its the best idea scense the original movie prometheus was the best movie scence the original movie and dont take away from the original at all it builds it up acctually
@user-hf3bp2gy6d The good idea from Prometheus is that of the Engineers. I just feel that it should have been its own movie rather than being shoehorned into the Alien franchise. They created us and we created androids. Great concept. Lots there to work with.
Weyland-Yutani has better odds of winning every lottery on Earth, 10,000 times in a row, than EVER finding that Xenomorph floating around in outerspace. 😂😂
No shit. It was just a dumb idea all-around. They only did it so the nerds would be like "oHhhHh lOok, iT's BIg ChAp!"
@@hardcutreviewsand yet here you are moaning that it wasn’t what you wanted in an alien movie, but hey continue on insulting other fans for what they like.
@@markwebster7435they're not insulting fans, they're insulting consumers. Marvel created a generation of movie goers who don't care about the art of movie making, they only care about nostalgia and cameos and mentions of characters and stories past. They're not fans, they're the tik tok generation who want immediate gratification at the expense of story and creativity
How do you know we wouldn’t have technology that could find it, it’s a movie for a reason. Why does everything have to be so literal?
@@Herald_of_the_Never Well said!
Saw the film last night....Woke up with diarrhea. The black goo did it 😢
Well, it can do everything! 😆
I had really bad diarrhea last night smelled like rotten eggs.
If you hate Prometheus and Covenant for the black goo trope, it's worth pointing out that it's not even original. The first X Files movie did it back in '94 (?) And did it better.
'98. And you're right.
You mean it is not venom symbiote from the very first secret wars comic run? 🤔
Scott hates scifi, because he can't write scifi. Its way harder than anything else hes done. Mediocre and condescending.
I've just discovered your channel today and the two of you are my favorite people right now!
Love to hear it. Thanks for watching!
I 100% told everyone to go see it in a theater just to appreciate the level of craft that went into making the movie and the experience. But I also told all my Alien friends to be ready to basically see a really, really, good cover band do an "Alien Franchise Anthology" concert exceptionally well, and that means "ALL of the Alien franchise".
This is a good explanation. Greatest hits lol
It sucked
@Sketch_XR I agree with that but it’s the first time I’ve left the theater satisfied with an alien film ever starting with alien 3
I heard that, cover band. It is true, lol.
Sometimes the band is too old and too philosophical *cough Ridley Scott, to make the old songs sound as good, or make a good new song... thanks Fede Alvarez, for making a top 3 alien film either way.
It switched off auto pilot because of the cryopod emergency. It doesn’t just switch back on to auto pilot, she switches it back on. And Rook didn’t tell her to inject the black goo into her neck.
This came up in another comment thread. You’re right about the Rook injection. One of misremembered that part. The autopilot thing, sure. We saw it once and probably missed that moment taking down a note. Usually we don’t do straight out of theater reviews. We sit on it for a day so we make less mistakes but we don’t really do anything beyond a few notes and just have a casual convo. Appreciate the callouts.
Romulus was depressingly exactly as expected. The back story introduced from Prometheus is so unnecessary and makes the universe smaller. All these sequels ever needed to be was Jaws in space in a different setting.
It never needed to be more than that. The Prometheus trash is so forced.
@@hardcutreviewsPrometheus is the most pretentious grandstanding stupid scifi movie ever.
Fuck why couldn't they commit to the isolation inspiration and go smaller scale? Hated that they switched gears to more of an Aliens/Alien Resurrections circus show at the end.
I agree completely, but I would say that Isolation is anything but small scale. The Sevastopol station, alone, is massive and if brought to life in a film, it would be the biggest setting for an Alien film.
I wonder if Ridley Scott was responsible for the Prometheus slop injected into Romulus.
Black goo and the last 10 minutes of the movie would have lifted it from a 7 to a 9 for me.
That movie exists and its called Alien (1979)
@FilipSmallPP Except you could use that criticism for Prey, yet people generally liked that movie. If the point was to go back to the horror roots they could have made a decent suspenseful and tension filled horror movie that felt like Alien. I mean it's not like the movie wasn't already super derivative anyway. They basically just crammed the first 4 movies together into one.
You thought Alien Isolation was small scale????
I’m not sure why the company didn’t go to the planet where they found the zenomorph rather than go search deep space for a tiny alien body.
Any more cracks in this dam and it will burst.
@@hardcutreviews
I’ve never seen two dorks whinge about a good movie ever how about shut the hell up and go outside to a gym or something life’s too short
Correction “Xenomorph”
@@aadenzstudios5186 dork
They dont care about the franchise, Cameron's sucess damaged their egos beyond recovery. All Scott's garbage orbits around his failed efforts to erase Aliens sucess.
Totally agree with more or less everything you guys have said here. I went with 3 of my mates to see it and we all had similar negative comments of the movie. A big disappointment.
Holy crap, I had strong criticisms, but you guys picked it to pieces. lol
My real complaint is how recycled this movie is. I was enjoying the 1st act, but once we met the uncanny valley CGI of a dead actor, it was just a constant beat-down of fan service with old lines and the re-purpose of the climax from "Resurrection", which I have hated for 26 yrs..
Be your own movie!!
It’s literally just another synthetic of the same model. Bruh.
@@czechball6641 you don’t think I understood that? lol
The CGI didn’t look good, and it was only done to make you applaud like a seal that they brought back something from before. He even said reused lines from the previous movie. That on top of all of the other fan service call backs that were stuffed in.
Maybe you don’t know the previous movies, which is why it didn’t bother you.
@@76063co2cgi was done bad because this film is cheap and was supposed to drop on Hulu funny how you don’t mention any of it
The last 10 minutes i thought i was watching a different movie called Dead Space. 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah ok but at least resurrection had a good cast lol
Appreciate your review! You guys remind me of RedLetterMedia from 10 years ago. Their current review of Alien: Romulus felt lazy and a little bit boring to watch.
The set, editing, etc. is fantastically done and the pace of your conversation is just a joy to watch. Looking forward to more honest reviews in the future!
Thanks, dude. If we ever get stale, let us know.
Never noticed (until now) how all Ridley's movies avoid the Queen Alien. Even in Romulus, there is a "hive," but not really a colony functioning in service to the Queen and their reproduction.
Ridley never liked what Cameron did with the Queen so he just ignores it.
@@hardcutreviewshe specifically hated that Cameron was very successful because they didn't even called him to see if he wanted to direct Aliens.
The only problem with this Alien movie is Ridley Scott. Really. If this movie had been allowed to be... Almost like a Dark Horse one off, where it was just these characters dealing with the alien, it would have been good to great. Unfortuantely, plugging in those contrived elements in the third act basically ruptures the good will of the audience.
I also have to say, I actually agree that it should have been the big chap by himself. If you're going to bring that thing back... DO SOMETHING WITH IT. It's like they brough the corpse of the movie Alien into the movie to parade it around for a minute, and then it was gone. If the movie had been structured where the team boards the station, discovers slowly over the film what happened, and as they go to get the cryo-fuel they wake up this thing, which had been hastily frozen... and now they're trapped on the station, with multiple ticking clocks, IE: They have to get off before the station crashes and that the company will be coming to get rid of them and recapture the Alien... and they have to improvise and get creative in dealing with the creature.... I don't know, that owuld have been better than what they did, in my view.
It's important for the Alien to be treated as a serious threat. The moment you start dropping hordes of them on the characters, you either need to have the human body count rise rapidly, or you have to get your characters to safety, fast. Having a dozen aliens and a body count of one, doesn't bode well for the aliens.
No what should of happened is to have and actually engineer in the movie not a hybrid baby engineer,
I would have cut out the...
Black Goo... it adds nothing to the film
Engineer New Born altogether... it's just dumb
Birthing Scene... It's missing the baby growing, and reactions, it's an adult before anyone can even get to the Egg...
English swearing... it sounds out of place
Extended...
Escape from the planet... my friend has a spaceship on an indentured servitude planet... how ... they should have just had them just steal it
Intro... how come the Sulaco is in one piece, after Nuclear explosions. They should have just found the one Ripley blasted out of the Airlock instead
Why the Spacestation is derelict... on a Weyland owned planet, they couldn't send a single ship to check it out, or stand guard on it
Added...
Spacestation crash onto the planet, for more Xeno's in sequel
Ridley Scott needs to keep his fingers out of the Alien writers room, he is a good director, but his Alien writing is currently garbage... that's why the films last act is soo bad.
But at 86 Years old, he wont have too many films left in him, and the Alien franchise can return to just Aliens again.
Scott's demented insistence in sabotaging the Alien lore with his black goo copy from the X files movie is pathetic.
Instead they should have had Ash speak. With the crew panicking in a frenzy asking how to escape. Then catches on fire and melts. That's how they should have done it.
One scene and done would have been the way. Way too much screen time for that deep fake.
A better idea woukd've been not have Ash in the film.
I've been getting pumped for Alien movies for decades and I've been disappointed for decades. At this point I'm a sucker after a new trailer is released. Love the first half of this movie but I couldn't roll my eyes more during the second half. Wanted to walk out. The drop off was crazy.
You mentioned the 5 minute gestation from facehugger to chestburster, but the full size alien developed from the chestburster even more quickly, and the hybrid developed from a football sized egg sack to full size in just a couple minutes. Development takes place at the speed of plot. In the original Alien story, the alien raided the food lockers on the Nostromo before developing into Big Chap.
Indeed. In the original film, Ash mentions something about the Alien's extremely high nutritional requirements. I mean, how can the tiny alien chest-bursting embryo thing grow into an 8-foot monster within a few hours without massive intake?
@@stavroshadjiyiannis6283well anything ash told the crew can be taken with a large pinch of salt.
They destroyed the movie will all this BS... I agree about the music tho ... I was expecting OG sounds and got garbage. I feel the really problem here is Scott as always destroying this franchise even further. Best part of the movie was the trailer and likely the only real part Fede got to do.
The trailer to this film was extremely effective and completely hid what involvement Scott had on the story. I wonder why.
@@hardcutreviews SAD DAY for alien fans thats for sure.
@@hardcutreviewsScott's devoted to destroy the alien franchise because they ditched him for Cameron for the second movie.
On the rainbow scale - you guys didn’t think there was a barely disguised prejudice subplot with Andy, being a black guy, set upon by the obnoxious white guy, and being set apart from the others and who will ultimately be rejected at the group’s desired destination . Also Andy’s dumb child-like character whilst essentially being a ‘slave’ to the needs of the humans was a little ‘Masser’ like, don’t you think?
Yeah, you can make that connection for sure. He’s also not the first android to be treated lesser than in this universe. The fact that he was damaged goods also played into his treatment. You can definitely make that claim, we just didn’t feel slapped in the face with it. Also, we don’t organize our thoughts before we record, lol. We just wing it so the conversation flows naturally and sometimes we miss some stuff.
@@hardcutreviews - cheers for the reply; your reviews are awesome - respect from Bristol UK👍
@@TheHitchDawk Thanks, dude! Appreciate the comments and support.
we can't just have a cool alien movie, it has to be a wanna-be 2001
we can't just have a cool historical conqueror movie, it has to be about his relationship issues
with scott, I'm pretty sure gladiator 2 will be lame too
It will, nothing about it looks good
Bet on it
Ridley in his direction used to be tethered to truth and to beauty in a way that naturally bore good artwork in reference to both, he had a willingness to consider and observe human nature, history, etc, in a way that inspired the work and anchored it broadly to what was depicted within. The themes that came about in the films were evident in the observation of the things that occurred within the films. Not sure what happened but he seems disconnected from whatever muse he had before, now his themes are all ham fisted and inserted into the films in a way that appears at odds with the natures of the things within them, and it damages the art. If I can actively see "oh, that must've been ridley's meddling" in the middle of watching a film for the first time, that's probably a bad sign. That, and he just as a person doesn't seem to care. Apathy never makes for good work.
100%
what was the blue laser light above the floor they copied from the first film?
I think the reasoning behind it has been vague but it seems like a spring to a trap almost. If something breaks the beam the eggs know to hatch, like in the original.
you guys should do a review on prometheus and covenant. would be awesome
Don’t give us ideas. There is only so much belittling we can take from the pretentious cucks that love those films.
@@hardcutreviewsyour review of Romulus was just perfect and fair. You guys are on the right track.
Thanks for the 35:36 Ship Logs reaction reactions. Still laughing hard every time. 😂
Ridley Scott always seemed to lean toward the alien being an experimental bioweapon of some sort, Cameron made them an animalistic hive species in Aliens, the writers of the original Alien screenplay considered them to be the feral remnant of a dead alien civilization adding a tragic element. Everybody thought of them differently.
And Ridley Scott's is the worst
Ridley Scott also thought Blade Runner would be better if Deckard was secretly a replicant the whole time. He's as bad at understanding what makes his own movies good as George Lucas is.
@@frankjones5886 and George Lucas made the mistake by trying to explain the Force with midichlorians.
@@frankjones5886 Hell, at least George can say he came up with the setting and can do what he wants; not exactly true of Scott.
The alien, beast, big chap should’ve never been explained.
I finally found a review that completely feels 100% the exact same way I did about this movie. The views, edited in clips, everything is just dead on. Believe me, I wanted it to be great along with everyone else, but the reality is that it is not. The way some have bought into the hype is ridiculous, completely ignoring the flaws because it's the current "thing" or lack of anything better to watch.
It really is mind-boggingly frustrating.
Its just PR bots, they go away when the movie ends its run.
Woke millennial hipsters who grew up receiving participation trophies and being praised for being awesome without putting in the work... all think they can write complex sci-fi like the Alien franchise
All the guys in the group definitely consume soy products.
Wtf are you talking about, the writers are in their mid 40’s.
Grow up you man child.
@@hardcutreviews😂😂😂😂😂
🥱
That's what happens when there's a writers strike it seems.
But I think I could write a better alien movie where they make a hybrid alien where instead of using face huggers they cut out the middle man and just have the aliens hump the humans face instead.
One hundred billion box office smash baby!
It's not the black goo it's the fact that the alien didn't eat the main character when it caught her and set her gently on the ladder just so the movie could continue, also the wheels of the facehuggers could be seen terrible practical effects I've seen movies with less money do more such a shame
I've seen the alien catching her criticism a few times but I thought it was clearly shown why in the movie.... It catches her and holds her as a facehugger crawls towards her, she's just killed a heap of them, it doesn't want to waste her body when it could be used to gestate a new xenomorph
So, why isn't anyone else wondering why Rose is pregnant with her cousin's baby, and both her cousin and brother have British accents, and she does not?
Just go with it.
The problem with having another model of Ash is in the first film they had no idea Ash was an android. Not only that, if you watch it again they seemed shocked that androids were a thing.
That's a great point. Ash does feel like a unique model in the original. If there were other Ash models walking around one of the crew may have run into one. By the time Aliens rolls around 57 years later, synthetics seem common place on crews.
@@hardcutreviews This is true. When Parker knocks Ash's head off, he says something like "it's come kind of robot". as if robots existing isn't common knowledge. Of course, Ridley changed that with Prometheus.
Great review guys, I can honestly say this was the first ever Alien film where I was bored the longer it went on. I'm done with the series after this, deciding to have the black goo as the be-all and end-all of everything is the final nail in the coffin. I too was deceived into thinking this was going to be more Alien than Prometheus but they stealthily subverted my expectations. And the news that Alvarez wants to make an AVP movie? No, just stop now, please (by the way Fede, good luck getting Ridley on board with that one mate)
The black goo is like, It's game over man, it's game over!
Actually, the xenomorphs were initially thought to have been part of a 'temple' that the derelict crashed in to on LV426 before it was even terraformed. So the Juggernaut never tried to 'control' any aliens! Where did you hear that story?!
If the last 40 minutes of this movie was not the biggest pile of schlock I don't know what is. It's like Ridley went and complained and whined to the studio and they were like, "Oh okay we'll put Prometheus and Covenant stuff in there" and then the studio execs were like, "Oh make sure to throw Aliens stuff in there too. We need pulse rifles and multiple aliens and that line!" And all the Hollywood exec idiots that DEIsney hires were like, "OH YAH AWESOME" and that was that.
The movie for me could have almost been an average alien movie; my believability/immersion was tested when the Nostromo wreckage & the Xenomorph Ripley sent into deep space SOMEHOW got found when the ship blew up THREE TIMES and should have been reduced to atoms as well as the Xenomorph being in some cocoon to "survive" but I told myself to still give it a chance.... But the moment they leaned too much into the past with the unnecessary Ian Holm cameo, cringe uses of dialogue callbacks, and overreliance on homage to the point of almost being predictable as it went on REALLY held it back.
I definitely agree the Production Design, Cinematography, and Practical Effects (when they are used) are the best things about the movie; but the movie really tried to satisfy everyone (even the fans of the movies that are objectively mediocre to bad) and ended up satisfying almost no one at all overall imo.
How does a ship blow up three times? What remains on the third instance?
That's why there is a alternative cut for this movie named "Alien Romulus [Edição-CSJ]", that edition has less references to the other movies, less deep fake and less endings. And the cocoon is found in deep space, with no wreckage visible.
@@0volts157 A bunch of atoms so instable that they blow up again...
@@claudeJUNIOR where can this be found?
@@randomrey002 "Extranet Torrentbay"
There was also the weird, implied Alien Newborn Breastfeeding scene.
in a way...we are all black goo now.
I want to slather it all over my supple torso
maybe the real black goo was the friends we made along the way
African American goo.
@@miles5998 The goo that can't breathe.
Felt more like an Alien clip-show episode than a real movie.
You're analysis was great, would love to get your deep dive opinion of Alien Isolation and its story and such!
In my top 5 video games of all-time. Maybe one day....
As soon as I saw they were being directed to a special lab by Rook my heart sunk. I knew the bullshit was coming. I lost interest after that and just waited to hear the pulse rifle in IMAX.
And a low plausibility pulse rifle at that. It makes no sense. Auto aiming from clamping to your arm 😂
@@SmokeNGunsBBQthat gun's existence destroyed the believability of the film set immediately after it. So horrible a decision. Design is already off kilter from the start, but what it does is better fit for after aliens than before.
Drink game: 1 shot of tequila for every time you hear “Fu**ckn Prometheus”
We’re already drunk.
Plastic acting, awful story to none, and a nobody kid cast 😢😢😢 I can’t even go 1/10
The name Romulus just gives me the Star Trek vibes. It would make sense if it were titled in a Star Trek: Romulus movie. Alien? Why not Death Star?
Just be glad it's not as bad as what hollywood did to Jurassic Park rip
Love your review guys, you absolutely nailed it on every point and I felt almost exactly the same. But I always knew this movie would never get close to the classics with Alvarez and the cast he chose. The trailer though, wow..that final trailer was a 9/10 for me (dialogue and the lame London accent by Bjorn made me cringe bad though, and I'm British - 'summfin in the f'kin wort-ah'). Too bad the movie didn't turn out like that. Really glad you also picked up on the fairly generic score by Benjamin Wallfisch. I knew when I saw his named attached also, that the score would be very standard and lacking it's own identity like our first three films. I fear until Ridley is out of the picture, any movies in this franchise are unfortunately going to be tainted with the black goo, and it's very likely that shit will pop up in Alien: Earth as well. I actually like Prometheus, (I hate Covenant) but only because I completely remove that movie from the franchise, for me it's a very cool standalone sci-fi.
I pronounced his line like: "I dun no! Dares jus sum dan 'N duh woah-ah!"
@@THambrough 😂 if you can cause YT to add the 'Translate to English' line, then it's pretty good!
Prometheus is a fuckin phenomenal movie. Easily the best in the series after the original film
Oh yeah man, it's so good. I love how all of the characters are smart and make great decisions.
@@hardcutreviewsyes but the crew in alien and aliens also make dumb decisions
@@hardcutreviews i don't remember alien lore had a magical pill that made every human smart. dumb people do exists. in the prometheus they not just exist they there for a reason, its in the plot
It ruined the mystery behind the Xenomorph.
@@anubusxactually covenant ruined the mystery, though there still is mystery, you don’t build a shrine the a creature you created, in the vase room the mural on the wall is of a alien. The story line could be the engineers came accross a xenomorph and they found its life creating properties, so the whole david created the alien was bullshit.
Idk, it felt like Rook was lying his ass out in the exposition scene in my eyes. Like he's saying "we need this to make humans more survivable to space"
But in reality WY only want it to accelarate pregnancies and growth of human children, like what happened with the pregnant lady.
Which also ties into the labor shortage they seem to be having on the mining colony down below.
I might be reading way too into it but like- a souless company trying to make humans into labor factories seem to track, doesn't it?
They just adapted the plot to the sense of modern struggle young people feel (property values vs incomes, etc). But it makes no sense considering Aliens is set in the future and working conditions were shown as fairly decent 80's standards.
Nonsensical because he's ripping off the idea of the nexus 6 replicants from Phillip K. Dick. Most offworld operations wont need so much people. Mostly automatization. The cost of shipping food and water would be astronomical.
After 3rd viewing : Nostalgia 100%, mood and environment 100%, facehugger action 100%, xenomorph action 80%, Prometheus black goo and hybrid alien 15% 😢 not needed... 85% of this movie was freaking fantastic and I was smiling ear to ear, until black goo and stupid engineer looking hybrid monster... Similar to the one we got at the end of alien Resurrection,... All in all a great movie though and maybe I'll see it a 4th time at the theater 🍿🫶👽
Aliens 1986
Alien 1979
Alien 3
Alien Romulus
AVP part 1
Prometheus
(Alien covenant, AVP part 2, and alien Resurrection.. Ummmm....👎LOL)
Great video! Thank you, guys! * I love-love Alien(1979) & Aliens(1986). * Every movie since 1992 was a huge disappointment!
At this point, I am convinced that only Dennis Villeneuve can make a good Alien movie.
Took my sink drain apart to unclog yesterday. You wouldnt believe it, more fucking black goo there too.
First act was ok but this Disney disaster went south fast, how is it in a secure biolab there is an opening large enough to pass the usb stick to upgrade Andy , such a stupid movie overall
Hey ChatGPT, write an alien movie combining all the alien movies……
Basically.
@@hardcutreviews this movie is basically the force awakens for alien
Ridley Scott has destroyed the amazing Aliens universe that James Cameron created.
The whole alien gestation period is unfortunately something most contemporary directors just want to bypass and excuse by saying
"iT's An AlIeN" just to move the plot forward. I'm hoping the series that they're doing takes it's time with stuff like that.
The sequels are about more, more, more and that leaves less time for things to gestate.
The beginning is bother some due to the whole lore of the Alien surviving comes from an interview Ridley gave. Unless you saw it then it does not make sense. I like how you guys hit on the Isolation focus. The new alien stage reminded me of the first Species that HR was a designer for. While it is new to the franchise, it's been done before. Thoughts?
So what you're saying is you didn't like Prometheus and Covenant? 😂
I do like Prometheus but Covenant, although has it's positives is much harder to defend. Your disdain for the prequels connection in Romulus is totally fair. When it started going in that direction I was thinking do they really need to this? A lot of people are gonna hate it but I was on board for it. In the end it's a 8/10 for me. 2 off for terrible cgi rook, plot hole or two that irritated me, gestation period and lazy exposition.
I had never heard that building action soundtrack before seeing Aliens at the theater.
Then it was in everything!
The major flaw in this is that they accelerate life cycle of the Xenomorph, and they show to much again about how it transforms from face hugger to Xenomorph, The whole trick is that you tell the story around a human contracting the Xenomorph from face hugger to the birth (chest burst). You have to slow the story down. The story is the story. Alien 2 was brilliant because you could appreciate that there was a considerable amount time for that process to occur giving Ripley being in cryosleep and waking up 50 yrs later. When she woke she asked the board how long were the colonist on the planet and the response was " the colonist had been colonizing there for a x amount of years. It was brilliant especially since no other director has been able to reproduce this effect. Who gives a shit about black goo and engineers. They should have retold the story again maybe for this generation, but not add to it with all this androids, goo, and engineer shit. Another strategy would be just to be not to make another one. The franchise ended with Ripley jumping into the incinerator.
14:35 in the theatre I kinda explaned weak state of the facehuggers to myself, but it still dumb. You can say, that facehuggers are weak because they were extracted from weak, beaten and damaged Big Chap. But it was physical damage, not genetic. Sooo… still dumb
Love this channel. Deserve way more subs. Hope you get some collabs going at some point.
Thanks dude. Would love to get more collabs going. We'll get it there.
@@hardcutreviewswould be great if you could get on Drinkers Open Bar 😎
Like if you want Sigourney Weaver back to the franchise
After aliens they should have just left well enough alone.
Deinetly.
Guys, guys , guys. Raine going back for Andy is another one of hollywood's predictive programming stunts. They want the public to become comfortable with forming emotional relationships with AI. Not too different from the movie Her, and Bladerunner 2049 with Ryan Gosling's relationship with the hologram AI named Joi.
Active Measures in full swing.
Don't forget race mixing.
What's Jay from RLM doing here?
Warning folks don't go see this one twice, I did and the seams are bursting on a second viewing. Don't even try to understand how the physics work in this movie. And for God's sake can we can the black goo inclusion. Movie looks to be heading for a decent profit however, good holds in most territories, pity about the second week drop in North America. My son asked me this morning what I wanted for Father's Day, easy , a decent writer for an Alien movie.
Haha, it crushed that opening weekend because of the bait and switch. Only way to work that lore in without turning people off. Let’s hope your son knows where to find those writers.
Sounds like your son has a manchild for a father
@@collectiveleak A wild cuck has entered the chat.
@hardcutreviews womp womp. If you agree with this guys whiney comment, then you are a manchild too. The movie wasn't bad aside from some of the unnecessary quote callbacks, you two are just being overly negative and almost spoiled, like you expect them to make an Alien move as good as the original, which is nigh impossible.
You know the black goo really is the worse thing. I take Aliens vs Predator anyday
At least AvP isn't considered canon... So yeah.
I definitely like Prometheus and Covenant. I like getting an origin story for the aliens. The David character carries those movies also. That character gives you history into the evolution of the synthetics we see in Bishop and Winona’s android. The problem I have with this movie is it does really serve a purpose. I went in hoping for the film that fills in the gap between Covenant and Alien. I wanted to know how the species ends up on the derelict ship. Instead we got a movie that seemed to be made for the purpose of fanfare. The horrible special effect of the Ash/Rook android completely derailed the film for me. It was so jarring that it pulls you out of the experience. I don’t have any sympathy for bad CGI in this day and age. We get better deep fake videos on the internet. There’s no excuse for Hollywood to mess that up.
As far as you guys not liking the sped up gestational periods or being able to get a face hugger off without killing the host not being possible well hate to burst your bubbles but in the expanded universe with novels, comics and audio books/graphic audio it's been stated and shown that there is no exact time table on gestational periods it all depends on the host and their DNA...also these are face huggers grown in a lab from the black goo...I'm guessing they made improvements or something to speed up the process. But yeah, gestational timeframe isn't set in stone and there's been successful removals of face huggers and embryo removals in expanded universe.
It doesn't matter what "expanded universe" stuff says (most of that was probably null and void as soon as Prometheus came out and disregarded all of that anyways). All we have are the films to tell us the rules (AvP does not count). As terrible as Resurrection is, it still follows all of the BASIC rules set forth by the first film. Any "sped up gestational periods" is there only because it's convenient for the plot to move forward. It's lazy as hell.
Yup; Worth the wait
I so wanted to like this movie, but you absolutely nailed its problems. Ash/Rook could have been a cool, subtle nod to the original. In Alien, Ash was cool, quiet, and chillingly rational. Here, he's a babbling exposition machine that all but cackles maniacally as he goes about his evil business. All the tension and drama of the first half is absolutely thrown out of the airlock because Fede wanted to make Alien and Aliens all in one, meaning that suddenly we get Aliens all over the place (although they're really just cannon fodder) in place of the suspense that came with the hunt. The lift sequence is plain stupid and the "get away from her..." an unearned call back that comes off as goofy. All that said, had the movie stopped with all three of the surviving characters getting away on the shuttle, it might have been a decent enough film, albeit flawed. However, that Hollywood obsession with boss battles means there has to be something more, and that something turns out to be a ridiculous CGI cross between an alien and a blue Jason Statham. It's so utterly stupid it sucks you out of the film, leaving you wondering what on earth all the practical effect creators must have felt about the final reel. At least Alien Resurrection had the novelty of being original (if pretty damn bad). This film hasn't one original idea to its name. Even the much-vaunted face huggers ('they're more vicious!" "They've got fingernails") only manage to claim one victim, and that being pretty half assed. The rest are batted away like some high-stakes game of Little League. Overall, this entire movie is a perfect example of how to take something that looks cool and flush it straight down the space loo in a despaired attempt to tie together a bunch of threads that would only ever have been better had they been left dangling. So, yes, really good review - good effort guys!
A babbling exposition machine, lol. 100%. Say what you want about Alien 3 and 4 but at least they stood as their own films. Alien 3 wanted to stand on its own so much it erased any connection to Aliens in the first 5 minutes of the film. They even shaved her head. This started out promising but then had to rely on everything that came before to keep it going. That 3rd act… the Alien 4 / Prometheus mash-up was a massive middle finger. Here are the 2 worst things we can think of merged into one scene.
At last... someone sees this movie the same way I do. Only difference is my rating... 4/10. This stupid alien Slender Man ruins the whole movie.
JFC, just watched this movie. What a train wreck. The most frustrating part is there's a good movie to be found in here, just like Prey; but it's smothered in member berries and convoluted scenarios that don't make a lick of sense. Even the worst Alien comics are miles ahead of the incompetence of these modern writers.
40 years later and the most variation of xenos we’ve seen is a dog alien. Cant one of these research stations have a like a zoo or something on board?
That makes too much sense. Why would Hollywood make something like that?
That would be an intresting idea. Imagine a Sheep Xenomorph!!!
Pred Alien, Alien queen
this movie is hot garbage. scott free productions needs to step away from alien forever.
I agree Prometheus and Covenant ruined the Xenomorph.
I think they missed a very easy way they could have kept the good parts of this film (the suspense, action and return to the original Alien type "feel" to many parts of this movie), got rid of the need for the overly convoluted explanation for the research station existing, wrapped up the prequels and ended the black goo stuff (which I hate) all in one go. You could have literally had the same story as in this movie up until they find the alien infested ship in space, but instead of finding the research station, they find the colony ship we ended Alien Covenant in. David (Fassbender's character) had been creating aliens from the colonists as we expected him to, but the aliens he created have turned on him and killed him (in the same way he turned on his creators and killed many of them), and the ship is now drifting aimlessly in space as a result (as was the space station in Romulus). This way the prequels are somewhat respectfully wrapped up, the knowledge of the black goo can die with David and we don't have to return to it again, the franchise can move on and the characters in this movie still have a whole ship full of aliens and face huggers to play out the rest of this movie with.
The only reason I assume they didn't do this, or something similar, is Scott's continued involvement with the franchise? Maybe he is hoping one day he might still get a chance to finish his prequel? I think this movie is a case of two steps forward and one step back, it's certainly a big improvement on the prequels, but I think they have to cut out any links to the prequels/the black goo etc (and thus probably Ridley Scott's involvement in any future projects) to get the franchise fully back on track.
Scott will never let this go. His origin lore has become more important than the story that made this franchise successful in the first place. Closing the door on the prequels in this would have been nice but they just can’t do it for some reason.
@@hardcutreviews But surely the property belongs to Disney, not Scott? I get that Universal bought him back to do the prequels as "Alien" as a franchise had hit a rut and lost credibility with Alien Resurrection, and they felt that getting him back would restore interest and credibility to the franchise. But, as we all know, in reality the opposite of this actually happened, he ended up taking franchise to an even weaker position than it was post-Alien Resurrection with his prequels. Surely they must recognise that and, as a result, must part ways with him?
It’s under the umbrella of Disney but it was still produced by Scott Free. He’s been around long enough that it’s not difficult for him to meddle with it unopposed.
The Black Goo is basically the get-out-of-jail card for the modern Alien writers. For whatever contrivance, no matter how stupid or contradictary it is, the Black Goo is the go-to reason.
¿How much do the Chestbursters take to grow? Black Goo!
¿Who actually created the Xenomorph? No one, but the Black Goo!
¿Why do the Xenomorphs constantly change from biological to biomechanical? Black Goo!
¿Why can the Engineers now grow out of humans despite being different species? Black Goo!
That's a great point. Total writer's wet dream of convenience.
@@hardcutreviews worst than the Force in Nu-Star Wars and Grumpidriel in Rangz o' Pawah.
The black goo has been the worst thing in the last 3 movies. Ridley Scott started this all.
@@mikerosoft1009 and the worst thing is, the Goo would've been a great plot point in another movie.
Never really saw the alien movies, I enjoyed this universe so much I’m watching everything now and I think the order helped me a ton. Very fun movie but a lot of these things would bother me if I was a long time fan
Watch Aliens and you'll understand how much of an insulting cash grab this movie was.
You need to watch Aliens.
So can someone explain the xeno birth scene? Why did it go from chest burster to the wall vagina birthing pod? Shouldn’t they just grow from burster to xeno?
They’ve always just shown shedded skin. This was an attempt to give a little more insight into the process of how it goes from 1 foot tall to 7 feet tall inside of an hour. Got to always be expanding that lore!
@@hardcutreviews surely having it birthed again expedites the process 😂
I felt stupid for being excited for this film too
It's time to give up on Hollywoke
The black goo was so dumb that I had repressed it, and I repressed it while watching Romulus. I still can’t remember its role in the film, luckily
Sucks the air out of this movie when it shows up. Scott can’t let it go and he’ll sneak it in wherever he can.
I like Romulus except for the sh-tty black goo and the freaky offspring. I agree with your assessment 100%. The black goo and hybrids ruin every movie it's in. Ridley, just say no bro. Just say no.
I heard enough. Thanx guys, saved me time and money
I mostly enjoyed this movie at first, and tried to ignore all the negative aspects. Now the more I sit with it the more it pisses me off and leaves me disappointed. You’re right, it was a total bait and switch. Which makes me more pissed. We were led to believe it was a complete return to form of the original two and then of course they had to shove Prometheus crap into it. I wonder if that was a Fede thing or a Ridley thing? And the cgi face is baffling and unforgivable. And the dna altering black goo nonsense is predictive programming/social conditioning for…. things we won’t talk about here…. They’ve been feeding that to us for a long time now and are only pushing it harder as time goes on.
The movie started to nosedive long before the black goo showed up, that was honestly the least of its problems. I'm okay with weird science fictiony stuff, but when characters don't behave in a compelling way, nothing exciting is happening, and there is no depth or meaning to any of it then that is a problem. It was just a vehicle for memberberries and Ridley Scott's ego, because he can't get over the fact that almost no one liked his prequels. One easy way to see why this movie falls flat, just watch the OG chest burster scene in the '79 Alien movie, then watch it in this movie. The original looks painful, no matter how many times you see it it affects you. The new one, it looks like she has a bad case of dehydration and you feel nothing. It's like the special effects of the x-ray wand were trying to compensate for the flat and lifeless character direction.
It nosedive as soon as the first face hugger attached to the girls face
Picking up the original xeno from the wreckage would have been the better movie,
Realising it wasn't dead and then seeing it was turning itself into a queen and allowing it to develop, then all hell breaks loose!!!
Thats not original its been done before
Have kay mutate again in a post credit scene where she becomes a proto queen for a new hive she biths several eggs(ovamorphs), than your idea where they find the craft to retreve the accelerant than facehugger time and a whole new outbreak its not original but it would fit perfectly for a sequel to romulus.
Uncanny, virtually identical thoughts on this movie to mine. I additionally didn't like that after the chestburster scene, the alien went into a cocoon. Since when does it do that? Just seemed to be an excuse for some gross body horror. The more they mess with Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's work, the worse they screw it up. The franchise needs a complete reset, cast aside everything that came after Aliens and start from there. And who already had a vision ready to go? Neil Blomkamp.
Fede Alvarez and Ridley Scott did one of those pompous 1-on-1-interview-each-other-and-talk-about-ourselves-being-artists videos on TH-cam recently.
Then you find out Fede’s “vision” is doing stupid callbacks and references to previous Alien movies.
Yeah, you’re a total genius Fede. 🙄
He just copies a video game and gave fan service to those video game n erds.
@@SmokeNGunsBBQ A fan of that game, I was insulted and unsatisfied.
Ridley Scott has made two of my all time favorite movies, the original Alien and Blade Runner. I have always suspected that he crafted those two masterpieces by accident, as everything he has done since has been mediocre or outright atrocious.
Prometheus and Covenant has nothing to do with Alien universe, no matter how hard Ridley tries to convince us.
If he hadn’t tried to merge the two very different universes then the prequels might have stood on their own as an interesting exploration into humanities origins. But he didn’t. And they suck.
@@hardcutreviews oldman Ridley needs to chill the eff out. Aliens isnt even his baby.
But there's alot of graphic novels and comics that expand the franchise talking about the engineers and the black goo and even brings in predators too.
@@jonfreeman9682 Yeah, and there's also a short story about Ripley living on Alien homeworld and adopting an alien baby. So what?
Ridley is still trying to make "fetch" a thing. As if!
Im confused about the part where you say rook tells her to inject the goo... pretty sure she just does it herself while she's in the elevator alone. Andy only briefly mentions it's technically supposed to be synthesized and should in theory help her heal. Idr rook convincing her to take it
You guys make some great videos
Thanks for watching man- glad you're enjoying our stuff.
Thank you for calling a Space Jockey a Space Jockey.
What else would we call it?
@@hardcutreviews do you really want an autistic rant about Scott, Damon Lindelof, Jon Spaihts and da Engineer?
Prometheus is only good if you pretend it's an Italian Alien rip off from the '80s.
@@Jay828__No matter how much a man may think he loathes Damon Lindelof, it seems there's always a way to find a bit a more.
it's an engineer cope.
You would call it a 7-ft tall,bald weightlifter.... which in no way could be a 35-ft ancient space-faring species....
Alien 3 not looking so bad now 😂
Facts.
@@hardcutreviews And what the hell was Darth Snoke doing in this movie? 😂 Oh my Gawd, it was so bad.
Alien 3 is shit!
Come on you can't believe that. Alien³ is shit and Romulus is the best installment since Aliens.
Alien 3 was great…Alien 4 story was reaching
Wow, this is the best discussion about the problems with this movie. Thanks for this. I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying. Especially about how they couldn’t help themselves and brought in the black glue and the whole ash thing and too many forced fan service, etc. I really wanted to like this movie and I did through most of the first two acts. But the third act in the ending completely just ruined it for me. It’s unfortunate because I think there’s a lot of good things in this movie but as a whole just crashes and burns.
The movie had a lot going for it. Best tonal and atmospheric Alien film we’ve gotten in years. But when you strip away all the callbacks and references and forced goo plot points, you’re left with a very plain and average film. Thanks for the comment.
I mean rook could have done that info dump just to tell them it was beneficial to humanity like a manipulation tactic
Everything was there for an amazing Alien movie, except the story!!!
The story makes a movie, not the effects.
The addition of prequels & exposition isn't bad because very action needs downtime no less scavenger crew motives not about origins of life. The ordeal wasn't painful, but I can argue knowing the pathogen helps their way out of mining colony & fixing Andy, if the company doubts them.
Superficially Alien, substantially crap.
Don’t let the Prometheus lemmings hear you say that. They’ll call you a toxic fan.
YES! Finally someone not gushing over the wat the film was shot. Dammit any film in the ALIEN (or Halloween, Exorcist, etc) franchise should be shot in 32mm, not the glossy HD digital. Sure they can build the sets to look retro but in many films it looks way too "Netflixy" which is ironic since this was originally bound for HULU. Didn't hate the film but the characters, callbacks and WTF tie-ins to Prometheus really dropped it imo
A world like this demands a tangible and tactile feel. Don’t care how retro the world looks if it doesn’t feel right.
You guys nailed it. Cursing and all. Ridley Scott BARF.
This video is probably the most comprehensive breakdown of this film on TH-cam. You guys have officially dethroned RLM as the leading duo-chat review channel.
We cut out 50% of our rant, too. lol. We went way more into depth on a lot of stuff but I don’t think even our fans would sit through that for 80 minutes.
@@hardcutreviews Don’t underestimate the fans, dude. 😎