The Alien franchise has been an incredible example of the sci-fi genre (with a twist of horror) since its first movie premiered in 1979. Ridley Scott debuted what was sure to become a classic saga with the story of Ellen Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo in their struggle against the titular alien who essentially snuck aboard their ship and began hunting all of them. Since then, a total of nine films pertaining to the battle between the Xenomorphs and humanity have been made (four for the original series, three prequels, and two Alien vs Predator movies).
From the moment I first watched the original movie, I have developed a great fondness for the franchise and excitedly watched each new installment. Alien: Romulus was no exception to that, as its plot, symbolism, and execution had me over the moon.
Some spoilers ahead for Alien: Romulus
Plot
Set between the first two Alien films, Romulus tells the story of a ragtag group of space colonists who wish to leave their monotonous lives on LV-410. One of them proposes that they scavenge a stray space station detected in the colony’s atmosphere, unaware of the dangers that await them.
Thoughts about the film itself
If read as a sci-fi movie, Alien: Romulus delivers wonderfully with action-packed sequences and a dystopic, futuristic setting that has the main characters facing a difficult situation where they must survive in some far-off corner of space. As a horror film, Romulus hurls the characters into a scenario in which they struggle to fend off these monstrous creatures in the form of Facehuggers and Xenomorphs (and the Offspring, eventually), during which nearly all of them are brutally killed.
It was incredible. All the characters’ storylines were compelling and I found myself rooting for them, even though they could be a bit annoying and immature at times (cough, cough Bjorn cough, cough). The stakes were set at an all-time high for these young people who had only ever known a life in the darkness of a mining colony. They had a relatively straightforward plan involving stealing from a Weyland-Yutani Corp space station to get supplies for interstellar travel, but suddenly had to fight to simply stay alive aboard the Renaissance.
Like its predecessors, Romulus showcased the themes of motherhood that are so characteristic to the franchise. This film actually included a pregnant woman who, after being infected with a certain alien pathogenic compound, gave birth to a monstrous hybrid the protagonist, Rain, had to fight during the movie’s final minutes. The yonic symbolism was as present as ever, with the appearance of the Xenomorph’s cocoon and the Facehuggers’ mouths, though that was not the only thing that caught my eye. In previous films, we had already witnessed the Facehuggers doing what their name implies, but, this time, audiences saw what was a considerably more sexual implantation. After Navarro was attacked, the parasitoid’s proboscis was shown going out of her throat and mouth in detail, hinting at the idea of fellatio and what further sexual acts can lead to (pregnancy represented by the implanted Xenomorph).
Additionally, the greed of Weyland-Yutani can never be omitted when discussing an Alien movie. Because of their obsession with wanting to help humanity evolve, the Renaissance’s crew completely disregarded the message Ripley left for them at the end of the 1979 film and scavenged the Nostromo in order to find whatever they could of its alien attackers. They eventually found a Xenomorph corpse, somehow reverse engineered it in order to create Facehuggers, and were subsequently attacked and eviscerated. Not to mention Rook arguing in favor of the Z-01 compound and how it should be taken to Yvaga III by the crew, despite the catastrophic results it eventually displayed in test subjects. By proxy, the android (and the Corporation) was responsible for the death of Kay, as she took the dose of Z-01 that infected her unborn child and turned it into the Offspring, which killed her soon after its birth.
All in all, I would rate the movie 4.5/5!
However…
My problem with the franchise
As much as I love Alien and the films that comprise it, I have noticed a certain trend that irks me: on more than one occasion, some kind of Xenomorph hybrid/variant has been created and is almost immediately destroyed or becomes completely irrelevant in the film continuity. For example, the Newborn in Alien: Resurrection…
… the Deacon in Prometheus…
… the Neomorph in Alien: Covenant…
… and the Offspring in Alien: Romulus…
… (not to mention the Predator/Xenomorph from the Alien vs Predator franchise, plus any other hybrids/Xenomorph relatives seen in other Alien media). All of them are introduced and shown to be serious threats to the protagonists, yet they are eliminated within the movies’ runtime and never come back to haunt future projects. All the creatures I mentioned have been intriguing to me, so it was kind of disappointing to see them destroyed at the end of the movies.
But, at the end of the day, the protagonists need to defeat the antagonists, regardless of how cool said antagonists may be. The Alien franchise has never been one to let the Xenomorphs prevail, despite Weyland-Yutani’s scheming and how unlikely the odds were for the protagonists, and I have made my peace with that (mostly). Despite how it may frustrate me, I still thoroughly enjoyed watching Alien: Romulus and I believe that it is an incredible continuation of what Ridley Scott began in the 70s.