Movies ALIEN: ROMULUS ($42 Million Opening Weekend)

[Senzo Tanaka]

I had low expectations going in, got a little hyped after some positive reviews and then was letdown. I thought the movie looked fantastic. It really feels like Alien and Blade Runner. It was the story and crew that did nothing for me. The main actress was likable as was Andy but the rest of the crew were annoying and expendable. I didn't care a single bit about them. The story felt like a video game story of getting to one place to another. It was nothing. The end was OK but everything was just pretty forgettable and unoriginal.

It very much reminded me of something like Michael Bay's TMNT movies. They actually aren't the worst thing out there but they don't do anything new or special and feels like they are for a new generation. This is Alien for someone that has never seen Alien. 5/10 as a movie. Mediocre. 9/10 for aesthetics, practical effects and props.

 

[Nizam al-Mulk]

I had low expectations going in, got a little hyped after some positive reviews and then was letdown. I thought the movie looked fantastic. It really feels like Alien and Blade Runner. It was the story and crew that did nothing for me. The main actress was likable as was Andy but the rest of the crew were annoying and expendable. I didn't care a single bit about them. The story felt like a video game story of getting to one place to another. It was nothing. The end was OK but everything was just pretty forgettable and unoriginal.

It very much reminded me of something like Michael Bay's TMNT movies. They actually aren't the worst thing out there but they don't do anything new or special and feels like they are for a new generation. This is Alien for someone that has never seen Alien. 5/10 as a movie. Mediocre. 9/10 for aesthetics, practical effects and props.

Do you think it diminished the brand?

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

Do you think it diminished the brand?

No. It wasn't a bad movie. It's just kind of a nothing movie. It doesn't need to exist. It's like Toy Story 4. It's fine but the world wouldn't change if it didn't exist.

A guy at work said his Zoomer daughter loved it though and she's never seen an Alien movie. That's why I made the TMNT comment. For some people, that's their first TMNT movie and they love it. I could see the same for Alien. For us that grew up with Alien, there's way too many call backs and been there, done that stuff. For someone coming in fresh, it would probably be cool.

 

[Cooz]

I had low expectations going in, got a little hyped after some positive reviews and then was letdown. I thought the movie looked fantastic. It really feels like Alien and Blade Runner. It was the story and crew that did nothing for me. The main actress was likable as was Andy but the rest of the crew were annoying and expendable. I didn't care a single bit about them. The story felt like a video game story of getting to one place to another. It was nothing. The end was OK but everything was just pretty forgettable and unoriginal.

It very much reminded me of something like Michael Bay's TMNT movies. They actually aren't the worst thing out there but they don't do anything new or special and feels like they are for a new generation. This is Alien for someone that has never seen Alien. 5/10 as a movie. Mediocre. 9/10 for aesthetics, practical effects and props.

Nailed it!

 

[Prex32]

very cheap scenery/design
very predictable, not challenging
worst product of the franchise

 

[Adamant]

Sometimes I can understand a lot of the criticisms. Sometimes its just nitpicking as "Not the same".

Heres a perfect example. They dont like the gestation period of the face hugger to birth. And they bring up the chick in the wall in Aliens and say "Hey, shes been there for awhile!".

But heres the thing. Kanes period wasnt very long once he woke up to having the thing burst out of him. Maybe it wasnt 5 minutes, but it also didnt seem like 5 hours either.

Meanwhile, this chick had to have been on that wall for DAYS or close to it (remember, Newt has been there alone for longer than 17 days), and they dont complain that "Hey! How come the gestation took so much longer in Aliens than in Alien?". They even say "The first movie to fuck with this stuff is AvP", and its like, no, dude. Aliens fucked with it. But they dont complain about that.

And the thing is, its pretty easy to chalk it up to "It doesnt always happen in the same amount of time". Maybe getting pumped full of adrenaline can increase the efficiency of the growth cycle. But who cares? Its the kind of thing you do when you're just looking to spot differences rather than accept possibilities.

As far as I go "not the same" isn't necessarily a bad thing. If it's fair, not a cheat, isn't monumentally stupid, and it makes sense within the world that's been established, then it's fine. I can't recall a time I've ever been upset with something purely because it was different. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is super far away from what 1 is but 2 is my favorite of that whole franichse. Halloween III is not even in the same universe as Halloween 1 (literally) and I adore that one. So saying "you just don't like it/are nitpicking it/won't accept possibilities because it's different" is an easy way to dismiss someone who has criticism. Possibilities, changes, whatever you want to call it, are fine as long as it's done intelligently and it doesn't totally obliterate the rules.

With Alien, we only get a very tiny glimpse of the gestation process, so when they expand it a bit in Aliens, it's not that big of a deal. It still feels fair. But when you're 4 movies deep, spread across like 300 years, and things have basically been established within certain parameters, and then you make a film within that timeframe and randomly jump outside of those parameters, it feels like a cheat. Just like the gestation in AvP was ridiculously fast and clearly a cheat. (Done without an ounce of suspense to move the plot along). We don't know exactly WHEN the chick in Aliens was impregnanted, so we can't say for sure the movie really changed anything. It doesn't feel like it's broken any rules.

Like Alien Isolation. All we really heard of Amanda Ripley prior to the game was that she was Ellen's daughter and died sometime before Aliens. That's it. Finding out that she went through her own ordeal with xenos is certainly a big expansion of what's been established, but it's not a cheat. It's fair. Therefore there's nothing to be upset about. Because it didn't break any rules. So you see, adding to the lore and expanding the possibilities is fine as long as you don't completely fuck the rules in the process.

Another thing, as the video mentioned, it's been established that it's impossible to remove a facehugger and still keep the host alive. Medical Personnel/Scientists/AI Cyborgs couldn't do it 30 years in the future in Aliens, or 230 years into the future in AR, but all of a sudden in a movie that takes place between Alien and Aliens, a bunch of high school-looking rando kids figure out how to do it no problem???? It's another bullshit cheat.

(As for your suggestion about being pumped full of adrenaline and maybe it speeds the process along..... I'm pretty sure everyone who was awake and had a facehugger jump onto them was maxed out with adrenaline. It doesn't exactly seem like the type of thing that someone would take calmly)

 

[Bob Gray]

As far as I go "not the same" isn't necessarily a bad thing. If it's fair, not a cheat, isn't monumentally stupid, and it makes sense within the world that's been established, then it's fine. I can't recall a time I've ever been upset with something purely because it was different. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is super far away from what 1 is but 2 is my favorite of that whole franichse. Halloween III is not even in the same universe as Halloween 1 (literally) and I adore that one. So saying "you just don't like it/are nitpicking it/won't accept possibilities because it's different" is an easy way to dismiss someone who has criticism. Possibilities, changes, whatever you want to call it, are fine as long as it's done intelligently and it doesn't totally obliterate the rules.

With Alien, we only get a very tiny glimpse of the gestation process, so when they expand it a bit in Aliens, it's not that big of a deal. It still feels fair. But when you're 4 movies deep, spread across like 300 years, and things have basically been established within certain parameters, and then you make a film within that timeframe and randomly jump outside of those parameters, it feels like a cheat. Just like the gestation in AvP was ridiculously fast and clearly a cheat. (Done without an ounce of suspense to move the plot along). We don't know exactly WHEN the chick in Aliens was impregnanted, so we can't say for sure the movie really changed anything. It doesn't feel like it's broken any rules.

Like Alien Isolation. All we really heard of Amanda Ripley prior to the game was that she was Ellen's daughter and died sometime before Aliens. That's it. Finding out that she went through her own ordeal with xenos is certainly a big expansion of what's been established, but it's not a cheat. It's fair. Therefore there's nothing to be upset about. Because it didn't break any rules. So you see, adding to the lore and expanding the possibilities is fine as long as you don't completely fuck the rules in the process.

Another thing, as the video mentioned, it's been established that it's impossible to remove a facehugger and still keep the host alive. Medical Personnel/Scientists/AI Cyborgs couldn't do it 30 years in the future in Aliens, or 230 years into the future in AR, but all of a sudden in a movie that takes place between Alien and Aliens, a bunch of high school-looking rando kids figure out how to do it no problem???? It's another bullshit cheat.

(As for your suggestion about being pumped full of adrenaline and maybe it speeds the process along..... I'm pretty sure everyone who was awake and had a facehugger jump onto them was maxed out with adrenaline. It doesn't exactly seem like the type of thing that someone would take calmly)

I mean, at the end of the day your opinions are yours and Im not really gonna argue about them. You're justified to feel however you want. I'm not necessarily talking about you specifically when I'm bringing things up.

For me personally, something like a gestation, thats already gone through changes, isnt a big deal to be changed again, especially under different circumstances.

Impossible and undiscovered are not the same thing. It's possible the scientists on Hadleys hope would have discovered a way if they hadnt gotten taken over. Even in Aliens, you can remove the facehugger if its tail is on your throat (like Ripley from Burkes trap), so it isnt really a huge leap. Even the writer of Alien himself said in the commentary that attempting to remove a facehugger is generally fatal, but generally isnt the same as always.

But anyway, I dont feel like these are details important enough to nitpick.

Re: Adrenaline. I dunno. Kane and everyone else never really seemed amped up when the huggers came off.

 

[JadeOwl]

How was there any of the Nostromo left over to find? Did they miss the first movie? The ship was completely vaporized into nothingness by THREE CONSECUTIVE NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS. So how would there be gigantic intact portions still floating around, and all floating in close proximity to one another? And the chunk of organic substance... how did that survive? How was it still viable?

The idea that any of the Nostromo could survive that, or could be found at all, is patently ridiculous. It's just as insulting and stupid as the idea that the OG xeno could be located floating through space..........bruh.

All this shit survived and was easy to find, yet Ripley in an escape pod with a homing beacon evaded discovery for over half a century.

Your complaint is actually a case of the trope called Reality is Unrealistic.

Nuclear explosions don't work the same way in space as they do in the vacuum of space. This article explains the difference:

[...}On Earth, a nuclear explosion follows a well-documented catastrophic chronology. There’s the initial fireball itself, which can vaporize or burn everything in a wide radius. Then there’s the shock wave from the sudden change in air pressure, which can level buildings and ignite firestorms. And finally there’s the distinctive mushroom-shaped cloud formed from these effects—and the associated atmospheric fallout of deadly radioactive material, which can kill in a matter of minutes or decades.

In space, this explosion looks quite different. There’s no fireball, shockwave or mushroom cloud. Instead a bomb releases all its power as electromagnetic radiation, including gamma rays and x-rays. This unleashes three waves of destruction, explains Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability for the space sustainability organization Secure World Foundation. First, “there’s a big flash, and satellites within the line of sight are pretty much immediately taken out of commission by the radiation,” she says.

Then there’s the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. X-rays from the explosion collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere and release electrons through a process called Compton scattering. These electrons, along with other charged particles from the explosion, run along the lines of Earth’s magnetic field, causing some of the spectacular auroras witnessed across the Pacific during the Starship Prime test. Depending on a nuclear explosion’s size and altitude, its EMP can wreak havoc on the ground and in orbit, potentially damaging or disrupting unprotected electronics in spacecraft and in devices across a large swath of Earth’s surface.

But it’s the third and most lasting wave of space-based nuclear destruction that could be most devastating—a lingering, globe-girdling belt of high radiation.[...}

So the fact that there would be huge chunks of wreckage left after the Nostromo exploded wouldn't be unrealistic. A nuclear explosion in space doesn't vaporize its target.

The unrealistic part would be that after 20 years of floating in space they would all still be bunched together.

It also wasn't easy to find. It is an actual plot point that it took them 20 years of looking.

 

[kimocomplex]

As a fan of Prometheus over the rest of the franchise, I didn't find the trailer very interesting. Having some free time I decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised.
It ended up being rather enjoyable movie

 

[Protectandserve]

I felt similar to this as I did to Prey. Definitely a massive step in the right direction.

Movie was much better than it should have been. Decent mix between Alien and Aliens in style.

My only major complaint is again, the super ridiculously fast evolution of implantation, chest buster to fully grown xenomorph.

Wasn’t a huge fan of the certain CGI throwback it looked crappy.

 

[Herwald]

I... liked it.

 

[HenryFlower]

holy shit, i did not expect fake Ian Holm to be in the movie so fucking much! he had as much screen time, if not more, than some of the supporting characters/xenomorph fodder! they truly honestly could’ve/should’ve done away w/ that completely & gone a different direction to serve a similar purpose.

but other than Ian Holm’s wonky face & an early scene when the horde of facehuggers are first chasing down the crew, the movie + sfx looked very good! some of the kills seemed surprisingly tame/reserved compared to the expectations i had from Fede Álvarez, but overall the gore vibes were plenty gruesome, especially the birth at the end.

David Jonsson was great, as i had assumed/hoped he would be. wasn’t totally into Cailee Spaeny’s performance, but she was still good enough to carry the movie as the main protagonist. Isabela Merced stood out to me though—a real solid supporting performance in a thankless role.

overall, liked it quite a bit, despite getting in its own way at times. i also wonder if it was studio meddling that requested/demanded there be so many dang callbacks/references to the Alien franchise. bin a lot more of those ‘member berries next time pls, & patch up a few other things here ‘n’ there, because Romulus is otherwise a step in the right direction for the Alien franchise.

 

[Sobek]

Nothing to rush to see

 

[HenryFlower]

Nothing to rush to see

nothing to rush to anymore because it’s available to rent/buy on streaming (or download)

 

[Renard]

Imagine being a dead actor and people are putting your likeness in commercial products without your consent. Did his family get paid, did they give consent? Disrespectful.

The scenario of the movie might as well have been AI-generated too. Just a mash-up of all the previous movies' scripts, nothing new or creative.

 

[method115]

Watched it and thought it was great. I had a few issues with it but nothing to crazy. I got a little annoyed with the AI stuff. They are obsessed with inserting AI into every single one of these movies and making them the bad guy. No wonder there is a whole planet where they don't want shit to do with AI. Just kind of tired of that plot already where they basically have to fight the Alien and the AI is backstabbing them the whole time.

 

[Pittie Petey]

Imagine being a dead actor and people are putting your likeness in commercial products without your consent. Did his family get paid, did they give consent? Disrespectful.

The scenario of the movie might as well have been AI-generated too. Just a mash-up of all the previous movies' scripts, nothing new or creative.

Im sure theres a lot of actors out there that would be upset that they are still remembered and relevant after their death, one thing all actors hope to be is forgotten

And yes, his widow was thrilled that he was included in the movie and his estate was paid for his appearance in it

 

[HenryFlower]

Watched it and thought it was great. I had a few issues with it but nothing to crazy. I got a little annoyed with the AI stuff. They are obsessed with inserting AI into every single one of these movies and making them the bad guy. No wonder there is a whole planet where they don't want shit to do with AI. Just kind of tired of that plot already where they basically have to fight the Alien and the AI is backstabbing them the whole time.

what’s worse is that it was a character from the original movie resurrected from the dead (in more ways than one) when they easily could have invented a new character who had their own reasons for trying to steer the actions of our main group of characters in order to satisfy an objective

 

[method115]

what’s worse is that it was a character from the original movie resurrected from the dead (in more ways than one) when they easily could have invented a new character who had their own reasons for trying to steer the actions of our main group of characters in order to satisfy an objective

Agreed but I wasn't even talking about that dude but even Andy who they turned into an evil AI. Just like enough with that. I just wish they would focus on the Aliens vs the humans that's interesting enough we don't need other people involved backstabbing everyone at the same time.

With that said it's not some huge issue that's ruining the movies for me but I would just prefer they stop with that.

 

[HenryFlower]

Agreed but I wasn't even talking about that dude but even Andy who they turned into an evil AI. Just like enough with that. I just wish they would focus on the Aliens vs the humans that's interesting enough we don't need other people involved backstabbing everyone at the same time.

With that said it's not some huge issue that's ruining the movies for me but I would just prefer they stop with that.

idk if i’d say Andy was backstabbing the other in the group as he was pretty transparent w/ his decisions & having a new directive. i agree that android characters in the Alien franchise have basically become plot devices to drive the action forward/make decisions for characters, but at least Andy had depth & conflict as a character. he was the best part of the movie imo