Ryan Shoots First: Alien: Romulus
Film franchises tend to be cyclical. They are enormously successful and the studios that steward them tend to run them directly into the ground by overcomplicating the lore, desperately trying to bring back old actors and rekindle the magic of the previous movies. They milk that cow till just dry air puffs out and then they sit it on the shelf when one finally bombs bad enough. That is until enough time has passed for them to let some new director who was a fan make the movie the way they want, on a smaller budget, free of any burden because the expectations are low. And then they knock it out of the park and we go back to milking the shit out of them. Some examples would be X-Men: First Class, and most recently Prey. Movies that were unshackled by the baggage of their previous bombs and as soon as they made money the studios stepped back in. We’ll see how Predator is effected by this technique but we all saw how quick we went from First Class to Apocalypse.
Alien: Romulus fits that mold. After some terrible Alien sequels, some bad Predator cross-overs that nuked both franchises, and a failed semi-reboot with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott has stepped aside and we are blowing up the system and going back to basics. In space, no one can hear you scream. Romulus takes place between Alien and Aliens so it is while Ripley is still in stasis floating among the stars. This allows the movie to be free of any of the Ripley lore or the convoluted “origins” lore Prometheus threw into the mix. Much like Prey, we are back to a boots-on-the-ground, contained story where humans are forced to battle the alien force to varying results. What first piqued my interest in this movie was going with a horror director in Fede Alvarez, whose previous works include Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe. Going with a horror director as opposed to a sci-fi director was a good signal that we were done obsessing over lore and we’re just gonna go back to narrow corridors, tense moments, and some gruesome kills. Both those previous works showed Alvarez can manage those tight moments, both films were intense and excellent uses of environment and space so packing all these elements on a spaceship was a playground and he was ready for the challenge.
Romulus brings back the sense of dread we really have not had since the original film. I love Aliens and at the time it was a great next step in the franchise but it immediately derailed the isolation and horror aspects of the series and while some brief moments would show up in the sequels we simply have not had a true return to form like this since the original. It’s easily the best Alien movie since Cameron’s Aliens, and I didn’t really hate Covenant. I rewatched it recently and liked it more than I remembered liking it. But this is back to the almost grim dark world of “Truckers in space”, with a cast that feels familiar, some standout leads led by Cailee Spaeny and then a bunch of people that are alien fodder. If you can care about a few of them then the movie has done its job but they are there to die and in increasingly creative and gruesome ways. I’ll leave some of the details of those scenes to you as one particular will have people talking but the film makes some interesting uses of gravity which is something the previous films have not explored yet.
Romulus is an injection of life into the franchise and while some will say it is an “official fan film” is that really such a bad thing when the franchise has divulged so far from its roots? Romulus will probably be successful, so the question is what does Fox do next? Do they jump back in, take over the reins, and begin tinkering and ruining the franchise again? Will it stay a little more in its roots for at least another film? It remains to be seen but I hope we hold off on the need to make everything the biggest thing to ever happen ever and just keep watching small crews of idiots run into the most deadly evolutionary beast to ever exist in the galaxy. By the way, we’re still waiting for the Terminator franchise to get back to basics… you’re up!
