5.01 /// Welcome to Season Five / Alien: Romulus- my reserved excitement...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to merge unscripted chatter with deeply under researched content? (I jest!) 
Welcome to Season 5 of Infinite Prattle! Which promises a rich mix of spontaneous discussions and insightful topics. We are going to talk about everything from personal heroes to fascinating what-if scenarios.  Plus, I've introduced a new feature that lets you send feedback via text message, making it easier than ever to engage and share your thoughts. 

Join me on this first episode of season 5, as I share my thoughts on "Alien Romulus," the highly anticipated film directed by Fede Alvarez. Disney's promotional campaign has been nothing short of spectacular, and I'll dive into why this film has the fan base buzzing. You'll hear my take on why Alvarez's previous works like "Don't Breathe" and the "Evil Dead" remake possibly make him the ideal choice as director, as well as my mixed feelings about Ridley Scott's endorsement. From speculating on the plot to discussing the intriguing rumour about the return of the iconic "Big Chap" alien, there's a lot to be excited about. 

Lastly, let's talk about the upcoming Alien TV show, rumored to be set on Earth before the original film. Could it adapt the Earth Hive storyline? We'll explore the possibilities and the legalities now that Disney owns the franchise. Reflecting on past Alien films and the new wave of novels and comics, I share my high hopes for Fede Alvarez's Alien Romulus to breathe new life into the series. And of course, your participation is key—I'm inviting you to suggest topics or even become a guest on the podcast. Thanks for being part of the Infinite Prattle community; your support means the world to me!

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Chapters

• 0:01 Alien Franchise Love and Updates
• 12:19 Anticipation for New Alien Anomalous
• 20:22 Alien TV Show Earth Hive Speculation
• 24:14 Podcast Variety and Listener Support

Transcript

Stephen: 0:01

Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. Um, season number five. I'm forgetting what I'm doing already. This new intro's throwing me off a little bit. It's to speed me up and do an intro quicker, so let's hope that works. Anyway, welcome to the season five, let's get into it. Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle.

Stephen: 0:24

Unscripted, unedited prattle on everything Hosted by me. Stephen, listen, like, share, subscribe and enjoy the show. Aha, welcome to Season 5. I'm so happy to be back. I hope you are too. Well, you're not back. I hope you're happy that I'm back.

Stephen: 0:47

Yeah, it's been a while. I have really not done too much since. I've been on my little break, even with the podcast, because I'm a lazy bugger. I say lazy bugger, I work hard and then sometimes my brain doesn't function as I would like it to. So I have rehashed the intro a little bit for you there. The idea with that was to get to the point quicker so I can tell you what the episode's about and not ramble on for five minutes before you've even heard what it's about, which apparently is good podcasting. So it's probably going to pipe me into actually not telling you what the episode's about. So we'll see. See how that goes, but how the devil are you all? Thank you for returning, uh to listen to season five with me.

Stephen: 1:31

Um, today's episode is gonna be a little bit of about, uh, what season five is gonna be about, and about something that's very close to my heart. That's happening soon. Uh, we'll get into that shortly, uh, so welcome back. Um. Season five is gonna follow the the usual unscripted, unedited prattle that you're used to. Um, I'm hoping to um be a little bit more structured, a little bit more um researchy with some other things. I say so I'm not giving out duff information. I always caveat it with the fact that I don't research that much, which is, I suppose it's quite bad, it's quite poor of me.

Stephen: 2:04

Um, this isn't a public service announcement. This is me. This is someone prowling away in their, in their man cave, in the cave of wonders. Um, to anyone that willing is willing to listen to me. So thank you if you are.

Stephen: 2:19

Um, there's a new feature on the uh on the old site, as. So if you go into the description of the episode, on whatever platform you're using, you can actually send me a text message directly. So there's a really easy way of giving feedback. So please, please, please, do that. Feedback's really really key to letting me know what you want to listen to. Is there anything you want me to talk about? Is there anything you'd like to hear my opinion on? Yeah, and it's a really quick way of uh of getting back to me and uh alerts me of of your wishes. Uh, you can also obviously comment and like and all that sort of stuff on social medias and stuff as you heard in the intro. Um, and you can also subscribe as well, if you, if you're feeling really really, really generous, you can subscribe to, uh, my buzzsprout speech feed. That's my usual, not being able to articulate my words.

Stephen: 3:08

Anyway, today's episode is going to be a little bit about what I think I'm going to talk about in the future. Hopefully, we're going to have some guests on again this season Got a couple lined up. Let's hope that fits in the schedule, because it can be quite a road to try and fit in the time and such things. And I'm just going to go through some of the things that I've had in mind. I mean, I've been making notes. I'm trying to make like notes when something pops into my brain thinking would that be a good podcast subject. So so far I've got, you know, a menagerie of things. Really. What sort of soup power would you have if you can have one desilium discs? Um, my real life heroes. Talking about films, a couple of films I've got listed here that I might talk about. I'm not going to mention them, be a surprise.

Stephen: 3:57

Um, yeah, so just just just getting back to what I was listening to, going back to looking at my the extra speak stuff when it was when the podcast was called steven speak and I was uh listening to some or looking at some of the subjects I was talking about and they've kind of got away from the old music and stuff. So I want to try and bring some of that back and bring some of the imaginative stuff back in, rather than just too much prangling on about myself or general stuff. I don't know, I don't know. Let me know what you think. Um, I'm gonna try and mix it up a little bit. Um, I don't want to pigeonhole myself too much. Oh, excuse me, my hay fever has been terrible. Uh, I was hopefully to.

Stephen: 4:38

I was hoping to have everything sorted yesterday. I'm recording this on the day of the launch of the podcast. Uh, as usual, I'm not organized. Um, I was hoping to have of the podcast. Uh, as usual, I'm not organized. Um, I was hoping to have some stuff sorted and every time I sit down on my computer to, like you know, redo the logo or anything like that just can't get into it. My brain just won't let me, or I end up focusing for so long on one little, one little thing that I don't really get anything done, which is usual for me. To be honest, I I I'm too meticulous for my own good and then it stresses me out and I just go throw it all to the wall, so you will see some changes coming over the over the course of the series. Uh, because I'm thinking that might be the way to go now is just make them changes throughout the series and then let you know when I've done them and give me feedback, let me know what you think.

Stephen: 5:22

Anyway, we're five minutes in and I've said bugger, all about what the thing I want to talk about is, and it's quite a big thing. It's quite a big thing in my life and I can't believe, really, that I've never talked about it before. At least, I don't think so. I think I've mentioned it, uh, in little episodes, but I don't think I've ever, like, talked about it as a subject? I'm pretty sure I haven't talked about it as a subject, and that is my love for the film franchise.

Stephen: 5:43

Aliens or Alien, whatever you want to say, hr Giger, giger, however you say it. His creation from the 1979 film Alien has really influenced on me in my life and I absolutely just love the franchise, love the design. And sorry, something just fell over. Season 5, still not getting any better. Um, yeah, so be professional, steven, be professional, be more professional. Season five wish list um, yeah, so I'm a massive fan of aliens and I have a little corner of my room dedicated to the franchise. I have a whole bookshelf full of the alien novelisations, films, down to the extra little stories they release.

Stephen: 6:30

And obviously this coming weekend, like a week today in the UK, alien Romulus gets released, which is the next film in the franchise. It's technically the 7th alien film, but the 9th overall if you count the avp films. Um, I think that's right. If I'm terrible at maths, I'm not including the short ones that fox did. Uh, four or five years ago. Um, yeah, so alien anomalous is set in 2142, I believe it is, and that's about 20 years after Alien, so I'm mixing my dates up. So Alien, the film in real life was released in 1979. The film was set in 2122. And Alien Romulus, I believe, is actually set in 2142.

Stephen: 7:25

Not seen the film yet, tried to not have too many spoilers of it, but I'm hopeful. I am hopeful. I didn't really like what the franchise did with Covenant, and well, not just Covenant. Prometheus was the starter, wasn't it? So Prometheus and Covenant Went to see Prometheus at a theatre, was really looking forward to it, wondered what it was going to be like and was kind of disappointed.

Stephen: 7:56

Yeah, I, I was hoping that the origin of the species would be a little bit more like I don't know, mysterious, I don't know. I always find like when they do an origin story for something and they actually tell you something about it, I think the alien would be more scary, as if we still don't know where it comes from. And, by the way, this is going to have spoilers in, not for Alien Romulus but for other things. Maybe Alien Romulus, if you've been really really hiding away from any trailers. Maybe Alien Romulus, if you've been really really hiding away from any trailers. But I think when a franchise tries to justify itself and go back and explain everything it can, it can do too much. And see, I was in my head more thinking about, like the Weyland-Yutani side of it, their first interaction with the alien as we know it or an alien or an area earlier interpretation of the alien as things do evolve, but the way they went with it I just thought, and really so that was a big, massive, big, massive input.

Stephen: 8:46

Obviously, the first Alien film was one of my favourite films of all time. Aliens is one of my favourite films of all time, really, really different films, but the attention to detail and the world-building and just character development is is brilliant. Like alien, um is one of the films that I've probably seen I can even tell you dozens and dozens of times, same with aliens, and it's one of the go-to movies that even though I watch I've seen it so many times it transfixes me still and there's still bits that, even if it's on, if it's on the background, I put films on, probably like most people do If I'm doing something like making Lego or just doing something that doesn't involve too much attention of the TV, but I can divide it slightly or listen along, and when you know a film so well, it's easy to do that because you can have that image in your head of what's actually going on on screen. But I end up with them films. I don't normally put them on when I'm doing stuff anymore because I end up just sitting watching them, because that's just how good they are, that's just that's how much I love them and the whole alien universe is just brilliant.

Stephen: 9:52

If you've never read any of the novels, then then do they. They expand the universe really, really well, some more than others. I really recommend the alex white novels. Um, which is which is the cold forge, and into I can't I can never admit how we say it into sharib, sharib, this, sharib karib, this, um, great films, great books could be great films. I definitely think the cold forge could have made a brilliant tv show, even if it was like a, like a short form. Great films, great books could be great films. I definitely think the Cold Forge could have made a brilliant TV show, even if it was like a short form.

Stephen: 10:28

Yeah, so Alien Romulus is the new film that's coming out. When I heard they were making a new film, as always, I was excited but sceptical because of what's come before. I love Alien, I love Aliens, I. I like alien 3, I like alien resurrection, and I like the latter two for different reasons. Alien 3 should have been a completely different film, but that's, that's probably a conversation for another day. Alien resurrection was a money cash cow, I think. Um, development, cgi and other such things. I think they just were like we could make another one. Alien 3 didn't do so bad, even though it was a bit of a car crash, yes. And then obviously Ridley Scott came in in the early 2000s and, I think, wanted to kind of put his stamp on the franchise again, and I believe he actually owns the rights for Alien. I might be mistaken, he has some copyright stuff anyway, uh, combined with fox so, which obviously owned by disney now, uh, but yeah, so.

Stephen: 11:30

So alien romulus is like set in 2142, which is between the events of alien and aliens, which is interesting because a lot of the stuff we've had in the, in the alien universe, hasn't really been spanned between them, between them times. We've had prequels, we've had sequels and even some of them, even some of the books, some of them take place the same year as aliens. Like alien 3 is actually the same year as aliens. Uh, like the cold forge novel I told you about before takes place in 2179 as well, which is the same year as aliens, uh, river of pain, the same year, which is a very good, very good book. If I'm not not mistaken I know out of the shadows, I think there's the one that introduces ash 2. Anyway, that's, that's alien law. That's not what I'm talking about today. That's for a later episode, when I deep dive into aliens.

Stephen: 12:19

Uh, so yeah, alien anomalous is coming out and they've done a massive, massive, massive campaign on this. Disney have like it's everywhere at the moment. They've released so many different trailers for it, so many different different shorts, slightly different behind the scenes stuff, and I was getting, I was getting super excited by the stuff they were releasing. I was getting even more excited thinking, oh, my god, this is, this is great, and I've never actually seen. It's directed by, uh, fede alvarez.

Stephen: 12:43

He's a uruguayan director and he's only ever made, I think, like three films, three or four films, um, apart from this one, and I don't I haven't seen any of them. He did Don't Breathe and he did the Evil Dead remake and I don't really watch remakes that much because they're normally not as good as the first one, but I've heard that it's actually pretty good. But he's done some screenplays for things and he's actually written Alien Romulus, like James Cameron did with Aliens. And the first thing that got me excited and also made me worried at the same time, was the fact that Ridley Scott really liked the script and kind of greenlit the whole shebang really, I think he gave the nod which made Disney think, ah, you know, ridley says it's okay, then it must be good. But that also worried me because obviously how I feel about the Covenant and Prometheus films like they're good films in their own right. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slating them. If you watch them. It's the same old Ridley Scott. They're well directed. It's the origin story that kills me. I have more problems, I think, with prometheus than I do with covenant, weirdly enough, and I think a lot of people are the other way around. But I actually prefer covenant to prometheus because I think covenant is more of a standalone story, even though it ties in anyway.

Stephen: 14:14

Um, so he got the green light to do it and all the interviews I've seen with him so far it's made me excited. He seems like he knows what he's doing. He's researched. He is a horror director in the main. He likes horror films. He knows how to scare people. I've not seen them other films, but from what I've heard is they are pretty intense and he does know how to do these jump scares and such things. And I think that's good, because alien is a horror franchise, um, and they normally categorize the films in different categories. So alien was the straight out sci-fi horror. Aliens was the sci-fi action flick. Alien 3 was like the thriller, kind of drama, kind of side of alien um and alien resurrection they. There's a very famous meme, meme that goes around and says these and Alien Resurrection is classed as, like the almost the comic relief of the quadrilogy. Um, doesn't really take itself too serious in some of the ways it's done, but all the bits of it's trying to be too serious, which doesn't really float the tone of the film. Um, yeah, so I'm I'm quite confident that he'll do a good job at directing it.

Stephen: 15:25

We had no idea what the story was going to be. Now more and more have been leaked and this is where some spoilers may come out and I'm not even sure these are true. So don't, don't take my word for it, because people have been seeing it and I've not watched any of the reviews because I don't want any more leaks to come my way. So please, please, don't send me anything. Please don't send me anything.

Stephen: 15:43

From this point on, I'm going to go watch the film and just make my own mind up, but I have seen some comments from fans from the AVP universe AVP Galaxy Great website if you're into alien films. The Perfect Organism podcast is great as well, as well as the AVP Galaxy podcast great if you're into alien stuff. Loads of cool content. They've been interviewing they both, I think, have had interviews with Freddy Alvarez and they've been talking through the trailers and such things and fan theories, and they've released on their Facebook page some comments from people on X and Facebook that had been to see the film and no spoilers here, but they were basically saying it's a brilliant film, film of the year.

Stephen: 16:32

Some of them were saying that the ending is insane. Like the ending. Like someone was saying that it starts off building the world and has a dip in the middle, but then the ending is just absolutely bonkers. So I'm interested how it ends. Uh, does it tie in with something? Does it tie in with the new series that's coming out? Is that what leads to the new tv show who knows? Who knows? Uh, so it's really intriguing that side of it.

Stephen: 16:58

The one thing that kind of has been leaked or it hasn't been really denied I don't think is the fact that we may have the return of big chap now. If any of you people on that are listening to this, I don't know who big chap is. Big chap is the nickname of the alien from the first film, so on set the alien had the nickname of big chap because there was a big, bloody guy in it. He's basically a guy in a suit and he was, uh, I think he was six foot seven or six foot nine, something like that. Uh, maybe taller than that. Actually was he seven foot seven, I don't, I don't know. Um, he was very, very tall, very slender black guy name fails me at the moment. He died a few years ago, which is a tragic, tragic thing, and um, because this costume made him look even bigger. They called him big chap and um, and it just stuck.

Stephen: 17:41

So the rumor is that, uh, from the, from the trailers and such things, that big chap is back and that the romulus station has, like, captured him floating in space because the end of alien gets blown out of space and the theory is that the alien. The first alien that shows up is Big Chap, and then there are some eggs from somewhere, and maybe the ones that are created in Covenant, because they look like the little samples that David has. Is it David in Covenant? I should know all this. I'm a big fan, anyway. Yeah, so there's a lot of things going on and there's a lot of things going on and there's a lot of possibilities.

Stephen: 18:24

I was, I was a bit disappointed when they were making that connection with big chap and alien and how that's how they're going to join, like this, this time period, this 57 year period, where we didn't know anything. I was almost a bit disappointed when that's how they were going to connect the dots with, like this story of Big Chap's back. But I'm getting less bothered about it because I feel, like that, from what people are saying about the reviews, that that doesn't matter and there's been no spoilers in that sense I've not been exposing myself. That doesn't matter and there's been no spoilers. In that sense I've not been not been exposing myself. So I'm hopeful that the fact that if big chap has returned, it's not going to be a problem to the story and it's not going to degrade alien or aliens, and it's nice to see another thing as well. It's nice to see a young cast, um, and I think again, that's freddie alvarez's uh kind of choice for design of the film. I think that, uh, he likes that whole, a fresh-faced young cast, because it's easy to you know it's it's basically a slasher movie cast, isn't it? Let's face it, um like a screamcast kind of thing, and that makes me hate it a little bit. But, um, when you see, like young people, like trying to better themselves and stuff thing and and getting killed randomly and being fearful, it's probably easier to relate to a younger person rather than an older person. So I think, I think that is the reason for it and I'm really, really looking forward to it, really really looking forward to it, really, really looking forward to it. Now I'm going to go see it in IMAX, hopefully next weekend, hopefully next weekend, and have a jolly good time and hopefully come out and be impressed and be happy and be hopeful about what the TV series might be, because that's the other thing.

Stephen: 20:22

They're making a tv show and I think it's coming out the end of this year, maybe beginner next, and, uh, I was hoping it was going to be earth hive. There's a, there's a, there's a. I can't remember if it was a comic book or a novelization. First I think it was a novelization, and then it was turned into a book. Um, again, I shouldn't know that. I've read them all. It's been a while, though, and basically Earth Hive was is how it sounds. Basically, the alien gets to earth and all hell breaks loose, and when they announced the series, that's, that's the thing, that's the one that most alien fans would like to see. In my brain, um, at least anyway, from what I see on the internet and they've hinted that it's going to be on Earth, but then I think they've actually said that it's going to be set before Alien, which Earth Hive wasn't. So I'm intrigued again and a little worried about where that one's going. So we shall see.

Stephen: 21:16

You know, I'm not going to be too critical of them. You know they've got to make some choices. Maybe they don't rehash old things, maybe they want to go in their own direction. Maybe take some design choices not design choices, story choices from that, um, I don't know what legality is, because a lot of them were. I don't know if, uh, when they took over dark horse comics, because obviously, disney owned marvel and marvel now produced the comics, but they used to produce by dark horse when Fox had the franchise. So I'm not sure whether it's because it's like a Dark Horse thing, whether that, whether they're still allowed to own, are they still allowed to produce things into films? I don't, I don't know what the legalities of, like paying for that story are, whether they do own all them stories, but uh, yeah, so I'm, I'm I'm a little bit more sceptical, I think, about the TV show.

Stephen: 22:03

I believe it's in post-production right now, so we shall see. But, yeah, so Alien Romulus, what are your thoughts? Are you excited about it? Are you even into aliens? Did you switch off? You'll meet him here. If you switched off, you won't hear this, will you? But yeah, I'm just hoping that it's going to be a-okay and we can actually, you know, have a a good movie, a really, really good alien movie. Um, since aliens, because we haven't had yet, we haven't had yet. I think that all the ones from aliens, uh, could have been so much better, and I'm hoping I've got everything crossed that Alien Romulus will live up to the hype and Fede Alvarez will be put on a pedestal for years to come and hailed as a king of reigniting the franchise and Disney are really pushing for it.

Stephen: 22:57

They've released a lot of novels since they've taken over a lot of comics and a lot of novels, um, and I have, I have like four, five, four, five, five on my shelf. I still have to read. Six on my shelf, I still have to read, which is really annoying because they're bringing them out. I don't read. I go through phases where I don't read very much, so they're bringing them out faster than I can actually read them at the moment.

Stephen: 23:21

So, yeah, but if you're, if you're, big into aliens, then definitely check out the novelizations that they. They add something to the story. They add something. Uh, there's always hints and world building and and little easter eggs for you to pick up on. And if you're not into alien, and that's fine, maybe give it a go. You may like.

Stephen: 23:39

If you like sci-fi, you like a bit of horror, um, yeah, and I think I'm gonna talk about my love of alien as a separate, complete podcast, away from alien anomalous, and I might actually organize myself and write down what I want to list about things that didn't make any sense. I know what I mean. Anyway, thank you for joining me. That's episode 1 of series 5. Series 5, I know if you've been here from the beginning. Thank you so much. Much love to you. If it's your first time listening, I hope you enjoyed that.

Stephen: 24:14

My podcasts are varied and I talk about anything. Again, if you want me to talk about a specific subject and if you'd even like to be a guest, drop me a line and we can have a chat Excellent. Well, I'm going to go now. I'm going to leave you to your day and I shall speak to you soon. You've been listening to Infinite Dreadful. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, go back and listen to some others. Please continue to listen. Your support is much appreciated. Please like, share, comment and subscribe and I'll speak to you all again soon. Take care.