5.07 /// Alien Romulus: A worthy Alien movie?...

Can fan service ruin an otherwise brilliant film? Join me, Stephen, as I tackle this contentious question on today's episode of Infinite Prattle. We're diving headfirst into the highly anticipated Alien Romulus, where I share my complex feelings after watching it in theaters for the first time. While the film dazzled visually, especially in IMAX, it left me grappling with its over-reliance on fan service and recycled ideas like the infamous Black Goo. Hear my personal journey with the Alien franchise and why Alien Romulus was a watershed moment for me.

Nostalgia meets critique in the next segment, where we dissect a classic sci-fi film's immersive world-building and chaotic storyline. Recall the nerve-wracking moments at the Renaissance Station with cryo units on the fritz and facehuggers on the prowl. I weigh the film's balance between homage to the original series and its plot development, shining a light on the tension-filled scenes that left me on the edge of my seat. This segment opens the floor to a thoughtful reflection on how storytelling adapts and evolves.

Lastly, we dive into the intricacies of Alien franchise, highlighting the tension among characters and the thematic depth of the Black Goo. I compare Disney's approach to rebooting this beloved series with their handling of Star Wars, pondering if they managed to captivate both new and hardcore fans. From zero-gravity scenes to iconic one-liners, I scrutinise what worked and what didn't, offering my perspective on the franchise's future, including the much-anticipated TV series. Tune in for an engaging discussion packed with insights, criticisms, and a look ahead at where the Alien saga might take us next.

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Chapters

• 0:02 Alien Romulus Review With Fan Service
• 14:49 Exploring Alien
• 27:15 Analyzing Alien Resurrection
• 37:57 Reviewing Alien Romulus Film Analysis

Transcript

Stephen: 0:02

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Infinite Prattle, and today I'm going to be revisiting something from episode number one, and that was Alien Romulus, because I've now seen it. So here's my thoughts on that. Stay with me. Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. Unscrupted, unedited prattle on everything Hosted by me. Stephen, listen, like, share, subscribe and enjoy the show. How the devil are you? I hope you're well. Thank you very much for joining me on this. Uh, I don't even know what episode it is now. You know because you can see the description.

Stephen: 0:49

Anyway, this episode is going to be about my experience of watching Alien Romulus, romulus Romulus, um, that new Alien film a few weeks ago. Um, I don't want to do it too quick. I've still been mulling over my thoughts and I was hoping to see the film again, but I haven't yet. You'll have to forgive me. You might hear some clinking around because I've been doing Lego a completely different subject and you can hear is that coming over on the mic? It may be. There's Lego everywhere. If you go on the Instagram for Infinite Prattle at Infinite Prattle, you can see what I've been furtling at. I say the word furtling because I've been watching YouTube. Recently we were watching an old program called Bad Influence from the 90s and they say furtling a lot, which is a terrible word. That's why I apologize for using it. But yes, um, I mean, I mean sort out my minifigures, so there's stuff everywhere. Um, anyway, um, yeah, alien romulus, okay. So, as you know, from episode one and if you haven't heard it go back and listen first there's my kind of that was kind of my preview, ideas and thoughts about what might happen in in the actual film. Um, I wasn't trying to spoil too much in that, it was just my general thoughts and hopes and dreams. Really.

Stephen: 2:14

Um, and I'll start off with how I felt immediately after finishing watching the film um, I went with my pal phil uh, no, phil Phil for years and he really enjoyed it. When it finished he was like oh, I thoroughly enjoyed that. I can't quite remember his exact words, but he's basically oh, that was a pretty good kind of thing, so it was probably better than average for him. Good film. I wasn't of the same idea. I was a little bit disappointed, and I'll say why. Obviously, because otherwise this would be a very short episode.

Stephen: 2:57

Basically, I thought that it was a little bit of fan service, which don't get me wrong. I don't mind fan service and I'll get back to this about whys and wherefores and what I thought of that. I thought there was a little bit too much fan service in the film as regard to um, callbacks, um and some maybe for me reused ideas, and the Black Goo reappeared and I was hoping it wasn't going to. But you know it is part of the universe now. So I suppose we can't really get away with that and with Ridley Scott producing, he's going to want to kind of keep his movies canon to the franchise. So yeah, the franchise, so yeah. So I came out a little bit like that was kind of what I was worried about. If I'm honest with you, I was kind of a bit deflated and a little bit angry and a little bit miffed. And don't get me wrong, there was bits I thought you know that bit was good and if the whole thing had been like that, oh, what could we have got? And, uh, I would say I was hoping to have watched it again by now, when I haven't managed to get to the cinema to watch it. I've watched a couple of other films but I've not watched that one, um, because I don't think anyone would go see it with me twice and I'm gonna try to go and see it again before it finishes. On the cinema, because it was a cinema film. It was a brilliant film to watch the cinema. I watched it in the imax, so massive screen, brilliant sound, and the film was brilliant for that experience, for the cinema experience. And I've never seen a a sole alien film at the cinema I've never watched. I never.

Stephen: 4:40

I was too young to watch alien, too young to watch aliens, too young to watch Aliens, too young, really, to watch Alien 3 at the cinema. I was probably just about old enough to watch Alien Resurrection, but I don't think anyone was into the Alien franchise like I was. When I was a kid I kind of watched my first Alien film in the early 90s. That was Aliens. I was probably like 10, 12 years old, so like 93, 95. Uh, alien 3 had already come out by then. Alien resurrection was on the horizon and I couldn't wait for alien resurrection after watching aliens. It was a time before, uh, streaming services, obviously. So I I kind of watched, um the matter sequence.

Stephen: 5:22

So the next, the next time that Alien was on terrestrial TV, so just like public TV. I recorded it, or I think I actually watched it live and recorded it. I was blown away by it. So I watched Aliens first, then Alien, then Alien 3, then Alien Resurrection, and I went to see Alien vs Predator both of them at the cinema, and to see Alien vs Predator both of them at the cinema. And I watched Alien vs Predator the other night. You know what, 20 years later? It's an okay film, but we're not talking about that today. So Alien Romulus was the first one I've actually seen at the cinema and that didn't disappoint.

Stephen: 5:58

It was an alien film, so, yeah, so when I came out of the cinema I was kind of deflated and I got home and brain was my brain was ticking over and I had to drive back from my mate's house. It was about an hour's journey home and I'd got the um AVP podcast and the perfect organism podcast, uh, already downloaded. So I thought I'll listen to the the perfect organism podcast, because they did a podcast as soon as they seen the film and they literally echoed all of my thoughts in it, like the good bits, the bad bits, the clunkiness of some of the repeated lines. Um, and I was, I was amazed. I was like, oh, my god, like, yes, like this. This is exactly how I'm feeling and I felt kind of vindicated in a way, because I didn't want to hate it. I didn't want to hate it and um, I kind of did it on a lot on a lot of levels, like I loved it on some other levels, don't get me wrong, I'll get to that. Um, and I listened to their, their reflection. A few days later I calmed down a bit. I, over, over the next couple of days, I listened to the other podcast they did, which was a few days later, and I watched the av listen to the avp one as well and um, and it was really and, by the way, both them podcasts are excellent if you're into alien franchise or franchise great. They've had freddie alvarez on as well since, uh, and I'll get to some of his comments, which which I'd already kind of thought of, and it made me feel better about it after I heard him say it.

Stephen: 7:30

So my biggest problem, as I've said, was kind of like I have no problem with the cast. Everyone's been going about the young cast and I actually thought the casting was superb. They all were really, really good, really enjoyed the casting. They all had their own characters. Um wanted to spend more time with them, which is good. Um, spoilers like people die.

Stephen: 7:50

It's an alien film. Um, the world building was fantastic. There was nods to all of the films. Um, and no doubt when I watch it again I will see more and more little easter eggs. Um, but yeah, the whole world builder. We've never been on a colony before and we kind of got an insight into, like, basically, how people are treated by the company. They're kind of like treated well and the fact that they kind of get this environment to live in. I feel like it was for free. Um, I may be wrong there. I feel like you get a colony, but you, you work really really fucking hard for it. Um, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. I don't know, but that's how I feel. You volunteer for that work, you get a contract and you can live there, and that's kind of how the how the film's plot kind of pans out.

Stephen: 8:36

Basically, ray in the main character and a brother, randy, who is an android, uh, with kind of he's like really old modernly. He's a bit glitchy, um, almost as if he's got some like um disability, um, and their relationship through the film is is kind of like a big deal. Uh, david johnson, who plays andy, for me was a standout character and everyone's been saying this, his, his performance in the film was absolutely superb. I just, I just loved everything about his character, um, from when he's playing this clunky kind of almost childlike, dysfunctional android with a with a big heart I don't have hearts, but you know he came across as like very caring and having that role who wanted to prove himself, to then getting his upgrade um to becoming almost like a factory reset wayland utani, android again, um, but all them changes. He played superbly and I hats off to, hats off to mr johnson for for playing that role so well and I hope we get a glimpse of him again, or that android at least again, because I think it was very refreshing, even though it's very hard to do something again and again and again and change it up, yeah, but yeah. So this bunch of young actors young actors, I think did superbly.

Stephen: 10:06

So the main characters are rain and andy. Uh, kaylee spain, he plays rain. Uh, archie reno plays tyler, who I think is like rain's ex, from what I can gather. Uh, k is tyler's um adopted sister. I think it is played by Isabella Merced Bjorn is Tyler's cousin, played by Spike Fern, and Navarro is Bjorn's girlfriend, but you kind of almost get the sense that Tyler used to date her as well. So, yeah, it's a bit of a love triangle there. It was just really really good, well composed.

Stephen: 10:48

And these guys are working on the planet I can't remember what the actual planet's called off the top of my head and they're basically they seem to be like almost truckers. They have this ship called the Corbellan and basically they seem to like move materials from the, from the, from the mines. It's a big mining planet and um, the whole, the whole kind of um plot. They're living in this colony called Jackson Star and they all want to get out. They're all young and they've all got these bloody stupid contracts for years and years and years and basically this the premise of it basically is once you finish your product, once you finish that contract, you're basically free to leave the planet and go to another planet and you can apply for a transfer and such things for a nicer place. And rain wants to go to, uh, yavaga three, um, which is apparently meant to be really, really nice.

Stephen: 11:47

Uh, the problem, problem is that androids aren't allowed. She hasn't told andy that um, and she goes, basically in the opening of the scene she goes to basically like fucking her time card, basically to show that she's nearly completed all her hours and she's nearly have contracts and that she could leave, like make sure, I think she's trying to book herself on a ship basically to get out of there. And the way the Utani operative says, oh no, you're too late to submit these, we've already increased the quota, your contract's been extended. It almost implies if you'd have submitted them a couple of days ago, you might have been alright. But we've increased the quota, so now you're shit out of luck. And we've increased the quota, so now you're shit out of luck. And, um, she'd also been reassigned to the mines and it appears that her parents died in the mines. So obviously that's uh, um, she's an orphan from basically the whole, the whole system.

Stephen: 12:33

Uh, so it kind of builds up that story really really quickly and really nicely and uh, the direction and the world building, as I said was is really good. We've never seen that perspective of of a colony. Um, when we, when we saw akaron um lv426 aliens, it was one of the aftermath. The diameter's cut shows us a little bit of akaron beforehand, but not too much. Not too much. Um, that shows us some outside built outside um views and then a couple of corridors and like a little control center which we see actually in the film anyway. Um, but we see it shot to shot to shit, basically, don't we? And acid burns everywhere.

Stephen: 13:09

So this was a little bit more inside everyday life, um, so basically the the plan is she goes, she goes around to the tyler's place and they're all talking and they've, they've got a plan. They've basically got a plan to go to this planet all together as a group. It's too far away to fly in the Corbellan IV because it's basically a slow ship and if they didn't have they wouldn't be able to carry enough supplies and they would need to go into hypersleep for, like, I think it's like two years. They say so that ship's that small that they couldn't keep themselves going for two years without going to the hypersleep. But the type of ship it is, it doesn't contain cryo sleep chambers. So they've discovered the Renaissance station orbiting the planet and the station is divided into two parts Romulus and Remus, which is a reference to the Roman myth, I think did Romulus kill Remus? And basically they decide that they're going to go to that station because they've already checked the inventory or they know that that ship has, that space station has cryopods that are working. So the base of the planet is to go up in the corbellum dock with it, get on board, nick the cryo tubes and then fly to it and then fly out of that, basically go into hypersleep, wake up on an ice planet. But they need, they need andy, because he's a well and you're a utani android. They need him to go um and basically hack the system so they can dock with the station and they get to that quite quickly.

Stephen: 14:49

In the story that all happens probably within, or it feels very quickly at least. Anyway, I was kind of sad when they kind of kind of got off the planet. I was hoping they'd visit maybe a couple of places, maybe see rain's place or a bar or a shopping mall or something like that. You know um, but the environment was. The environments were really good. Like there's so many little little nods to the films, like the cans of beer on the on the side and and um, yeah, just just the world build in general. Just it felt like an alien film. I was, I was okay with, okay with all this and listening to all the podcasts I've listened to, like everyone, loved the world building, loved the premise of it, wanted to get out of there, you know, being suppressed, being young and just wanted to go away and fly away to this Varga 3 and escape the man kind of thing and um.

Stephen: 15:47

But obviously when they get to, when they get to, uh, the renaissance station, that's when it all goes tits up because they they discover basically that you know, some shit's gone down on that plot, on that um, and that's where the opening of the film kind of makes you realise what's gone on. The opening of the film shows a salvage ship collecting Big Chap from the first film, who's managed to encase itself in some cocoon and looks like a meteorite and they laser cut it in half and it reveals the alien inside, presumably asleep, um. And when they get to renaissance station, you realize obviously big chap must have woke up at some point and caused a bit of shit, um, because place is wrecked and there's big acid, acid burns and yeah, so it's. It's kind of reminiscent of that scene in hadley's Hope, when everyone's walking through and there's thinking what the hell's gone down here. I'm trying to do this from memory, by the way, so forgive me if I've got anything there. I'm good. I do have a synopsis in front of me so I'm trying to refer to that. I've had a quick read but I do it for memory. So it's more true. So it's more true. Um, yeah, so they're walking through and, um, the school of them stay on the ship. Oh yeah, kay's admitted that she's pregnant, by the way, came up with a conversation, I think, when they were going to the station, because she found that it was rain that caused her to be thrown up in the toilet and she basically had some random guy who slept with her and you know she was pregnant and yeah it's.

Stephen: 17:33

They get to the station, they're wandering around, they're trying to find these cryo, cryo, cryo units, basically. So they need to. You've got the cryo units, but they need the, the uh stuff that makes them cold, basically the, the cryo gas, I suppose. Um, and they basically have to go to get the, um, the cryo stuff, and they find it in another part of the ship and that's basically where the facehuggers are. They find all this weird and uh, and the hyla, uh, go into this room along with um, I think, yeah, I think bjorn goes with them, um, and basically the room goes into lockdown because they're taking the cryo, the cryopods out, and, uh, everything starts to defrost really quickly. Uh, I think it's already started to at this point as well, because there wasn't kind of enough enough gas to stay in it. Um, of course, the face I'll just start dripping into, into the water. This water's leaked everywhere and there's a little bit of water and it's in the trailer and, uh, when he goes, I was in something in the whole water like that.

Stephen: 18:46

Um, that was a good impression on it and yeah, so that for me, was one of the best scenes in the film. It was tense, it was a bit, a bit disturbing. You really felt the claustrophobia because they were locked in this room. And, uh, he managed to get this little memory card to andy. They've got this update, so he does the update and his and he becomes like useless for a minute because he can't do anything while he's updated. And then, once he's updated, he managed to open the door because it needs a higher security level to open it, and he managed to get people out, but it's too late by that point. The face of us are on the rampage and they managed to break through the glass and chasing down the corridor, and that seems. That seems really good.

Stephen: 19:27

Um, I kind of have a criticism of the. I think the CGI looked actually really good. I think that the little robotic facehuggers they used didn't look as good. The James Cameron facehugger running across the floor when Ripley was locked in that room with Newt was more effective, and you kind of get these echoes of different scenes, films as well. So the in each scene you can see, I can see where they've kind of got the idea for this. There's being locked in this room with the facehuggers. It's like an extreme version of the aliens, one with ripley and newt.

Stephen: 20:04

Um, and I don't have I don't necessarily have a problem with that in hindsight, because you know there's only so much you can do with a film, but it's also there's so many more ideas out there as well. I don't know what I would do though. Like how would I do it differently? That's the thing, isn't it? You know you can criticise something all you want, but I'm not the one in charge and I haven't got the budget and you, you know, what would I have done differently? Um, I don't. I don't necessarily mind the heartbacks in that sort of sense, like because it was.

Stephen: 20:37

It was a really good. It was a really good scene, um, and I think for me, where where it fell down was was the black goo stuff and, um, the ending, which we'll get to, which we'll get to. Um, so, yeah, so the aliens, the, you know, the face looks on loose. You managed to manage to get away from some of them, but one managed to attach itself to navarro's face and, uh, they drag her out and take her back to the ship and, um, they managed to freeze off her face. They have a good idea and I thought this was this was one of my favorite bits of the film where no one's ever been able to remove a face like off someone's face. And they managed to do it. They used some of the cryo stuff and they freeze it and they snap its tail off and they basically pull it off her face and it's frozen. But they're not sure whether it's done its job and even Andy's you can tell where Andy's coming from now he's, he's been upgraded and he's a little bit cold and he's kind of like I don't know if it's had time to do its job. I presume that it's it's implanting something in her or it's keeping her alive for a reason. Um, and yeah, it was that. That was a really good scene.

Stephen: 21:39

Uh, the next bit I wasn't happy with was the gestation period. Like films have, have messed around the gestation period. So in alien, yeah, it's a little bit quick, but you know there's a, there's a few. At least a few hours go by, go by. When kane gets back to the ship he's in sick bay. So the fact that the facehooker falls off him and you know there's probably maybe up to five or six hours that go by. We don't really know, but you can kind of make that assumption. Where someone's sleeping, they're doing, they're doing tests, they wake up maybe tell you to. You know, don't go straight to eating stuff, rest here for an hour, drink some water. Right now we're gonna let you go and eat something if you're really that starving. So there's a good app there's. There's hours gone by.

Stephen: 22:21

Aliens are the same, you know they get to have this hope. Um, maybe, maybe not long after the gunfight or one of the gunfights, and they still find someone still alive in the hive, which implies either they were hiding out like new or the gestation period's hours because they'd been on the planet, you know, an hour or so at that point, so you can say it's hours whereas navarro, um, it was literally she's implanted and she's stood up for a few minutes and then next minute she scans herself, which is a which is a cool scene. She scans herself with that handheld x-ray device which actually shows the thing bursting out of her chest, which is just in the trailer as well, and that was really good. Um, it wasn't as gory as I was expecting it to be. The whole film actually wasn't as gory as I was expecting or hoping it for it to be.

Stephen: 23:05

Um, I don't know, you don't need that in a film, but but I think an alien film needs a little bit of gore. It needs that bit of, it needs that little hidden terror and it needs that bit of gore and it doesn't need to be completely in your face, but I feel like there should have been more blood than there was. It kind of very much did Like the alien kind of chestburster from Alien, where it kind of burst through, kind of looked around a little bit. You know, it seemed tired and I've been pondering this in my brain whether whether the thing can accelerate its own birth, um, depend on on the stress levels of the individual. Um, I don't know, I don't know, these things are like weird and the lifestyle is weird, um, but it bursts out when it flies away and then doesn't fly, runs, and they're all a bit like, oh my God, what the fuck was that kind of thing?

Stephen: 23:55

And then the next bit, we see you know, other stuff goes on. They go back and talk to Rook, I think. Now Rook is basically Ian Holm, it's Ash from Alien, and this, for me, was one of the worst bits, and it's not the fact they recreated in home, he was just in it too long, there was too much exposition and while they were going around the room there was like pictures of the crew from the nostromo on the screens that were not for the people in the room at all, they were for me as a viewer. Why, why, why, why, why, why annoyed me. Um, he goes through the whole thing about your big chap, and then you see big chap in the ceiling. You realize that's the acid bird, is actually big chap, suspended from the ceiling, dead, um, and it's basically I don't fancy your chances kind of line which is, which is another, which is one of the callbacks to the lines in the film.

Stephen: 24:45

And then from that point on it's an alien film. We're running away from things. There's a, there's a scene where they, where they kind of say how the face huggers work and how they hunt and it's like it's not really by sight, it's kind of like noise and and vibration and such things, so they have to walk through this room as quiet as they can, they don't disturb the face huggers. Um, again, not one of my favorite scenes, but I thought it was a nice idea and like. And then one of the biggest things obviously was the cocoon for the alien. Uh, we've never seen the life cycle from a newborn alien to how it gets so big, so quick. And I like this bit this bit didn't bother me that the cocoon bit kind of makes sense. I think you know it, you know kills someone. Go and go and go and get big coon yourself. Uh, where all this energy comes from from this, I don't know. This always baffled me, for the alien life cycle is how much energy does it take to to get something from like an embryo to a full-size thing, when it doesn't seem to eat but silicon-based life form? I don't know, I don't know who knows, um, anyway, uh, but that was a cool scene and it's giving birth through. That was was really really good.

Stephen: 25:52

Um, the death scene for um, for um, what's his bloody name? Uh, for beyond, was a little bit reminiscent of alien versus predator 2, uh, requiem, uh, where he, he basically electrocutes the alien, basically, but he puts this electrocute like a, like a cattle prod thing into the, into the egg sacs. He thinks that's where the alien's hiding and it is, and he electrocutes it and thinks he's got it, and then he gets like um, he gets stabbed with the thing's tail, uh knocks him to the floor and as it's emerging, acid comes out of the pod kind of drips on him and kills him. Um, again, I thought that could have been a lot more gory and it was very reminiscent of of alien versus predatory requiem and I thought they could have done a better death scene. I thought they maybe could have, you know, drip some acid on him and be injured and then the alien. Basically you could have done a terrifying scene where the alien slowly creeps upon him and and kills him or eats him, I don't know. I just thought the way. I thought they would just wasted that opportunity and bjorn was a good character, bit of a dick, kept calling andy a bitch and and had a thing about androids and it turned out that an android, I think, was his sister, let sister die because he locked them all in a in a mine which was blowing up like toxic gas or something, uh. So we had a beef about androids being so logical, uh.

Stephen: 27:15

And then that scene actually plays out later on with k? Uh, which again is one of my other favorite favorite scenes where you've actually got, you've actually got k? Um, I'm going back and forth. I know I'm sorry, um, it's locked in the room and the alien is like stalking her and she's trying to get through and Andy won't open the door and Tyler is like screaming at him going open the door. She's one of us and he's like I won't be able to get the door open and shut again before the alien would come through and kill you all. So it's that kind of like logic of I've got to protect life and two lives is better than one life. So sorry, k, you're out of there. And um, yes, that that like pulls her away and and that's a good scene as well.

Stephen: 27:56

So, in hindsight, when I was, when I was, when I was going through this in my brain listening to the podcast, I was thinking, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't that bad. And then you also think about from it. From it, I started to think about it for me. For me, um, because ash talks about the black goo and how they've reversed, engineered the black goo out of the big chap. So they didn't have any black goo, they reversed, engineered it and I kind of I kind of like that, I kind of liked that, the fact that they knew about the black goo and they reversed it. Still don't particularly like the black goo, but you know, I'm getting a bit more on board with it. I think this film helped a little bit because it wasn't too in your face and it kind of explained some stuff.

Stephen: 28:31

And I kind of look back on the Cold Forge, which did have them doing it, and that's one of my favourite books. Like Alex White any Alex White book, actually go and read. But the Cold Forge is what is like probably maybe my actual favourite novel, and I'm going to read it again soon, especially after Romulus, I need to read it again. Um, I came away from that book thinking this would be a brilliant tv show. Um, and don't get me started on that tv show. I'm scared about that now, um, so, yeah, so I just I I kind of warmed the idea of, like, you know, I understand why they did certain things, the callbacks. You know, we're introducing a whole new audience to this.

Stephen: 29:12

And then, after I listened to the Fede Alvarez episode on the Perfect Organism podcast, I kind of realised that, yeah, you know, disney, it's about money-making. If they'd have made the film that the fans wanted, we'd have all been really happy. If they'd have maybe turned the cold forge, taking some ideas from that, taking some ideas from, um river of pain, taking some ideas from I don't know any of them, any, any of them, any of the, any of the original dark horse comics, you know, if they'd have taken some ideas from them and run with them, um, they'd been too niche, let's face it. So this is a film that's been introduced to a new generation, um, and, yes, they did some callbacks, but it it wasn't as bad as in my opinion of, as when they rebooted star wars. For me, they just remade a new hope. This was an essence of everything that had gone before to move the franchise on, and that's kind of where I sit with it now. I now, having not even seen it again now I know that I enjoyed it and I need to see it again to kind of get over the shock of what I saw, because the ending really, really annoyed me. So they go through all this stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Stephen: 30:31

And oh, actually I'll say first there was one scene in the trailer that I was really excited about and I think it was wasted. So she has this gun that can author a rain, that is, and she's stood in a corridor with Andy. There'd been a thing about gravity and stuff on the space station. She turns the gravity off, but all the aliens are floating everywhere. So she managed to shoot them while they're in the air, while there's no gravity, and then they have to, like basically navigate this, this passageway, and it just didn't seem like there was any danger. There's all this floating zero g acid everywhere burning through, stuff just floating in the air, and it just didn't feel like there was a peril, like there wasn't.

Stephen: 31:13

There should have been at that point a throwaway character that could have accidentally just like drifted through a load of acid and melted, and it sounds like a mercedem masochist and I want to see death and destruction, but for me, that was a perfect opportunity to like, kill a character off, like it wasn't as tense as I wanted it to be, because I knew that andy was a main character. Rain was my main character. I was pretty convinced there was at least half an hour of the film left, including credits. Although we're not going to die hardly here, something you know, unless something else happens. This is this, is this isn't going to do anything. Maybe she might get slightly burnt, maybe he might, might lose an arm, but he's an android who cares, and so for me, there was no parallel and I felt that I didn't. I thought that was a wasted scene. And then one of the things that everyone is going on about is Andy reusing the line from Aliens. So, andy few.

Stephen: 32:08

There's a few lines recalled in the film um, from previous franchise entries, some more subtle than others, and one of them is uh, get away from her, you bitch. And andy says this to an alien after he saves her in the lift, saves rain in the lift shaft, and everyone's been going mad about this, like betreddie alvarez and his thing said that. You know, people cheered and cheered in the cinema when, when they did this part. And uh, like people reacted. When I watched it. I was quite surprised how people were reacting to it. People were aghast with fear, like excitement, um, at various points in the film, uh, you can see them talking to each other and pointing and, and the ending of the film really did creep some people out, including myself. It was a little bit creepy, um, but this bit like has really annoyed people, like kind of universally I would say.

Stephen: 32:58

And when he says get away from you, bitch, and he stutters it, he's been backed, he's been reset back to stupid andy at this point and um, I actually I saw one of the quotes. I actually didn't mind because there was an arc to it and no one seems to have mentioned this in any podcast I've listened to about this film. There's a father bjorn keeps calling a bitch all the way through the film, like get away from me, you know, get out of my way, bitch, do this, bitch, don't do this, all this sort of thing and um. So I love watching and I keep getting things. Put things on, do not disturb um. So yeah, so he, um, he kind of recreated that in his head but he killed this alien and then he, he said get away from her, you bitch and as corny as it was, I didn't mind it because there was an arc to it like maybe he wouldn't have said that, maybe it was just to get a line in, but at least there was some sort of logic to it. He, he'd been called a bitch all the way through by bjorn, so he decided to call a creature he'd managed to dominate a bitch, which I didn't mind.

Stephen: 34:01

For everything else in the film I was annoyed about, I didn't mind that um. And then we come towards the end. So, um, oh, they've got the black goo. They've got the black goo stuff and you know, kay's really injured and they want to inject her with it to save her, but she doesn't want to, and then she injects herself anyway and then the black goo basically turns the baby inside of it into, well, something called that they're calling the offspring, which is kind of like the newborn from resurrection, but not so. This is kind of like the opposite. So in resurrection we saw um, a genetically modified embryo, and they made the queen give birth like a human, so it was like an alien human hybrid, whereas this one's like a human-alien hybrid, and Robert Bogdanovsky played him, who's an NBA basketball player. Looks kind of weird, without any makeup, to be honest, no offence to you, robert, he's very tall and slim and obviously like a basketball player.

Stephen: 35:09

And as much as I didn't like the idea, because I kind of guessed it halfway through, as soon as she said she was pregnant, I was like there's going to be something with her baby happening now and I did kind of like could guess the plot points in the film, I must admit. But the way it was executed was very good. I didn't actually mind it. I thought it was really really disturbing looking. It was creepy. How the guy acted it out was weird, um, but it was very much.

Stephen: 35:39

The whole film was very much a mash of ideas. For me it was very much like throw the black goo in there, throw, throw like a weird hybrid in there, throw some alien stuff in there, throw some like alien kind of suspense in there, but have it all at a fast pace, have it a bit claustrophobic and have it a bit about the interrelations of these young youngsters, of having aspirations to get somewhere else and um, and that's why I came out the film feeling kind of like deflated because I was like there was so many ideas there. There were so many different ways they could have gone, um, and they kind of decided to kind of like, really play on things that had come before. And that kind of takes me back again to when I realised really what they were doing and it's making it for everyone. They were making a film that alien fans would grab onto certain parts of it, things we'd never seen before, like removing a facehugger, like the cocoon phase, like the environment we've been in um the world building, uh, a young crew which we've never really seen, like a completely young crew, um, different stories, and you know their aspirations, you know to get somewhere else rather than just working for the company, um, and then those are things that they'd repeated which annoyed me a little bit, which was that the callback lines and not having 100 new story, not having to recall stuff like the offspring slash, newborn, um. But again, in hindsight I understand this and I understand it's a money-making thing. And now they've set the base and I'm hoping now they've set this, this alien, and it's been a big hit. It's been a big hit, um, and now they've set this, then it's like this president of this new style, uh, alien film, this new arc they've got. You know there's already a tv show alien earth you in post-production, due for release early 2025. Again, I'm really worried about that. I don't know where they're going to go with that. Will it rewrite the canon of the film? Apparently, it's going to be a lot about androids and some aliens Not too much out about that at the moment.

Stephen: 37:57

I'm trying to keep an open mind, I mind, trying not to be the superfan that I am, and I think that's where sometimes my impression of things sometimes gets skewed, because not everyone has that like superfandom. Read the novels, know all these different aspects of it. But I asked myself, and I think the thing that really turned my head around was like what would I have done differently? Um, because when you look at the film as a whole, it's a, it is a brilliant film. It is. It's got everything. It's got a bit of action, it's got like a little bit of romance, it's got, you know, a bit, a little bit of humor in it. It's showing you stuff. It's it's well paced.

Stephen: 38:34

There was no point in the film where I was thinking, get on with this. I was actually thinking slow down stuff actually, but it's like I wanted to see more, which, for me, is a good thing. It makes me want to go back and revisit the film, and it definitely will. Whether I see it again at the cinema hopefully so, but I know I can't guarantee it with work and stuff, um. But yeah, I in hindsight I like the film. Uh, what, I don't know what will happen when I watch it again. Um, but I think I've convinced myself from like reviewing my own brain, listen to other people, because the fans all kind of have like a very similar opinion of it. You know, could have been better but it could have been a lot worse. And it's still up there with the good alien films where I where I would rank it. I have no idea alien aliens are still like the, you know the game-changing ones. For me, alien is just a master class in direction and use of sound and and not showing you too much aliens is kind of like the other one. It's kind of like a masterclass in just world building, character building and action.

Stephen: 39:40

Alien 3 went a completely different way, which I applaud it for. Maybe it didn't work as well as they thought, but it was a completely different film. There's no Alien film like Alien 3. Alien Resurrection Ken went back to some of its roots and if you watch that film it harks back to some early stuff, but it also tried to do some different stuff, you know. Did it win? Did it succeed? I don't know.

Stephen: 40:09

Avp films for me are in a different category altogether. And then we've got Alien Romulus. Where does that sit? For me, I think it's at least joint with alien 3. I think alien and aliens are the top ones for me and I think it might be a joint third with alien 3 for me. And just because it does, it does something different. It does capture the alien essence, um, but it doesn't work on all levels for me, but it's still better than most films.

Stephen: 40:37

So to wrap up, that terribly back and forth review, thank you for sticking with me. If you've got to 40 minutes, is that I actually like it? And sometimes I think you have to kind of look into yourself when you watch a film and then think about why you don't like it and think about what the filmmakers are doing. And I think that this was a bit of a soft reboot for the franchise. It was just trying to kind of like keep them in the same universe as covenant and and prometheus, but distance themselves from it a little bit too, and to say that and to test the water. You know how many fans out there are there. You know what do the real fans want. How can we change this in the future? Now we've introduced you all to Alien again. Now we can give you some different ideas and I'm hoping that's the way it's going to go. I I'm a little saying a little bit unpretentious for the TV show, but we'll see. You never know. You never know. You, you never know.

Stephen: 41:33

It's been a little bit of a longer episode today, so hopefully you've enjoyed it. If you're an alien fan or you just like to hear me rant away and and prattle away, but if you made it this far, thank you very much and I'm gonna leave it there. Go go and watch the film. Um, it's definitely worth a watch and we're trying it to the cinema again to watch it. If not, I'll uh, you probably repeatedly watch it on disney plus when it comes out. And until I speak to you all again, take care and remember to keep prattling. You've been listening to Infinite Drattle. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, go back and listen to some others and 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.