Alien Romulus Teaser Trailer!

[Local Trouble]

Is that how you reacted to AvPR?

[SiL]

That was 17 years ago my dude.

[Cosmic Incubation]

I hope it does have a new thing going for it honestly, that's something I loved about Prometheus, something I still love, it's taking the core concept of something and doing your own thing with it.

Oh me too for sure! I'd love to see some new things. And I think Fede can offer, and will have his own vision shown.
I just think it'll at minimum be a solid back to basics story akin to Isolation, which is satisfying on it's own for me.

[Local Trouble]

That was 17 years ago my dude.

But that just makes me feel old.

[NoStyleDutch]

Sil's reaction at 4:24     

[Immortan Jonesy]

Alien movies make me smile no matter what

[cucuchu]

Romulus will be praised like Prey, but probably will not take risks. And yet Alien (1979) was a film that took risks. Its ironic how the desire for nostalgia makes it impossible to create what you are now nostalgic about. Once upon a time the Xenomorph was innovative in design and all was fresh; now we are painted into a corner with only the right to use certain strokes, and colors.; its ironic, what was once new and creative gets used to destroy creativity and any chance of seeing anything new as writers and directors cling to orthodoxy; doubly ironic that most franchises are now trapped in dogma, and are like religions, with deviations or fresh takes treated as heresy.

Godzilla Minus One showed me that someone can take a series that has been repeated many times over, and make something amazing with a fresh new perspective. I'm optimistic so far based on the teaser and various interviews with Fede that we will get a back to basics Alien story with some visceral new imagery/concepts with the familiar and on top of that I have a sneaky suspicion there will be new concepts, one especially in particular...... 

Also to note in new a Spanish interview, he said he loves it when rather than answering the questions to mysteries, we end up with new questions and seemed to imply this is what we will get with Romulus.

[solace97]

My problem isn't seeing new things. I think majority of people who had a problem with the new things were that they totally went outside the established (or assumed) lure. If done properly I don't think it's a big deal. I think most people are actually open to it I mean hell there has already been something different in every single film. But when Scott was trying to do something absurd like make David the intended creator of the xenomorph I think 99.8% of people would agree that didn't sit well with them. But as far as Prometheus and Covenant I don't think they're at all that bad of films, they just have parts where we stray a little too far off course.

And Prometheus as a stand alone entry I absolutely love the way it contributes to the universe without infringing on the xenomorph. It shows that the Alien universe has a lot more to offer than just the xenomorph.

Covenant was honestly a great film for me all the way up until the introduction of the Alien. God I wish they just had the neomorph and maybe at the end some other obscure alien from Shaws ovaries and the black goo. Literally love the first 2/3 of that movie. And if they solidified that he stole the blueprints from the engineers 

[BigDaddyJohn]

Depends on what we call new things.

Spoiler

Is a new creature considered a new thing ? It was already done before with the Newborn, or even Neomorphs. I guess it's new if this movie's latest creature is different enough from what we already saw.

[close]

[SiL]

I'm fine with new. My problem is when people think that "new" means we have to add something novel or reinvent the wheel.

Look at chestbursting. The first four movies all had unique chestbursting sequences, but none of them reinvented chestbursting. They just came up with interesting scenarios for them. And there are unique scenarious for bursting that we haven't seen yet, plenty of ways to make it fresh without needing to make friggin' Stomach Creche Bursters. I'm looking at you, AvPR.

And when something novel is added, would it kill it to be complimentary rather than a lame "bigger badder" upgrade? Or something that basically makes the original threat tame and irrelevant? The Queen is great because she fits a completely different role to the regular adults. If you swapped a Queen out for Big Chap you'd have a very, very different movie. But replace a neomorph with a xenomorph and what real difference does it make? No acid blood? That's about it. Or replace the xenomorph with free-floating pathogen and suddenly the Alien doesn't seem all that much of a problem.

It's the nature of a franchise that rules and standards start to be made, and ignoring them for the sake of newness is a skill issue, not innovation. If people are tired of the bounding boxes of the franchise, the answer is to make or find a new one, not beat a dead horse for brand recognition.

[Local Trouble]

That's more like it.

[cucuchu]

Depends on what we call new things.

Spoiler

Is a new creature considered a new thing ? It was already done before with the Newborn, or even Neomorphs. I guess it's new if this movie's latest creature is different enough from what we already saw.

[close]

This is true, we've seen new things with every Alien movie. Aliens with the Queen, Alien 3 with the dog/ox alien, resurrection with the newborn, etc. These are all new things so just having new ideas/elements does not necessarily make them interesting. For example, demon/possession movies have been made so many times, a lot of time with new ideas and takes on the genre, and I grew fatigued by them. Nothing really ever clicked with me or genuinely provided me with a sense of dread. Then Hereditary came out of no where and provided something unique which stuck with me. In my opinion, it was pure, surreal dread that finally provided exactly what I was looking for. Of course, thats just me and we all have our own preferences but the point is if Fede Alvarez's take on the Alien franchise produces genuine terror and shock value, it doesn't necessarily need to have completely new ideas to be interesting.

What is promising about Romulus is if it actually takes us back to the atmosphere of the first film and establishes the Xenomorph as a true 'perfect organism', vs bugs of the later movies. Going back to a twisted Lovecraftian psycho-sexual cosmic horror of the first film, if a new idea is introduced with that as the baseline then I think it would be very fresh and interesting. Especially if you can bring about new mysteries and questions and get the audience intellectually invested.

I found this interview interesting too, just saw it posted earlier today.

  Of note he says "My favorite are the ones that did not answer questions. The more I know, the less scared I am. The fear of the unknown, and what is that thing, that is what makes it terrifying." Then he states there are some moments in the movie that he thinks will really stick with people and mentions 'picking up stories we never thought we would hear more about but we do' and talks about connecting to the other movies. So I could easily see some interesting connections being made if done correctly but also creating new questions in the process vs just plugging these ideas in as neat little perfectly connecting plot points to merge it all.

[Corporal Hicks]

That being said, I'm also very much on board with Ridley's prequels (even though I don't think Prometheus really works as a movie), and would love nothing more than to see him get one last stab at it to close the book on that story arc while also allowing new voices to come in and do their own thing as well.

Look, I love Covenant. I genuinely do. It has a lot of rich thematics going off. I still think shoehorning the Alien into the last act was a mistake though (as it was in the pre-Prometheus days of that film too). That said, I adamantly don't want to see Ridley back in the director's chair. While we can still very much steer away from David-as-Creator (we'll have to see what Romulus does), I just don't trust Ridley not do David-as-Space-Jockey. And I think that would be the tipping point for me.

Regarding Romulus originally being conceived for Hulu, back in 2022 when the film was announced Steve Asbell had this to say on that subject:

Asbell, who recently spoke to THR about the future of 20th Century Studios, said by doing the project for Hulu, there wouldn't be the pressure to whittle down the potential edginess that could come with theatrical considerations. "It's not a film that has to be all things to all people with those gargantuan budgets. They get to be authentically what they are. And this is closer to its genre roots."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alien-movie-fede-alvarez-20th-century-studios-1235037155/

Knowing what we know now about all the

Spoiler

connections to the wider cinematic Alien lore with references to Ash, Big Chap and the big tie-in to the controversial aspects with the prequels

[close]

I can see where he's coming from with that statement, but I take more that as a not having to appeal to the wider masses, rather than an edginess or violence thing. Though if the teaser is indicative of the final project, that's still very much there! 

But replace a neomorph with a xenomorph and what real difference does it make? No acid blood? That's about it. Or replace the xenomorph with free-floating pathogen and suddenly the Alien doesn't seem all that much of a problem.

And that's my problem with shoehorning the Alien in. It doesn't give the films any time to define or differentiate these other versions before you bring in the "classic" and just waste your time with it. Spaihts' scripts had that problem, Covenant has that problem.

[SiL]

It's my biggest issue with the black goo and its various creations. Why bother with the Alien any more? Outside of nostalgia it's honestly kind of lame in comparison. I said in another thread if it weren't for brand recognition the audience would think the Alien is proof David is shithouse at making things.

"Look at my life's work! Something with a really cumbersome life cycle compared to the thing I made it out of, but this time with acid blood!"

[BigDaddyJohn]

Exactly. Please stop playing with your PS5 and take a look at the PS2 I invented.