From Alien to Romulus | Fake Sequels, Real Spin-offs

Hello Peliplaters!

I've been eager to share my thoughts on Romulus with you for weeks now. I've always been fascinated by the Alien film series, and Romulus has reignited my passion for science fiction like an Olympic torch. I was so excited that I didn't even know where to start.

Alien is a great IP, with each film in the series meticulously crafted by incredibly talented directors and their artistic teams. In other words, each Alien sequel has its uniqueness, owing to the efforts of the creators. I was worried that my enthusiasm might skew my analysis, so I decided to rewatch the entire Alien series and read Mark Salisbury's Alien: The Archive to better organize my thoughts.

It's terrifying, but it's incredibly elegant.

If we were to dissect the Xenomorph, breaking its body into separate pieces, it would lose much of its terror, perhaps even becoming mundane. After all, each part of its body is familiar to us. But I guess every devoted Alien fan would bristle at such a comment: "Isn't it just a big ‘insect’ cobbled together from metal pipes?" I usually view such remarks as a coping mechanism—the fear of Xenomorph overwhelms their mental capacities, so they resort to such rationality to ease their minds.

If we refrain from rationally dissecting the Xenomorph, we can appreciate its allure as a whole. Though each individual component is familiar, when assembled, they form a creature we cannot fully comprehend. Moreover, it's not jarringly strange or "uncanny," but rather plausible, as if such a being could really have evolved from a single cell like any other organism—an emergence our Earth happened to miss.

The design embodies unadulterated carnage. Any other imaginary creature compared to this masterpiece would look like a mere plaything for human amusement.

Alien premiered in 1979, an era before I existed. I struggle to envision the mindset of those pioneers who created it. Embarrassingly, my first glimpse of the Xenomorph wasn't in the original series, but in fragmented scenes from Alien vs. Predator. As a child then, I was captivated by the fight scenes between the Predator and the Xenomorph. For children, the most crucial question is which character is stronger. Even more embarrassingly, the first film I watched in the Alien series wasn't the original Alien, but Aliens, which I mistakenly believed to be the first installment. At that time, I was a passionate youth deeply influenced by the equal rights movement (I still am, just more tempered now), and I paid more attention to the character of Ripley.

Aliens is undoubtedly excellent. The alien creature isn't the centerpiece of the film, but rather a supporting character for the portrayal of Ripley as a female warrior. Although Cameron enriched the Alien IP, such as with the design of the Queen, many of his ideas served the main plot of "Ripley's Adventure" rather than the alien character itself. Fundamentally, the Xenomorphs in Aliens aren't much different from the main antagonists in other hero epics. They have their moments of glory, but their reign is destined to end. No matter how terrifyingly they're portrayed, when they're defeated by the protagonist, the audience's fear transforms into hope.

But didn't Ripley also defeat the Xenomorph in the original Alien? Yes, indeed she did. However, when she finally expels the creature from the ship, what I felt more was the relief of a narrow escape rather than the elation of victory.

I only watched Alien last year, so I feel a twinge of shame whenever I claim to be a devoted fan of the Alien series. Although I watched it on my computer with headphones, I must admit that at times, I sat frozen in my chair, unable to move. I found myself silently praying for those poor crew members to escape the Xenomorph's clutches, just so I could get my breath back.

"I've severely underestimated it before," I thought to myself.

The scene above is one of the most classic horror scenes in Alien. Kane unexpectedly collapses on the dining table where the crew is eating together and begins to convulse violently. Not only does he look agonized, but he also completely loses control of his body, to the extent that even several adults cannot restrain his trembling.

Who could have predicted Kane's fate?

For today's audience, we can certainly anticipate his death. However, for the audience at that time, such a scene was unprecedented. They would typically only see people suddenly falling to the ground, convulsing, and losing control of their bodies in movies related to exorcism themes. Yet there are no religious elements in this scene, only the most ordinary breakfast and tableware. When the Chestburster bursts through Kane's chest, screaming covered in blood, this otherwise ordinary birth scene becomes hell on earth; more terrifying than hell itself.

After all, demons don't burst out of people's chests.

Scott's casting strategy in Alien has also been highly praised by later fans. The crew's complaints about their space life and the company's bonus policy make them look no different from ordinary people in reality. They are not a well-trained space exploration team, not even a part of the NASA astronauts who have to pass rigorous tests to qualify. They are more like "blue-collar space truckers" that you and I could play. Viewers can unreservedly put themselves in their shoes, imagining life on a spaceship from their perspective and empathizing with them, rather than admiring them from a distance.

Overall, watching Alien is like cracking open a fissure in our ordinary lives. This fissure not only leads us into outer space but also allows us to witness another being beyond imagination. If Scott showed us how terrifying this creature is, then Cameron led us to wage war against it.

More Aliens, Less Alien

Since it's a war, we're not facing just one enemy, but many.

Now that we're calling it a war, it can’t be one-sided. Through the image above, we can clearly see Cameron's completely different casting strategy from Scott’s. In Aliens, the main characters are no longer space truckers, but Marine soldiers. Apart from their hairstyles and uniforms, they also share many commonalities with gang members. However, the similarities are the most important aspect. What's truly significant is that such an image can fully convince the audience that they are far from being good guys. They look badass enough to be able to destroy all enemies as powerful as the aliens.

Cameron's decision was undoubtedly correct. Just as salespeople for chainsaws or televisions had to go to great lengths to convince consumers to trust their products again after Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Ring, audiences who were overly frightened by Alien were also in urgent need to gain confidence that humans could defeat the aliens. When Ripley uses a flamethrower to burn the Queen's eggs to ashes, the hellish scene Scott created in the previous film is completely wiped from the audience's minds—now, the human world has become hell for the aliens instead.

Aliens allows audiences to witness the greatness of human motherhood. However, while it established Ripley's heroic female image in the audience's hearts, it also irreversibly transitioned Alien from a horror film to an action movie. Space fighters, armored vehicles, exoskeleton armor—these are all thrilling elements. In other words, Aliens is more of a horror movie for the aliens themselves.

Some fans believe the first film of the Alien series is the one true classic, while others think that part 2 is the best. I think this depends more on whether you prefer the Xenomorph or Ripley more, and whether you enjoy the sci-fi elements or the horror elements of the Alien series more.

For me, it's difficult to rate Alien sequels as good or bad. The ambition of Brandywine Productions, which owns the Alien IP, is to create an entire independent sci-fi universe. Having different directors means there would be different interpretations of this IP, and it also means that any of their strategies will become an attempt to enhance this IP. Of course, a more realistic explanation might be that the producers at Brandywine Productions were too indecisive, so they just wanted different directors to try their luck.

Fake Sequels, Real Spin-offs

Not just me, many people might feel this way: the sequels in the Alien series are essentially a continuation of Ripley's legend. If it weren't for Sigourney Weaver continuing to play Ripley as the main character, the Alien sequels could easily exist as standalone spin-offs. If we examine the main plot of each sequel, we'll find that their development doesn't really depend on the previous films.

The time and place of each story are always vastly different from the previous ones, either set hundreds of years later or in completely different locations and social systems. Every time Ripley wakes up in a new sequel, it's as if she had traveled to a parallel universe. Except for her familiar face, everything is so confusing for both herself and the audience: "Who am I? Where am I? What should I do?" It’s not until the Xenomorph appears again that she understands her destiny―to destroy the alien creature.

In Alien 3, Ripley even sacrifices herself to fulfill this destiny. Carrying the new generation of Queen inside her, she chooses to perish with it before it can burst out of her chest. According to Alien: The Archive, the production team of Alien 3 considered having the Queen burst out as Ripley falls into the furnace, with Ripley using her last bit of strength to hold onto it until they both melt in the furnace. I must say, just imagining this scene is incredibly intense. But I'm also glad they didn't do it in the end. Somehow, I feel that that kind of intensity would have seemed too perfect, like putting a conclusion on the Alien series.

Scott was puzzled why Brandywine didn't ask him to direct more Alien sequels, and he must have liked the ending of Alien 3. At the end of Alien: Covenant, when I saw the captain and two deputies resolutely decide to destroy their own ship along with the Engineers' ship heading to destroy Earth, I can hardly say this isn't a tribute to the ending of Alien 3.

Many people hate Alien 3, but I believe its contribution to the Alien series outweighs its faults by adding greatly to the philosophical significance of the Alien series. Without it, the Alien would still just be an "otherness"―something different from humans―meant more to frighten us or be overcome, rather than making us reflect on ourselves.

Many fans criticize that starting from Alien 2, the sequels humanized the Xenomorph too much, making it lose its original mystique. I feel the same way. Being like humans means it can be understood, and its patterns and habits can be summarized, which makes it less scary. However, I can't deny that while the Xenomorph is given human qualities, it can also be given divine qualities.

Every director of an Alien sequel has studied the previous films in detail. Although they are all directors with distinct personal styles, they are, without exception, devoted fans of Alien. The problem is that the same horror elements can't scare the audience repeatedly, so they must break free from the shadow of the previous works. To do this, they must adopt strategies different from Scott's to make new attempts, even though this means they will risk challenging the audience.

As for Alien Resurrection... I'm sorry, but my conservative thoughts are somewhat preventing me from understanding Alien Resurrection. However, since I pride myself on being a devoted fan of the Alien series, I can't allow myself to just miss it.

As seen in the image above, the one on the left is called "The Newborn." Its birth process might sound a bit convoluted: it's a "thing"―I really can’t find a suitable word for it― artificially born from the Alien Queen that was a parasite in the body of Ripley's clone. The Newborn has the shared genes of Ripley and the Queen, but it's neither Xenomorph nor human, and calling it a monster doesn't seem quite right either.

After Alien Resurrection was released, many viewers criticized its overly erotic atmosphere, especially the interaction between Ripley and the Newborn, which was too ambiguous. However, viewers who have seen Amelie might better understand Jean-Pierre Jeunet. He's a director with many creative ideas. Although his ideas can sometimes seem nonsensical, they often serve a theme: connection.

If we remove our critical lenses, we'll find that Alien Resurrection is trying to explore the same question from beginning to end: as two completely different species, what relationship is there between humans and alien creatures?

Jeunet's charm lies in his effort to avoid forcing any preachy answers onto the audience. Instead, he prefers to create a space that allows us to engage in more thinking. The Newborn kills its birth mother, the Queen, yet shows a child-like dependence on Ripley. Ripley touches it, feels it, but she can’t truly accept it, though the Newborn has human shape and features, as well as Ripley's own genes. Ripley chooses to kill the Newborn, and the Newborn's face before death looks exactly like a child abandoned by its mother.

Behind this seemingly muddling scene are a series of questions: "What is 'motherhood'?", "What is 'human'?” And “What is 'alien'?"

Does Ripley have mother feelings for the Newborn? Certainly. Does Ripley have feelings for the Queen like a twin sister? Sure. Is Ripley confused about her feelings? Of course. For Jeunet, such emotions can't be described through language; perhaps the best approach is the most primitive one: touch. Just as we trigger our emotional chemical reactions by touching babies, pets, and lovers, Ripley also seeks answers for her strange feelings by touching the bodies of the Newborn and the Queen.

Jeunet's exploration can be described as fighting poison with poison. Through these bewildering and taboo-breaking questions, he thoroughly liberates the Alien series from the routines of action movies, but at the same time, he also thoroughly transitions the alien creature into a character figure. The Xenomorph is no longer a transcendent existence but is bound by emotions just like humans.

Still Alien, but More of Romulus

Almost all Alien fans are raving about Alien: Romulus, and so am I.

However, I don't fully agree with the statement "Romulus is a nostalgia-inducing approach to Alien." Indeed, Romulus allows many Alien fans to relive the pure horror they experienced when watching Alien for the first time, but this description is not a fair summary of Romulus.

Although the story of Romulus takes place between Alien and Aliens, we can see traits of almost all Alien series-related works in Romulus—whether in terms of settings, homage shots, or ideological aspects. The key is that Fede Alvarez didn't try to continue the series with a different approach like other sequel directors, but completely adapts himself into the Alien IP. He has no intention of shooting "Alvarez's Alien," but rather attempts to shoot another Alien that fully belongs to the Alien franchise.

Dear readers, you may notice that from Alien to Alien Resurrection, my love for the Alien series has always been inseparable from historical retrospection. Alien is now 45 years old, and when Alien Resurrection was released, I was less than two years old. No matter how we review classic works, we can never get exactly the same feeling as the audience then, even if we could travel back in time. Similarly, regardless of whether a work was recognized at the time or how later generations put it on a pedestal, it was dedicated to the people at the time of its release, not to us today.

So, although Scott himself highly praised Alvarez, Alvarez's target audience is not Scott. It can’t be Scott, nor anyone from Scott's era. Alvarez's target audience is us, every young person today who is beginning to awaken and realize the injustice, regret, and imperfection of this world. The thing that every such young person wants to do most is to transcend their original fate.

To serve this target audience, Alvarez adopted a casting strategy that is seemingly different from that of previous directors but similar in essence: a group of young people at the bottom of the social power structure, crushed by the tide of the times, yet still wanting to live a decent life. The protagonist in Romulus, Rain, dreams of seeing the sun again, and it is not just her own dream, but the dream of all young people in our current era who are disappointed with life and want to see hope again. Rain's attachment to Andy, this outdated android, is not just a fantasy about whether humans can develop feelings for artificial intelligence, but our inability to let go of our dependence on our family even when we truly have the chance to be fully independent.

If Andy, a robot made of steel and circuits, can age, how much more so our parents of flesh-and-blood?

The horror in Romulus is essentially our fear of failing to transcend. Just as the Xenomorph can either silently approach us or emit a scream that makes us tremble, the difficulties in life can be either silently haunting or deafening to us.

Of course, the charm of Romulus is far more than this, but if I write any more, it might be as long as a book. Thank you very much for reading this article that's almost like a monologue. It’s just that I really love the Alien series too much.

Salute to Alvarez,

The Super Fan of the Alien series, signing off.