Why Alien Romulus Isn't What You Think

it's been a long time coming but finally there is a brand new alien movie coming to screens later this year and we've just gotten our first trailer for it directed by fed Alvarez who Helm the 2013 Evil Dead film and 2016's cult favorite don't breathe alien Romulus looks to be bringing all the gutsy shock value that made Alvarez's past Horrors so buzzworthy as well as some intriguing callbacks to Ridley Scott's alien and James Cameron's aliens what is up everyone I hope you're all doing okay and aren't stuck in a space station some over a bunch of Xenomorphs and face huggers I'm youan you're watching W culture and it's time to dive into the trailer for alien Romulus and one of the film itself is shaping up to be something a little bit different than what you may have initially expected first a little context following the release of alien Covenant in 2017 and Jesus God I can't believe it's been that long ago the general expectation was that the next alien movie would come from Ridley Scott once again and be a direct continu ation of the prequel storyline with David and the engineers eventually taking us into the events of the first alien this didn't happen for a couple of reasons one being that Covenant underwhelmed at the box office and the other being the Disney Fox merger I really like Prometheus in Covenant so for the record I'm pretty boned we didn't get to see more of David um doing this I'll do the fingering but whatever it's a new era for the series and we've got some more aliens to look forward to see from the guy responsible for this you're so loud you pathetic neat Romulus itself or what would become Romulus was announced in 2022 as an unconnected spin-off headed up by Alvarez the plan was for it to come to streaming rather than theaters but it seems as if Disney looked at what they did with prey and finally realized hey this stuff should really be on the big screen which means this will be landing in cinus this August a huge win for all of us as far as I'm concerned even better though is that while it had been speculated that Romulus would be a standalone movie Alvarez hon revealed that this isn't actually the case apart from the trailer itself placed in the film spiritually in step with both Scar and Cameron's entries we now know that Romulus is an interquel set in between the events of both of them two the synopsis as per The Hollywood Reporter is that the movie focuses on quote a group of 20s something space colonizers and scavengers who have the misfortune of meeting a xenomorph inside a dilapidated space station M tasty Alvarez has said the inspiration behind this premise came from Aliens and the idea of people spending their whole lives commuting in space or waiting for a planet in terraform as well as his own experiences growing up in Uruguay on both a stylistic and law front romulus's placement is very deliberate which you can easily gather from the trailer itself this callbacks to both the ice at horror of Scots alien and Cameron's fastpaced and action heavy aliens you have the replication of the sound effects from the original alien teaser which is like the best trailer ever by the way and a similar space vessel setting but also multiple face huggers and a shot of Kaylee spany wielding an early gen pulse rifle alert sour Weaver's Ripley in Aliens there are also trailer clues that more heavily hint at the importance of romulus's placement in the aliens timeline speaking to the movie podcast on YouTube and it's a really good interview that you should go check out for yourself Alvarez discussed how these settings sees a mixture of all the technology from Alien and new attack seen in Aliens the space station called the Renaissance is comprised of two modules the Remis which is an all generation craft of the kind seen in alien and the Romulus which is newer and closer to those builds seen in Cameron's sequel the title also has some interesting significance in that same interview Alvarez discusses how references to the Roman Empire are embedded into the deep Cannon of alien with whan utani the myth of Romulus and Remis is a creation story behind the city of Rome of two divinely conceived brothers who feed from a She Wolf and eventually rise to become its Founders however Reus attempts to kill Romulus and is killed himself by Romulus Alvarez has drawn an explicit connection between this myth and the story of alien of mortal stealing the power of an aggressive creature and things not exactly going according to plan and has also revealed that the film is a quote unquote story of siblinghood with both literal and figurative siblings comprising the cast and locales of the film and speaking of the cast that voice you hear at the beginning of the trailer is Isabella mad and alvz has teas that the dialogue in question is connected to a scene that made the crew queasy while shooting he said he's tried to replicate the feeling of raw shock that the chess burster scene had for audiences in 79 and given his track record I'm going to take his word for it that it's going to be gnarly as hell even that brief snippet of the face Huger attracting is just not pleasant also just as a last note from that interview and the connections between mongus and Aliens alfarez revealed that he had called Cameron early in the production process to discuss the another bug hunt line from Aliens no clue if this will have any bearing on the finished film but hey thought it was interesting to Spotlight all the same another interesting thing in romulus's favor is how practical effects driven it actually is all this isn't me saying that all CGI is bad because that's just a panle false statement to make we're all smart enough to know that part of what made alien and Aliens so grungy and piercing was how tangible it all was the sets miniatures costuming and puppeteering all contributed to its inimitable place in pop culture and it seems as if Alvarez is acutely aware of this speaking to The Hollywood Reporter the director revealed that they actually brought back many of the folks who worked on the original alien to develop the VFX on Romulus which is really cool there's no green screen all the sets have been built and alareas himself even got the chance to pueter some of the animatronics with his team while shooting which again really cool all of this the love and admiration for the first two Alien films wanting to find a space between them in the franchise Cannon and wanting to replicate their technical successes is all apparent in the trailer for Romulus which clocks in at just about a minute in length but packs in plenty when it comes to Intrigue the aforementioned audio of mad is blood curdling and not going to lie I'm kind of terrified at the hyping up this woman as much as they are because I know this dude is not full as bunches I'm also really curious to see just how connected this one is to the first two films for something that was initially announced as a standalone feature it's not really a question I expected to be asking but now I'm already jumping into my franchise timelines and thinking about what it could all add up to either way if the whole appeal of alien is existential Terror a Humanity leaving Beyond its boundaries and discovering something unfathomably ugly then Alvarez seems to be tapping into that Vibe quite nicely the tea is deliberately guarded giving us only scan glimpses of the face huggers and one xenomorph to go off but that's the way it probably should be alien works best when it's about the fear of the unknown and right now I am definitely doing just that because I have no clue what this one has up its sleeve if I could raise a couple of slight concerns though I do hope this isn't the case of just smooshing alien and Aliens together and getting a slightly derivative familiar feeling sandwich one of the best things about this Series has been that each director has placed their own unique stamp on its approach and feel from scar through to Cameron Fincher and jeanpierre Jun I would hope that Alvarez's film will transcend franchise revery and Deliver us something uniquely him and indeed if glowing endorsements from Scott and Cameron are to be believed then that is the case the trailer did feel like it was playing the nostalgic beats again right down to the Ripley adjacent closer it ends with in any case I'm remaining cautiously optimistic I'm one of those freaks who enjoys every alien movie so I'm sure there'll be something in here for media excited by but let me know your thoughts down in the comments below were you still planning for either Scott movie with David or is this the most interesting direction to take the franchise also did you catch any Easter eggs in the trailer alien fans do your thing that's all for now though enj the video like And subscribe to World culture if you haven't already so you don't hear the creepy alien trailer noise for the rest of the day and I'll hopefully catch you next time bye

Channel: WhatCulture

Views: 131,242

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Id: 8_DGCd0tEmI

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2024