Music. Hello, welcome to the extra
credits of the Alien Cinematic Universe and Fete Alvarez's
Alien Romulus. I'm Trey.
And I'm Kelsey. This is the beginning to our
Alien August series. Let's go.
Yeah, I'm so excited at the time is finally here to talk about
one of the biggest disappointments of 2024, Alien
Romulus. We're going to be deep diving
this movie today, so we'll talk about things that worked for
Alien Romulus fans. But if you felt a little bit,
you know, conflicted, maybe had some challenging feelings about
Romulus, Same. And we're going to get into
that. But I am just excited to be
finally talking about the Alien franchise once again because in
Alien August, we're going to be getting into James Cameron's
Aliens probably next weekend. So very soon on the feed you'll
be seeing that. And at the end of August, around
my birthday time hitting thirty, yeah, we're going to be talking
about two of our favorite sci-fi epics of the last decade or so,
Prometheus and Alien Covenant. I cannot wait.
I know it's going to be a huge Xenomorph month, but it's also
going to be a huge David month. Yeah, I well, he is arguably one
of the best characters in the Alien franchise, but for sure
also in sci-fi in general. Like he is one of my favorite
characters in fiction. Yeah, no, it's a good take,
especially for 21st century sci-fi.
He has to be up there. It is a crime that Fassbender
never got the Oscar for what he did.
And Prometheus or Covenant. Yeah, so good.
We just talked about Walter too. Walter.
So on Patreon right now we are
running a limited, a free membership series where you can
have access to four deep dives we've covered on there.
So if you go in the description of this episode, you can sign up
for our Patreon as a free member, no cost at all, and
you'll have access to four episodes.
And one of those episodes is a really big deal for our Alien
August, which is Ridley Scott's Alien.
We did over two hours of a deep dive on that movie.
It's I thought you. Were going to say a really big
deal for me. It is a really big deal for me
because I don't know if I could like we're going to have to re
record that episode because I remember recording it in the
moment being like, there's so much stress I have for no reason
outside of this just being my favorite movie and I feel like
I'm messing it up at the top. But it was a good episode.
And then we talked about Silence of the Lambs and Ex Machina and
Midsummer and three other deep dives.
So listeners, if you're not a free member on Patreon right
now, you'll have access to like 10 hours of conversation over.
Those four movies, you can see what we're doing over there.
Yeah, and that's until August 31st or Alien August.
So back to Alien Romulus. This movie is a massive hit.
It's made over $100 million worldwide.
It is a blockbuster hit. I don't know if anybody saw this
coming because this movie was supposed to be straight to
streaming, straight to Hulu. I'm really glad we got to see
you in theaters. I'm glad it's in theaters wide
too. That's awesome.
I'm glad it's not some stupid Netflix limited, you know,
release or I'm happy that 20th Century Studios and I guess
Disney now decided to send it to theaters.
But mostly I'm happy because it's doing so well, which means
that we could have a Ridley Scott and to the David trilogy.
Yeah, I mean, that's what I was going to say because both of us
weren't, you know, in love with this movie when we left.
We are big Alien franchise fans and we'll talk about why.
And I also get why people did enjoy it.
But regardless, I think people should go see it in the theaters
one because it has set pieces that are cool to see in the
theaters. But if you are maybe like, you
know, after you listen to us in our non spoiler section and
you're like, I still don't know if I should go, you know, see
this take my take my night to go watch this still go just to
support seeing David on screen again because.
We're just to support us to be able to go see David.
Like if you don't even care about, for me it's government
and you like this show, like just go pay the 15 bucks to go
see the movie so that we can have it one day.
We appreciate it. So we can see Michael Fassbender
and what if really, Scott? He said he had three more in
him, right? I think he said he originally
wanted to make it a 5 movie series after Prometheus, and I
don't think he wanted to call any of them alien.
That's just something he did with Covenant and to put some
more aliens in there. And he kind of expedited the
glue, turning the goo turning into xenomorphs and David's
experiments and all those things.
But I don't want to spoil too much for listeners who haven't
checked those films out. They are fantastic and they were
much better than Romulus. But yeah, I think he originally
was like, let's do five. We have it in US, and I'm just
happy with the two. But if we can get a third, that
would be sick. Yeah.
So let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about our love and
relationship to the Alien universe outside of some
franchises we grew up with and have a lot of childhood
nostalgia for, like Harry Potter, for example, or even
Star Wars to a certain extent. I think the Alien Blade Runner,
I'm going to include Blade Runner and we'll get to why
later. That universe is probably our
favorite serious adult coded franchise.
You know, it's not because there's so many franchises and
this is just maybe the the formula of making franchise
films and now legacy sequels. They are so directed at all
audiences, like all ages. Like Marvel or something.
Right. And I have a love for, you know,
MCU, MCU movies or Star Wars films or Star Trek or whatever.
But there is a level of kind of like it's for everyone there.
There's a universal quality that almost brings down that kind of
like individuality of each new movie a part of a franchise.
An alien is known for hiring a tour film makers, getting new
sets and crews every new movie except for the Ridley Scott
films which we love so much, and really bringing out its own
distinct identity and its own vision of what the original film
is trying to say or even James Camerons movie.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting it because you know,
when you watch the like Alien, like four of the movies, they
all feel wildly different. But yeah, I love the Alien
franchise because it's not just a horror movie, right?
Yeah, where sometimes you have to, like, pull out ideas or
things that are interesting, right?
But they might also not be there or intentional.
Yeah. But with Alien, like it's very
intentional of who the villain is.
And that's like the corporation. Right.
Always. Yeah, and also it's a workplace,
like drama, horror. Well, those are the best ones,
yeah. I think when it gets away from
that and is when the series starts lacking and I think
forgetting what the original Alien was so good at and why
people kept coming back to it and still come back to it.
Yeah. Because you're seeing human
conflict, yes, more realistically in that specific
setting where like it is life or death and it's also a work
mission. So it's like personal interest
or the company's interest or collective interest.
Like those are all questions that Alien has versus like a
bunch of teenagers showing up at a haunted house, which is
essentially what Alien Romulus is and possibly a reason that I
was more low on it because of why I have a relationship to the
Alien universe even for the lower ones on my list.
Yeah, so I agreed. I think this franchise has legs
and has lived on as a legendary one because people keep coming
back to this universe for a few timeless aspects.
One being the obvious HR Giger creation of the slasher from
space, which is the Xenomorph and all of its evolutionary
stages, which we'll get to today.
And the kind of the the movie kind of mutation of the
Xenomorph is fascinating as the movies go on.
And then also what you're saying the nightmare funhouse on a
spaceship that ensues in almost every film because of that
creature. And then I think people come
back to these films for those things, right?
But also for the ideas. I think there is a distinct
thematic vision that most of the Alien movies have.
Yeah, that make them this incredible crossover of
entertaining spectacle or claustrophobic spectacle with
like these mean dark conceptual provocations.
Yeah, that you just really can't find in a lot of franchises.
You can find it in a lot of individual sci-fi movies or
horror movies, but not in a lot of movies that really try to
elongate that original story. And for some reason, this one
just. Works.
Sure. Yeah, and a lot of science
fiction that is popular in film franchises focuses more on
morality as a focus or like, you know, a heroic figure.
And while we do obviously have Ripley and Dave, no, I'm just
kidding. David.
David's a iconic villain of the. Protagonist of Prometheus and
Covenant. But but and I think that, you
know, you don't have like someone who is inherently like
the person who you're supposed to be rooting for and like this
reluctant hero in the same way that feels kind of cheesy that I
still love in other franchises. But there is, I think, just what
you're saying, like this cold, right, like atmosphere of being
in space, of questioning, like what is what do we attach to the
characteristics of humanity like with replicants and the Blade
Runner extension? So yeah.
I mean, it's this interesting exploration of both class and
mortality and like what these wealthy corporations and the
tyrants that rule them are willing to do to people through
exploitation of Labor to acquire more and more power to them,
basically become immortal. That's like the through line of
the franchise. Yeah.
Like you're watching a Xenomorph, you're watching
people fight it, and you're watching an Android in the
periphery somewhere, and then not realizing until the end of
the movie that most of that stuff was a red herring, though
very exciting because the real villain of the story is Mother.
You know, Like it is the ship, it is the corporation, it's
Waylon Utani or whatever the company is and whatever film
we're in. So that's always the most
brilliant part of this franchise when I come back to it.
And it's always the thing that I find most fascinating in terms
of the way that other directors read the original IP of this
franchise. Because Ridley Scott obviously
understands it best conceptually, and that's why he
comes back to it with Prometheus about this kind of like mythic
storytelling. But also using these like this
juxtaposition of this like tyrant colonist with this
religious zealot as the protagonist versus the
antagonist. And not realizing that these two
characters are like two sides of the same coin, sort of.
And trying to reach immortality or have some kind of purpose to
their accidental human lives is just fascinating.
It's a fascinating read on this franchise, which is why we love
Prometheus so much and the extension of that and Covenant.
But then it's so interesting and Romulus and now we can get to
Romulus. I think for non spoilers at at
least for right now that Freddy Alvarez is like, let's just take
all the good stuff from all those alien movies and let's
just put them in one film, but make it feel more like
Cameron's, you know, escapist action movie.
And even take out the trauma theme of that movie or the kind
of post Vietnam theme of that movie.
And let's just kind of get these these young people in a gooney
situation where they're just trying to get something, some
kind of treasure, and they need to escape from their world
because it's falling apart. Yeah, Yeah.
I think also I guess before what we should say we're going to get
into Romulus with non spoilers right now.
But I I think that something with Romulus that I'm definitely
interested to talk about and a reason why it maybe is one of
the least compelling Alien movies that I've seen has to do
with why I love the Alien movies and what I come to them for.
And it's not like where I'm trying to be pretentious and
like, you know, oh, like the Alien movies have so many ideas
and they're so important. I'm just like, no, like they're
doing better than most movies, like in in Hollywood, right?
They're also really strange and weird blockbusters, like the
fact that Ridley Scott got $200 million to make Prometheus,
which is essentially a question asking the audience, what if you
met God and God wanted to kill you, and then you also made
something that could kill you. And God, which is David, is so
cool. Like, it's so strange and weird
and bizarre. And I don't know if it could
happen today, but maybe, you know, with the success of
Romulus, it can. Yeah.
And so I think I come to the the franchise looking for those
original themes that Ridley Scott was interested in, right,
in creating Alien and also that he is very interested in in
Covenant and Prometheus. But part of that also has to do
with the kind of villains or the corporations at the the center
as like a villainous figure. But it's not where it's kind of,
you know, like a villain that feels like a Marvel villain,
right? Where we see like a a different
person kind of represent similar themes.
Like, you know, you see people like pop up again and again of
Marvel, they feel like similar people or we're just kind of
like killing the same villain kind.
Of thing, they're almost like Mac Guffins.
They create, they create some kind of like that's the
technical dilemma for our protagonist that's so basic.
And the morals are always very binary, except for the best
villains obviously. Yeah, obviously.
But I think like in, you know, the Alien universe, we have
really fascinating iterations of the company.
Like Tyrell is a little bit different than Wallace and is a
little bit different than Wayland.
And like, I think that's so fascinating and fun and love
that a horror movie is actually focused on like labor
exploitation as the true horror, but it's still a monster movie.
And I usually actually don't really love monster movies, but
I love Aliens so much. And I so I think like, like I
understand though, why people feel similar to us who come to
the alien movies for those themes.
They're like interested in what does this movie have to say?
Right? What is this director kind of
going to do with this, this storyline?
And then, you know, some people genuinely just come to the alien
movies with like, this is a monster movie.
These are fun horror movies like I, you know, people who love
aliens dollar sign, but aliens I I get that too.
You know what I mean? If you're like, I just like
these movies for the thrills, then you'll probably like alien
Romulus more. And that's not like a
pejorative, you know, take I'm not judging anyone if you just
enjoy horror movies, but I but the reason I didn't like Romulus
is because it lacked where I have expectations around the
franchise because I think it's what makes it special.
Absolutely. I mean, this was simultaneously
my most anticipated movie experience of the summer.
Like I was so ready to get into Romulus and just watch this
movie. Like when you got your
surgeries, I was counting the months.
I was like, because I mean, I'm supporting, I'm getting Kelsey.
I'm hoping Kelsey get through this but I was like doing the
days like can Kelsey get to this theater with.
Can I see Romulus? And it worked out and I was so
excited and I was thinking, wow, this might be the first movie
you see. But we actually saw a few other
movies. We just saw Trap two nights ago,
which was one of the best movies of the summer.
Certainly better. Than Romulus.
But. But not.
But I don't want to just say that though, because like there
were elements of Romulus that I enjoyed more obviously as a
major kind of blockbuster that it is.
Yeah. But I mean, Strap was like a
very specific kind of cheesy good.
It knew what it was, though. It had a vision, OK, that's
fine. It knew what it was.
And Romulus feels like we are everything.
And that's what's wrong with franchise filmmaking today.
Like we are doing all of the movies.
Yeah, and we're. About to get into that, but
like, yeah, I was trying to say this is my most anticipated
movie of the summer while also being the movie that I had the
lowest expectations for thematically.
Like I knew what I was getting into because I knew Fede Alvarez
was taking on this film. I know he got the nod of
approval from Ridley Scott, who I think did that for more
financial reasons than anything else, I would assume, which
we'll we'll get to at the end of this episode.
But for people don't who don't know Alvarez David movie to make
his David film. Yeah, I think Alvarez and his
crew have worked on franchise work, right?
They did a sequel to Fincher's adaptation of The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo. That bombed.
They did the remake of Evil Dead in 2013, which has incredible
set pieces, looks pretty good. Acting is really tough.
Character writing is really tough.
I don't think it totally works. And now, you know, he has the
Alien franchise. And I was exciting.
I was excited for his sensibilities, which I guess I
would call punishing. Like he's really good punishing
the audience in funny ways. And I think he did bring a
distinct look, I think, to the alien movie, and he brought a
feel to this universe that was his own and his cruise.
But I did feel like he kept going back to this push and pull
between this escapism action of aliens and I'm not reducing
aliens. It has ideas and we'll we'll
talk about that movie next week. But this escapism of aliens, it
is very blockbuster centric and almost campy and how much you
know, you know, these characters are going to die.
There's like a meta irony when you're watching and then the
nihilism of alien three that like everything's cold,
everything's dead. This plan, it's like, you know,
being laid to waste, everyone's being exploited.
And then the self-destructive energy of Alien Covenant is
that's the movie that I thought when Alien Romulus was at its
best, it was getting close to Alien Covenant.
And I think, yeah, people forget because the Alien Covenant, it
was like seven or eight years ago now.
We just watched it a couple nights ago, that when people are
like, we need a brutal alien movie.
It's been so long, someone. Gets their jaw taken.
Out, I mean guys like the spine burster, the chin burster or
mouth burst or whatever. Like it is insane.
There's a few set pieces in that movie that feels like the way
that people are expecting the Fete Alvarez Alien movie.
Like Scott already did that in Covenant.
You know what I mean? That movie's darkest shit
visually, and I think people just maybe forget because they
were so low on the Prometheus vibe of what Alien Covenant was
trying to do. Sure.
Yeah. I think like, before we get into
spoilers, I'll give people a sell of what I did like and then
some things that I didn't for the reason that that you were
just talking about. I guess since you were just
talking about what you didn't like.
I'll start there. I I think that this movie is
very much a monster movie, a haunted house, kind of like
don't breathe movie, right? That Feta Alvarez is like
bringing to this universe, which I think is interesting.
But again, I just personally don't really care about kids in
space in a a traditional horror movie or like an Evil Dead kind
of set because I don't care if if you don't make me make me
care about the kids or the characters.
It's certainly unique. It feels kind of like you
haven't. Seen 20 somethings in space with
xenomorph before. Right.
But it feels like, you know, you could do it in a, a way where
there are stakes. And of course, like, you know,
people who are listening to this, who have seen it, they're
like, there are stakes, you know, like they need to get off
the planet. OK.
But we don't really get to know any of the characters very well.
Or I there was a particular death that happened and I
literally thought to myself, I wish I cared.
Like I it's not the the reason that a monster movie is
interesting in like Covenant is because I really care about
those characters and even if I don't like them, I think they're
interesting. Like I think especially the
married couple kind of approach, right?
And them having like interest for their partner but also the
mission. It's a great moral conflict.
You have self-interest in your partner, but have this
collective mission as a ship going to colonize.
Right. And who are are we going to have
a like this collective responsibility for the people on
our ship? Are we just going to do this
like for us? And you have this menacing David
presence over the whole movie. Like that movie is a monster
movie to me. It covenant, but it does it
successfully because I care about the characters who are
getting killed by that monster. And unfortunately, besides like
maybe one or two characters and maybe just one character, I
don't really care. And I know that the people are
going to be killed because of the kind of more traditional,
like teen, right, you know, horror trope of it all.
Right. Yeah.
The, the person who's pregnant, the person who's being an
asshole, right, The two people who are in a relationship.
It also broke up for, you know, ambiguous reasons that are still
not clear after seeing the movie.
Yeah, I think what some listeners who like Romulus might
be thinking, and, and I maybe can speak to those people for a
second, is, well, you're not talking about Romulus, you're
comparing it to a bunch of other Alien movies.
And I would say that's fair normally as a criticism of our
criticism. But if you watch this movie and
you've seen the Alien franchise, then I think you have to walk
away from this at the very least being like, I had a fun time.
It was entertaining and moments. But you have to like locate that
this movie is struggling with an identity.
It's struggling to have a vision because there's not a ton of
originality here outside of a few set pieces that are cool and
we can get to those. But I do think weirdly, even
though this movie did a good job in its budget for only being
like $80 million, and now it's probably going to make, you
know, well over 200 the next few weeks, which is great.
Happy for the franchise, but I really felt it lacked
originality. You know, I really felt like it
was pulling a lot from lore of all the other movies and if it
had any ideas, it was playing with ideas that other movies
like it was alluding to past films ideas.
Yeah, but in in it was like, there are movies that I don't
love in the Alien franchise, but I at least respect the swing,
right? Like there's an ambition to a
lot of. Pictures Alien Three comes to
mind where he's like, you know, we're going to do something
crazy with Rip with Ripley at the end of this.
Movie right, but this movie feels pure fan service like in
the choices that it makes and it it just feels cheap like in that
aspect and then because again like the aspect of not caring
about the characters as much for me and then and then just having
set pieces I I really like the set pieces like more than Trey.
I also am in like this place with my surgery of like when I
go to the movies 'cause I can't go to the movies that much or
like I need Trey to drive me places.
I'm like, I'm happy to be here. You know what I mean?
I'm. I'm just happy to see something.
On the screen, I have some snacks, you know, so I'm a
little bit more positive on everything than Dre probably
right now. But I do think that the set
pieces were really interesting and really cool.
Like they were things that will stay in my memory from the Alien
franchise. I just wish that I cared about
the characters going through those set pieces and then I
would be like, whoa, that movie was great.
But I think just relying on the set pieces, which we will talk
about in detail, like there were some really cool ones and cool
images to really beef up certain parts of the story or alien
iconography, it just still felt like I couldn't get there
ultimately. Yeah, totally.
I get it. All right.
So quick timeline Alien Romulus takes place between Ridley
Scott's Alien and James Camerons Aliens.
I think there's about 20 years separating those two movies in
the Alien timeline. So really, like Romulus takes
place like a decade after Ellen Ripley's event on the Nostromo.
If anybody's interested in the Blade Runner of it all, Ridley
Scott has confirmed multiple times at this point.
And, you know, supplemental features on movies but also in
interviews that Blade Runner is in fact, in the universe of
Alien. And if you really want to, you
know, check for evidence in the films, there is iconography
across Blade Runner and the Alien films that proves that
these movies are in the same world or in the same universe,
which is fascinating. So that means that Blade Runner,
the Ridley Scott film, the Dini Villeneuve film, Blader under
2049, obviously Prometheus and Covenant are all prequels to the
original Alien and therefore kind of prequels to Alien
Romulus, right? Or at least like legacy
prequels. Like, they're not narrative
prequels, if you will, but they are within the same universe,
which does help build context for what these movies do in the
future. And I think it's helpful to
think about them in that way. Yeah, well, I think, you know,
when you're going into Romulus, you're going with the
expectations of what you've seen in those movies and in, you
know, some sense it's obviously obvious, probably daunting to a
a film maker. And so I try not to be too
harsh, but because it did feel like there was like a lack of
the ideas that were in those prequels and it felt more like
the like, well, I guess what is its sequels, you know, of like
Alien then? And also you like are playing
with the imagery and details of those prequels, but only as a
fan service way. Again, not Yeah.
Like that felt really sad. I was it.
Was sad. Yeah, I was sad watching this
movie. I guess let's get into spoilers.
A huge spoiler warning for the rest of the podcast.
If you even seen this movie, go support it so we can see David
play the flute again. Once, once again on.
The screen once again. Yeah, this movie, I got
depressed watching it like halfway through.
I know that's dramatic. I know it's hyperbolic.
By by the end of the film, I was like, fuck this movie.
And I say that as a fan, not as like a movie critic or whatever
the hell we do here. I'm not saying it from like my
movie head. I'm saying it from like as a as
a kid who grew up being inspired by movies through films like
Alien and then, you know, in my high school years with
Prometheus, to see this movie do what it does with the imagery of
those two films specifically, you know, with the Xenomorph,
obviously the original one from the Nostromo and then the
Engineer in the black goo. I was like, are you serious?
Yeah, the Prometheus stuff was off putting.
So let's get into it. All right, so this movie opens
up with an Alien Three opener with 20th Century Studios and
maybe listeners. You can check that out on
YouTube in between this episode. But it was so cool, so sick.
You didn't do it with me. Well, I didn't really.
I didn't know exactly. I contacted you the whole time.
I didn't know if you're gonna do the whole like 2.
There was only two. Of them, but I love the I love
the glitch, you know I'm I really love anytime a studio
basically takes the theme and turns it into their logo.
It's so dope. So we get a shot of space and
it's silent and I was convinced something was wrong with our
sound in the theater. I was pissed.
I was like, Oh no, this is a big time where this is like opening
night of the Alien film and I haven't seen one of these in
like 7 or eight years. And then we spot in the middle
of space A ship slowly coming into our vision that was like
almost, it was like hiding in the vastness of space and the
stars we were looking at. And immediately I was like, wow,
original imagery, original tone and vibe and the cutting out of
sound and then seeing the camera pan into the ship through the
windows and then seeing the ship turn on and getting all those
like cutaways to different parts of the ship turning on.
We have those yellow, orange hued, you know, the controlled
center, all the buttons are going off.
We see the mother. I think it was just so
satisfying. Like the original Alien has such
incredible sound design of computer noises going off.
And I was like, wow, immediately, Feta Alvarez, this
is your franchise. Like this is your movie.
You understood the assignment. You established a vibe
immediately in an atmosphere. Immediately.
I was so thankful. Everything was tactile,
industrial, real. I was like, here we go.
Claustrophobia, class commentaries.
We're probably going to get right into it.
And I was I was convinced that after we saw this opening, the
first few minutes that we were going to open to Kaylee Spainy
sleeping on the ship because of my mind, I was like, this is
going to be a nightmare fun house from a film maker who
loves Alien, who Ridley Scott is like promoting, you know what I
mean? And instead what we see, and
this is where I I felt like I went from elevating from my seat
to crashing down to the ground. Through the ground.
We see a xenomorph like rock, you know.
Correct me if I'm wrong here. Floating in space.
Freeze dried Xenomorph. Yeah, somehow the ship takes it
in. And much like Emperor Palpatine
in the Rise of the Skywalker movie, where he returns somehow
like the originals, you know, more from the Nostromo has
returned. You know what I mean?
And I literally was like, this is not going to be good.
I can understand some people being like, that's kind of sick.
They're using the same character from the original alien.
For me, I was like, that's the one thing I didn't want you to
do. I didn't want you to touch past
characters. Because everyone's talking about
how like Ash has returned as Rook.
To me, that wasn't even the most like questionable narrative
choice they made. Maybe like CGI and all that
stuff. We can get into that later.
But the question, the most questionable narrative choice of
this movie was to bring back the slasher from the original film
from space, where it made me feel like I was watching Jason
Goes to Space like Jason Voorhees or like Michael Myers
movie, You know what I mean? Does that make sense?
So what was, how was, what were you feeling, 'cause I'm, I'm
talking about this movie at the beginning, like I was going to
love this film that I immediately went to being so
skeptical of it. I was happy to be there.
I no, no, I, I feel like, I think the space sequence is
something that I'm used to seeing in an Alien movie, like
feeling like we are really just establishing that we are in this
different world. And then when we saw the kind of
almost like Jurassic Park, right vibe of taking this alien from
space and we see the the kind of mold right of it.
And it feels like these scientists are within the
Jurassic Park world of like, maybe discovering something but
not knowing the power of it. Like I I was just kind of
consuming it like that. I didn't have a problem with
them bringing back the previous Xenomorph, like the one that was
shot from the airlock. I was just like, OK, this is
something that is going to restart the story.
So we're obviously going to get into the Alien very quick that
that was my first take, but we didn't totally, but I didn't
have as much of an issue with it.
I was just like, OK, this is just a part of us getting into
the story quicker. And I still gave it room, OK, to
to make its own story. And when we then cut to like the
Disney set of right, this planet where Kaylee Spaney is on, I was
like, like, interesting. It felt so just like a Disney
set, right? It felt like what you see on the
Star Wars TV shows. It felt like how we watched the
trailer for a Marvel movie before this and it felt like,
why does it feel like everything Disney's making in terms of a
superhero or sci-fi feels like made for TV?
Like it just feels like I'm looking at plastic.
I was gonna say the same thing. Yeah.
Because I'm realizing right away we still have like an hour left
at this episode that we are having.
We have completely different vibes right now.
I'm just going to say that like, I'm going to be more extra about
not liking this movie. That's very clear from your
reaction to being like, I was fine with the Xenomorph.
I took that seriously. Like I was going to throw hands
with whoever decided to do that. Yeah.
OK. Before we jump in the Kaylee
Spanny of it all, I think my last point about the whole
Xenomorph thing, maybe what amplified my frustration with it
was that they like took black goo out of it.
OK, and then made the black goo. The ambiguous kind of like this
power of life and death from Prometheus and and Covenant
seems so basic. It's just inside all the
xenomorphs. Or you can recreate it whatever
the hell they did in the lab at the end of the movie.
Yeah, the lab felt cheesy. Like it felt like a Disney movie
or something like when we were growing up, like Disney
original, like movies. I mean, I don't know that harsh,
but like it did feel like here is black goo and here the
experiments we're doing. Like it just felt like to ABC,
you know? So we went home and rewatched
Prometheus after seeing Romulus. And the first thing that I
pointed out when we see the Engineer take the black goo and
basically make life on Earth, I think it's what we're watching
at the beginning of Prometheus. Yeah.
I thought, wow, Like Damon, Damon Lindelof and John Spates,
who would later become the writer of Deneval Nov's Dune,
who wrote the Prometheus screenplay, who wrote it with
apparently Ridley Scott, like, drinking wine and smoking
cigars, yelling things at them. That's what they said to put
things in the script. And I watched Prometheus
thinking, wow, this is how you make a sequel.
Like, people, people hate Ridley Scott, right?
Or you just like them. Fine.
More like a prequel you mean? Yeah, I'm a prequel sequel, a
prequel sequel. And one thing I think you have
to give Ridley Scott credit for is that he could have easily
done what we saw in Romulus back in 2012 with Prometheus, right?
But instead he takes old IP and he's like, I'm, I'm going even
bigger, we're going even greater.
We're going crazier. Just ambitious and bold.
I just want to remind people about that because it was so
easy to just bring back Palpatine, the xenomorph, if you
will. You know what I mean?
It's just the most basic thing you can do, isn't it?
It's kind of basic screen writing.
Anyways, we can get to the. Most basic thing that you can do
is just like continuously only use like things that we've seen
before and then make them into new set pieces.
I know there is obviously a different monster at the end,
but it just felt so cheap and like the fourth act, similar to
how I, you know, feel about the emotional connection I have to
the excitement of the fourth act of Aliens.
Like, I actually think Aliens is really fun.
I love seeing like the Nest. I think there's a lot of cool
elements to that. But I lose a lot of steam once
we get back on that ship and she has to like, fight Queen.
Mother. The 4th act.
Yeah. Which Romulus has a fourth act
problem as well. Unless you like the movie, then
it doesn't. OK, so basically we learned that
a Wayland Yutani probe investigated the, I guess,
wreckage of the Nostromo, It collected the Xenomorph, and it
brought it back for testing. We cut to our lead character,
Rain, who's sleeping. That's played by Kaylee Spain.
What did you think about Kaylee Spainey in this film?
Because obviously she's had a pretty big year and a half with
Priscilla and then she had Civil War and now she has this movie.
What do you think about this performance?
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that I really liked her and Priscilla,
and I liked her OK In Civil War, I think there was a lot of just
conflict for me, like watching the acting and the writing,
because I felt like their lines were strange.
And I even with like Kirsten Dunst or something like I felt
the acting because the lines didn't feel like authentic.
Yeah, I felt a little forced. Yeah, and so that was just like
the nature of that movie. But Kaylee Spaney in this role,
while I like when she was cast, I was like cool because I liked
the subtle things that she was able to do in terms of
portraying emotion, but not really having to say much in a
movie. Like Priscilla didn't totally
translate here for me. And that has to do with all the
writing. For all the characters, yeah.
Frankly, for all the characters, David Johnson.
Doing what he can with the Android and a really, you know.
Cool, even though he's the best part of this movie.
Yeah. Yeah, he brings a new element to
androids, which is hard to do because we've seen some of the
best actors play right synthetic figures, and it does a good job.
But there's like a line in particular that Kaylee Spaney
says at the very beginning where I was like, oh, no.
She says something like, so is this wait, is it going to work,
this plan of yours? And it's like looking down.
And I was like, that's just so. Tough.
Is that when she goes to look at the bird in the cage outside on
the on the planet? I forget it's before they leave
the planet. Yeah, I think we're talking
about the same sequence. Yeah, but it was just tough
because I was introduced to this world and it felt so artificial.
And I also felt like all the teens I was meeting felt like
they did not know each other, right?
Like, it was a lot of tough things.
I think it's the writing in the direction because that was true
and Evil Dead. I just rewatched Evil Dead about
a week ago, and all the set pieces in gore was a lot, very
excessive, very hyper violent, which some people love that
stuff. I'm fine with it, I guess.
Don't love it if there's not a really serious idea attached to
it. And I think there was some stuff
about like sobriety and addiction, but the acting in the
character work was really tough. Yeah.
And the writing was really poor. And I think that was felt here
as well with the characters, the lack of development, but even
the dialogue between characters. Yeah.
So yeah, I thought she was fine. I thought she was OK in Civil
War. I think she was a little better
in Civil War, but she got a little bit more to do or to be
like a little bit more emotionally expressive in that
film. She got to just be a more
layered character in this movie. I don't really know anything out
about Rain. I don't think I would have
remembered the name Rain if I didn't prep for this episode.
I Yeah, I didn't know her name when we left it.
Like I didn't know anyone's name when I left the movie.
Yeah, but I mean I. Guess Andy, but just because
like Toy Story, that's what I thought about a lot.
Yeah, and Andy was said so much, but I do think like, you know,
to be fair, I don't remember all the crew members names in every
other Alien movie, but I remember like that guy.
I'm like, you know, like that guy in that scene, you know, you
you remember the even smaller character actors.
And of course that comes with like rewatching and everything
like that. But I think just the the nature
of having kind of like young people play like immature
characters in a sense, especially, you know, with the
like the trope of the asshole, right teen like those felt so
forced and I just I like couldn't, I couldn't connect,
you know what I mean? Me too, at all.
So we're introduced to our lead character, Rain, on a mining
colony, and we learned she is an orphan, I believe, as her
parents died from exposure to some kind of toxin in a mining
incident. And the movie makes the
franchise's class commentary on this kind of like, evolution of
indentured servitude more on the surface than I've ever seen
previously. It feels very much on the
surface and in your face. It's like people are mean to
lower class workers in this movie, like blue collar workers,
like they are being exploited. I kept feeling at the beginning
of this movie, like, even the woman who works like the HR, you
know, situation, she seemed so almost like, cartoonishly
indifferent. Yeah.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
And it's like there's like, grime everywhere and there's
smoke everywhere and everyone's, like, in poverty.
But it all feels like a set. It all feels like artificial.
And I don't. I didn't really believe in the
situation they were coming from that they need to leave it.
Right. I mean, I think that it is
interesting to include, you know, aspects that we've seen of
the alien world of like exploitation and labor, but and
that's it's done like through obviously the person telling her
like actually the the work just changed.
And so like, you can't go to this planet.
They're going to obviously like keep keep increasing the number
or hours that need to be worked in order for them to even leave.
And we get the sense very quickly like that everyone is
going to be trapped on this planet working for this company
in debt essentially right to the company for their entire lives.
And so, you know, I think that part is interesting, but when
that's like, really the only class kind of thing that you put
right at the front of your movie.
Yeah. And then you kind of get away
from besides the teens trying to escape, and you understand why
they're trying to escape because it's been done so well in other
Alien movies. It's just kind of unconvincing
and kind of too transparent and feels like a Disney movie then.
Yeah, well, it it. Is well, it is a Disney movie.
Yeah, but if you look at it in a vacuum, even outside the Alien
movies, it was pretty cheesy. The way it was handled like.
It wasn't handled with a lot of like, I don't know, gravitas.
Yeah. Like it didn't feel like it was
actually kind of caring about the people who are exploited as
a theme. It just felt like this is a part
of the plot that we need to show.
So you understand why these teenagers need to get off of
this planet. And I, I mean, I do think that
there were some components of the performances and of the
writing at the very beginning of talking about how, you know,
they don't want to die here like their parents.
Like I was like, OK, you know, I started to get invested in their
their kind of mission there. And then the camera pans to a
bird stuck in a cage and I'm like Oh my God, facepalm.
Yeah, it just it. But even like watching the the
miners who were walking across and the kind of.
I guess it felt like a cheesy Blade Runner set.
So let's talk about that. What do you think it is about
the sets that make it look like? That it's the shapes and it's so
it's one the shapes of it. I think that they show too much
of the walls. I think we aren't in a clock so
big enough. Yeah, you see almost like all
the angles of it where it's very clear even like when they're
going up to the ship, when they actually dock with the ship
that's in their orbit. That also feels like this is a
practical, practical set, not in an interesting way.
Like it feels like straight up like a Lego.
Or something. When they're on Jackson Star of
the Planet. I think I agree with you.
It looks pretty awful when they're on the spaceship or
going to space. Looks amazing.
Yeah, when they're seeing the ring.
Yeah, when they see the visual effect.
Like lava or orange. Yeah, that's credible stuff the
the ring within the franchise. Iconic imagery, Yeah.
The iceberg's on the ring. Yeah, so cool.
And in the ship, I think everything looks pretty tactile
and good. But I do agree that everything
on the planet, there's something, maybe you're right in
terms of like the medium shots that they're using where you're
getting too much of the world you're in and you can feel the
artifice of it, or at least we did.
And also there's something with the lighting.
It's in Star Wars TV shows, It's in Marvel TV shows.
We just saw the new Captain America trailer, which I'm
excited for because I'm excited that character gets his own
movie and Harrison Ford's in it, which is interesting.
And yeah, that's dope. I'll, I'll be there opening
night for sure. And I haven't seen a Marvel
movie opening night in a long time.
But that movie even kind of felt like ATV film.
Yeah. It felt like the TV series of
Disney. And I'm like, what is going on
with Disney production, Disney Studios to make all these movies
look so like, bad, like it like, I don't know if it's the digital
photography. I don't know if it's the color
palette. I I don't know if it's the
studio lighting and getting away from natural.
Why become a monopoly? You know what I mean?
Yeah. Why do all that work and become
Waylon Utani if you're not going to try to make David?
You know what I mean? Like give us David.
But to your point, I think once we get inside the ship, like
once we have a lot of those fun set pieces that looks good, like
elevator stuff, gravity stuff, we'll get into the lab.
Those are cool. There are some really cool
sequences of the face huggers that I liked.
So yeah. But yes, we'll we'll talk about
all that. I I think as soon as they leave
the planet, I go, this movie looks good.
Yeah, it's just the planet took me out of it.
So we meet Andy, who is they call Andy basically Rain's
Android brother. They have an odd dynamic.
I think some people think it's sweet.
Some people think it's it's a sympathetic relationship and
it's kind of nice. I don't know if this movie
totally knows what to do with the concept of how to treat the
Android as the true xenomorph of the entire Alien franchise,
which is like, you're not supposed to make a sympathetic
figure out of the AI. It's supposed to be the the kind
of the red herring of the xenomorph is that it's just a
creature that is like a parasite, but you're looking at
the Android as actually the corporation personified.
And I'm not sure this movie ever totally gets there.
There's a moment where Andy switches to bad Andy or I'm
like, here we fucking go. This is sick.
And then it goes back to good Andy at the end.
And I don't want to step on that whole conversation right now,
but I just want to note it that this is a character I'm kind of
like back and forth with, but I'm not back and forth with the
performance. It's great.
Oh yeah, like David Johnson, we already knew he was great from
watching Industry and one of the great shows.
He really is the reason why I still am like this movie is
something that's worth going to see in theaters because of his
performance. He's an unreadable face.
I think using the the term good Andy to bad Andy to good Andy is
basically what the the screenwriters wanted us to get
from that character. And I think that that his like,
arc is really strange if you're looking at it and how you
basically are kind of taught to look at Alien films or what does
the Android represent. And if you're not just taking it
at surface level of, you know, the brother sister relationship,
it's actually a really like cringy storyline for this this
relationship and doesn't actually make much sense within
the Alien universe. And so that was like one of the
most disappointing things when he turns quote, UN quote back to
good Andy, because right then it was like, okay, well, you're
losing. I guess what you kind of wanted
to say right about androids in this universe or.
And I do think the movie, I think the movie was trying, I
mean, it's called Alien Romulus. It's playing with the Alien
Romulus and Remus mythology. The like Roman mythos, like
these other prior films with the Greek mythos that the Prometheus
are playing with or covenant playing with some kind of
religious ideas about the the Ark of the covenant or just
being Noah's ark, you know, the spaceship having all the
colonists on it. Like there is a reason why these
movies are called these, you know, kind of larger than life
titles and playing with mythic storytelling.
And certainly like Fete Alvarez working with Ridley Scott, not
on the screenplay, but just behind the scenes, he had to be
aware of calling this Romulus. And I do think there has to be a
point. I would assume it's which I
don't know if we want to do this right now.
I guess we can wait for Ian Holmes digital digitized Rook
character. But I assume that Alvarez was
like, here's the the bad Android, here's the good
Android. And Romulus has to kill his
brother Remus to take to to liberate himself and and create
an empire, which is Andy in this situation.
He's to kill his brother, which is not bad Andy, but it's
actually Mother. Or a world where androids and
humans can live side by side. Sure, OK.
Like, that's what he's going to do, Sure.
That's the goal. And if that is what Fete Alvarez
is going for in this movie? It's weak.
It's not not just weak. Weird.
Also weird just because of the power dynamics with Kaylee
Spanie's character and David Johnson's character.
Like so yeah. So OK, I I thought like with
Remus and Romiel, I didn't totally get the two AI story,
but that does make a lot more sense now of having that that be
like this, you know, building on previous lore of androids being
the bad right, or being the villain that represent the
company and then having a kind of Android to challenge that.
I guess that makes sense. It's not very interesting if I
mean, you could make it interesting, but how it's kind
of laid out here. It does feel more so in the
superhero universe of using good and evil tropes and not like,
you know, do you know what I mean?
Like having a comment about the. More Star Wars, Binary, Rise of
Skywalker. Good versus evil, for sure.
I think, yeah. I think the goal, though, just
not to not forget, is Andy and Rain basically want to go to
Vaga. Vaga, I think it's what it's
called. I don't know, some planet where
Whalen Utani apparently is prohibited from colonizing.
I think what Ridley Scott and we can talk about this at the end
before we go in terms of ideas for the future of this
franchise. I think what he wants to do is
have David fuck up Andy like that's that's how I'm treating
this movie, which is like this illusion that there can be a
good, you know, Android and David is that would.
Be an interesting Romulus Romulus remix.
Yes, exactly. Like, OK, so I guess to put it
in perspective with Covenant, it also is doing something very
similar where it is a monster movie, but we have Walter and
David going at it and it their conversations are very
interesting and Walter's decisions or hesitancy sometimes
is interesting. And you don't get that here as
much because you have such a kind of simple relationship
between Andy and Rain, right? Verse you feel like Walter is
more, it's more like interesting in the questions, I guess, that
are being asked in the scenes that they share.
Verse like trying to get the alien off the ship for the
company that we've seen before in Aliens.
Right. Yeah, Yeah, I, I think that's
ultimately what he's planning on doing.
He's trying to go back to that. I would assume that's the only
reason I can see why Ridley Scott's name is on this movie.
And we'll, again, we'll get to that at the end.
So Rain's contract is unexpectedly extended for
another, I think half decade or so, and Andy is getting beat up.
It reminded me of monsters when they were in that that space
too. And the kids are beating Andy
up. And I think that starts the
theme of like technophobia, like Android phobia that this movie
is trying to. Right.
They're like little kids beating up Andy.
Yeah, 'cause he's an Android, I assume, and then I think they're
supposed to be like a racial subtext.
But I don't even know if this movie deserves that kind of
reading 'cause it doesn't actually develop those ideas
very much. No, outside of like they're
trying to say that Rain is a a slave to the state and they're
also trying to like provoke this Andy conversation with him
having a realization from his brother, who is the Ian home
digital recreation of Rook that, you know, you are also the slave
of rain and they never fully realize that.
And that's not really it's it's not fully realized.
And it's also kind of like, if you go too deep into that
conversation, I think the movie actually becomes weirdly
problematic because of how the film ends.
Well, yeah. Well, I think we should just
talk about that now really quick because basically we have the
relationship between Rain and Andy, where they're brother and
sister. And Andy's whole directive is to
take care of Rain. And so she is we're we're
supposed to kind of be introduced to her as like a kid
who doesn't really like, doesn't really know how important Andy
is in her life, if that makes sense, But still, like really
wants to take care of him. Lost her parents when she was
really young, yeah. And so, like, that is her only
family. She also, though, is willing to
we learn D what was it called? Like not continue him,
decontinue him right. Once.
OK, yeah, once they get to the planet.
So basically she she sees him as like an Android and will kill
him when she gets to this new planet because they don't, I
guess, have like artificial people on the planet.
So she's obviously upset about it.
It's supposed to be conflict emotionally for this particular
character. But even at the very early
stages, once you learn that he he has a mission to protect her
and do everything for like that is in her best interest there.
It's already like, OK, yes, I'm I'm seeing a very clear power
dynamic within these two characters.
And then it's interesting. It does become interesting when
we have a shift of the Andy character getting an update,
right, with this new chip that they need to like unlock certain
doors from that Ash character who's named Rook.
But he gets that that kind of like upgrade, right, to be a
more sentient like thinking. I mean, it's not for himself
because he's still like for the company.
Right, Seemingly more agency, but really just is now acting as
like this managerial, you know, personification of the company,
right? Because that's really what Ash
was in the original Alien. He was the low key manager of
the ship. He knew all the contract stuff.
He knew making like calculated risks, but ultimately for the
interest of the company, like when he talks about, you know,
or when he shuts that door and Kaylee Spaney's character, Rain,
I keep forgetting her name is like, you could have killed him.
And he's like, no, like I actually made a calculated
decision. Like he probably was going to
make it, but it was better than the last.
Like we have that kind of idea of him being more in charge,
right? Like, and that's confusing too,
because you're starting, because I don't care so much about these
other characters. I'm starting to then identify
and root for the Android who is then the company because there
are also like other arguments thrown out there that are
supposed to like have us asking questions about the androids
morality or I keep, you know, whatever.
I said this on Blade Runner 2 Androids, artificial androids
people. OK, yeah, I just, we can't get
that. I think they're synthetic
androids, but guys. Yeah, come on.
OK, So but for Andy, right, I'm like, wait, why am I finding
myself on the side of someone who is representing the company?
Like I shouldn't be doing that, Not in a way where it's like
interesting that I'm doing that. It's literally because I don't
care about these other characters.
And then also they're talking about how this guy who's a
really annoying character, not in a way where he's supposed to
be, even though he is supposed to be, but in a way that like
surpasses that where he's actually just annoying me that
he's in this movie is bullying Andy with a Taser.
Because I guess like, you know, recently Android killed his
mother, killed three people in the mine to save 12, right.
And, you know, I said that makes sense.
You know, like I, I was like. But that's shitty to put the
world into the world view of that basic ethical dilemma.
Yeah, like, oh, that makes sense.
I agree with the AI in this situation.
Yeah, the The thing is, is that I was like.
Instead of making it like they had, he had to kill the three
people because this, you know, some kind of product would be
affected if he didn't, right? That would be exactly some kind
of money for the company. Exactly.
And the movie never like realizes that or has that kind
of second understanding of why the Android who works for the
company and has a a mission to save the company and to save
whatever products you know, they are are are getting from right
from their work. And then it just makes it this
regular kind of trolley dilemma that we often see in a Marvel
movie or something where it's like, can we actually trust
this? And it becomes really
uninteresting really quickly. And so then I'm in a problem in
the movie where I'm like, I am now rooting for a character that
I'm not supposed to be rooting for because all these other
characters are really annoying me.
And even Rain, I can't, I can't root for her because she
ultimately, yeah, ultimately she is also wanting Andy to go back
to essentially serving her needs, right.
And so I can't root for her to be like, Andy, you've changed.
Like, yeah. But also now.
So. So that's messy.
And in general, but what they could have done as kind of that
the third step is made some sort of interesting move within Andy
again to like to be a a juxtaposition or like a foil to
Rook in a way that was interesting that then again,
like does what's interesting about the Alien movies was to
expose something about the company.
Instead, what it does is it makes Andy like a heroic
character because after Kaylee, Spaney's character reign changes
him back to having a. Submissive relationship.
Yes, exactly the power dynamic that they have and having like
him have his main mission in life to then serve her needs and
and that's why. She says together or whatever.
OK, but yeah, yeah, I'm getting I'm getting there.
But like because then when he's taking off the OR sorry, when
he's challenging the ash character Rook and and like
making what we think is the quote UN quote good choice or
what the screenplay wants us to think of like Andy turning back
to quote UN quote good and then the rain character rewarding him
for that. And or what we are supposed to
think is she had a self realization that, wait, why was
I just having him only protect me?
We should be protecting our ourselves.
But instead what she says is I'm giving you a new mission, right?
It's to protect us, right. I was like, what?
So so then it's not even like, no, you protect you.
I protect me. And we have like a relationship
where we can go to this new planet.
Yeah, there, there's not that, but.
Even that would be sort of weird.
It's just weird that they provoke the audience to even
reflect on that dynamic because ultimately he's a machine.
And just like the creator a year ago, I don't understand what's
happening to movies dealing with AI right now that are trying to
get audiences to sympathize with AI.
It's a very odd choice in our era.
Well, yeah, but it's different. I was like, OK, maybe they are
doing something with like a racial commentary.
Yeah. They're trying to conflate AI
with people being othered historically and I think that's
a a totally like valid idea in a writers room.
And then someone should shut that shit down.
Instead you should just have characters who are literally
othered in the world of Alien. It's not like gender and race
and like social hierarchies and discrimination and like in this
kind of marginalization of historical identities and
oppressed identities and marginalized people don't exist
in the world of alien, right? That's that's what's weird about
this about this idea that they have to like find a new way to
get something to symbolize being othered.
You don't need to do that. There's woman that exists.
There's people of colour that exist.
You have them in the periphery of this movie, in fact, who
don't even really have characters.
And you're giving us a lead who is a white lead and in a woman,
a young woman who who normally wouldn't get these kind of like
huge movies, which is amazing at Kelly Spain.
He's getting opportunity. But it's weird that this movie
is trying to be like we're trying to have a metaphor about
about this this AI being other because of what he.
Represents like, I think you could do it like, but if you are
going to make that choice and actually have the movie be about
that and instead that it does I think veer towards like a
problematic just like rehashing of stereotypes that we've seen
in Hollywood films. And then I'm like, OK, well
then. And were they even aware of it
at the beginning of this movie? Because that was just, yeah, I
was like, I I'm out on this movie, especially when we get
there. But I think, you know, David
Johnson did such a great job. That was the sad.
I really, yeah, fantastic job. Yeah.
I really like loved seeing the the company, I guess like
version of him. I just thought he like crushed
that like way of speaking to them in in a way where it was
something different than David, And that's why I liked it
because he was almost doing like a sort of Ash or David right
type of character or Walter. But he did this thing where he,
like David, was a little bit more menacing.
You're a little afraid of. Yeah, there was a motivation
behind every word he was saying. Yeah, it, it felt like he he, he
learned all this, all these things from movies, too, right?
To like, have dialogue that's cutting.
Lawrence of Arabia fan. But I kind of like his letterbox
goes crazy. Yeah.
I like how Andy, though, was kind of saying like, no, of
course, like, I'm going to do this.
But it didn't feel like the extra cut from a David
character. He was doing something
interesting in his own unique character.
But it reminded me of a mix between, like a Bishop from
Aliens, the Lance Hendrix character who was kind of
submissive to the crew, and being told what to do.
And he's not happy about it. He just is doing those things
with not necessarily a smile on his face, but he's like, OK, I
will do this. Like I will do what's logical.
Rational, aware of how the humans are exploiting.
Him. Yes, exactly.
And it reminded me a little bit too then of Walter in terms of
Walter wanting to be there to protect Katherine Watterson's
character, for example, in the film.
And he has an interesting relationship with her after
after her husband, thankfully James Franco dies in the 1st 5
minutes. And then also reminded me of
another Android who doesn't get a lot of love in Alien
franchise, but Winona Ryder from Alien Resurrection, who plays a
similar character too. So yeah, he does a great job
cosign everything you just said. Welcome to the dark side.
Let's shit on this movie. Just kidding.
All right, so. I was ready to talk about the
set piece. We haven't even got to the ship
yet. So Rain agrees to join her
ex-boyfriend Tyler, who's played by Archie Renault.
And I think it's noted that they broke up, so this is the first
time they've seen each other in a long time.
She says, sorry about your dad dying, which was a pretty
awkward conversation in the kitchen.
And there there seemed to be like, even when Tyler's killed
later in the film, a great scene.
I'm excited to shout that one out.
Yeah. And you know, the the throat
punch that happens to his face, I wish we'd have held on that
image a little bit longer. If you're really going to do a
rated R, you know, horror film like this.
But they didn't. But it was still a good scene.
I didn't feel any kind of like cathartic moment.
Not cathartic, but like any kind of tragedy from that moment.
Like rain saw that happen You. Didn't feel like another person
lost someone else. Yeah, not only did I not feel
anything, it felt like rain didn't really feel anything.
That's what I mean though. I'm sorry.
Yeah, I do think that there was an interesting element that I
did feel at times of this found family obviously and of the
characters caring about each other, particularly like the
women on the ship. OK.
But when we go into the ship with the two guy leads and
sorry, it's OK if I just skip ahead here like.
Sure. Yeah, we can.
I mean they have like AI. Just wanted to note that was
hard to hear. What?
I think all this part of stuff is boring, Yeah.
That's why it's important. To note it though, this is the
setup for the movie. The 1st 25 minutes, we'll do it.
It's just like we meet the ensemble cast.
No one's well served in the screenplay.
We meet them all hanging out in a room.
Andy's playing video games, which is I think a funny shout
out to like an alien game, I think from the 80s I believe.
And then they're all talking to each other and I can't
understand much of anything in this scene, especially from the
character. The.
Character Bjorn Bjorn the accent from Spike Fern is so strong and
I couldn't tell if I was just a dumb American who couldn't
understand what he was saying. And then I logged online and I
saw most people because I like googled his name, like Bjorn the
character and most people seem to not really know what he was.
Saying well. That's what I was going to add.
It's I think it's less of the the strong accent as much as it
was the sound mix wasn't quite right.
And then there's also other moments in the movie where
there's just bad ADR or I couldn't understand what Kaylee
Spanie had just said to another character because she's turned
around and there's just some technical.
Choices this plan of yours. Yeah, stuff, stuff like that.
It's just really tough. But yeah, what did I want to say
about these characters? None of them are really that
memorable, but they're all trying to, like, basically
discuss an Ocean's 11 heist plan, right?
They want to go up to a ship. I guess this is important.
Because we're, yeah, they need to go up.
The premise of why they're even doing this?
Right so there's a ship that has these cryo, you know what are
the cryo cryo sleep chambers. And the only character I wanted
to note here and we'll get to the other feature characters or
the other characters in the future.
But the only supporting character I wanted to know who
was the most fly on the wall of the crew was a character named
Navarro, who is the pilot of the ship.
And I believe this is Bjorn's girlfriend or partner.
And it's the person who gets hit by the 1st facehugger, right?
The actress's name is Eileen Wu, I believe.
And they have that character has the least dialogue in the first
act of everybody and arguably. The most interesting character.
No, that's what I was gonna say. I thought she brought a capable
of the crew. Yeah, there was, like when she
was like, sitting on the kind of, like, window sill and
listening to everybody argue about what they were gonna do
and how they needed Andy to break into the ship above the
Wayland Utani ship because he had, like, Mother's control
system or he spoke Mother's language.
She seemed like strong, stoic, mysterious and really reminded
me of of the Ellen Ripley figure in the behind the scenes of the
original Alien film where you don't know she's the main
character until halfway in the movie.
And I was thinking, wow, is this going to be like a Veronica
Cartwright character who gets killed at the end who you kind
of like and get to know a little bit?
Or is this going to be the secret surprise of the movie
that Kaylee Spaney is going to get killed?
And then you meet a character in the behind like, you know, a
family in the wall character that is actually the bad ass
leader of the crew. And that doesn't happen.
She actually maybe is the most interesting looking actor who's
giving the most without the least to say who gets killed
pretty immediately in the film. Unfortunately, I just wanted to
shout that actress out because I think they they did a good job.
And apparently because I I looked up there some interviews,
apparently they got hired two days before the movie started
shooting. I don't know what that's about.
Could be a variety of things. They could have casted somebody
who dropped out. They could have added another.
Character I just felt like, OK, so here is maybe my I'm just
locating what made me not connect to the crew here of
these teens who are supposed to be like found family.
There are moments with with Navarro and the other woman.
I don't know her character's name but he was like pregnant.
Yeah, so. There, there were moments there,
Wayne. Who was Kaylee Spainey, Andy
David Johnson, Tyler Archie Renault, Kay Isabella Merced.
Who was the scream queen of the movie with her famous image of
her screaming when Navarro has that chest burser.
OK. And then Spike Fern is Bjorn and
obviously Navarro. So I so I felt moments when
Navarro was in the scene with them and I think that's just
like a testament to Eileen Woo's like performance then, right.
But I felt like the the thing was is I just didn't believe
that there was like a grit, a grittiness to the other
characters. Like I didn't feel like I felt
like she was actually interesting and maybe had seen
some shit. Do you know what I mean?
Like she just the way that she was even like holding her body
was like, I am ready for something to happen.
And the the kind of more like what we see in tradition,
additional kind of silly horror movies was the kind of body
language and how it was shot. When I saw Tyler and Bjorn go
into the ship, I was like, why are we focusing right now on
like the most boring characters when we're in that ship where it
feels like like little like boys going into a haunted house, like
teenage boys going into a haunted house trying to make a
messing around. Yeah, it felt like AB horror.
Yeah. B horror characters.
And so I don't even know, like, if it's totally the performers,
you know, fault because I was so focused on the literally frames
that felt like AB horror movie. Yeah.
And then also the lines that they were getting, their
exchanges felt so juvenile, not in an interesting way.
I was like, this is just boring. I would get let's get back on
the ship with the women who are like talking.
There's only one character scene between multiple characters that
I enjoyed, which was when Kay gets killed by the Xenomorph and
the doors closed and Andy won't open it.
I believed everything in that scene and that's the only moment
in the film where I was into the characters and kind of felt
something from them. I think what you're saying is
spot on. I don't want it to get
misinterpreted as if we needed an All Star cast, no.
Because I, I enjoy, I think something is a staple of the
Alien franchise is having a cast that we don't totally know.
Have a huge relationship too. Yeah, yeah.
I think one of the most appealing things about casting
in the Alien universe is that one, the characters in most of
the scripts in the Alien universe, maybe people don't
know this, are to be gender neutral and normal ish looking
while being very kind of rough around the edges.
And so the Alien movies go out of their way to try to very
specifically cast people who are, you know, post young worker
aged, right? They are almost early
middle-aged. They're between that kind of 32
to 45 years old kind of part of their life and they are just
tired as fuck and like exploited workers.
And in the original Alien, we have a mining crew.
So obviously they're very exhausted and they're battered
down and so is the military, the marines and Aliens.
A bug hunt, a bug hunt. And you have the kind of like
tired group of private idiotic scientist or fundamentalist or
social scientist. And Prometheus, that's the only
movie where you could argue those people are kind of hot.
But even like Charlize Theron and Idris Elba in that movie
look exhausted. Yeah, you know what I mean?
And they look like they've been. Through their face, even though
they're so hot. Good makeup team and so like,
you know, I there was just something about the character
choices here from the from the writing to the makeup to I guess
the performances. And there's a Polish to the
characters and I was like, these characters are working on a
mining like, you know, thing. That's also what felt kind of
Disney about it as well. Right.
And I think and I again, I like the idea of doing a young crew.
I like the idea of trying to have this like getaway dream
before they become their exploited parents and die.
And the bird imagery is too much being stuck in a cage and the
bird shout out to the original aliens.
That's little toy on the ship. Didn't love that.
I didn't need it, but I just felt like there was a lot of
character work absent. I think we're on the same page
here. It's just too bad because
there's so much. There's so many fun.
Yeah, you. Wanted to love it?
Like if you watch Alien Covenant again like those actors are for
the most part and. To be fair, they're older, you
know, so they're older they have time to hone their craft, but
they are all amazing. You believe even like Danny
McBride, you know who you're used to seeing in like a more
comedic setting. Like really, everyone kills it
and and. Everyone loses their partner and
you believe in their emotional loss.
And I think that's a part of this movie that I didn't really
yet. I wish I would have understood
these characters losses more. I also don't love how they're
all in one room when we meet them.
Yeah, it would have been cooler to kind of get the crew
assembled. I love.
I love those things like Ocean, maybe like a Han Solo shout out,
like, have Navarro in a bar, like smoking a cigarette.
Give us some kind of, you know, sick.
Image Yeah, they're all childhood friends.
Every character has a different atmosphere around them.
They I mean, I don't want to do character writing for somebody
who's a millionaire in writing screenplays and making movies,
but it just seems so basic. I think that was the part of
this movie that was annoying. I was like, what is this?
How is this film missing us caring about the characters?
Like, I don't know it, it sucks, but at least we got Andy.
I guess. I don't know.
All right, so where are we? So we are.
We learned that Tyler and his friends want to bring Rain and
Andy in on this mission to hack a lost Waylon Utani ship.
And the ship is right near this ring of the planet.
Like we were saying earlier, the ring looks sick.
Shout out the visual effects. We're on this one.
And they need Andy to help them, who has a company interface that
will allow him to operate the ship's control system.
And we get some personal moments between Rain and Andy that you
might have been talking about earlier where she kind of asks
him if that's cool. He's like, I guess, I mean, what
am I supposed to say? No, he can't say no.
So that's what was funny about these scenes.
If you know anything about alien lore or like the the logistics
of the Android, it's kind of a funny moment.
But it's just like, I mean, anyways, there, there are just
so many more, like economical ways to build characters.
And I just don't think they did a very good job with it.
OK, you know what I am recognizing is that the reason
that Andy's character is like not successful and doesn't ever
really truly realize the power dynamic.
Besides, obviously there's the, the like dialogue at the end of
our mission, like keep us safe. It doesn't feel like a
collective purpose, right? Because the, the power dynamic's
still there and it has been there the whole movie that you
haven't actually addressed like what you're doing with that
character. I think of love from Blade
Runner 2049 like. Another one of the great side
performances of the 21st century, next to dated.
And I think like, you know, Jared Leto's Wallace's
relationship with love, it is a very similar relationship that
the Kaylee Spainy Rain character has with Andy.
And but the kind of conflict within Andy isn't necessarily
like realized. And you see it so much in Love
where she is supposed to be for like a character who is
literally created within the company's interest.
But you see the exploitation and emotional conflict and basically
just like, abuse that she is suffering at the hands of
Wallace. And it's so subtle too, through
that performance and through different, like, moments of what
she says to different characters, the tears.
Yeah, Yeah. And so like it was so cut again
like this, trying to do good, bad, good.
And it was just way too like neat for this type of world.
And so I think like love is a really like great, I guess goal
to have if you're going to try to do something like an Andy
character story. And it just felt way too simple.
And because of that, because of the context and world that
you're doing it within, like then it it just like falls flat
on to be the nicest. I guess way to put it would be
that because we have so many characters like love who are who
are nuanced. And to put it bluntly, and this
is going to sound like, I don't know, maybe it'll sound mean to
people who love Romulus. And I apologize if you do love
this movie. I'm not trying to reduce your
experience to the film. But I do think there's an
element of let's sanitize the morality of these characters
because Blade Runner 2049 lost money.
Prometheus made money barely Covenant, I think lost money.
So these movies that we keep calling out as like these
amazing sci-fi spectacles epics, they didn't do what Dune did,
you know, financially do they live up to the thematic and
visual and Sonic scope of Dune? I think so.
I think that all those 3 movies are up there with Dune and Dune
Part 2. Absolutely in movies before it
would like Minority Report and AI and the original Star Trek
from from JJ like I. Mean there are a lot of things
that I love about Blade Runner. Like, even more than Dune.
Absolutely. That's a whole other podcast.
Yeah. But I guess my point is, is like
if you're the studio, in this case Disney, who owns 20th
Century, at this point, you're thinking get away from any of
the kind of the the Gray vibes, you know, the bleak.
Yeah. Do what sells. 2049 let's let's
get back to the James Cameron on the board, right Alien?
Give me a dollar sign and call it a day, you know what I mean?
And I do think there's an element of this movie that is
very dollar sign that is very obvious.
And I think that even if you have a fun time with it, it's
hard not to acknowledge. Yeah, they're really feeling
exploited. Or.
Condescended to in the audience maybe condescended to is strong,
but they certainly made it boring.
I think the character work like if yeah, because Alien is a
concept study movie with a bunch of character work that's really
smart and to to reduce it down to like running away from face
huggers is a fun couple scenes. But is that really what we want
to do with some of the most strange IP out there right now?
I guess so. And also, like in original
Alien, you know, of course I didn't the first time I saw it,
connect to every character. Like, that's not what I'm asking
for, but I at least, at the very least, understood what they were
dying for and why that was something that the movie was
interested in. Yeah.
Yeah, OK, so we fly up to the we fly up to this spacecraft, this
Waylon Utani Baron spacecraft, and we see that it's actually a
research station called Romulus and Remus.
And we get a really cool image. This wide shot.
It was very quick. I don't know if you noticed it,
but our cruise ship takes off through our planet's atmosphere
or this star Jackson stars atmosphere, and it looks like an
interstellar esque shot where we see our our ship going from the
the planet to space. It's really awesome.
That's cool. And then we get a sequence where
Tyler, Bjorn and Andy go on to the Romulus research side.
I think it's the Romulus side. I kept getting confused about
what side we were on first. Yeah, the airlock.
I couldn't tell. It doesn't totally matter.
I don't know if it. Matters I feel like I mean it
would make sense if they did it like thematically of when we
meet we have to like re come back and meet Rook.
I hope Rook is on the Remus side because otherwise it wouldn't
make any sense. I don't know.
Because. We only saw it once, yeah.
Yeah. So this is where we get into, I
think what Fede Alvarez and his team are so great at, which is
suspense, right? They are very good at suspense
in tight corridors. A lot of people have called this
don't breathe in space. I think Kelsey, you referenced
that earlier. This is certainly what the part
of this, you know, the part of this movie feels like that it
also feels like for Alien Isolation fans of that video
game, that is a very great game. It feels inspired by that game.
Even that crawl space store that you see open as they go into the
ship that you that you probably noticed from the original Alien.
The way the door opened was still tactile like the original
Alien, but there was something even more eerie about it with
how the lighting is coming through where you don't want to
go in. Because if you've played Alien
isolation, if you make too much noise and go through one of
those doors, a xenomorph is tracking you down and and will
jump scare you in the game, which is frightening.
A lot of people just checked out, but I think it's
frightening. So what really sucks to this
introduction to the Romulus ship and getting to this room of this
Control Center with a big hole in the ground and apparently
there's a xenomorph hanging from the ceiling that we'll get to
eventually. And somehow our characters don't
notice these things is that the movie feels very try hard.
Like, it looks good, but it's also trying to get you to be
like, aren't you excited to see these characters you sort of
don't, like, get killed? Yeah.
And I'm like, no, like, I didn't.
I didn't want to want the characters to get killed.
That's the whole point. Yeah.
Actually, I'm more most afraid for Andy.
I hope Andy survives. And that also makes me feel
weird, like what you were getting to earlier.
He is supposed to be the company in this world.
Yeah, the real antagonist of the film.
It really feels like somebody who wrote this movie, which is
Betty Alvarez and his Co screenwriter, didn't get that
part from the original Alien. I don't want to reduce their
experience because apparently this is like Alien franchise is
very important to Fede Alvarez. I don't know how much of that I
believe because he's done multiple franchises at this
point. I I just think that it's more so
like I don't come to the the Alien franchise for the same
thing then like. Yeah.
OK. So let's say it's not media
literacy and it's more so we just have a stylistic and
sensibility difference. Yeah, but I mean, that also
checks out though. I don't really enjoy like his
other films, like Don't Breathe or like Evil Dead.
And I know there are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, I'm not trying to like totally reduce his work or
anything like that. I just am saying that it makes
sense that I'm not into this movie because I don't generally
like his other movies. There's something about them
that feel like the, the pacing, it's like taking too long and I
don't really care about the characters that much.
And then there's some sort of element that is supposed to
gross me out or be kind of so violent that it's supposed to
really like shock me. And I feel both bored.
But obviously it is very like gory or it is very upsetting,
especially if you think of like the end of Don't breathe where I
am. My body's like upset, right?
Like I feel really uncomfortable, but not because
it's an interesting uncomfortable.
It feels like it's, it's more like, let me put something so
grotesque on the screen and it makes me have a really irritated
experience. That's kind of like how I I feel
throughout his movies. And I know that there are some
people who really like enjoy them and that's fine.
I just, I personally like have that relationship to the way his
other movies are shot. It makes sense that in this
movie I also feel that way. I guess I feel irritated by the
way the characters are shot the the like pacing that I'm the
time I'm spending with them. Yeah, I mean, it also sort of
feels like a video game, like all the worst video game aspects
of a movie. I loved this year.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I think.
That's a good example. I think this movie had those
things, but Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes takes the IP
of Caesar and twists it completely and almost like
satirizes the the audience's relationship to Caesar, right?
It's kind of like a. Religious figure as a perfect
figure that who you rooted for, who maybe kind of led to the
death of his own kind. And like was an interesting
conversation that the movie was trying to start with the
audience who's obsessed with IP. It's less about like holding the
audience morally accountable and more so like, why do you need to
see this character again? It was kind of a funny.
You know, add on that W ball added to that movie that felt
like a video game without it. You know what I mean?
And that's why Alien Romulus sort of just feels like a video
game. It feels like the Uncharted
movie or something. Well, you literally have, you
know, a sequence where you were saying they go into that room
and the Bajoran character is like, I'm going to electrocute
you. And then we have the moment, the
flashback of like learning why he wants to electrocute him and.
Yeah, We cut to Kaylee Spain. He's like asking questions like
why is why is his mom died? When did that happen?
Like. It's horrible.
How long have you been? Breaking up Broken up with.
Us and then and then we get this like this moment where even
though Bajoran is like bullying him and he saves him from
falling into a hole that he didn't see this massive hole
yeah right near him like I know it was dark in there but that's.
Supposed to be the funhouse stuff where you have to suspend
disbelief. It's just like I also feel like
the movie kind of thinks I'm dumb at that point.
Not a strong way. I'm just like I'm not like I
know you. I know, you know, I paid 30
bucks tonight, but I also came for like something more than
what I could have gotten in the movie at, you know, at home on
shutter, you know, streaming. So that sucks.
There were cool just to say the cool stuff so we don't sound
like we're shitting on the movie.
We have the zero gravity stuff with the xenomorph acid blood
later in the film. Obviously we have the kind of
like auto assist rifle things we have, right, interesting imagery
of, well, there's the ships crashing into the ships.
Yeah, there's also a scene that is coming up like right now that
I would like to shout out for a set piece.
So it's when we get into the water room, there's like water
at their feet. Yeah, there's some kind of cryo
chamber they need in there that has all of its battery.
Yeah, so, but they're, they're basically get trapped in this
room then, right. And they need Andy to have the
the upgraded chip in order to get out of that room, right?
That's I think the premise and so.
Rain has to come back on the board and then take a chip out
of what we will see is to be Rook.
Yeah, there's there's something with Andy getting either like
upgraded or needing to recalibrate in that moment where
his eyes go like totally white, right?
And he's like rebuilding. Goes to the ceiling.
Yeah, so the the human characters are in danger in this
kind of water red room. I really liked that set piece.
It felt scary. That was a a good example of I
knew I was on a set, right. But like, I felt the
interesting, fun horror dynamics of this haunted house.
I also really loved how the like this is a really good example of
using a set piece to give me narrative information, like
because we didn't know that they were necessarily doing all these
experiments. We just see.
The research lab. The Bioengineered.
Yeah, we just see these face huggers that you don't totally
know are face huggers yet in this kind of like seal, right?
Almost like in an embryo state. So it's kind of confusing.
Exactly. Yeah.
So you're not totally sure what what is on the wall and you
realize really quick, similar to how Prometheus when the humans
go into that kind of cave tomb, right, and they change the
atmosphere and things start leaking.
And they're like, where are we? There's a tomb.
There's murals on the wall. And then it's similar here where
their body temperature is then basically it's not hatching
right. But the the face huggers are
coming out of this mold and it's really fun and they don't
totally notice it. I'm like, you are in the same
room. Like I guess there are other
things going on, but still. And then they they basically
right are loose in this contained room where you do, you
know, they're going to get out of it, but you're like, is
everyone going to get out of it? You know, like watching them go
in the water. Yeah, like that was really cool,
really suspenseful. I I appreciated that.
And then especially once they get out of the room.
Well, first we have that really bad ass moment of Andy like
coming back online, grabbing the tail right of the face hugger.
And then when the the doors are shutting, we have all of their
kind of crab fingers, the face huggers that are stopping the
door. I thought that was a really cool
image. Like I just liked seeing them
all. But then we get kind of like
farther on in the movie and as we get further along, we see
more, more face huggers, just kind of like chilling on the
cruise ship. And then once I see so many of
these kind of like crabs, it doesn't feel as scary anymore.
Like there's a there is a volume, right?
That is terrifying. But once they're walking through
and they change the body temperature, I'm like, that's a
really cool idea. I really think that idea is cool
to outsmart, right? Or try to figure out how to
survive. But once they're walking
through, the stakes really go away quickly for me.
And I'm like, why are they walking through these space
huggers? And why do they kind of just
look serious? I was.
Going to make this take on James Cameron's Aliens deep dive next
weekend. But I really think it starts
with Aliens, which is that you you increase the quantity of
something that is sure thrilling and you lose the quality, right?
Yeah, when they're all coming at you in the ceiling.
He's an epic film maker and has a he's assembled a wonderful
crew to work with at that point in his career in Aliens and then
even better crew in the future. But and that's why that movie's
good. But that movie inspires people
for the wrong reasons, like studios and legacy directors and
writers who want to make movies a part of other franchises where
where they go. Well, let's let's just increase
the volume, the quantity. Yeah.
And it'll be just as scary. It'll make money.
Dollar sign at the end of our title of our movie and we're set
right. And then instead what we get is
a lot less ambiguity about themes and ideas, a lot less
subtlety and the thrills and entertainment feel like they
have a lot less stakes because now these monsters are
everywhere and they mean kind of nothing.
And that was going to be sort of my.
It's cool almost to get to like a nest situation where they're
in the corners, but it's different when they're all
charging at you or there's just like 100 in the room just
sitting there. Yeah.
I mean. Then it feels kind of silly
because you feel. Right.
And this is kind of what you're getting to, which is like you're
you're talking about how the movie does a really good job in
this lab because they're pulling off nostalgia bait, you know,
with the face huggers and you know what's going on.
The characters don't, and you know, the audiences in the
relationship in a meta way to the writing and not the
characters. The characters are screwed, you
know that? Yeah.
The monster was just released. Right.
Whereas in the first Alien, you didn't really know what the face
hugger was going to do. You know, you kind of understand
what's going on in this moment. And so they do this nostalgia
bait, but they make something fresh because of all the kind of
visual choices, the camera choices, the water, all those
things are really smart, really cool additions and good
imagination. However, the movie continues to
do that throughout the film. It uses like the xenomorphs
acid. It knows that the audience knows
that the acid is going to breakthrough the ship.
And so it's kind of have a having a conversation with the
audience where like Andy knows that like I'm, I'm giving you a
gun just to appear like you're going to be violent.
Like it's keeps running into these issues where it wants to
know it wants the audience to have a meta relationship with
the writing of the movie so they can have this dramatic irony
with these characters not knowing what they're going to
get into. Or it's using the kind of the
symbolism of these of these xenomorphs or the black goo or
the kind of the literal plot mechanics of the xenomorphs and
the black goo as a plot point of its own film.
Where like when you were watching Kaylee Spainy with an
assault rifle to even though she has the auto aim assist,
whatever the fuck and the zero gravity.
That's a six set piece visually and it's cool to look at and
experience. But if you think about what it
means for the Xenomorph, like the acid for blood as a defense
mechanism is such a cool idea until you see one person blow up
like 12 slow xenomorphs and there's blood everywhere, and
then it means nothing. Yeah, you know what I mean for
the rest of the franchise. Well, that's, yeah, I think
that's. What the acid blood literally
means nothing because now we just saw somebody kill a bunch
of these slow xenomorphs for whatever reason.
They're very slow pre, you know, zero gravity.
And she just easily gets past all the kind of like acid for
blood. And the movie thinks it can do
that because it shows us Spike, you know, Bjorn's character get
acid blood drip on his face. So we know that it's painful and
dangerous. But when you, you know, you do
that volume, you increase the quantity, I feel like it loses a
lot of that that imagination and that the audience is kind of
like sick relationships to, to these kind of very specific
logistics of these characters or, or villains that we like.
Yeah, well, I think it's it's just decreasing the stakes
because of the situation there, right, like the the face huggers
walking through them with the body temperature, even though
again, it's a interesting like science part of it that I things
I like from Prometheus, right, of like, well, what are these
creatures and like what what is changing the atmosphere of the
room? Like those are interesting kind
of the wonder of the world. But the once you see the, the
set piece of turning off the gravity and then and then having
all of the goo, which looks like goo, it doesn't look like acid
in the air. That's it is really cool.
And I was like this when I was watching.
I was like, this is a very fun thing to to watch right in the
Alien universe. It's cool to see people in like
0 gravity because we haven't really seen that done as much.
And then and then once we get though to the the sifting
through the acid goo, it feels like I don't actually think
she's going to get like burned at all or no one's.
I think they're going to get through this.
And because of that, it just felt like, Oh, well, now yes, it
looks, it's visually like stunning and very interesting,
right? But I think that the stakes are
taken away and then I know they're going to get through the
really cool elevator shop set piece, which I think was like
really fun also. But again, I just felt like I, I
think everything is going to be fine with these characters and
it just made me kind of lose interest.
Right, Yeah, I mean, it's like I.
Didn't feel the suspense anymore.
I just felt like I'm seeing set pieces that people wrote.
Like I felt kind of the pen on the paper right here is
something that will look very cool, right?
And it's like, I wish I cared about the characters going
through this very cool thing. Right, totally.
I get it. And I think it's a Disney
problem. It's a way to make money.
It's just the easiest way to do it.
All right, so then we I think Andy now has access to the
station basically right at this point.
I think Navarro Navarro gets face hugged again.
This is where I'm disappointed, unfortunately.
And then I think they rain says freeze it off.
And I thought that was cool, at least to show that this
character had some kind of like, higher critical thinking skills,
I guess, temperature. In this movie, yeah.
Which I appreciate it. Again, that's another thing of
being in conversation with the lore of these movies, knowing
that the audience is aware of aliens reacting to temperature
or the xenomorph evolutions reacting to temperature.
Like if you're hip to the franchise, you know that.
And so this movie again, playing with that.
And so her saying to freeze it was like convenient.
But I liked that she was a smart character.
I liked it as like a a new weapon, right, because you only
you run out of things to do like in the alien universe.
But I I liked that that component and I also liked the
X-ray tool that was introduced. So there was like AI went to.
The bathroom for this. Yeah, I know it was, but I think
you saw the image I showed you later of like there was an X-ray
tool that was introduced looking through someone's arm.
And then when Navarro gets I guess face hugged and then they
get it off of her and they think she's fine because they
obviously don't know what a face hugger does.
And she's back on the ship and starts feeling something in her
chest. We get that really awesome X-ray
image of her putting it behind her back and you see the like
alien like figure in her chest. It's really cool and it's like
orange. It just looks great.
I do like the color palette of this movie.
I think the orange looks good, but but, but again, that's
another moment not to keep like going back and forth, but like
two things. Bjorn, his character way too
easily back in the lab, smacks around the face huggers.
Yeah, there's like four different face huggers that try
to hit him and he smacks. Him to the side.
I noted that too. And I was like, where did this
guy come? Was he in the Marine?
Super string. Yeah, so I thought I caught
bullshit on that, even though it was.
Cool because the face huggers are like the grab completely
like you can't fight them off. Yeah, unless this bioengineered
xenomorphs. Their well, I guess yeah, maybe
I guess they might be slow, but I don't know yeah maybe he's.
Giving too much credit to the screenplay, but again, what
you're saying with the what is the tool where you can see
through the body? Whatever the X-ray tool, her
friends are stuck in the next room and she's like, look at
this cool X-ray tool and I'm like, Oh my God.
Because at least in like aliens would.
Oh, like when it's first introduced you mean?
Yeah, the foreshadowing like this is going to come back like
in James Cameron when Ripley is like, I can operate the
machinery and help move things around.
Yeah. And they kind of make a joke out
of it and they're like, yeah, I want that in Bay 12O, right?
And then she comes back. Comes back at the end, like
that's good foreshadowing because it had a purpose in that
comedic scene. And then it comes back in this
like tense scene in the the fourth act of that movie.
And this point I'm like, I mean, this is dumb horror stuff right
here. I didn't have a total problem
with it just because it looked cool.
OK, I forgave it. So rain reactivates the stations
so. Also to be fair like I thought
that was dumb in the aliens movie too when she was like what
do you want me to pick up? I well, there's a campy element
to Aliens that I enjoy coming back to, even though people who
love that movie treat it very seriously.
Maybe don't use the word camp. I'm not sure.
I don't really care. I think it's that's how I
experience it. So Rain reactivates the station
science officer Android. His name's Rook, I believe, and
he's played by a separate actor than Ian Home, I think from the
waist down. I think from waist up they have
a digital crew who basically creates this digitally rendered
face and torso of Ian Holmes's ash from the original Alien,
right? As far as it looking like bad
AI, I think that just is more of a coincidence of bad AI hitting
all of our social media feeds as of late.
Because as far as I understand, this is something that they
pulled from different images of Ash's character in Alien.
The only thing that they really rendered using AI technology
from what I understand, but not AI that is generative AI, just
kind of non generative AI technology is mostly the voice
created. Yeah, human artists use the
images and then create it with tools that, you know, AI can be
very helpful in, but not generative AI where like this
was literally an AI version of Ash, if that makes sense.
Sorry if I butchered that to the listeners.
And so this character, you know, much like Walter and Covenant,
is like the iPhone 15 to Ash's iPhone 14, where like, I, I, I I
understand Rook to be an evolution of Ash, right?
That would make sense in the timeline, too.
Yeah. Because this is a sequel to
Aliens. But he looks like rubber.
Yeah, but he looks bad, right? And so they didn't, didn't do a
good job with the, the, the human of it all.
And Rook is basically, to me, an exposition dump device, right?
Like he's less of a character and he's more just there to tell
everybody what's going on. He says that the station's crew
was killed by the xenomorph. The camera pans up to the
ceiling. There's a fucking xenomorph
hanging from the ceiling. Nobody noticed when they walked
into the room, which is hilarious and and I guess just
situational awareness is negative for horror movies or
for feta Alvarez's films. And then Rook says Navarro is
beyond saving because the creature implanted a seed.
And we get this pretty awesome chase down where we literally
see Andy now that he's bad Andy Sprint after Bjorn and trying to
help, you know, Bjorn's trying to help his girlfriend Navarro
escape the ship. And I thought that was
terrifying because seeing I don't think we've seen an
Android run outside of David and Covenant.
I think it's the only time we see it happen.
So I thought that was successfully intimidating and
posing and scary. And I think David Johnsons
ability to shift between submissive Andy to Waylon Utani
Andy again is just so impressive.
And I think, again, this scene is probably the best example of
that, where he takes off and he grabs the door and he opens it
and he has that non expressive face, but you know, he's like up
to no good. Like he could easily kill these
characters if he wanted to. So that was pretty cool.
And that's the part. You're like I, yeah, I don't
care if Bjorn dies like. No, I was pro and so that I
guess that was their intention and their motivation and.
I guess I do think though the writers are would be OK with the
audience feeling that. It's just like, well, what is
your meaning behind us feeling that then?
Right, Yeah. So yeah, I don't know about that
as as far as far as using Ian Home as Rook, but really Ash,
because that's really what he's they're doing for the audience
in Metaway in terms of fan service.
Did you were you angry? Were you, did you just not care?
Were you kind of like unaffected by it?
Because the movie felt like fanservice at this point.
Well, so OK, let's back up to when we see the well before the
big reveal, like when we see the half body on the floor and you
know it's like a some sort of David or Ash character, right?
You said, David, because that was going to be the question.
I. Had oh, you thought maybe it
could be David? No, it didn't look like like a
Michael Fassbender. No, sorry.
The question I was going to ask for you was did they go for
Fassbender first and he said no. No, I think that Fassbender is
reserved for Ridley's club only. Like I don't think that Ridley
would let anyone else use David. I agree with you.
He's like, I want to make my third movie and it's my dying
wish and I need David to be mine.
I I do think though, like you know, there are other AIS they
could from the universe they could play with.
Maybe a Blade Runner would be. That's the.
Only. Only thing that would have been
cool to me, but bringing back any other character who was an
artificial person or whatever in this universe just feels again,
like cheap fan service unless you actually do something
interesting with it. And here, you know, we saw the
body and I thought it would have been cool if we just left it at
there was a moment where they and they like touch the body and
it pops up and it's this. It's a fun, you know, like jump
scare artificial person, like kind of still alive, right.
And I said to you, that's Ash. Yeah, you did.
And I thought like, maybe people didn't totally clock that.
And then if they just left it there.
But you can only really have one artificial.
It would just turn into like a Collider article.
Like, yeah, I'd be like, who was that one Android with?
Anything you missed? Yeah, but I was like that,
whoop. It would be, it would be fine.
I would be OK with that. But the reason I'm not OK with
it is because once we get to, you know, meet the character
Rook, who is Ash, and he just basically tells the people on
the ship, like, here are all the things about the xenomorph,
here's everything we've been doing.
He explains the black goo and we already know not to trust him.
It's playing with the audience's relationship but obviously again
to alien and not trusting Ash and so we are we don't think he
is genuine and having the black goo leave this planet.
We know it's for a a bad reason or whatever, like it's the the
company wanting to get the alien like off the the ship, but it
just was so transparent, I guess, right And it felt like
when it looked bad, it didn't feel great.
It felt like, especially since the actor isn't really alive
anymore. I was just like, this is tough
because this character isn't like that fun.
I so I got excited, I guess when I first met him, but I then the
longer he stuck around and the longer and I guess the more it
became clear that him and Andy were supposed to be kind of
these foil artificial person characters.
But then it actually had nothing to really say besides this idea
that Ash is actually an an Android artificial person for
the company saying like humans you are.
Like weak in the scheme of like evolution, right.
And we're just supposed to think that is evil, even though it's
like that's true. Like the Xenomorph is like as
far superior as like a a being that can just survive or
whatever. And but that that's what Ash is
also interested in. But it wasn't also that
interested in looking at how Ash in the original movie or just
artificial people like David, who's interesting because he has
a specific relationship of how he was created and and his kind
of disdain for the humans because of their exploitation
towards him, his relationship with the xenomorphic.
That's unexplored. And then so since we have the
again, this comparison between the Ash character and the Andy
character, we're supposed to think I already explained that,
but that that just felt like, OK, well then why?
Why is he here? Why is it?
Well, summed up, yeah, those are all of the questions I had.
No, those are all the thoughts I had ultimately to add on to what
you're saying, I just think. Does he look like rubber?
And why does he look bad? Yeah.
I I just thought it was embarrassing more than more than
anything. I felt embarrassed as a fan.
I was like, oh, I'm am IA loser for liking this franchise.
Like I was I was starting to reflect on like, my relationship
to the movies, Like maybe, maybe Aliens 4 1/2 stars.
Just kidding. But I was like this, this is
such an exploitation of the audience's nostalgia that they
had to do so much narratively to make up for it.
And some people have argued that they did and it was cool that he
was whaling Utanian like bad Android.
But like you've already said, and we've already explained,
that moral kind of contrast of good Android versus bad Android
literally makes no sense in the greater universe of this
franchise because there's no such thing as a good Android.
So in terms of as a representation of the company,
because they're built by the company who is a monopoly, which
is Disney like Wayland time. So yeah, I just thought, I
thought it was lazy and boring. Yeah, that whole idea of like
Disney being like, well, we don't want you to think like us.
The company is that. No, that's what's that's what I
didn't want to say that, but that's what does feel a little
bit manipulative. The same thing with Feta Alvarez
wanted to make more of these movies.
It's kind of like wanting to be on Disney's good side and Disney
wanting him to do this, which is like, we like this fact that
you're going to use fanservice so we can bring back other
characters and all we have to do is pay out their families there.
I don't have. I have no moral qualms or like,
ethical problems with families accepting money because In
Home's family apparently said OK to Fede Alvarez and Disney and
Ridley Scott. They approved it.
Yeah. Yeah, they approved it.
At least that's what as far as we know.
I'm assuming that means a lot of money for them.
And that was in 2020. And obviously, you know, Ian
Home was in Lord of the Rings, so hopefully he got paid out for
some of the movies he's done. And as one of the most important
hobbits for Lord of the Rings fans, also, one of the scariest
scenes ever is Ian Home doing the angry Hobbit thing.
Frodo, I got to rewatch those movies.
I love those films. But I have no moral issue with
that because, yeah, get money, you know?
But my only thing is the kind of like artistic integrity of
Disney and 20th century and Fede Alvarez and the crew who chose
to do this, I think is in jeopardy a little bit.
Like, I do think it's fine as an audience to be like, we want
more than this. This is lazy, this is boring,
and we deserve more. We paid a lot of money to see.
This it's very different than if we were to see like maybe a tape
from the past ship. Sure.
And we saw like a message from Ash or something that was given
to a new word Android. Yeah.
That is very different than making someone like a full
character in the movie. And yeah, Betty Alvarez talked
about it in an interview where he was like very understanding
that some people wouldn't agree with this choice.
And he was like, ultimately I just felt like it was right and
was. That the big picture.
I think so, yeah. And that's fine.
But he did compare it also, though, to how isn't it the same
thing as someone an actor, like dressing up as a historical
figure? I think, he said.
Like someone dressing up as Churchill, that was like, that's
just not the same thing. Interesting take.
I don't think that like, I don't really have any like moral, I
guess, push back on this, except for the fact like, I'm not like,
Oh my gosh, like terrible people for, you know, for including
this actor. Yeah, it's more consumer
pushback and like intellectual and emotional pushback.
Yeah, it's, it's more of that. But then also like I do think
there is an interesting conversation as we get more into
a world where things are digitally possible to, to make
something like more realistic is like if you did bring back an
actor to be in a role and actually was like believable.
I do think at that point it is taking away, you know, roles
from actors who actually you could do a fresh story with.
And then it's just, again, doing something that's safe to put
money in a company's pocket. So I think that's really the
only part where I'm like, I just don't really love this choice.
One, because it wasn't interesting, but second because
I don't really love where that's going from taking away
opportunities. And usually if we want a
character to come back, they're usually a white guy.
So like. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, that's another point to
it, too. I mean, I was just about to add.
I mean, I don't know why they couldn't have just done David
Johnson. You know, David Johnson could
have played bad Andy and good Andy and that's it.
Why did you need another? What did he met himself like a
parent trap? That's kind of what I'm saying.
Like he could just do the Walter David thing, right?
And then the Romulus Remus of it all would actually make a lot
more sense. Like the two sides of this
Android having this kind of like existential crisis in as far as
an Android can have an existential crisis.
That would have been an interesting thing to explore.
That seems way more like Ridley Scott logic.
In fact, I don't think we would have thought of that if it
wasn't for Covenant. Yeah, it's literally just David
and. Walter, I was like, whoa.
Big new idea, just same thing that's happened before.
Yeah, so except they would have let Andy went out and obviously
Walter loses. Yeah, but but then the
conversations that come into that are more interesting than
what happened. Anyways, thought it was
superficial and kind of hollow. So now for anyone and.
Real, real quick, while we're still on that character, though,
I I felt most offended, I think when the Prometheus music popped
up as he's explaining that like sphere or the cylinder thing
where the black goo comes out of in the tomb in Prometheus and we
we get the music and see the the experiments of like the rat with
the black goo. I.
Did like the music, yeah. Didn't love that the black goo
made it an appearance. But I just didn't feel it felt
so again, like fan servicey. And then another kind of moment
where we see that massive face hugger that looks like a
underwater creature. Like.
Just I was like, why? That isn't scary to me.
I know, I know it's not technically supposed to be
because it's in this lab this like they're doing scientific
experiments on this, but I just didn't feel like it was adding
to the lore. It was just kind of like using
it for the audience to feel something and it didn't like we
were supposed to know, oh, the black goo that Andy is now
taking as a mission to get off the ship.
He shouldn't be doing that. Like let's pay attention to
that. But I was just like, man, that
sucks because I really care about the black goo.
I had hauled the. Nostalgia Bate that made me mad
or sad. It was the black goo the most
because the black. Goo so cool and covenant too
like the. Coolest thing about Prometheus
and Covenant is it doesn't answer any fucking questions
about the original Engineer that the crew from Alien on the
Nostromo find in the original Alien film.
And then also the coolest questions about Prometheus and
Covenant is you still after watching those movies and
writing about them extensively. Like I have like written essays
for websites about those two films because I love them so
much. I still don't understand the
logistics of the black goo. So the fact that we have to
watch a scientist Rook be like, well, all we did was recreate.
We use the DNA from the xenomorph that's been in space
for 10 years. And then we use that to then
build this pod that looks exactly like the pods from the
the derelict ships from the engineer ships.
And then we found this black goo that we then gave to these
animals that apparently works the exact same as the other
black goo and from the other ships.
And it was like the Emperor Palpatine moment all over again
where I was like, how, why are you doing this?
Like it? It honestly hurt my feelings
where I was like, I've spent so much time, I've invested so much
time into this franchise being the perfect crossover of dumb
spectacle with like smart provocations that for them to
reuse a lot of these things that are so mysterious and put it in
your face and be like, this is all that it means and it's kind
of dumb. And now we're going to make a
kind of a dumb thriller out of it and have this skinny, tall
Slender Man juggernaut at the end of the movie.
Not there yet. Yeah, Holy.
Shit, I mean, I checked out when I saw that.
I mean we. Can get there in a second yeah
yeah we'll we'll do that in just one second but I think like you
know the the black goo being used in like a similar way I
guess here that Rooks explaining it would be like at the
beginning of Prometheus when we see the engineer take the the
like suicide shot and then go into the water and.
But in 2012. Creates, you know, into new DNA
that I mean, it was similar imagery used here.
It's just like literally explaining it.
And Alien movies are cool because they don't often do that
or they'll do it where it's like Ripley is trying to deal with
all these men in Aliens and she's like, no, you don't
understand or like or no, like I see through you and I see like
whatever your intention is with like the, you know what I mean?
So that that's when it's interesting.
If you're like trying to get through to someone while
explaining the the lore, but it's not very interesting when
it's like, I'm going to set this up and then now you go and shoot
the aliens. And go.
Through their acid blood. Everything is just like hammered
into the story like. It just doesn't feel very like
natural. Yeah, listeners probably don't
really remember if you're not a super big Prometheus fan.
Like, I was like, theatre opening night because there were
rumors that it was like an Alien film.
And Alien was my favorite movie growing up, still is.
And when I walked out of that theatre, when I was reading
articles like blogs and I remember talking to my friends
and my dad saw it at the time too, and everybody around me,
including online was telling me still not an Alien film.
Like I don't know if people remember, but in 2012 when
Prometheus came out, everybody was like, what the hell was with
that juggernaut at the beginning of the movie?
What did he do? It wasn't until like explained
essays or YouTube videos started coming out that people were
like, maybe it is sort of like a prequel to Aliens.
And even just because you get the the squid monster at the end
of Prometheus and it turns into a Xenomorph like creature,
right. But that wasn't enough for
people at the time in 2012 to identify Prometheus as an Alien
movie because it was so ambiguous and mysterious and it
seemed like it didn't really give a shit about the
Xenomorphs. They really cared about these
ideas of these gods in this like fight for power and immortality
of these two, the characters, the corporate guy, the the
zealot Elizabeth Shaw. And that was that kind of like
originality and ambiguity, kind of ambiguous nature of those
movies is what made them special.
And that's what that's why I keep freaking out about Romulus
is because it's so in your face. Yeah.
And then reducing all those interesting things to just kind
of like plot. Yeah, it felt forced and like
there are of course, you know, elements of the Prometheus and
Covenant that are still within like a sci-fi premise.
Like of course you're like all all of this is like it's not
that serious. But at the same time there is
that fun ambiguity and there are there is mystery, you know, and
that just felt lacking here. And I think exactly what you
said earlier, like unfortunately, it just felt so
try hard like it, it was. And I, I was just like, I want
some sort of like room to, to kind of like question in this
universe. There's no subtext, everything's
text. Text.
So we get a chest burster coming out from Navarro.
Did you like that scene I. Thought it was great.
I thought, I thought that bathroom walking.
Into the oh, right, right. Yeah, I think the effects are
like I just the the way they made that look was sick.
Like I I thought that it was the best chest burster we've seen.
Oh wow, besides Covenant? We just rewatched Covenant
again. Just sort of feed ourselves
here. That's a very mean spirited
movie when it comes to its set pieces.
But I mean burster. I mean purely chest burster.
OK, Yeah. I'm going to give it to the
original alien still. OK, well, that's that's fine.
That's a nostalgia pick. Yeah, it is.
So I think their ship crashes right into the ship's hangar.
Does that sound right? Sure.
And I think from there we see that Merced's character, Kay, by
the way, she did a great scream. I might have already said that,
but when? She screamed.
Oh, great horror Scream, Yeah. Really.
You know, awesome. So she's the sister who's
pregnant, I believe, with a guy that is unnamed, right?
Yeah, I think. She just says it's some asshole,
yeah. Right.
So she is knocked unconscious from the impact and the chest
burster escapes into the ship, right.
I think there might be some cross cutting here between Ian
Home and David Johnson having conversations where he's trying
to like Palpatine, his Anakin, like trying to indoctrinate him
basically. And then eventually Kay regains
consciousness, she runs into Jorn, and I think that's how you
say his name. Bjorn.
I don't know. I'm sorry.
Who located the kind of Xenomorph gestating into its
adult form? Right.
So what did you think about the imagery of the cocoon and also
the evolution of the Xenomorph? Because now this movie takes
that lore somewhere else. Because in past films we've seen
these Xenomorph evolve differently.
Yeah, well, I think like the the Xenomorph looked great.
I and again, I think like everything around the Xenomorphs
they they kept intact like the scary elements of it.
I didn't think like I, I think they always looked good.
The animatronic specifically for the Xenomorph looked really
good. They did some digital
compositing over it but I thought it looked great.
Right, but I think like when we come to the I guess this element
of the Alien franchise where a lot of things are shaped like
human anatomy and like Giger, right?
And and Scott like have been very transparent in this idea of
like the Alien being like this phallic, right image or like the
egg, like having anatomy. And here we literally see a
cocoon that is like a vulva, right?
And so when we have, you know, previous movies with this
imagery, Ridley Scott has had an interesting conversation about,
like, why do we see human anatomy as like, grotesque?
Right. Right.
And like kind of kind of including these pieces into a
horror and having some sort of reflection within like, the the
gender and power dynamics within the movie itself.
Yeah. They do it again in Prometheus
with the C-section scene. Yeah, exactly.
Making like this kind of birth scene a horror scene.
Right. And like a lot of times we are,
I think there, I mean, it definitely varies like film by
film, but there are a lot of moments where I think Ridley
Scott is with the xenomorphs being like animals, right, of
asking like why we have a relationship to right this like
aspect of something that's natural.
I think here where we see the cocoon, it just feels like
because this movie is so surface level and really doesn't feel
like it has a lot underneath going on thematically, that it
does feel like when I see this, like, monstrous feminine
embodiment that's supposed to be grotesque, that's supposed to be
this like, again, like vulva cocoon.
Then it just feels like, oh, I'm supposed to be looking at this
anatomy that I associate with women as something that's
monstrous. And then it's like, why are you
doing that? Because there's not really a
interesting gender. Yeah, like critique here.
Then it just makes that a scary or gross thing.
And so when I saw it, I was like, I just like, what are you
doing here? Right.
Yeah, I mean, I felt all that, especially because the character
so obviously wouldn't move from the drip.
And so when we kept like the acid drip and so when the camera
kept going up to the vulva, I was like, oh, they just want
this for the effect, like for the effect that the audience is
going to like associate this with, you know, some kind of
anatomy and then be like, oh, monstrous anatomy like.
And I think again, this is where I'm not sure if Eddie Alvarez
really totally in his Co writer. Maybe it was more the Co writer.
I don't know, grasped the subtext of the Alien films.
The only thing they seem to really latch onto was the class
commentary, but even that was like not fully explored.
Yeah. And so as far as the Alien lore,
like the kind of the the evolution of the Xenomorph, the
way that the Xenomorph evolves in Alien Covenant, he's so sick.
It's literally Pokémon, it's awesome.
If MU two was in a rated R movie, you know, MU or whatever,
like when the black goo is is in that kind of like that, it's in
that vegetation state, Yeah. And there are these little
spores that are going into people's ears of the.
Nostril, when it when it kind of turns into this like bug like
yeah, atmosphere particles, yeah.
Yeah. And then we see a, We see a back
burster in the lab. We see a a throat burster,
right? We see all kinds of things that
are disgusting. And these little tiny
xenomorphs, these not not chest bursters anymore, like mini
alien xenomorphs quickly evolve within like 10 minutes of screen
time into massive xenomorphs, you know, and I liked that.
And there was no cocoon it it wasn't that we didn't see one.
They very obviously like went into tall grass and came out as
bigger and they were just quickly evolving because that's
how they were biologically engineered to do is like this
like ultimate, not necessarily predator, but like parasite or
like kind of this kind of the dual predator parasite figure
that they are. And I think that's so much
scarier than seeing the cocoon. Does that make sense?
Because my problem with James Cameron Aliens treatment of
Xenomorphs outside of just putting a bunch of them in one
movie is he makes them bugs. He makes them like bees.
The bug. Right.
And that totally reduces the perfect specimen, that alien.
Established. With the Xenomorph as somebody
who's taking down a crew and no one can catch and it's so smart
and it reduces them to literally bugs.
And also because you lose the idea or even interesting
question of like the human self importance, right?
Like you understand that this is a wider universe universe.
And like you understand, I guess like the the company's bottom
line and and I think like that is all kind of interesting, but
but yeah, I guess it, this takes the aliens like multiple crawly
creatures and and brings it into this world as a way to escape
again, this like kind of haunted house feature of the movie.
And again, I get that it's a monster movie, but we keep
comparing it to Covenant because I think Covenant is still a very
much a monster movie, right? Like Mewtwo is making his way
through the grass. Yeah, grass.
And that I am so interested in and it's scary like.
And so I think that that there are definitely ways to do it,
but especially once we get can we get to like the end scene
here? Because I think this was
supposed to be the kind of biggest, darkest, scariest
vampire moment where we see essentially, Oh my God, the the
birth scene first, let's start out.
Yeah. Andy's got a new directive and
basically he needs to save the black goo, and saving the black
goo has led to the black goo now infecting Kay who was dying
because she got stabbed in the back by Xenomorph.
Right. Who was pregnant.
So then now her pregnancy has morphed into a figure where that
we haven't quite seen in the alien verse.
Obviously there are What do you want to what do you want?
To call him Slender Man, Slender Juggernaut, like, I don't know.
What's He's an engineer vampire hybrid, Yeah.
And I guess this is trying to tell us that the engineers are
vampire like like they, they eat, they take people's blood,
they don't know or take organisms.
I don't know because it it doesn't have to be the same like
DNA as the original engineer here either.
Yeah. It's just annoying because
importantly, the the Xenomorphs don't eat anything that's a
whole part of their character in these films.
So to see this like hybrid eat something I'm.
Like we don't know what they eat.
They I guess it's true. I guess they nest these people,
but they got to eat something. I don't know.
I've never seen them eat anything in any movie.
They're supposed to be the perfect special.
They can live in space, and just like they can create cocoons
with their acid blood in space apparently.
Live for years. And not eat anything.
Hibernate I OK, so but then we have this like birth scene,
which again, like it just felt like, OK, well, I don't really
care a lot about the character who was killed because of this
birth. And very, very importantly, like
a huge, I think distinction in a scene like this is if you
compare it to Prometheus birth scene with Naomi Rapace in that
like medical BAE who she has a she gives herself like AC
section. And then we compare this birth
scene. There's so much less focus on
the woman who's giving birth and the character for me to care
about what she's going through where I'm it's basically just
again, kind of what I was talking about with the cocoon,
you know, scene earlier. We just get the kind of horror
of her body giving birth. It's boring to me like this.
I yes, like is it crazy to see this in our in in a world in a
horror movie? Like is it a terrifying, you
know, I guess situation sure than alien movie, but it just
felt like so focused on the horror, like monstrous aspects
of giving birth almost. And then again, like, obviously
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that from like a the
lens, right? Of the writers.
Yeah, yes, right. Verse like not making it this
monstrous thing. When Naomi Pace is being shot,
we see her face, we see what she's going through.
We see her getting this, like, foreign, you know?
Body out of her stomach. Exactly.
The subtext of how only men have created that machine to only
work for. Men.
Exactly. Yeah.
So she has to recalibrate it. Yeah.
The whole time we are focused on the character, what she's going
through, why it's horrific for her in this scene, we're just
focused again on like the lower half of her body for the most
part. And I don't know the character.
And so it it that's uninteresting.
And so when this egg is like hatched, essentially are given
birth to and we see rain, obviously terrified.
And it goes to the bottom of this, like, sand pit, which kind
of reminds me of like, I know what you did last summer with
the ice pit on the ship for some reason.
This movie cannot stand up against I know what you did last
summer and I understand. The comparison but but then and
we see this kind of like human engineer though type of like
skin right with this open acid egg and obviously like see.
The baby engineer. Yeah, the baby.
Love the baby. Yeah.
I will say I thought the baby was so funny.
I was like, oh, OK, I'm in. I don't know if this is
unintentional comedy, but this is hilarious.
If it stayed a baby, that would have been amazing.
A scary baby. That's what I was thinking.
I was like, oh wait, this movie might.
No, it's too weird because it doesn't show us a juggernaut.
It doesn't show us an engineer. It's just like this hyper scary
baby and then you have to imagine that there's this baby
floating in space. When I saw the the baby, I kind
of like laughed. Not in a, not in a way where I
didn't like it. I was just like this is funny in
a fun way. It was so dumb, yeah.
But but I think that, you know, I knew I was a little annoyed
because I knew the engineer was coming or I knew some sort of
like hybrid engineer and I was like, it didn't deserve this.
Like the movie, like I know it needs to have a fourth act as an
alien film. But I just didn't feel like when
I saw the engineer kind of like a transformer essentially, like
breaking its back together, back together and being a vampire, I
was just kind of like annoyed that an engineer was here
without any kind of like Betheus undertone hard hitting of like
what the engineers represent to the humans.
So it just felt like this vampire monster creature.
I was like, this is literally just a monster movie.
And that's fine if you're just going to the movie for like a
thrill horror, you know, movie of the summer.
Like, I wonder what people would think if they'd never seen an
alien movie and just like came to this.
Maybe you'd enjoy it. Yeah.
And that's that totally makes sense.
Like. Actually, that's not true.
I already said earlier, we put in a vacuum.
There's just OK, but if you're. Experiencing it as like AB
horror movie like we enjoy other B horror movies like you didn't
have the lore experience yeah yeah I'm.
Trying to though. Yeah, but if you went in it or
purely that, then sure, like it works in a lot of ways.
But I was just like, so I I felt kind of like there was an I
think embarrassing is probably like maybe a mean word, but it's
what I also probably felt it's like this, like it just didn't
earn this and like. There was a scene we skipped
over where David Johnson says get away from her, you bitch to
it. And half of our crowd cheered
and I definitely felt embarrassed because I could feel
the silence from the other half. You know what I mean?
There was definitely a divide. And those people are listening
to this podcast right now. And the people who cheer like I
understand, but like I also, we also cover movies and we're like
hyper aware of what industry that like the industry, the
state of the industry is like what studios are doing and
they're trying to fuck with like fan service so that they all
never have to create anything original.
And it's just this like pipeline of making things that had
already come before and you're playing with.
Iron Man is now doctored. Yeah, which that's I'm actually
excited about. That's a whole other
conversation. Yeah, that's.
Stay tuned for a Marvel conversation next month.
Totally agree with everything you're saying.
I think what this movie misses most, and maybe this can be our
final thoughts here before we get to our extra credits and
maybe some, you know, thoughts about what can come next.
The famous blockbuster sci-fi horror slasher, the xenomorph
that this movie so obviously in love with, and I understand why
is legitimately a terrifying creation, right?
The Dan O Bannon shoe set screenplay, the HR Giger design,
the Ridley Scott vision of drinking wine and smoking cigars
and yelling at people to do what he wanted them to do.
But important importantly, the Xenomorph is a red herring
character and then so are the Engineers.
They mean a lot of things subtextually because there are
smart artists working on these projects from Alien to
Prometheus to Covenant. But ultimately, like the
Xenomorph or the Juggernauts as God figures, these are thematic
red herrings. And as far as the through line
of the Alien franchise and how it connects to our contemporary
world in 79 to now today, is that the humans are the
villains. That's the whole point of this
franchise. Like we are the gods we have
been searching for because we made immortal technology.
The humans with power are the villains, yeah.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Waylon Utani in this
situation, or any of the other corporate overlords like Tyrell
from Blade Runner, Wallace from 2049, Wayland from Prometheus
and so forth, right? And so this kind of idea that
the search for immortality from our mythic storytelling in the
Greek myths and Rome myths that they're trying to play with in
these movies to today, like this search for living forever, this
power that we can't have creates this like self-destructive
competitive cycle for generations and creates
patriarchy and creates men wanting to control women's
bodies. And so the androids represent
this kind of hubris, right? This kind of like immortal
technical technology that we created and without
understanding that you're going to make a bad alien film.
Like if you watch the alien movies and you go the xenomorph
is the pole reason these movies rock.
That's not what that's that's what might like be sick as a as
an entertaining thrill ride, like when you're getting to.
But conceptually, the reason why these stories feel like we're
we're watching really smart cinematic stories through these
two hour blockbusters that feel like popcorn films, but are
something different is because of like this constant reframing
of the xenomorph as just a parasite that happened to be
picked up by the company, right? Like that's the whole point,
right? Like these colonizers, these
exploiters have a Class, A working class of people that
they want to be. They want the Xenomorph to lay
eggs into. So then they can use their
bodies and use this as a tool or as a commodity.
So people missing that through line of Ridley Scott's whole
career of these three major movies he made with Alien,
Prometheus and Covenant is so depressing.
Watching Romulus now, Ridley Scott put his name on this as a
producer. Yeah, I guess we can talk about
that now, unless you've any other final thoughts.
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I also no the I
already said everything about the why the Andy character is
like thematically not good. But I think again, just to like
shout out, I guess we'll do it. We should do extra credits as
our final thoughts, right? Yeah, I guess we can do really
Scott conversation after the extra credits.
OK, let's do it. Extra credits What do?
You got all right. So my extra credits are the set
pieces. I think that they were
interesting and they were well done.
Like they looked really good. It was just, again, everything
we've already talked about that kind of took away from the
stakes of those set pieces from making them be successful in the
movie overall. Yeah, I mean the there are a
couple set pieces. We didn't really talk about Andy
and Kelly Spainy in the elevator shaft before the getaway from.
Her. Yeah, that was another great
one. That was a good one, but again,
like with every set piece, that was fun.
I did feel like some kind of like thematic, unimaginative,
afraid to offend vibe where they didn't want to do anything new,
but it was cool to get the visual style of Fede Alvarez
injected into the kind of xenomorph Facehacker moments of
this film for sure. OK, so extra credits for me.
I'll go David Johnson, obviously.
I thought you would pick. I was going to pick him, but I
was like. He was so silly in Rye Lane last
year, and to do something so different here shows a a range
that I thought I knew he had an industry.
But he plays such like a kind of aloof, kind of jerkish character
in industry. So are all the characters,
frankly, and kind of just wants to do his own thing.
Yeah, very succession coded. Great show.
Can't wait for season three. Haven't started it yet, but him
going from like reserved to menacing very quickly in this
movie with his robotic emotions being a bit showy in the
beginning, like a little too much in the beginning.
But then when he goes to Andy #2 like I've been saying, I was
just invested. And that's hard to do because
you're everybody is a fan in the audience.
And this movie is made for fans. It's fanservice.
It's thinking of Michael Fassbender and how he should
have won an Oscar for what he did as David or Walter, and
that's a lot to live up to. And I think he makes his own
thing here with Andy, which. Is Yeah, I think so.
I was going to say this is my second extra credit, but I just
assumed that since you really hated this movie, that since
David Johnson is like one of the only great things about it, that
you think of his extra credit. And he is very deserving.
And I think something that speaks to how successful his
performance is in this movie is like, I want to see him in
another Alien movie, right? I want to see his character come
back. And I don't feel that way about
the other characters in the movie.
He does well fantasy though. I'd I'd like to see him.
I mean, they're going to be casting the X-Men movies soon.
I'd like to see him in something else, like give him a franchise
or something. Not that we need just need
franchise spectacles, but he was really able to hold the screen,
had a lot of charisma for a character that wasn't demanding
that and from, you know, characters in this movie that
really lacked that. And I also just want to say the
Android is the the spiciest, most fun character to play, so
maybe that's a little bit of it, too.
Like if Kaylee Spain, he got to play an Android.
Sure. Would that be kind of sick?
Yeah. Like you know what?
I mean, you have more to do, so much to do with that character,
that's true. In terms of another extra
credit, just very quickly, the music.
I liked how the music mixed in different scores or soundtracks
from other past films. Like we had the Benjamin Walfish
like him composing original music, but there were also, you
know, featuring themes from Jerry Goldsmith from the
original or James Horner from the sequel.
And then Prometheus. I I mean, the Prometheus score I
think is one of the more underrated ones from Mark
Streitenfield. And then I think we also had the
kind of entry of the God into that Valhalla from that David
was playing for his father, who he would later be a part in
killing. And I think there was even some
covenant beats here too. So I loved the injection of the
music, that kind of stuff, or the hand of ash instead of like
showing Ash. That would have just.
It's been so much cooler. Yeah, in terms of fanservice.
Yeah. All right.
Wait. OK, before.
Well, I guess we can talk about Ridley Scott.
Yeah, let's do it. And then I have a question for
you before we we leave. OK, so is Ridley Scott going to
make his third David movie? Is he promoting this film Alien
Romulus? Because I don't.
I've looked specifically he didn't touch the screenplay.
Apparently he gave notes he came to set sometimes but wasn't
there all the time. He didn't do the whole later
under 2049 thing where he was there every day.
Yeah, castling to need on the vanilla is like, I'm gonna do my
own shit with Dune. I'm not doing another one of
these even though I think Villeneuve is aware that he made
a prequel to Aliens, sort of like he knows he's in that
universe and maybe people don't recognize that now, but they
will I think in the future. Is Ridley Scott at 8586 years
old like he is now getting ready to do prep for Napoleon two,
which or sorry, not Napoleon 2, Gladiator 2, Napoleon.
I'll take Napoleon 2, Gladiator 2.
Assuming Gladiator Two blows up, let's say it makes 600, seven,
$100 million. He's in the middle of four
different screenplays right now. Apparently he's making a speed
coded movie called Bomb, right? He's making a movie about the
Bee Gees. He's making us a thriller about
Circus Olay, Sure. And then he's also making a
financial thriller that's really under wraps with a huge cast.
That's the rumor that's exciting.
So he's making four movies. Let's say none of that's true,
right? Hopefully the Bee Gees one
really isn't true. And he spends the last years of
his life, hopefully not knock on wood, making Alien Olympus like
whatever whatever the third movie is to.
I said Olympus just because of the the Greek mythology he's
playing with whatever the third film would be to this David
trilogy. And if he really wants to
connect it, he can because they're going to a planet where
whaling Utani doesn't exist. And David probably knows that.
And David's going somewhere too, at the end of Covenant with the
colonizer. Ship Well, he's going to the
ship that like at the end of Covenant, they do say they're
still on track for that's no, no, no for the IT starts with an
O no, but that planet that they're originally going to go
to. Yoga or whatever.
No, no. OK, It's Orion.
Something like that. Maybe Randy will be like, hey,
Rain, I hear a distress signal. It's at this planet.
Maybe they could meet up. I don't know.
So I think that's my my theory is that Ridley Scott put his
name on this. I don't think he thinks this is
a good movie. There's no fucking way.
I don't believe it. The guy who made Covenant, No
way. He definitely watches and was
like, that's bee version of whatever I did in Covenant.
At least be version. Yeah.
So even though I do like Fede Alvarez in terms of don't
breathe and original storytelling, I just hope he
gets out of the franchise. He's stuck in the franchise
stuff. Get him out of there, please.
I want him to make original stuff because I do think he has
some, like, writing skills that he showed already.
I do think he only attached the name here so he'd get a David
movie. Is that what you think too?
Yeah, I mean, this is of course like all speculation, but I just
can't imagine like being so interested in fighting for like
his cut of Blade Runner, right, to be more mysterious and to not
have like a voice over, you know, of like a Harrison Ford
character. Yeah.
And and all of his previous work that of course, like everything
isn't great. But if you look at things that
he's done, like the last Duel or like obviously hit what he's
done in the Alien universe, like specifically with Alien Covenant
Prudent Metheus, you can't like I I just can't imagine he was
like, let me just put my stamp of approval on this movie.
Like it does seem like a funding thing.
I don't know. And that's obviously it could
totally not be true, But it's just so weird to look at the
other movies in this space that he's done and then compare it to
something that does feel so service leveled.
Well, you can imagine the pitch to Disney.
I mean, once Disney bought 20th Century in 2019, a couple years
after Covenant, they apparently killed the idea for the third
David movie. Because we can imagine what the
pitch was was like, OK, so Can you imagine Ridley Scott in the
boardroom? So David, he, he committed
genocide to the gods, right? And so like now, he's God.
Now he. And so now he has a whole colony
and these are all his babies, you know, and then so all the
xenomorphs he's going to he's going to raise a world full of
Xenomorphs. And then, you know, like that
pitch would go over so poorly for Disney.
They like, wait, he killed they're.
Obviously going to do something different, like he would do
something different. It wouldn't just be like a
Xenomorph petting zoo on a planet.
OK, be sick. OK.
All right. Anyway, we are pulling obviously
for our third David trilogy and maybe we could have Andy since
there is the the kind of like dialogue, you know, narrative
component of Andy being one of the original, yeah, like
artificial people that he could also show up in a prequel
technically. And also they have a whole,
there's a whole colony on that ship that I believe, yeah, David
has. And so there's a huge cast.
They they can have a huge onshore that's so and do like a
a plan of the ape situation, right?
Like where you you have people in cages and they're all getting
they need to get xenomorphed, you know, and like face hugged,
like there's a lot of different. Things xenomorphs are, yeah.
You know what I mean? They could do a bunch of
different things. OK, I need to eat dinner.
I have a question for you before we get out of here.
Yeah, we had to order. It's getting too late to cook.
OK, if you could choose a director who feels very suited,
like for the Alien franchise. Alien universe?
Who? Who's it gonna be?
The obvious name, which is not my favorite director choice, but
the obvious name is Christopher Nolan because he is a huge Alien
fan, a huge Bladerunner fan. I think the rumor was in 2015
that Ridley Scott personally, like, reached out to Christopher
Nolan and was like, will you take on the Bladerunner
franchise? And then he went to Deni Valnav,
which makes sense since Deni Valnav is kind of a spiritual
successor. I mean, successor's a tough
word, but that's how I feel about Christopher Nolan.
You know, I love Nolan's work and I think he's done a good
franchise work too. I would rather, you know, have
like a Dnie Villeneuve on a Blade Runner movie or an Alien
film. So it's Nolan, I think is the
obvious answer for most crowds, just knowing that he loves Alien
and Blade Runner and then Villeneuve obviously, but he
already did 2049. I think the choice that is
practical and makes sense but would make me a little bit sad
considering he does mostly original movies, is Jordan
Peele. I think Jordan Peele makes a lot
of sense as one of the very strange film makers that is
working in scale. Like he's doing $80 million
movies like Nope, making it a somewhat sizable profit on
those. Not probably enough to really
warrant a whole franchise to his name, but he's made two massive
hits with Get Out and Us obviously making so much money
and I think he is weird enough and has the sensibilities
cinematically and stylistically. And I do think from a writing
perspective, would. Get the like thematic beats.
And of a Ridley Scott figure. Yeah, or, or of like the Alien
franchise. Like I'm pretty sure Alien's his
favorite movie, right? And.
Favorite movie ever I believe. Yeah, and I like trust that he
he also like maybe comes to the alien universe the similar how
we do like he is interested in the themes of alien.
And you know, Jordan Peele hasn't touched gender, but
obviously he's he's touched class commentary.
Obviously he's dealt heavily in racial commentary.
So like, he has the Shyamalan, Hitchcockian, Carpenter, Romero
style of filmmaking, but he also has the big ideas, the ambitious
boldness of someone like Ridley Scott and doesn't really seem to
give a fuck if nobody gets his movies.
I do think you need that kind of energy to play in this field in
a respective way to like someone like Ridley Scott.
If you take Scott's work seriously.
Which listeners? If you don't like Prometheus or
Covenant, we have not even talked to you at all.
I'm sorry I just don't really have any time for people who
don't treat those movies seriously.
But I get not liking them because they do are are off
putting and and try to deconstruct what was mysterious
about the original aliens. So I get that part.
But apparently Jordan Peele is also rumored to be running the
new X-Men franchise for Marvel. That's a huge rumor.
I think the apparently the the meeting between Jordan Peele and
and Marvel went poorly because I assumed that he wanted like
full. To do something interesting.
He wanted like the autonomy over that script and I doubt he would
have gotten it and and what that movie would have looked like,
but Jordan Peele makes sense now.
If you want to move to different directors who also I think have
similar thematic interest, Bong Joon Ho comes to mind as someone
who's done very well with class commentaries.
He's done sci-fi before with The Host and other movies as well.
Koganada, if you want to go more indie, did a great job with
After Yang, and I think he did a great job with Androids.
Yeah. It's funny you asked me this
question because I was already prepared.
Like I was going to ask you the same question at the end.
So those film makers came to mind.
Obviously it would be nice to have a woman filmmaker on on
this movie too. I listened to the big picture.
I heard Chris and Sean talk about that as well.
The name they didn't bring up that came to mind first for me
was Rose Glass. Wow, that would be huge.
That's my number one, by the way, over Jordan Peele because I
kind of want Jordan Peele to do his own John John Carpenter
thing where he makes original stories from Jordan Peele.
Rose Glass with love lies bleeding.
Recently St. Maude.
She would do wonders with an Alien movie.
Yeah, I think especially young. Cronenberg vibes.
Yeah, there's so much body horror elements to the Alien
universe that Rose Glass is already doing in her work often.
And I think especially with Alien being a franchise where
it's really known for having like a a woman character at the
lead, but yet like the majority, like the is written by men, you
know, like and and like directed right?
The the creative control is in men's hands.
And so a lot of I think interesting questions get lost
and Rose Glass would be such a great, great director, I think
in this world. And I I also am forgetting her
name, but the director of nanny I think would also be great,
especially like with the class commentary in nanny.
And I also think that like so many people really recognized
that movie with it becoming a good criterion right collection
movie. But I I just think like the kind
of. She's a professor, right?
Nikatu Jusu I believe. I think so, yeah, George.
Mason, Yeah. And I and I think like that
those components, right, like are really interesting in the
alien world and already a part of it.
So it just doesn't make sense that they haven't hired a woman,
like if they're going to do a new movie in the franchise.
I mean, there's a lot of great woman film makers that could do
horror. I mean, Chloe Okuno, who made
Watcher, is a great director. You had Helena Rain with bodies,
bodies, bodies. You had, see.
That's OK. Bodies, bodies, bodies, right?
We got like a Helena Rain take on this movie.
The teens would actually be interesting, right?
It'd be funny too. Yeah, like I could do.
It's not. Cast would have been a much more
cooler. Yeah, my criticism, Rachel said
it would be in an Aliens movie. It's not my criticism.
Yeah, that, you know, this was a teen cast like it was just that
the characters were written uninterestingly and
unfortunately the performers didn't have a lot to do.
I do think that now that you said Rose Glass, especially
thinking of love lies, bleeding, I I think someone like, you
know, Kristen Stewart obviously fits in a world like this.
She's already done a movie called.
Underwater. Exactly, I was thinking of that
too. Essentially like life, you know?
Remember the movie? Life.
She just seems like a natural pick for like a a crew member,
right? They should just do it, yeah.
But just like thinking of that movie, I would actually love to
see in the Ripley role or like a Rain role, you know, in the
future. Katie O'Brien, I think she would
crush it. Good call.
I wish she had a bigger role in
Twisters. Yeah.
That would have been good, yeah. All right, that was the extra
credits of Alien Romulus. We'll be back next week with
James Cameron's Aliens, which is, I think, the best Alien
movie we are most critical of, which we've already kind of
hinted at today. I think it's my fourth favorite
Alien film, which I know is a hot take.
I won't be like ripping it apart like I did this movie, you know?
It's fun and I recognize it as fun.
Yep, we'll be back for that bug hunt pretty soon.
All right, this has been Trey. And this is Kelsey Peace.
Bye.