Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is The Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. This week,
Speaker 2: I'm devoting the episode to a kind of mini review
Speaker 2: of the latest film in the alien franchise, Alien Romulus,
Speaker 2: directed by Fede Alvarez. First and foremost, I had a
Speaker 2: great time in the theater with Alien Romulus. I'd been
Speaker 2: pregaming for months, obviously with fresh viewings of my favorite
Speaker 2: alien films, several sessions of the Alien RPG and several
Speaker 2: alien related episodes of The Monster Fact and Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema here in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed.
Speaker 2: So I was geared up for it. And there's always
Speaker 2: a certain amount of sunk cost with these films as well,
Speaker 2: an opening weekend tick and a collector's mug will set
Speaker 2: you back a pretty penny, so I have no regrets,
Speaker 2: but hey, that's how sunk cost works. So I went
Speaker 2: into the theater with a great deal of optimism, but
Speaker 2: not without some caution. While Ridley Scott's producer credit was
Speaker 2: reassuring I mostly know Fede Alvarez for the twenty thirteen
Speaker 2: Evil Dead gore Fest, which I enjoyed, and twenty sixteen's
Speaker 2: Don't Breathe, which I just have no interest in seeing.
Speaker 2: Not perhaps my brand of horror, but I respect those
Speaker 2: who dig it. One of my friends expressed hesitation in
Speaker 2: seeing the film, giving Alvarez's tendency for, in their words,
Speaker 2: a sort of meanness perhaps and maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: of suffering beyond the point of their comfort level. So granted,
Speaker 2: there's always suffering in an alien film, and perhaps meanness
Speaker 2: as well, but it's a careful balancing act. So I
Speaker 2: too was kind of unsure about where things were going
Speaker 2: to land on that point. My other point of caution
Speaker 2: concerned the Alien universe at large. I really enjoyed all
Speaker 2: six previous films, you know, some more than others, obviously,
Speaker 2: but I felt like each of them contributed nicely to
Speaker 2: an ever expanding fictional universe. Alien and the sequel Aliens
Speaker 2: set the tone, and I love the way Prometheus and
Speaker 2: Covenant expanded the lore and confronted philosophical ramifications of the setting.
Speaker 2: So I feared a narrowing of the Alien universe, in
Speaker 2: which previous entries would be ignored or minimalized, or some
Speaker 2: other move might be taken to unbalance the current state
Speaker 2: of things, upsetting the lore of the Alien RPG and
Speaker 2: other bits of extended media. Luckily, most of my concerns
Speaker 2: proved completely unwarranted. To its great credit, Alien Romulus is
Speaker 2: a film that embraces aspects of the entire Alien cinematic universe,
Speaker 2: minimizing nothing, while also including nods to the excellent video
Speaker 2: game Alien Isolation and proving very faithful to the Alien RPG.
Speaker 2: In fact, as I've seen others point out online, the
Speaker 2: movie could easily be a cinematic campaign for Free League's
Speaker 2: xenomorph infested role playing game. The film does a great
Speaker 2: job exploring the harsh life of interplanetary colonists, as well
Speaker 2: as the machinations of the whalan Utawni Corporation. It lovingly
Speaker 2: brings face huggers, chest bursters, and adult xenomorphs to life,
Speaker 2: and also shows us a few things that we hadn't
Speaker 2: seen before. It gives us some interesting android drama, and
Speaker 2: above all else, delivers a thoroughly satisfying, pulse pounding sci
Speaker 2: fi horror ride. I would say it kept me on
Speaker 2: the edge of my seat, but the theater chair was
Speaker 2: a recliner. The performances were all solid, with Kaylee Spainey's
Speaker 2: Rain and David Johnson's Andy as the standouts. Now two
Speaker 2: major points of frequent criticism that I should comment on.
Speaker 2: First of all, yes, there are a lot of callbacks
Speaker 2: in the dialogue to previous Alien films, in addition to
Speaker 2: visual and musical cues. Many of these are rather pleasant
Speaker 2: examples of mild fan service. I quite enjoyed hearing entry
Speaker 2: of the Gods into Valhalla as our characters entered the
Speaker 2: gloomy space station, but the instances do build up to
Speaker 2: a point that may exceed your personal tolerance. There is
Speaker 2: also the film's use of the android character Rook created
Speaker 2: in the likeness of the late Ian Holme, who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty one through twenty twenty, who of course played
Speaker 2: the android Ash in the original Alien. So much work
Speaker 2: clearly went into recreating this performance, and I'm to understand
Speaker 2: it was done with his family's blessings, But at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, I would have much preferred a
Speaker 2: live actor in the role, someone who could have truly
Speaker 2: brought the part to life in a unique way, while
Speaker 2: also honoring the synth performances that came before. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can easily think of numerous examples of living actors
Speaker 2: who could have really sunk their teeth into this role,
Speaker 2: and I'd be talking about it right now. Is one
Speaker 2: of the highlights of the film. As it is. The
Speaker 2: effects provide us with a synthetic rendering of Ian Home,
Speaker 2: which is uncanny, much in the same way that the
Speaker 2: digital Peter Cushing from Rogue One was uncanny and missed
Speaker 2: the mark. Even allowing that Rook is a synthetic person
Speaker 2: and a glitchy, damaged one at that it just never
Speaker 2: felt right, and it just also felt largely unnecessary. Now,
Speaker 2: if I had more time, I might discuss that there's
Speaker 2: at least one character in the film whose sole purpose
Speaker 2: seems to be prolonged suffering and death. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how I ultimately feel about her portrayal. I may have
Speaker 2: to come back to that later in my own thoughts,
Speaker 2: but I do want to touch on the Offspring, a
Speaker 2: creature we encounter in the film's climax, a product of
Speaker 2: Waylan Newtawni bioengineered black goo and Zeno corrupted human pregnancy.
Speaker 2: The spirit of the choice is very much in keeping
Speaker 2: with various ideas explored in the Alien RPG, and is
Speaker 2: in many ways a new take on the Newborn creature
Speaker 2: from Alien Resurrection, and it's certainly nasty and terrifying. However,
Speaker 2: much like the Newborn, I had reservations about the design.
Speaker 2: I loved its creepiness and the inclusion of engineer genetic notes,
Speaker 2: also felt it to be a tad anticlimactic after so
Speaker 2: much absolutely on point classic hr gig or xenomorphaction. My
Speaker 2: thoughts on this might change that sometimes do, but I
Speaker 2: would have personally preferred an alternate design approach. I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe it could have been tweaked one way or another. Finally,
Speaker 2: we have to discuss the law of the conservation of mass.
Speaker 2: As I discussed in my house stuffworks dot com article
Speaker 2: how the Alien xenomorph Works back in twenty twelve. This
Speaker 2: has always been a potential problem in xenomorphiology as far
Speaker 2: back as the original Alien film. We see the chest
Speaker 2: burster grow to enormous size in no time, but cut
Speaker 2: script material and extended universe insights always allowed that perhaps
Speaker 2: the creature ates something to put on that mass, be
Speaker 2: it in Nostromo food stores, or chunks of the ship,
Speaker 2: something to allow for the fact that if a creature
Speaker 2: is to take on x amount of mass, it needs
Speaker 2: to absorb or convert x amount of mass or energy. Now,
Speaker 2: I haven't rewatched every alien movie recently, most of them,
Speaker 2: but there are a few I haven't gone back to.
Speaker 2: I feel like we always had at least a little
Speaker 2: more wiggle room on this issue. Fudgeble time in which
Speaker 2: a fresh Zeno could conceivably bulk up to its adult form. Romulus, however,
Speaker 2: really throws this idea out the air locks. Cenomorphs grow
Speaker 2: in size at a crazy pace in virtually no time,
Speaker 2: though thankfully we don't observe it in real time. I
Speaker 2: want to stress, though, that this is a minor quibbled
Speaker 2: that this didn't actually detract from my enjoyment of the film.
Speaker 2: It was still a tremendous time. But I couldn't help
Speaker 2: but think about it. I can't help but apply that,
Speaker 2: you know, the science podcast or brain to it a
Speaker 2: little bit. As Joe pointed out to me, we were
Speaker 2: talking about this before I came into record. There's at
Speaker 2: least some mention made in Romulus of a remarkable cellular
Speaker 2: property of Zeno cells that Rook hasn't completely worked out,
Speaker 2: and you know, we see some of that in some
Speaker 2: footage of an old experiment in the film. So perhaps
Speaker 2: this is a nod to their ability to grow at
Speaker 2: such a pace, and the film is just you know,
Speaker 2: accepting it and wrapping this into the lore. And also
Speaker 2: I understand that you know, ultimately you're trying to tell
Speaker 2: a thrilling story, so it's also a pacing choice as well.
Speaker 2: So fair enough. As I mentioned in the twenty twelve
Speaker 2: How Stuff Works article, fast growth spurts are common here
Speaker 2: on Earth. It's one of the primary ways to ensure
Speaker 2: a creature's offspring will survive by allowing it to reach
Speaker 2: maturity as soon as possible. For example, one mind blowing
Speaker 2: example of this that I brought up in that article
Speaker 2: is that a newborn blue whale grows at a rate
Speaker 2: of two hundred pounds or ninety one kilograms every day,
Speaker 2: consuming its mother's milk. But again, it's consuming in order
Speaker 2: to grow. Other examples of interest here. According to the
Speaker 2: American Museum of Natural History, the t rex Tyrhnosaurus rex
Speaker 2: is thought to have grown at an estimated rate of
Speaker 2: four point six pounds or two point five kilograms per
Speaker 2: day for about fourteen years, and on a much smaller scale, E.
Speaker 2: Colide bacteria can double its population every twenty minutes, subject
Speaker 2: to environmental conditions. Again, all and all, Alien Romulus was
Speaker 2: a tremendously fun ride that I thought honored the tradition
Speaker 2: and a welcome installment in one of my favorite film franchises.
Speaker 2: I look forward to seeing it again. Tune in for
Speaker 2: additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalia
Speaker 2: Stupendium each week. I believe Animalius Dupendium is going to
Speaker 2: come back, If not next week, then the week after.
Speaker 2: But yeah, as always, you can email us with recommendations, feedback,
Speaker 2: or in this case, your thoughts on Alien Romulus at
Speaker 2: contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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