Episode 86: The Alien Rebootquels

[00:00:19] Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Odd trilogies with Logan and Andy. I'm Logan Sowash. [00:00:24] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. [00:00:25] Speaker A: In odd, odd trilogies, we take a trio of films where they're tied by cast and crew, thematic elements, numerical order, etcetera, and we discuss the good, the bad, and the weird surrounding each entry in that trilogy. And today we are capping off our two part, basically alien franchise, you know, retrospective to a degree. And while we didn't talk about the original alien, because we both are in this mindset of what else is there really to say about looms over the. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Rest of these films? [00:00:53] Speaker A: It absolutely does, especially after the last one in this trilogy, for sure. But, um, in honor of the latest film, Alien Romulus, being out in theaters now, we decided on our last episode to tackle 1980 six's Aliens, 1990 two's alien three or his eight. Andy calls it alien cubed, and 1990 seven's alien resurrection. And since we've already discussed them, and, you know, anything between that trilogy and this trilogy is basically crossovers that if anyone takes a as canon, I don't know what to tell you. But in between that, there is a big time gap and to the point that we are now talking about nearly 20 years since Resurrection's release, we are now discussing the Alien reboot quills, as we call, where we are basically talking about the three films in their own way, to an extent, trying to not only reignite interest in the Alien franchise, as well as figure out what is there to do in the Alien franchise that the other films, particularly the first four films from 79 to 97, didn't do, that you could do now. And to start off with that by the late two thousands, the only thing that the Alien franchise was really thought of about at that time is, of course, the two elephants in the room that I was just. I was referencing, which is Alien versus Predator and alien versus Predator Requiem, which surprisingly not in this trilogy. So sorry to get your hopes up on that, but Alien versus Predator in 2004, while it has a really strong 29 on Metacritic as this recording, it did make nearly $200 million at the box office. And so, of course, they made alien versus Predator Requiem in 2007 and then completely is one of the most embarrassing things, I think, in both franchises. Unless you hate Shane Blacks, the predator just that bit more. If it's. It depends on where you're at. But I would argue that if you add. If you add alien versus Predator films to either franchise, I would argue that Requiem is the bottom of both. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Has to be the floor, probably has. [00:03:14] Speaker A: To be the floor. Um, but so in the two thousands, that was kind of alien at that time as well as the object of Fox trying to figure out, well, what do you do next in this trilogy, next in this franchise? And so, of course, today, in case I feel like I haven't said it out loud yet, but today we are discussing 20 twelve's Prometheus, 20 seventeen's alien covenant, and of course, this year's alien Romulus. Two prequels in an interquel is what apparently Romulus is called. I didn't know that was a real term, but it makes sense considering the fact that it's basically alien 1.5. [00:03:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:03:55] Speaker A: And timeline wise. [00:03:57] Speaker B: So a redux. Yes. [00:04:01] Speaker A: So in terms of how you answer the question, because in that first trilogy we talked about when you make something like Alien, which basically exists as Ridley Scott's sophomore effort to basically capitalize on the popularity of Sci-Fi in the late seventies, as well as you have his own spin on something at that time, especially after Star wars coming out, it is after that you have the idea of, well, where do you go from here? Which is where our last trilogy went. Yeah. [00:04:30] Speaker B: Where do you take that story and what's next for those characters? [00:04:35] Speaker A: And if you listen to our episode, you'll know that you take that story on a true rollercoaster ride that is not even 20 years of four films that really, by the time you get to the end of it, you're like, well, it was a nice run, alien, but I think it's a. It's good run. [00:04:54] Speaker B: Its course, we've figured out maybe everything we can do. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Yes. And at that point, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of fans of Alien were just kind of hoping, if anything, for those AVP films and then got them and then realize that they weren't going to last that much longer because the second one is dog shit. So ultimately they. What kind of hope do you have at that point as an alien fan, other than hoping that, you know, the original director in some way, shape or form? Maybe if he's interested, he might come back and lo and behold, would you know it. Ridley Scott does come back. The big thing about, for me, stay away. Yeah. The big thing about Prometheus and why people were so excited about Prometheus when it was announced is the fact that Ridley Scott, after being away from the franchise from at this point, is 30 plus years. [00:05:50] Speaker B: 40. Almost 40 years. [00:05:51] Speaker A: Almost. [00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, 30 years. [00:05:53] Speaker A: 30 years from his last time doing the franchise, which was the first film, the original film. [00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Coming back and a lot of why he does come back, I think, is. Is a mix of just where Scott is at that point in his career. Because Scott's career is so fascinating and is so all over the place in a way that is, like, genuinely interesting regardless of the quality of some of those films. But just. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah, the dude's a workhorse in a really weird way. [00:06:25] Speaker A: It is kind of fascinating just how I think. I believe five years before he does. There's definitely another film in between this and american gangster. But I think about the fact that, like, the Ridley Scott that makes american gangster, like, five years later makes this. Like, it's. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Like it's the last thing he does before Prometheus is Robin Hood. [00:06:47] Speaker A: That's right. He does the Robin Hood wrestling between. [00:06:51] Speaker B: American gangster and Prometheus was Robin Hood or body of lies and then Robin Hood. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Because I thought, yeah. Oh, my gosh, we could do a Ridley Scott Russell Crowe trilogy. That is a gladiator. [00:07:03] Speaker B: True. [00:07:04] Speaker A: That could. Unless Russell Crowe does a flashback in gladiator two and no one's told us. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it could happen. Rides up on a vespa. [00:07:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't think it needs to be de aged in any way or needs to change how he looks right now. I would love every bit of it. Yeah. So to have Ridley come back, especially the fact that at this point in time, it's three. Three ish years since, you know, another popular alien director, James Cameron from Aliens is at this point at one of the heights of his career. Because Avatar has made a billion dollars. You have David Fincher at this point in his career, constantly. The farther away he gets from alien three, the more he hates it. But it's okay because he's David Fincher. [00:07:48] Speaker B: And the man makes hit after hit at this point. [00:07:51] Speaker A: And Jean Piern Gio is just doing his thing again after he does. Yeah. After resurrection in the early two thousands, he makes Amelie, which is considered just like one of the best films in the early two thousands. So, like, while those directors are doing their own thing, of course, if Ridley Scott's doing his own thing and decides, you know what, I want my own thing to be. Let's do a prequel to the film that started it all that I created alien. Of course Fox is going to say absolute, how much money do you want us to bend over and pull out all these millions that are under our beds? Do you want us to just like, what would you like to do? And so what we get is a film that is $130 million. It is not. It is not marketed as an alien film. But rewatching the original trailer actually don't even need to rewatch the original trailer because at the time the Prometheus trailer happens, it even uses the same sound effects as well as some of the same, like, music from the siren sound. Yep. The siren sound from the original alien teaser. So Scott at this point, while he's not outright saying this is. I don't even think. Yeah, I don't even think he outright says like, oh, this is alien zero, or anything like that, but he's also not hiding it at this point. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think it was, it was like a, you know, a worst kept secret kind of thing. Like, we were not gonna say it, but you all kind of know what this is. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And it is the fact that it's now been twelve years since this film came out. It's also probably been. This is probably the third time I've seen it all the way through, maybe four. I don't know. [00:09:34] Speaker B: So it's like this is just number two for. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Because I will say I was when it first came out because of just how much Prometheus was definitely tied to the original alien in so many different ways, especially with the whole idea of the fact that we were going to find out what was sitting in that chair in the original alien when they find the eggs, when they see the engineer, what is hiding under that mask? Because apparently that's not the alien. That is not what the alien looks like. That's just his body suit. It's a spacesuit. What is under that mask? And so to basically have Scott be like, listen, I mean, knowing Scott, he was like, I hate certain elements of the other sequels. I want to redo them in some way, shape or form without making them not canon, of course. Basically the only thing I can think of that he really hated was the alien queen of. I think he was not a big fan of the alien queen and aliens and probably wasn't a fan of the fact that, like, the series just kind of like fucking teeters off by like alien three. And so it's. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah, just kind of loses the plot. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. What a funny thing to say with that, to have that was just kind of your momentum being like, you know, Scott's back, he's gonna do his own thing. It's a big new cast. It's maybe gonna be alien zero. Who knows? Let's go into it. And then as someone who used to defend this film to the, to the point where it's like, not that this was like, any time a ten out of ten film, but to the point where it's like, there are people who say this film is, like, embarrassingly bad, and I would even. Not even get close to even saying that. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:11:16] Speaker A: I would say, though, as, like, my. Probably my third time seeing it in full. It is fascinating how much money, how much talent is put behind this film and every nook and cranny, technically, just behind. Behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera. Just with everything this film has going for it. It has truly an immensely baffling story in terms of just the amount of lore it drops on you, because that's another thing, too. [00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's like. It's. Yeah, it's like a fan fiction of his own work, you know? [00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:57] Speaker B: It really has fanfiction energy in the sense that, like, the original alien is so lean and devoid of context, intentionally. And that's half of why it's scary, is because you don't know what's going on. [00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah. It's genuinely alien. [00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And then to kind of basically come back 30 years later and be like, no, actually, there's all these generations of mechanics at play in all this weird, you know, kind of transhuman experimentation, precursor races and shit like that. It's just like. It's a. It's jarring. [00:12:36] Speaker A: It's. Yeah, it's. It is the. I would say now that we've seen all the alien films of the prop proper, it is probably the most lore heavy alien film out of all of them. It is. It is very much setting. It is setting so much like foundation in terms of trying to basically try to sell you on this idea that what is basically happening is that the engineers are, to us, in some way, shape to them. They are our gods, to an extent. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah. It's kind of like the forerunners in Halo. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:14] Speaker B: Like a precursor race, I guess. [00:13:16] Speaker A: And it's about a scientific expedition that is basically suggesting that since all these different cave paintings from different points in time, not even just cave painting, but just all these different artifacts that show the same kind of height difference as well as the kind of style of the creature, you know, blessing something to humans through this kind of design and this artwork, from cave paintings to, I believe. I don't know if they ever say Egypt, but it's basically like all these different continents, they have never had any connection with one another in some way, shape or form. All have a similar picture of an engineer, basically. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:57] Speaker A: And it's basically about the scientific expedition to find out why they created us as well as who they are and do they even exist anymore? And I, again, I would argue out of all these films, that is the raddest expedition ever. If you did. If you genuinely have. If you genuinely have proof that there are gods or, like, God like creatures to an extent that created us and they're aliens and they might even still be alive today, and you actually get a company to fund that. [00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:14:36] Speaker A: And it's. From that point on, it's like, that's the coolest. That's, like, genuinely a phenomenal prevince. Of course I'm in. And then when. And then when everyone starts to get thawed out of their cryo tubes as soon as, like, everyone starts talking about it and. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:55] Speaker A: And you find out that, like, most of the crew haven't even been told what this expedition is for. And the. The leads, the one that comes to mind is, of course, Elizabeth Shaw, played by newbie Rapace, who I think is good in the movie and doing her. Absolutely. [00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:12] Speaker A: It's a good performance, especially being the clearly the most christian character out of everyone on the ship because her whole thing is the fact that she is a. She is a believer of the christian God. But how could you be a believer of the Christian God when there is a possibility that the Christian God conflicts with the idea of her origin? If they find out the engineers are their creators. [00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah. The creators of humanity. [00:15:41] Speaker A: And that would be a really cool idea if, one, that was like, one of the only ones that is touched upon, and two, it got developed fully. But in reality, what happens is that the film teases it a while. It even. I don't think it's been. I don't think it's been this long since I've seen a Patrick Wilson tease in a film where it's like, yeah, what was. [00:16:04] Speaker B: What was he doing in this? I tried to kind of look up something about that. I didn't really find much information. [00:16:09] Speaker A: He's just. He just plays Elizabeth Shaw's dead father. [00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:13] Speaker A: In flashbacks. That's it. [00:16:15] Speaker B: Brief blip on the screen. [00:16:18] Speaker A: I really hope he gets to work with Scott again. That isn't a blip on this. But I was just. I was thinking, like, man, I wonder how nice that paycheck was for, like, the one week at most. He probably was on set. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:16:31] Speaker A: To do this. But once everyone gets thawed out of their tubes, once we start to see the kind of cast you have. Cause this cast is pretty fucking stacked, especially with the early 2010s. You have Idris Elba, you have Charlize Theron, you have guy Pearce and heavy, heavy makeup. [00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You've got a fully old man ified. [00:16:56] Speaker A: You got Numi Rapace, which at this point, she was most notable in terms of just, like, popularity worldwide. It was because she was a part of the girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, those films, as the lead. And then she also was in the second Sherlock Holmes RDJ film. She was not really the love interest in that film, but she was a partner per se in that film. And so she was up and coming. Also had Logan Marshall Green, who plays her husband, who is, at that point, he was here and there in films. I think most people would know him now from, I don't know, OC. Like, again, he's all. He. He basically looks like american Tom Hardy. Like, that's every time when they both have, like, high and tight haircuts and beards. They look very similar to. [00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like I didn't really know who he was until upgrade in 28. [00:17:53] Speaker A: Oh, he's so good in upgrades. He's really good in that. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is a really fun movie. But, yeah, up until that point, he was kind of just doing like a few, you know, a few rows off of top billing. Yeah, kind of. He was in devil fill in main characters. Yeah, yeah. [00:18:11] Speaker A: And Fassbender, of course, who at this point with Michael Fassbender. It's like, what? Like X Men first class is a year before this. [00:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:18:22] Speaker A: And shame is around this time. So he's getting, at the time, possible award Buzz with Steve McQueen's new film at that time. And, you know, he is. He is also very much on the rise. And to have him in this is just shows that Scott is getting a lot involved in this film, and hopefully that means they all have something to do. And technically they do. I would argue it's one of those situations where it's like, if you've ever had a moment where you look at a stacked cast and you go, this cast is incredible. But I have a strange feeling that a lot of them are gonna have very small roles and they're kind of just gonna be there and maybe not have an arc or anything like that, or they're just, you know, they're just gonna probably die early if anything happens. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:16] Speaker A: To give a credit, Idris Elba and Charlize Theron do survive for the majority of the film, but in terms of screen time and arcs, they do. Charlie Theron. Yeah. Charlize Theron doesn't have an arc, and Idris Elba's arc is about as straightforward as possible, which is. I care now. It's from. It goes from it's a job to, well, shit, I guess I care now. And also, I forgot to say, because actually the most surprising actor involved in this film that I think a lot of people looking back will be like, holy shit, I didn't realize Benedict Wong was in this. [00:19:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:19:52] Speaker A: Benedict Wong is even before the Martian. This is before he works with Scott again on the Martian. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:58] Speaker A: And he is just a part of Idris Elba's crew. [00:20:02] Speaker B: Well, and it's. It's. It's a small enough part that not only when the movie started did I think, oh, shit, yeah, Benedict Wong's in this. But like, a few times during the movie, I was reminded, oh, yeah, Benedict Wong is in this. [00:20:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Cause he'll go long stretches of not being in the movie and then he'll just pop up again. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It's either you play, it's either on one side of the spectrum, you go, where's Idris Elba? Or you go, oh, shit, Benedict Wong is here. It goes back and forth constantly. [00:20:28] Speaker B: Benedict Wong sighting. Yeah. [00:20:31] Speaker A: But, yeah, it is. At its core, it is about trying to find who created us an idea that is really, really fascinating and I think is genuinely the coolest part about this film, conceptually. Besides that, the best part, I think, about the film is the visuals. [00:20:51] Speaker B: The films are gorgeous to look at. They're definitely using all the 4k blu ray of it. Ooh, yeah. It looks phenomenal. [00:20:59] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. I watched this streaming on Disney, and it still looked pretty phenomenal, like, going through there like it is considering how nowadays, in which we'll probably talk a little bit with rominess when it comes to effects, there are certain effects. Well, when you try it, there is a small time where it could automatically look like shit or look really off almost just like age faster just because of the type of thing you're doing. And with Prometheus, honest to God, Prometheus? What you. I have to give a credit. The mix of practical and visual effects are just really well done, and you're certainly using that $130 million budget to. [00:21:42] Speaker B: Being a, you know, early 2010s, you know, legacy sequel thing. It. Yeah, the craft does not slouch, and it holds up really well even today. Yeah. But I guess, you know, that's kind of to be expected for the most part from Scott. Not that all of his films look amazing, but he usually knows pretty well how to. How to wow you with the atmosphere and cinematography and everything. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, like with Scott at this point in his career, he is the kind of guy who is still pulling people in to do projects. Because when anyone discusses why they did this or that, this film or covenant per se, it's just. It's Ridley Scott, right? The fact it's like the man they could. I think there's one story when it comes to Covenant, and I'm pretty sure it's the same with Prometheus where it's like, there are stories about him talking about, like, these rough storyboards that he drew of shock composition versus where they're actually locational, where they're location scouting and whatnot. And how, like, this is where the spaceships gonna be and yada like in his brain knowing what everything alien and futuristic and Sci-Fi is gonna look. But this is how I'm gonna shoot it. And then they get to the set and they shoot it and it looks exactly how he described how he shot it. Like he's got a very visual, very particular mind that has got him so far in this. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Exactly what he wants, knows absolutely, and knows how to get it from his crew. [00:23:17] Speaker A: So it really begs the question why Prometheus is a film about God's favorite idiots getting put on the best mission ever and making genuinely, genuinely some of the most baffling choices. Just like, baffling shifts in emotions too. That is like, guys, why? Why? You've been here for a day. [00:23:41] Speaker B: I think that's the really astounding thing about this movie is like, okay, you're wading into the waters of prequel to one of the most iconic movies of all time. Original filmmaker coming back to do it because he has this very specific vision for it. And he's going to attempt to, I guess, answer the questions of how did this world come to be? How did these creatures get here? How did we get here? Who are we? What is our place in the universe? It's this incredibly high minded, kind of thematic approach. And then in terms of the plot and characters, just the dumbest shit. Like, the dumbest characters making the dumbest decisions. The plot is, like, very oddly similar in just how the structure, how it plays out to the original film or the original two films, really restrained in that way. And so it's just this weird mix of, like, heady concepts, I guess, heady and quotation marks mixed with just really bad writing. [00:24:59] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I think one of the big things too. And I think this film, for the longest time was a dark spot on his screenwriting career until, like, he did the Leftovers or the HBO Watchmen series, which I love. But Damon Lindelof, I believe, is one of the co screenwriters on this film. And of course, at the time, he was most notably known for Lost, which having one of the lost writers on your alien film doesn't necessarily bode well or terribly initially. But at the same time, there is this question of, well, I bet lost fans, if there were lost fans that saw this film, wonder, I wonder which season of lost I'm going to get writing wise in this film. And as someone who has not seen lost, if you're a fan, tell me what season it is. I'd love to know which season I should be ready to find Prometheus level writing because, yeah, the fascinating thing is, Wallace, there's this gorgeous set design. There's this gorgeous. Just visual effects and practical effects, and there are performances from, like, phosphender and Rapace where they are trying their absolute best to sell what is being shown on screen. You also have fucking cartoon characters who are supposed to be the best in their degrees that also, at a certain point, get lost in an era where they have gps that can make. [00:26:29] Speaker B: They can, like, instantly. Yeah. 3d model. The guy who places they're in, the. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Guy who makes the map orbs gets lost. Is one of the funniest fucking things to say out loud, but is what happens. And then when he gets lost with, I believe he gets lost with the biologist who I believe is played by. He's Sean Harris. No. Yeah. Sean Harris is the douchebag that makes the map orbs, but the guy he's with, I believe, is Rafe. Yeah. Rafe Spall, who's. He's in hot fuzz. He's in jurassic world, fallen Kingdom. He's kind of like his. I like that. I genuinely like that actor. And to see him in this, it's like, oh, that's right, he is in this. And then as soon as he starts speaking, it's like, oh, that's right. I don't like you in this. You're such an asshole. And then when Rafe Spall's character sees a. An albino vagina is what it looks like, and when he takes off his helmet and tries to pet it, it is at that point in the film, if you already weren't just like, what the fuck is going on? It only just, like, weirdly goes downhill in other ways. Like, yeah, there is still some cool visuals and some cool ideas. Again, I still think the best scene in the film is the c section scene, which is basically just incredibly visceral. It is insane to watch. [00:27:56] Speaker B: It's also the closest the film ever gets to recapturing that terrifyingly intimate and weirdly kind of tangential to the sexual realm that the first film does. It kind of plays on those notes of our sort of humanity, I guess, and our fears and things. And that's the only time the film really does that. So that's why that scene is so good and the rest of it's just so detached. [00:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's honestly, even though we do get technically a chest bursting scene at the very end of the film, really, the c section scene is the big kind of equivalent to how the chest bursting scene is used in the original film because it's a scene that is still very shocking because of just, again, the mix of practical and visual, as well as the fact that what gets taken out of her is not what you expect and it's horrifying, but it also, to add to the whole thing with the writing, it's the fact that this woman, God bless her, she is this. The scene described basically shows her as the toughest woman to ever live because she basically is fully awake with barely any pain meds, watching a makeshift c section happen where a giant octopus is getting pulled out of her. And it just is. Prometheus is a mixed bag. The thing about it that is just kind of so disappointing, the most disappointing about this film is that this film is gorgeous to look at. It has a talented cast behind it, a talented director behind it. It has a premise that should just be a slam dunk in so many ways. Yet at the end of the day, now that we have had years since this film has come out, after years of, like, you know, there were years between this and covenant where it's like, oh, my God, you know, maybe they'll make a prometheus, too. And then ultimately, when they don't do that, now we're watching a film that, yes, is still in the alien franchise. Yes. It is still important to a degree when it comes to the lore, especially when it comes to Weyland Yutani, especially when it comes to their goal to get the xenomorph in some way, shape or form, as well as a specific black goo that will come back later. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Ultimately, even though this film is important to the lore and is, again, it is worth a watch if you haven't seen it. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Well, and it's. It's important. It makes itself important to the lore. But I think it also, like, in the process of trying to make these connections and answer these questions, it becomes sort of excessively confusing too. It's like, I don't know what all these different things you're introducing. Like, what role specifically they play in all this. If you're trying to tell me as you're watching the movie, it's kind of like, okay. You're trying to tell me, Ridley, how the xenomorph came to be and all that. I don't know what the vagina snake's relationship is to the black goop or the black. You know, how we get the giant tentacle monster that then leads to the xenomorph. It's just this weird, like, zigzag of genetics. It's like, why are we putting all these stops on the. On the path? [00:31:30] Speaker A: I was gonna say to give the film somewhat credit because I think. Again, I will also say, I think because it just depends on if I miss something as well. But, like, I'm pretty sure that vagina snake, hilariously enough, is not even supposed to be, like, original snake that got touched by the goop. I think there's one shot before the snake shows up that shows a bunch of worms. They look like earthworms, but of course they're on earth. A bunch of worms in the goop. And then I think the next time we see a puddle of goop, we see something slithering in it. So it's almost supposed to imply that even something like an earthworm, once it touches this goop, it just becomes this horrifying creature that is just inescapable in its own way. And it is funny to watch this film now and see the snake, the tentacle monster. The fact that Sean Harris's character comes back as basically a zombie. [00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's like a whole weird addition to it. [00:32:33] Speaker A: Logan Marshall Green has the black goo put into his drink by David in the most obvious thing possible. Like, yeah, for some reason, David couldn't just shove his finger in a glass of alcohol. Not in the same space as the man who's gonna drink it. He has to make a big fucking deal about it. But even logo Martian Green is not able to be shown as, like, he just gets really sick. [00:33:00] Speaker B: We don't even know a worm in his eye. We don't know what happens to him other than it makes him sick and he dies. Yeah, it's just a lot of, like, you know, if we're on this path of, like, how does the xenomorph happen? It's a weird conflation of different things that don't really contribute to that answer, but are kind of in the mix. And it's like, I don't know what here is relevant or if Ridley Scott just wanted to create a black goo that was a cheat code to make any horrific monstrosity he wanted. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Because there is the very end of the film, there's an implication that, yeah, the xenomorph that we get is somewhat almost, we see, like a proto xenomorph come out of the engineer that gets. [00:33:52] Speaker B: Weirdly enough, near who gets face hugged by the giant octopus that came out of nume Rapace, which is now. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Which it already was big when it was pulled out of new repace and then fills an entire fucking room. Yeah, it's supposed to be dead but isn't. And the alien that comes out of that, the xenomorph that comes out of the engineer is clearly not a xenomorph. [00:34:17] Speaker B: Or at least it's like a proto. More like the, you know, kind of a. There's defro Magnan to the human or whatever, you know. [00:34:24] Speaker A: But what's funny is it doesn't even matter because, one, we never see that planet again. See it again and the creature, it again. If this scene was supposed to imply that, you know, maybe we'll see other engineers show up and maybe we'll actually see this creature evolve over time, like, in that. In, like, prometheus two. But at the same time, with that not being the case, it is now just a tease of just a cool alien design that doesn't matter. [00:34:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I will give it the benefit of the doubt of, like, you know, I guess it's just, you know, it's implying if you didn't, weren't already on the pulse of, like, see, we are on the genealogical path to the xenomorph. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:08] Speaker B: Whether or not we see this creature again, we are going to see its descendants. You know, and. [00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It. It is just. Again, I still like this movie. [00:35:21] Speaker B: I. Yeah, I think it's fine. It's not an unwatchable tragedy. No, I'm actually. In fact, it's very watchable because it's gorgeous. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:30] Speaker B: And it moves fairly quickly. It's just. Yeah, it's a little bit of a shame that, like, this, you know, kind of expansion of the lore is more kind of dumb and confusing and freshman year of college stoner philosophical than it is. Like, you know, I still can't expand the original film. [00:35:53] Speaker A: I still can't get over the fact that, like, they, again, the events of Prometheus in terms of the actual finding, the origin of where the engineer came from, or the specific engineer that is supposed to be the one that created humans on earth, technically, when they get to that planet, the amount of time they're there is, I think, a total of three days, if any. Yeah, maybe three days. And on day one, they check the temple that they go to. They almost completely scour, I would say, 75% of that temple because the other 25 is where, of course, the map is, the video of the engineer, and, like, the engineer where the engineer actually is the other 25, which shows up in the climax of the film. But they go there, they look, they find the black goop room and Logan Marshall Green's character, for some reason, even though they found all this crazy shit. Shit that, like, if you just take pictures of it, if you just have this, if you just. You have more proof and more of a reason to keep doing this expedition than you ever have before. But the fact that they didn't see an engineer, he is a absolute piss baby for the rest of the fucking film until he gets infected and then he dies, basically. It is just funny. It's like, dude, I get it. It took, like, ten years to get out here. But like, yeah, you have found shit that no one thought you would probably find. Like, come on, like, what are you doing? [00:37:30] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, you're making discoveries. [00:37:34] Speaker A: Especially when your wife is, like, happy about the fact. It's like, yeah, I know no one's alive, but, like, maybe we'll find something. It's like, it doesn't matter. I'm disappointed. And it's like, let's have sex. And it's like, oh, my God, dude. It is. It is just this beautiful film that has so much potential and genuinely should be just the, oh, my gosh, I'm so ready for more alien. Ridley Scott was teasing a trilogy for this. Possibly if people want it so much. I can't wait. I want this to be good. And then you see it, and honestly, the more times you see it, I think it just solidifies how insane it is that this franchise starts on what should have been a schlocky or campy late seventies haunted horror haunted house film in space. And it is completely. Not that it is a haunted house in space, but it has the smartest characters in the entire franchise. It is a slow, burnt. It has fucking vibes and environment to spare, an aura that the other films don't have and has characters that you know very little of but you care about because genuinely, you are like, they are just seeing something that you cannot comprehend, and now they're stuck in a fucking tube with this thing, how they're supposed to get around this place. And arguably the original film, which should have been, you know, Cliche and maybe boring in places as well as just weirdly schlocky. That's Prometheus. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:09] Speaker A: Prometheus is cliche in a lot of places. It is weirdly kind of schlocky in terms of its, like, interpretation of these conversations. And arguably, by the end of Prometheus, especially this last watch through, for me, all I was going was like, okay, well, I don't hate it, but at the same time, I don't know. I. Yeah, I don't know if I want to watch again, especially with the fact that again, and this is something that the film cannot control. And I understand with people that are fans of Prometheus, this is always going to be a asterisk, asterisk next to it, because, like. But wait, it was supposed to get another one. It was supposed to get a Prometheus two. Not what we actually got. So a lot of the cliffhanger kind of like, why did they create us? I want to find them. I want to do this. And all these things at the end of Prometheus. Guess what? It really doesn't fucking matter because all that shit that it wanted to do, they do off camera, basically, in alien Covenant, in either short films or in flashbacks. Prometheus two does not exist. We will never get a Prometheus three, and I don't think we'll ever finish. We won't ever get a David trilogy, which, of course, we haven't said yet, but David is the name of the synthetic that's played by Michael Fassbender. He is. [00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess we should probably say he is the most interesting part of. [00:40:40] Speaker A: The movie and arguably the most important. He's the most important in these next two. In these first two films of this trilogy, because not only is Fassbender absolutely killing it in this film, but what he ends up doing after this film is arguably quite surprising in a way that I don't think even fans of Prometheus would have expected his arc to go. [00:41:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:05] Speaker A: And because again, by at the end of Prometheus, he has no body. [00:41:10] Speaker B: He is all head ripped off. [00:41:12] Speaker A: He is all headd and is almost a quite bit of hubris. And if it wasn't for the fact that Elizabeth Shaw is a nice person, we wouldn't get alien Covenant, which is also fucking funny. The fact that, like, the reason why alien covenant exists is because Elizabeth Shaw is like the nicest person that David has ever met and he repays her in a horrible way. Yeah, he did. A horrible way. And so when Prometheus comes out, it is. It makes 400 million worldwide, but on its budget of 130 million just before marketing and everything, it doesn't even make that domestically. Domestically, it's like 100, 2125. But when Prometheus comes out, it is not canned. But a lot of the people that hate this movie, fucking hate this movie. And this movie gets shit on incessantly at the very beginning, mainly because when it comes down to it, this is not an alien film. This is not an alien film. [00:42:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:23] Speaker A: Even though it's in the alien franchise, clearly Ridley wanted to do, you know. Yes, this is a prequel to Alien. And his idea was to basically make three films that lead up right into the events of the original alien in some way, shape and form. Yes. At the same time, though, the tone, the writing, the feeling of Prometheus just doesn't scream even now, even though we know that there was another plan for this and maybe it was going to feel more like the original alien by the end of this trilogy, it just doesn't feel like Aliena. Even with having aliens in almost chest bursty scenes and cool Sci-Fi looks, it is weirdly a film that only takes place 30 years, a little under 30 years before the original alien. And yet it has incredible Sci-Fi tech. It has just the dumbest, entirely different. [00:43:20] Speaker B: From a Sci-Fi standpoint than the original. [00:43:25] Speaker A: And the dumbest scientist. Because at least in alien, two cubed. Aliens, cubed and resurrection, all the scientists or the corporate schlock that is trying to grab a xenomorph and make it military property is entirely of financial gain. It is entirely of capitalistic gain. It is very easy to understand. Yes, it is. Can be boring. The fact that that is kind of the case every single film when it comes to Wayla Dutani person. But at least with that, you understand. [00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:00] Speaker A: What that is. While, as in the original and with Prometheus, it's like the big thing about it is that Weyland Yutani, the Weyland. The Weyland of Weyland Yutani, played by Guy Pearce in this, wants immortality and thinks that the engineers and possibly the black goop might have something to do with this. [00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:20] Speaker A: And you know what? He gets bodied, so it doesn't even matter. And it is fascinating just how. Cause again, like, even though this is the third time I've seen Prometheus I never knew. Timeline wise, there's only a 30 year gap between Prometheus and Alien. And it's even stranger when you think that there's even less than 20 years between Covenant and Aliena when even the, even the tech in covenant seems a little too high tech. [00:44:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:56] Speaker A: And it's just kind of like at that point, I wonder if his proposed third film, if it actually would have gone back to lo fi. Like the lo fi Sci-Fi kind of like seventies clicky, clacky keyboard. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Because at that point, how close are we gonna get to the original film in terms of, like, chronology? [00:45:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And so when Prometheus is out, it does decently. It's a bit mixed on critical. And while it makes 400 million worldwide. [00:45:27] Speaker B: Still kind of underperforms for what they were hoping. [00:45:30] Speaker A: Yes. And so when Ridley goes, hey, look, we made money, let's do Prometheus. Two, I have these ideas, yada yada. I'm pretty sure Fox at one point said, uh huh, listen, I think you should just make an alien film. Which is probably an insane thing to say out loud because one, that should have been the thing in the first place. And two, you're telling Ridley Scott after giving him basically carte blanche in the first film, hey, you are not going to get the same budget. You're going to have these restrictions in terms of what you want it to be about. And we want to make sure this is more approachable to all those people out there who probably saw Prometheus as a title and maybe knew it was alien but just still didn't go see it. Because that's another thing too, is while it is silly to be like, if it was called alien Prometheus, it would have probably made more money, objectively. Yeah. Branding wise, there's probably a lot of. [00:46:30] Speaker B: More people that way. [00:46:31] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of people out there that probably didn't see Prometheus and probably liked alien when it first came out or saw alien at some point and just didn't realize, oh shit, prometheus is alien. Zero. Because once you have that thought, they probably go, well, why the fuck wasn't it called alien? So of course they go, listen, please call it alien. Basically make it feel more like how you did it the first time. Which I also bet if they did say that to Ridley, he loved that. There's no way that man had any issues with the studio going, hey, remember that cool movie you made when you were like young? Try doing that now and then. Just like being like, oh, okay, and so instead of Prometheus two, instead of continuing this weird new look that kind of is supposed to reignite the lore of the world as well as the explanation to everything we've already seen in the franchise, what we get is a film that is, yes, technically a sequel to Prometheus, but is arguably a soft reboot of the franchise again, in order to try to pull in more people by just calling it alien. [00:47:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:50] Speaker A: And instead of it being called Alien Paradise Lost because Ridley Scott wears his inspirations on his sleeve. God bless that man. It instead comes out in 2017 in May as Alien Covenant, a film that had less than $100 million in budget. It has Fassbender playing dual roles. What is his other robot name? [00:48:16] Speaker B: Yeah, he plays a newer synthetic named Walter. [00:48:21] Speaker A: Walter, that's right. [00:48:24] Speaker B: He's clearly modeled after David because it's still Michael Fassbender, but is supposedly, as they explain, kind of made to be less human because people found the Davids disturbing. [00:48:38] Speaker A: Yeah, because the whole thing about. [00:48:40] Speaker B: So hes a little bit more robotic. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Yeah. The big thing about Prometheus, in case it wasnt beaten over your head in the first place, when you see the fact that David in the original Prometheus, when hes watching all the cryopause and whatnot, not only is he interjecting himself in peoples memories and dreams to feel something, he is also riding bikes, shooting hoops, watching Lawrence of Arabia, and trying. [00:49:04] Speaker B: To look like he's being a human. [00:49:07] Speaker A: He's being a human. And recites lines from Lawrence of Arabia and is constantly told in the film, like, oh, my God, you act so human, it's scary. Or, why are you even wearing a helmet? You don't need that. And it's like, okay, yeah, he's gonna. [00:49:27] Speaker B: Keep playing the game, putting on the performance of humanity. [00:49:32] Speaker A: And for the most part, the film almost feels like there's some characters that are just pulled out of irobot and have a little bit of robot racism towards him. And then once the big turn happens where you find out that guy Pearce has had a secret cubbyhole on this ship the whole time that no one knew about, that's when David's like, oh, yeah, gloves are off. I'm just. I've been lying. Yeah, fuck off. And so after that. Yeah. The canonical thing in covenant is that Walter David was made by Weyland to be a son that he didn't have. [00:50:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Which is just fucked up when you think of the fact that Charlize Theron is on the same ship as the sun, he never had and constantly says that in her presence. But Walter was made by Wayland as a way to. Yes. Not freak out the David version, but it also was meant to be, I believe, more for the middle class. I think it's almost implied a little bit more budget. Yeah. It's more of the iPhone s, or if anything, it's just like they're going from, like, the high tech iPhone to like, here's an ipod touch. [00:50:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Like a few of those bells and whistles. [00:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, Fassbender is killing it. As both David and Walter, I will say that his Walter accent is a little weird just because we know that, like, even though he's not british, his David accent just feels more accurate. It just feels more natural than his mother. Like, he does, like, a weird. [00:51:10] Speaker B: He's kind of forcing it a little bit. [00:51:11] Speaker A: A little bit of guttural almost in terms of conversation. But going into covenant now that, like, the film is pushing is like, listen, we're not apologizing for Prometheus, but we're very well aware of what everyone has been saying. So guess what? We're gonna dumb down the whole talk about, you know, where we come from. Basically, we're gonna not touch most of what Prometheus touched upon. Instead, we're just gonna do alien again. [00:51:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:44] Speaker A: Or to an extent, do alien again. [00:51:46] Speaker B: Well, it kind of. Yeah, it's. It's not a 180, but it's like a 90 degree turn. [00:51:52] Speaker A: That's why we call it a soft reboot. Even though it's a sequel, technically, it. [00:51:57] Speaker B: Kind of takes where David was at, at the end of Prometheus and goes, okay, we will continue to explore his psychology, but now it's going to be more focused on the. The perfect organism and this monster that we're creating rather than, like, origins of humanity and our place in the universe and stuff like that, and make it a little bit more monster movie. [00:52:23] Speaker A: God, I would love it. This would be such a rare person to find, especially if someone who is already a fan of the alien franchise. But I would love to see if there's anyone out there who had seen the original alien and aliens and then just hadn't seen another alien film until coveted. And just want to know, like, how did you feel watching Covenant and you just saw this guy that just pops up and it's almost given some reverence to him as well as, like, giving flashbacks. There's a whole scene dedicated to him showing himself how to play a flute. Like, there's just so much of David in this film. Compared to Prometheus, too, it's a lot more David. [00:53:03] Speaker B: Once David props up in Prometheus, he's like just kind of this. Yeah, this, well, he's kind of like a, he's a side character, but also like a force of nature in terms of the plot because he's, you know, he's super strong and agile and unencumbered by emotions. And then to the end of the film, he kind of comes to the forefront as this mysterious or nefarious figure. But, yeah, in this movie, he takes center stage because I think, well, I'm sure Scott knew that, you know, one of the strong points of Prometheus was the fassbender of it all. So let's give them, let's give them the Fassbender show. [00:53:44] Speaker A: And they certainly do. And I would argue that the scene, the flute scene that I described, while it sounds absolutely silly and that scene got absolutely dragged by everybody after that film came out, I, looking back at that, that I actually really enjoy that scene. Yeah, I think that's a delightful scene. [00:54:01] Speaker B: I think, honestly, like, the stuff, the kind of thematic or heady concept stuff that Covenant is doing between Walter and David is more interesting and better executed than the conceptual stuff of Prometheus. [00:54:19] Speaker A: I agree. Yeah. [00:54:20] Speaker B: And I thought that stuff was super fun. I mean, yes, this, this movie in general, I think, is overall taking the easy route conceptually compared to Prometheus, but I think it's delivering on it better and able to have more fun with it. And I think also just, you know, giving Michael Fassbender a dual role and a lot more screen time is just kind of like an inherently good idea. [00:54:45] Speaker A: So, yeah, Prometheus is big thing is the fact that it's like, why were we created? And the answer is you don't know. And again, you, the answer is not only do you not know, but the person who might have created you, like, the single living creature that might have brought you back, that created you, actually also was going to try and kill you until something happened at this base. And which is why Prometheus ends on this weird thing of, like, I don't care if I ever, I don't know if I ever will find out, but I need to try. [00:55:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:23] Speaker A: Like holding with elizabeth Shaw and going into covenant. The funniest thing about covenant with the prometheus stuff is basically David's whole thing is while Elizabeth Shaw just wants answers and doesn't care. Like, you know what the hard truth is? David basically goes, I don't want answers. I just know that if I kill the people that made us, technically, I'm stronger than them, which means I should be a God. [00:55:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:51] Speaker A: And I should be able to do these things. And it's just fucking funny that that's, like, the response. [00:55:59] Speaker B: It's very silly. And it is. [00:56:02] Speaker A: It's a jealousy thing with David. And I understand that because, like, the whole thing with David and Covenant is the whole fact that it's like, if I don't age, doesn't that technically make me better than you? Because I get to live on. I'm immortal, technically. And of course, guy Pearce, who comes in for just a single scene in the, like, in the prologue of the film. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:25] Speaker A: It's like, well, I mean, you're still robot. I didn't make you real. And then it's, like, coveted. His whole thing is basically trying to prove everybody wrong, one person wrong more than anything. [00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:38] Speaker A: That. It's like, no, I can create life even though I technically don't have it. And while that's happening, alien Covenant is also going on at the same time where the premise is, is that is a basically a giant cruise ship in space that is heading to a new planet. [00:56:59] Speaker B: That is a colonization ship. Yes. Yeah. [00:57:03] Speaker A: It's colonization ship that is supposed to. [00:57:06] Speaker B: A bunch of frozen people who are gonna expand humanity into the stars. [00:57:11] Speaker A: They're at least, like, five or six years before their destination. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Yeah. They're, like, halfway through their journey or something. [00:57:19] Speaker A: And there's mainly couples as well as embryos to kind of help with the process of, like, repopulation in this space. And the film is basically, the ship has a malfunction. It gets stuck at a certain spot, and they find out, holy shit. And if we travel, like, a week's time around that we could get to a planet that basically looks like the one planet we were going to. I mean, why don't we just cut corners? [00:57:50] Speaker B: It has everything we needed. [00:57:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we need to cut corners. Let's just go. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:55] Speaker A: And while the. Well, the first mate of the crew, per se, played by Kathryn Waterston. Waterston. [00:58:04] Speaker B: Waterston. Yeah. [00:58:05] Speaker A: Waterston is basically going, hey, that's a bad idea, because we haven't really given. [00:58:13] Speaker B: Any time researching this planet. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Yeah. It is funny enough how the Prometheus, you would think the response, like, after Prometheus, you would think they would learn, like, oh, maybe we should do a little bit more nuance in our characters in a way. Or, like, people kept bragging on, yeah. [00:58:33] Speaker B: Make their motives more believable. [00:58:35] Speaker A: And to have Billy Crudup or is it crudup. [00:58:38] Speaker B: Do you know I always say crudup? I'm not sure. [00:58:41] Speaker A: But to have Billy cruda basically look at her and go have some faith, because he's the only Christian one on the boat, and he's also, like, weirdly, the only Christian on the boat that knows it and thinks it's because no one, like, he treats it like everyone hates him because, yeah, he has this. [00:58:58] Speaker B: Insecurity thing about his beliefs, and there's no reason why. [00:59:03] Speaker A: Because there's no description as to why he should feel this way, other than. [00:59:07] Speaker B: The fact that really, I think the core of it, not that the film really explores it in depth, but, like, it feels like, really, he's just insecure about the fact that he was not supposed to be the captain, and everybody really liked the captain. And now the captain, who was played by James Franco in a cameo, is now dead because he caught on fire in his cryo chamber. [00:59:33] Speaker A: And there's somebody out there that probably goes, uh, uh, uh. He's also in the last Supper short, which is a prequel to Covenant. [00:59:40] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:59:41] Speaker A: I will tell you now, what he does in that short is go, oh, wait, guys, I have a bit of a cold. I'm gonna go take a nap. And that's all he fucking does in the last separate bit. It's like, it's so funny. Again, I want to know who got paid more, Patrick Wilson or James Franco for the amount of time that they got in this fucking film. Or new me repace, because new repace shows up in flashbacks, too, as well as there is a. There is a silic silicone body double that is used later in the movie. [01:00:09] Speaker B: Right. [01:00:10] Speaker A: There's horrifying. [01:00:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:12] Speaker A: And I wonder, like, I wonder how out of the three of them, I would imagine it's got to be Franco just because of fucking Franco of it all. But it's just funny to have, like, Franco show up, be sell the film on the fact that he's in it, because I remember them saying that Franco's in it. Danny McBride's in a Catherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, all these actors who, again, are very talented, and I think even after what happened with Prometheus, you have a talented cast that I think are pretty up and coming or have been pretty consistent in their career at this point. Yeah, I think Kathryn Waterston was having a bit of a bump because of inherent vice at the time, probably. And, of course, having Sam Waterston from law and order in the newsroom as her dad also helps, too. But, you know, it's more the fact that it's like, you know, instead of it being like Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, fucking Michael Fassbender, initially, it's like, yeah, Fassbender's in Covenant, but they hide the david of it all. And till you see the film. [01:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a hi. [01:01:12] Speaker A: They hide it in the trailer. [01:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:14] Speaker A: And so, like, and since Walter is supposed to be a more kind of toned down version of David, he is not stealing the scene in the same way. Like, there's. There's a decent relationship between Walter and Kathryn Watterson's character, but it's, like, very minimal because unfortunately, since we have such a big cast and certain characters get way more spotlight than you'd expect, Waterston feels like, again, it weirdly feels like a Dallas, Dallas Ripley situation where crude up gets a lot of the time. He gets a lot of the time. And Waterstead is the Ripley who was basically there, who is clearly the smartest in every situation. [01:01:56] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:01:57] Speaker A: And genuinely too. It's like most of the team is genuinely smarter than the Prometheus team. I think it's a. They definitely heard all the stories, like, all the nitpicks, the cinema sins, which I bet was super fucking huge at the time about just like, how stupid everybody was. But to have. Even with all that, to have Billy crude up character have enough stupid inside of him to basically, like, hold up almost the same amount of stupidity as Prometheus had with its whole cast, it's kind of fascinating. And then you watch, there's a scene in this film where we see the first. It's not a chest burst, it's a back burst. Right? [01:02:41] Speaker B: Ah, yeah, yeah. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Which is the neomorph. Is that the term for. [01:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah. The little white proto xenomorph. [01:02:48] Speaker A: Yes. So when we see a neomorph show up and it's like, in the trailer, it shows it. Because, again, the other thing, too, about Covenant, because Prometheus really isn't that graphic. Covenant really pushes the fact that it's. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Hard r and it's very alien film. [01:03:02] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a lot of visceral violence in the film, a lot of stabbing, a lot of mutilation. At one point, someone dies by, like, one of the neomorphs, I think, slicing their fucking jaw off. And it's like, you know, there's like that and as well as just a bunch of body horror because, of course, back burst, you gotta get that. And with the back burst scene, it's in the trailer. It was like it's the big oh, shit momentous. [01:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:26] Speaker A: The first big oh, shit moment of the film. And when the back burst scene happens, it is comical. Like, weirdly comical, how this basically what happens is they bring this guy on their crew onto the med bay, like, little med situation on their pod. And this man has been acting weird for, like, the last few hours. Says he's been sick the whole time, because what a surprise. You go on an alien planet you didn't survey, and you're gonna find some shit you probably didn't think about. [01:04:00] Speaker B: He got infected by spores, right? [01:04:04] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. [01:04:05] Speaker B: He stepped on these little plants, these little spore balls that release this black powder into the air that apparently is, I guess, the. The goop from Prometheus, because I think. [01:04:20] Speaker A: The engineers take those spores and I. [01:04:22] Speaker B: Think they cultivate it as plants. Yeah. [01:04:25] Speaker A: Turn it into goop. [01:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they take the goop and it put it into the ecosystem, and all the plants give off goop, I guess, or at least these spore plants do. And it wiggles its way into his ear, and he gets infected that way. [01:04:40] Speaker A: And when they take him back and the neomorph comes out. When the neomorph comes out, it rules again, another similarity with Prometheus is that the effects are really fucking good. Yeah, great. And they also, clearly, when they heard news about the fact that it didn't look, like, alien a lot, Prometheus Covenant makes it clear that it's more, like, alien because it's grittier. It seems more round, a little more. [01:05:05] Speaker B: Casserole, like all the. All the props and sets are a little bit more mechanical, more steadicam than. [01:05:12] Speaker A: I think, in Prometheus, and more on the ground and visceral. And there is an attempt to feel different than Prometheus, and I think it works. [01:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:22] Speaker A: At the same time, though, writing wise, which I don't even think Damon Linaloff is a part of this film. [01:05:28] Speaker B: No. [01:05:29] Speaker A: But even though he's not a part of this film, and again, I'm not putting all that on him, he's just the most notable name, I believe, in the screenwriter section in the Prometheus, when you get to the neomorph scene in Covenant, where it basically is, oh, shit, this guy's not feeling good. We should probably leave the room. And it's like, no, I'm going to stay in the room because I might be able to help. And then when the other person sees that, she goes, shit, I'm going to grab a shotgun, and I'm going to make sure that it doesn't get out. You should probably get out of the room. And then she just leaves her in the room. She is basically fighting the neomorph with, like, a knife. Knife. It's a Carmen jogo, I believe, is the. That's the actress. [01:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:16] Speaker A: Who plays Billy Crudup's wife, I believe. Yeah, I would assume wife. Again, she doesn't get much. The characters don't get that much development. [01:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say that the ensemble is even less, like, emphasized here. [01:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:32] Speaker B: Prometheus, I would say, which I kind of. I will accept that trade because at least they're not annoying. [01:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Right. It's like, honestly, if the original alien space truckers crew is, like, the Nostromo is, like, the top tier. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:48] Speaker A: Prometheus is, like, the most obnoxious and, like, a good alien film. Covenant's in the middle. [01:06:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:54] Speaker A: Covenant's like. Yeah, well, I take forgettable to a certain degree. Why not? [01:06:59] Speaker B: And what you get is Danny McBride as Tennessee. Who's. Is he the. He's the pilot. [01:07:06] Speaker A: He's the pilot. [01:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:07] Speaker A: You couldn't tell because he had a hat on. He has his cowboy hat. [01:07:11] Speaker B: He's a cowboy hat. He's a rodeo man. [01:07:13] Speaker A: And Tennessee's wife plays the head medic, it looks like. Or at least she's a part of the tech crew and was watching the ship before Jogo brought the guy on board. [01:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:25] Speaker A: And then in a scene that still makes me laugh to this day, is when she tries to fight the neomorph in the med bay. She's not ready because as soon as she opens the door, she forgets that the neomorph has to come out of a body. So there's viscera everywhere. [01:07:43] Speaker B: Right. [01:07:43] Speaker A: So as soon as she opens the door, she slips on blood. She can't fucking shoot it. I think Carmen and Jogo dies in the process. And then Amy. I think it's Amy Simons or Seamitz, Tennessee's wife. [01:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:08:03] Speaker A: Runs out of the neomorph, is able to get out, and then as she is shooting wildly at this thing that is tiny as can be and is clearly going to be hard to hit with a shotgun, at one point, she turns at something that is a propane tank. [01:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:22] Speaker A: And she shoots the propane, and the transport pod explodes. [01:08:27] Speaker B: The entire pod. Entire ship blows up. [01:08:31] Speaker A: The entire pod explodes because the one person on the ship who should probably know the ins and outs of that ship just so happened to forget where all their propane explosives are on that ship. And after that happens, we have another scene with neomorphs with little dogs. They're little dogs in this. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Um, they're little doggy guys. [01:08:53] Speaker B: White hairless dogs. [01:08:55] Speaker A: And there's a scene in the dark. That is fine. I think it still has some good moments in it, but it's. It is kind of hard to fucking see what's going on. [01:09:05] Speaker B: They're like, out in the grass. [01:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. In the dark. [01:09:07] Speaker B: Hunted by these things. Yeah. [01:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah. With a liar in the background. [01:09:10] Speaker B: Chaotic. Yeah. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Because that's the scene where the guy loses its jaw. And I think it took me, like, two. Two times to see it to be like, holy fuck. Did that guy just lose his jaw? [01:09:19] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:19] Speaker A: And there's. There's one woman on their team who doesn't really have a name, who is definitely one of the soldiers. And at one point, I thought she died in that fight. [01:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:28] Speaker A: And then she just pops up in David's compound and I'm like, oh, I guess you made it. I guess you only got stabbed, I guess. [01:09:34] Speaker B: Right? I. [01:09:35] Speaker A: That doesn't do anything to you. And so about the first half of this film is basically the Covenant crew going like, oh, my gosh. What? Look at this. We could just not do our mission and just make this. Make a whole plan just for the fact that with all 200 or so people on board. [01:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:58] Speaker A: And they make this decision and they make it irrationally, and lo and behold, there are consequences to it. And while half the team is finding basically the previously on Prometheus notes because they find the ship that the Prometheus team finds right now crash landed, as they're finding that the other half of the team is basically plotting and scheming to destroy everything on accident. And as things are at its absolute shittiest for everybody, that's what, of course, our Lord and Savior David shows up in the next 30 minutes to 45 minutes. [01:10:39] Speaker B: Is David just fucking with these people? [01:10:42] Speaker A: He's just fucking with him. As well as just popping in different rooms, being like, oh, man, he's got. I love Elizabeth Shaw. It's a damn shame what happened to Elizabeth. [01:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Or like, he's got his little temple, this weird laboratory. [01:11:00] Speaker A: At a certain point in the film, while David's being David, he's teaching Walter how to play a flute. That's not even a euphemism, like I said. [01:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:08] Speaker A: It's just he is showing his younger self, like, basically almost a younger brother type. [01:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:16] Speaker A: How to play a flute. And basically saying, you could always do that. It's just they told you you couldn't. Which, again, it's a great scene. I think it's one of the best scenes in this whole movie in terms of just, like, what it's trying to do. And I think against Scott. Scott is a good director and has good ideas, and I think it works there. At the same time, though, it is funny to just, like, have a scene where David finds a neomorph is trying to befriend it. Then in a compound with humans that are definitely not going to be okay with that. Billy crudup kills the neomorph. David gets mad at him. [01:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:55] Speaker A: Billy crudup has the fucking audacity to say, I've seen the devil once, and I remember his eyes, and his eyes look like yours. And does not elaborate on what this experience is. It would be a rad line if. [01:12:12] Speaker B: You know, backstory or something. [01:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah. If it didn't. If it hadn't come out of the stupidest person on that ship. Because after he says that, david goes, all right, I'll tell you everything, follow me with no one. And then he just follows David down his torture chamber, as well as his science chamber, where he's been basically da Vinci. All these different designs. [01:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:39] Speaker A: And just like, these maps and, like, all these things that, honestly, the designs are fucking rad. They're cool as hell. But, like, as soon as crude up, the fact that at no point does crude up go well, I'm going back. If we have three of us, we could probably take you out. So I'm just gonna strengthen number situation. The fact that crudup just completely commits. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Goes right with it. Yeah. [01:13:05] Speaker A: It is not even like David is threatening violence against him at any point. He doesn't do that. [01:13:10] Speaker B: No. [01:13:11] Speaker A: Like, crude up, clearly screwed up character. I keep saying crude up because I don't even remember his character's name. [01:13:18] Speaker B: Captain Orum. [01:13:19] Speaker A: Okay, well, crude up is doing a genuinely good job with what you're like. [01:13:24] Speaker B: I'm not saying that. [01:13:25] Speaker A: No. I don't know. I mean, well, it's because it's like, at a certain point, the. The characters, like, all these actors that are really good at what they do, it's either like, God, I don't know your name. And to be honest, you probably won't last long enough that I need to know it. And lo and behold, that's the case. Or you're Walter Tennessee or Catherine Waters character, which again, her name is just also off my head. But I know I knew it when I was watching it. It's not Kate, is it? [01:13:56] Speaker B: I don't know what her first name is. They call her Daniels the whole movie. Daniels, her last name. [01:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah, but like, unless you're the part of the crew that is going to survive at the end of it, which ends up being three of the whole crew to a degree. Technically two, but we'll get to that. It's. It is just at a certain point, it's like, you know, Damien Bashir, good to see him in this, not expecting him to survive. So when it's like, oh, my God, Damien Bashir, you're still here. You go. No. [01:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah, right about the time that you're. [01:14:28] Speaker A: Thinking you're still here, he's done. No, there's not going to happen. Um, but like, Billy crude up character, at a certain point, just, it seems like all this whole complex thought and. [01:14:45] Speaker B: All kind of reasoning, common sense is just gone. [01:14:47] Speaker A: It's just anything that could make him think about the situation in a way that is like a red flag situation, because this is like, as soon as they get into David's workshop, it's a fucking red flag. Store everything there. You don't even have to go down the stairs. [01:15:02] Speaker B: You know, you just shot this guy's like, you know, pet, basically his. And he got mad at you and you pointed a gun at him. Like, why do you. Why do you suddenly think, like, oh, I'm safe going around this dank corridor. [01:15:19] Speaker A: With him and this synthetic that had emotion, like strong, passionate emotion against you. And then when you go, tell me everything, he goes into robot mode as if he's not trying to trick you. Yeah, it is just like, when it gets to the point where Crudup gets attached by a facehugger, the facehugger impregnates him. And in classic alien, classic alien sequel, rebuke will fashion the process to be. The process for the facehugger to turn into a xenomorph is faster than it's ever been in the series. Once the alien comes out of Aurum's body and the little xenomorph makes almost a Christ pose as it comes out of Aurum's body, that's when my brain this time went, my God, this may be schlockier than resurrection in places I didn't even expect. It is kind of shocking how covenant is. It's. It's very schlocky. It, again, it has the energy, it has an identity crisis. Like, I think the biggest thing is, since this is, since this isn't Prometheus two, and since this isn't an alien zero per se, it is this weird thing where this film has to battle as to what it wants to be the most. And clearly, Scott wanted this to be Prometheus too. So there has a little bit of spite energy to a lot of the choices made into it and how it's like having to either dumb down or simplify aspects of Prometheus. One's ending that was arguably going to be explained more and even expanded upon into more films. [01:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:10] Speaker A: That now is like the David trilogy is what he's trying to go for. [01:17:14] Speaker B: Right. [01:17:15] Speaker A: And to just basically make a film that is like, okay, here's the alien crew that you wanted from Prometheus. Most of them are dead now, but, okay, don't worry. The one thing you hated, Prometheus, has come to save the day, which is David. And David will now take over this film, and it will be prometheus one and a half. [01:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:38] Speaker A: So go fuck you. And also, I will have to say that as soon as Walter and David meet each other, honestly, as soon as Walter is even introduced in the film or when the trailers, I saw Walter. The longer the film goes, the first time you see it, I think you. I would imagine you had the same thought in your brain when you first saw. Is this the first time you've seen it all the way through, or did you see covenants? [01:18:05] Speaker B: I saw it in theaters. [01:18:07] Speaker A: Okay, well, I remember in theaters when I saw this movie, about the time David showed up, my brain immediately went, oh, he's gonna switch with Walter. [01:18:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:18] Speaker A: Like, there's no way that. That's not what. Yeah, there's no way you don't do that because it's like, why else would you have two fassbenders? Especially when one of the fassbenders is supposed to be considered obsolete, or at least lesser than. Because he doesn't have the common sense and the complexity in the thought process that he does. And just, like, it's just funny when it gets to the point where it's David versus Walter in that fight scene and being like, this is cheesy. This is. [01:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just like a full, silly martial arts fight. Like, yeah. [01:18:53] Speaker A: And to have, like, the. And again, I do think that the. The crane kind of transport vehicle, xenomorph thing has really cool physic physics wise, and is very creative. [01:19:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it still is sort of final set piece. [01:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it is still kind of silly to have the alien just, like, running. [01:19:12] Speaker B: Around on the roof. [01:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah. In pure daylight as a rabid animal knocking its head into windows. [01:19:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:19] Speaker A: Like, again, this thing is supposed to be smart enough that it can outsmart a human being. Some of the smartest human beings, even very resourceful humans, and to a point where it's like, it plays with its food. And here we are with covenant where you just see this thing in broad daylight running at it and jumping on, and basically, they are just, they keep burning the thing. It keeps trying to hide, but can't hide because it's in the fucking daylight. And this whole time, every time they show Walter, you're going, that's David. There's no way that's not fucking David. [01:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:54] Speaker A: Like, even though Walter was shown to be stronger, Walter also has limitations. David has not. David killed a human. [01:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:20:04] Speaker A: With his bare hands. Like, yeah, so it's like this whole time, you're like, okay, there's this. And then, okay, so after they kill this alien, they'll just go up, they're going to cryopod, and then they'll just, you know, they'll reveal that. No, when they get into the ship, there's a scene where you watch Damien Bashir get face hugged, and you kind of go, oh, well, they're just gonna. He's gonna say something about the fact that he got facehugged. Right. And, like, they're just gonna assume that he's got something in them. [01:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:37] Speaker A: No, in fact, Damian Bashir dies. Off screen, we see his dead body with a fucking hole in his chest. [01:20:43] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:20:44] Speaker A: And then they're like, oh, that's right. In the original alien, there were two climaxes, and in aliens, there was two climaxes. What if Covenant had two climaxes? And it's like, I mean, prometheus didn't even really have that. I mean, maybe to a degree it did, because, like, the climax in Prometheus, the first climax is trying to stop the ship, and they do that, and then the second climax is Elizabeth trying to get away from the engineer. So maybe Prometheus does have that to a degree, but it doesn't feel as much as like, okay, I guess we got to do the alien thing of. But wait, there's more at the very end. [01:21:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:23] Speaker A: And what we get is a shower scene that is. Feels very egregious with two. With two characters that have been on the ship the entire time. [01:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't know them. [01:21:38] Speaker A: They definitely had. They've had suggestions. They basically go, Tennessee, you can't go down there. The. The ion storm is gonna really fuck with everything on the ship, and Tennessee does it anyway, and it's okay. [01:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:51] Speaker A: Like, it doesn't matter. And then they're, apparently, they're a couple the whole time. And so when they're making outd, being all sexy in a shower is when the alien shows up and kills the guy. [01:22:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:04] Speaker A: And it is. It was in the trailer because it was a very visceral moment. So again, to see like, oh, my God, the scene is this late in the movie, right? And then we get a scene where they have to shoot the thing out of space. They have to shoot the xenomorph out in space. And it looks really good. And it's a fun little thing where she just, she jumps in a little cubby hole, this little hole in the grate as the top as the. As the truck gets pushed out. Because she's like a cargo bay person. [01:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:32] Speaker A: She's. Even though she's like, next in command after Orym. Like, she is like, I need to go to my place. And it's like, the cargo bay. It's like, okay, I guess she handles transportation, I guess. [01:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:45] Speaker A: They take care of the xenomorph. They all get ready in their cryo pods. And instead of Waterston just asking questions, did you know? Just try, you'd be like, hey, Walter, what about this? What about that? Before she gets in the pod, literally the last thing she says while in the pod is asking a question that feel like it should have come up earlier. [01:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:08] Speaker A: And then David goes, surprise, bitch. You just gave me a new petri dish to play with. And then freezes her and then ends on, I would argue, one of the best endings in the franchise. I do love the ride of the Valkyries. [01:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:23] Speaker A: Ending with him being like, oh, my gosh, look at all these humans. [01:23:27] Speaker B: I get to play with the ultimate lab. [01:23:30] Speaker A: It's fucked up. It's a pretty damn good cliffhanger that. Unfortunately, by the end of this movie, you're going. So we're probably not going to get whatever. If we couldn't even get Prometheus two, what makes us think we're going to get an alien covenant to, like, it's one of those things where we're like, well, where. Okay. And lo and behold, if you're not surprised, Prometheus made 400 million worldwide. Covenant made 240. It made. Yeah. Prometheus barely broke even, quote unquote, domestically. And Covenant made like 25 million less than its budget domestically. To put that in perspective, I'm pretty sure Romulus has already beaten. Well, Romulus, I think, might be on its way to beat it because it's already got 45 million domestically as of recording. And so, like, at the time, even though Covenant did its best to be like, no, guys, it's not Prometheus. Two new alien. New alien, guys, come see it. Ridley Scott, fun time, blood gore, maybe sex, come see it. And you know what? People did see it. And arguably, I think it did better critically. And people were, I think, more satisfying by coveted in some way, shape or form. Not the Prometheus fans. [01:24:52] Speaker B: Right? [01:24:52] Speaker A: Like, that's not gonna, I mean, being a Prometheus fan in 2024, thoughts and prayers out there. Cause at this point, you're just not. You're never gonna get what you wanted last film. There. There just, they're still people that are probably, someone probably got put into a coma after Prometheus and is gonna wake up and be like, did they finish it? Did they do two and three? And then they have. Someone has to give them the bad news that it didn't really do well. And so after Covenant, you know, even though it was kind, it underperforms even more than Prometheus does. Scott is able, just being Ridley Scott, the man, the myth, the legend, being able to basically convince Fox, hey, you know what? But I can do a third one, and maybe that one can just like, I have a plan for it. I know I said I wanted to do Prometheus two and three, but after Covenant, I think I have an idea to follow up Covenant to make a David trilogy per se. And hopefully when multiverse travel works, we can go and see what that David trilogy looked like. Because in our timeline, what happened was, is at the end of 2017 when there was early production, early pre production kind of story ideas, ideas for what a third film could look like in Scott's mind, Disney buys Fox. [01:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:17] Speaker A: And that basically, after years and years of development hell and purgatory surrounding Scott's third alien film in 20, in the 2010s, as well as the twenties, possibly it kills the project. [01:26:30] Speaker B: Right? [01:26:30] Speaker A: Like, I would not surprise me that Scott, at a certain point, I, Scott was willing to fight for this long. There is a chance that we probably would have gotten that third one, like now. If not, I'm not. Yeah, but I'm not surprised. The man basically left that project to go do the things that he could get done, the things that he actually could produce and direct and get out the way. And honestly, between Covenant and now, gosh, the. The Scottish, the Scott overhaul in terms of just like the whole of Scott films, we've gotten that, again, varying qualities, but still nonetheless, the Ridley Scott films we've got in the last couple years, shows the man is willing to work and wants to hustle and get more films out there that he's really interested in. So clearly, it was just a situation of Disney dragging their feet because they're like, God, the other two films didn't really do well, and it's like Scott probably didn't have much to back it up other than. But we could bring it all together in a third film. And so when that project Gacy gets kibosh, and at this point, Alien fans have already had, you know, kind of just like, this dream of the perfect Alien film sequel after Alien's never gonna happen, especially around the time that Prometheus was happening, I think, which really, with a lot of Alien fans, kind of made Prometheus sour to a lot of them, is the fact that one of the reasons why before Prometheus was going to get made, there was an idea by Neil Blomkamp to basically do an alien five that was basically going to reject Alien cubed and alien resurrection and really just be an alien three. But, like, 30 years later. Yeah, that had Michael Bean and Sigourney Weaver in the idea, and I think even had somewhat talks into possibly coming back. But then that film got taken off immediately as Scott's film became into fruition. And so, like, a lot of Alien fans that probably saw Prometheus realized that there was another option where we could have gotten, I don't know, Neil Blomkamp's, like, Force Awakens Alien film. We don't really know what that would have fully been like. We just have concept art, and I think it would have been genuinely interesting, especially since, like, Neil Blomkamp at, like, poster district nine with, like, no Elysium or, like, chappie yet out, just like, being like, what the fuck could this have looked like? [01:29:08] Speaker B: Pre champie blomkamp? [01:29:10] Speaker A: Pre champie blomkamp. Not post Gran Turismo, though. I want that perfectly clear. But after just, you know, years and years of being like, I, are we even gonna get a. A return to form in 2022? Around that time, we get a weird just still of a backdrop that kind of looks like an alien hallway background. A slate that says, fayday Alvarez, alien Romulus, and basically admits and announces the fact that we are, in fact, getting another alien film. And it's going to be directed by the man that destroyed turkey basters for everyone, as well as the man that made the 2013 Evil Dead remake. [01:29:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:57] Speaker A: Which as soon as I heard that, personally, I don't know how you felt about it. But I think I was like, oh shit, that could definitely work. If in the right, if done right. Like I was one of those again, after Covenant, it's like especially years after Covenant. Cause again, at this point, this is. [01:30:18] Speaker B: Like five years Covenant, but like everything since 1986. [01:30:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we should also talk. Yeah, we should talk about the fact too that it's like alien franchise in. [01:30:28] Speaker B: Hell at this point. [01:30:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And it also has this weird kind of like romanticization around it where it's like at this point when people talk about Alien, they talk about alien and aliens and almost talk about like at this point when it comes to Romulus, especially the con, like the conversation surrounding it, it's the fact that this, the film at its base, is the closest to a return to form that we've gotten. [01:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:54] Speaker A: In the entire franchise since like aliens. But even aliens, it's not a return to form. Aliens is a genuine bigger, better sequel in places. To have like a film that is literally just like, ah, it just takes place between alien, aliens and you does alien. And to have people be like, well, it does alien too much. Be like, guys, do you not remember like when Prometheus and Covenant also just did alien? [01:31:22] Speaker B: This is a franchise of guys. This is a franchise of two undeniably good movies and a bunch of like mediocre to bad, you know, shit. Yeah, that, that some part of the population, not always the same part, but like were each entry has been rejected since then. So like what do we want? [01:31:48] Speaker A: Yeah, again, to be honest, as a franchise that is considered a horror franchise technically. [01:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:55] Speaker A: It's even its turnout, like the shittiest film in this franchise, again, if you count the crossovers, is Requiem. [01:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:01] Speaker A: And even without that, it's resurrection. But resurrection is still pretty fucking fun and so bad. It's good way, which is like a lot of horror franchises don't even really have that. I would even say that Predator doesn't even really have. [01:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:15] Speaker A: Like Predator goes into Predator two and this might be a fucking hot take, but I don't really like Predator two. [01:32:21] Speaker B: I don't think a lot of people like Predator to it. [01:32:24] Speaker A: You'd be surprised. Again, it's one of those situations after the Shane Black film and I think after Prey, especially after Prey, which I think Prey is genuinely the second best predator. [01:32:34] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's woke, Logan. [01:32:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's because it has cool ideas. [01:32:39] Speaker B: No, it's because it's woke. [01:32:42] Speaker A: Checkmate. You got me. Thanks. Checkmate, christians. Thanks, Ridley. It just is like going into Romulus. I mean, I think we both were. I think you even said when. Cause we saw it together with our. With our friend Adam. [01:32:56] Speaker B: Yes. [01:32:57] Speaker A: And who is a friend of the. [01:32:59] Speaker B: Podcast, friend of the pod, former guest. [01:33:01] Speaker A: Hobbit bionicle or future guest? [01:33:04] Speaker B: Probably. [01:33:05] Speaker A: Definitely future guests. Um, we both. I know we're going in being like, I'm expecting this to just be alien again. [01:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:15] Speaker A: With maybe a little bit nastier because that's what Fae is known for. [01:33:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what the trailer looked like. All of the kind of scenes and set pieces and moments showed off in the trailer were like, okay, I've seen a version of this in either the original alien or in aliens. So, yeah, I was kind of just expecting a redo. And the fact that it was, like, set in between made me like, yeah. Okay, are we, like, soft remaking the original film? [01:33:43] Speaker A: Which we should also establish, too, that we only found out because I saw a random ad on Facebook. [01:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [01:33:50] Speaker A: That showed the timeline of the alien franchise. [01:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I thought it was another prequel. [01:33:56] Speaker A: I did too, until I saw that ad. It's like, what the fuck? This takes place 20 years after the original and like 40 years before aliens. Okay, cool. I mean, you could do that if you want to. And so going in, we were just kind of probably being like, at this point, played it safe. Makes the most sense with the alien franchise because the Predator franchise genuinely made success out of just being as simplistic yet creative as possible. [01:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:28] Speaker A: Put the predator in a time frame that is interesting, and you build the characters around the predator in an interesting way. [01:34:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:36] Speaker A: That's all you had to fucking do. And with Alien Romulus, it is very clear that it is. Fede is a fan of alien and aliens, which I know is a shocker. Who could be a fan of both of those films, says no one. That he clearly wants to make a rollercoaster haunted house in space that is even more bombastic than the original alien, but still keep a lot of the horror elements of that film and yet pull from aliens from time to time. And what we get overall is a film that we were both pleasantly surprised by. [01:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's a very good movie. I mean, it's a lot of fun. [01:35:22] Speaker A: I think it's great. And I think, yeah, you think it's really good. But we. We both were, like, in the theater going, what the fuck? Is already doing more than we both were expecting out the gate. [01:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's. I think it's kind of the thing that it's getting flack for is kind of, like you said, being a little too safe, a little too alien. But I really think, like, you know, in this case, I kind of agree in concept of, like, I'm sick of these movies just kind of, like, rehashing the oldies or whatever. [01:35:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. But I 100% get that this is. [01:36:01] Speaker B: Kind of a rare one in that it's. It is. Yes. It's taking the easy route of, like. Yeah, like, okay, let's do the stuff people like again. But it's doing it with such care and. And with such attention to detail and. [01:36:16] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Yes. [01:36:17] Speaker B: And just, like, I don't know. It is. Yes. It's giving the people what they want in a cynical way, but it's also like, yeah, I mean, only two of these movies really work, so give us. [01:36:31] Speaker A: More of that and arguably only give. [01:36:33] Speaker B: Us stuff that works. [01:36:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Arguably two of these films have, like, shot for something different and actually delivered in a way that was satisfying to everybody. [01:36:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:44] Speaker A: So, of course, yeah. Romulus is gonna play that safe. And arguably, the worst part about it playing it safe is when it calls back to the other films. [01:36:55] Speaker B: Yeah. It's when it gets that kind of legacy. Legacy qualitas, which I will say even. [01:37:02] Speaker A: With that in mind, there is still a creativity around how it gets brought in. Like, I didn't even realize the one thing that was kind of like the closest I got to boo, quote unquote boo movie. Don't do that is one of the big lines in the film is, of course, our synthetic Andy, played by David Johnson, who fucking kills it in this movie. This man needs to be in everything. [01:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah. He was awesome. [01:37:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I wanted John. I wanted Johnson. I want him to just, you know, pop up everywhere. Apparently, he was on. He was on industry, the HBO show that only our friend Jake has seen. [01:37:39] Speaker B: Right. Right. [01:37:40] Speaker A: At least that we know Jake, future, future pod guest, who also did God's not dead, one of our friends. But David Johnson at one point just goes ham on an alien in a really rad way. And then, of course. Of course says, get away from her, you bitch. [01:37:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's very out of character and kind of like, why would he say that in this moment? [01:38:06] Speaker A: And apparently, because, again, I was also like, because I did like, how in that scene, at least they keep his stammer. It's not like he becomes a badass just to get that line out. They keep the character enough where it's like, I love that there's a part of this legacy line that is literally meant to almost be Andy trying to look cool in front of rain. But at the same time, I was like, yeah. [01:38:29] Speaker B: Where? [01:38:29] Speaker A: Why would he say that? [01:38:30] Speaker B: No one come from. [01:38:32] Speaker A: Apparently it is set in the film very early on, but it's very casually said by Tyler in front of Andy. And I was like, cool. But I'm surprised that that wasn't considered. Like, why didn't they use that scene as the one to get it out if they're gonna do it twice in a row? [01:38:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Why would he aim that at the monster? [01:38:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:53] Speaker B: If it was a human who said that to him? Yeah. I don't know. [01:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah. But, yeah. And going into this with. With Romulus, knowing that it's the premises, a bunch of. A bunch of early twenties. Kind of like kids. [01:39:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Young adults. [01:39:09] Speaker A: Young adults going on a shitty space colony. Or basically, like, this is our. We have. Our only ticket out of here is to basically steal. [01:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah. They cryopause impoverished Weyland Yutani mining planet. And there's no way out because life is hell under Weyland Yutani, and you're just a corporate slave. [01:39:30] Speaker A: It's a coal mining planet that is so polluted, it you can't even see the sun. [01:39:35] Speaker B: Can't see the sun. Yeah. [01:39:36] Speaker A: And they still use canaries, which is just fucking wild. [01:39:42] Speaker B: And. Yeah, basically, they figure out there's this abandoned or decommissioned Colin or not colony, but, like, exploration spaceport thing floating around the planet. And so they're like, all right, let's go up there and get some cryopods and make a break for another planet. [01:40:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Ivaga six, I think it's called. Or Evaga five. [01:40:08] Speaker B: It's basically just something like that. Not completely opposite non Weyland Yutani planethood. [01:40:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:40:14] Speaker B: And so they're like, let's get out of here. [01:40:17] Speaker A: Well, basically, yeah. Let's break the rules. Let's get the fuck out of here. And when they go up to get the cryo pods, they find out, due to circumstances, where they actually have to search the spaceport. The spaceport is the Romulus and Remus. [01:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:32] Speaker A: And it is basically created, as we find out later, to study the xenomorph and try to weaponize it, because we find out very early on the film, that the xenomorph that basically causes the havoc that they find the spaceport in when they get there is, in fact, the original xenomorph from alien because they find it in the wreckage of the Nostromo because the alien doesn't really need. The alien is such a scary ass creature that can adapt to any environment that at a certain point, it even makes it canonical that even throwing it in space doesn't technically automatically kill it. [01:41:14] Speaker B: Yeah, they, it's basically said that, yeah, they found it adrift in space after it was thrown in Astromo. [01:41:22] Speaker A: It almost like calcified or like turned itself into a cocoon to survive out in space. They find the cocoon, they bring it back to Romulus and Remus. They're about to study the alien and then about, I believe they say ten to twelve days later is when it shows up near the shitty coal mining planet, which is where our heroes or our just, you know, our young adults show up. And as they're up there, they basically accident. They accidentally warm up. They take out the cryo tubes they need for the cryo pods to keep them cold enough that they can get to ivaga. It's like a ten year trip as they take out the pods. Turns out those pods were used to freeze alien subjects. So the facehuggers pop out and then. [01:42:12] Speaker B: A ship full of face huggers. [01:42:13] Speaker A: And then you have a film that genuinely is, I think, for a lot of people will probably just be. It just goes straight to the end at the same BPM. It is a film that is constantly going toward. [01:42:26] Speaker B: Once it hits that point, not really a lull. Once, once everything gets unleashed, it just kind of is a continual horror action set piece. [01:42:35] Speaker A: I would even probably argue in this franchise, like, even with Prometheus and Covenant included, because in the last episode I said it was kind of fascinating how it takes an hour mark for all of our characters to basically see the xenomorph for the first time. A few characters see it here and there throughout the series, but all of the original four films around that hour mark is when, holy shit. There are monsters on this ship. How the fuck do we get out of here? I think Romulus is the earliest we see any, like, in the series. We get to an alien parasite showing up, getting on someone's face. Yeah, that whole situation. And the thing that comes from that, that is very interesting is that instead of it being like, holy shit, she's our friend, has an alien on her face. Hopefully she's okay. Instead of just letting it happen and hoping for the best, they find out that there is a science officer that is a synthetic that is still technically alive. [01:43:38] Speaker B: Like a broken down droid. [01:43:41] Speaker A: Yes. His name is Rook. He was the science officer on the Romulus Remus. And Rookhood has the facial as well as the vocal reference of Enol, who plays Ash in the original. [01:43:56] Speaker B: In the original film. Yeah. [01:43:57] Speaker A: Yes. And so technically, this is the first time it's posthumous, which is. It's. That's a whole conversation again to have when it comes to things like this. But, like, it is the first time we have seen in Holm in an alien franchise film since the original. So it's been nearly 50 years since he is. His face has been used for a character and especially a synthetic. And to see it in the film is where my brain constantly goes to where it is with anything else when it comes to this type of thing. Not even touching on the fact that he is a dead actor being used for a role that, like, will weirdly now always be attached to his filmography. Like the Game of Death is to Bruce Lee or like, Harold Ramis will probably have with Ghostbusters afterlife. Yeah, but the thing that at first goes to is that on paper, it is really cool what they try to do in terms of using a physical puppet for the body and actually using clearly someone's and basically someone doing an impression of him, as well as using his face as a way to do the facial reference for the face swap on the animatronic. There is a lot of practical visual effect combination that I think if it was fully cg, it would have looked a lot worse. [01:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:26] Speaker A: But to be completely honest, and it happens constantly. This is not even just this. It is basically any film that is done d age that is longer than, like, a scene or two or like, a character that is basically just, you know, CG the entire time. We saw this last year with Dial of Destiny, even though that film also this version of De Age, Harrison Ford, looks pretty phenomenal, considering the fact that they spent, like, $100 million on doing that. What this always comes down to, and this is something we've seen for, like, nearly a decade now since, like, I'd say Rogue one kind of popularized this a little bit with Tarkin, another posthumous return to form, as well as young Leia in that film. The big thing about when you do this is the fact that every time you do something like this, the model has dead eyes. It always happens. [01:46:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it has dead eyes, and its mouth does not move in a human way. [01:46:30] Speaker A: Yes. And it can get away with that to a degree. If you go like, well, it's a synthetic, but it is the fact that it's like, once you realize that the eyes are like, have no life, it is not a human pretending to be synthetic. It is literally entirely an AI generated, like a computer trying to make it look human. Once you just kind of have the dead eye look that a lot of these kind of models have, then the mouth becomes more apparent and then the no neck, because the way that they prop Rook's body, because, again, Rook has no legs. Because Rook. [01:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah, he's like half of the body. [01:47:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Rook was basically bishop in this movie. Like, it turns out, like he was severed. Severed in half. Rook, they put him up in a way where he doesn't have his neck. He's like, his shoulders are really high, so he has no neck. And so not only does it look a little off, initially, it just looks very weird because you're looking at Ian Holm with no neck, you're looking at a CGI in home with no neck. And it's so wild, though, too, again, showing just how surprising this movie is, is like, even though. And I think you definitely agree with me, you agree with me on this, that they don't have to use him. And I kind of would prefer an aversion of this to see what it would have looked like if you hadn't done a legacy thing like this. Even with that in mind, I do kind of like, in a way that they still write rook in an interesting way in terms of his relationship with Andy and what happens to Andy throughout the film, as well as the fact that in a fun way, while this alien franchise has constantly had this thing of, will the synthetic go bad or not? And every time we've seen a synthetic after Ash, we've always gone like, uh, is this an ash or a bishop in Romulus? This is like the first time in an alien film where you see that guy and you go, that guy's bad. There's no way this man. There's no way the synth that looks like Ash is going to be the one good synth. Like, come on, he works for Weyland. There's going to be something that happens, and it is something where it's like, mileage may vary on how people will feel about this. And I understand a lot of people, and I understand your take on it as well, where it's like, when I. When I. Because, again, I found out about Rook before we saw the movie, it was accidentally spoiled to me because basically I was looking through the cast because I was doing something for Romulus. And then I saw that there was a credit for Ian for a vocal and visual reference, and then I saw there was another man who was credited for the stand it. [01:49:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:17] Speaker A: And I went, oh, well, in my head, I initially was like, oh, maybe he'll just show up at the very end. Like, maybe the. Weyland crew will come in. [01:49:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:28] Speaker A: And do, like, almost an alien cubed situation where it's, like, Lance Hedrickson. And so it's like one scene, but to not only have it in multiple scenes, to not only have rook be a deep, like, a pretty prominent part in terms of how to get to. [01:49:43] Speaker B: Other than the xenomorph, he's, like, basically the antagonist. [01:49:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, in a classic, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, Weyland Yutani bat. Like, it's the corporate shill this time, is just the synth that didn't die the first time. [01:49:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:00] Speaker A: It is. The fact that they commit to it. It is one of those things where go. Yes. There's a good chance that in a year or two, this will look like absolute dog shit. [01:50:08] Speaker B: Kind of looks like dog shit right. [01:50:10] Speaker A: Now, but in the grand scheme of things, I do think it's like, this is putting more effort into this type of legacy thing than I've seen from any other big budget film that has kind of done this, except, like, dial, but even with dial, it goes. I think dial goes too long and focuses on it too much. Well, as I think with this, it's able to understand. And I think you even said when we left the theater, like, it was kind of confusing how there were some scenes where he is lit perfectly in a way where it doesn't bother you as much, and sometimes. [01:50:45] Speaker B: And then they shine a light right on his face, and it's like, why are we seeing this shit fully lit up? This is awful. [01:50:53] Speaker A: And, like, anytime he's on a computer screen, like he's a Mario party character face. Still, he looks. He looks the best there because they have, like, three different filters. [01:51:03] Speaker B: Really obscure it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just weird. I. Yeah. [01:51:07] Speaker A: When it is weird, it is clearly. [01:51:09] Speaker B: Making choices that are smart to make it as not distracting as possible. But then it's like, why are we not maintaining those choices throughout the whole movie? [01:51:20] Speaker A: Or the. The question, why even make a choice that you know is gonna be distracting from the get go? [01:51:25] Speaker B: That, too. I mean, I think function like it could function without him. Like. Like, it's a. It's a fun little inclusion for a second, but it's like a couple very small tweaks to this movie. You do not need Ian Holmes character in the movie at all. [01:51:43] Speaker A: Let me throw this to you. And again, this is just an idea that's come off the cuff. And I'm not saying this is better in any way, but I am curious of what you think about this. What if Rook was just an Andy? What if it literally was a David Walter, that same actor, like a David Walter situation? Yeah, we have. [01:52:02] Speaker B: I think you get to accomplish the same thing because ultimately, the best part about Rook in this movie is what he contributes to Andy's arc. [01:52:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:52:11] Speaker B: If you just made him another Andy, like, yeah, I think that would work pretty well. You lose the, like, the point and clap appeal of having Ian Holm in the movie. But, like, is anybody really going to be mad about that? [01:52:24] Speaker A: Yeah, there's anyone really pointing and clapping, like, in our theater. Like, in our theater. Our theater was engaged, like, the majority of the film, but the film was. The theater was not engaged because of the references. They were genuinely engaged because I don't. [01:52:38] Speaker B: Think there were any, like, cheers or anything for, like, any of the referential stuff. It was reacting to the actual action and horror that was happening. [01:52:48] Speaker A: I think the biggest reaction I got out of seeing Rook was the fact that when I saw that body, I knew. [01:52:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:52:55] Speaker A: Oh, that's where it is. But Adam, because I didn't tell Adam that. I didn't tell. I told Adam that I got a spoiler and that was it. I didn't tell him what kind of spoiler, but to see his face, where he went. Oh, there's a sense down on that floor. I wonder. Wait, that hair. No. And it's like, yep. And I looked at it, but I kind of nodded, like, yeah, there. [01:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I got spoiled with. [01:53:18] Speaker A: Like, it's just. [01:53:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And I don't really have a problem conceptually with, like, rook being in the film. I mean, like, you know. Yes. There's the whole conversation we could have about the posthumous, you know, digital recreations of actors. And that's kind of. That's very icky and all that, blah, blah, blah. And the digital technology is just not there yet that we think it is. Yeah, I do think, like, the first scene where it's kind of like, you know, they're picking up rook's body and they're putting him on the counter. It's all very dimly lit. I was, like, on board in that moment. I was like, yeah, okay, if we get this really shady, barely visible, look at this guy. And, like, the room was already dark, the ship is shut down. Like, everything's in shambles. It makes sense to not have good visibility in the scene. So let's just keep it that way. Yeah, we can just. We can all. Just all of us who have seen the original movie can sit there and be like, yeah. We know who this guy is for sure would have been perfectly fine. And then. Yeah, they just turn the lights on. It's like, God damn it. [01:54:29] Speaker A: And I will say, yeah. And again, I think at this point, it's like, it's so fucked up to say this now, but it is true that in the near ten years that rogue one has happened, I think now we can have conversations about how we prefer this to be done, because now that it's been done already, it's not gonna stop being done. [01:54:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:54:47] Speaker A: Where it's like, there's this weird situation of, like, I mean, literally, we had the fucking flash last year, which had Reeves, which had, like, an AI. Christopher. [01:54:58] Speaker B: Adam West. [01:54:59] Speaker A: Adam west. And it had the situation of, like. [01:55:02] Speaker B: Is it consider Gi Nick Cage and he's not even dead. [01:55:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And he just. Yeah. And it's just like, you have the situation where it's like, is it better that they don't have them speak? And I can honestly see that, like, to be honest, for me personally, like, I. It doesn't make it any less creepy when they do, but at the same time, I honestly think it's creepier when they don't say anything when they was. [01:55:25] Speaker B: Really, like, ghoulish in the flash, when they're just, like, passing over the screen. [01:55:30] Speaker A: Well, it's not even. Yeah, but I. My go to is Ghostbusters afterlife because they bring back Ramus in that. And Ramus, it is supposed to be a very emotional seed because the whole thing about afterlife is that it's. It is Egon's family going to Egon's house. And so. And his daughter, played by Carrie Coote in that film, is, like, never got any closure with her father. And so the scene where she sees him, they don't speak. He just nods. And all the other ghostbusters look at him and go, great to see you, buddy. And he just lightly nods. And it's weird because, again, that is not how that character was in the original films. And it's clearly there because Remus unfortunately passed away years ago. And we get to a point now where it's like, I guess I understand with. At least with Tarkin or with. In the rook situation where it's like these. Both actors have passed away and they're dead. But if you. If you get. If you get the access and the approval from their estates and their families and you do it in a way where the families are, you know, okay with it. And they feel. I don't know how you feel comfortable. The state, like, with as a family, being like, oh, by the way, we're gonna do this. Unless it's like, you know, maybe like a furious, like a furious, like Paul Walker situation where it's like it was. [01:56:48] Speaker B: You know, everything to. [01:56:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But it's like, I appreciate the effort, but at the same time, it is the effort of like, this is a technology that, like, the reason why really mastered yet and we're not going to. And I think in all honesty, because at the same time, you can't really fake the eyes. It's become the biggest issue. [01:57:10] Speaker B: I mean, it's like, I think it'll be kind of a. Yeah, it'll be kind of this exponential. It's the uncanny valley. We'll get closer and closer and closer, but we'll never really get there. [01:57:20] Speaker A: It's one of the reasons why, like, you know, something like, like, even, even though with dial of Destiny, it's like, yeah, you use Ford for a lot of the shots where you do, like, young Ford. Even then, though they have looked right, it was because they had the mistake of holding on his face because I would even argue their situations, like, what about Michael Douglas and Ant man? Or what about Jeff Bridges and Tron Legacy? And it's like, I agree that, like, I think Michael Douglas's has held up well. I think Jeff Bridges looks incredibly rough, not great in legacy, but I think both those films are able to get away with it a bit more because of the style and the lighting as well as the fact that they don't hold on to a neutral, not moving face for long enough that your brain starts to find the spots that don't work. [01:58:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:58:07] Speaker A: And so when you get to now where it's like you have a character like Ruck, where it's like, you. I understand why he's here. I do think in terms of the, you know, wojak, like, oh, my God. Legacy kind of aspect of it, it's like, yeah, it is. I understand not loving it. I understand that it's rough. But at the same time, I think it really shows just how good of a film Romulus is, where it's like, it is not just there for window dressing. [01:58:38] Speaker B: There is a purpose with it. [01:58:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they do something with it. And that's the thing about it's a. [01:58:42] Speaker B: Movie that, like, you know, 90% of the movies that do those things, like 90, like all the movies that make these mistakes, like, you know, bringing back all the, you know, bringing back iconic one liners and digital face replacements and stuff are also on top of that. Like, just kind of soulless movies, not doing anything interesting with the property anyway. And this is a movie kind of a rare instance where it does make those mistakes and take those kind of studio indulgences when it gets the chance. But apart from that, it's putting so much thought and care and love into, you know, creating a new story with the trappings that you want and expect from this franchise. [01:59:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:59:37] Speaker B: And I will say in a way that's really viscerally fun. [01:59:40] Speaker A: It is also surprising how they're able to do this with a budget that I don't think is that much more if I might even be less than covenants. I think it's close to like the 80. I think it's the 80 to 90 range, which I think would arguably make it the, like the smallest budget of the three. But it is the fact that it's like, it's able. It's able to have a smaller quote unquote smaller. It's still 80 million, but like, to have that budget and still look as phenomenal as it does with the action, the design, like the VFX and the practical effects for the most part, because there's also a practical visual effect that we haven't talked about, which is like the finale. The finale monster. That is just fucking horrifying. And it's something that genuinely shouldn't work. Like, I feel like if you had that design on a piece of paper, people would go, that looks stupid. You wouldn't be able to make that scary. And they find a way to make the finale monster fucking just memorable. You know, in a series that has very memorable monsters or you'll is usually the memorable monster. Is it's the xenomorph, but a little bit different. Oh, yeah, might be here and there. Or it's just the xenomorph. Like, it's just fascinating that we get to this point where, you know, Romulus doesn't have to do these things. Romulus, I think, genuinely could just be Aliena it again and get away with a six and a half, seven out of ten film and is able to make its money back because it's not Prometheus, it's not covenant. Yeah, but the fact that FedEx is able to pull out his best film he's done so far and also arguably, and this is probably going to be the hottest take we both have on this franchise. Probably the best sequel we've gotten. Interqual, just installment sense aliens in terms of consistent fun, consistent creativity, consistent emotional integrity too. The fact that it's like while, like, it's not the first time. Again, in Covenant, we have a relationship with Waterston and Fassbender that is like, a solid synth, human relationship. To have rain and Andy be basically brother and sister, and have the brother be an Android from the gate is like, all right, this is already more interesting because, yeah, we actually have a. [02:02:05] Speaker B: Duo of characters that have an interesting relationship for once. [02:02:09] Speaker A: And it bridges the gap from alien having rook or rook. See, now I'm calling him fucking Rook. But having ash be a secret agent for Weyland as an evil synth and then have aliens have Bishop be, like, genuinely one of the best guys on the team. [02:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:25] Speaker A: To have Andy be the in between, where, like, the only reason why Andy is like that is because Rain's dad was really cool and gave his daughter, like. Like, basically a birthday present of, like, hey, I found this junked out synth that I wanted to help you out with and then arguably made one of the best synthetic characters we've ever seen in the series and. And one of the best and one of the best performances in the film as well. And just has an emotional arc that, like, immediately. Even though, again, in my brain, I know that the development is not super strong by this point, like, the ten to 15 minutes mark, but when Andy is just stammering, when, you know, rain is making sure he doesn't go anywhere and he's getting bullied because everyone knows he's a synth, and he's just like, I want to make sure you get off of this world because I need to make sure you're happy. From that point, I'm like, oh, my gosh. This fucking. I'm feeling things already about this film that I wasn't fucking expecting. I'm just waiting for chest bursters to come out of assholes. And even. And even the assholes that are in this movie, you're genuinely like, oh, by the way, this guy is an asshole because a synth did this to his mom. And you go, listen, he's still an asshole, but I get it. Like, you. Yeah, like, fede is again, he keeps, like we talked about in the last episode. He keeps, like, this graining, like, drowning, capitalistic vibe of how it's like, you can't get out of this hole. Yeah, that way is. Yeah, Weyla Dutani is putting people in. And if you can get out of this hole, what else you gonna do? But either space truck or salvage. [02:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:04:02] Speaker A: Or work at a dock. Like, it's one of those things where it's like, it keeps that energy and also gives the audience a real understanding as to why they're willing to take a. Any chance, which is why when they get to that, and they. Because, again, it's another thing that's great, too, is like, it also is smart by being like, it's not like they try to get the cryo tubes. The facehuggers show up. They don't get the cryo tubes. They survive. But they really need those cryo tubes. They go back. No, the reason why they don't leave the ship immediately is because they have a paranoia stint where they. Basically, the half of the team loses the other half because the other half is worried that something bad is gonna happen to them. And what a surprise that something bad that happens is the facehugger, is that there is a chest burster on the ship, and the ship ends up crashing on Romulus. And instead of being, like, feeling like, oh, my God, these dumb assholes are still on the stupid fucking ship when they should leave. No, the only way to get out of the ship is to keep traversing the ship to get to the way out. Like, it's. It's a very intelligent way of. Again, very, very similar. [02:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:05:14] Speaker A: Feeling very similar to the. To alien and aliens. How, like, it's very intelligent how, like the moments that you would watch a film and go, why the fuck is that guy going downstairs? He's a dumbass. Doesn't really happen in this movie. Yeah. [02:05:29] Speaker B: Go through the ship. [02:05:30] Speaker A: They have to go downstairs because upstairs is locked. Yeah, it is. It is based, like, it actually is thought of every avenue in a way that is very creative or is straightforward. And on top of all that, they even have the gall. The fucking gall to tie in Prometheus shit to. [02:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Which probably the last thing I was expecting from this movie was the fellow reboot quilt tie ins, because it basically. [02:06:01] Speaker A: Implies that whatever a third film would be in the David trilogy, that whatever happened in that film honestly led to Weyland Yutani getting the black goo. [02:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:12] Speaker A: And synthesizing it in a way that it could actually lead to immortality, could. [02:06:18] Speaker B: Be used to, like, cure diseases and things. Yeah. [02:06:22] Speaker A: And would you believe me if I told you that it doesn't go the way they think it goes, playing with black goop like that, but it's still kind of, like, wild to get to that point and have rookhood again, having Ian Holmes character who still. Who was still alive at the time that Prometheus was coming out, but to hear him talk about the Prometheus expedition is, like, wild, weird. [02:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Clashing of and get it. Yeah. [02:06:48] Speaker A: And I get it. Like, if you're a Prometheus fan, you're not gonna go, huh. And be excited by that. There's a party that's probably gonna be like, well, I kind of wanted to see how that ended. [02:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:58] Speaker A: Because again, at this point in the timeline, it's been like 40 years. Probably. Probably 30 years since whatever. You know, that third. That third David film was going to happen. But, like, it is. It's more than I expected. [02:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:07:14] Speaker A: It also is more than I expected that the final monster kind of looks like an engineer. [02:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:07:20] Speaker A: I was not expecting that. It was funny going into this film. It just really shows how good this fucking film is, because when we were getting to the theater, our Adam said, if I see any one of those white, bald fuckers in this movie, I'm walking out. [02:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:07:37] Speaker A: And here we get to the final. [02:07:40] Speaker B: He's fucking gripped by it as we both are. [02:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is, like, horrifying. [02:07:44] Speaker B: It's horrifying and weird. Gross. [02:07:47] Speaker A: They fucking did it. They found a way to bring an engineer in, and it's actually engaging. It's fucking insane. It is like in covenant, we didn't bring up yet, but, like, covenant, they all die. Like, because David kills them all, right? At least the colony that he goes to that ship is from. But, like, to see, like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. Of course the black goo is from engineered DNA in some way, shape or form. They, like, kind of synthesize it. Oh, fuck. Of course this fucking baby is gonna look like a horrified engineered xenomorph thing. And it's funny to think that that's where we're at now compared to, like, prometheus's end, where, like, prometheus's end is like, oh, it kind of looks like a xenomorph, but it has a weirder interior mouth. [02:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:31] Speaker A: And then in this, it's like, no, this thing is a nightmare creature that looks like. What's the worst version of a Pokemon, like, body swap, like, fusion thing that you can do? [02:08:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:43] Speaker A: And you get it and it still works. And you even still get the whole, let's shoot it into space. And it still fucking works and is well done. And it is. [02:08:53] Speaker B: They add that flavor to it by using the ring of the planet, which I thought was cool. [02:08:58] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [02:08:59] Speaker B: Working against the clock. [02:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the thing. That's great too, because that's what makes, I think aliens great. That's is the ticking time clock. It's also with Alien, the fact that initially at alien, they have, like, they're gonna turn on the self destruct sequence, and then Ripley shuts it off because, like, oh, maybe that's a little bit too early. And then it still keeps going. [02:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:09:22] Speaker A: Like you. It is. It's clear that Alvarez is taking all the elements of alien and aliens not hiding where they're coming from, but still having fun with the fact that it is a Sci-Fi horror series that still has plenty that is yet to be touched upon. And I'm not saying plenty to be touched upon lore wise. I think we've gotten a lot of. [02:09:43] Speaker B: In terms of the spectacle. Spectacle from these. Yeah, yeah. [02:09:47] Speaker A: If. [02:09:47] Speaker B: Kinds of action and stuff you can explore. [02:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah. If alien is like a haunted house in space and, like, aliens is like a roller coaster in space. I think Romulus is like a roller coaster and a haunted house. [02:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like a. Yeah. Scary roller coaster. One of those interior roller coasters with. Yeah. [02:10:07] Speaker A: Kind of a best of both worlds situation. And while I do think, again, alien is perfect, and I think aliens is great. And I still like aliens more than Romulus. And I think Romulus does have the fact that, like, it could push it a little bit further in some places is why it is phenomenal. [02:10:24] Speaker B: A little bit like coattail. Coattail, right. Yeah. [02:10:28] Speaker A: As well as the rook of it all. And just kind of like, you know, pulling. Bringing back it away from her. You bitch. When it's been 40 years nearly since aliens. [02:10:35] Speaker B: Nobody wanted that. [02:10:37] Speaker A: No. But it's at the same time, it's like, compared to what I was such a. [02:10:42] Speaker B: Like, just a fun and weirdly thoughtful legacy. [02:10:48] Speaker A: Just to have the fact that, like, again, Kaylee Spaney, who plays basically the Ripley type in this film, name is Rain. [02:10:55] Speaker B: Rain. [02:10:56] Speaker A: There's great emotional turmoil in terms of the fact that, like, this whole expedition to get to Evaga is going to basically lead her to losing her synth brother. Because they can't have Andy with them, because they can track Wayland Yutani tech. And she never told him that. And honest to God, you. I didn't feel like she was a piece of shit. Because when people are talking to her, going, yeah, she's. He's not your real brother, and he wants you to be happy like these. This is the way to do it. And it's. It is what it is. And then just to still see the fact that she still feels guilty about to the point where she is willing to risk her own life to save him, because that is the only family she has. And it's time to finally admit that is fucking great. Because it's a series where when you. When you see a synth, you either go, mmm, don't trust that. Or, oh, it's Lance Henriksen. I trust him. Yeah, it's like, in a series like that, it is the fact that we now have a loving relationship that involves a synth and a human, that isn't romantic. It is entirely platonic. [02:12:06] Speaker B: New territory for the series, because again, if you. [02:12:09] Speaker A: If, like, if someone watches this and it's like, oh, but Tyler, like, Archie Renault, like, I think he does a good job in this movie, but if you were expecting him to be kind of like a Hicks esque, like, you know, foil to reigns. Ripley. Yeah, you don't get that. He gets an unceremonious death. And I will say that was kind of like, damn. Wasn't expecting it to go out like that without a fight. That's rough. But the fact that we still have that relationship with rain and Andy, that is something that we still really haven't had yet. To go from aliens, where the Bishop Ripley relationship ends with, you know what, Bishop? You're a good one. That's it. To now getting to Romulus, where we're finally being like, no, this is her brother. It's a found family. Fuck off. Like, it's like, oh, that's just. That's so simple. It's simplistic in the best way. [02:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:12:59] Speaker A: And executed very well. And it's just one of those things. [02:13:02] Speaker B: It's so funny that, like, so much of the response to this movie is like, oh, the two leads are underdeveloped. It's like, what? What franchise are you watching? Ripley, arguably. You know, I'm not going to say that either of these two characters are better than Ripley, but Ripley is great because of Sigourney Weaver. Like, Ripley is not a super well developed character, at least not in her first movie. [02:13:29] Speaker A: Dallas sits in a chair and looks like a shaggy Paul McCartney for the majority of the film and is confused as to what to do until he tries to find the xenomorph and take it out, dies, and then the film goes, okay, well, Ripley's the new. The new protagonist. An hour and, like, 15 in. Like, it is kind of wild how. Yes, Ripley is a phenomenal character, but a lot of that development, guys, does come from aliens. So here's the thing. There's a good chance people out there that were like, I don't know, there's a lot of development on these guys. If Romulus gets a sequel, we could get an aliens esque, you know, situation with Reign and Andy. And to be honest, out of all the possible sequel ideas we've gotten from Prometheus Covenant and now with this one, I'm the most intrigued with Romulus, genuinely, because it's like they have this idea of, like, going to a non Weyland Yutani planet, which could even get into a point of, like, they could go to a place that has very little technology. [02:14:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:14:36] Speaker A: And do, like, those. I. Those ideas with alien three. There was an alien three idea where they go. Yeah. All wood. [02:14:43] Speaker B: Yeah, wood. [02:14:44] Speaker A: Like, almost, like, very primitive, but they're, like, fine. And they, like, really like it. It was, like, one of the most liked scripts around at the time. And they could do something like that. And if Fede's still on board, at least now it's like, I'm very confident that he's, like. He has an eye for it in a way that is like, yeah, I really like. He even just admitted, I think, recently that one of his inspirations for Romulus was not even the movies, it was the game. It was isolation. He was like, I really liked the fact that in that game, it was the first time in years since. Honestly, probably since alien. [02:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:15:20] Speaker A: That the xenomorph singular was scary because isolation is genuinely scary. Like, isolation as a game is still a game that I've yet to finish because I had. I was stressed. [02:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:15:34] Speaker A: Tired time when I played that game because it actually makes the Zeno more scary. And lo and behold, Romulus does that incredibly well and makes it a fun creature that is, like, very interesting to watch. You know, the human condition of trying to look out for the people that you love versus, you know, the Android. Yeah. And having, like, in between an Android that goes, listen, we can't open this door. [02:16:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:16:02] Speaker A: Because that thing is faster than all of us and we're gonna die. [02:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:16:05] Speaker A: So I'm not saying that I want her to die on the other side of the door, but it also is like. It's kind of interesting how this film was also shot chronologically, which is not normal. [02:16:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:16:19] Speaker A: Like, apparently, like, fede was like, yeah, it was kind of sad when someone died because, like, they were done with them. They were done. And, like, it is probably interesting in terms of a dynamic wise, especially if you're like, the last few actors on there, just in the. But, like, yeah, I get it. Rain is wearing fucking reeboks the same as Ripley does an alien. Andy says a line that is from aliens. And of course, they don't need to bring back a dead actor to play a synthetic part. I agree with that last part. I agree with most of those things in terms of, like, the legacy callbacks are mainly like, you can do other things. [02:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:16:59] Speaker A: But at the same time, fairly small. [02:17:02] Speaker B: Gripes in comparison to the things it's doing. Right. [02:17:05] Speaker A: It is. Compared to re watching Prometheus and Covenant, Romulus genuinely has a spark that could reignite the franchise in a way that is like, alien is back. [02:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:17:18] Speaker A: That they just couldn't because, like, they were so in the weeds in their own identity as to what they should be. While Romulus is like, nah, we're just nasty. We're sick. We're in space. We have clickety clackety keys. [02:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:17:31] Speaker A: And we got some cool ass monsters and cool ass cast. And we're just gonna go for it. We're just gonna vibe. [02:17:35] Speaker B: Exactly. [02:17:36] Speaker A: And to be honest, if you're just like, ah, I wish this vibe did more. 100% understandable. This movie is not perfect. And I. [02:17:44] Speaker B: It's not like the most ambitious thing in the world either. [02:17:47] Speaker A: No. But if you are, if you ask me, are you gonna buy this on 4K? You best fucking believe I'm gonna buy this on 4k. You best believe. [02:17:54] Speaker B: That's a gorgeous movie. [02:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my God. [02:17:58] Speaker B: Is great. I mean, it's not. It's not pretty in the same way that, like, you know, Prometheus is pretty, but it's like, no, no, no. [02:18:08] Speaker A: Atmospheric movie to me. It feels pretty in, like, the Blade Runner 2049 way where you. You can see the evolution from, like, going from alien to, like, not aliens yet. [02:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:18:21] Speaker A: Similar how 2049 is. Like, clearly you can see that every. Every bit of design, costume, set, visual design is like, okay, what would this tech that's in this film actually look like in the original look like in 2049? Like, really putting the thought and effort into not trying to lose the essence of the original film and with. But. But still having a unique identity. And with romulus, it has that same thing. It is. Again, I don't think anyone was. Would expect, was expecting the guy who made a just nasty, gory Evil Dead remake in 2013 to be at a point where eleven years later makes the most just engaging, straightforward, fun alien film we've gotten since fucking aliens. [02:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:19:11] Speaker A: We were genuinely shocked. And honestly, it's the first time this year I've heard somebody just yell out loud and voluntarily, oh, shit. Like, just, like, involved in the film and not saying that to get a crack out of someone, like, trying to say something to get a joke out literally just sounded like someone just couldn't hold back their immediate thought. And so, like, and this is just gonna be a film that like, I still need to do my fucking letterbox on it. Cuz like, honestly, since we saw it, it was just like, I can't. There's so many things I want to talk about. I gotta condense it. I gotta condense it. And it is. It's just a damn good time. I feel like this is, this, to me, feels like what people used to talk about as a water cooler film, especially for horror fans, where it's like, did you fucking see Romulus? Like, what about this, man? The Zero G scene is enough. [02:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a funny. [02:20:05] Speaker A: If you're listening to this, if you're listening to this episode and you've not watched any of these films and you're still listening, I'm not even gonna explain that fucking scene because that scene should just be seen to be believed because it's very creative. Yet again, understandably simplistic in how it executes it. And it's still just a lot of fun. It is. Little tweaks here and there on the basic premise of Alien as well as some little aliens kind of feelings and vibes leads Romulus to just stand out enough. [02:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:20:39] Speaker A: And that's okay in this franchise. That is enough. [02:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [02:20:43] Speaker A: Very similar to prey with Predator. It is enough not to do, like everything to just do a little bit, but like tweak it enough to make it interesting and to the point where it's like, because of prey now we're getting like a fucking old west predator film. I hope to God it's the case with Romulus. With Romulus, we get another one that's like, let's say it's like a ten year gap. I would love to. I genuinely would kind of be fun to watch Andy and rain again. [02:21:14] Speaker B: Sure. [02:21:14] Speaker A: And see the rest and just see where that takes them and see a story that, like, doesn't have to wait. [02:21:19] Speaker B: A while for that if it's a ten year gap, because baby face Kaylee. [02:21:22] Speaker A: Spain, well, she's a cry of sleep. It's fine. [02:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it's true. [02:21:26] Speaker A: It's okay. I mean, it just. I don't want it to be a thing where it's like, I don't want Fetty to now be like, all right, I'll make a trilogy of films that now leads up to Aliena. Don't need that. No, but to be honest, if a bold move. But if they do, like a giant time jump. And it's like post aliens at one point and still rain and Andy, like, that would be kind of fucking. I'm down. Like, that's the thing. I never thought I'd say after, like, because after seeing Covenant, I remember liking covenant, but also being, oh, my God, just. He clearly is having issues trying to figure out what it wants to be. And then with Romulus is like, I forgot about the confidence that these movies can have and that's what it's got. And I'm glad that, you know, we went through the franchise to get to this point. And because usually I think times that we've done this, we have gotten to like, the last film in the, in the franchise and go, well, not the best. It's there. Like, I think we. That was a kung fu panda four situation where it's like, not a very. [02:22:29] Speaker B: Not like, rewarding to get to the end. Yeah. [02:22:32] Speaker A: And while Romulus, again, is not the best alien film, it's not even the. [02:22:36] Speaker B: Best alien fucking time. [02:22:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I gotta be honest, I think to me, the top three alien films are alien, aliens, Romulus. I think it's pretty easy like that. And I. I hope it doesn't get to a point where that is a hot take because I feel like it's very easy to like this movie. [02:22:53] Speaker B: Well, you know, if. If fucking Prometheus can get some sort of wave of revisionism five or ten years later, surely this will be hailed as a masterpiece by 2030 or called. [02:23:07] Speaker A: The most secret dog shit studios have put out because Disney was involved in some issue, which again, the fact that out of these three films, this is the one that is Disney produced, and yet it works better than the other two films that were like Fox independent, like Fox doing their own thing and whatnot. Listen, not saying Disney's a good company, but like, you know, head doesn't have some skeletons in the closet, but it, you know, it's kind of shocking. We weren't expecting that from like, post Disney buyout. But yeah, that's the alien rebukals. That is a blast of a trilogy that even though it is a flawed trilogy through and through. I would, again, I even know last episode I said, you only need to watch Alien and aliens. And I still really stand by that. I would say, you know, at least alien, aliens and Romulus. If you really like Alien and aliens. I actually told someone today because they were like, I've never seen all the alien films. I'm like, you have Disney plus. Yeah, watch alien. Watch aliens. If you're down, go see Romulus. [02:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:24:13] Speaker A: There are some things that will be referenced. You'll probably go, I don't know what that is, but, like, doesn't really matter. Yeah, but I would argue, like, you know, of all the times we've gone through a franchise, especially with this many movies, I had a good time going through the experience. So if you've not seen all of the movies, I would recommend just having that experience once. [02:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a fucking journey to see the directions this franchise goes. It's not. Yeah. Only three of these movies I will probably ever watch again. But, you know, I was glad I. Prometheus resurrection. Prometheus and Covenant. [02:24:54] Speaker A: Yes. Your favorite ones. [02:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but, yeah, so, you know, and it's fun to now get to talk about these attempts to sort of reinvigorate the franchise. And the last one being like, oh, you know what? I'm actually kind of interested in more alien movies now because of this one. [02:25:15] Speaker A: What a time to be alive. What a time to be alive in a summer that has been mainly sevens. I know it's a seven for you. It was an eight for me. And I was shocked by that. I was expecting just a seven. I could. [02:25:25] Speaker B: I could go up like, this is a really good time. [02:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And I can't. And I can't wait to rewatch it again at some point. But now that we are done with the alien films, we had a little bit of a space in our September block that we thought we wanted to highlight a director. It's very similar in the same vein as our rise of Jim Cummings episode, where we have a director who's mainly known for independent, smaller films that get a lot of good critical buzz, that has been around for a hot minute, I think, nearly 20 years at this point in his career. But we decided in honor of his newest film, Rebel Ridge, which is a Netflix original, which at the point that this episode comes out, it should already be out on Netflix. But in honor his new film, we are doing the rise of Jeremy Saulnier, who is the director known for murder Party, Blue Ruin, and Green Room. His first three films, which we will cover on the episode, talking about just kind of his rise as an independent director, starting with his very interesting first film compared to what his second and third film in this trilogy end up being. Yeah, with green room being the most popular as well as being the most distinct and honestly, probably the most distant compared to the other two films in a tonal sense. But, yeah, that's gonna be our next episode of that, and that will come out. Andy, please help me because I've been. [02:27:00] Speaker B: Very bad at this. September 21. [02:27:03] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. So tune in on September 21 when we do the rise of Jeremy Saulnier. We could also do Rise of Saul in the a, but I'm Logan, so wash, huh? [02:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. I sounded like you were not sure how to pronounce his last name. I'm not sure either. [02:27:20] Speaker A: Solnier. Sol near. I will figure out by the time we do the. [02:27:23] Speaker B: We'll figure it out. [02:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah. But tune in on the 21st when we do Jeremy's first three films. I'm Logan, so wash. And I'm Andy Carter. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.