Alien Romulus: Reboot or Revelation?

Alien: Romulus has ignited passionate debate among franchise devotees and casual viewers alike—is it a brilliant return to form or merely retreading familiar territory? We dive deep into what makes this latest entry work so effectively as both homage and evolution.

The production design immediately transports us back to the world of the original film—analog interfaces, practical effects, and a lived-in aesthetic that stands in stark contrast to the sleek, holographic futures depicted in many contemporary sci-fi films. This tangible quality extends to the xenomorphs themselves, primarily portrayed by suit actors rather than CGI, creating a visceral horror experience that feels increasingly rare in modern blockbusters.

What's particularly fascinating is how director Fede Alvarez uses familiar frameworks to explore themes relevant to today's audiences. Wayland-Yutani's motivations have evolved from weaponizing aliens to creating more efficient workers—a shift that reflects our changing anxieties from Cold War militarism to corporate exploitation by tech giants and pharmaceutical companies. The corporation doesn't just want to profit from its workers; it wants to fundamentally transform them into more productive tools.

The zero-gravity acid blood sequence stands as a perfect example of how the film builds upon established lore to create something fresh and terrifying. Similarly, the relationship between Rain and her android brother Andy adds emotional complexity while exploring the film's themes of artificial intelligence and exploitation.

Whether you're revisiting the franchise or experiencing it for the first time, Alien: Romulus delivers the perfect balance of nostalgia and innovation. In an era of franchise revivals that often miss what made the originals special, this film understands exactly what beats to hit while still charting its own course for the future.

What was your favorite scene from Alien: Romulus? Did you appreciate the practical effects approach, or would you have preferred more digital innovation? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!

Transcript

Critical Reception and Controversy

Speaker 1 0:10

this has been a very controversial movie yeah, I'm really surprised about that uh, I've seen a lot of people I really like just talk absolute mad shit about this film, and I think I saw it last week. My own opinion has evolved somewhat I would hate to say it's evolved based on the intake I've been experiencing of other people's opinion, but my initial reaction was that I liked it and yours was what.

Speaker 2 0:38

I loved it. I thought it was excellent.

Speaker 1 0:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 0:42

I haven't been following the negative controversy, though I only know that a lot of internet critics, especially the very high profile ones, have been dumping on it as yeah, there's a lot of hate, but I'm not.

Speaker 2 0:55

It's worthless, honestly, at a certain point, to listen to any of these people because a lot of the criticism is just the rehash of the same thing over and, over and over again. Um, you know, you'll hear, oh, it's woke, or uh, you know, criticizing that it's a remake or sequel or whatever, and it's like, okay, I don't that's what I don't understand is the idea that it's woke, like.

Speaker 1 1:13

What like? Is anything new? Just woke. Do you know what I?

Speaker 2 1:17

mean pretty much for these people, yes and um. Luckily there's some other people online that are calling out these people from within. Let's just say not from the different perspective, not necessarily.

Speaker 1 1:33

The biggest issue I've heard with the film is that it is sort of like a greatest hits rehash of some of the best stuff from the first two and a little bit of three and maybe Prometheus.

Speaker 2 1:47

But what's wrong with that? But what's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? Because this is alien. How much have we extended or prolonged this franchise that is there so much more interesting material out there for them to explore?

Speaker 1 2:00

I think that. Yes, I mean, I think that, unlike something like Halloween or Friday the 13th, the Alien series has room to grow and expand in a way that those other movies don't just based simply on the premise of the first movie.

Speaker 2 2:14

But what happens when you try to do that? That's when you get Prometheus. And what happened?

Speaker 1 2:18

Was Prometheus so bad? No?

Speaker 2 2:21

but the reputation amongst fans is that, oh, that's a terrible movie and we just want the same thing over and over again.

Speaker 1 2:30

Yeah, I guess it's probably right.

Speaker 2 2:32

I enjoyed this just as much as I enjoyed Prometheus, or maybe more, from what I remember and I'm happy to have this, and maybe the next thing can be something that's a little bit different, but you know, this is giving audiences what they asked for, okay, so I'm happy with it I would have to go back, and so I watched alien 3 and aliens again in the past in the interview week before our meeting here.

Speaker 1 2:56

right, alien 3 I had not seen since, um, I was a kid. So I saw aliens when I was like 16 and I was like that was sweet, right. And then I watched Alien 3 shortly afterwards and I was disappointed for a lot of the reasons why. People were disappointed at the time who were expecting an Alien sequel, but instead they got the third movie in the story of Ripley, which is honestly, in hindsight, what it should have been Right, do you like Alien 3?

Speaker 2 3:28

I've seen it once. I remember it was like OK, it was kind of disappointing at the end, but it was not bad, I would know. I thought it was really good. Much below the first two, though, for by all, by all means.

Rehashing vs Reinventing the Franchise

Speaker 1 3:42

I thought it was kind of this interesting and tragic coda to the three movies that worked very well, almost in the way that Godfather 3 does, which is a film I also enjoy, and I really was quite taken with it. I thought that the sort of set design and for people that are joining we're talking about Alien 3, which maybe is telling about the opinion of alien romulus, but like I, uh, I found it very compelling. I thought the actors were terrific, I thought that the scenario was good. The idea of newt and hicks being killed immediately I thought was disappointing if you wanted to see the continuation of that story, which would have been what exactly? You know the team shows up and saves the day at the prison. I think to strip all that from Ripley makes her end more heroic. But yeah, alien 3, I really enjoyed, just rewatched that recently.

Speaker 1 4:36

But Alien Romulus, I felt like this is something when I think about my normie sort of movie. Adjacent friends I would love to take them to this movie. You're going to get all the greatest hits of the alien franchise, some new things thrown in, but uh, it's going to hit all the beats. You want to see it out of an alien film and, um, I thought there were certain moments that were rather ingenious and played a little bit like someone who's been thinking very hard about what he would do if he directed an alien movie for maybe years. But there were set pieces that you could use with the lore to do something special. I'm thinking about the scene with the zero gravity and the acid blood floating right. That was really tremendous. But, um, there were certain things, of course, that bothered me, that everyone has been harping on, like the idea of uh, get away from her, you bitch, we don't need that.

Speaker 2 5:26

Yes, that is my only major criticism that I had of the movie is that that took me out of the moment entirely, because that's pure audience pandering on the lowest of levels.

Speaker 1 5:36

So unnecessary.

Speaker 2 5:38

Yeah, and it's totally out of character for the main character in the movie she does not speak like that or act like that in any regard to then have the gumption to to utter this phrase at the end of the movie, which is just unnecessary which the robot doesn't.

Speaker 1 5:55

The robot guy says it no, she says it no what? Okay, well then I robot guy says it yeah, chat back me up. The robot guy says it yeah, chat back me up. The robot guy says it Okay, I don't remember.

Speaker 2 6:05

I thought the rain says it to one of the aliens.

Speaker 1 6:10

No, what's the robot's name? Rook, that was the bad robot, the good robot.

Speaker 2 6:17

Oh, Andy.

Speaker 1 6:19

Andy says it.

Speaker 2 6:20

Andy is the good robot.

Speaker 1 6:21

But let's get back to. I mean Okay, I don't know, candy is in a horribly stilted way, but let's, let's get back to that.

Speaker 2 6:25

I mean, um, okay, this is a film. I don't know who's right or wrong here, but I I could have sworn that rain says it. Now we're gonna look like total, like we didn't actually watch the movie is that the lead gal's name was rain rain.

Speaker 1 6:36

I I'm pretty sure okay now I think there's something to the idea of okay, we're gonna reboot, force awakens the alien series, right so it wouldn't go that far.

Speaker 2 6:47

I would. I would say.

Speaker 2 6:48

I would say this is more like halloween 2018 in terms of a reboot, slash, remake. You know what I mean. Like. Is there a difference? I don't know, but the thing is, this is where I take take issue with with that is that star wars there is so much more to explore than doing the same thing over and over and over again. Halloween, alien, ghostbusters there's not a lot there. Okay, there's not. And so if you want to redo the same thing over again, use the basic outline framework and then do a few new things here and there, I'm fine with that. Star wars there's no excuse.

Speaker 1 7:23

Like, you have plenty of material to come up with a new story, new, new, new adventure all that I think that's probably fair and I'll give you that because the idea that we need to tell a continuing alien story with this eighth movie. The public has not been as enamored with the alien series to have kept up like, like, for I don't remember what what happened or where alien covenant sits in the timeline.

Speaker 2 7:48

I don't remember what happened in that movie I barely remember anything about it right, I have no memory of it whatsoever.

Speaker 1 7:54

I remember going to see it, but I have no, I remember sitting in the theater and watching it. I don't remember a goddamn thing that happened in that film yeah I don't remember it being bad. I remember seeing it with my brother and we were like that was cool I remember it was like unimpressive but remember it being like a prometheus alien reboot hybrid and it didn't work right. Um yeah, which is really weird. It's maybe one of the most forgettable movies in the entire ridley scott canon yeah, for sure right uh.

Speaker 1 8:24

But this I was taken with it quite at the beginning with the um where we get to see the sort of off-world planet colony of wayland utaity mining, and I was quite taken with the sound design and the production design and like, remember, there's that scene where they walk by and there were those giant trucks that drive by in a sort of trailer park housing establishment. I thought that was just phenomenal. I love the expansion. It seemed to drive it in more of a blade runner direction. Of course people have made lots of references to the idea that this and blade runner perhaps are a shared universe, uh, which would work. But, um, I was, I like the characters you could tell.

Speaker 2 8:58

There were certain of them that were labeled to be cannon fodder from the very beginning um well, I mean almost all alien movies, right, you're gonna only have one person survive, usually, right?

Speaker 2 9:10

generally, sure, but like I think the alien series maybe could I mean I think they're stuck on that they could benefit from letting a few people survive yeah, there were people that I cared about, you know, in this movie but that makes it even more impactful when they die, because you don't know whether her love interest or not will make it so well, like, spoiler alert charles dance's character in alien 3, the doctor.

Speaker 1 9:34

He is set up as like the co-lead and then he dies, like 45 minutes in and you're like like I suppose that, like you know, jolts you into a sense of like, oh no, anyone could die at any time. But like I like that, you know, jolts you into a sense of like, oh no, anyone could die at any time. But like I like that relationship. You know, I liked, I liked the guy in the movie and he just kind of gets taken out and he's gone and it's like, well, you know, what was the point of setting up all these characters, necessarily, if they're all just going to die and don't anything?

Speaker 2 10:00

in this movie? Yeah, because I mean, at its core, just as the original alien is. These are slasher movies, haunted house movies in outer space. Okay, aliens and the further sequels that have that that delineated afterwards are not they're they're. They're different animal entirely.

Speaker 2 10:19

But this goes back to that very, uh, basic, simple approach that the original film did and it becomes basically a monster on the loose haunted house movie. There's a slasher, after all, and the slasher is the xenomorph here. So in any good slasher movie you want to have the characters that are going to be disposable. At least you feel some sympathy for them before they meet their end. There's either that or you want to hate them. You love to hate them so much that you can't wait for them to meet their end. There's either that, or you want to hate them. You love to hate them so much that you can't wait for them to meet their end. So I think the answer to your question is we should feel some sympathy for them and get to know them, even if they're not going to contribute all too much to the story, before they meet their grisly end.

Speaker 1 10:58

Okay, I will fight back with you on this because, while I do think the Alien series is limited in sort of its lore scope right, I mean, this is not some grand mythical epic with a great backstory but, like, the reason alien one is so special is because they do take the time to set up a lot of different elements that have sequel and further story possibilities, right, um, I think about like sort of layering of concepts, right, you have the great idea of the design of the alien. It's an incredibly designed creature and it is so mysterious and creepy and weird that you do kind of want to know where it came from and why it exists. Right, if I were to compare the alien series with Michael Myers' Halloween, you have one interesting sort of lore element in that series and it's Michael Myers, and that is it.

Speaker 1 11:54

In Alien we have who's the space jockey? What does Weyland-Yutani Corporation want? What does the rest of this world look like? It's very realistically drawn. Ellen Ripley is a compelling character. The alien, again, is interesting. There are robots, synthetic people, that have a lot of potential, right, and we've seen that in aliens. They expand on the robot lore much more. There's a lot more to work with here.

Revisiting Alien 3 and Legacy Films

Speaker 2 12:21

Yes, but after Aliens, and you're going to include Alien 3 because you like that one. I don't remember it enough to be able to answer this, but how much have we actually explored any of this world in the seven or eight films that have existed in the franchise? We keep hearkening back to the same basic fundamentals over and, over and over again.

Speaker 1 12:45

It's a slasher series in this, but you know what? I was treating it as a series that. So that's, that's the, that's the, I think I think people should die, the alien should kill people. But um, I think that uh, terminator the first movie I saw in the theater last night. It's a slasher movie. It was sold as a slasher film. Right, bigger budget, more ideas, but at its core that's kind of what it was right. Um, but uh, with the alien films I think you can deviate.

Speaker 2 13:12

You could do something different oh, I'm not saying you can't, I'm saying they have not. Okay, here's one element especially in recent.

Speaker 1 13:21

And then when they do, people just bitch and complain non-stop that oh you know it's no good there's one way they could do it that, I think, would expand the lore of the series in a way that would make sense and would answer a question that we have never really gotten a real answer to, which is what the fuck does waylon utani want or think they're going to do with this alien right I think we get the first glimpse of that in this movie, which is yes, and that's.

Speaker 1 13:47

That was one element I really liked yes, is that?

Speaker 2 13:50

what I was saying before is that we're emulating and following the same basic framework and model of alien, pretty much. But yeah, you're doing enough, just enough at the end to introduce new concepts and ideas that you can springboard off for future movies. And I think that that the new monster at the end of the movie, which is thoroughly disgusting and depraved in all the right ways, okay, is something that we can use for a future movie or extrapolate from that many other different hybrid species you know Um I I will get to that my opinion on the baby alien uh, monster.

Speaker 2 14:32

I thought it was so disgusting. I loved it.

Speaker 1 14:34

It was disgusting but like the thing about it was that it it was not a great character design. The alien is disgusting and gross and scary, but it's also cool, like as many. I'm sure in your little glass case back there you might have a little xenomorph guy running around right?

Speaker 2 14:50

Did you?

Speaker 1 14:50

ever own a fucking action figure of the disgusting space engineer alien human hybrid guy.

Speaker 2 14:58

Well, because I don't buy action figures anymore, especially of modern stuff. But, if I was a kid and they were making toys for this movie, I would certainly want it you would want that if you were a child.

Speaker 1 15:11

Yeah, I'm gonna make a quick call to family health home services, but uh, no, like that was a scary creature and it worked to like climax the film.

Speaker 2 15:21

But all I would say that's our modern that's our modern day sensibilities for, for aesthetic design that are interfering in that creation. So, yes, it's not as impressive as the xenomorph, which is, you know, designed by by a different era of art artists. Okay, so, yes, that's about as good as you're going to get for something of a modern aesthetic design, though the alien xenomorph is one of the truly most like inspired character designs of all time.

Speaker 1 15:51

Yes, a confluence of, like multiple smart people dan o'bannon, butley scott and hr giger coming together to come up with this crazy design. It's like darth vader, it's indelible, it's like iconic. And then to follow it up and say, well, my climax is going to be with this creepy kind of blumhouse looking generic, scary guy. It's like it doesn't work. Like it doesn't work it works.

Speaker 2 16:13

It works. It's not as bad as, like I um. The one that I always go back to is, if you look at that, the horrible godzilla 2014 movie, where you see the other monsters that they created for that movie, the whatever, the mutu or mutu or whatever.

Speaker 2 16:27

Those are the most generic skittery, spider, um things that that scream of lack of any kind of artistic vision. And you see them paralleled against godzilla and you're like, okay, I can see a creature that was designed with the greatest of artistic merit in the 1950s. And then here's, you know, junk we just came up with on a computer now, and so I wouldn't say it's anywhere close to being that bad.

Speaker 1 16:50

I think it's not like a Cloverfield, no, it's like a quiet place or those yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 16:58

But I think you're you're being a little too harsh on it.

Speaker 1 17:01

I think it looks fine, it looks good, good, I thought the alien resurrection hybrid human alien looked better and was scarier and more interesting.

Speaker 1 17:09

I don't recall okay, but um, you got a lot of viewers on here today 24 people but I will say uh, so the original premise of alien 3, before um fincher got a hold of it, was the expansion. It was going to be the idea of what the Nutani does with the alien they want to make bio weapons. That was always the premise in Aliens and Beyond was that we can use this alien to make bio weapons. And the third movie was going to be very much a Cold War parallel. This is what the companies of the day were trying to do was like make weapons, fight the cold war right, whereas in this film we see um. Instead they want to use the alien to make better workers yes it's not about weapons.

Speaker 2 18:02

It's about making better employees right because the Because the whole premise or underlying theme of the message is the corporation is basically sucking the life out of its workers and employees. It's creating devastating conditions for these people to work, and so they're treating them like cattle or like fodder to fuel their enterprise. And so we're going to use this alien DNA and technology to augment human beings and make them basically even more primitive and primordial and slaves essentially further enslave these people to be minions of the corporation. So we've come to that kind of idea.

Speaker 1 18:45

But that was an interesting idea because if you're going to do like a 40-year study of like cultural effects in the Alien series, like you would say, okay, in the 80s it was conceived of the evil corporation, was Raytheon right, or Boeing or whoever you know making weapons. Right Now it's Amazon, essentially right.

Speaker 2 19:02

Or something else. Healthcare manufacturers. You know, Very true, Amazon essentially Right. Or something else. Healthcare manufacturers? Very true, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 19:08

Yeah, it's Big Pharma and Amazon are kind of like the Weyland-Yutani has always been like the cipher for the evil corporation of the time, right. And now it's Big Pharma and Amazon is Weyland-Yutani, whereas before it was the military industrial complex, right. So that's an interesting progression in the series. I mean they're, they're there's here and there, there are interesting movements, but I mean they're telling about our current uh sensibilities and culture, though it, but that's isn't that great.

Speaker 1 19:36

I mean, isn't that what you want? If you're going to look, yeah, that's good, that's what I based my whole channel on is like oh, you know what I mean, but we have things in this film that are so relentlessly like member, you know, nostalgia bait.

Speaker 2 19:51

Yeah, please don't use that term.

Speaker 1 19:54

I almost did, I almost did, and then I caught myself.

Speaker 2 19:57

Please came up with that. Okay, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 20:00

Family guy joke.

Speaker 2 20:01

Is it? I don't know.

Speaker 1 20:06

Yeah, I caught myself on that one. But, um, I think about in the first aliens film when, um, what's his name? Uh, he gets uh attacked by the alien first, uh, the actor john hurt, john hurt and john hurt goes down to the egg.

Speaker 1 20:18

On lv 421 there's this sort of eerie blue light where we see smoke plays with the light. Very well, right, and that was borrowed from the who. Did you know that some trivia? Some trivia is that they wanted to find a light that was like cool and would add to the scene, cause it looked kind of flat. And so the who the band was playing in London, they were shooting at Elstree, I believe, and wherever they have the James Bond stage.

Speaker 2 20:50

Pinewood.

Speaker 1 20:51

Pinewood yeah, and the who goes. Well, use this. We use it in our show. It looks really cool. When you have smoke it reflects on the light really well. So they borrowed that light and used it and then they just use it again here in this movie for like no reason. It's not motivated by anything, but for whatever reason the floor is just like blue because it looks like that. Exactly. But like you know, and I I saw it and I was like okay, but like what does that?

Speaker 2 21:19

Well you're. You're clearly a little more devoted um you that's all right.

Speaker 1 21:29

I've always liked the alien series because I felt like, okay, that maybe that was.

Speaker 2 21:32

I thought that was going to be a big light bulb for everybody, but uh the biggest thing for me was was the android that was supposed to look like ian holm. That was the biggest callback reference what did you think of that?

Speaker 1 21:45

I thought it was cool I thought it was not cool at all and very well, I was excited.

Speaker 2 21:51

In the future they're going to use androids that are probably look all the same, or there's probably different models of different androids that they repeat and reuse. So absolutely yeah we're going to recognize and it's a cool little callback and maybe his estate got some money, you know 100.

Speaker 1 22:06

I get that. Um, I don't mean to get on my moral high horse on this, but I thought number one he looked weird supposed to look weird. He's damaged and he's uh disfigured too, you know well, at first I was excited because I was like, oh, is that's cool? Is ian holm doing the voice? And then I was like, didn't he die?

Speaker 1 22:23

yeah, yeah he's dead and I'm like lance henriksen's not dead, it could have been bishop, right, that's true, it's weird. It's weird to me because I like ian holm a lot. I think he's a great actor, um terrific as bill ball baggins played frodo on the bbc uh lord of the rings audio drama that I listened to many times as a child, and the thing that made me sad about it is yeah, yeah, his estate probably got some money and it's only sort of these character actors that this ever happens to Like.

Speaker 2 22:56

Peter Cushing.

Speaker 1 22:57

Peter Cushing in Rogue One, but they would never think about doing this with Robert De Niro or Daniel Day-Lewis, would they?

Speaker 2 23:06

Or.

Speaker 1 23:07

Orson Welles. Would we ever get the Orson Welles CGI Orson Welles brought back to life?

Speaker 2 23:11

Well, because the younger audiences aren't going to know who that is, you know they don't know who this is either but maybe they've at least seen alien and they're going to be like oh it's that, looks like the guy from the other movie those kids have not seen alien.

Speaker 1 23:25

Okay, true, they turn it on. And because I noticed in this film we get the booting up of the computers on the ship scene yeah but, but. Whereas an alien that's about a four minute sequence, in this it's like 45 seconds. It's a speed run of all the greatest hits, right.

Speaker 2 23:40

Well, that's what I. I also really liked all the production design aspect.

Speaker 1 23:43

I'm sure you'll get to the movie feels well.

Speaker 2 23:46

It's obviously very tangible movie. There's a lot of practical sets and practical effects and costumes, like the alien is actually xenomorph, is actually a suit actor for probably a majority of it, which is fantastic. Um, and also just the. They didn't try to modernize the aesthetic design or the set design. It still has that very 70s analog feel to it, much in the same way that rogue one had that very old-fashioned um analog feel to it where the push buttons and the dials and things on the control panel. I remember that where they all.

Production Design and Practical Effects

Speaker 2 24:20

The sequels did a good job with that okay, I particularly noticed it in that one that for for yeah, more, but this movie as well. They didn't try to go totally futuristic. I mean, alien has always been a very, uh, hostile futuristic world that feels very run down and old and decrepit and I think keeping it like that, where they're cannibalizing and utilizing old pieces of technology that have probably been around in space for for a long period of time, it felt not just a nod to the original series and the original film but, like you know, practical for the, for the, for the world we live in.

Speaker 1 24:58

It was a great touch and I don't think the alien series works without it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:04

Without the modern Star Trek, for instance, like that. That's not the same world by any means.

Speaker 1 25:08

Or or like Prometheus, which had all the 3d heads-up display stuff like Iron man. That was quite in vogue around that time. I remember from Casino Royale to Quantum of Solace. All of a sudden, james Bond and Quantum of Solace in 2008 walked into MI6 and they were pulling up 3D things and spinning them around. That's kind of not in vogue anymore and there is something so tangible and so satisfying about those. What do you call that kind of screen? A tube television and then like a dot matrix display. You know what? Is there a word for that? Um, they're. They're terrific and they look real and dingy and run down and that's how the series should look and the aliens look terrific. Every practical effect was was tremendous and I applaud them for doing that for sure.

Speaker 2 25:54

Yep. My other thing was I thought the tone was very refreshing as well for a modern day action movie. We don't get this a lot. This movie is very serious. There's not, there's no, no one's cracking any one-liners. There's no pop culture references. There's no Marvel humor, none of that. It's like these people are in a very dangerous, precarious situation where they're fighting for their lives. Every, every second counts. Every moment counts doesn't mean that everyone's. There's not certain moments of levity or relaxation, but it's not taken as a joke. For instance, we're not. We're not dancing to Madonna, and you know as Xenomorph slashes people up. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 26:34

That's a really great point and I think you could have had the hesitation to go there, considering your cast was so young in this film. But they do treat it very seriously and I also appreciated how there was an extended period of time before we actually got to the alien mayhem. Now, once we do, the movie's a freight train, it doesn't stop. But they were able to mine suspense out of a scenario like let's break into this ship. Oh, it's creepy in the ship. Can we get the pod bays to work or these sort of sleep chambers. But I appreciated that to where they were willing like draw it out and have you anticipate the alien and have you care enough about the characters, to where you were invested in their escape plan and interested to hang with them through non-alien adventures right, precisely, and and the set up, the exposition where we're introducing and meeting the characters.

Speaker 2 27:32

It's not boring, it's not, it's not tedious, it doesn't feel like, oh, just waiting for them to the ship, like it's not you know the most captivating stuff in the world by any means, but it's it's. It's sufficient enough that we're kind of like, oh, what's the relationship between Rain and Andy, her, her android brother? You know what's, what's her situation going on? Who are these other people? And then you wonder how far are they actually going to get before something starts to happen? Like, are they going to go? They never even launch into space. I mean, they're in space, but they never get that spacecraft that they're trying to hijack. They never get that actually moving.

Speaker 1 28:12

In fact, it actually just goes from bad to worse uh starts, uh, collapsing in orbit well, that was something that, um, I also felt was going to be a detriment to the film, because all the other alien movies we've seen they're in deep space and there's nobody around here. They're in the, the atmosphere of a planet right, they're on a derelict. But I think the movie mines a lot of the suspense that we got from something like the Martian or Gravity to where the industrial mechanics of space travel and docking and so forth, and interstellar too, is not easy or simple, right. Yeah, think about how much emphasis in interstellar there is on trying to dock two ships together when they're right next to each other, right? So there's a little bit of that as well, which I think the movie is sort of reflective of those, those films. But I love the suspense device too of we're going to crash into the rings of the planet.

Speaker 2 29:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:12

Which was an extra sort of element of suspense which I appreciated.

Speaker 2 29:15

Yeah, and I think the suspense aspect of the movie is quite good. Not just that, but the scenes where the xenomorph is hunting its prey. These scenes are I mean at least I was, I was squirming in my seat for quite a bit of it as it's then attacking and you wonder, like, how, how far are they going to go? Or what are they going to do? Uh, the acid is dripping from the, the alien's mouth onto people's limbs and it's burning off. Um, or, my particular favorite scene was the facehugger had already latched on to the girl and was, you know, uh, embarked on its parasitic journey.

Speaker 2 29:51

Yeah, and they figure out. The android tells them okay, if you freeze the tail or the nervous system, you can extract it from her. And they do. And that scene is so just oh, as they're pulling it out of her mouth and the huge tail is just coming out from her entire body. It's just you're like, oh, it's so gross.

Speaker 1 30:11

It's great and it really shows the effective power of like these creatures that were created almost 40 years ago and that we've never seen before, as far as I'm aware.

Speaker 1 30:20

We've never seen it uh successfully detach and extract from from a host, although it didn't do any good no, we've also never seen the uh faceugger in action really, yes, as a sort of mode of death itself, where it was chasing after them like a pack of spiders or rats, yeah, which I thought was effective and cool and a great way to keep the suspense going while keeping the alien hidden. I think, like with something like Alien vs Predator, which I've never seen. But I have to imagine that's a sort of commercialization, commoditization and sort of demystification of the alien that you don't need. The alien should be hidden away, secret.

Speaker 1 31:03

When I was watching Aliens again, one of the most effective moments in that film is when the soldiers are initially going through the tunnels of the base and all of a sudden we start to see certain things move in the in the uh alleyways of the ship and they sort of spin out the aliens and like uncurl and drop from the ceiling and it's like spectacular. You don't have to see them a lot, you know. But um, and I do admire in alien 3 how they redesign the creature. In alien 3 the creature comes out of a dog so it takes on the, the attributes of a dog.

Speaker 1 31:36

It's less humanoid and more like a, like a lion or a cat, right, so it was like basically a puppet the entire time and the integration of the puppet green screen work into the movie doesn't look great. Really didn't really work, but it was an admirable effect. But I thought they did a nice job with this.

Speaker 2 31:56

Yeah, no other suspenseful scenes, particularly as they're trying to escape from the face huggers that are loose on the ship. They have to go through a corridor that's got hundreds, if not thousands of them I don't know how many or where they're loose and they figure out if they match their body temperatures to be equal to the temperature in the room or they change the temperature in the room to match their body temperature, they can and not make any sounds, they can get through the room and of course it succeeds for a little bit.

Speaker 1 32:29

And then they introduce a new aspect of peril when certain characters trapped somewhere else and they have to answer, they have to speak that's one of the great things I liked a lot about this movie is that they use the existing rules of the alien biology to come up with new and fun and exciting set pieces. Like we all know, the alien has acid blood, but what happens when we go into zero g and you have to float around? We've shot all these aliens, but their blood is floating in the air and I liked how she used her gun to shoot so it would move her body. So fly underneath the goo. That was really clever and fun. In my opinion. People gave a lot of trouble to her having the Reebok shoes, but you know what alien is all about aesthetics, in my opinion, and that's all part of it. I do want to see that I like those shoes, was that?

Speaker 1 33:21

a huge, major criticism yeah, they were like oh, she has to have reeboks because ripley had um. You know, I don't sorry yeah, I didn't even notice sorry. Trembling colors in the chat says do you like the idea of the queen alien? I've heard that ridley scott hates it and that's why he's done so much with the xenos being made by the black goo.

Speaker 1 33:45

I personally like the idea of the queen alien I don't think it's a bad idea no, it drives home the theme of mother versus mother in the second movie and also, I do think, the I mean, where else are they supposed to come from? You know, yeah, the primordial ooze?

Speaker 2 34:00

I guess I don't know, yeah, I don't. I don't find black goo as captivating, I guess there, there came from eggs, so having a queen in a yeah similar manner, laying the eggs and stuff.

Speaker 2 34:13

Okay, it makes, makes some kind of logical sense in this illogical world that we're living in, I would say. The other thing is some of the themes that the movie explores are the very typical classic alien themes that are in the other movies. We talked about distrust of big corporations earlier and how that's kind of changed over the years. A distrust of AI and robotics that's always of changed over the years. A distrust of ai and robotics that's always been a huge part of alien and that's, yeah, very much on display here, which is more relevant today than it ever has been, would you not?

Speaker 2 34:42

absolutely yeah, um, space is not a luxurious or glamorous place to be. That's always kind kind of been the hallmark of this series compared to other science fiction franchises. And then evolution of species is also one that I kind of think about. With Alien is perpetual evolution of different species, and how do different species interact and stuff like that, the food chain as we see here, with different mishmashes of the xenomorph encroaching on a new stage of its evolutionary process.

Character Development and Suspense

Speaker 1 35:17

Let's just say absolutely, and I also think that as the films go on, there's this sort of uncomfortable um relationship with that the human beings have to the alien, this idea of like cross geneticism between humans and this disgusting creature. Right, because in a certain way the alien parallels the threat of the company.

Speaker 1 35:42

Right yes and a lot of characters speak to this within the films as sort of a theme is like this this is the perfect living organism, the perfect capitalist right. You know it like. It evolves to every challenge and it's like undefeatable, and we need to harness its power, because human beings could benefit from harnessing this power or being more like it right, and we often have um regular blue-collar joes as our leads in these films, right?

Speaker 2 36:12

or otherwise lost wayward people who don't fit into company structure go ahead this perfection, this perfect um organism that we are striving to create, whether that's a biological organism or computer technology, will ultimately end up destroying its creators. That's also a hallmark of all of this as well, which is a cautionary tale in and of itself. So that's just kind of the tail end of that there's a lot to work with here.

Speaker 1 36:37

You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 36:39

It's probably the most complex slasher film series that we have right oh yeah, no, for sure it's not pure, pure evil like, uh, michael myers, or yeah he's evil and he's part of a witch cult and he has to kill his family members.

Speaker 1 36:54

And you know what did we get from those sequels?

Speaker 2 36:56

right, got the man in black moments, some great moments.

Speaker 1 37:00

The uh, he's being controlled by the druids and dryads yes, dude, the druids, the one with, uh, the one with paul rudd, right, um, yeah, there's a lot of places to go. I can see why the the alien series could have perpetual meaning for every subsequent generation because of these themes of the company, and the whaling company can stand in for multiple things, can stand in for the government which it basically is right in this universe.

Speaker 2 37:24

Yes, they are the effective governing body that these people are subjected to.

Speaker 1 37:28

Yes, and I think the other interesting thing about Alien 2 is I think fundamentally they're a sort of anti-capitalist series. I would say, and not just because the company is bad, but because it shows us a world in which capital progression into space is not necessarily a triumph for humanity. It's just like another frontier for exploitation of people and environments.

Speaker 2 37:59

Right, so that's the ultimate thing, the ultimate word that I kept coming was exploitation, especially of workers. And that's what this is all about too.

Speaker 1 38:09

And what?

Speaker 2 38:09

new dangers? What new perils will we put people through to achieve the bottom line?

Speaker 1 38:15

yeah, yeah, exactly, it's like. It's like uh, it would go against sort of like a star trek type of world which we've. We had a little argument about whether or not star trek is right, right wing or left wing, whether or not star wars is right wing or left wing, and they're sort of like half and half.

Speaker 2 38:33

The alien series are very yeah, you can argue both ways. I think for both of them I think so.

Speaker 1 38:38

I think the fact that star trek is inherently utopian in nature is makes it sort of left wing but um, uh with, uh with the alien series.

Speaker 2 38:48

Yeah, man, I mean it's like, uh, it doesn't make it interesting, make it bad one, or you know, by any means, by having that it's just an interesting tidbit or philosophical slant to the franchise.

Speaker 1 39:01

The best thing about, I think, the first three movies is that and this movie too to a certain extent which I think is really important is that the Whalen Utani Corporation is omnipresent, omnipowerful, it runs everybody's life, right, but there are hardly any true believers in its mission. If you watch the first alien film, everybody is on the space truck, but they're like you know, fuck this, I hate the company, this is stupid, it's my shitty job. Being in space is no fun, right? I mean, they're not company men. And I was shocked when we were watching aliens to find how insubordinate all the soldiers are and how much, how little, they care about the system. Right, it's a totally decayed system. Oh yeah, alien three, yeah, I mean in Alien three it's a religious world, yeah, it's an unsustainable world.

Speaker 1 39:55

Totally unsustainable world. Totally unsustainable? Yeah, absolutely, and everybody is, is and everybody has to live under it, even though everybody knows and acknowledges that it's bullshit right well, they have no, no other option, as you see there's no other option.

Speaker 2 40:06

This movie really encapsulates that. I don't think we really get a sense of the people in the original alien, how desperate their their situation is. But on here we really do that rain. She cannot escape from whatever they're living on, which is like an asteroid, like a mining ore or something like that yeah, they're living there, there's no daylight, there's no sunlight.

Speaker 2 40:27

They live in abject poverty, subject to the whims of the company um, and they're willing to risk their lives to escape from there, even though it means certain death which is a very laudable goal, and you were kind of with them when they were doing it.

Speaker 1 40:42

Now there's a few annoying characters in there, like the there's something in the wall.

Speaker 2 40:45

The british guy with like a unibrow everyone have really obnoxious british accents in the movie that.

Speaker 1 40:51

That was kind of strange to me too. I didn't understand that. But you have people like the Asian gal that I was like I guarantee you she's the first to go and I was not wrong, because they would go. Yeah, she's the hacker and she's like suck. And I'm like, yeah, don, you're dead, but James.

Speaker 2 41:08

Willard makes a good point. That was a grizzly. That was a grizzly end there for that one. Yeah, but yeah, it was great. You know, I the person I felt most bad for was this poor pregnant gal. Oh yes, and you know when they, when they mention that she's pregnant at the beginning of the movie, you're like, oh well, they're never gonna let this go something yeah, that's not gonna be a healthy baby.

Speaker 1 41:29

You know I was and she, she sort of uh takes the jab, as it were. Right, because of the promise of um regeneration.

Speaker 2 41:39

Basically, yes, it's like she was.

Speaker 1 41:41

Yeah yeah, she was too weak and she was like I can get through this, but I'm just gonna do it yet, right, and and imperiled herself and her own child and I also like how she was lactating disgusting goo from this for this disgusting child and I mean I didn't like it. I was shocked. I mean it was like I was like, wow, okay, that's gross, right, poor poor woman. But I think we talked about this too. I think the alien series has always been about Freudian sort of pregnancy anxiety and the first film was so effective because it was sort of the male having to endure the pregnancy, right, do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 42:24

That's been one of the major creepy factors. Yeah, I mean that something that is supposed to be something so wonderful and good can turn out to be something so dangerous, deadly. And of course, pregnancy carries its own complications and risks, but taken to the extreme, as we see in these movies, it's like you know, your worst nightmare scenario come to life, absolutely, yep. Which is the point, which is the idea.

Speaker 1 42:56

Let's speed run through some chat questions. Trembling Colors do you think that the Alien Universe and the Blade Runner Universe could be the same universe? Yes, james Woolard, the Colonial Marines are part of the US military. Yes, I see you're trying to refute my our sort of point about the company being totally in charge. As far as I'm aware, the only American insignia we see is on the guy that's like the major and he dies quickly. The guy who no one has faith in. He's sort of like the college educated Vietnam style, like college grad guy that gets to be the officer but none of the grunts have any faith in him.

Speaker 1 43:32

In the film Aliens he walks into a scene and has an America us flag insignia. But I would have to assume and I think that I'd be right to do so that perhaps the U? S government has been subsumed into a sort of a like ceremonial role and Waylon Utani is really the guy that has power. The new movie reminds me a lot of Sean Connery movie Outland, which I've always considered as being in the same universe as Alien Fair. I like that movie Very similar. We also had somebody say that you reminded them of Patrick Wilson a little bit. That's nice.

Speaker 2 44:04

I'll take that. Thank you, it's very kind.

Speaker 1 44:06

You do kind of live in a little bit of a night owl cave. Yeah, in your laboratory. Yeah, let's see, as a Brit myself, I'd say the Brit actors have very Gen Z TikTok British accents.

Speaker 2 44:21

Okay, I certainly don't want to imply that all British accents are bad, but the ones in this movie are. There's something very off-putting.

Speaker 1 44:30

I don't know sort of like the hierarchy of British accents, but I would assume these are lower class accents.

Speaker 2 44:38

That was my impression.

Speaker 1 44:40

Yeah, now let me ask you this James Bullard from England Is that sort of Cockney? I'm not wrong. Accent of the the is. Would that be an equivalent of like a Southern redneck drawl in America? Would it carry similar social connotations?

Speaker 2 45:01

I always thought so, but we'll.

Speaker 1 45:03

What's going on there. You know what I'm saying, Though I don't harbor any sort of antipathy towards anybody with a southern accent. But you know what I'm saying, just sort of in the broader perception of the public.

Speaker 2 45:17

It's probably more like a cultural stereotype.

Speaker 1 45:20

Sure. Sure, but I'm just curious is the Gen Z TikTokiktok british accent. So are you saying that the the accents are being accentuated for tiktok? Is that, is that a phenomenon? Yeah, this is a very gen z movie. I would say maybe, and I liked a lot of the characters, did you? Like kaylee spaney, our newest big star.

Speaker 2 45:46

Is that the?

Speaker 1 45:46

lead actress. Yeah, she was in Civil War.

Speaker 2 45:52

Oh, she was in.

Speaker 1 45:52

Civil War, my favorite movie. She was the photographer girl. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 45:55

That inspired me to pursue a career in photojournalism. By the way, that movie.

Speaker 1 45:58

Oh, did it really? Yeah, it's going really well, thank you. You got the photo of Trump in Pennsylvania. That was you. Yeah, that was me. Good job.

Wayland-Yutani: Corporate Themes

Speaker 2 46:06

Yeah, no, I really liked her. I thought she was very good. I thought she's a lot better in this movie than in civil war by by a lot. The characters for the most part are, are most, I mean, obviously, as we've discussed, they're disposable, they're um, they're, they're all fine. Though I think the the two biggest important characters are her and her android brother, and that relationship actually does work rather well, because we see andy, her brother, go through this metamorphosis as he's being um, kind of like brainwashed by the company when he gets a new data chip installed in him. And then how does the relationship between her and her former brother, you know, evolve and change and can she, can she save him, can she bring him back, can she deprogram him to um, come back with her? And so it's. It's that emotional struggle and relationship I thought worked for me very well I, I thought the actor who played uh the robot terrific.

Speaker 2 47:03

Yes, but he was very good.

Speaker 1 47:04

Actually I thought he was really, he really was great.

Speaker 2 47:07

Because he goes from the very sappy, wimpy subjugated robot at the beginning of the movie. Whether that's she's intent, or I think they imply, her father programs him that way.

Speaker 1 47:20

Yeah, to protect her.

Speaker 2 47:22

And protect her, but he's not really a protector, because she actually protects him more than uh he does her. But um, he then kind of like has a metamorphosis when he gets a new uh chip installed while on the ship and becomes this very confident, um, aggressive, um, you know, kind of cold analytical yes, very calculating. A member of the corporation, and then she rehumanizes him by the end of the movie.

Speaker 1 47:51

Well, she rehumanizing him by taking his chip out and breaking it, right. So I was just curious. I like that stuff. I thought the actor really showed his range. I thought when you mentioned earlier what we're seeing some suspense, when the pregnant girl is about to be attacked by the alien and he refuses to open the door because it wouldn't be logical, right, and that she's dead anyway, and he wants us to open the door, which was true like none of the none of the turn on, but will he turn on her as well?

Speaker 2 48:18

that's the ultimate suspense question that is lingering throughout this. What, how far will he go? Will he turn on rain and abandon her, to save the company's interest as well?

Speaker 1 48:30

sure sure that's also another factor playing into this here's a great point I was just about to ask. I thought that was a very good narrative device in terms of a way to amp up the stakes and sort of take this character that we trust and like and make him this sort of enemy figure in the movie, which is good, because the alien films always need to have some kind of like, very much like a zombie movie. The zombies are an omnipotent threat but never like George Romero film it's always the fight between the two factions of human beings. It's the real conflict. But Trembling Colors I was going to ask what the thematic significance of him changing was. And Trembling Colors says he's changing his personality when he gets a software update could be good satire on the I believe, the current thing phenomenon. I mean there's even a meme of this. When you have people on twitter trying to impugn somebody's change of perspective, they show the meme of the soy jack getting a new battery plugged into his head, right um yeah yeah, lieutenant gorman was the officer in aliens.

Speaker 1 49:25

He gets knocked out but redeems himself later on in the movie with eskise. That's right. They die in the uh, the air vents. They blow each other, they blow themselves up. That's right. Good point. Thank you, james lord. Um, but yeah, I thought the cast was good. Kaylee spaini, I like she's sort of been.

Speaker 2 49:39

This happens often where we get this new actress or new actor who has been deemed the person of the moment, who has a big, great year I just don't think they're in everything, they're in nothing I'm trying to think of like another good example of that, because I know it's happened many times where somebody has like their big year and they, for whatever reason, they are one of those where, like girl with the dragon tattoo, and then she was in like a bunch of other things all at once and then like nowhere to be found she's so great though.

Speaker 1 50:06

I love the girl with the dragon tattoo, the fincher movie I think that's one of my favorite movies ever maybe, but top 100 for sure, and well it's too early.

Speaker 2 50:12

But uh, sydney sweeney, I mean, was in anyone but you, madame webb? And then I mean it's too soon, it's too soon.

Speaker 1 50:18

But hopefully she will be around. She will be around now. I I'm bullish on sydney sweeney but I have to say, like you, look at an actress like farrah fawcett, a beautiful icon remembered fondly, but she really had about a solid three or four or five years where she was the it girl and after that it was kind of over, right. Yeah, that seems to be the life cycle for these. Um, you know the it girl at the moment. Uh, maybe it's accelerated now in the 21st century, like like the seventies. But Kaylee Spaney does not have the qualities of Sigourney Weaver. I could think of five other actresses that would have done just as fine a job, but nobody had that. Sigourney Weaver has a very masculine quality, and I say that not as a pejorative.

Speaker 2 51:02

Yeah, would you agree? It's effective for an action movie to be an action heroine.

Speaker 1 51:07

She was very effective, just like Linda Hamilton, same regard A hundred percent, yeah, and Kaylee Spaney does not have that because it's not needed in this, in this movie.

Speaker 2 51:21

I don't think, I don't think that that's a detriment to the movie, by any means it doesn't movie. I don't think, I don't think that that's a detriment to the movie by any means. It never plays her as a true action hero, because I mean and this is a big part of the movie is that when she is killing all the aliens and monsters, the gun is designed to shoot auto-target or auto-kill everything.

Speaker 1 51:44

Which is very interesting yeah, well it's.

Speaker 2 51:47

You know why they did that, right? I mean this is did it because so they wouldn't use a mary sue yeah, so then they can avoid criticism like how is this, uh, you know 100 pound girl uh, killing all these xenomorphs when she has no military training, and blah, blah, blah, and it's like, okay, we eliminated this question, we don't don't have to dwell on it, it's, it's fine. And people are criticizing that. So you can never win.

Speaker 1 52:09

That's true, but yeah, they were trying to say because, honestly, everybody does want to see you shoot aliens with a gun.

Speaker 2 52:16

Sure.

Speaker 1 52:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:18

Do we believe that any of the guys in the movie would have been expert tacticians and and people to kill all these, uh, aliens? I mean, do they really do anything special that would have made them better suited than her?

Speaker 1 52:32

not really but if the guy pulled up a gun and started shooting aliens I would believe it more.

Speaker 2 52:38

He gets taken out pretty, I mean I guess so, but like either, then you show her, that's right yeah you show her having some kind of training, that uh letter to this moment, or you do this, which is perfectly fine. I'm perfectly willing to suspend disbelief for this.

Speaker 1 52:53

Well, one of the things I also really like about alien three is that they took away the guns, which was a very bold choice that nobody liked, but it did force them to come up with a clever way to try to kill the alien, right Um, with a clever way to try to kill the alien, right yeah, which I do appreciate, like you know, if you could come up with a clever way to kill the alien or trap it or something that's compelling. The gun thing is good, you know, it's cool and fun and satisfying.

Speaker 2 53:14

Now have we established in this movie, then, that, oh no, you can kill them, but if you eject them into the vacuum of space, that is not sufficient for killing them.

Speaker 1 53:27

Does the alien survive in the vacuum of space?

Speaker 2 53:29

Yes, because, unless I heard incorrectly, the alien that they captured on this ship was the alien that Sigourney Weaver ejected into the vacuum of space at the end of that movie.

Speaker 1 53:44

They found it thinking it was dead and it turns out it was not dead first of all, I love the score and it's kind of like 2001, a space odyssey homage at the beginning, um, where we get like I mean it's so great. It looked like something out of almost like star trek, the motion picture in a little bit. Would you agree with all these like suited guys and they? They grabbed something off of the Nostromo but I didn't really understand what they were getting. I guess you'd think if they were getting the alien they got blown out of the airlock. They would like find a little alien flying around, but it's like a rock.

Speaker 2 54:16

I misunderstood then, I don't know. That's what I thought that they had mentioned, but I don't.

Speaker 1 54:20

They pulled like a rock out of it and the rock had the imprint of an alien on it. Am I wrong? It was like a fossil.

Speaker 2 54:27

I don't recall. I don't recall. I thought I heard that mentioned in the dialogue, but I could be wrong. That's fine In terms of have you seen this director Fede Alvarez's other movies?

Speaker 1 54:39

I've seen Don't Breathe, and Evil Dead remake. Did not see the Evil Dead remake. I saw Don't breathe Evil dead remake. Did not see the evil. That remake I saw don't breathe and I like don't breathe is fine.

Speaker 2 54:47

I think both of those movies are fine. I think this is his strongest film, though by far, in terms of just being even across the board and being consistently good. I felt both of those movies they kind of fall apart by the end and they're not really like. They start off really strong and then they kind of just Peter off.

Speaker 1 55:06

This one really like. They start off really strong and then they kind of just peter off. This one is like consistently good throughout, so don't breathe in a very similar plot uh, don't breathe.

Speaker 2 55:11

Has a similar plot to the. Well, I mean, they're trapped in a house as a killer.

Speaker 1 55:15

No, I mean but like the motivation of the three characters, it's their young, down on their luck, poor kids. They break into a guy's house to try to steal something, just like they break into this to steal the pods. And then they find out.

Speaker 2 55:27

They got more than they bargained for.

Speaker 1 55:29

They got more than they bargained for. Yeah, so it's kind of the same premise a little bit, you know. I mean thematically.

Speaker 2 55:35

That's like it burns on the sense. He's like you won All right, you won more than you.

The Future of Alien and Final Thoughts

Speaker 1 55:40

Barg bargain for um no, but I, you know, I heard a rumor that, uh, this was supposed to go straight to hulu, which would have been a real shame, because I would see in the theater again for sure, because I thought the, the production design, the sound design, the score, the imagery um was terrific.

Speaker 2 55:57

I was, I was very pleased yeah, I find that shocking, that that, that, that that was going to be the case. I mean, this is not a made for streaming movie, by any means. This is like high quality, big budget blockbuster. Yeah yeah, and I and I um and certainly one of the best big budget movies this year. By all means, I mean, I would put this as one of the top like major hollywood blockbuster movies I've seen. That's been okay, it's on my list somewhere.

Speaker 1 56:26

I liked it a lot. I would recommend people see it. I would see it again. Major Hollywood blockbuster movies I've seen that's been excellent. It's on my list somewhere. I liked it a lot. I would recommend people see it. I would see it again. I enjoyed it very much. It is sort of a soft reboot, like a sequel, but people are complaining about that and the references and the callbacks to the other films. I will say this Out of all the legacy sequel reboots, this is one of the best I've seen. If you're going to reboot it for a new generation and bring a new audience into the series and keep it going, one of the better ones I've seen. I get it. People are tired of this.

Speaker 2 57:00

The reason is that this is from my impression this is clearly made in homage to the original film. This is someone a director and the writer too who are paying tribute to ridley scott and alien. They're not just cheaply marketing and cheaply cashing in on the franchise and making another movie. That is copying the same thing over and over again. Yes, they are. They are copying and they're doing it the same again, more or less, but there's a clear reverence and affection for the franchise and they do enough new stuff. There's enough new material and new ideas. To now, we've established ourselves here. This is the springboard. Now let's do something different. I'd be happy to say that.

Speaker 1 57:43

Absolutely. Like I said before, I think Freddy Alvarez had a notebook of ideas where he goes. If I ever made an alien movie, here's what I would do, based on the existing rules and premises of the alien and what it can do and what it's like we could do a scene where they walk past all the face huggers but their body temperature remains the same as the room. So it's very suspenseful. You know, acid blood floating in zero gravity. You know things like that are clever and fun. It's, uh, it's, it's.

Speaker 2 58:10

I liked it I liked it too very much. Um, I would just say uh, people are complaining that it's the same movie again and again. I mean, how much complaining would we hear if they had gone in a totally new direction and done something totally different and gone off off the new direction and done something totally different and gone off off the deep end?

Speaker 2 58:28

and people be like oh, this is not alien, this is the new woke alien, all the stuff. So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. And I think they should be proud of the movie that they made here. I think this is a great movie. I would definitely re-watch this again. Um, that being said, like like we, it's time to do something different.

Speaker 1 58:45

Next, yes, expand on the company and what they want. Right, give us a kind of Day of the Dead Romero, but with aliens Right, that would be a good premise. One thing I do not want to see that's been floated for years as something the fans want or are excited for, potentially is to see the aliens on earth don't ever do that, don't do that.

Speaker 1 59:11

Well, that's what you want I don't necessarily want that, I just, I was just thinking about it yeah, don't do that because, like the teaser for alien 3 was like the egg and then they pulled out and it was like earth and they're like the alien is going to shocking new places and everyone was very excited that it was going to be on earth instead it was on a prison colony we've seen weaponization of the, the alien, to a certain extent, like using it as like a military weapon and deploying it on some other planet, or you know that would be, another interesting way to go is that if we actually weren't able to

Speaker 2 59:43

capture it. How could we weaponize it to you know? That would be. Another interesting way to go is that, if we actually weren't able to capture it, how could we weaponize it to you know? How could you destroy your enemy? By launching this as like a you know, a Trojan horse that they pick up and destroys them, you know?

Speaker 1 59:58

Exactly, yeah, that would be interesting.

Speaker 2 1:00:00

Day of the dead, my favorite Romero zombie film, but with aliens, might be a good one, it's really good yeah, anything else boss uh, no, we'd go for an hour and we hit it yeah, perfect um good uh chat thank you guys for joining in.

Speaker 1 1:00:20

Go see reagan. Ryan was telling me how much he loved Reagan. Go see it.

Speaker 2 1:00:25

I would not recommend going to see it. It's a very one-dimensional. Oh my God, You're so aggressive.

Speaker 1 1:00:33

Yeah what? All right? Nothing, nothing, nothing. I know you're an MSNBC enjoyer, so you, of course, know that, oh my God, all right guys Appreciate it very much, ryan, it is fun, as always. Yes, we're going to probably try to do more of these at a little one-off episodes, but I will tell you this Congratulations to us. We've been doing this for a year. Um, it's almost our one year anniversary of our first episode and we've done 15 shows.

Speaker 2 1:00:58

I think this past one year when we did Oppenheimer and, uh, pat Garrett, no, when was that?

Speaker 1 1:01:05

All right, fine. Yeah, it's been more than a year, but yeah, I'm trying to do something. I mean, yeah, I'm trying to do something, so it's been about a year and a month and change, but congratulations, this has been good. They say most podcasts fold after five episodes, but I think we have enough of a rapport. We keep this rolling. The shows get bigger every time. Watch Psycho, our last episode, guys.

Speaker 2 1:01:26

So anything else, Rand no. What is next, though? Because the timetable has not been effectively set up. We have a couple different things brewing.

Speaker 1 1:01:35

Yeah, I think. Next would you want to do our show with Jacob on Jalo Films?

Speaker 2 1:01:40

next, or would you want to do our Night Gallery show next?

Speaker 1 1:01:45

It depends where you stand in terms of your battery on both. I'm sorry, yeah, uh, I'll get how far are you into night gallery?

Speaker 2 1:01:54

episode four okay, I like it I'm loving night gallery.

Speaker 1 1:01:59

I love it.

Speaker 2 1:02:00

I'm very happy to hear that. Um, let's maybe the Jalo next.

Speaker 1 1:02:06

Yeah, I think that's fair. Everybody watch some old Italian Jalo films. We'll post the list pre-show so people can do some research beforehand and watch those movies. But I would highly recommend that you do and some of my favorites Also check out at Barnes and Noble.

Speaker 2 1:02:20

They've got the half off on Arrow video sale going on. I just picked up a couple of things the other day the shootest with John Wayne. I watched it last night, Loved it. Had not seen it before. I got mall rats and the original dune as well.

Speaker 1 1:02:37

Mall rats.

Speaker 2 1:02:38

I do have a soft spot for mall rats, I think it was a 4k, and then dune was just a blue Ray.

Speaker 1 1:02:44

Are you happy about mall Mallrats in 4K?

Speaker 2 1:02:47

I got Mallrats in 4K, I think. I think that's what I got. And then the lady at the store was kind enough to help me. So I felt like I was back in 1994 at Suncoast Video ordering stuff on the computer at the counter. So she ordered for me the different Aero Giallo sets. There's different colored sets like the red, the black, white one and blue, and they're all 50% off.

Speaker 1 1:03:11

So I was like yeah, sure, oh sweet, send them in. Maybe I should do that. I'm a big fan of Dario Argento. Everyone seems to be, you should watch Phenomenon and watch tenebrae they're so good. I know we're going to watch four different films at jacob's recommendation for our show, but uh these are pretty.

Speaker 2 1:03:34

I've watched them all already, so um, they're pretty wild have you seen inferno? No, I have not seen a lot. I really haven't seen many of these or many of these directors' other films before. I've seen a few here and there. Obviously, I've seen Suspiria and really like that, but that's not technically Jalo, that's supernatural, although it's very fungible, a lot of this. And then how different really are these movies from just american slashers, like it's not really. They've got style they do, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:04:14

And the victims are always glamorous to some extent, whereas, like in in american slashers, it's always teenagers. When you watch um tenebrae, the victim in his existing circle is like he's a novelist, right? Um, if you watch suspiria, they're at a ballet school. If you watch uh blood and black lace, it's a fashion house. Right, it's always high class, like you know.

Speaker 2 1:04:39

You know, I'm saying sure, sure as opposed to like campers at a whatever camp.

Speaker 1 1:04:46

Yeah, just campers in like jean shorts and tank tops and shit.

Speaker 2 1:04:49

Yeah, or kids on the prom at the prom for yeah on a bus doing something sordid, gross.

Speaker 1 1:04:56

This it's always like very high class.

Speaker 2 1:04:58

Although, to be honest with you. I mean, I liked all the movies, um, in varying different levels, um, but I find it very much the same way that I have to like and appreciate the the slasher movies of, especially like the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s, like you watch prom night, terror train, those movies like that they're not particularly great. No, they're not, they're not, they're not.

Speaker 1 1:05:21

And I think also the thing that the italians were able to get away with is that the murderer is always some kind of a not always, but most of the time there's a very explicit sexual element to the killer. The killer is some kind of frustrated sexual killer, Right yeah, In American films he is too, but there's sort of this plausible deniability that he's not because that's a little too much. Do you know what I'm saying? So it's sort of fetid and hidden and like tucked away and more right.

Speaker 2 1:05:54

One thing to look up is we've talked about you and I about how critics of the time, especially like people like Ebert and Siskel, were, you know, vehement crusaders against the slasher movie. I wonder how they felt about these movies. Did they even talk about them ever? Did they hate them as well? Or were they more sympathetic to them because they were foreign films?

Speaker 1 1:06:15

you know I can just imagine Ebert. These Italians are disgusting.

Speaker 2 1:06:21

Ebert probably loved those movies yeah.

Speaker 1 1:06:22

They must be stopped. Yeah, no, actually, I think maybe a fun show that I think, um, yeah, like tremolo says, yeah, we have to pretend michael myers is perv breathing, isn't him getting off on killing? Yeah, absolutely. And then every time you talk to any director like john carper, oh, no, no, that's not right, I wasn't trying to make a statement about anything. It's like okay, dude, then what is your movie about? You know? Like what you know? What's the point then to all this? Right, yeah, every every murder in american film, it's like, even if we make the most grotesque murderous, like sordid bullshit, you have to pretend like no, he's just a random killer, he was driven by evil. What sex killing, what? No, right, it's like mark walberg in the happening, what? No, remember that scene yeah, I.

Speaker 2 1:07:12

I don't remember anything about the happening other than wanting to leave while it was going on.

Speaker 1 1:07:18

One of the worst movies ever I've never actually seen it, but I've seen that, oh really okay, I'm glad you're seeing that in the theater I just got a great idea for a new tweet, um, but uh, yeah, so, um, what you guys look forward to that, and then I'll look forward to having our doing our next show. So you know, what I think actually would be a fun show, dude, if we did, is if we just like pulled up a bunch of old roger ebert horror film reviews and talked about them. Yeah, because I don't think they're wrong on certain things and I'd be happy to discuss it.

Speaker 2 1:07:47

I think, um, or even like their um worst of the year list too wouldn't that be a fun show to watch all those? Yeah, I mean I was watching the worst of 1980 recently, and there were some pretty interesting ones on there. They had uh, caligula and um, I spit on your grave and then there was a random like movie about the village people on there and I was like I had no idea this. They even made a movie with the village people they did the worst of.

Speaker 1 1:08:16

I didn't know either. They did a worst of video I watched one time which was there was some movie with, like, an opera singer. That was really bad. Uh, oh, I don't know. No, that would be a really fun show and very low maintenance for us. We just play them and just comment. Yeah, because I actually really like cisco and ebert and I found a really cool clip from them.

Speaker 1 1:08:34

Um, in like 83 they did a fill-in episode of saturday night live where they just played a bunch of old sketches that were hits. It was like a in-between week and they just played a bunch of old sketches from previous shows. But to spice it up, they had cisco and ebert there to watch the sketch and then they cut to them and they commented on whether it was good or not and it was really funny and, like you know, really, yeah, that was a great gimmick. Um, yeah, we should do something on cisco and ebert. Actually, someone just wrote a book about them recently that came out. It'll give me a good excuse to read that yeah, I I have that book.

Speaker 1 1:09:08

I have not read it yet, though okay, I, I would like to read that. I think that would be a good excuse, because I actually really like that I cannot find.

Speaker 2 1:09:15

That I would love to see and I've only seen it. They only did it in their worst of 1995 was the review of the mighty morphin power rangers movie. I would love to see their full review of that.

Speaker 1 1:09:25

Right, there were so many gaps there. Sometimes With Ebert and Sisko, people give them a hard time and they say they ruined film criticism or some such bullshit which is retarded. It's stupid. They made it more accessible to modern audiences because they were very erudite. They were terrific at explaining themselves.

Speaker 2 1:09:45

They're very well informed and they're very smart guys. I mean their tastes, you know. For the most part it's kind of like here, here or there. But yeah, I feel like Ebert was more. He should have been more sympathetic or more understanding of certain more nuanced films. Siskel reminds me of someone who's just like a very normie kind of guy, looking at things very black and white and straight arrow.

Speaker 1 1:10:13

Ebert is kind of like Ebert could go either way, but you know what, so could Siskel. I mean, I was watching the review of they did of Scanners and Ebert hated it and Siskel liked it, which is bizarre.

Speaker 2 1:10:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:10:25

Right, yeah, and I and oh yeah, and cisco liked it, which is bizarre. Yeah, right, yeah, and I think cisco was fair to certain movies that everett wasn't, and vice versa, but the fact that they were so like this all the time, I think made the show yeah uh good, so did you ever watch? We should do a cisco movies.

Speaker 2 1:10:40

It's later, incarnations, when with richard ropert. No, not just what richard roper was on. But then afterwards, when ebert ebert got sick later on he had, yeah, I think, thyroid cancer, if I'm not correct, um, and he was unable to speak for a long period of time and they had guest host villains.

Speaker 1 1:10:57

It's pretty interesting, like mid-2000s okay, yeah, I remember seeing kevin spith on there as a guest host.

Speaker 2 1:11:05

Yeah, they even had Jay Leno as a guest host. It's fun.

Speaker 1 1:11:10

That was a great, great show. We should do something on that. That'd be fun. Okay, it's been real.

Speaker 2 1:11:20

Have a good night, thanks everybody.

Speaker 1 1:11:22

See you guys.