Alien: Romulus (Fede Alvarez, August 16th, 2024) Movie • Page 37

The trailer had thumping throughout that you eventually realize is the sound of the facehugger thumping from inside her chest. That's why it was in the trailer.

Not saying it makes it better, but there was at least some thought there.

 

Yeah that trailer was one of my favorites of the last year

 

Eh, it's more than two minutes and there are issues beyond the fan service, but I still really liked the movie! It's just frustrating to me to act like listening to an opposing media opinion and thinking about the movie a little more is a bad thing. Doubling-down with memes and an out-of-context screenshot from a bit really kind of shits on any goodwill discussion I was hoping to have in here.

 

my thoughts on this are that it was overall fine. that's averaged out, cos it had a lot of really cool, pleasantly gross ideas and setpieces and continually kept fucking stepping on them with bad callbacks, pandering and that embarrassing CGI Ian Holm (don't really care if he got the family's approval or not, that was the wildest mix of absolutely hideous to look at, unnecessary in the story and nonsensical in canon. just awful in every way)

the best moments were definitely when it played with established lore a little bit - the don't sweat scene with the facehuggers and the acid tunnel both absolutely rocked, as did the hybrid reveal. loved how it turned the "they're not safe even on the getaway ship" expectation from Alien totally on its head, very creative stuff. that breastfeeding kill was gnarly and the Engineers tie-in was pretty cool

on the other hand a lot of this was just the best parts of all the other movies done less well. the fanservice definitely sucked ass, everyone in my theatre winced at that Andy line, but in general the first act and a bit felt like a bit of a slog. not a huge fan of this being more jumpscarey than tense, which surprised me coming from Fede who absolutely knows how to ratchet up the tension, but I kinda didn't feel it here?

I think he's a talented director with the weirdest inclination to ruin his own movies with deeply unnecessary shit (CGI Holm, turkey baster in Don't Breathe etc). it makes for frustrating viewing because there's always a much better movie just out of reach whenever you watch his stuff, but anyway. glad this is doing numbers and getting money, I always love to see this franchise get its flowers, but I wouldn't even put this above Alien 3 tbh.

 

broke: the Rook eyesore was fine

woke: it should've been Fassbender/Jonsson again

bespoke: it should've been Lance Henriksen, my king

 

as an aside, this IS a very annoying type of thing that happens a lot. it really is usually because a studio splices crap in that is checking off boxes because of some bad data that they think audiences want.

 

You want to have a good will discussion? Sure.

What good is destroying a perfectly good experience that you too claimed to have had by listening to people complain about it for clicks and then turn a subjectively good time on its head with objective claims like “the movie had issues”? — especially, and I mean this with love, the movie just barely had more substance than your average slasher flick.

 

I went on Alien Encounter as a kid, I was completely terrified by it lol. If they actually did the Xenomorph as planned, my soul would’ve left my 9 year old body that day.

 

Rook made sense being there since that was the android model in that particular period of time, it was a tad ghoulish to use Holm’s likeness for it that said. On the other hand, they managed to unintentionally make Holm’s acting look even more robotic and inhuman which honestly was kinda fun and made the cartoonishly evil motives more enthralling to watch play out.

 

I only went on it once. It didn't scare me, but it gave me such a bad headache that I asked my grandparents to take me back to the hotel because I didn't feel good.

 

i missed out on Alien Encounter by like a few months. my first trip to Disney was in 2004 for my 10th birthday. i think the concern was that the attraction was too scary for some of my siblings. we ended up going back 9 months later and it was replaced with the Stitch attraction

 

Also after sitting on it for a couple days, I fucking enjoyed the shit out of this. Like it wasn’t perfect and definitely had some issues, like that anti-android guy was annoying as hell and Andy turning into evil Gary Oldman when they put the disc into him were a couple things that really stood out for me. That said, it was just a fun haunted house movie in space and I really liked that about it. Andy was a really cool character, I wasn’t sure about the concept of him being basically mentally disabled as an aging android at first but I think it was handled well overall and he was absolutely the best character in the movie. The fan service was pretty heavy in this but I love the work that went into creating the sets/costumes/props, fully utilizing that blend of sci-fi and industrial that makes the Alien universe so visually appealing. You can tell the people who made this put their love of the movies into this and it really shows, I was definitely satisfied as a fan. Definitely wanna see this again and most definitely buying a copy when it drops, I really liked this and I hope this is the start of a new era for the franchise.

 

The Alien franchise is beloved and has decades of lore/word-building. Why is longform discussion of that a bad thing? Is it only a bad thing if the people discussing the film didn't like it? Would it still be "complaining" if you agreed with their criticisms? Do you think all discussion about art is for clicks, and if so, why ever speak or write about art in the first place? Why get so hung up on me "destroying" my experience when I said I enjoyed the movie (and still do), but that their discussion verbalized and validated some hang-ups I was having too?

Why do you care about any of this? Lol

 

I agree with most of this! And actually like the switch being flipped in Andy, Agreed that the mental disability stuff had me worried at the beginning, but was handled quite well. Loved the set design, props, and practical effects work.

 

I cannot stress enough on how much I did not like Bjorn. Like who ever wrote that character out should’ve been sat down and forced to rewrite that character until they figured out how to get the point across without being that obnoxious about it. Like all the guy did was fuck with Andy like a fucking child bully would and it’s like we got it bro, your mum died in a mine because of an android but could you like not act like a stupid child and fuck with the one person you absolutely need to raid this space station for like five minutes? Like it never dawned on any of these people that they needed to drag his man baby ass to the side and remind him that they have shit to do and he’s being a thorn in everyone’s side? He was like a complete cartoon character, I hated his ass.

 

There is nothing wrong with changing your mind based on criticism from others. That is part of the point of film criticism. Your own perspective is limited in many different ways, so getting more opinions (especially actual filmmakers like Red Letter Media) is useful in building up you own defense or dismissal of a movie.

 

Red Letter Media absolutely hated Boyhood. I loved it at the time and I still consider it one of the best films of the 2010's, but I enjoyed hearing their perspective since praise was almost unanimous until awards season rolled around. Watching the film is just part of the conversation, because what is remembered in a few years versus what is forgotten comes from people arguing for or against something.

 

Also hated Bjorn (would never have remembered that name), but I know that was the point lol

 

Not only do I think most modern movie discourse is worthless I think it’s actively detrimental to the art form.

I really don’t know what is to be gained from chewing the fat over a spectacle movie like this. I give a pass to speculating about lore implications, but aside from not satisfying someone’s head canon what can you really say?

I feel like there’s merit to discussing something like Beau is Afraid, a movie that is so layered and laden with both obvious and opaque messages, where we can actually have a totally different reading of the art itself, but with this we’re essentially nitpicking riding a rollercoaster.

Like “CGI Rook bad”? Too fucking bad. Looked good to me.*
“This like was corny”/“this scene didn’t work for me” etc.?
Real valuable discussion to be had there.

It’s hard to take a critique as even handed as “it went from the best movie I’ve seen all year to the worst” seriously but again if you think you’re gaining value from this go off I guess. I’ll continue going to the movies to have a good time and not to be an armchair filmmaker.

as far as music criticism, no amount of 3.6s from Pitchfork will ever make Slaves of Fear not slap so yes even more worthless, excluding the analysis of cultural implications.

*I just want to say that yes, I do think there was an element to uncanny valley in the way that android looked but I felt it was quite fitting.

 

Would have liked for Bjorn to have been two separate characters tbh, one actually funny, lovable goof and one serious but angry guy that hated Andy. The bully amalgamation didn't work, because it also lessens how we feel about Navarro a little bit tbh

 

^so you decide which type of movies are worthy of criticism and which are not?

great! everyone else does too.

“Not only do I think most modern movie discourse is worthless I think it’s actively detrimental to the art form.”

You don’t actually believe this then.

I say all of this in a friendly tone

 

People aren't criticizing Alien: Romulus like it is an art film or something like that. It is understood that it is being compared to the original film, its sequels, and other films like it.

 

i am totally fine if we all agree to disagree, i can only speak to my own experience with "criticism".

I'll happily discuss a movie or even listen to someone talk about it, but some people are literally larping as film school students and I just find that type of discussion grating at best. (although I do find it slightly amusing when it's about Marvel movies because at that point what the fuck are you even doing with your life?)

I too say all of this with a friendly tone.

 

and critiquing the procedure or methodology of film making can be engaging too

also movie fans being vocal about their taste serves the industry. people forget the role of the consumer in the market. Romulus wouldn’t even exist without the horror communities preferences vocalized. that is obvious for anything but here you have a return to form for set design and practical effects.