Anyway, Alien: Romulus is the seventh film about these particular monsters. According to the producers, the film takes the franchise ‘back to its roots’. So we get a group of grimy crew-mates piloting a big rust-bucket of a spaceship who pick up an extraterrestrial stowaway and end up having to use their wits and courage to survive as it gobbles them up, one by one.
And it’s not a bad film. It’s nicely creepy, the special effects are good, the acting is perfectly serviceable. In fact, I could give you a normal review of Alien: Romulus, but just writing this is making me feel a little crazy. It’s not a bad film, but it’s also a direct copy of a much better film that already exists. That film is called Alien, and it came out in 1979. It had Sigourney Weaver in it. It hasn’t vanished. If you have a Disney+ subscription or a torrent client, you can watch it tonight. Why have we made it again? What’s the point? Why have we spent the past 45 years – which is longer than I’ve been alive – making seven different versions of the same film? What on Earth is going on?
Romulus would be better without the callbacks to the first two films. One character in particular I wish was someone else entirely. Also, I didn't like the ending as it tied into Prometheus/Covenant, my least favourite of the Alien franchise.
I feel Alien has gone the way of Star Wars which keeps linking to the Skywalker's. Let Alien break free of the Ripley verse (She's even in Romulus as a well hidden Easter Egg!) and do something different. The comics have had excellent stories over the years, adapt one of those.
One of my favourites is Aliens: Labyrinth which is about a crazy scientist on a deep space station who has successfully got the alien species under control. His backstory is quite something and you know it will go wrong in the end.