MovieChat Forums > Alien: Romulus (2024) Discussion > No, it’s not bad…..

No, it’s not bad…..

posted 3 months ago by DancingintheDark (1608)
6 replies | jump to latest

No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.

~ Sickboy

Romulus has its moments, but they’re few and far between. Soft 5/10 from me. The characters are empty vessels and the script is designed to elicit jump scares rather than tell a story.
The visuals are great but that’s about the only thing that works imo.
Remember how in Alien, we’re just observing the crew in their natural environment, and somehow you connect with Brett or Parker simply because their authentic selves pull you in, that’s not the case in Romulus, we get some sad-sack travesty of a story, right from the jump and that’s the lure that’s supposed to connect you with our protagonist, it’s boring and insulting and lazily written.

[–] maximmm (3335) 3 months ago

that's pretty bad, wouldn't you say?

[–] DancingintheDark (1608) 3 months ago

Yes, it’s utter shite.

[–] maul (1635) 3 months ago

The naturalistic style of Alien and its characters seems like a near impossible bar to reach for most writers/directors these days. It's so rewatchable because of that factor, and how every aspect of the film just draws you in.

Romulus had a kernel of something with the Rain/Andy relationship, but it ends up being rather meager and underdeveloped. You'd think out of all these overpaid writers in Hollywood, someone would be able to put together a great script... but the studios just produce whatever dreck they're given so there's not exactly a high bar to reach.

Oh and hey, make sure to add a bunch of truly terrible callbacks, and a CGI Ian Holm monstrosity. We have to hit the audience with a sledgehammer over and over again to guarantee they don't forget they're watching an Alien™® film. Fucking clowns.

[–] DavidM (875) 3 months ago

The relationship between Rain and Andy IS the BEST written of the relationship human/droids of the saga, better than Walter and the protagonist of Covenant.

[–] maul (1635) 3 months ago

Yeah I don't think so - I feel more for the relationship between Ripley and Bishop that developed than I do with Rain and Andy.

Probably because there was an actual arc and stakes involved. Ripley came in with a huge distrust of synthetics, and over the course of the film Bishop slowly won her (and the audience) over and proved his mettle. We didn't know whether he would be another Ash or not, and it also tied into Ripley overcoming her trauma from the first film.

With Andy, a switch is flipped and we immediately know he's going to be the bad guy now. This would have been a perfect moment to have some kind of ongoing conflict with his original programming and the inputted chip, but there's none of that. We don't even get some kind of scene at the end where he manually removes the chip himself, perhaps in an effort to protect Rain... nope, she just removes it while he's stunlocked and he's back to being good ol' Andy again.

He saves her once afterwards, but does it mean much? Not really, considering he's just doing "what's best for Rain" like he had been since the beginning. Transforming that line into "what's best for US" at the end doesn't actually change anything either, as he never really showed any personal autonomy.

Overall Andy was basically just an emotional crutch for Rain, and it never really developed beyond that point.

[–] DancingintheDark (1608) 3 months ago

Well said.