Summary
Although the upcomingAlienmovieAlien: Romuluspromises to return to the franchise’s roots, its new trailer proves the movie won’t be going too far back in time. TheAlienfranchise started strong with director Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi horror movieAlienin 1979. A claustrophobic, single-setting horror film,Alienfollowed the crew of a doomed spaceship as they were picked off one at a time by the eponymous monster. In 1986, director James Cameron’s sequelAliensupped the action and dialed back the franchise’s horror elements, arming its characters and forcing them to face an entire hive of Xenomorphs.
Since then,everyAlienmoviehas struggled with the same issue. The franchise’s installments can either go back to the small-scale, self-contained horror of the original movie or borrow the more expansive, action-forward style ofAliens.2024’s upcoming rebootAlien: Romuluspromises to combine the two approaches, and director Fede Alvarez’s movie is even set betweenAlienandAliensto clarify this. This could be a tricky tonal balance to pull off, even for a genre veteran like Alvarez. Fortunately, the second trailer forAlien: Romulusproves the movie won’t make one mistake from earlier in the franchise.
What Alien: Romulus' Title Really Means In The New Movie
While Alien: Romulus’s title has been a mystery for some time, the Alien movie’s new trailer finally reveals how the title ties into its story.
Alien: Romulus Promises Multiple Face Huggers
Alien: Romulus’s Trailers Imply There Will Be Numerous Xenomorphs
Judging by the deluge of face huggers and what looks like an alien queen at the end of the second trailer,there will almost certainly be more than one Xenomorph inAlien: Romulus.Considering Aileen Wu’s Navarro and Spike Fearn’s Bjorn both get attacked by face huggers in the trailer alone, that already implies thatAlien: Romuluswill feature twice as many aliens as the original movie. This is great news since theAlienfranchise has never been able to replicate the simplicity of the original movie since its first sequel was released 38 years ago.
Scott’s original movie took its time setting up the Xenomorph’s eventual introduction.Alien’s iconic chestburster scenedidn’t even take place until 55 minutes into the two-hour movie, but it was so grisly and impactful that few viewers cared. However, after countless knock-offs replicatedAlien’s formula in the years that followed,Alienshad to up the ante considerably to keep viewers invested. LaterAliensequels likeAlien 3failed to appreciate this, resulting in a movie that aimed for grim simplicity but ended up predictable in their pacing and story beats. Luckily,Alien: Romulushas already sidestepped this issue.
1979’s Original Alien Made A Lone Xenomorph Work
The Groundbreaking Sci-Fi Horror Succeeded Thanks To Its Novelty
Numerous face huggers can be seen slithering around the trailer’s Romulus lab, while a dozen of them can be seen teeming through the space station in an earlier teaser trailer.
Since viewers had never seen the monster before,Aliencould pull off a horror story that featured a lone Xenomorph. Scott’s movie took a long time to reveal the monster in its entirety and its immediately iconic appearance shocked audiences, from its gruesome emergence from Kane’s chest to its eventual full-size reveal nearAlien’s ending. In the following years,Xtro,Creature,Inseminoid,Galaxy of Terror,Forbidden World, andStar Crystal all ripped offAlien’s premise and structure, meaningAlienscouldn’t get away with simply pitting another space crew against another Xenomorph for two hours.
Luckily,Alien: Romulus’ second trailerhas proven that Alvarez doesn’t intend to skimp when it comes to monsters. Numerous face huggers can be seen slithering around the trailer’s Romulus lab, while a dozen of them can be seen teeming through the space station in an earlier teaser trailer. Technically, viewers don’t know for a fact that there will be more than one Xenomorph let loose on the station in the reboot. However, the fact that Bjorn and Navarro both fall victim to face huggers heavily implies this, andAlien 3indicates it would be the best decision.
Alien 3 Proved A One Xenomorph Sequel Can’t Work Anymore
The Grim Follow-up Lacked The Urgency And Action Of Aliens
Alien: Romulusis making a canny decision by hiding its exact number of Xenomorphs until the movie arrives.
A lot went wrong during the infamously chaotic production ofAlien 3, but one of the movie’s forgotten sins was downsizing the franchise’s titular threat.Alien 3’s single Xenomorph horror story failed to scare viewers, even though the movie’s monster racks up a respectable 17 victims during the sequel’s runtime.Alien: Romulus’ chestburster teaseall but proves that the reboot will have more than one Xenomorph terrorizing the crew since Navarro can be incubating an alien while Bjorn is seen swallowing a face hugger’s tentacles.
While there were other problems withAlien 3’s story, a big issue with the sequel was that one Xenomorph no longer seemed as scary as an entire alien hive. If any slasher franchise introduced two killers in one sequel, viewers would naturally expect subsequent movies to up the ante further. As such,Alien: Romulusis making a canny decision by hiding its exact number of Xenomorphs until the movie arrives. Judging byAlien: Romulus’ trailer alone, viewers can be relatively certain that the heroes will face more than one ofAlien’s titular terrors.
