The poster for “Alien: Romulus” involving one of
the stars of the film fighting off a “facehugger.” PHOTO COURTESY OF DISNEY UK MEDIA KITS
Kaitlyn Leister
Associate Arts & Culture Editor
Content warning: This article contains mi-
nor spoilers for “Alien: Romulus.”
Another movie within the “Alien” franchise has graced the big screen with the newest installment, “Alien: Romulus.” According to Collider, a website dedicated to movie news, the film is now the second highest-grossing movie in the franchise. The first still being Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus.” As of Sept. 1, the movie has grossed $283 million dollars both globally and domestically.
This will be a very minor spoiler review of the film, I will be talking about the overall plot and a big controversy behind the film.
“Alien: Romulus” is getting back to basics when it comes to the overall plot, a horror movie about trying to survive the titular monster of the franchise, the “Xenomorph.”
A smaller plot in the beginning as to why the characters are in close proximity to this creature comes from the ever-looming villain of all “Alien” movies, Weyland-Yutani. The main characters have completed their hours to gain their papers and travel to a terraformed planet with real sunlight away from their mining colony home. Only to be rejected as the company just issued new quotas needed to leave the colony. This drives them to the abandoned space station containing the creature, a chance to leave sooner rather than later to a beautiful new home.
There has been some controversy with the film, involving AI use for one of the characters. This was used in order to bring back the late actor Ian Holm, who sadly died back in 2020. Holm played the character of Ash in the original 1979 film that started the franchise. He is now the character of Rook, a damaged synthetic in the remains of the research station the main characters find themselves in, telling them to run as far as they can when the film reaches the first implantation of a chest burster.
According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director and writer Fede Álvarez, along with the original “Alien” director and producer for “Alien: Romulus” Ridley Scott, wanted to bring back the one android character that Scott desperately wanted to see again, that of Holm’s character Ash. They had started to think of ways to bring the famous actor back on the big screen, but of course, they needed permission first.
The article with Entertainment Weekly stated how Álvarez not only had permission from Holm’s widow, Sophie de Stempel, but also from all of his children. The articles stated that his widow gave permission as Hollywood had not let Holm have more roles after his final film in 2014, and he would have loved to be in the movie. The family signed consent to the images of Holms to be used, and credited Daniel Betts was cast to record lines and give the facial performance, before having the lines run through a voice program and animatronics animated with facial AI effects to get the final look. The family was the first to be shown the scenes, and according to the article, tears were shed to see him again on screen after so long.
I was not made aware of the use of AI until after seeing the movie, and know that people might not want to see the film knowing of the AI use. You can have your own opinion on the use of such practices; the rise of AI has raised questions on the ethical side of exactly this type of use in film even with granted permission.
When I saw the film, I was terrified the whole two hours I sat watching in an almost empty theater in the middle of a weekday. Álvarez clearly shows how much passion and love for the franchise he put into his work, and it conveys well into the final product. A lot of easter eggs and callbacks to the other films can be found in this one. As someone who has only fully watched the first film, I enjoyed finding each callback and discovering others. Was it the greatest movie of all time and nothing will compare? No, but it was an enjoyable movie to watch.