With Alien: Romulus, comes the seventh mainline entry to the now ongoing series of 45 years or the ninth if we count the de-canonized Alien vs. Predator spin-offs. Find out what happened in that insane and terrifying ending and what it spells out for the future in this article.
This article contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus.
The Story So Far
Alien Romulus is set in the year 2142, exactly 20 years after the Nostromo incident which we witnessed in Ridley Scott’s 1979 original Alien film and approximately 50 years after the prequel, Prometheus. Prometheus and its sequel Alien: Covenant detail the origin of the xenomorph species. Alien follows a crew on a commercial ship that encounters a xenomorph while responding to a distress signal. The xenomorph wipes out the crew leaving Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) as the sole survivor, who is lost in space for 57 years before ultimately being rescued in James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens.
Romulus takes place between Alien and Aliens and revolves around a motley crew of adolescents that live on Jackson’s Star, a mining colony. Deciding they’ve had enough of the colony, they decide to embark on a mission to salvage the Renaissance Research Facility, a derelict spacecraft, of its cryostasis chambers which will allow them to escape to another planet, Yvaga. As expected in this series, their plans are interrupted by the alien organisms on board the spacecraft.
The crew faces insurmountable odds and one-by-one, they are overcome by the alien threat until finally our leads, Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and Andy (David Jonsson), along with the incapacitated Kay (Isabela Merced), escape the Renaissance, as it crashes into Jackson’s rings, on their own ship, the Corbelan. But the horror is not yet over.
Prometheus Fire
It is revealed that Kay injected herself with Chemical A0-3959X.91 – 15, Prometheus Fire, colloquially referred to as “black goo”, to heal her. The black goo is a substance that was found on the planet LV-223 in Prometheus. In Alien: Covenant, David (Michael Fassbender), a synthetic obsessed with art and creation, developed Prometheus Fire to create new creatures. This is how the facehugger and the xenomorph came into existence. The black goo was presumably found by Weyland-Yutani, an in-universe technological corporation.
Scientists aboard the Renaissance were researching and experimenting on the goo when it was overcome and Rook (Ian Holm), the synthetic science officer of the Renaissance, told the salvagers that the goo was meant to evolve humanity. Rook advised the survivors to take Prometheus Fire with them.
Kay is in the early stages of pregnancy and the goo mutates the embryo inside her. She gives birth and what is born is a xeno-human hybrid monster. The hybrid kills Kay and incapacitates Andy, but in a scene that mirrors the final moments of Alien, Rain suits up in an astronaut suit and allows the planetary ring to rip apart the bottom of the Corbelan, thus ejecting the hybrid into space. Rain barely survives. She helps Andy, vowing to fix him, and puts both him and herself into stasis as they begin their journey to Yvaga.
What Comes Next
Through the course of the movie, Rain and Andy’s relationship is tested. Rain was going to leave Andy behind if the mission had gone successfully. Andy later breaks free of his corporate programming and chooses to help Rain. Rain learns not to take him for granted and the duo continue their journey. These characters have instantly become fan favorites and the film’s ending does suggest their story isn’t over. Given the film’s popularity and immediate success, a sequel is sure to be announced sooner or later.
Additionally, the Alien series will also continue on television. Noah Hawley, known for Fargo, is at the helm of Alien: Earth, a new television series in the universe. Not much is known about the show yet, but we do know that it will be a prequel to both Alien and Prometheus. A teaser of the show has played before Alien: Romulus screenings throughout the United States and it states the show will premiere on Hulu in 2025.
Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, while not very successful critically, have become cult classics in the franchise and fans would love to see Ridley Scott’s prequel trilogy completed. Covenant left on a cliffhanger ending which did offer some closure to the, as of yet, duology, but it also set up the rest of the uncompleted saga.
Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Álvarez, released on August 16th and is now playing in theaters everywhere.
If you liked this article, feel free to check out more of our stuff here at Feature First!
