“The most detestable habit in all modern cinema is the homage. I don’t want to see another goddamn homage in anybody’s movie. There are enough of them when you’re unconscious.” – Orson Welles, 1982
Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus is a competently made movie. It has some of the most stunning cinematography I’ve seen from a major blockbuster in a long while (a striking use of neon colors and IMAX photography make it a must-see on the biggest possible screen), a seamless blend of practical and visual effects, and some pretty gnarly action sequences to boot. One such scene sees Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) and her android Andy (David Jonsson, magnificent) battle an army of Xenomorphs while on zero gravity, attempting to dodge the pus-filled acid blood that will literally melt their skin if it touches them.
The scene leads into another extended setpiece in which they have to battle a gravity purge, where the gravity of the ship goes back up for a second or else it may crash-land on the planet. This occurs while the duo are climbing the ship’s elevator, a thrilling, excitingly kinetic moment in which it’s unclear whether or not the gravity will be back off the ship before Rain falls down to her doom. That incredible moment of suspense looks even better in IMAX, where the vertical frame literally forces us to be on the edge of our seats as Rain and Andy battle Xenomorphs while in zero gravity within an inch of their life.
The sequence satisfyingly concludes with the Xenomorph being brutally killed by Andy, after the former kidnaps Rain while she is falling in midair and is about to kill her. Before exacting the final blow, he says, “Get away from her (bang bang bang)….you b**ch.” This retroactively posits this quote as the first in the Alien franchise, as it’s set in between the events of Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens, thus diluting the emotional impact of when Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley spoke it in such a cathartic way. The line had meaning, and it was satisfactorily delivered before the final explosive battle. But it’s also there for the simple reason of paying homage to what came before so that fans recognize the callbacks to one of the most iconic science-fiction franchises out there when it has no business being in this movie other than to make the audience point and clap at the screen.
The retroaction of iconic lines is par of the course for legacy sequels, though, so it’s expected that there will be one or two eye-roll moments in which the director will unsubtly nod to what came before. But it usually stops there, and the movie can still stand on its own two feet beyond attempting to haphazardly pay homage to the legacy of their respective franchise.
However, Alien: Romulus takes this “fan service” to newer, more egregious levels that are at best boring and creatively bankrupt, and at worst, deeply unethical, ghoulish, and sets a dangerous precedent for the future of blockbuster cinema, one step further in the acceptation of generative AI in art. First, they create an entire opening credits sequence with artificial intelligence (Secret Invasion). Then, they garishly resurrect dead actors in non-speaking parts so audiences can point and clap at the screen in excitement when they do not evoke any emotional feeling (The Flash). Finally, a dead actor is not only resurrected for a speaking part but is the main antagonist of your picture.
Alien: Romulus does this final step, and further desecrates the imaginative art of cinema into a creatively bankrupt and soulless attempt at weaponizing nostalgia by having the digitally reanimated corpse of Ian Holm not reprise his role as Ash, but play an entirely new character, Rook, an android senior officer on board the Romulus, who attempts to get Andy to bring the Prometheus Strain back to the Jackson Star Mining Colony. The Prometheus Strain is derived from the Xenomorph itself and attempts to “perfect” human DNA by healing them. Rook shows a video of an ill mouse fully recovering after being injected with the strain, though complications arise, leading into a bizarre ending that feels like it belongs in a completely different movie than the one we’re watching.
It’s through the figure of Rook that the ending occurs, a far more bleak conclusion than Alvarez and screenwriter Rodo Sayagues initially envisioned. Without Rook, the film’s story holds itself quite thin as another survival movie in which young outcasts who long for a better life away from the mining colony step into a world they should not have stepped into in the first place. It’s a plot we’ve all seen so many times before, but it wouldn’t have contained the most ghoulish attempt at jingling keys my two eyes have seen since the inclusion of Peter Cushing’s reanimated corpse in Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, another movie that set a dangerous precedent.
The first movie to have effectively reanimated an actor through the power of digital effects was James Wan’s Furious 7, with Paul Walker. However, the decision was a justifiable one. Walker had tragically died during filming and had completed most of his work in the movie before his passing. Wan had received the blessing of his family, who even went so far as to act in the film as body doubles for Walker, with his face superimposed on the body of brothers Cody and Caleb for the remainder of the scenes he did not film before his death. The results weren’t too great, but they were fine enough within the context of the film’s production and acted as the perfect send-off for his character (and Walker’s legacy as one of the most underappreciated actors of the 2000s and 2010s) through a deeply moving and heartfelt “See You Again.”
That should’ve been it, but it led through the proliferation of the reanimated corpse or AI-generated de-aged characters, such as a fanfiction depiction of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in The Mandalorian – Season 2, arguably the death blow for what once was a pretty good, but not groundbreaking television series. Instead of resurrecting Holm through archival footage (as did Kerry Conran with Laurence Olivier in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), or, as David Gordon Green did with Donald Pleasance in Halloween Kills, effective prosthetic makeup and vocal manipulation, Alvarez chooses the most unethical and grotesque way to bring back a character to jingle keys in front of an audience member’s face.
There’s really no point in Holm being in the film, as the character of Rook is entirely different from Ash. He does not possess the same personality type, nor, in the case of an Android, the same characteristics. So this could’ve been a great opportunity for Alvarez to bring back someone like Michael Fassbender or introduce an up-and-coming actor to play the character, as he does with Jonsson, who honestly gives the film’s best performance. He could’ve done an Alien: Covenant situation, in which Jonsson plays two Androids that is discovered by the group as they explore Romulus. It wouldn’t be an inspired decision, but it would be far more effective (and a great showcase of Jonsson’s talents) than reanimating a corpse through the inhumane practice of generative artificial intelligence.
Some will say, “But you didn’t say anything when George Miller did it in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga?” I’ve been at the forefront of a crusade against generative AI in film and have expressed my disdain for Miller reanimating the late Richard Carter as The Bullet Farmer for a ten-second appearance when he didn’t need to do it. But this goes beyond the question of generative AI because the practice of resurrecting a dead actor for our entertainment is something that should not be done, in any circumstance, through any type of technology used to reanimate the person, because the dead should stay dead.
“But the estate approved of his likeness used in the film!” Of course, they did! Do you not like money? Of course, they said yes. Since they control his image, they can say or do whatever they want with Ian Holm’s likeness. But what about Holm himself, who never agreed to star and be resurrected this way in Alien: Romulus? First off, the character doesn’t even look good. His lips don’t synchronize with the words the voice actor Daniel Betts says, and the CGI is passable at best, much less refined than Paul Walker in Furious 7 or Peter Cushing in Rogue One. Secondly, what’s the general feeling you want to convey for the audience when they see the digital corpse of someone who died four years ago and is brought back through the power of artificial intelligence and CGI? There’s no emotion in “Holm’s” portrayal of Rook, because Ian Holm is not on set and is not performing this character. It’s been completely manipulated to the point where it completely detracts from the rest of the movie’s (thinly-developed and poorly conceived) story.
Perhaps because androids are emotionless, a digital performance with zero soul acts as a metatextual message to what’s on screen. Even then, it’s still egregious and has no justification whatsoever to resurrect an iconic actor who has passed just so we can point at the screen because we recognize whoever has appeared. But that’s the current state of entertainment we live in, one so devoid of any artistry and creativity that it attempts to kowtow to as many fans of the original as possible instead of challenging its audience (as Ridley Scott did in the divisive, but vastly superior Prometheus and Alien: Covenant), or, better yet, transcending the franchise to a fresher, newer direction.
The trailer for Alien: Romulus promised a leaner, fresher, gnarlier Alien installment after the overcomplicated Covenant that wrestled with the idea of God’s existence. It felt simple enough to resurrect and hopefully breathe new life into an almost fifty-year-old franchise that has forever changed the landscape of science-fiction and horror cinema. And what better way to reinvigorate it than with Fede Alvarez, who also breathed new life into the Evil Dead franchise through his 2013 reboot?
And yet, with a straightforward decision, Alvarez has sunk the Alien franchise into new lows, one completely unjustifiable and ethically dubious decision whose only goal is to pay homage to a franchise that’s already paid tribute to itself in each installment. But there’s nothing more despicable in modern cinema than reanimating a corpse simply for nostalgia’s sake, because the technology is there to do it. Yes, we may be technologically advanced, but there’s no world in which this galling act of digital necromancy is justified, or even works within the context of the movie. What we get is a flat and emotionless performance from a robot, while the real actor who rests in peace never gave his consent for the portrayal we see on screen.
The fact that people seemingly lap this movie up is the most significant sign of a culture in decline, one with no standards in art, because they don’t want to discover anything past their birthday and would rather kowtow to mediocrity instead of demanding more out of their movies. Since they don’t feed themselves with the innovative, soul-nourishing cinema of the past, they think it’s acceptable to resurrect someone through the artifice of CGI and generative AI. But how would you feel if someone took your likeness and reanimated it for entertainment’s sake, without you having a single say in it, because you’ve passed away? How would you feel if this happened to a close family member of yours, just for entertainment’s sake? None of it is acceptable, and it’s part of an ever-growing trends that sucks away the soul and creativity from cinema and turns it into a creatively bankrupt commodity that turns audiences into mindless consumers who accept slop like this because they don’t know any better. We must collectively raise our standards in our appreciation of cinema and demand more from studios than Alien: Romulus, because this precedent will worsen and get even more unethical before it hopefully improves by filmmakers who resist and show all of us a better way forward.
Alien: Romulus is now in theaters.
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