Alien: Romulus Movie Explained (SPOILERS)

A video essay (with spoilers) about the dark deeper meaning of 'Alien: Romulus' (2024), directed by Fede Álvarez and starring Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, Aileen Wu, Archie Renaux, David Jonsson, Spike Fearn and more. In this video I get into its deeper themes and symbolism.

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REFERENCES
'Alien: Romulus' (2024)
'Alien' (1979)

ARTWORKS FEATURED
- 'The Finding of Romulus and Remus' by Carlo Maratta
- 'Romulus and Remus Exposed on the Tiber , pl .2 from the series The Story of Romulus and Remus' by Giovanni Battista Fontana
- 'She-Wolf Suckling Romulus and Remus' by Ludovico Carracci
- 'Romulus and Remus Given Shelter by Faustulus' by Pietro da Cortona
- 'The Brothers, Disputing Over the Founding of Rome, Consult the Augurs, pl.7 from the series The Story of Romulus and Remus' by Giovanni Battista Fontana
- 'Augurs, Resort to Arms and Remus is Killed, pl.8 from the series The Story of Romulus and Remus' by Giovanni Battista Fontana
- 'Romulus Founds the City and Names it Rome, pl.9 from the series The Story of Romulus and Remus' by Giovanni Battista Fontana
- 'Prometheus Bound' by Peter Paul Rubens
- 'Armenian Hymnal' by the priest Yakob Pēligratc‘i
- 'Fresco, Dominican monastery at San Marco, Florence, showing the lance piercing the side of Jesus on the cross' (c. 1440) by Fra Angelico
- 'Expulsion of Adam and Eve' by John Faed

MUSIC
‘Dramatic Horror Cinematic Epic Trailer Action Intro Opener’ by Dmitry Taras from Pixabay
'Final Girl' by Jeremy Blake
'Dark Ambient' by stereocode from Pixabay
‘Unforeseen Motive (Uplifting Documentary Music)’ by Music Unlimited from Pixabay

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:19 Heist
01:47 Romulus and Remus
03:34 The Perfect Organism
06:43 Enmity Between Offspring
12:51 Water
13:30 Sex
14:08 Outro

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Copyright Disclaimer: under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, allowance is made for 'exceptions to copyright' such as...
- Criticism, review, quotation and news reporting
- Caricature, parody or pastiche

[replicon]

I loved this movie. I understand the complaints that some people have but I think it's flaws are vastly outweighed by it's strengths.

[montgomerylamar]

Awesome analysis! Just one thing... I don't think Kay knowingly injected herself with the Xenomorph essence though. She wasn't present when it was explained as to what exactly was contained in the vials. The only interaction she had with it was when Andy was acting on company orders and suggested she inject it to save her life.

[thomaswerle]

This movie made me realize that Ripley becomes the perfect organism in resurrection.

[slinkyatrest]

Sir, I don't mean to alarm you but it appears your house is careening into a collision course with the sun.

[koopa_soup]

The ending scene introducing the hybrid was intended to give us the answer as to why the engineer who seeded earth had normal skin, and the one later seen towards the end of the prometheus movie had biomechanics integrated into his skin. It honestly told us so much about the engineers and why they created the xenomorphs that we saw on that ship in the first movie without being direct. Since they couldn’t reproduce the original strain they extracted the black goo and infused themselves with the substance (the right way), which is exactly what the company intended to do with the substance once it was perfected to “improve” humanity. The ship in alien wasn’t intended for earth, it was intended for the planet Shaw and David discovered, just not directly because that would pose the possibility of another outbreak. The eggs weren’t meant to hatch, because they were never intended to be weapons but instead researched and used to produce future generations of the engineers. They only cared for the xenomorph specimen because of its ability to restructure dna and give life, which was the engineers original intent with the ENTIRE project, to save their race by finding a cure to their inability to reproduce, maybe humanity was another experiment as well? The only issue was that they experienced an outbreak during their research and everything went to hell. That is why the engineer wanted to destroy earth. He saw that we had created AI and were on the same exact path as them, especially if we were to discover the black goo, then all of the galaxy would be in jeopardy. Remember that the engineers were known to seed life and create, not destroy. They needed to wipe us out before the outbreak extended past that planet they used as a research outpost in Prometheus. Big takeaway from all of this : the xenomorph was never intended to be a weapon, it was a product of genetic mutation that was never supposed to exist, and that they only intended to use it the same way wey-tani was going to use it. David knew that and was on the same page in terms of researching the reproductive cycles because that’s what it always comes back to, the ability to reproduce.

[robertpetre]

You could look at the newborn almost alien hybrid almost like a Nephilim that was a fallen angel hybrid between a female human and an angel creating a Demon.

[isisatlantis]

My parents took me to see Aliens in 1986. I was 6yo and they didn't have a babysitter. The fear that I experienced as a little girl in the theater, was felt again while I watched this film.
The face huggers running amuck throughout the room and station, a character seeing a xenomorph for the first time, and the newest horror the offspring. When first saw it crawling, the Wendigo was the first thing that came to mind. Very unsettling.

[nielschr]

The "offspring" has more in common with an engineer than a xenomorph.

[dani-chan]

I want a movie showing what happened to David after Covenant!

[mizuslayer]

ALSO i wanna point out some beautiful and poignant foreshadowing the script does:
1. when explaining the backstory of remus + romulus when describing the naming of the research station, they show renaissance(?) era or greco roman paintings of an (evil looking? or unknowingly evil) baby feeding on a dying mother’s breasts..
2. navarro promises they’ll “get em out” and they do but…
3. kay saying “i’m just glad this baby is going to see the sun” and well technically it actually does…in more ways than one, too.
4. (not the best one but) u can sorta predict andy will survive bc in the beginning he insists on needing $ to buy a horse for rain on yvaga

EDIT: 5. they show the rat dying from a chestburster after being fed the prometheus strain, but the group leaves before the flight record footage could show em that.
6. doesnt entirely count but one of the cpu loggers flashes an alert file re facehuggers when the cryo chamber breach sets off the temperature shelves.

ALSO lowkey i think kay and bjorn had an affair and the baby was his. when rain asks kay who’s the father she says “oh some asshole..” who’s been the single asshole in the friend group the entire time? bjorn. and the way he holds her when the alien grows inside its pod before he tries to kill it, it looks too romantic rather than platonic. i could v well be wrong but it makes for such a more interesting character plot imo. i’m convinced the orig script had more implications re that and the final cut just could take it or leave it since it’s already 2 hrs. i bet a longer director’s cut or a deleted scene would indulge in that

[jorgeabraham]

Not the hardcore alien fan right here, I´m more like a Blade Runner, Dune kind of nerd, I love sci fi and I truly enjoyed Alien Romulus in the theater. Great to see a come back for practical effects and set design and the CGI stuff was also great. Your anlaysis was of the best I've seen about this movie and I've seen SOME. Already subscribed eager to watch more from you, good luck I hope your viewership grows exponentially.

[DPham]

I just realized that the overall plot of A:R mirrors that of Don't Breathe quite a bit (because Fede also directed it). Young kids, living in a shit place, breaking into a forbidden place to steal smth of value that will ensure their future & get them out of their sordid lives/home

[mimsimsi]

Another point on the symbolism of water and rain - there are multiple moments throughout the movie where the xenomorph's acid blood raining down is a threat, either to the integrity of the ship or to the characters themselves. Most notably, when the asshole guy dies; he penetrates the alien's metamorphic womb with his weapon attempting to kill it (very subtle imagery there), but the alien proves that it can't be violated that way and that the very attempt makes it more dangerous. Its dripping blood is perhaps the biggest direct threat to Rain throughout the movie, because when the blood reaches the 'ground' - the very edge of the ship - it destroys everything.

There's so much womb/birth imagery and symbolism in the movie, I find it so fascinating... The ship's system is MU/TH/UR and all the humans depend on her life support. The cryo pods are the wombs in which they'll be carried to new lives on Yvago, symbolism that's horrifically paid off when Kay births the twisted offspring within her cryo pod. The facehuggers are in trapped synthetic wombs for research, then the 'water breaks' and they're free to wreak reproductive havoc. The alien develops through a womb with a distinctly yonic exterior, and of course it has its classic phallic head. Andy is continuously reborn throughout the movie and only develops into his true self via connecting with and having his personhood acknowledged by his sister (thus defying the legend of Romulus' fratricide), then being placed in a cryo pod and promised rebirth into a new body... the first time he as an android would have ever BEEN in a 'womb'. I think Romulus does justice excellently to the sexual and birthing themes of the whole franchise, and far better than Prometheus did. Granted, it's been a minute since I saw that one, but it seriously left me cold lol. This one left me shaking with excitement.

[TheSympathyOfAllThings]

This is a fantastic analysis!! I love that this movie continues the mythological/philosophical threads of Prometheus, albeit through more subtext this time. But for the active viewer, there is so much to chew on here!

[JimmyxBonez]

Stop complaining and start appreciating movies! The fact that that Ridley said yes and it was pushed to the big screen instead of streaming platforms was a great choice! It's different than all the Superhero and Secret Agent movies. I truly enjoyed Rolumus because it felt nostalgic. I was a kid when I saw Alien ans seeing sometning close to that decades later made me so happy!

[johanandersson]

Why did Weyland Yutani-corporation just let they station drift in space especially considering how important it was to them?

[REDIUM]

As sections of the Renaissance station:
The Remus section housed cryogenic labs, with printer incubators that printed Facehuggers and held them in stasis.
The Romulus section housed test labs and bacta tanks, that extracted the mutagen fluid from the Facehuggers once they had been transported.

[theMagustein]

you are extremely articulate, and thats what i love about you. keep up the great work .

[jakubcelebucki]

I loved it absolutely. and I love how you delve into details. Only those with real heart and mind set onto the art piece care to do that which is utmost admirable. Never stop seeking out those little details and keep the admiration of the craft going!

Furthermore, I will add how apparent the symbolism of the myth is in that movie and Covenant. In Covenant we can hear David calling the xenomorph a wolf. Right here in Romulus we can directly see the symbolism. Of course the wolf is the xenomorph, a feral and wild beast potentially offering incredible strength. And such Kay's unborn yet child drinks the milk of the wolf by being influenced by the extract from the lab that the girl injected herself with. This way the actual Romulus is seen at the very end of the movie, killing his familiar and setting out to murder more. However as I had predicted myself even before watching.. How Romulus built Rome, it also had fallen. And so has he, blasted away onto the astral rings..

[SecretWarriorAW]

I’m a fan of the franchise and this is the first time I see someone make a video essay with a more “philosophical” take on Alien and the interpretation you give it it’s amazing. There’s so much more to them aside the brutality and the whole aliens vs humans. Loved it and subscribed!