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Alien: Romulus (Alvarez 2024)
Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the 2024 film Alien: Romulus, directed by F. Alvarez and co-written by F. Alvarez and R. Sayagues.
Any horror or sci-fi fan knows that the Alien-verse has had an uneven history. From Scott’s Alien (1979) and Cameron’s Aliens (1986) that have stood the test of time to Scott’s Prometheus and Covenant that are … fine? Anyhow, Romulus fall somewhere on the high side of the middle. It doesn’t reach the heights of the first two, but it is far more entertaining and sensical than some of the other entries. And more importantly for us, it has solid messaging and representation including being anti-corporate and having diversity of representation.
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SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE
Alien: Romulus (Alvarez 2024)
Alien (Scott 1979)
Aliens (Cameron 1986)
Minor spoilers
Alien 3 (Fincher 1992)
Alien: Resurrection (Jeunet 1997)
Prometheus (Scott 2012)
Alien vs Predator (Anderson 2004)
Alien vs Predator: Requiem (Strause and Strause 2007)
TOPIC INDEX – Alien: Romulus (Alvarez 2024) (times are approximate)
0:30 – Introductions
3:15 – Film discussion begins without spoilers
3:15 – overall thoughts without spoilers, we strongly recommend viewing the film before listening to our full episode
3:15 – recapping our Alien/Aliens episode and our history with the Alienverse
9:00 – overall impressions of this film
13:00 – the safe Hollywood requel formula
24:00 – representation
35:00 – phallic slashers, yonic possessions, and the Alien universe
41:30 – the alien creature concept devolution
45:00 – specio-centrism and cooperative evolutionary strategies
56:00 – are the aliens better?
1:00:00 – the root nature of the social contract
1:14:00 – most interesting questions in the world: tribalism
1:27:00 – sociology moment: comparison to Clover’s discussion of urban/rural
1:33:01 – evolution of AI depictions in sci-fi
1:46:30 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility
1:48:00 – yapping about AMC putting ads between trailers and films
1:57:15 – Final Destination Bloodlines, Prey, and such
Related Episodes
Alien and Aliens (Scott and Cameron)
Crawl (Aja 2019)
Related Films
Companion (Hancock 2025)
Credits
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“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”
Episode 148