AlthoughPrometheus’s biggest unanswered question has effectively been solved byAlien: Romulus, this doesn’t mean that theAlienseries should move on from Ridley Scott’s risky prequel storyline. ByAlien: Romulus’s ending, it was clear thatDon’t Breathedirector Fede Alvarez had done something almost impossible. Despite how infamously knottythe timeline of theAlienmoviesis,Alien: Romulusmanaged to take a story set betweenAlienandAliensand use the plot to make sense ofPrometheus’s many unanswered mysteries. This was quite an achievement consideringAlien: Romulusalso worked as a standalone horror movie.
For those who understandably don’t remember,Prometheustakes place 30 years beforeAlien, which in turn takes place 57 years before the events ofAliens.Prometheussaw its ambitious director Ridley Scott introduce a slew of new elements to the franchise’s lore, from the Engineers to the Black Goo, and leave many of these enigmatically unexplained. By the prequel’s ending,Prometheushad retconned much of theAlien Vs Predatormovies and left the rest of the franchise’s lore harder to unpack. However, the series couldn’t ignorePrometheuseither, since its plot ties into the rest of the series.
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As the upcomingAlien: EarthmakesPrometheus’s story more importantthan ever, it is important to revisit just howAlien: Romulussalvaged the story of the series.Prometheusand its 2017 follow-up,Alien: Covenant, flirted with the idea that Michael Fassbender’s amoral android David created the Xenomorph while attempting to construct the perfect life form. Certainly, David’s creepy experiments inAlien: Covenantimplied as much, and the fact that he used the Black Goo to poison Holloway inPrometheusseemed to confirm this hypothesis.
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Now that Alien: Romulus finally made sense of Prometheus’s prequel promises, one Alien franchise legacy character must return in the next followup.
Theending ofAlien: Covenanteven implied that a victorious David was planning on using the movie’s heroes as test subjects for his next experiments with the Black Goo. However, this didn’t really add up in the larger scheme of the series.Alien Vs Predatordepicted Xenomorphs on Earth as far back as the Stone Age and, even if viewers assume thatPrometheusretconned theAlien Vs Predatormovies entirely, the plot still has holes. The Xenomorph makes more sense as an existing creature than as a bioweapon engineered by a character from the series.
AsAlien: Earthshowrunner Noah Hawley said in an interview withKCRW’s “The Business” podcast, the idea of the Xenomorph as a bioweapon made by Fassbender’s android “Half an hour ago” isn’t as intriguing. Thus,Alien: Romulusall but confirmed that David simply reverse-engineered the Black Goo, suggesting that the Engineers made the Black Goo out of existing Xenomorphs and these predated humanity’s contact with the Engineers. Human DNA, which was created by the Engineers in their own image, was combined with the Black Goo andAlien: Romulusdepicted this producing theEngineer/Xenomorph hybrid the Offspring.
Alien: Romulus’ Black Goo Story Made Prometheus Retroactively Better
Prometheus’s Knotty Chronology Now Makes More Sense
Rather than ignoring it or retconningPrometheus,Alien: Romulusmade Ridley Scott’s prequel easier to follow and understand by clarifying David’s rolein the Xenomorph life cycle. WhilePrometheusandAlien: Covenantweren’t entirely transparent about this point, Alvarez’s movie appears to prove once and for all that Fassbender’s android didn’t create the original Xenomorph. This even makesPrometheus’s title more comprehensible, as the Engineers offered humanity an incredible but lethal gift when the CEO of Weyland-Yutani indirectly found Xenomorph DNA by visiting their home planet.
The idea that the alien existed before the prequel began but was harnessed by David on behalf of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation makes much more sense.
Much like tPrometheus gifted humanity with fire, the Engineers gifted humanity with the perfect killing machine in the form of the Xenomorph. The idea that the alien existed before the prequel began but was harnessed by David on behalf of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation makes much more sense and evenfixesPrometheusandAlien Vs Predator’s seemingly incompatible timelines. In this version of events, the Xenomorphs that were hunted by Predators on Earth could have been sent there by the similarly advanced Engineers for sport.
Alien: Romulus Embraced Prometheus, But Ridley Scott’s Prequel Saga Still Feels Incomplete
The Fate of Michel Fassbender’s David Remains A Mystery
While these minutiae may not seem important,Alien: Romulusclarifying the Xenomorph life cycle without bringing back David was an impressive achievement. Alvarez’s movie offered viewers an effective, intense thrill ride while also making some absurdly over-complicated lore more straightforward and comprehensible, a balance that few franchises have managed when it comes to exposition. However, it is now hard to tell howDavid’sAlienfranchise storyshould end sinceAlien: Romulus rendered his return unnecessary.
AlienandAlien: Romuluscombined to explain how the Weyland-Yutani Corporation got its hands on the Xenomorph.
Viewers still don’t know what happened to David afterAlien: Covenantbut, thanks toAlien: Romulus, this no longer matters as much. In concrete terms, the events ofAlienandAlien: Romuluscombined to explain how the Weyland-Yutani Corporation got its hands on the Xenomorph and knew such a suspiciously large amount about its life cycle inAliens.David’s return isn’t technically necessary anymore, but his arc feels unfinished, which is an awkward way to leave the best new character fromPrometheusandAlien: Covenant.
Will Michael Fassbender’s David Ever Return In An Alien Movie?
An Alien: Romulus Sequel Is Unlikely To Feature The A-List Star
What made David so interesting was the fact that, although he committed some monstrous acts, he did so at the behest of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. David was following the directives laid out for him, which made it hard to tell how much of his villainy was motivated by emotion and how much was simply programming.Alien: Romulus’s Andy was a similarly intriguing character who proved that David’s story still has potential, but this could be a problem for the franchise going forward.
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After all,David’s return to theAlienfranchise doesn’t seem likely afterAlien: Romulus’s ending. WhileAlien: Romulusdid embracePrometheus, it was also a new beginning for the franchise and most reviews cited its self-contained story as a major selling point for the sequel. Alvarez’s movie seemingly proved that lower-budget standalone sequels were the way forward for the series, not ambitious prequels that expanded its existing lore.Alien: Earthcould take on David’s story, but Hawley has already explained his reticence to take this route. Thus, theAlienseries may never explain what became ofPrometheus’s android afterAlien: Romulus.
