It took a while forPrometheus’s place in theAlienfranchise to make sense, but 2024’s latest installment proves the prequel improved the series as a whole.TheAlienmoviesall have their defenders and their critics but, broadly speaking, the critical trajectory of the series isn’t subject to debate. Ridley Scott’s 1979 horrorAlienis considered a masterpiece, while its 1986 sequelAliensis considered an equally impressive, if not even better, follow-up. The rest oftheAlienmovies ranklower, although their specific order changes depending on the viewer.
Director David Fincher’s bleakAlien 3is universally viewed as a disappointment compared toAlienandAliens, but some reviewers prefer it to 1997’s offbeat, blackly comicAlien: Resurrectionfrom director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. While theAlien Vs Predatormovies are almost universally reviled, the reception ofScott’s divisive 2012 prequelPrometheusis more complicated. For some viewers, the long-awaited blockbuster is over-ambitious but laudable, while others found it ponderous, overlong, and lacking in the franchise’s trademark tension. 2017’sAlien: Covenant, while undeniably more effective as a straightforward horror, provided few definitive answers to the mysteries left open byPrometheus.
Prometheus Has Made The Alien Franchise More Interesting
The Plot Of Prometheus Permanently Altered The Weyland-Yutani Story
Fortunately, director Fede Alvarez’s 2024 sequelAlien: Romuluschanged the legacy of Scott’s controversial sequels. ByAlien: Romulus’ ending,Prometheushad gone from a curio whose place in the series timeline was hard to define to a pivotal part of the franchise story. This was a bold move by Alvarez, but one that was overdue for the franchise as a whole. After all, for better or worse,Prometheus’s story changed theAlienfranchise’s lore drasticallyand opened up a lot of new possibilities in the process.
By explaining more about the Engineers, introducing the Black Goo which is central to its plot, and revealing just how long the Weyland-Yutani Corporation had known about the Xenomorph’s existence,PrometheusmadeAlien’s simple story far more complex. After seeingAlien, a viewer could have been forgiven for assuming the movie’s main characters were just luckless space truckers who answered the wrong transmission.Prometheusproved that the Xenomorph’s relationship with their employers had deeper roots than the original movie revealed andAlien: Romulussolidified this.
Prometheus Is Not The Best Alien, But It’s Essential To The Franchise Now
Alien: Romulus Made Prometheus’s Story Indispensable
AlthoughAlien: Romulusis set betweenAlienandAliens, its plot pays off many elements established inPrometheus.The Black Goo ofPrometheusis revealed to be Z-01, a substance the corporation used in an attempt to create superhuman Xenomorph-human hybrids who would be capable of surviving long-term space travel and adverse conditions.Alien: Romulusalso revealed that David’s experiments fromAlien: Covenantmay have found their way back to a Weyland-Yutani lab after the sequel’s events ended.
Viewers can no longer just writePrometheusoff afterAlien: Romulusproved that the events of the movie led to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s further research into the Xenomorph’s life cycle.
The plot ofPrometheusis now pivotal to the world of theAlienmoviesthanks toAlien: Romulus’s additions to the lore of the series, which marry Scott’s prequels to the original movie timeline. Viewers can no longer just writePrometheusoff afterAlien: Romulusproved that the events of the movie led to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s further research into the Xenomorph’s life cycle. The missing link that lay betweenPrometheus’s ending andAlien’s beginning was revealed not byAlien: Covenant, but byAlien: Romulus(even though the sequel takes place afterAlien’s ending).
Alien: Romulus Chose The Right Things To Bring Back From Prometheus
Alvarez’s Reboot Helpfully Condensed Prometheus’s Complicated Lore
WithAlien: Romulus, Alvarez streamlined the lore of the franchise and brought its story full circle.Alien: Romulus’ new monster the Offspringlooking like an Engineer after the Black Goo was combined with human and Xenomorph DNA gave viewers an idea of how the three species were related. Xenomorphs appear to be a bioweapon first developed by the Engineers in an attempt to make themselves more lethal and resilient, and the Engineers remain the original species that begat both aliens and humanity inPrometheus.
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Alien: Romulusbrought back the right elements fromPrometheus, leaving behind the high-minded philosophizing of Scott’s prequels in favor of a plot that explained exactly how the Engineers crossed paths with humans and why it mattered. The android Rook broke down the Corporation’s plans to create superhuman andKay injecting herself with K-01 explained what the Black Goo does to living people and their offspring. AlthoughPrometheus’ prequel storydid feature human characters dying after exposure to K-01, the connection between the Black Goo and Xenomorph-human hybrids was less clear.
There Is Still One Prometheus Story Left To Be Concluded
Alien: Covenant Never Explained The Fate Of Michael Fassbender’s David
Despite all this clarification, I still came away fromAlien: Romulusstumped by one lingering mystery. The question of what happened to David afterAlien: Covenant’s twist ending remains unclear and, although viewers could piece together his plot from the tie-in comics, his arc still feels unfinished. From what viewers see inAlien: Romulus, viewers could infer that David must have reconnected with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, as this would explain how they got a hold of Xenomorphs in the first place.
Alien: Romulus Was A Stealth Sequel To Ridley Scott’s $403 Million Sci-Fi Movie That Remains Controversial 13 Years Later
Although Alien: Covenant was meant to follow up Prometheus’s story, Alien: Romulus is secretly a better sequel to Ridley Scott’s divisive prequel.
However, this isn’t a satisfying answer on its own. After all, viewers know that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation may have first found Xenomorphs to work with after Ripley’s encounter on the Nostromo, so David’s fate isn’t entirely clear. Furthermore, after thebleak twist ending ofAlien: Covenant,viewers never got closure for the character. Even if viewers assume that David did continue his experiments and created more neomorphs by using human victims as vectors for his experiments, it is not clear how long he spent doing this or when he reported back to the Corporation.
Addressing the question of David’s unclear motivations requires his presence, not merely a mention inAlien: Romulus’ follow-up.
While the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is infamously amoral, it is still likely that they might have a problem with David indiscriminately killing people for his experiments. Moreover,it is not clear whether David experimented on people for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s sake or for his own ends, and any answer to this question would require a follow-up that features Fassbender returning to the role. Addressing the question of David’s unclear motivations requires his presence, not merely a mention inAlien: Romulus’ follow-up. Thus,Prometheus’ best character must return in a futureAlienproject to wrap up this unfinished plot.
