Alien: Romulus is finally out, and you know it’s a true Alien sequel because it immediately weirded out fans and moviegoers alike.
Even though it’s currently sitting at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, many are criticizing the movie for its supposed blatant lack of originality. This is the first Alien movie to come out since Disney’s acquisition of FOX, so the accusation that Romulus is the Force Awakens of the series seems fitting.
A large part of the new film feels old, like a wacky collage of small higher-budgeted remakes of the best moments in the entire series, but I think that one moment specifically is actually a ripoff of an Alien-unrelated property.
Spoilers for the final act of Alien: Romulus below:
Bloodborne: In space (?)
If you’re a fan of the Alien series, you might reach the final act, look at the movie’s new main baddie, and gasp, “I’ve been fooled into watching Alien Resurrection again?!” I wouldn’t blame you, as the creature — and its origin story — seems to mimic that film’s “Newborn,” a Xenomorph that somehow features more human DNA than those that come out of a human being’s chest.
They both even die in a similar way, as the acid that runs through their veins ends up proving their undoing.
Still, gamers might spot the parallels between this new type of Xenomorph and the Orphan Of Kos from the masterful Bloodborne The Old Hunters DLC.
Now, I sadly cannot yet provide you with an image of the final monster from Alien: Romulus, I can ask you to picture a much taller and skinnier version of the Engineers from Prometheus:
They look very similar — down to those haunting black eyes — but they’re even more similar on a thematic level. This new lifeform, even though it’s born out of a human womb, remains a Xenomorph. Orphan of Kos isn’t born out of a human being but looks like one.
The world of Bloodborne is in constant need of cyclical cleansing because humans keep messing with and consuming something called “old blood.” That’s alien blood that will make its consumers feel great but ultimately turn them into monsters. If many monsters in Bloodborne resemble humans, that’s because they were humans at some point. Orphan of Kos, however, is an old one that was born out of a hideous fish-like old one that didn’t look human at all, but Orphan of Kos itself has a human-like figure.
Orphan, just like the final beast from Alien: Romulus, could only have come to be because someone messed with the wrong chemical. That’ makes sense’s another parallel, as where Bloodborne features the aforementioned “old blood,” the Alien series features the “black goo”, a mysterious pathogen introduced in Prometheus that will “improve” any living thing’s DNA to the point of turning it into a monstrous killing machine.
I’m not going to say that director Fede Alvarez sneakily copied both the looks and the themes of his biggest addition to the franchise, but we all know he’s a big video game fan, so…
Published: Aug 18, 2024 09:04 am