Summary
AlthoughAlien: Romulusis one of 2024’s most exciting horror movies, theAlienfranchise outing needs to keep at least some of its surprises a secret.TheAlienmoviesare filled with gruesome surprises. Ever sinceAlien’s original chestburster sceneexploded onto screens in 1979, the franchise has been coming up with new and horrible ways for Xenomorphs to kill its characters. In this regard, theupcomingAlien: Romuluslooks set to do the series proud.
The problem is,Alien: Romulusmay have given away a little too much already. For much of the movie’s production process, everything about its story had been kept strictly under wraps. Until a few months ago, the movie’s cast was all that was known about the upcomingAlienreboot. ThetitleAlien: Romuluswas then revealed, followed by the information that the movie would be set betweenAlienandAliens. Then a veritable deluge of information became available, with the teaser trailer giving away a surprising number of plot details. The full trailer takes this worrying trend even further.
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The Alien: Romulus Trailer Already Spoiled 2 Deaths
Navarro and Bjorn’s Fates Appear To Be Sealed Already
Alien: Romulus’s earliest teaser already included footage of Navarro’s facehugger attack, but the full-length trailer seemingly reveals what happens afterward.
Although these moments may be elaborate fake-outs,the full-lengthAlien: Romulustrailer appears to give away the deaths of both Aileen Wu’s Navarro and Spike Fears Bjorn. Viewers see a facehugger attack Bjorn while he is in a water-filled lab, and the sight of the monster shoving tentacles down his throat implies that he hasn’t got long to live. Similarly, the trailer fleshes out the nightmarish fate of Navarro, whose death was already implied as early as the first teaser trailer forAlien: Romulus. Like Bjorn, Navarro can be seen getting attached by a facehugger in the trailer.
Alien: Romulus’s earliest teaser already included footage of Navarro’s facehugger attack, but the full-length trailer seemingly reveals what happens afterward.Alien: Romulus’s chestburster homagesees Navarro run a medical device across her chest, illuminating the cavity and revealing the silhouette of a Xenomorph in her ribcage. Although anyone watching anAlienmovie is aware that the main characters are mostly doomed,Alien: Romulus’s cast is notably small. There are only six named characters and this trailer seemingly spoiled two of their deaths, meaning the plot is becoming increasingly predictable. Other available story details make this problem worse.
Director Fede Álvarez Has Said He Hates Trailers That Spoil Things
Alien: Romulus’ Director Has Some Ironic Thoughts On Trailers
Viewers also know, thanks to interviews with Álvarez and star Cailee Spaeny, that Spaeny’s character Rain and her surrogate android brother Andy are major figures in the sequel’s story. Assuming that Rain survives the movie, this means that there are only two remaining potential victims among the movie’s human cast.Alien: Romulus’s Andy storyline may be heartbreaking, but the character’s death is unlikely to be as viscerally gruesome as those of his human co-stars. Ironically, Álvarez himself is on the record complaining about spoiler-filled trailers.
In an interview withThe Movie PodcastaboutAlien: Romulus’s first teaser trailer, Álvarez said his favorite parts of the teaser trailer are “what you don’t see.” This comment is strikingly ironic since the full-length trailer forAlien: Romulusappears to have given away a huge amount of the movie’s plot details. Álvarez went on to say that he “hates spoilers,” noting that he spent years working onAlien: Romulussolely for the two hours that viewers will spend in the theater on opening night. Álvarez even said “athing that steals from that moment is a bad thing” forAlien: Romulus.
With A Small Cast, The Next Trailer Can’t Give More Away
Alien: Romulus Is Running Out Of Major Character Deaths To Spoil
Focusing on Rain and Andy’s interactions or giving Isabela Merced’s Kay and Archie Renaud’s Tyler more screen time could allow viewers to get invested inAlien: Romulus’s characters and not just their deaths.
Alien: Romulusneeds to follow the advice of its own director with the movie’s next trailer. Theexciting horror franchise rebootstill looks promising but, unless Navarro and Bjorn’s trailer fates were part of a simulation or something equally outlandish, it will be tough for the movie to surprise viewers. To be fair to Álvarez, even his weaker movies are filled with genuinely nasty moments that are engineered to subvert the expectations of hardened horror viewers. That said, there is only so much the director can do if allAlien: Romulus’ best deaths have already been revealed early.
As such,Alien: Romulus’ next trailer should prioritize its characters instead of revealing more death scenes. Focusing on Rain and Andy’s interactions or giving Isabela Merced’s Kay and Archie Renaud’s Tyler more screen time could allow viewers to get invested inAlien: Romulus’s characters and not just their deaths. WhileAlien: Romulus’s trailers to date have given away a lot of deaths, they haven’t revealed much else. The world the heroes live in, their relationships with each other, and their connections to the world of theAlienfranchise could all be the focus ofAlien: Romulus’s next, more enigmatic trailer.
