Episode 101: Alien: Romulus & Alien

Cinema in Context

The Alien franchise. Sarah Watt, Jeremy Downing and William Chen discuss Alien (1979) and Alien: Romulus (2024), as well as Aliens (1986), Alien³ (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997), Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017). Our conversation dips in and out of all these films, praising and critiquing the work of directors Ridley Scott, Fede Alvarez, James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. We praise the performances of Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Winona Ryder, Michael Fassbender, Cailee Spaeny, David Johnson and Spike Fearn. We consider the human-android-alien-company relationships throughout all the films, with Ripley, Ash, Bishop, Call, David, Walter, Andy and Rook. We celebrate the production design of the original and new film, and how the latest entry into the franchise harks back to its predecessors. We discuss the lore of the Alien franchise, considering the stages of the titular monster through the queen, egg, face-hugger, chest-burster, xenomorph, "The Newborn" alien hybrid, black goo and now cocoon and "The Offspring". We discuss our predictions of where the Alien franchise might go from here.