Prometheus: Things I thought I'd never say.

Like the black goo, there's something in there.

In the build up to seeing Alien: Romulus, I decided I’d watch Alien (1979) and Prometheus (2012) by way of a mood-setter. As it happens, I’m glad I did, as it turns out they’d be the biggest components in terms of Romulus and where the story would go.

Obviously, I adore Alien. It’s one of the greatest films ever made - bursting at the seams with intricate performances and production design, an endless utopia of brilliant things. It never, ever gets old, but instead ages like fine wine, with each viewing better than the last.

I have a very complicated relationship with Prometheus, however. I hated when I first saw it. It felt like a grand performance where the main actor hadn’t turned up. There were beautiful landscapes, sumptuous music, great casting, but I felt like it just let itself down - laying out the components for a grand feast, only to deliver starters.

Upon many revisits when it popped up on Disney+ I found that I started to really admire it, much like Ash admires the Xenomorph itself. I applaud the big swings it takes, and the world it builds around the legend. Were it not for some serious faults (Fifield and Milburn turning into Scooby-Doo and Shaggy for one), it would be up there with the best of the series for me.

While I’m not enamoured with the idea of the Engineers, as it could have been any random alien, I do like the idea of the way they create life, I just wish it hadn’t have robbed us of the mystery of the Space Jockey.

I love the idea of the pre-historic Facehugger; a giant beast of a thing, that through thousands of years of evolution, eventually settled on the creature we later see in the original film.

There is no doubt that the M.V.P. of the film is the black goo; a wonderful idea. Life itself, but whatever it touches turns to malformed and ugly evil - only wanting to destroy - like a galactic Pet Sematary. It’s a lovely ret-con catch-all that can easily throw a blanket over this entire world, and sets up other avenues of ideas.

In fact, the more I see Prometheus, the more I get annoyed with just how much of a miss Alien: Covenant is; a bland, hodgepodge of Prometheus and Alien, eventually becoming a bland clone of the latter that is only really remembered for David talking about fingering his flute. In fact the problem was that it feels like David became the main point of focus, when really we should be seeing what evil the goo can truly achieve (apart from the inconsistencies of turning the people of the planet into statues).

The planet in Covenant should be a menagerie of strange beasts, roaming the forests and grasslands - a planet infected by the crash landing and chemical spill that followed, but clearly the message from on-high was to get a Xenomorph in there, and get the same ending we’ve seen many times before.

The goo is the key. We all love the Xenomorph, but the goo itself can give them other things to play with, and that’s where Romulus comes in. It clearly recognised that utilising the goo can give new elements and not just rely on the Alien itself. This is evident by the fact that there’s little screen time given to them, and more to the Facehuggers and the precious material they need to capture. The “offspring” that surfaces at the end of the film, is a good idea, and very well executed - particularly with the way it grows and matures in front of our eyes; a tail growing, along with the back tubes slowly beginning to protrude. However it needed more exploration, much like all action beats in the film, it’s just in too big a hurry, and all we’re left with is glances.

The thing I thought I would never say is that I’d much rather a deeper dive into the goo, or “Agent A0-3959X. 91-15” (as it’s called in Romulus) in future films, if only to see once and for all what it can truly do when it’s unleashed, as so far it’s all seemed a bit too vague.