The Reel Rejects - ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024) MOVIE REVIEW! FIRST TIME WATCHING!

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Starting point is 00:00:57 This week's videos are sponsored by Acorns. the money app that makes it simple and cheap to make small yet significant investments. Shall we watch? Yes, we shall. Let's do it. We just got finished watching Alien Romulus. If you're listening to us on Apple or Spotify,

Starting point is 00:01:18 give us a five-star writing, go and like all of our stuff by the Reject Nation shop stuff, just do the stuff. Wow. I'm still kind of in shocks. I'm also in shock. This movie was freaking amazing. It hit home with having the heart and the emotion

Starting point is 00:01:40 that we wanted that I have been saying I missed an alien one. When we start with the camarader, we have to feel what these people are going through. I want to care about the freaking characters. And I do in this film, which makes all the rest of it just like Goosebump City,

Starting point is 00:01:57 when they're going through it and people are like dying off and then oh my god we have a xenomorph human I can't that's going to be stuck in my brain forever I love rain I love the relationship that she has with Andy um I like that the a hole died quickly I hated him um you guys know who I'm talking about I don't even remember his name Bjorn oh wow he he remembered his name uh okay jerk face um I think mainly what I really want to see and what a movie would want us to do is like to just we want more. I want more of Andy and Rain together fighting off like because she's she's very much like Ripley like a strong independent woman who's ready to kick ass is smart and takes matters into her own hands but also has a really good moral code. She did not need to go back for Andy and then spend 30 more

Starting point is 00:02:52 minutes and then finding out like this human freaking xenomorph is with her right like what a crazy adventure I loved really every part of it I thought it was amazing you guys can get into it well since you guys did the

Starting point is 00:03:07 alien journey together I let you go first down go have at it oh man I love this movie it was great just echoing the same sentiments that Tara said here the fact that it led with its heart the fact that we're invested in these characters It was also so rewarding watching all the alien films with Terra because there are so many references that were present throughout the film. Also, it uses the mythology in a clever way to advance this story.

Starting point is 00:03:34 But the fact that it was able to take its time, the fact that it was patient and it used not only its setting to elevate the plot, but allowed it to fully breathe. I want to say that this movie hands down is better than most of them because it because it leads with that heart, because it leads with characters, because it knows how to utilize its environment in a smart way. It did like Alien 1 and Alien 2. I mean, Alien and Aliens with the fact that it started off with one xenomorph. And then by we get to like the middle of the second act, beginning of the third act, it gives us like a gang of xenomorphs.

Starting point is 00:04:15 But also the fact that it used so many facehuggers was. also really cool. Yes. Yeah. Also, uh, chesty shirt, go buy that. Uh, we, we love it over there. Uh, but anyway, this movie was crazy and I'm going to be thinking about it for a minute. Absolutely. Um, yeah, that's my brief thoughts right now. Andrew, what did you think? Um, this film represents everything that's so wonderful and incredible about the first and the second film. It respects the lore while also doing its own thing. And I, that's what I love about it. I love that the film, to, like really does a good job of setting up these characters and really gets us emotionally invested so quickly

Starting point is 00:04:54 with Andy and with rain. Like we understand like, okay, very low population. Waylon Yutani is screwing over the people. And now we've got our characters. We've got our stakes. And we understand like their motivations. And I think, you know, Alien is one of the very first films as well as Terminator, like to give us our first female

Starting point is 00:05:15 badass characters. You know what I mean? in Ellen Ripley. And I got to say, I really, really, I know it's recency biased. I don't care. Go at me in the comments. I really, really liked Rain a lot. And I know, like, Tara made the great point. Like, she did not have to go back. And I know it's kind of a callback to Ellen Ripley going back after Newt because obviously she had just lost her daughter. Now it's kind of her, it is her surrogate daughter at this point. So she goes back for her. And also, like, Andy, even though it's, it is her brother, basically and also represents like the good memory she has with her father. So like those little

Starting point is 00:05:50 tender moments for me. I'm like, that's what made me fall in love with alien and aliens. Yes, the horror and the creature effects and all that. Of course, I love all that too. But you give me the characters and that's why I always go back to when I tell people why I love alien and aliens and jaws. Like those are my, just off the top of my head, those are my three staples of my favorite horror films. It's the characters. It's those tender moments. It's the heartfelt tender moments, like that make you, it elevates the horror elements because it's like, we actually give a shit. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:20 So that's why I'm like, this is just so well made. And I got to say, too, I did not for one second, whether it was in the action scenes, whether it was in some exposition dumps that were so well done. Because if you know me, when it comes to exposition dumps, it's got to be natural talks with our characters where they're actually dumping information to, are these natural conversations they would be having? or is it our audience is dumb, let's just tell our audience this

Starting point is 00:06:45 because we don't trust them to understand this. And these were totally natural conversations for the most part. I loved all the exposition dumps. But the point I'm making is I just thought the pacing in this film was absolutely incredible. You never felt it for a second

Starting point is 00:06:57 and didn't drag it all. And also it didn't feel overpaced and what I mean by that, it's like, okay, everything's happening too quick. Like, give me a second to breathe here. It's like, just enough was just very well balanced on all ends. I mean, just really well done.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And the scope of this film, the way it was shot, the cinematography, the visuals. And also at the time, we mentioned it a couple times during the reaction. Like, they did such a good job, even though it's such a big budget. They make it feel like it's coming right off of the 79 film and in between the 86 film. Like the way they use stock footage and all that and the way they grain it out. I'm like, it really feels like we're in 79 with a big budget. I'm like, I, the appreciation, the tender, love, and care that Fetti Alvarez and everyone who worked on this,

Starting point is 00:07:40 like there's so much blood, sweat, and tears. You can just feel it oozing off the screen, bursting out of your chest. It's just, I, seriously, I really appreciate the dedication that they do. And again, I love the characters of Rain and Andy so much. Isn't that my name? Shouldn't I remember this? I love the character of Rain and Andy so much that I just, I really want to see the story.

Starting point is 00:08:04 I would really be sad. I mean, again, if they don't continue, I'll be grateful that we got this film, but I will also be sad at the same. same point because I'd love to see the journey continue yeah I would too I don't know if you guys caught it but like when she puts her forehead to Andy that's exactly what Ripley did with newt and I just thought that was such a sweet little like callback and I really loved the the rebox especially because if you guys remember in one I reckon I saw those rebaks I was like those she has cool kicks on can you guys please find those for me and some of you did actually

Starting point is 00:08:39 send me a link to them, but they're like on eBay for like $600, right? Because they don't make them anymore. But I really appreciate you guys for doing that. And so that was such a fun moment when I was like, oh my God, the shoes. I don't think, I don't know if they're exactly the type, but they're very, very close. And I super appreciate that. I thought that was a lot of fun. I don't really have any more thoughts, but these guys might. I just want to say that I really, really enjoyed this movie. I think the reason why I didn't really comment a ton on the cinematography or really the music, it's because from like top to bottom, it all was just like 10 out of 10. It was all really, really gorgeous and very mesmerizing, especially from the top.

Starting point is 00:09:23 It's kind of just, it's hard to sort of talk through this movie because of how good it is. That it was hard for me to even like go, uh-huh. It is just, I felt very enamored with the entire thing, and I'm very glad that this movie was made. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited to shout out today's sponsor because it is an app that I have been using since before we partnered with them, which just makes my job easy, and I just get to share with you something I really do love. And that is the Acorns app. Because money's involved, I researched them extensively to make sure, like, they've got to be legit, right? You can find so many positive reviews on them. There's one person here, they themselves gave me a very positive.

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Starting point is 00:11:44 Acorns advisor LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash rejects. I highly recommend this app. So please go ahead. Download it. Thank you again. Yeah. Go ahead with your guys's little final thoughts.

Starting point is 00:11:57 I think he's doing trivia. Yeah, you go ahead. Yeah, it does a good job at Underreference. understanding what made the franchise so popular in the first place what made us so endeared with that first movie it is the characters it is the slow pace it is the the tension the buildup also you go back to that thing about the immorality of of the wayland um was whalen corporation but way in the utani utani corporation yeah and all it being about you know the the discovery the the the profit the just the the seedy nature of what that company kind of entails and then tying that back to something that seemed a little bit more loosely related like a Prometheus was very clever and then having that build and then using that as an homage and honoring the history of even some of the alien movies that weren't as popular like the fact that it was a human xenomorph DNA hybrid which honors alien resurrection but also honoring the the history of the engineers with it coming from the prometheus fire and so that the stuff was so cool and this movie just has a really good concept of why we go to the movies in the first place for sure because yeah you it's it's just so wild watching all of these within the past like what three

Starting point is 00:13:21 or four months that we've done this pretty much and seeing how much of them are like yeah I don't remember that character's name we're like yeah like okay like that was cool I've seen these kind of beats before, but the fact that it's able to still capitalize and make something entertaining, despite of the fact that it's doing things that are familiar while also adding things that are new and like horrific in a way we probably never even imagine they could do before. The concept of seeing a thousand or however many facehuggers climbing walls as people are trying to escape is terrifying.

Starting point is 00:13:55 The fact that we're able to see xenomorphs in a small area like we've seen before, but the fact that we're playing with gravity now we're now playing with the concept the fact that we know that their blood is acid and using that as a plot pointed to further the the adventure and i love the fact that a movie that's well written right typically does one of two things if not both it does something that is going to advance the plot like like either our characters have to take actions or their movie stopping to have a cool action scene um to do something that we're familiar with if it's part of a franchise and it's movies able to do both and also advancing the mythology like having it have the facehugger seek out like the heat and the body temperature

Starting point is 00:14:41 and having that build to the tension of what we're experiencing. I think all of it was great. It's a very well written movie and I'm happy that we have the chance to experience it together. And then to your point, that's what I was going to,

Starting point is 00:14:52 that's kind of what I was referring to when I was saying like it's all the best parts of one and two plus adding so much lore and adding so much new dynamic. to those films like I love the inventiveness of what you were just mentioning like that scene where they're walking with the facehuggers like yeah we've seen facehuggers before and it is terrifying whenever there are facehuggers but now you have a scene where like there's a bunch of them in one room and like you can't get goose like you add all these little cool little rules to I'm like holy shit like I've never been so terrified in a room full of facehuggers and like the fact that they were able to do that just with with some dialogue like that obviously giving some stakes in the situation but like I love that and then you got that uh other thing with the craven. I'm like, I just love the inventiveness of the, I don't know how you come up with such an incredible idea, but I love the way they used it. And again, it shows how just how resourceful and how quick on her feet, Rain's character was as well. So you come up with a cool

Starting point is 00:15:45 scene while also making our character extremely intellectual. And I just, I appreciate that so much. Visually sick. And it just elevates the character. I'm like double positives for me. Yeah. And I just want to add one thing. I like the fact that we're able to add to the mythology without contradicting things we've learned before. Like the fact that we always see the alien go from the chestburster to a full form xenomorph. Like, okay, how does that happen? Oh, it sheds and has like another cocoon form it goes through before it becomes the full fledg xenomorph that we know. I'm like, okay, that's so smart. I'm surprised we've never done that before. And yeah, and also the heat seeking thing, Like I mentioned earlier, I'm like, yes, this stuff is great.

Starting point is 00:16:27 This makes sense why it goes for life forms. It's literally just seeking the closest thing with a body temperature or with a raised attention to harvest on. And yeah, I just, I really enjoyed it. But I think Andrew has some facts for us. Yes. So director Feddy Alvarez sought out the special effects crew from aliens to work out the creatures, physical sets, practical creatures and miniatures were used whenever possible. to help ground later VFX work.

Starting point is 00:16:56 Yes. The film's production design draws not only on the previous film in the series, but also the alien isolation video game, including the emergency communication stations, which served as safe points in the game. Fetty Alvarez played the game, which I also did too. Around the time, Don't Breathe, was released, and later said I was playing and realizing how terrifying alien could be

Starting point is 00:17:16 if you took it, take it back to that tone. I remember that game freaked the shit out of me. Scared me so much. I never played it. Never played. Well, you live with someone who has. it. Can you please?

Starting point is 00:17:25 Yeah, you can play it whenever you want. Callie. Cali, said that this film takes place between alien and aliens. It takes place in the year

Starting point is 00:17:33 21, 42, exactly 20 years after alien situated 21, 22, and 37 years before aliens. All right. An early scene has a drinking bird toy

Starting point is 00:17:43 on the table, a similar toy featured in the original alien and again in Alien 3. The fictional chronology of all the films in the alien

Starting point is 00:17:52 franchise is as follows Prometheus. Alien Covenant, Alien, Alien Romulus, aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, although Alien Isolation is not a film. The game is events, which occur in 21, 37, 5 years before Romulus, are considered to be officially part of the alien canon

Starting point is 00:18:08 and director Fetty Alvarez has acknowledged the game's aesthetic influence on the film. The film was shot completely chronologically, which does not always happen. Holy crap. I'm sure that made the actor's lives a lot easier. That is so much easier when you should. shoot a film and it's chronological. Especially

Starting point is 00:18:26 for a continuity team as well. Okay. So we'll do... Just do two more. Two more. Director Fetti Alvarez used a remote control soundboard connected to a loud speakers around the set to spook the cast during shooting. It contained various sounds of xenomorphs and alarms. That's awesome. That's a lot of fun. I would love

Starting point is 00:18:42 if Tara was on set. Oh God. That's just screaming all the time. Director Fetti Alvarez says that the film does not upset the canon of the larger alien universe and that James Cameron helped on a script level with the new story. Ooh, love that.

Starting point is 00:18:56 Okay. James Cameron coming in. That is very, very cool. Listen, we love you guys. We obviously love this movie. Ten out of ten for us. Amazing. What a blast.

Starting point is 00:19:06 Make sure that you like this, comment, share this with friends and family, have them join and watch Alien Romulus with us. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Make sure that you go to Rejectnation shop.com. Check out Aaron's new shirt with the chesties. They're in the cereal. They're doing some stuff.

Starting point is 00:19:20 You can also get this spooky sweater and other Reject Nation shirts at rejetnationshop.com. Join Patreon. You know it's what's good for you. You get super sexy over there. Follow us on social media. You know what to do. We love you guys and we'll see you on the next one.

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The Reel Rejects - ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024) MOVIE REVIEW! FIRST TIME WATCHING!

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