Alien: Romulus is here, and the film – about a group of young people (Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu) who travel to an abandoned space station to get fuel for their trip away from their remote mining planet – definitely has some unsolved mysteries. That’s especially true if you don’t have a PhD in alien research. One plot point at the end of the film has a particularly big question mark hanging over it.
But to address this particular element, we need to Big spoiler warning.
Watch the film and come back. This article will still be here.
What plot point are you talking about?
Towards the end of the film, when our heroes have almost left the terrible space station known as the Renaissance, which is split into two parts (Remus and Romulus), they receive a new order from Rook (played by Daniel Betts, but looks and sounds like Ian Holm’s Ash from the original Alien). Rook says that they need to get a vial of blackish slime off the space station. This is of huge importance to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. And it is also of huge importance to the Alien franchise.
What does goo mean?
Rook refers to it as “the Prometheus strain” and says that Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) was looking for it on the doomed mission documented in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. They managed to reverse engineer it from the aliens aboard the space station. Rook says it will help humans evolve into “perfect organisms” just like the aliens themselves.
What role does it play in the final act of the film?
Well, as Rook stresses the safety of the slime, we see surveillance footage of a rat being injected with the serum. In a nice nod to one of the more memorable moments in Alien: Covenant, the direct sequel to Prometheus, we see something erupt from the rat’s spine. (Instead of a chestbreaker, this creature was referred to as a backbreaker in the lead-up to Alien: Covenant.) Later in the film, an injured Kay (Merced) injects herself with the fluid. She is also, it should be noted, pregnant.
What happens next?
As Kay, Rain (Spaeny) and Andy (Jonsson) prepare to lift off from the space station, Kay “gives birth” to a creature that is equal parts alien, human and engineer (the big white guys who created the aliens and the liquid). The creature, dubbed “Offspring” in the credits, kills Kay – it looks like the Offspring suckles at her breast, but the details were apparently edited out by squeamish executives – and then goes in search of Rain, who is determined to stop it. (By this point, Andy is already in cryosleep.)
The is what the black goo does?
Well, sort of.
What does this mean?
In both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the slime does a lot of things – it impregnates a character with a giant, snarling starfish-like creature; it also killed an entire planet full of engineers when it detonated in the atmosphere; it’s also a key component in the creation of the aliens as we know them today. It does a lot of things, so creating a giant, hybridized bastard isn’t a big deal. This is truly the Swiss Army knife of slimes.
And does it even make sense in the context of “Alien: Romulus”?
The story of Alien: Romulus takes place between Alien and Aliens, so the events of Prometheus and the founder’s failed mission are definitely common knowledge. And since the company is constantly messing around with the aliens, it makes sense that they’re trying to recreate the slime as well. This film borrows liberally from almost every other Alien installment, so it’s not too much to ask for something to borrow from Prometheus.
“Alien: Romulus” is now in theaters.
