AlthoughPrometheushad a pair of major issues that made theAlienprequel less enjoyable, both of these problems have since been solved by the series. TheAlienmovies vary in terms of qualityand, when originalAliendirector Ridley Scott returned to the franchise in 2012, the series had reached a low point. The originalAlientimeline, running from 1979’sAlienuntil 1997’sAlien: Resurrection, had lost the approval of critics and fans with its later outings.
WhileAlienand its 1986 sequelAlienswere well regarded, both 1990’sAlien 3and 1997’sAlien: Resurrectionwere divisive failures.TheAlien Vs Predatormoviesfared even worse, with 2004’sAlien Vs Predatorgarnering terrible reviews and 2007’sAliens Vs Predator: Requiemsomehow outdoing its predecessor. Within this context, the mixed reviews that metPrometheuswere the best reception the franchise had enjoyed in decades. However,Prometheusstill had major issues that both fans and reviewers were quick to note.
Prometheus’ Cast Made Inexplicable Choices and Its Lore Was Impenetrably Dense
Prometheushad two major problems that stopped theAlienprequel from feeling like a classic entry into the series. The first was that the characters, a supposedly well-trained, professional team of scientists, engineers, and archaeologists, made some blatantly irresponsible decisions that the average viewer could call out as mindless. The second was that, with its focus on the Engineers and the Black Goo,Prometheusmade the Xenomorph life cycle even more complicated than it seemed in earlierAlienmovies.
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AlthoughMichael Fassbender’sPrometheuscharacter Davidwas fascinating, his plans for the Black Goo and their links to the Xenomorph were impossible to discern. It wasn’t clear if Xenomorphs existed beforePrometheus’s story began and David was trying to reverse-engineer their DNA, or if they did not exist yet . nd he was trying to create them as a bioweapon. Furthermore, it wasn’t clear how the Black Goo contributed to the creation of a Xenomorph, nor what link Xenomorphs had to the Engineers.
Although 2017’s directPrometheussequelAlien: Covenantfailed to make the life cycle of the Xenomorph any clearer, director Fede Alvarez’sAlien: Romulusoffered a more straightforward piece of exposition that effectively clarified things.
Fortunately, both these frustrating issues were well handled in 2024’s sequelAlien: Romulus. Although 2017’s directPrometheussequelAlien: Covenantfailed to make the life cycle of the Xenomorph any clearer, director Fede Alvarez’sAlien: Romulusoffered a more straightforward piece of exposition that effectively clarified things.Alien: RomulussolvedPrometheus’s biggest mysteryby confirming that David was reverse-engineering an existing alien’s DNA, not inventing the first Xenomorph. Meanwhile, the bad decisions made by the movie’s heroes were much easier to excuse.
Alien: Romulus’ Young Cast Avoided Prometheus’ “Dumb Characters” Mistake
Not only was the cast ofAlien: Romulusa lot younger than that ofPrometheus, which made them seem more vulnerable and inexperienced, but they also weren’t experts in their field. Instead,Alien: Romulus’ young heroes were poverty-stricken colonists attempting to escape their miserable existence on a Weyland-Yutani mining planet by hitching a ride via the titular abandoned space station.The dumb choices made byAlien: Romulus’ protagonists were terrifyingly believable thanks to their inexperience, and this made them more likable and tragic rather than annoying.
The way thatAlien: Romulussuccessfully solvedPrometheus’s dumb character issuewasn’t by making the characters far smarter and more clear thinking, but by making them more inexperienced and hapless. It was hard to watch the young colonists be outsmarted by Xenomorphs and the ship’s surviving android Rook at every turn, but it was also thoroughly believable since they had barely any idea of life outside their hellish home world. Their fates were tragic but, critically, believable and rooted in their characterization.
Alien: Romulus Made The Xenomorph Lifecycle Less Confusing Than Prometheus
Rook Helpfully Outlined The Xenomorph’s Mysterious Life Cycle
Meanwhile, the confusing Xenomorph life cycle fromPrometheuswas fixed in the most direct way imaginable. A new spin onIan Holm’sAliencharacter returned inAlien: Romulusto deliver an expository speech and cue up a video that demonstrated the way Weyland-Yutani was utilizing Xenomorph DNA. It turned out the company was trying to use the Black Goo to make super-workers who would be more resilient to the challenges of living in space, allowing the corporation to cut more corners and make more money.
Like Rook, David was willing to dispassionately sacrifice innumerable human lives to create the perfect organism.
Inevitably, this instead resulted in the creation ofAlien: Romulus’s terrifying human/Xenomorph hybrid, a monster dubbed the Offspring. This monster’s existence explained where the experiments went wrong, but also gave a likely answer to why David did his strange Neomorph experiments fromAlien: Covenant. It seems David was acting under the instructions of Weyland-Yutani, meaningAlien: Romulusretroactively made sense of David’s strange behavior in bothPrometheusandAlien: Covenant. Like Rook, David was willing to dispassionately sacrifice innumerable human lives to create the perfect organism.
Alien: Romulus Makes Prometheus A Better Movie In Retrospect
Prometheus’s Story Makes Much More Sense After Alien: Romulus
While 2025’sAlien: Earthwill makePrometheus’s story even more central to the seriesin retrospect,Alien: Romuluswas the movie that clarified its plot and made its place in the franchise clearer. By clarifying Weyland-Yutani’s role in David’s experiments,Alien: RomulusgavePrometheusa clearer place in theAlienfranchise timeline. Technically, the movie was always set 30 years beforeAlien, but the plot links between them were tenuous.
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Prometheusmight have ended with a setup forAlien’s opening scene, but it wasn’t clear how the characters from the prequel were connected to the heroes of the original movie and how its events impacted the rest of the series.Alien: Romulusexplained why Weyland-Yutani knew such a suspiciously large amount about the Xenomorph byAliens, much likePrometheusprovided the distress call that the Nostromo answers in the original movie. This gave the series a satisfying full-circle narrative.
Now thatPrometheus’ place in theAlienfranchiseis clear, the series can continue without constantly needing to return to its prequels. It would be fun to see the story of Fassbender’s David wrapped up in a future installment, but his role is no longer confusing and unclear. Similarly,Alien: Romulus’s understandably, tragically ill-equipped main characters offer a perfect blueprint for future outings. New movies in theAlienfranchise can steer clear of the excessive ambiguity found inPrometheus, leaning instead into the effective monster movie thrills that made the series a hit in the first place while maintaining some mystery.
