Alien: Romulus director Fede Alvarez addresses Prometheus criticism
Alien: Romulus takes us back past Alien in the timeline after two trips into the past with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
Ridley Scott's prequels had mixed responses from fans, with one particular criticism of Prometheus that everything looked too 'modern' given it was actually set 29 years before the events of Alien.
However, Alien: Romulus director and co-writer Fede Alvarez had defended the prequel and given an explanation for the look of the movie.
"There's a mistake we all make when we watch movies that we assume what the movie showing you is a representation of the whole entire universe," he told Digital Spy.
Related: Alien: Romulus runtime confirmed
"That's why people complain about Prometheus being too modern, how can it be when it is before Alien, but Alien is an old truck that is maybe 80 or 100 hundred years old.
"If you go out here in the countryside and decide to tell a story out in the countryside in an old beat -up truck from the '30s and an alien from another planet watched the movie, they might think the whole world is that and there's Teslas in the city, they don't know that.
"The filmmaker just show you that truck that's out in the road, we assume that's all it is. Not even that because it's science fiction we assume that's a cutting-edge technology that exists, but that's all assumptions that you made."
This was in Alvarez's mind when it came to the look of Alien: Romulus which is set 20 years after Alien, deciding that the ships were going to be "more in-line with the era of the ships of the first movie".
Related: Alien: Romulus title has a hidden meaning
Mostly though, the filmmaker just wanted to evoke the feeling we all had when we were watching the first movie.
"I think one of the things we learned with Evil Dead was to make sure we were faithful to the spirit of the original films without necessarily have to retell the same story," he reflected.
"You want to make sure it feels very familiar, that you watch it and it makes you feel like it's legit, a movie that belongs in that universe.
"Above all things, I tried to channel my memory of watching those movies for the first time and how I felt. There's a set of emotions that the movie gave me and then I imagined how do I hold this and how do I transmit it to you."
Alvarez also spoke to Digital Spy about the title's hidden meaning, as well as teasing the "f**ked-up" ending.
Alien: Romulus is released in cinemas on August 16.
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