Alien: Romulus includes a connection to the Engineers from Ridley Scott’s prequels, leaving the sequel in a location to solve a big mystery. The director of the original franchise returned to the series in the 2010s to make Prometheus and Alien: Alliancegoing back through the timeline to explore new parts of the canon and answer questions that helped shape the 1979 original Foreigner. One of the biggest revelations to come was the introduction of the Engineers, an advanced alien race that created humanity. It was revealed that they were the Space Jockeys that Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo encountered on LV-426.
Since Alien: Romulus is set between Foreigner and Aliens In the franchise timeline, most of the film’s franchise connections belong to Scott’s original film and James Cameron’s sequel. However, there are still several cases where Fede Álvarez’s film connects to Prometheus and Alien: Alliance. The introduction of Alien: Romulus‘The hybrid offspring is one of the largest, as the new human xenomorph fuses multiple forms into one. This includes the Engineers, thanks to the alien’s origin. This puts a Alien: Romulus sequel in a position to address what happened to the white humanoid aliens after Scott’s prequels.
Offspring connect Alien: Romulus to engineers
The offspring share some similarity characteristics with engineers
Kay’s baby in Alien: Romulusknown as Offspring, is how the film connects to Prometheus‘Engineers. She is pregnant with Bjorn’s child, who would have been born as a normal human under normal circumstances. Kay’s injuries led her to inject herself with the black goo Z-01 Prometheusas it has been shown to have healing abilities in test subject videos. What Kay and everyone else didn’t know was that this would cause their son to mutate, giving him the pale white skin of the Engineers and various features of the xenomorphs, all while maintaining an overall human appearance.
The Offspring don’t exactly resemble the Engineers, as their bony appearance and xenomorphic qualities transform their appearance into something completely new. This does not prevent the similarities with the Engineers from being evident. The reason the Offspring looks like the Engineers is due to the Z-01 compound containing the black goo created from the franchise’s original xenomorph. The Engineers were responsible for creating the xenomorphsinitially using them as biological weapons. They created them using a mysterious black liquid different from the black goo shown in Alien: Romulus.
However, this link between the Engineers, humanity, and xenomorphs gives the Offspring their connection to the extraterrestrial race. The Engineers’ methods for creating life are likely similar regardless of the intended outcome, such as creating xenomorphs or humans. So if the Engineers used a black liquid to create xenomorphs and themselves to create humanity, the black goo extracted from Big Chap retroactively bringing some Engineer qualities into a human makes sense. It seems that exposing Kay’s human baby to black goo revealed some of the innate similarities of humanity’s Engineerresulting in the appearance of the Offspring in Alien: Romulus.
Ridley Scott’s Alien Movies Never Addressed What Happened to the Engineers
The fate of the engineers is unknown
Engineers may have been part of the Foreigner franchise from the beginning, but its existence and importance were not explored beyond that point until Prometheus. Ridley Scott made the prequels to expand the mythology and build greater connections to the original film, and The Engineers was a prime example of this. The 2012 film showed why the Engineers were so important to the franchise overall, but failed to resolve what happened to them afterwards. As far as Prometheus go, It is unclear whether there are still more Engineers in the cosmos or whether they are already extinct..
Alien: Alliance does not help answer what happened to the Engineers between Prometheus and Foreigner. Although the film shows David destroying an entire race that looks like the Engineers from Planet 4, it’s unclear whether they’re supposed to be the last of their species or just a city on a single planet that they populate across the galaxy. The mystery of whether the Engineers are completely extinct at the moment Foreignerand by extension Alien: Romulusit just so happens that it continues to grow as a result.
It is known that Ridley Scott canceled Alien: Alliance sequel was intended to include the Engineers in a prominent role, allowing him to take to the Space Jockeys in Foreigner more directly. This suggests that there are still at least a few engineers alive at the time Alien: Alliance ends. However, this still does not clarify whether the entire breed was eliminated at the time of Alien: Romulus – indicating that ForeignerSpace Jockey’s was the last one – or if they are still lurking in the cosmos and experimenting with creating more life forms.
Alien: Romulus Sequel Could Explain Engineers’ Status
The fate of engineers needs to be resolved
With Alien: Romulus Tying into Ridley Scott’s prequels, there’s a chance the sequel could provide an update on the Engineers. That would depend entirely on how the story was supposed to progress and what Rain and Andy would find upon reaching Yvaga III. There are already theories that Alien: Romulus‘the sequel could conclude Ridley Scott’s prequel story and have this new planet be where the story of David and the Engineers came to an end also. Rain and Andy could then find evidence of the Engineers’ existence and ultimate fate.
It would be smart for Alien: Romulus sequence to explain the fate of the Engineers as well. This remains one of the biggest questions the franchise has yet to answer, and it will only continue to loom over future installments the longer it goes unanswered. Alien: Romulus 2 could resolve this by explaining that the Engineers are extinct through some important discovery, or go in the opposite direction and heavily tie the humanoid aliens into Rain and Andy’s future.
How Engineers Could Return in Alien: The Romulus Sequel
As for how the Engineers could return in a Alien: Romulus sequel, this also depends on exactly how the story unfolds after Alien: Romulus‘ finishing. If Yvaga III is secretly the current or former home of an Engineer colony, Rain and Andy will discover new information about them when they arrive. If the new planet is where David ended up, rather than arriving on Earth, he could even provide an update on his adventures and encounters with the Engineers afterwards. Alien: Alliance. This may depend on the new Foreigner plans and story of the film.
There is also the option to Alien: Romulus‘sequel to deal with the Engineers in a similar way to Prometheus he did. The film could have a cold opening exploring some of the history of the Engineers this ultimately ties into the separate story Álvarez wants to tell about Rain and Andy. This may not bring resolution to his story, but it could help provide new details about his existence and whereabouts. After all, if Yvaga III is intended to be a paradise for humanity beyond Weyland-Yutani’s control, it would make sense for the Engineers to participate in its formation.
- Director
-
Fede Álvarez
- Release date
-
August 16, 2024
- Writers
-
Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett
- Cast
-
Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu, Rosie Ede, Soma Simon, Bence Okeke, Viktor Orizu, Robert Bobroczkyi, Trevor Newlin, Annemarie Griggs, Daniel Betts
- Execution time
-
119 minutes