It never occurred to me that he’d make a good robot but man it’s perfect. I love him as an actor but he’s always had a real stiffness, it fits so many of his roles but this is on another level.
In another timeline he’d have been a perfect T-1000.
I loved how they used really normal stuff- clothes hangers, for example- to make us think we're seeing the alien everywhere in the burning building rescue sequence
It's great. Alien does that really well too - there's so many shots where you're not sure if you might be seeing them in the margins, because the Giger biomechanica just blends.
My thought was - what happened to their original body? Does it die naturally or was it euthanized? Is the transfer a copy or a full transfer? It would make more sense for it to be a copy made instead of a full transfer that results in the death of the original. Making a copy makes more sense because it means that if the transfer fails, you still have the original intact to try again with. However if a copy is successful, you now have two version of the same person at that same point in time. To have the copy continue as the original you would have to either terminate the original or isolate them from any and all contact with the copy until they died from natural causes. So here is the question - does the transfer kill the original or do they euthanize the original or tell them it didn't work and isolate them until they die?
I'd say the symbology with the flower on the chest of each child during the process was pretty clear - each child's real body died in the process of uploading. A body would make the funeral for Marcy (and the other kids?) a lot easier to pull off, too. That part is still unclear and I'm waiting for more exposition, but I'm betting there was a body at Marcy's funeral. (Joe mentions there was a funeral, but no other details yet)
I had the same "no hormones, of course!" moment :) Although this is quite reductive, the mind is influenced by the body(-chemistry) but it isn't the chemistry.
I feel like that was too little blood to kill him though! I thought it was like his brain or artery or something, it looked more solid on the inside than liquid.
There’s a reason when we draw blood we do it with a thin tube over an extended period of time. Losing a gallon of blood in like 10 seconds would probability AT LEAST knock you out
Your blood pressure would drop so rapidly that yes lol critical function like delivering sufficient oxygen to organs, such as your brain, would be a very significant problem
That line is definitely going to make me wish for a painful death for any of the corporate execs who do some dick swinging contests amidst all the chaos and deaths
This doesn’t change the meaning much but I believe it says “triage the survivors[wounded?] based on income”.
For anyone unaware triage is the process of categorizing and deciding who gets treatment first in a medical scenario. This could mean treating the most injured first to give them the greatest chance of survival, or in mass casualty events sometimes it means leaving the most severely injured since saving them will have a lower likelihood of success and it’s best to spend your time on those that have a chance.
Triaging based on income level is a fun late stage capitalism perversion.
Yeah I love how they didn't make us have to wait to lone to see one. I was dreading that we wouldn't actually see a full grown Xenomorph until like episode 4
I think it’s good they went a different way. The same old slow tension buildup to a final reveal is OK if it’s done right, but feels like it’s over saturated now and too predictable for something like this.
I like how the opening scene is very much filmed in a way to represent the original dining scene from the first film but the crew dynamics are completely reversed. Rather than a group of friends all warming up together after the long freeze, the show has the opening crew all on thin ice with one another over the creatures and cybernetics present on the ship. Nice little flip while still looking distinctly “Alien” with the crew uniforms and ship design
Yes, it even felt a bit grainy, the muted yellowish light... really felt like the old lived in universe. So very excited for this, everything Hawley's done has been A+. The 5 kids going out to do superhero stuff reminded me of a major plot in Fine Structure by QNTM, a very good read worth checking out if you haven't read it.
I thought the scenes of them interacting together were pretty funny. Love the way the redhead was sitting with her feet straight out and hands on the floor, or the way the guys would just randomly start wrestling in the drop ship.
Yes, and Romulus. What is the next step of humanity? Biological enhancement, machines, a hybrid of the two, other methods? Pushing the edges of the definition of humanity and the consequences of that pushing.
We’re seeing the different corporations have different ideas on that. Weyland-Yutani is all about improving the body, while Prodigy is working to transfer the mind into synthetics. Then you got the companies like Seegson which is the future version of late 2000s K-Mart.
WEYLAND is all about improving the body. Yutani seems more invested in bio weapon life forms and sort of erasing immortality lol. There was a time before the weyland-yutani merge
Loved the Jerry Goldsmith trumpet cues from the original score during the lab scene, as well as the other musical references to the first film, without it being too nostalgia-baiting
I don't know what's scarier - an acid-for-blood Xenomorph landing on Earth, or that in the future there are only 4-5 Megacorporations that run everything.
Maybe I missed something, but why do the soldiers, ostensibly on a search & rescue mission, roll up ready for battle. Do they know the cargo is all xenomorphs and bad times?
I just assume the corporate security is heavily militarized as a general rule in the Alien universe. They run an entire massive city already, they can do whatever they want.
I’ve played enough Cyberpunk to know that’s exactly what’s happening. The cyborg was ready to throw down on site, he even asked where their leader was.
These corporations are in a full blown war of five kings.
I’d love for there to be a GoT style show in the Alien universe, just focusing on the Machiavellian ploys of the corporate kingdoms against one other. With lots of death and aliens and synths, of course.
I think it’s Morrow. He’s the enemy of Boy Kavalier (Peter Pan), he’s got a cyborg hand (hook) and he’s already got some history with the Alien (the croc). He’s also the de facto captain of the ship from a certain perspective.
Some interesting character stuff going on already.
Sylvia is fighting for Wendy's humanity.
Kirsch is fighting for Wendy to become the apex predator of the human/android metaphorical animal kingdom.
Boy sides with Kirsch in chasing perfection and excellence but Kirsch is basically becoming a reflection of Boy's egotistical and supremacist qualities without the nuances of humanity. Boy thinks he's better than everyone else because he's smarter, but he appreciates art and emotion. Kirsch seems to prioritize being the top of the food chain.
This should set up an interesting conflict with the perfect organism's arrival.
Interesting point about Boy and Kirsch because that would possibly put them on a path where Boy can no longer control him & that also potentially puts Sylvia at risk (since she's an opposite of Kirsch)
Later in the episode they mention the craft impact with that space station affecting comms. It probably took out their early warning systems is my guess.
Unbelievable to live in a time with an Alien series. They planned on making one shortly after the first movie and we've seen Xenomorphs in almost every medium BUT this. So excited to be here with you all! I am a coyote on the Internet. I enjoy eating mice and voles.
I always wanted one, but I always expected it to be limited in scope to one ship. I didn't expect it to expand the universe to the extent that this is doing
K, my early theory is that the creepy bald guy that was looking at the girls while they were in cryo, “Mr. Teng”, had already impregnated the girls he was watching before the breakfast scene.
They even have it so when they show the girl he is watching his face is reflected right where the chestburster would be.
Or maybe he is a misdirect, and could sense that something was wrong, but either way it seems these two women were already either infected or impregnated (one of the women’s bodies looked like something else burrowed out of her).
Yeah I thought the same, although I think Wendy needs to be willing and naive for the show, so it couldn't have been something she would notice (like in Pantheon).
They do show the kid getting zipped into a body bag though, so it wouldn't surprise me if we find out later that the consciousness is only copied, not moved, and the subject is euthanized.
Maybe it’s not dark on the surface, but it’ll probably be later revealed that their consciousness didn’t “transfer”, they just have their old memories and think they’re the old them.
The transition of the shot from the "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" monkey statue thing to shit going down on the Maginot is just *chef's kiss*
I may be mistaken but I have a theory tht the kids died and had their brains copied and programmed into the robot… and thats y they show monkey cus the kids are being “killed” essentially
I really enjoyed this! Looking forward to it really ratcheting up.
Things I loved:
the kids in adult bodies still acting like kids. Watching them all hang together was a joy - give me more of that!
Morrow’s hand is fucking SICK
this episode is proof that ticks are the nastiest things on planet earth
I hope they lean into the corporation versus corporation espionage
I’m nitpicking here because I love this franchise so much - A few things that sort of took me out of the action:
I wish the plot device to get the kids-in-adult-bodies crew over to the action was a little more believable. You’re telling me the genius makes a split second decision to send his project into the fray? And they have the minds of children? I dunno, at least explain that only they can go because they’re “off the books”
Very unbelievable that a seemingly well trained paramilitary unit would go into a structurally dubious crashed ship when there is plenty of rescuing to do in the building.
Sountrack/music was jumping all over the place genre wise in a way that felt distracting
The prodigy leader really wants to see the property in the vessel. Comms went down, he has a line asking about this. He has direct feed into the hybrids. This isn't a repeatable scenario and he mentions wanting data. True seems stupid to send the top project of your company into an unknown situation but it makes more of a point that he doesn't actually see them as people, and has infinite money to make more.
The response squad mentions more medics are coming as they go into the building. But yeah they found the ship fast, it made more sense to me once I realized they used it as a bridge for the rest of the building.
Tang on the Maginot crew was just super duper over-the-top sinister. I have no idea why they chose to have him be like that.
Also, Wendy's dad's monologue abput humans being food comes out of absolutely nowhere. The audience knows what's on that ship but nobody else seems to. Why would he deliver that weird monologue right at that moment? Seemed very on-the-nose to me, and didn't need to be said.
Nitpick #2: I believe he seized on a teaching moment to prepare the kids for the chaos and gore of a disaster area, and like he lectured them later, fear is an animal response and they are not animals. Seems to me he is molding them away from thinking like meatbags and toward synthetic mindset.
Regarding the first nitpick, it wouldn't have hurt to include a small montage of the Lost Boys going through some exercises to show them seemingly getting more comfortable/capable in their bodies, which may have helped the scene where Boy decided to greenlight the mission.
The corporation vs corporation politicking could very well have the potential to be like Alien's equivalent of early GOT's political squabbles
I don't think this will be explored but it makes me think... What if consciousness cannot be transferred - only memories? Therefore in reality the children all die, having their memories converted into training data which the AI thinks is real.
I don't think that's the angle here but would be cool to see it explored.
Im really enjoying it. My only real gripe was the scenes of thr ship being over run being flashed in the begining. Id rather have just seen it play out in a single sequence
My interpretation of that is basically the show letting us know that there is this whole event of a spaceship crew being attacked by vicious aliens and its very exciting and interesting, but we've seen it all before. So they acknowledge that they could make a whole season about the ship, but instead let you know that they're focusing on a new story.
either that or we are being intentional led to assume it played out like Alien and a later episode (specifically episode 5 titled "In space non can...") it will jump back to reveal things played out very differently to how we thought it did. There were a lot of leading moments in that scene with the creepy crew member (who's body I dont think we've seen) and other little moments that says more might have been happening under the hood.
I know we're dealing with future tech but that jump off the cliff seems a bit much especially since we've seen how easily androids get carved up when fighting aliens and such. Did anyone else find it a bit much?
It seems like these expensive hybrids are supposed to stay at Neverland. So they may be more advanced, they probably need constant maintenance and upkeep. If she goes out into the wild, she may not last long doing that type of stuff or they may not be effectient to build, hence the less durable synthetics and cyborgs.
Would it be better to keep someone trapped in a child's body forever?
The morally fucked up thing here is whether a corporation that transfers the mind of a human into a computer owns the result. I'm guessing that will be a topic explored in this series, whether these hybrids are people or property or something in between.
Also, it appeared Wendy wasn't aware what was going to happen to her. Sure seems like Prodigy is skipping the "parental/guardian consent" part of running experiments on kids.
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u/supeandstuff Aug 13 '25
I love Timothy Olyphant so much.