#carries this additional implication that her position benefits from his being denied access to these skills!

[indigosfindings]

the thing about alien romulus (aggressively, pointedly mediocre movie btw) is that the better films in the series (ie not aliens or resurrection lol) have primed me to go in expecting, like, provocative themes and generally interesting engagement with complex subject matter--even if that engagement goes in a dumb or disagreeable direction, it's still *there*, and it still lends the (again, better) movies a much richer texture & an air of thoughtfulness. and i took that expectation into romulus, & it took me longer than it probably shouldve to register that romulus is not built in a particularly thoughtful way, either textually or stylistically (ie there doesnt seem to have been much interest in anything beyond replicating a few scenes/shots from other alien movies, the characters all come across like empty husks, and occasional flourishes of genuinely impressive cinematography are the exception rather than the rule)

and both of these factors (the movie's general thoughtlessness & my expectation of the inverse) sort of conspired to make the depiction of the android character look reeeeally bleak. like, he's the only black character in the movie & the crux of his character is devoted servitude toward the white woman protag (who refers to him as her brother but clearly perceives him as a surrogate father figure). and at first i was thinking "this cannot be accidental", like that a movie (least of all in a series as provocative as alien) doesnt portray its only black character as being owned by, controlled by, and bound to serve a white character by mistake, without intending to put this to some thematic use--so i was waiting for it to go somewhere! and then it didnt!

near the end of the movie the white lead starts to prioritize the safety of the android (seemingly as a defensive, perfunctory attempt to counterbalance this dynamic?) and this seems meant to signal to the audience that, see, there's actually nothing wrong with this dynamic!! it's totally reciprocal!!! but that feels tacked-on at best. romulus crafts this profoundly disturbing character dynamic (he is clearly framed as a subject & agent, but she owns him, he is *fundamentally* unable to pursue ambitions & priorities that dont relate to her, he can barely function in her absence, & she is demonstrated to be able to overwrite his programming at will through verbal commands) but it's totally unwilling to acknowledge this dynamic for what it is, and it thus locks itself out of being able to say anything incisive with it, or to bring it to any poignant or interesting place! no, it's worse than that actually--it doesnt seem to even see the problem at all! the chunk of the movie where the corporate module overrides his motives (in addition to playing into recent cultural anxieties wrt tech in the most have-your-cake way possible) is pretty plain in its use of him ceasing to prioritize her above everything as a telegraph for Danger & Wrongness. among the most central themes of alien as a franchise are (1) capital & bureaucratic incentives toward both violence & danger, and (2) the designation of personhood... a stark exploration of androids as (in essence) an exploited slave caste couldve been an unbelievably robust way to hybridize these themes, but that would require romulus to take an interest in storytelling, or, like, anything