There’s a suitably inhuman, robotic coolness and surety about Andy The Second. I think it is easy and lazy to call him malevolent.

We don’t see him needlessly sacrificing lives. For instance, with the Room Of Special Hugs, if his new directive was his sole driving factor, there’d be no reason to tell the others how to get through. Their survival is irrelevant to his mission.

We also know that Rook told Andy stuff verbally, albeit off screen. So I very much agree we can’t say he would’ve known about the err…side effects, of the Prometheus Goo, as it likely wasn’t on the chip he received. Nor was he insistent when the other two questioned him.

I’m gonna make a lazy prediction and say Andy is gonna be the lasting legacy character here. The one most likely to turn up or be referenced in future films and series, and the one subject to the majority of critical analysis.

David Jonsson’s performance really is that good. Full of subtlety, even down to facial expression when weighing up a situation and deciding the best course of action. It’s not even a Poker Face, as you can see something going on there. It’s not someone trying to hide something, it’s someone not capable of expressing something. Just absolutely phenomenal stuff.

Dude has a bright future ahead of him.

Also, I loved the auto-aim thing on the precursor Pulse Rifle. It’s a simple and sense making plot device, not only because it allows Untrained McGee to kick ass, but that as something held in a science lab studying Bloody Dangerous Beasties, a rifle which allows Untrained McGee to kick ass is a sensible tool!

Heck, an unkind critic (me. It’s me) might even only half jokingly say it’s development is a direct result of the Prometheus and Covenant Mission Reports showing Weyland Yutani employees to be so staggeringly inept and stupid and fond of licking things that don’t need licking, they need all the help they can get.

The auto-aim thing is also just a smart sort of side reference to the Smart Rifle from Aliens. One of the film's more iconic weapons. Just scaled down in tech and used smartly when it would otherwise be unbelievable that the characters were suddenly crack shots.

The end does drag on some though, and probably could’ve been trimmed down. But I like Rain’s solution to the corridor battle. Particularly as it was ultimately an act of desperation, rather than “aha! That’ll sort them out!”. And some fantastic zero-g mucking about follows. Again it’s not perfect, but it’s plenty good enough to earn a comfortable pass.

The Pulse Rifle just isn’t as shooty as the ones the Colonial Marines have in Aliens.

If memory serves, and its primary canon so not from comic books? The ones in Aliens fire caseless, explosive tipped ammo.

If that recollection is right? I’ll accept that as why Rain had to shoot each Xenomorph multiple times.

It also serves to make the Xenomorphs feel scarier than ever. Had it not been for the zero-g trick? Her and Andy would’ve been toast.

Oh, that’s how she lost her arm

Seeing the corporate hellscape and lives of regular people working and trying to survive on one of these colony worlds was a good addition to the world building of the franchise. It clearly sets up the motivations for the main cast and was just all around great view of a part of the world we haven't had much view of before.

With Hadley's Hope they were the initial colonists. Everyone there was in some way a component of building the infrastructure to support future colonists. Engineers, technicians, grunt workers and surveyors. Not much in the way of an actual civilization. Just the start of one.

Here we see a mining colony with what little entertainment or whatever they can muster. Disease, dangerous conditions, and ever extending contracts. We all knew Weyland Yutani was a greedy corporation, but now we see how they crush the littlest of the little people in the cogs of their machines.

From the face huger swarms to the drones everything looked awesome and they all behaved how they should have behaved. The bare minimum I ask for from one of these. Then we get the black goo. Turning Face Hugers into a farm to milk and attempt to purify or modify the black goo from Prometheus is both unexpected and great. In Alien 3, real-life-person Bishop talks about all we could learn from them. Medicines and whatever. Not that it's a weapon. I think its good to see this actual motivation from the company. They are not ACTUALLY trying to turn the Xenos into weapons (though I am sure some branch of the company would be doing that too). Their primary research is in next steps controlled evolution and advancement for humanity. Neat. gak man was not meant to mess with and definitely bites them in the ass. But neat. Setting the stage for how horrible colonist life is and then using the Xeno research to talk about costs in man power and trying to circumvent that. It's cool. The people who died are still just a cost figure on a spread sheet. The company still only REALLY cares about the bottom line. But if the bottom line is post humanity hybrids that act as frontier colonizers and super soldiers well.... then how would any other company compete?

I know some people think i falls apart a bit in the 3rd act. Like maybe they wanted more xenos in their alien movie. But this "Offspring" as it is referred to in the script (as opposed to the Newborn of Alien Resurrection) was a fantastic bridge between Prometheus and Alien. A Xeno with a human (Re: engineer) face and skin stretched over what would otherwise be it's exoskeleton. Bonus, you didn't just throw it out an airlock. You smashed it to piece and blew it apart along the rocky rings of a planet. I loved this thing. And it's birth was terrible. Just awful. A nightmare to watch. Thanks for remembering that the Alien Franchise has always kind of been about monsters that rape you and use you as incubators and then bringing that to one of it's most awful presentations.

I think the movie could have done without a lot of the throw back dialog. Rook didn't need to do the "I cannot lie to you about your chances..." bit. The one exception to this would be the Get away from her.... you bitch." Because it was set up earlier in the movie when Andy was watching the ass hole younger brother tack a "you bitch" onto the end of a different line. While yes it is a call back to that thing Ripley did it was at least set up in movie as him mimicking the people around him. The rest of that call back dialog could have not been there and it would have been fine. Might have even made the movie better. I don't need nostalgia bait. I am already watching an Alien movie. You put face hugers, chest bursters, and drones in it.

His family was all on board and the director bought the finished film to them before anyone else. They were happy to see Ian Holmes on screen again in one of his most famous roles. That is the one and only litmus test for resurrecting dead actors like this imo. If the actor or family is like okay. Then okay. If the studio is like "we didn't ask or don't care" then feth you.

The CGI for it wasn't the best, but in a lot of ways that added to the broken down robot he was. They probably could have and should have applied more damage to his face to cover for some of that. Oh well. His role in the movie was really good and just as sinister as the Ash incarnation.

the Promethean gel, or black goo. As I understand it it also gives your hair full body and shine.

Unless I missed or forgot something, didn’t Rain and Andy head off into the wide black yonder with the Mucky GooGoo from Prometheus and Covenant? However unwittingly.

They're going to that planet Rain wanted to go to, but that also apparently wasn't welcoming to Weyland-Yutani androids. So the movie does end on a bit of sequel bait. And unless they dumped it, which isn't shown, they still have the spooge.

Yes! And most interesting to me, is this is now a situation where we get potential corporate or even nation state turf wars over this goo. Weyland Yutani isn't welcome there. And in the deep lore of the alien franchise there are about 4 different governmental bodies that own different sectors of space. Would Weyland send corporate mercenaries into another nation to try to reclaim their asset? Sounds like something they would do.

How did they get the black goo ?

My assumption is they went back to the planet Prometheus is set on. Pretty sure the scientists didn’t lick every pot of black goo with the Do Not Lick label