Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Alien: Romulus’s trailers

It certainly seems like Alien: Romulus has given away a lot of pivotal character deaths well before the movie’s release, but one fan theory posits that the upcoming Alien reboot has a secret plan up its sleeve. The Alien movies might seem like brutal bloodbaths, but their body counts aren’t always as high as viewers may assume. Admittedly, Aliens and Alien 3 each racked up a kill count in the teens, but the original movie only killed off five human characters. Thus, it’s tough to tell how many characters the upcoming franchise reboot Alien: Romulus will kill off.

Director Fede Alvarez made a name for himself as a ruthless horror director, with both his 2013 Evil Dead reboot and 2016’s Don’t Breathe including some memorably nasty deaths. However, those movies also featured very small casts, with both taking place largely in lone locations and centering on tiny groups of isolated characters. Judging by Alien: Romulus’s trailers, the new movie in the series will follow suit. The movie has six named characters, one of whom is an android. Already, the trailers have seemingly revealed two of their deaths, prompting a compelling fan theory to arise.

Alien: Romulus Is Hiding Secret Characters — Theory Explained

Alien’s Franchise Reboot Could Reveal Unexpected Survivors

Alien: Romulus follows a group of young, inexperienced scavengers who explore the titular abandoned space station only to discover face huggers, Xenomorphs, and all manner of other nasty surprises lying in wait. There are five human characters and one android in the reboot’s small party of explorers, but it would make perfect sense for Alien: Romulus to reveal living survivors on its supposedly derelict station. This would be a solid twist that would add to the cast list while also ensuring that the Xenomorph wasn’t the only issue the young scavengers had to deal with throughout the movie’s story.

The trailers have given away everything from the meaning of Alien: Romulus’ title to the fates of Aileen Wu’s Navarro and Spike Fearn’s Bjorn, both of whom are attacked by face huggers in the teasers. This seems like a lot of plot to give away early on but, if the space station does house human survivors, then viewers have no idea how big the cast really is and no idea how many potential victims there are for the Xenomorph. It is hard to tell whether these survivors would view the scavengers as a threat or salvation from their Xenomorph infestation.

Alien: Romulus Has Given Away Too Many Deaths Already

Alien: Romulus’s Trailers Show Navarro and Bjorn’s Fates

The survivors could be heroic or villainous depending on how they react to the cast’s arrival, but they also could just be cannon fodder to increase Alien: Romulus’s body count and shock factor. Alien: Romulus’s trailer teases numerous Xenomorphs, but the movie doesn’t seem to need more than one monster to rip through its tiny cast list, judging by the trailers. Viewers can already be pretty certain that Navarro and Bjorn are going to die, while the fate of David Jonsson’s Andy is less tense since he is an android. This leaves few characters for viewers to get invested in.

One of the remaining characters is Cailee Spaeny’s Rain, who is very clearly set up as the Ripley replacement and heroine. That leaves only two characters whose fates viewers can’t reasonably guess, unless Alien: Romulus is hiding something. Alien: Romulus introducing secret survivors would prove the trailers weren’t as spoiler-heavy as they seemed, which aligns with comments Alvarez made on The Movie Podcast. There, the director said he resents trailers that spoil movies. This might be a cryptic hint that Alien: Romulus has more secrets, and characters, up its sleeve than its marketing materials have revealed so far.

Alien: Romulus’s Director’s Other Horror Movies Nailed Their Small Cast

Fede Alvarez’s Earlier Horror Movies Utilized This Approach

One reason to believe that Alien: Romulus will add a handful of secondary supporting characters into its cast to feed the Xenomorph is 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot. Alvarez is credited with the story for that reboot which dumped a literal busload of nameless extras into its small-town setting to beef up Leatherface’s body count. This would also follow an Alien franchise pattern as Ridley Scott’s Alien prequels featured far more deaths than the original movie. That said, Alvarez’s own directorial efforts seem to belie the theory since they are typically very subdued when it comes to cast size.

Evil Dead 2013 and Don’t Breathe both had tiny casts and this made each death progressively more intense, and the two movies even hinted at some major deaths in the trailers. Admittedly, neither earlier movie gave away quite as much as Alien: Romulus seems to have done. However, Alien: Romulus may genuinely have already revealed two of its six deaths in the trailer, and the movie might not have any further secrets to divulge upon its release. While potentially disappointing, this would at least be better than another possible explanation for the trailers seemingly spoiling major death scenes.

Alien: Romulus’s Trailer Deaths Are Hopefully Not Fake-Outs

Navarro And Bjorn’s Trailer Deaths Shouldn’t Be Fake-Outs

The one thing that Alien: Romulus definitely should not do is reveal that the trailer’s deaths were somehow fake as part of an alternate reality simulator. Revealing that they only died in a simulation, a la Star Trek’s holodeck or Jason X’s holographic game sequence, would be a corny twist that seasoned sci-fi viewers could spot from a mile away. Not only is this overly familiar reveal tired, but it also would mean that the characters knew about face huggers and Xenomorphs before entering the Romulus station. Crucially, this would sap the movie’s monster reveal of its impact.

If Alien: Romulus revealed that Navarro or Bjorn “died” while in a virtual reality simulator, this would imply that the scavengers were warned about the Xenomorphs in advance, knew about face huggers, and were prepared for their ordeal. This would sap more of all its tension since the entire point of the reboot’s younger cast is that they are inexperienced and feckless. Alien: Romulus risks reviving a Prometheus criticism with characters who are too clueless, but this would be better than ones who are too prepared. That revelation would truly rob Alien: Romulus of its much-needed narrative tension.

Source: The Movie Podcast.