Alien: Romulus’ Timeline Is Perfectly Placed To Finally Explain A 38-Year-Old Mystery

While Alien: Romulus has a plot of its own to focus on, the movie’s place in the series timeline means it could answer one major franchise mystery. 2024’s upcoming Alien: Romulus is almost guaranteed to annoy some longtime fans of the sci-fi horror franchise since the Alien movies are hardly known for their consistent lore. Both 2004’s Alien Vs Predator and 2012’s Prometheus offered conflicting, contradictory backstories for the original movie’s Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and there is no guarantee that Alien: Romulus will confirm either of these origin stories as part of the franchise’s knotty, ever-evolving canon.

However, there are some smaller plot holes that 2024’s upcoming Alien: Romulus can explain. Since Alien: Romulus comes from Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez, it is fair to guess that the standalone movie will be more focused on gripping, gruesome claustrophobic survival horror than world-building. However, Alvarez’s earlier effort Evil Dead 2013 offered a few clever nods to the original movies in the series, so there is no reason to assume that Alien: Romulus will ignore its predecessors entirely. As such, the outing could explain away one persistent plot hole with just a stray line of dialogue.

Alien: Romulus Can Explain Gorman’s ‘Xenomorph’ Comment

This infamous Aliens line can be explained in the upcoming outing

In Aliens, William Hope’s Lt. Gorman calls the monsters of the series “Xenomorphs.” However, it is unclear how he learned this term. Since Alien: Romulus’s story takes place between Alien and Aliens, the movie has the perfect chance to explain this discrepancy. The official explanation is that the “Xenomorph” Gorman refers to is just a generic term for an alien, meaning Gorman is not referring to the alien’s species specifically. However, in years since, the phrase Xenomorph has come to refer solely to the franchise’s instantly recognizable iconic monster. Alien: Romulus’s place in the Alien franchise timeline means it can explain this discrepancy.

If the characters of Alien: Romulus were to come across another alien lifeform and refer to it as a “Xenomorph,” this would then clarify that this word is a catch-all term used to refer to extraterrestrial in general. This explanation would explain how Gorman seemingly knew the technical name for the franchise’s aliens without any justification by proving that he didn’t and this was merely a misunderstanding. While this might not seem like a major issue, the phrase “Xenomorph” is now synonymous solely with the monsters featured in the franchise and, as such, it appears as if Gorman is aware of Xenomorphs specifically.

Why Aliens’ ‘Xenomorph’ Term Creates Such Confusion

Technically, Gorman using the term is not actually a plot hole. However, since “Xenomorph” is now used only to describe the franchise’s monsters, it does feel like one upon a rewatch. While Alien: Romulus can ignore the Alien franchise’s backstory for the most part, this is one instance where the series could shed light on a misunderstanding without wasting screen time or distracting from the primary plot. The distinction between a “Xenomorph” and an alien is pretty much non-existent, meaning Alien: Romulus would simply need a character to explain that the terms are interchangeable for this infamous line to finally make sense.