‘Alien: Romulus:’ The Black Goo, Explained

“Alien: Romulus” is here, and the movie – about a group of young people (Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu) who travel to a derelict space station, in order to fuel their journey away from their backwater mining planet – definitely has some lingering mysteries. This is especially true if you don’t have a PhD in “Alien” studies. There’s a particularly large question mark that hangs over a late-movie plot point.

But to get into this particular element, we will have to issue a major spoiler warning.

Watch the movie and come on back, this article will still be here.

What is the plot point you’re speaking of?

Towards the end of the movie, when our heroes are almost off the hideous space station, known as Renaissance and broken into two sections (Remus and Romulus), they are given a new directive from Rook (played by Daniel Betts but looking and sounding like Ian Holm’s Ash from the original “Alien”). Rook says that they need to transport a vile of blackish goo off of the space station. It’s hugely important to the Weyland-Yutani corporation. And it’s hugely important to the “Alien” franchise too.

What is to goo?

Rook refers to it as “the Prometheus strain” and says that it was the thing that Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) went searching for on the doomed mission documented in Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus.” They have managed to reverse engineer it from the aliens on board the space station. Rook says that it will help humans evolve into “perfect organisms,” just like the aliens themselves.

What role does it have in the final act of the movie?

Well, while Rook stresses the safety of the goo, we see security footage of a rat that has been injected with the serum. In a nice nod to one of the more unforgettable moments in “Alien: Covenant,” the direct sequel to “Prometheus,” we see something breaking out of the spinal column of the rat. (Instead of a chest-buster this creature was referred to as a back-burster in the lead up to “Alien: Covenant.”) Later in the movie, an injured Kay (Merced) injects herself with the fluid. She is also, it should be noted, pregnant.

What happens next?

As Kay, Rain (Spaeny) and Andy (Jonsson) are readying to take off from the space station, Kay “gives birth” to a creature that is equal parts alien, human and Engineer (the big white guys who made the aliens and the liquid). The creature, called the Offspring in the credits, kills Kay – it looks like the Offspring is suckling her breast but the particulars have seemingly been cut out by squeamish executives – and then goes after Rain, who is determined to stop it. (At this point Andy is already in cryo-sleep.)

This is what the black goo does?

Well, sort of.

What does that mean?

In both “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant,” the goo does many things – it impregnates a character with a giant gnashing starfish-type creature; it also, detonated in the atmosphere, killed off an entire planet of Engineers. It is also a key component in the development of the alien as we now know it. It does many things, so it creating a giant, hybridized bastard, isn’t much of a stretch. This really is the Swiss army knife of ooze.

And does it actually make sense in the context of “Alien: Romulus?”

The story for “Alien: Romulus” takes place in between “Alien” and “Aliens,” so knowledge of the events of “Prometheus” and the company’s founder’s failed quest would definitely be public knowledge. And the company is always messing around with the aliens, so it stands to reason they’d also try and reverse engineer the goo. This is a movie that borrows liberally from almost every other “Alien” installment. So lifting from “Prometheus” isn’t beyond the pale.

“Alien: Romulus” is in theaters now.

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