Summary

• A new first-look image from Alien: Romulus showcases a tense action scene featuring Cailee Spaeny.
• The image also reveals David Jonsson's android character Andy.
• Andy is the foster brother of Spaeny's character Rain Carradine.

A first-look image from Alien: Romulus, which was directed by Fede Álvarez, will be the ninth installment in the overall franchise and is set to take place between the timelines of the original movie and the 1986 sequel Aliens, which took place 57 years later.

As part of their 2024 Summer Preview, Empire shared an exclusive first-look photo from Alien: Romulus. Check it out below:

The image shows Cailee Spaeny's Rain Carradine holding a weapon during what looks to be an intense action sequence while protecting David Jonsson's Andy. This is the closest glimpse of Andy that has been offered yet. The Rye Lane and Industry star's character is an android just like Rain and is the foster brother of her character.

The Alien: Romulus Androids Are Breaking New Ground For The Franchise

Alien's Synthetic Characters Have Never Been Quite Like This

While the Alien: Romulus trailer has not offered many details about the movie's plot, the fact that Rain and Andy are brother and sister is groundbreaking.

While it is possible that one or both characters could be revealed to be a turncoat, this image seems to show that both Rain and Andy are "good" androids. This would be in opposition to some of the most notable synthetics in the Alien movies, who have betrayed their human companions on multiple occasions. This includes Ash (Ian Holm), who was working on behalf of the company Weyland-Yutani in the 1979 movie, and David (Michael Fassbender), whose moral programming was more complicated but just as cold, as revealed in the prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

However, non-evil synthetics have appeared just as frequently throughout the franchise. The most notable example was Bishop (Lance Henriksen), who was an important ally to returning survivor Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in 1986's Aliens despite her initial hesitation to trust a second synthetic. Other synthetics, who were good-aligned or outright heroic, include Annalee Call (Winona Ryder), one of the lead characters in Alien: Resurrection, and Walter (Michael Fassbender), a later model of David seen in Covenant.

Alien: Resurrection featured the return of Ripley in a new body, though she was a clone rather than an android.

However, simply being good isn't what makes the new movie's synthetic characters most intriguing. While the Alien: Romulus trailer has not offered many details about the movie's plot, the fact that Rain and Andy are brother and sister is groundbreaking. Beyond Walter and David, synthetics throughout the franchise are largely explored via their relationship with humans rather than one another, which could allow the installment to break new ground for the franchise.

Source: Empire