It all involves one character, really the main supporting character of the movie, Andy the “synthetic human” though he clearly states in the movie that he prefers to be called an artificial person. Andy is basically the pet of the main character of the movie, Rain. Rain’s father found him in the trash and fixed him up and gave him the prime directive to always “do what’s best for Rain.” Rain is a white woman, and Andy is a black man. The only black person in the entire movie. She calls him her brother, but really treats him like a helpless puppy and clearly does not respect his personhood or his agency. He is literally programmed to help her and do nothing else with his life, essentially. Not a good start. This is really the only thing I can think of that is explicitly a racist trope in the movie, but I will delve more into other issues with this character and how he is oppressed and abused by others that are also troubling considering he is the only black character in this whole ass movie.

Andy is also heavily autistic/neurodivergent/intellectually-disabled coded. He is incredibly naive, stutters, talks like a child, moves awkwardly (or robotically, if you will), etc. In the opening scene, he is beat up by a group of adolescent children to let you know how pathetic and helpless he is without Rain. Definitely a stereotypical portrayal, but not so far that it feels completely offensive-- in the beginning, at least. The movie makes it pretty clear that he is a person and has emotions and wants and needs.

So, the plot of the movie is essentially this: Rain is in some form of indentured servitude that is revealed to be Sisyphean; when she puts in the required amount of labor to be set free, her sentence is immediately doubled and she is told she has to keep working. Shortly after, her fellow teeny-bopper Disney-reject friends show up and tell her about a big score they are going to pursue, an abandoned Weyland corp ship floating in space above the planet with a bunch of like cryo-energy or something they can sell and go live a life of freedom and happiness on another planet. However, they need Andy to get access to the security system and let them inside because he is a Weyland corp product and would be granted access. Additionally, it turns out this particular ship was tasked with retrieving the Xenomorph from space from the very first Alien movie, with predictable results for the crew of the ship, hence why it is “abandoned.”

There is no consideration given to Andy and his safety for this mission. Rain guilts and manipulates him into doing it despite him clearly uncomfortable about it by telling him that it is “what’s best for her” (big yikes). Here’s the real kicker: Andy won’t be able to come with them to this new planet when they succeed in their mission, he will be decommissioned (AKA executed) for reasons I don’t fully remember. Oh and one of her teeny bopper friends going into the ship with him is a huge bigot, calling him a “fake”, insulting him, generally bullying him and all the other characters excuse it because a synth “killed his mom”, which is revealed to really be the fact that a synth made a decision in a mine collapse to leave his mother and a couple others behind so they could save a dozen more. A grim scenario, sure, but not dissimilar from decisions that have been made in real life by real humans and fundamentally an understandable one.

When they get onto the ship, a maimed body cut in half at the waist is shown as a scare; however, it is just a synth, not a “real human” as the characters note and the bigot says something about oh I would’ve cared about this if it were real. Turns out, Andy is not able to access the room storing all the cryoenergy, but they get the idea to take some sort of hard drive upgrade from the dead synth and insert it into Andy so he can gain the necessary credentials. However, this upgrade changes Andy: he is now much more articulate, has greatly improved motor functions, and is much more “intelligent” (at least, the movie certainly wants to portray it this way, but I think it could simply be that he is able to communicate better that makes him appear to be more intelligent). Most importantly, he has agency now, both from his newfound skills and the fact that his prime directive has been overridden and he no longer has to serve Rain. This is however portrayed as potentially very bad, as the “real human” characters are worried he has turned into a cold, even sociopathic synth, especially Rain. The parallels with how neurodivergent folks are viewed by neurotypical society are palpable. So what horribly bad things does Andy do to justify this sentiment? Well, when one of the other characters is impregnated by a facehugger, Andy correctly points out that she should not be allowed back on the ship and attempts to stop them from carrying her back. The other characters think this is so horrible, yet the fact that they ignore Andy is obviously what gets all of them killed (beside Rain) later when a Xenomorph explodes through her chest and hunts them all down. There is another situation where one of their friends is banging to be let in from a hangar bay, but Andy refuses to open the door. He points out that the Xenomorph is literally waiting for them to open the door to kill all of them, the movie explicitly shows this is true, yet they freak out on him when he won’t do it and she is killed. Overall, however, Andy tries to help them as much as he can and is clearly shown to be concerned for their well-being and even goes against his own concerns and instincts to help them in their schemes a couple times.

Later in the movie, Andy is incapacitated by a Xenomorph. Rain decides this is a good opportunity to commit a terrible, terrible crime: she removes the upgrade, stealing away his agency and making him a helpless pet forced to serve her again. There is a moment later where Andy kills a Xenomorph and stammers out a childlike “bitch”; the audience had a nice belly laugh when this happened. Andy is maimed by a Xenomorph, causing him to shutdown, yet this is portrayed by the movie as basically a non-event, when even non-fatal injuries to all the “real” characters are given very dramatic moments, despite Andy having the second most screentime and clearly being shown to be a sentient human being. Throughout the movie, all of the “real” characters, even the massive bigot, are treated sympathetically; when Rain removes Andy’s upgrade and violates his humanity, it is clear the movie wants us to cheer for this moment and root for Rain as the heroine.

Initially, I had some hope that the movie would handle Andy much better. We are made to empathize with him and his plight, yet this is discarded without second thought as it goes on. The “real” characters treat Andy so horribly, I was hoping he would be able to take his humanity back and we could maybe get some pulpy fun where he could get revenge and fuse with a Xenomorph or something and take them all out. I realized this would not be the case when it was clear we were still supposed to sympathize with the “real” humans and they portrayed his upgrade as a horrible thing. Could you imagine if Andy had bore a hole in another character’s brain to alter their behavior for his benefit? Yet when Rain does it to him, it’s a victory; worse than that, it’s really a banal event. On top of that, ANDY WAS FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING, and he’s still portrayed like some sort of evil sociopath? Oh, and remember the character is VERY OBVIOUSLY autistic/neurodivergent/intellectually-disabled coded and is also the only Black character as well. Oh yeah, they also were totally fine with condemning him to death without telling him for their own benefit. Just a load of shit. This movie was absolute dogshit and infuriating and all too revealing of the way that liberals, especially white liberals, view their untermenschen.