The following contains spoilers for Ash, now playing in theatersAsh does a lot of the same things that Ridley Scott attempted in his contentious $403 million Alien prequel, Prometheus. Directed by Flying Lotus, Ash is a horror/sci-fi hybrid that focuses on Eiza González’s Riya, one of the only apparent survivors of a mysterious event at a terraforming station in deep space. Much of the film is carried by Riya, who struggles to regain her full memories of the event while also wrestling with whether to trust Ash‘s other main character Brion, another survivor who is committed to them escaping the planet with their lives.

Eiza González leads the Ash cast with grace, keeping Riya compelling even as her mysterious past and guily memories resurface. The ending of Ash cements Riya as a fun modern heir to the archetype codified by Ellen Ripley in Alien. That connection between Ash and Alien does feel purposeful, especially when one considers all the ways that Ash is connected on a story level with Prometheus, up to having very similar final endings. While Ash feels inspired by many sci-fi movies, the thematic connections with Prometheus are hard to ignore.

Ash’s Ending For Eiza González’s Riya Is Similar To Shaw’s Ending In Prometheus

Riya And Shaw Go Through Very Similar Traumas

The ending of Ash has some thematic similarities to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, further hammering home the spiritual connection between Ash and previous generations of sci-fi filmmaking. Both Ash and Prometheus build off the horror of an alien parasite infecting someone and transforming them. That’s always been at the core of the Alien franchise, with Prometheus taking it further than ever by having Shaw perform an emergency C-section on herself to get rid of the alien. Ash does something similar, with Riya using a similar mechanical device to extract the alien parasite from her head.

Both characters survive encounters with corrupted crew members and alien menace, surviving to the end of the film and seemingly escaping the narrative. However, both Flying Lotus and Ridley Scott subvert this triumphant turn. In Ash, it’s revealed the satellite Riya is heading towards is already infected with more of the alien life form. Prometheus ends on an ambiguous note by having Shaw alongside the dangerous David. This leads to Shaw’s off-screen death and direction, as revealed in Alien: Covenant. Both films approach similar themes and even end in similar ways.

Ash Feels A Lot Like An Alien Movie, Even If It Isn’t

Ash Shares A Lot Of Visual Elements And Tonal Aspects With The Alien Franchise

On the whole, Ash feels deliberately modeled after Alien franchise. Ash takes place on an isolated facility in deep-space, with a small crew bedeviled, corrupted, and killed off by an alien life form that can turn them against one another. This seemingly “perfect” alien in Ash and the Alien films wants to ᴀssimilate any species it encounters, including humanity. Both films have grim views on humanity’s flaws and the overconfidence of scientists in messing with the unknown. Both movies also use a “gritty” approach to sci-fi to emphasize the bleaker edges of the story.

Riya has some connections to Shaw from Prometheus, the last surviving scientist in the crew who is forced to put down her lover after he’s transformed into a monster. What makes Ash stand out from the other films that have taken clear inspiration from the Alien movies is the way it crystallized the human core of the character. Riya’s horror and grief propels the film in a way the sometimes emotionally cold Alien films don’t. Even as Ash takes clear inspiration from films like Prometheus and Alien, the Eiza González-led sci-fi feels like a uniquely human response to that genre.