The mother of all creature features returns to the big screen this month with ‘Alien: Romulus.’ Horror director Fede Alvarez delivers a terrifying cinematic experience that takes the classic ‘Alien’ franchise back to its roots. Set between the events of the first two Alien movies, the film follows a group of young space colonisers who come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
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This is the 7th movie in the Alien Franchise, or 9th movie if you count the two ‘Alien Vs. Predator’ movies.
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Set between the events of Alien & Aliens, the movie takes place two decades into Ellen Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) 57-year hyper sleep.
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Bypassing CGI in favour of traditional special effects, ‘Alien: Romulus’ director Fede Alvarez has revealed one of the chestbuster scenes in the movie took the work of 9 puppeteers to achieve.
SPECIAL EDITION
The idea for ‘Alien: Romulus’ stems from a deleted scene in ‘Aliens’ that James Cameron restored for the Special Edition release on Laserdisc in 1991. In ‘Aliens: Special Edition’ the colony of Hadley’s Hope is shown as it was before the Xenomorph infestation, with children playing in the corridors. Director Fede Alvarez wanted to see what it would be like for those kids growing up in a colony that still needs another 50 years to be habitable.
TENNIS BALL ON A STICK
The creatures seen in the film were built by the special effects veterans who worked on the original Aliens movie. The director admitted it would be easier to just use a tennis ball on a stick, the team used methods including puppetry, stop motion animation & even dressed a guy up in an alien suit to achieve 100% practical creature effects.
ALIEN ISOLATION
Released in 2014, ‘Alien: Isolation’ is a video game that immersed players in the nightmarish terror of the Alien universe. The game centres around Amanda Ripley, the now grown-up daughter of Ellen Ripley as she investigates the disappearance of her mother. Director Fede Alvarez cited the game as a major influence on ‘Alien Romulus’ & eagle eyed fans have already spotted a connection to the game in the film’s trailer.
ND-255
David Jonsson plays the role of Andy, a synthetic artificial person, also known as ND-255. He follows in the footsteps of fellow synthetics Ash (Ian Holm in Alien), Bishop (Lance Henriksen in Aliens & Alien 3), Annalee (Winona Ryder in Alien: Resurrection), and Walter & David (Michael Fassbender in Prometheus & Alien: Covenant).
CLASSIC MYTHOLOGY
The title of the film refers to a science lab named Romulus where part of the film takes place, and there is a sister station ‘Remus’, both named after the mythological founders of the Rome. This continues the tradition of the franchise taking names from classic mythology, such as ‘Prometheus’, taking its name from a Greek Titan, the planetoid Acheron in ‘Aliens’, taking its name from a river in the Greek underworld, and the USS Auriga in ‘Alien: Resurrection,’ which was named after a Greek hero.
ALIEN ROMULUS is at cinemas from Aug 16th