Ahead of the cinema release of Alien: Romulus, here’s what we learned from director Fede Álvarez in a post-footage Q&A back in June.
There’s nothing quite like seeing some death and gore just after you’ve had breakfast. But back in June, that’s what Film Stories was treated to, as director Fede Álvarez showed off roughly 20 minutes’ footage from his upcoming space horror, Alien: Romulus.
As you probably know by now, it’s nightmarish tangent for the franchise that takes place between the events of Alien and Aliens, but beyond the gnashing teeth of its title monster, isn’t directly connected to, say, the progress of Ellen Ripley from the original run of films or Michael Fassbender’s David from Ridley Scott’s prequels.
It’s a taut, full-blooded and distinctly retro-looking movie, filled with the claustrophobic, industrial-looking corridors we saw in Scott and James Cameron’s iconic movies. As the final bloody image faded to black and the lights in the screening room came back up, Álvarez, settling into a chair, quipped that what we saw “is not the worst part of the movie. This is PG-13 footage – morning stuff.”
Joined by author Ian Nathan (Alien: Vault), Álvarez then embarked on an informative and quite funny Q&A session. So informative and funny, we thought we’d bring you the edited highlights. Here’s what the director had to say.
The road to Alien: Romulus began in 2017 with a meeting at Ridley Scott’s company – about something entirely unrelated to Alien.
It was right after Don’t Breathe [his 2016 thriller]. I had a random meeting at Scott Free. That was in 2017. They were starting to do [Alien] Covenant already, and then the Neill Blomkamp thing [Alien 5] fell apart. They asked what I’d like to see. I pretty much pitched the vibe of this film and the younger characters based on that scene from Aliens. A bunch of kids running around. I was curious to see what happens when those people grow up and they realise they’re in a mining colony and there’s no future for them whatsoever. I was very intrigued by what would happen with those characters.
It stayed in the air. It really was not a pitch – I just mentioned my passion for it and what I would do with it. Then a couple of years went by, and Steve Asbell, who runs 20th Century Studios, got wind of that story. He called me up and was like, ‘Is it true you’d like to do an Alien movie?’ I said yes. He was like, ‘what would you do?’
I had a pitch at that point. It’s the heart of the movie, which is the relationship between Rain and Andy. That was really what got it going – subtract all the aliens, subtract all the horror and there’s still a story there to the end, how that story unfolds.
Álvarez’s first Zoom call with Ridley Scott didn’t go entirely to plan.
It was terrifying [pitching to Ridley Scott]. I had a Zoom call to tell him what it was. And someone from [20th Century Studios] says, ‘Don’t pitch him the story. Just give him the vibe of what you want in that world.’ I was like, ‘gotcha.’
So I’m super nervous, and I rarely am with these things after years of working in Hollywood, but it’s Ridley Scott, right, and I’m going to tell him how an Alien movie should be.I give him the vibe, the whole thing – ‘It’s a bit of this, a bit of that.’ And Ridley, at the end, was like, ‘You don’t have a story. You don’t have a story here.’
I was like, ‘Fucking hell.’
I did have the story but someone advised me not to tell the story. So at that point I couldn’t say, ‘I do have a story but someone told me not to tell you.’ So the first call didn’t go well with Ridley. He said, ‘You need to ring me back with a full story.’
I was like, ‘Okay, will do, sir.’
Then we had another call that went better, where he heard the story and loved it. Then it was a series of meetings with him that were lovely.
Both Ridley Scott and James Cameron chipped in with their advice.
At the very beginning, once we had a script, we sat down with him to get his two cents on the script, he was very supportive. He was full-on, ‘you’ve got to make this movie. The script’s great.’
Ironically, his advice was very similar to some of the conversations I had with James Cameron eventually. The idea that, as a director you have to do everything yourself. You’ve gotta be involved in everything and it has to be very personal. There’s no way to make these movies to really go beyond their budgets and look bigger. That’s true in all those movies. Everyone I met on the side of Aliens, the miniature builders, the VFX supervisors, they’ll all insist on that. It has to be handmade.
Aliens was a low-budget movie by all measures. They did what they could with what they had. And you watch the movie and it feels massive. But that is the work behind it that the director and everybody’s giving it everything.
In this movie, I do VFX shots myself because we were running out of money at one point. I did a few shots. Many things like that. You can’t just depend on hiring all the right people and we’ll have a great movie. That’s why I think it’s a filmmaker franchise more than anything else. These are movies that depend on who the director is.
Part of Álvarez’s plan was to attract audiences too young to have seen the earlier Alien movies.
What I really want to do is pass it to the next generation that haven’t heard [of Alien]. Those kids that piss you off when they say, ‘Nah, I haven’t seen it’. I met a lot of young actors for this movie, and a lot of the things I heard were crazy; one of them said, ‘I’ve seen the originals – the first two ones.’
‘Oh great. Which one did you like the most?’
‘I think probably more Prometheus than Alien: Covenant.’ [Laughs]
I was like, ‘You’re not getting the job.’
These kids were like mid-20s, right? As a movie fan, you want to go, ‘I’ll show you why these movies are great.’ Because sometimes you show them old movies and they’re like, ‘I dunno. The effects look old.’
So that’s part of the motivation as well. To take all the best ideas and make them into a two-hour punch in the face they cannot ignore.
Álvarez’s commitment to practical effects extended to performing some of the puppetry himself.
It’s super handmade, this movie. I’m there on the floor puppeteering a lot of the things you see there. Every facehugger in the water is me shaking a piece of rubber under water and holding the camera at the same time. So I’m super involved.. I try not to think about that, because I don’t want to make it about myself. I want to make it about the movie and the characters and the things I loved about the previous ones.
Some veterans of practical effects were assembled for Alien: Romulus, including Alec Gillis and Shane Mahan, who both worked on Aliens. Plus: Phil Tippett!
[We have] Alec Gillis, and Shane Mahan from Legacy Effects – all Stan Winson’s people. The rule of thumb is, if it can be done practical, it will be done practical.
Hollywood could be, can be, very lazy. When they do CG, it’s not because it’s cheaper – it’s actually more expensive – it’s just quicker. It saves you a headache on set. But I didn’t get myself into this art just to say, ‘The monster in this next scene comes through the door.’
If you bring in the one-tonne animatronic [Alien] then believe me, it’s going to suck up all your day to get him through the door, but man, when you see it, you’re there.
The opposite is, there’s nothing there on the day and someone else on a computer will create the shot and I’ll see it later. I don’t get any joy out of that. I get the joy out of seeing it happen.
We built miniatures as well. Ian Hunter, who built Mars on Total Recall, built the ships for us. We scanned them and there are CG versions of it, but they’re not built on a computer. Even the CG ships are scanned from a real miniature made by hand by real artists, the way they used to make them. So when you look at the detail you can see all the handmade work. Other shots are literally just us filming miniatures.
We got Phil Tippett to do some stop motion for some shots. His team came and did a shot for us.
The idea is that we fool you, which I think movies to a certain extent have stopped trying to do. Not to have a go at Marvel or these big movies, but I don’t think they’re trying to be photorealistic; they’re fun and colourful but no one’s trying to get you to believe a creature or whatever it is is really there. I think the best special effects movies used to do that – ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m seeing this.’
Movies have given up on this for the most part, but we have it. You need to believe that what you’re looking at is real.
The translucent dome on the top of the xenomorph’s head, seen in Alien but removed by James Cameron for Aliens, is making a return.
Shane [Mahen] built the Queen [in Aliens]. He couldn’t wait to go back. The story Shane tells the most about Aliens was that early on Cameron goes, “Get rid of the fucking dome.” Because he wanted to see the thing. “The dome looks silly.”
So the day we had the first meeting, he said, “We gotta put the dome back on.” We said, “Yes!”
Shane was there to put the dome back on the creature. Also, the beauty of it was that they would help each other. Each [artist] had their shop and their teams, but because we’re always trying to achieve a lot more than was planned, there was a moment where Alec [Gillis] was doing the chestburster.
That thing you see there is eight people puppeteering. It’s all practical – there’s not a frame of CG on that creature. We needed more people, so I told Shane and he goes, “Let’s go help Alec!”
So Shane’s with his team, gets under the table. To see the both of them together, shoulder to shoulder working, that’s what I wanted. So we ended up spending more money just for me to have the pleasure of seeing all those people reunited.
The alien was brought to life with both animatronics and an actor in a suit.
There’s suit performance as well – it’s a mix. It depends on the shot. Most of the close-ups, when you see a lot of facial animation, it’s animatronic. When there’s more movement, or when they’re crawling, it’s usually a performer. It’s a combination of both.
When you see them walking in it’s always funny, because someone has to bring them in, holding them, because they can’t see shit.
So when we finally saw the xenomorph coming onto set [for the first time], we’re [excitedly]: ‘He’s coming! Here he comes!’
I’d seen the pieces, but I hadn’t seen the full suit. And of course I’m betting my whole career that the guy in the suit’s gonna look great, because that’s what we all want to see. Then they bring the guy in, someone’s holding his hand, ‘Come on!’
The Alien’s head bumps into everything. It’s hilarious, you should see it. That’s why movies are all about point of view – putting the camera in the right place. When you see behind the scenes [footage] of the first movie, it’s also kind of funny. So part of the art of this is knowing how to shoot them.
The look of the xenomorph in its various forms returns to the biomechanical concept dreamed up by artist HR Giger.
I wouldn’t dare to change anything really. If there’s any changes to things… I even take the novels as canon, and the comics. I always had [xenopedia] open on my laptop when I was writing. Whatever change there is – the facehuggers have slightly different skin – it’s all justified by the story.
I do love the biomechanical aspect of it that some [later] filmmakers just ditched. In every movie it became more organic. I think the biomechanical aspect is the most terrifying, because you don’t understand why he has a pipe on his head that looks like an engine. That’s terrifying. Once he became a creature, all organic, like in Alien: Resurrection, it’s like, ‘Well, it’s just a creature. I understand it.’ And what’s scary is what you don’t understand.
The speed of the xenomorph’s life-cycle is more in line with the original Alien than Alien: Covenant.
I would say [the gestation] is not as fast as [in] Covenant – that was too much. I’ve watched that movie a lot of times. I like all the Alien movies. There’s [a facehugger] that jumps on Damián Bichir’s face for a second, right? A second. They take it out. He’s impregnated. Did you notice that? It’s crazy. That’s the one that gets on board. There’s a moment where you see his body there and you go, ‘What the fuck…? When did that…?’ It was just in that instant. But these are Ridley’s movies. So it is canon. You can’t cherry pick. I accept it.
Ours is not that. It’s more in line with the first movie. There’s a bit of a time jump in some moments, to allow you to go, ‘Okay, that was probably enough time for the creature to grow.’ It might be a little bit faster I would say. I haven’t timed it yet.
In the first movie, it’s quite fast as well. They land on the planet. They thing falls off his face.We don’t know exactly how long [has passed] by the time Kane seems to be okay. By the time [the chestburster] comes out and they go chase it, it’s kind of right away [that it grows into a full-grown Alien]. They don’t wait two days to chase the creature. They go right away looking for the creature, and they find it and it’s big. That’s always a shock – how come it grows so fast? That’s what’s terrifying about it. Everything tends to be more in line with the first film when it comes to those things.
Álvarez has tried to create a realistic feel in Alien: Romulus.
Once in a while, movies take a step forward with regard to how things look or sound. I still remember the first time Ed Norton punches Brad Pitt in Fight Club, it sounds like [slaps palm]. I remember going, ‘Fuck! That’s how a punch really sounds.’ Because if you remember, one month before, movies were still doing [Hollywood punch sound effect]. Right? We were used to that.
Fight Club was the first one that sounded like punching meat. And we went, ‘Finally. It’s more honest. It’s more real.’
We’re constantly looking for that. The way the Beretta sounds on Terminator 2, when he opens fire on Arnold in the mall. Guns, the week before, sounded [makes sound of a massive bang] in every movie. In [Terminator 2] it was pah, pah, pah. Really dry. I guess Cameron was like, ‘That’s how guns really sound.’
So I think there’s a constant thing that movies try to do – you go like, “We’ve been doing this shit for so long, why have we got used to something looking or sounding like this when it’s not what it is?”
You make the effort and change it and hopefully it works. A lot of the things we’ve done here – the chestburster [in Alien: Romulus] is one of those – I want people to see it and go, ‘That’s probably how a chestburster is born in real life’.
[In Alien] it comes out and goes, ‘Wahhh motherfucker!!’ and just runs away. As classic as that is, it felt like this [birth in Alien: Romulus] was more realistic. My direction, if you could hear it behind the scenes, was ‘Okay, go for momma. Go for mother’s scent’ and the creature goes to try to smell the mother. Tries to look for its mother.
And that’s why they’re so angry, the xenomorphs. They’re born and the mother’s dead right next to them every time. [Laughter from audience]
So that’s the approach – you see it and you think, ‘That’s the real version of a xenomorph or a chestburster.’
Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 sci-fi thriller Gravity was an influence on that realistic approach – right down to the silence of space.
Gravity comes out and everybody says, ‘That’s how space actually is’, right? There’s no sound. It’s a constant evolution. And once things are done that way it’s hard to go back.
A lot of this is post-Gravity in a lot of ways. For some reason there was some push back from everybody around me at the beginning, but [Alien: Romulus] opens and there’s a shot of space, and for the first few minutes there’s no sound whatsoever. You’re in space and there’s a whole sequence. And you go, ‘Is the sound wrong?’ Thank God they have the logo beforehand.
So we try to push things to be as realistic as they can be. Alien is kind of grounded in science fiction at the end of the day – it’s not fantasy. If it was crossing to the Star Wars side, we’d go, ‘Fucking hell, what are we doing’ and start to pull back. It’s trying to be as grounded as it can be. That’s why it lends itself to animatronics, because I prefer the slow presence to the xenomorph, like the original movie, instead of too much of the jumpy-jumpy ninja shit that happened in later movies.
It’s more like a Nosferatu, Dracula presence than some guy that is angry and screaming all the time, you know? I wanted to see him in a more classy way, I guess.
Fede Álvarez isn’t saying no to making a sequel.
I always say yes to that question. Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe did really well, and we did have the conversation afterwards [about making sequels]. I really don’t know. I don’t make a lot of movies as you guys might notice. I don’t feel the world needs another random movie, so I choose things that are special that I think need to be made. Also I have a tonne of hobbies, so I do other things apart from movies.
My instinct is always yes, because if you love the world and the characters, you kind of want to continue. At the same time, once I’ve done it, I’ve done it. So I don’t really know. I really never, ever think about anything else before I’m done. I force that on myself. I don’t want to get distracted. The movie experience for me is truly sacred.
Alien: Romulus is out in UK cinemas on the 16th August.
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