by “Alien: Romulus” effectively rebooted the outdated “Alien” franchise with its return to old-school horror scares, practical special effects, brilliant world-building, a solid cast and a focused storyline that satisfies longtime fans and newcomers alike – there’s one reason it shot to the upper echelons of our Alien movie rankings.
The Academy Award-nominated team at Legacy Effects helped director Fede Alvarez (“Evil Dead,” “Don’t Breathe”) and cinematographer Galo Olivares (“Gretel and Hansel”) realize their vision for this hit “interquel” . their best cinematic illusions in manifesting the film’s marauding alien monsters.
Founded in 2008 after the great Stan Winston sadly passed away and Stan Winston Studios was dissolved, Legacy Effects has become an industry leader in providing creature effects and costumes. These talented craftsmen, artists and makeup masters have been involved in virtually every Hollywood sci-fi, fantasy and horror film and TV series over the past 15 years, including contributions to ‘Iron Man’, ‘Thor’, ‘Real Steel ‘, “The Avengers,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “The Mandalorian” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”
Previously, Mahan and his team worked closely with Winston in creating makeup designs and visual effects for science fiction projects such as ‘The Terminator’, ‘Aliens’, ‘Predator’, ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’, ‘Jurassic Park’. “, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, “Galaxy Quest”, “War of the Worlds” and many more. With ‘Alien: Romulus’, Mahan & Co. gave the audience even more chills through a combination of old-fashioned puppetry, animatronics and actor-in-a-suit performances that fit well with the aesthetic of 1979’s ‘Alien’ and that of 1986. “Aliens.”
Led by Mahan and his Effects Co-Supervisors Lindsay McGowan and J. Alan Scott, along with production manager Damon Weathers, Legacy worked closely with Alvarez to design/make the xenomorph puppets and suits, cocoon, Rook animatronic puppet and to design and produce up-effects of the Offspring.
“I knew who Fede was from ‘Evil Dead’ and ‘Don’t Breathe,’” Mahan tells Space.com. “When reading the script I had that same feeling where you feel that it is going to be something special. It was very true to the origins and it was more of a scary movie. It was one terrifying scenario after another, which is fun for me because I love horror movies and I don’t get to do them that often. After meeting Fede and listening to his mandate of wanting to recapture the essence of the first two films, returning to the way the creatures are presented and the feeling it gave the audience on a visceral level, I and it team here at Legacy very excited. You start to understand what we’re going to create, which is a very tangible, very sensual body that will move on set and interact with actors and will do just as much in camera, on set, live-action possible effects.”
Mahan recalls that Alvarez had some preliminary designs done, but there was still a general sense of what it was. The magicians at Legacy then began distilling it into what they thought it should be, working with Scott Patton and his design team, including Savannah Suderman, Darnell Isom, and Adam Milicevi.
“We didn’t want it to just be a guy wearing a suit,” says Mahan. The xenomorph was a kind of miniature version of the queen. It is a mechanical device, so it is very long, the waist is very narrow and the limbs are narrow. long. So the silhouette is not human at all.
“Of course we had a performer in a suit, because you need that for wire work, stunt work and difficult body movements. For example, the birth through the cocoon in the wall must be a performer because of the agility of the movement and the timing of things. You design the suit one-on-one for the animatronic as much as possible. You can never show it in its entirety, but you can intersect it with other things. The animatronic is also a very heavy robot. Ironically, when you take the skin off, it looks like a Terminator. It should be motivated by carts and custom dolls. Then we need to make a lightweight one, for the whole body, using a technique called Bunraku, a Japanese technique style of puppetry with an artist behind it attached to it with several rods that you paint digitally. Whatever the performer is doing… walking, running, crouching, that translates to the puppet in the front. So you can do a really long xenomorph walk using sets or squats and be active for full body walking shots that you can do quite easily.
“What was important for Fede was to capture the feeling in the audience that they really feel that something is really there. Then use CGI creatures when necessary, like things that crawl along a wall or things that defy the physics of what we can do. It’s planned like this: which shots are physical, which are digital, which are hybrid.”
Where Mahan and his Legacy team members ultimately created some interesting new techniques is when the xenomorph has more intimate encounters with the actors and viewers study his petrified face up close.
“We used air blowers to push the fluid in all directions, so it goes sideways and sideways, it doesn’t just float down. We had built channels through the xenomorph’s jaw systems that were plumbed in such a way that you could pass tubes through the head walk to a radio controlled pump that would deliver fluid on and off as you want. Two consistencies of fluid and then high pressure blowers underneath and smoke came out of the mouth as well. So you don’t just have this strong mix of smoke and fluid running straight down. They did it in the first movie. They used pure water, I think, just kind of running down, and that was really effective.”
Perhaps the most disturbing creature that Legacy came up with was the hybrid monster born by Kay in the Romulus finale. It’s a hideous monstrosity, played by the six-foot-tall Romanian basketball player Robert Bobroczkyi, who was a consummate professional despite this being his first film.
“Fede had always written that the offspring will be born. It will happen very quickly, because they are designed to grow very quickly,” notes Mahan. “The cycle of life is accelerated in a terrifying way, otherwise the story wouldn’t have time to wait for it to happen. There was a lot of discussion about what this child would look like. Would it start as a baby? in a capsule? Were we going to cut to a ten-year-old with makeup and then to someone else? Could it be long black hair? We were concerned because it’s the last ten minutes of a movie and that has to be strong because that’s what the audience remembers most when they walk out at the end of the movie. That creature had to be something spectacular.”
“Fede wanted to play with the ideas earlier in the design phase, whether it was more Xenomorph-like or more Engineer-like. Ultimately we found a fusion between the two and went to a more likeable human with a touch of both, but the black eyes of the Engineers stood out. That helped build the bridge and told the story with subcutaneous xenomorphic textures.’
Alvarez scored by finding the perfect actor to play the Offspring because of Bobroczkyi’s unusually lofty stature, incredible patience and elongated limbs.
“He made the sensation of the makeup work because of his remarkable physique. He had never acted or worn advanced full-body prosthetics before, and this was brand new territory. The studio, Fede and everyone took a chance on him. Fede asked if I thought we could work with this man and I said, ‘Absolutely.’ Robert took it very seriously and worked with movement coaches and acting coaches to create this character. In the end, he did as good a job as any artist I’ve ever worked with would have looked no different than ‘Prometheus’ or ‘Covenant’ with. average-sized people wearing makeup. The effect is enormous. The audience feels that it is real, although many people think he is a CGI creation, which is astonishing to me.
“Ultimately, Lindsay, Alan and I are very proud of this incredible film and the hard work the in-house artists put in.”
20th Century Studios’ ‘Alien: Romulus’ is currently in theaters. You can also watch the rest of the Alien franchise on Hulu, and to find out where Alien Romulus fits into the established canon, check out our list of Alien movies in order.
