New Alien: Romulus Legacy Effects Article Features Trove of Behind The Scenes Imagery!

As we continue to get treated with looks at more behind the scenes materials, one of our favorite phases of a new film’s release, LA Weekly has just published an an extensive editorial on the effects work which brought the creatures to life in Alien: Romulus. 

In the excellently written and in-depth article on the film’s contributions of Legacy Effects – the reformed practical effects studio by Stan Winston’s protégés, studio co-founder Shane Mahan offered insight into the creative and technical journey for Romulus.

Mahan explained how the pre-production development process for practical effects studios has been streamlined by advancing technology such as digital sculpting and 3D printing:

“The fact that we sculpt in a computer, and rapidly prototype and print full-scale sections of bodies, as opposed to sculpting entirely by clay and making molds, we can engineer the mechanisms first and then skin them with the digital sculpts afterwards,” states Mahan. “I mean you don’t have to retrofit the mechanisms into the art. We can work around it and bypass a problem. There are so many things that we can do, on a shorter production timeline, using the technology that’s available to streamline the process. People don’t realize just how much we use digital work on our side of things to create physical effects. We don’t do CGI shots, but we’re using an awful lot of digital technology to create the creatures. There’s still a great deal of hand sculpting, absolutely, for prosthetic makeups and certain things that you need to have actual clay-to-surface construction, but the advancements are tremendous. Also, with telemetry-driven animatronics and very strong servos and computer systems that run those things, everything is really quite spectacular today.”

The article includes a bunch of new behind-the-scenes images from Alien: Romulus, courtesy of Legacy Effects. In a couple of the shots you can also spot our friend, effects artist Adam Milicevic, who recently illustrated a new apparel design for us.

Spoilers for Alien: Romulus follow below.

Mahan provides insight into the effects and influences of multiple elements including the Xenomorph, Offspring, the decimated corpse of the original ‘Big Chap’ Alien, and the android character ‘Rook.’

Rook was also explained to have been originally written as a female android character, something director Fede Álvarez also told us during our recently recorded upcoming podcast episode. It’s possible this explains the early casting rumors of actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Originally written as a random synthetic woman science officer, Legacy Effects simply would have just done a half-body torso makeup on a non-specific actress, and she would have acted like a torn-apart robot. As it were, Álvarez conjured up the idea of making the android look like the same model as Ash from the first Alien. As Mahan discloses, “It’s not Ash, but it’s the same model,” like a mass produced synthetic version of the same character.

Check out the full article over at LA Weekly, it’s well worth reading.

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