Rook
Posted by Darkness on October 25, 2024 (Updated: 25-Oct-2024)
Rook was a synthetic on the Renaissance station working for Weyland-Yutani Corporation as a science officer. He was badly damaged when a Xenomorph was reanimated on the station and was eventually destroyed when the Renaissance crashed into the rings of LV-410. Rook was based on the likeness of the late actor Ian Holm.
Biography
Finding The Xenomorph
Rook was the science officer aboard the Renaissance Station. In 2142, Weyland-Yutani investigated the wreckage of the Nostromo and retrieved the Xenomorph encased in resin. They lasered part of it off to reach the Xenomorph. They moved the presumed-dead Xenomorph to the Remus lab and placed it in a control rig, keeping the temperature at sub-zero. The lead scientist, Mattos, says that the creature will be useful to the bio-weapons division while Rook says the Xenomorph will be the key to eternal life.
Two security officers Adrian Kopecky and Hyla watch the events unfold. Hyla is convinced the Xenomorph is still alive and must be destroyed. After studying the creature, Rook synthesized its ovomorph form and replicated the second stage in its life cycle – the Facehugger. Rook then extracted small samples to create a compound.
Mattos insists that the Facehuggers be sent down to the Romulus module. Rook says he is allowed to take no more than five but Mattos takes half of them. He left Rook and a skeleton crew in the Remus lab while the rest of the personnel went to the Romulus lab. Adrian and Hyla access the lab and Adrian disables the rig surrounding the Xenomorph.
They planned to strap the meteorite to one of the station’s rockets. Hyla accesses the cryo lab and sees they’re synthesising the creatures. She destroys the equipment. After Adrian has disabled the rig, the Xenomorph reanimates and kills him. Rook finds that the Xenomorph has been released and tells the scientists in the Romulus lab to begin phase 1 of the trials of the Z-01 compound.
Rook agrees with Hyla that the Xenomorph poses a threat to the entire station and must be killed. Rook gives Hyla a tracker that tracks its body temperature. He suggests the creature will be trying to protect its young. In the Romulus lab, Mattos suggests the Facehuggers can be used to clean up populations in failing colonies. The Xenomorph appears and kills and frees the Facehuggers. Mattos escapes while leaving the other personnel behind.
Mattos encounters Hyla and Rook when the Xenomorph appears behind him, kills him and drags him through the ceiling. Rook advises against shooting the Xenomorph as the acid will burn through the station. Rook says the station can stand a few seconds of decompression but Hyla would have to kill it quickly and Rook would have to seal the station back up immediately.
Rook and Hyla track it to a laboratory. Just then, Rook is severed by the Xenomorph. Hyla fires on the creature and acid spills out everywhere, causing a hole in the station. Hyla is sucked into space as Rook crawls to the computer systems. Rook checks on the compound and seals the station off. In the chaos, Rook is deactivated.
Rain Reactivates Rook
Approximately 170 days later, after Rain and her group arrive at the Renaissance Station, Rain finds the deactivated Rook and removes the chip from his brain.
After Navarro is attacked by a Facehugger, Rain reactivates Rook to seek further advice on how to remove the creature. Rook says Navarro cannot be saved and she has a seed inside of her that will grow out of her and into the XX121 Xenomorph. Rain suggests freezing the Facehugger tail with the cryo fuel so that it won’t be able to choke her. The plan works and they are able to remove the Facehugger. It scurries off but Rook warns that it still might have finished its objective and it might have implanted a Chestburster.
After the Corbelan IV crashes into the hangar bay, Rook checks on the integrity of Z-01 compound and MUTHER tells him this is still 100%. Rook tells Andy that he has a new directive and he has to finish his mission. Later, Andy leads Rain and Tyler to a laboratory where the Z-01 compound is stored. Rook calls it the Prometheus fire and tells them it gives humans special characteristics that allow mankind to survive in extreme conditions like the Xenomorphs. He says the samples must be taken back to Jackson’s Star so Weyland-Yutani can retrieve it.
Andy says that Rook is tracking the compound and that when it’s in the Corbelan IV, he’ll open the hangar bay doors and set the ship to autopilot back to Jackson’s Star. In the hive, Rain rescues Kay and gives her the compound to take back to the Corbelan IV. After Kay came back to the ship, Rook asked her to give him control of the ship so he could take control of the ship. Kay ignored him. When Rain returns with Andy in the hive, they ask Rook to open the door but he refuses, not risking compromising the compound.
Rain and Andy return to the Corbelan IV through the elevator shaft, Rain gives control of the ship to MUTHER to fly them out of the Renaissance.
Rook tells them he has sent a message back to Weyland-Yutani headquarters to tell them about the incident. In six months time when they receive the message, they’ll travel to Jackson’s Star to retrieve the compound from you for further development. Rain then disconnects MUTHER from the ship and switches it to autopilot. Rook is furious and demands that the compound must be delivered to the company. Rook was destroyed along with the Renaissance Station when it crashed into the rings of LV-410.
Personality and Traits
Rook is very similar to Ash from the Nostromo and worked for Weyland-Yutani. Their objectives were similar – either to secure the Xenomorph or to secure the Z-01 compound for further research at the expense of the crew.
Other Appearances
Alien: Romulus #1 (2024)
Rook appears in the Alien: Romulus #1 comic which depicts the events on Renaissance Station before Rain and her group arrive at the station.
Behind-The-Scenes
The Rook android was originally written as a random synthetic female science officer. Concept artist Alex Nice has posted some of his artwork depicting the female android. Legacy Effects was going to do the half-body torso makeup on an actress and she would act like a damaged android. Director Fede Alvarez had the idea of creating another model of the Ash android from Alien. Unfortunately, Ash actor Ian Holm died in 2020 and any molds of his head from Alien could not be found.
The team managed to find molds of his head in New Zealand from effects company Weta FX. Ian Holm filmed one of the Hobbit films where he had his cast done. Fede Alvarez spoke to Ian Holm’s wife, Sophie de Stempel, who felt that Hollywood had ignored Holm in the last years of his life. She was pleased with the idea of the Rook android and agreed to allow his likeness to be used in the film.
For the mold that they found from The Hobbit, Ian Holm would have been 77 years old when the mold was taken compared to in his 40s for Alien. It gave the team an idea of what the proportions were in relation to his forehead, nose, and chin. After further research, they realised Lindsay Macgowan’s body was similar to Ian Holm’s. A life cast was taken of Lindsay in a sitting position and then Andy Bergholtz did a portrait sculpture in clay from photographs using the life cast they had been given. They scanned that and put it into a computer. The design team, led by Scott Patton, digitally did another pass to make it cleaner.
A full animatronic was built by Legacy Effects and digital enhancements were added in post-production to animate the mouth, eye and nose which were done by Metaphysic. Actor Daniel Betts did the voice of Rook and that recording was fed through a software called Speecher, which altered Betts’ voice based on Ash’s dialogue from Alien.
Trivia
- In one of his final messages, Rook tells Rain and Andy “I can’t lie about your chances, but you have my sympathies.” This was the final line of Ash from 1979’s Alien.
I myself was very pleased at the work they done bring back Sir Ian Holme to life ,It shows how the improvements in the realism with such brilliant work is being done ( Amazing).
I myself was very pleased at the work they done bring back Sir Ian Holme to life ,It shows how the improvements in the realism with such brilliant work is being done ( Amazing) .