With a box office haul of $350 million worldwide and widespread acclaim, 2024’s ‘Alien: Romulus‘ was considered a strong return to form for the sci-fi movie series (soon adding a TV show), but one crucial element bothered a lot of people: Ian Holm’s return ‘thanks’ to a combination of puppetry and CGI.
For a movie that looks so remarkably good – from the oppressive, classical set design to the astounding lighting work – Ash’s (Rook this time around) uncanny comeback was a noticeable exception. Since his presence can be felt throughout most of the movie, it tarnished the experience for many fans. However, it seems that the studio and the filmmakers were listening to the feedback and have made some key changes for the home release.
“We just ran out of time in post-production to get it right,” director Fede Álvarez said during a new interview with Empire. “I wasn’t 100 percent happy with some of the shots, where you could feel a bit more the CG intervention. So, for people that react negatively, I don’t blame them.” The filmmaker’s previous big-screen work included 2013’s fantastic ‘Evil Dead’ remake and the low-budget horror-thriller ‘Don’t Breathe’. After those, Romulus felt like a labor of old-school love through and through except for the aforementioned sequences, so it’s not entirely surprising to see him admitting something was off about them.
Álvarez convinced the powers that be to return to post-production after the movie’s cinematic release to rework some of the visuals before the domestic launch.
“We fixed it… We made it better for the release right now. I convinced the studio we need to spend the money and make sure we give the companies that were involved in making it the proper time to finish it and do it right. It’s so much better.”
He also confirmed that the whole character was a mix of traditional puppetry and digital techniques that have become more prevalent in recent times, with the updated version of the movie leaning more toward the practical approach.
Fascinating… streaming versions of Alien: Romulus have apparently made some tweaks to certain shots of Rook VFX (via Reddit) pic.twitter.com/XMEY6iT7QGJanuary 10, 2025
Regardless, the end result hasn’t convinced its biggest critics. While Rook is indeed much better integrated into the shots’ overall lighting and the mouth movements have seen some improvement, it continues to look uncanny overall. They would probably have been better off using ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’‘s David to better tie into the whole black goo subplot and ‘wrap up’ the prequels’ unfinished arc.
It’s not 100% clear if “home release” just means the Blu-ray and DVD versions of ‘Alien Romulus’, or if the streaming versions will be updated too. Alien Romulus landed on Hulu in the US back in November, and it’s releasing on Disney+ in the UK today.
