ALIEN: ROMULUS Featurette - 'Ian Holm As Rook' (2024)

ALIEN: ROMULUS Featurette - "Ian Holm As Rook" (2024)

PLOT: Young people on a distant world find themselves confronting the most terrifying life-form in the universe.

RELEASE DATE: August 16, 2024

GENRE: Horror, Sci-Fi

STARS: Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced

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#alienromulus

[palmerlp]

Fede, Ridley, and Ian Holm’s family loved the idea, and they were the only ones.

[정현준-vz]

It was great to see Ian Holm again. I missed him.

[Leprechaunproduction]

For all the flak 'Romulus' has taken for bringing Ian Holm back, I think the film is a perfect example of using CGI and AI to bring a deceased actor back to life in a respectful and ethical way:

1. Ian's family gave their permission for his likeness and voice to be used, and were financially compensated for his appearance.
2. Ian reportedly loved Ash and apparently wished that he could have come back to the Alien series, so we can reasonably deduce that he would have approved appearing in 'Romulus.'
3. Ian's character was an important part of the story and didn't feel exploitive or gimmicky (though your mileage may vary on this).

Personally, I think the filmmakers did a great job with Rook, and I'm happy Mr. Holm got to reprise one of his favorite role one more time, even if it was posthumously.

[purefoldnz]

I saw that head cast of Ian Holm in the Weta Tour in Wellington

[mrmrgaming]

This was very, very hit-and-miss. The puppet shots at a fair distance were great, and some CGI was very good, but those close-ups were "wtf no." To make it worse, they kept going back to him. Why does no one look at stuff like this and just say, "It looks pants, hide it more in shadow or have fewer scenes, but make them look good."

[LaRusso]

Yeah it looked weird but in context considering it was a melted robot I can live with it.

[angelobrewster]

People complaining about this is a terrible idea but Ian Holm's widow did give them permission to use her deceased husbands likeness.

And she said that Ian loved Alien and Ash was one of his favourite characters to play.

[spatrick]

c. 2:30 "I'm going to hand this to Dan O'Bannon..." Thanks so much for the shout-out to the Sgt. Pinback himself. Everytime I watch O'Bannon get chased through the elevator and ventilation shafts in "Dark Star" I wonder what the world be like without "Alien." R.I.P., Dan.

[mistersmiley]

I genuinely didn't know it was a puppet lol. They did excellent work on it; I thought it was the original actor (de-aged of course) until I learned after watching the movie that he had passed away beforehand.

[luwucian]

0:47 and 1:04 These shots are beautiful, the shots that really need to be fixed are the first ones he has, I don't know if the problem is the brightness or the angle but there is something very wrong with those first shots. They don't look like cgi but like you're trying to make a deep fake

[alec]

They should have just done the puppet and then not CGId the mouth, it would have looked better, the cgi was very distracting and made it look fake

[luwucian]

This brings back memories of Tarkin's CGI in Rogue One, even having a model of his face to scan the final result doesn't look good, in Rook there are shots where he really looks bad, but when you see him from the front the CGI is excellent, the fact that there were so many shots makes us get used to it.

[Concreteowl]

Ash was an infiltration unit. You weren't supposed to know he was a goddam robot so having Rook with the same face makes no sense. His reveal was the beginning of the narrative breaking references that ruined the film.

[MKUltra]

I don't know why the director and crew are acting like this was a major accomplishment. It looked absolutely terrible and pulled me completely out of the movie! The mixture of CG and a model was far better in Alien3 and that isn't saying much. DO BETTER

[neongirl]

There is so much whining here. Many of the "critics" don't provide any arguments, they just caught the wave of hate. I bet some of them didn't even see the movie, but they hate it in absentia. Stop being toxic and enjoy the best xenomorph movie since the sequel.

[nicksmith]

Seen Romulus twice now, great movie!

[theyouth]

Whoa, am surprised. Thought it was full CG.

[OzzyHamid-clfi]

The best film this year. Godzilla x Kong was second best movie this year!

[Sikanda.]

I wish they hired an actor instead (possibly one that looked a little like Ian Holm to make It seem like the android was from the same gen as Ash) and use an animatronic for the body.

[thegercast]

i loved the movie but i was extremely disappointed when i read about the use of AI when making rook. they should have just put more work into the animatronic and the CG touchups. just like any other kind of art, AI has no place in film.