Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus contains quite a few call-backs to Ridley Scott's original masterpiece and James Cameron's sequel, but - somewhat controversially - it also reintroduces a concept from one of the less popular movies in the franchise, Alien: Resurrection.
Towards the end of the film, a pregnant and dying Kay (Isabela Merced) injects herself with the Rook android's Prometheus 5 formula to keep herself alive. Though she does survive (for a while), this ultimately results in her giving birth to a monstrous human/alien hybrid that kills its own mother almost immediately.
Named "The Offspring" in the credits, this rather terrifying creature does look a lot better than the albino monstrosity from Resurrection, but introducing another hybrid did result in some backlash, and for a lot of fans, the decision tarnished the movie’s final act.
Now, concept artist Dane Hallett has unveiled another alternate design for the Offspring, and this multi-limbed monstrosity is a far cry from the hybrid that appeared in the movie - there's even a version with wings!
"At one point, the material Kay uses on herself has such a dramatic genetic effect on her unborn child that it grew into this monstrosity," Hallett explains. "It made it all the way to previs when it finally changed into something else (I'll eventually share) before reverting back to just being the offspring you saw in the final cut This was nerve-racking... Was I going to be responsible for an unloved mutation in the Alien Universe?
I tried desperately to give this thing purpose, presence and make it an ode to all that had come before it. In the end, I’m grateful we got what we got in the final cut, but here’s what could have been."
In related news, Alien: Earth showrunner Noah Hawley confirmed that the FX series will introduce a new breed of Xenomoroh during a recent interview with Deadline.
“There’s something about seeing a Xenomorph in the wilds of Earth with your own eyes. That is truly chilling to think of it moving here among us, and so I can’t tell you under what circumstances you’ll see that, but you’ll see it — and you’re going to lock your door that night. What was really fun for me was to really engage with the creature, bring some of my own thoughts to the design while not touching the silhouette, because that’s sacrosanct.”
“But some of the elements as we know, whatever the host is, informs what the final creature is,” he added. “I just wanted to play around a little bit to make it as scary as it should be.”
It doesn't sound like this new creature design will deviate too much from the original, but Hawley's comments definitely suggest that we will see a Face-hugger attach itself to a non-human host.
"Not a perfect organism, but despite an overreliance on retreading over old ground, Alien: Romulus does mark a thrilling return to form, and is surely destined to be ranked as the third-best Alien movie," we said in our review of Alien: Romulus.
"The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."
The film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), and Aileen Wu. Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.