Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT:This article discusses plot points, including the ending of “Alien: Romulus,” now playing in theaters.
When Fede Álvarez decided to make “Alien: Romulus,” he knew from the outset that he wanted to honor not just “Alien” and Aliens,” the most acclaimed and popular films in the series, but its entire mythology. “I was like, ‘we have to embrace them all’,” he tells Variety.
Even so, he built a pivotal part of the “Romulus” story around a character who died in the original movie: Ash, the synthetic human played by the late Ian Holm with chilling obedience to the franchise’s capitalistic overlords, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
After “Alien 3” and “Alien vs. Predator” expanded the life cycle of “Aliens” android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), and Michael Fassbender’s David led both of the prequels, Álvarez says that Holm’s role (or at least his visage) was due for resurrection. “It was out of fairness in a way,” he says. “I felt it was so unfair that Lance Henriksen made many appearances, and Michael Fassbender.
Read more on variety.com