Alien: Romulus Didn’t Need To Bring Back Ian Holm

is another entry into the disturbing modern trend of bringing dead actors back to life through the magic (read: dystopian, anti-art, digital necromancy) of CGI. Ian Holm, who played the synthetic science officer Ash in the first Alien, was ‘resurrected’ for an appearance in the latest movie as new character Rook. Putting aside the ramifications of refusing to let the dead stay dead by continuing to use their likeness without their consent in pursuit of obvious profit💜, what does it even add?

Alien is essentially a slasher in space. A big monster hounds a group of people in a remote setting, killing them one by one, until the final girl survives by the skin of her teeth. There are a lot of poignant themes and some incredible worldbuilding throughout the series, even in the maligned and divisive entries, but 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the barebones formula🍃 is pretty simple. You don’t need old characters to make th꧋ese movies work, let alone late actors—a group of people hounded by a xenomorph will hook every Alien fa𓆉n, regardless of who those people are. It’s that easy.

The original movies followed Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, while legacy sequels like the video game 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alien: Isolation told the story of her daughter, Amanda. But in recent years, Ripley has been retired. Promethe𓆉us and Covenant, two prequels which𓂃 dove into the origins of the xenomorph with an entirely new cast, showed us that Alien can work without dredging up old faces.

Likewise, with Romulus, Rook didn’t need to be played by Holm. He’s a new character, the connection being that he’s also a synthet♛ic. The only reason for his untimely return instead of a new actor taking the role is to dangle shiny keys in front of an audience that is being conditioned to view these meaningless cameos of beloved deceased actors as being of any substance when they are in fact just shallow, meaningless fodder. Romulus might be a good movie, but this appearance of Holm is a blight that tarnishes its entire existence.

Ian Holm’s Family Wanted This, But That Doesn’t Excuse It

A lot of people are incredibly outraged by cameos like this. But your casual moviegoer just finds them uncomfortable. They look off, veering too far into the uncanny valley. We saw it with Rogue One when it brought back Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin—he looked like a melted wax figure. Ghostbusters: Afterlife more recently featured the late Harold Ramis as a ghost, which looked like something straight out of the Polar Express. And of course, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:we had The Flash and its 🏅various revived s🐷uperheroes. These cameos are unnerving, so why do them?

As it turns out, , saying that they would “love to see his likeness again”. Ignoring that your family can’t consent on your behalf, especially not if you are dead, even director Fede Álvarez himself said that Holm probably wouldn’t have played Rook like the CGI animatronic with a generative AI voice did anyway. If Holm is playing a new character with a CGI-rendered face♋, ဣan impersonated voice, and a performance even the director knows doesn’t match his talent, then why did anyone suggest this, let alone approve it?

His widow told Álvarez that🀅 "she felt that [Holm] was given the cold shoulder by Hollywood in the last years of his life" and that he but only being valued afꦚter death for cheap nostalgia hardly feels like honouring his legacy.

These necromantic cameos are an incredibly cold and empty way to view acting. It’s a belief that those who gave such great performances in the past can be brought back through an amalgamation of soulless technological feats again and again. Acting is so much more than just reciting lines; the context in which a performance takes place and how an actor gets into the mind of their character and empathises with th☂em and their situation is what leads to iconic performances like Holm’s, to begin wi𓂃th. To think that you can capture even a fraction of that with Frankenstein parts run through a computer program is frankly insulting.

Alien Romulus woman walking down an orange-tinted corridor in a spaceship

Álvarez admitted that it’s a “much more expensive way” to film a scene, r💃equiring a dedicated team of people to pull it off. Why then would you bother? The vague interpretation of Holm that we got in Romulus would have been outperformed by a real actor, and perhaps even givܫen a new and upcoming performer in the industry a chance to show their chops and become as beloved as Holm himself has.

This rotating door of the same 💟faces, whether it’s the big names in Hollywood we always see or the literal dead, limits opportunities and shrinks the industry to such a size that it stagnates, all for the sake of chasing a well of nostalgia that dried up years ago.