Alien: Romulus director shares 'brutally honest' Ridley Scott advice that helped film

Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez only wanted one person's approval for his addition to the iconic sci-fi franchise, and that was its original director Ridley Scott.

The film is a spiritual successor to 1979's Alien and follows a ragtag group of young scavengers who come face-to-face with the franchise's terrifying lifeforms on a derelict space station. Álvarez tells Yahoo UK how important it was to have Scott involved in Alien: Romulus from the very beginning, adding that he gave "brutally honest" advice that helped make the new film even better because now it's "lean and mean".

"He's been really helpful in the whole process," Álvarez says. "He has a ruthless approach to editing, which is whatever is not needed or doesn't move the story forward needs to be cut out and so he's really helpful that way. He's brutally honest, but if you know him you know he's a brutally honest man.

"He was really helpful in saying like, 'oh, this moment you don't need, that line you don't need that' he just really helped to polish it and really give it that identity, that it really feels Alien.

"There's certain pace to the movies, even the first one [even if] that feels like it a slow burn it moves quite well. There's no waste of a moment in that movie, there's no fat in the movie... it's just perfect, and this one I think, given it to his contribution, it really ended up being kind of lean and mean."

Read more: Where does Alien: Romulus fit in the Alien timeline?

Álvarez recounts how he insisted Scott be the first person to watch the whole film as soon as possible: "I went to see him when the first cut was ready. I didn't want anybody to see it before Ridley, he had to be the first one outside of editorial to watch the movie — to respect him, I owe him that.

"It's nice to show it around and show it to everybody at the same time, but I felt like he really has to see it first. He saw it and I wanted to go see him right away, I was like I want him to see it and when he steps out of the movie I'll be ready at the table to take it.

"If he hates it, he will tell me and I'll do whatever I can to make it better. And he just came to the meeting and sat next to me, looked at me and was like: 'What can I say? It's f***ing great.'"

"It was the best day of my life," Álvarez goes on. "It really was. I was so happy because to go show it and say 'this is how I think Alien should be done this year' it's quite a thing to do, and I was so happy that he liked it."

Scott and James Cameron — who helmed original Alien sequel Aliens — were both on hand to give advice to Álvarez throughout production, but the filmmaker admits it also helped him learn when to listen and when to trust his instincts and go his own way.

"I'm particularly obsessed with my masters, with the masters of the craft," Álvarez shares. "So to have the privilege to work with them and chat film, and particularly sharing creative ideas about a film, in this case this one, is a total privilege.

"Sometimes you don't agree with them and sometimes they will say something like 'what? That's not how I would do it'. You have to kind of select where do you listen and where do you go 'OK, that's not my thing'.

"Or sometimes they might give you advice to do something in a way that is just not your style, that you wouldn't know how to do, right?

"So that's been a fascinating process, to listen to the masters and learn, and when to listen and when to dare to go against their instincts which you have to do. I definitely did here, I won't go into specifics on what departments, what ideas, but there's definitely things that you take literally and some things that you decide to go 'OK, that I won't do.'"

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Álvarez wanted to have Alien: Romulus take the franchise "back to the original direction" by creating a pure horror movie, he explains: "In its pure form Alien is a horror movie, right? And the stories of people that watched the movie when it came out are all about how it was so shocking and almost impossible to watch, so terrifying.

"Through the movies that kind of disappeared, it wasn't that experience anymore, it had scary moments for sure but not that claustrophobic, tense, anxious experience of like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe it'. This [film] still has a roller coaster of emotions, that's what I want it to be."

The Don't Breathe director adds that he was influenced by every film within the Alien franchise, even the ones that are often derided as the worst ones because he felt they all have their value.

"I think there's literally inspiration from all of it," he says. "There's no shutting down of some of them, or saying 'nah that one is not good enough'.

"There's influence from all of them, there's a shot there when there's a facehugger on the ceiling and it turns around and it falls —I realise these things after the fact usually, not when I'm making them— I [was] watching this [and realised] that's straight out of Alien 3 when the creature turns around and drops. It was unique at the time to see something [doing] that, going on the ceiling, twisting around completely and falling to the ground.

"So there is inspiration from all those movies, you'll find them. It's part of the Easter eggs almost in a way, but there's a language of those movies that is definitely inherited."

Alien: Romulus premieres in cinemas on Friday, 16 August.