Original subtitles

This movie, from its inception , was going to be the biggest visual effects movie...

...I'd ever attempted .

CAGE : Finish it!

[SQU EALS]

It's always d ifficult to try and do something very unique and original with aliens.

It's funny to say, but it's hard to design a good alien .

LI MAN : I never waste an opportunity to bring an interesting character to life.

And why would I waste the opportunity on the villains of the movie.

We really worked on the story behind the mimics.

And when design gets driven by story, you're on much surer grou nd .

There is a huge history of aliens in science-fiction movies...

...and there's just iconic things that you don't wanna step on .

It's incred ibly difficult to be unique, there is so much derivative material out there.

You want it to have mystery, to have a violence, you want it to be scary.

[SOLDI ERS SCREAM I NG]

And I think it accomplishes all of that.

DAVIS : We wanted to think about what the book had said , that these were creatures...

...that have been sent as microbes on comets...

...that had landed and then had spread and tried to treat them like a virus.

LI MAN : We ultimately settled on three different types of aliens for the film .

There's the gru nt-soldier alien .

Here they come.

Mean as hell and thick as grass.

[SCREECH I NG]

[SOLDI ERS SCREAM I NG]

LI MAN : Then there are the generals.

DAVIS : The Alphas, they have a very clear head , face and eyes.

They, obviously, being much bigger, much heavier and more sentient.

[G ROWLI NG]

And then the Omega is more the power source.

It's just something that, at the moment, just exists underneath the Louvre.

It's a brain . Heh , heh .

SCHOLL: We had a 4700 concept illustrations.

Two hundred and seventy six sketches. Six hundred issued draftings, 36 models.

But N ick Davis pushed it another level forward ...

...saying , "Let's go into animation movements studies...

...and then come from the movement side...

...to those designs that we have and see what that brings."

And that opened a whole slew of things.

Did animation studies, and we came up with something we called "deus ex machina."

- Deus ex machina. MAN : It's deus ex machina moment.

It's just an interesting movement.

It's just a metaphor for the way that this creature moves.

It's a slow, then fast motion .

They can move, obviously, in any direction and they...

...you know, they have that incredible ability.

DAVIS : It really is a mindless wrecking machine.

CRU ISE: You see their speed , they're able to dig in and surprise you .

They're able to kill many at the same time.

And yet the villain has to have an intelligence.

Their real power was in being able to predict where you're going to be.

CAGE : Let's go!

S I LVER: And we came up with the notion that the mimic would have multiple tendrils.

And the idea in the book was that it had a javelin-like weapon .

DAVIS : The internal light source of the creatures, this sort of molten lava...

...sort of, travels down the tentacle that's being whipped out...

...and then is released out the end and becomes a six-foot, red-hot javelin .

Ah !

LI MAN : N ick and I spent hundreds of hours figuring out how aliens would fight...

...so we could then show that to Simon Crane...

...so he could figure out how humans would fight.

And from that we then have a large previs team ...

...then we basically then start designing the sequences in the computer...

...say, the backing lot on the beach .

[SOLDI ERS YELLI NG]

CRAN E : It isn't just luck that we managed to film aliens.

They're very specific camera moves.

And as the camera guys don't have something to frame u p on ...

...it's extremely difficult.

[SHOUTI NG]

LI MAN : By the time we got to the set...

...we can be really specific about these characters that weren't there...

...where they would be.

BLU NT: We had eye lines to look at...

...but they were always moving and so there would be a lot of...

[LAUGHS]

These guys wearing these special effects green-screen suits.

And they look like little green lizards.

And they'd be holding sticks with lights and sort of moving around ...

...and we'd be able to follow them , and it was like organized chaos a lot of the time...

...and Doug would ru n around and pretend to be an alien for us to kind of react to, you know.

Mimic everywhere, people shooting .

MAN : Action !

But it's exciting to work like that.

CRU ISE: The visual effects team that we had on this...

...and also, I think, Doug's instincts and his guidance throughout were exceptional .

DAVIS : It's gotta look interesting , be original , it's gotta be unique and it's gotta be fast...

...and ultimately, their role in the movie is the foil that Cage has to defeat...

...which is this never-ending wave of creatures that they just are u nstoppable.

They don't eat, they don't sleep, they just kill .

[G RU NTI NG]