VFX artists recently examined Ridley Scott's Prometheus film and discussed Scott's decision to go for a more realistic approach in a pivotal scene. The film originally saw one character mutating into a CGI-heavy monster.

Set in the Alien franchise, 2012's Prometheus starred Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron as the crew of the film's titular spaceship as they search for the origins of humanity and arrive on a distant world. In a recent episode of Corridor Crew's VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi on YouTube, Prometheus was examined alongside some of Scott's other Alien films. A version of the scene where Fifield (Sean Harris) returns to the Prometheus in a monstrous and mutated form was originally made with much more CGI, which Scott removed in post-production.

The VFX artists' work didn't see the light of day was a frustrating experience, prompting Wren to express his frustrations on the Corridor Crew show. "" he said, before ultimately admitting he understands Scott's decision to forego the CGI. "Having watched both sequences a few times now, I can kind of see him making the right call on this, where it’s like, And, it’s at a stage in the process where it’s like, ‘well, this was the idea, but it’s just not working. I’m sorry, but we have to cut it.’ It makes sense. I get it. It’s just, I hate wasted work."

The video shows the CGI-heavy version of the scene at the 17:42 minute mark. Scott's original vision for Fifield's mutated form was much more skeletal and monstrous in its design, with the character's nose seemingly completely gone while one eye was bulging profusely. The original design also included a translucent cowl over his head, seemingly resembling the skull of the Alien franchise's iconic Xenomorphs.

Following the success of the Alien franchise's most recent film, 2024's Romulus, the science fiction horror films will soon move to a new format, with a television series set to be released via FX on Hulu sometime this year. The series will be a prequel set two years before the events of the 1979 film Alien and will star Sydney Chandler as Wendy, a woman with the body of an adult but the consciousness of a child. Timothy Olyphant stars alongside Chandler as Kirsh, Wendy's synth mentor and trainer.

Alien: Earth's plot sees a mysterious space vessel crash landing on Earth, prompting Wendy and a group of soldiers to come face-to-face with Earth's greatest threat. In August 2024, a teaser of the series was shown during select screenings of Alien: Romulus, announcing the series would be released this year. An exact date has yet to be announced.

Prometheus is available for purchase on Blu-ray and at all digital streaming retailers.

Source: Screen Rant, YouTube