Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Seeing Things: How Glenn Cote and the ‘Alien: Earth’ Team Got Those Special Effects
cinemontage.org: FX’s “Alien: Earth” series captures all the vintage charm of the original 1979 “Alien” film while adding fun, new flavors to the franchise: the “Ocellus” eyeball alien creature, the carnivorous plant-like alien called the “Orchid,” the USCSS Maginot spaceship, cool new tech like Morrow’s Swiss Army-style cyborg arm, and lab equipment for transplanting consciousness — all requiring visual effects.
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Its been interesting to see through the alien franchise how special effects have evolved over the years, and how certain elements have stayed the same. I’ve seen the videos of how they build the original alien puppets for special effects, and how when they did that it was really the first of its time and the latest thing in special effects. I like how they’re still using practicals while integrating CGI, and staying true to the original movie and its groundbreaking approach to visual effects. I also really appreciate that they really made sure that they integrated those two methods seamlessly, so that its not obviously a mix of practicals and CGI but the CGI is enhancing the practicals and extending them. It sounds like what made this possible was good communication across the teams, and also that they just had a lot of fun. This is a good reminder that departments should not be separate, but should be extending the work of other departments and complimenting them.
The team behind this project clearly was very passionate about getting it right, and it seems like they made a ton of very intentional choices, ones that differ from the choices that many people make while creating visual effects. I think the fact that they actually filmed on site rather than with a green screen is part of what makes them so successful. The use of practicals in conjunction with CGI is in my opinion the best way to create really beautiful and unreal effects. I think that for this particular franchise, because the original movie was filmed in a more traditional way than what is possible with technology now, it is especially important to incorporate more of the original ways of doing things, so that you can capture the same vibe as the first movie. The hardest part of getting it all to work is the coordination between all the people working on it, so much has to happen and I would imagine it was quite a difficult experience.
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