Alien 3 is perhaps not the most beloved of the Alien franchise overall, though it definitely has its fans. Whatever you might think of the final product, David Fincher‘s feature film directorial debut swung for the fences in many ways, and some of those things worked….and some, well, didn’t. One of the more out-of-the-box ideas that Fincher and his team came up with when making Alien 3 some 25 years ago was to use an actual dog, in this case a Whippet, and dress it up in a specially made latex suit to become the animal based version of the deadly xenomorph.

This version of the xenomorph ultimately didn’t get used, and a pretty sophisticated puppet (and later, CGI in the extended version) was used instead. Recently, the folks at studioADI created a video which chronicles the production’s attempt at creating a realistic looking xeno-dog, using both stills and camera tests. Although the makeup was actually impressive, once the dog started running around in the suit, it just scurried away like the cute little pooch it was, killing any suspension of disbelief that this was actually a deadly beast with acid for blood.

As you can see from the video, quite a lot of work went into creating a believable version of the xenomorph dog, even though it would have only seen a few seconds of actual screen time in the finished film. But it was sadly not meant to be. We only hope this video acts as a bit of tutorial on how to make this little suit, if only so we may see a Whippet owner create one for the world’s best “Ellen Ripley and pet” cosplay.

Images: Twentieth Century Fox / studioADI