Alien: Romulus – 24 Easter Eggs And References To The Alien Franchise
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
After Prometheus and Alien: Covenant were met with less-than-stellar responses from Alien fans and critics, Alien: Romulus tries to take the franchise back to its roots. Along the way, it takes a look back at basically every other major piece of media in the Alien series, calling back iconic lines and mirroring memorable scenes and images. It spends a lot of time showing how much the original films, Alien and Aliens, influenced it, but it’s drawing from everywhere–including Alien: Isolation, the phenomenal 2014 video game.
The references in Romulus range from overt to subtle, and include a few that even a dedicated Alien fan might miss. Here are all the homages, callbacks, Easter eggs and references we caught–let us know if you spotted anything else in the comments below.
Warning: This gallery is full of spoilers!
1. The Nostromo Wreckage
Alien: Romulus kicks off by directly linking to Alien, showing us the destroyed remains of the Nostromo, the ship from the 1979 original film. We see within the search ship that this location is Zeta 2 Reticuli, the system where Lambert says the Nostromo crew was woken up to respond to a distress call.
2. MU-TH-UR 9000
A look at the computer readouts inside the tracking ship at the start of the movie reference the AI that ran the Nostromo, known as MU-TH-UR. However, if you know something about Alien, you realize that some time has passed–the Nostromo’s version of the computer was MU-TH-UR 6000, and in the tracking ship, we’re up to the 9000 version.
3. The Original Alien
The reason Weyland-Yutani is searching the Nostromo wreckage is revealed soon after: They’re hoping to find something that will help them locate the alien. They hit the jackpot by finding the actual alien that Ripley blasted out the airlock of the Narcissus, the Nostromo’s shuttle, at the end of the movie. We even see that the creature still has the harpoon embedded in its chest from when Ripley shot it.
4. Geiger’s Necronomicon
The original drawing that inspired the creature in the 1979 movie appeared in artist H.R. Geiger’s book, the Necronomicon. The imprint inside the cocoon in which Weyland-Yutani finds the creature looks a whole lot like the drawing from which the design was drawn.
5. Priming The Generator
As Tyler, Andy, and Bjorn make their way aboard the station, they have to kick on power to open a door. The controls here are exactly like the power generators seen in Alien: Isolation.
6. “I Prefer The Term ‘Artificial Person,’ Myself”
When they call him a synthetic, Andy tells Tyler and Bjorn that he prefers to be called an “artificial person.” The line about being an artificial human originally comes from Bishop, the synthetic in Aliens, when he’s first introduced to Ripley aboard the Sulaco.
7. A Little Incentive
In Alien, Brett builds electric stun prods for the crew to use on the chestburster alien after Kane’s death. Weyland-Yutani made some similar weapons to try to keep the aliens in line aboard the space station, but it doesn’t appear they helped save any of the people working there when the creatures got loose. You can use a similar weapon in Alien: Isolation, too.
8. Science Officer Rook
The only survivor of the space station turns out to be a synthetic named Rook, the station’s science officer. Fans of Alien will recognize him, however, as the same model as Ash, the secret synthetic aboard the Nostromo, played by Ian Holm. Holm died in 2020 and is brought back here using CGI, while Rook’s voice is provided by Dave B. Mitchell.
9. XX121 Xenomorph
When Rook is talking about the creature, he provides Weyland-Yutani’s designation for the alien creature: XX121 Xenomorph. The word “Xenomorph” is a generic term for the creature (it’s basically just a fancy word for “alien”), and the XX121 designation is used in Alien: The Weyland-Yutani report artbook.
10. 20 Years Later
The Alien movie timeline is a bit of a mess, thanks to the big time jump between the original two films–Aliens takes place 57 years after the events of Alien. Rook explains that Alien: Romulus is set between those two movies, 20 years after the destruction of the Nostromo. That puts the movie five years after the events of Alien: Isolation, although we don’t know why Weyland-Yutani would go searching for the alien that was aboard the Nostromo rather than just heading back to LV-426 and picking up another one, which is what happens in the game. Though the movie isn’t explicit about it, it’s possible that recovering the Nostromo flight recorder in Alien: Isolation is what then sent the Company to search for the alien Ripley cast into space. That could also work as a reason why they didn’t head back to LV-426, since the distress beacon the Nostromo answered was shut down by the crew of the Anesidora in Isolation.
11. Alien: Isolation Save Points
As director Fede Alvarez mentioned in interviews ahead of the release of Alien: Romulus, the movie includes a few nods to Alien: Isolation. A major one is the emergency phone that serves as a save point in the game. These are scattered throughout the Romulus station, and whenever you see one, it’s a clue that something bad is about to happen to the characters.
12. The Alien’s Lifecycle
A lot about the aliens has been implied by the films over the years without being shown explicitly. In Alien, for example, we have the chestburster scene, in which a tiny, snake-like alien bursts from Kane’s chest. Within hours, however, the creature has grown to the size of a man and starts killing and dragging off members of the crew. Alien: Romulus includes its own take on the chestburster scene, using some excellently gory practical effects to recall the visceral horror of that original scene. But it also fills in the gaps a bit on what happens after the alien is born. Not long after Navarro is killed by the chestburster, Bjorn and Kay discover a cocoon on a wall. We see for the first time how the chestburster matures into a full-grown alien, creating a gross, fleshy sack to do its growing. Bjorn tries to kill the creature before it can grow to full size, but its acid blood proves too much for him.
13. No Eyes
Not a lot is actually known about the physiology of the aliens in the films, and while there have been a ton of comics and novels expanding on the Alien franchise, there hasn’t been much in the way of canonical explanations of the aliens detect their prey. Andy provides some information about how the facehuggers track their prey in Romulus: heat and sound. That’s somewhat in keeping with the Alien vs. Predator games, where you can play as the alien and get a sense of how it sees the world.
14. Prometheus’ Black Goo
Rook’s research on the station isn’t to turn the alien into a weapon, as Ripley speculates in Alien and Burke mentions in Aliens. Instead, the idea is to use the genetic material of the alien to make humans more resilient for colonization. Rook is actually trying to reverse-engineer the mutagenic black goo that the Engineer race used in Prometheus, and which the synthetic David used to create the aliens in Alien: Covenant. Rook deepens the reference to Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel by calling the goo “Prometheus’s gift” and mentioning Peter Weyland, the founder of the Weyland Corporation and David’s creator. You can even catch a bit of the Prometheus theme in the music during the scene.
15. Proto Pulse Rifle
In Aliens, the Colonial Marines all carry the iconic M41A Pulse Rifle. That movie is set 57 years after Alien. Romulus is 20 years after Alien, so when Rain, Taylor, and Andy go looking for weapons, they wind up with an earlier version of the Pulse Rifle the Marines will wield a few decades later. The scene introducing the rifle, in which Taylor shows Rain how to use the gun, also recalls a scene with similar framing in Aliens, where Hicks shows Ripley how to handle a Pulse Rifle.
16. “Busy Little Creatures”
Moving toward the bottom of the station, the survivors discover the area the aliens are turning into their hive, where humans have been cocooned to serve as hosts for facehuggers. Approaching the area, Andy remarks, “Busy little creature,” which is the same line Carter Burke says in Aliens when the Colonial Marines make their way into the hive beneath the air processor unit.
17. “A Layer Of Mist”
It doesn’t really amount to much in Alien: Romulus, but the alien hive in the station contains a couple of callbacks. The first is just the shape of the structure itself–as in Aliens, the creatures seem to have used “secreted resin” to create the rib-like black walls that mark the hive. On the floor, Andy also notices a layer of blue mist “that reacts when broken.” The same mist appeared in the derelict ship in Alien, where Kane first found the alien egg, and he commented about it to Dallas and Lambert as he was exploring. It’s not clear if the mist actually has a specific function in the films–it’s suggested in the Alien novelization that the reaction of the mist might be felt by the aliens, which is why the egg opens when Kane approaches it. We might see something similar in Romulus, as the aliens start coming for the survivors soon after they touch the mist.
18. “I Can’t Lie To You About Your Chances”
Rook isn’t the same person as Ash, but of course, he’s pretty similar–and Alien: Romulus solidifies that fact by recalling Ash’s famous last line from Alien. In that movie, after Parker knocks Ash’s head off as he’s attacking Ripley, the surviving Nostromo crew briefly revives the android to ask him what he knows about the alien. Ash tells them, “I can’t lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathies.” Rook expresses the same smug sentiment as the aliens converge on Rain and the other survivors.
19. Face To Face
As Rain and Andy escape up the elevator shaft, the artificial gravity becomes a serious problem and Rain falls–only to be caught by the tail of an alien. The creature takes a threatening moment to inspect Rain up close and personal, drawing their faces close together as Rain turns away in terror. It’s a moment that recalls the most intense scene of Alien 3, in which Ripley is cornered by the creature and the two are face to face for one horrifying moment.
20. “Get Away From Her–You Bitch”
Rain is saved when Andy drops from the ladder above, landing on the creature and taking it all the way to the bottom of the elevator shaft. As he blasts the creature with a Pulse Rifle, he delivers an iconic line. “Get away from her,” Andy says through his stutter, “you bitch.” It adds a little humor to what is probably the most recognizable line in the Alien franchise, used by Ripley as she drives the power loader toward the alien queen in Aliens, intent on saving Newt.
21. The Mutation
Birthing imagery has always been a major part of the Alien franchise and the specific body horror it utilizes, but this is the first time we’ve seen a birth that’s quite this visceral. After injecting herself with the black goo that Rook and the Weyland-Yutani scientists synthesized from alien DNA, her pregnancy is greatly accelerated, and Kay winds up giving birth to something horrible–a sort of mutated, alien-human hybrid. This isn’t a direct reference to anything we’ve seen before, but it has a similar look to the pale Neomorph creatures that result from exposure to the black goo in Alien: Covenant. The birth also recalls the intense cesarean section scene in Prometheus, with a similarly horrific monster resulting.
22. Rain In The Spacesuit
During her battle with the hybrid monster, Rain quickly puts on a spacesuit, the design of which is very similar to the one Ripley wore in Alien, but looks like an updated model. Alien: Romulus uses the opportunity to pay homage to another intense Alien moment: the visual of Ripley turning her head within her helmet, trying to look back over her shoulder as the alien creeps up behind her. We get a similar moment between Rain and the hybrid, complete with the same framing of the image.
23. Resurrecting Alien: Resurrection
The final fight scene is pretty similar to the finale of Alien: Resurrection, where similar genetic experiments result in an alien queen giving birth to an alien-human hybrid. Interestingly, that creature was also blown out into space, albeit in a grosser way–instead of falling through a large hole, as in Alien: Romulus, it was sucked through a small one that ended up ripping all its guts out.
24. Last Survivor’s Message
As has become a recurring element of the series, especially after Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Rain records a message before going back into hypersleep. It’s a final coda on her horrific experience, very similar to the one Ripley recorded at the end of Alien, and that Shaw recorded in the final moments of Prometheus.
