One of the late-summer surprises at the box office this year has been the performance of Alien: Romulus, the seventh entry in the ongoing Alien series that ends up being one of the best films released this year. By setting its story in the time frame between Sir Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens, Alien: Romulus filmmaker Fede Alvarez borrows heavily from the icy-cold chills of Scott and the overblown action of Cameron… even though he admits that the studio pushed back a bit on that crazy third act. While appearing on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast, Alvarez talked about links that he possibly included in Alien: Romulus addressing where Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley might be found. And now, some eagle-eyed fans think they caught it.
Just for background sake. At the end of Ridley Scott’s Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has ejected the terrorizing alien into outer space. She places herself – and Jones the cat – into cryo-stasis, and the next time we see them on screen is during Cameron’s Aliens, released in 1986. Ripley’s “final” confrontation looked like this.
Because Alien: Romulus is set, on the timeline, between Alien and Aliens, then Ripley should have been in stasis somewhere. And Alvarez told the ReelBlend that he hid some direct references to Ripley “in plain sight,” and was waiting for people to find them. Well, now that the movie has been in theaters for a little while, fans think they have found the references. Over on AVPGalaxy.net, one user claims that a Starcub-class cruiser is spotted drifting away from the Renaissance station. But that’s not the only reference.
Later in the film, when Kay (Isabela Merced) is locked in a chamber with a Xenomorph, and Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is begging Andy (David Jonnson) to unlock the door, this user claims that you can see Ripley’s Narcissus shuttle docked in the background. This would mean that when the Weyland-Yutani team scooped up the ejected alien at the beginning of Alien: Romulus, they also retrieved Ripley and Jones, and kept them on the Romulus for some time.
As luck would have it, we conducted an interview with Wētā VFX Supervisor Daniel Macarin, and when we mentioned the presence of Ripley’s stasis pod, we learned what goes into their process, as he explained:
We did a tremendous amount of reference. Anytime we're asked to put in Easter eggs, it is always really fun. The hard part is not making something too obvious, and not taking away from the story. So a lot of times it's like, ‘Oh, wouldn't it be funny if we did this?’ It's like, ‘Yeah, but you're going to lose the shot.’ I don't want to put something in there that the audience is going to go, ‘Oh look, there it is.’ And then people start guessing about that. They're thinking about it. So with (Ripley’s) ship, if you put it in really small, it's fine. And you get the people who have gone two or three times and they start noticing those extra details, they might see it and it's fine. But any Easter egg has to be done in a very particular way so that you're not taking away from the story. You're giving it to the fans who are seeing it multiple times in theaters and giving them something to question later. … But once you see it, you can't unsee it.
This, to me, is a refreshing way to handle a legacy sequel. Find a way in that runs counter to the existing story, and don’t force the inclusion of existing characters. Granted, Alien: Romulus is guilty of that, as well. But it feels to me that Romulus tries to tell its own story, employing toys from the franchise, but setting up an ending that can allow for its own exploration of the Alien mythology, if Fede Alvarez or another filmmaker wanted to pick up a thread and pull.
Alien: Romulus is still drawing crowds to theaters, and is a good send off for Summer as we scan the full slate of upcoming 2024 releases and see what’s coming our way in the Fall.
