Categories Alien Romulus News

[Spoilers] Ellen Ripley Easter Egg in Alien: Romulus Found!

When a new Alien or Predator movie comes out many of us will be seeing it more than once, looking for things we may have missed on our initial viewing. In a recent interview, Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez was talking about easter eggs in the film, and played coy with the interviewer when directly asked about Ripley. Check out the video below:

Director Álvarez mused that:

I’m just waiting for that guy on his own, watching the movie for the third time, and suddenly going like, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute…”

After I saw this, I remembered the theatrical trailer for Alien: Romulus, where I spotted a Starcub-class escape shuttle drifting away from the Renaissance station as it smashes into the planetary ring.


Initially I thought this was an escape shuttle used by our main characters to leave the doomed station, I even thought I had confirmed this with someone, but after watching Fede’s interview, I knew this was indeed THE Narcissus containing the still asleep Ellen Ripley.

On my third viewing (funnily enough) I had my eyes peeled for that ‘wait a minute!” moment Fede teased, and this time around I indeed saw it. During the scene where Kay is locked in a room with the Xenomorph, while Tyler and Rain beg Andy to open the door, if you look down the corridor you can see the Narcissus shuttle vertically docked.

This was not the first time we’ve seen Ripley make a detour during her hypersleep between Alien and Aliens. In the expanded universe book ‘Out of the Shadows’, Ripley was awakened by the crew of the Marion, another ship which became infested with Xenomorphs. It’s more likely in this case that Ripley remained in cryostasis aboard the retrieved shuttle, which apparently automatically jettisoned as the station crashed. It’s possible there are even more easter eggs in the film hinting at Ripley’s background presence, so I’ll have to continue to keep my eyes and ears peeled in a subsequent viewing.

We might be getting more insight into Ripley’s presence on the station in the upcoming Marvel prequel comic to Alien: Romulus coming in October.

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UPDATE

In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Wētā VFX Supervisor Daniel Macarin confirmed this shuttle is indeed intended to be the Narcissus:

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.

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