Eggmorphing

Eggmorphing is the term given to the process where Xenomorphs can create an Alien egg in the absence of a hive and a Queen Alien. A Xenomorph can take hosts which can be dead or alive, and cocoon them in resin which slowly transforms their body into an Alien egg. Eggmorphing has only ever been seen in Alien: Director’s Cut.

Encounter

The only instance that the eggmorphing process has been seen is in the Nostromo in 2122. After a Xenomorph terrorizes the crew of the Nostromo, Ripley is the last survivor. Ripley, armed with a flamethrower, finds Dallas cocooned to the wall and appears to be transforming into something. She looks over at Brett, also on the wall, who is at a later stage of the transformation process. Dallas begs Ripley to kill him. She holds up her flamethrower and burns him.

Theories

It’s theorised that the Facehugger that the eggs produce is a Super/Queen Facehugger like the one seen on Fiorina 161. Given that there is no Queen around, the Xenomorph would want to create one and therefore it’s reasonable to believe that this may be a method to produce one. This however doesn’t explain the Super Facehugger on the Sulaco/Fiorina 161 as it’s believed that one came from an egg produced by the Queen who was stowed away on board.

Behind the Scenes

The cocoon sequence was originally supposed to be in the climax of 1979’s Alien where Ripley discovers Dallas and Brett transforming into an Alien egg. The scene was eventually cut as Ridley Scott felt it slowed the third act down too much. The scene did feature in the film’s novelization and it was featured in The Book of Alien which was released alongside Alien.

The missing eggmorphing scene did become quite well-known early on after Alien‘s release.  The scene, along with a few other deleted scenes was first made public in 1992 in the Alien: Special Collector’s Edition LaserDisc. It was discussed in the Giger’s Alien book as well as an issue of the Aliens magazine, and went on to appear in various documentaries like The Alien Legacy. In 2003, it was partially restored in the Alien Director’s Cut.

After the eggmorphing scene was removed from Alien, where the eggs came from was left ambiguous. James Cameron made Aliens and came up with the idea of a Queen Alien who lays the eggs.

Other References

Fans have debated whether or not the eggmorphing concept can co-exist with the idea of a Queen Alien which has become the standard method of reproduction and is referenced throughout all Alien and Predator media. There was a reference to eggmorphing in the novelization of Alien 3 which says that both methods of reproduction are typical of the Xenomorphs.

The concept of eggmorphing did appear in a few unproduced scripts for Alien 3 including Eric Red’s script. The idea was included in an early version of the Alien 3 shooting script but was cut. After the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation was released, it was theorised that the Xenomorphs on Sevastopol Station were a result of eggmorphing but the developers later confirmed that there was a Queen but it wasn’t seen in the game. Eggmorphing was touched on in the 2019 novel Alien: Prototype but the Xenomorph that did it, was a a mutant with different abilities not usually seen in Xenomorphs.