Every ‘Alien: Romulus’ Easter egg and franchise callback

The following article contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus.

Legacy sequels have been quite the rage in recent years. Alien: Romulus isn’t even the first sequel Fede Álvarez has directed.

The filmmaker has had his hand in many beloved franchises such as The Evil Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unlike new legacy films like Halloween that erase decades of history, Romulus is a love letter to the entire franchise. As far as this sequel is concerned, all Alien movies are worthwhile. And while not everyone can appreciate the wild swings that Romulus takes in its third act, it honors most of the previous films, with many callbacks. Let’s break them down.

The final fight from Alien

You know what they say. It isn’t an Alien movie if the final girl isn’t struggling to rush into a space suit before blasting a Xenomorph into space. That is the climax of Alien as well as Alien: Romulus. Just as Rain (Cailee Spaeny) thinks she’s safe, she is surprised by one final boss fight. Rain dons the classic suit and kills this new creature in the only proven way that works — dropping it into space. She finishes off the film just as Sigourney Weaver once did with a voice-over wrapping up the events of the film.

The return of Ian Holm

One of the big surprises of Alien: Romulus was seeing the eerie computerized likeness of Ian Holm. While the effects didn’t entirely pull it off, it was a rush of nostalgia to see the return of the familiar Android. As opposed to his role as Ash in Alien, Holm’s appearance takes on the character of another Android of the same class named Rook, intent on getting the Xenomorph solution back to the mining colony by any means necessary.

The pulse rifle

When facing off against an unkillable monster, there isn’t a lot of time for romance. Instead, viewers get a tension-filled moment with one character teaching another how to use a gun. In Aliens, Hicks (Michael Biehn) teaches Ripley how to use a pulse rifle while in Romulus, the same sexually charged moment occurs between Tyler (Archie Renaux) and Rain.

“Get away from her”

Aliens contains one of the most famous lines of the franchise as Ripley suits up to save Newt (Carrie Henn). As she approaches the Xenomorph, she warns “Get away from her, you bitch,” echoed by Andy (David Jonsson) in Romulus as he heroically saves Rain.

In close quarters with a Xenomorph in Alien 3

While not the most beloved of the franchise, Alien 3 does have one of the most recognizable images in the franchise. Trapped in a room with a Xenomorph, the creature slobbers near Ripley’s head. The same close-quarters confinement occurs in Romulus when Rain is trapped in an elevator shaft with the snarling beast.

The black goo in Prometheus

The criminally underrated prequel, Prometheus, shows the beginnings of the Xenomorph. Weyland (Guy Pearce) wants to achieve immortality and dispatches David (Michael Fassbender) to find a way. The crew of the Prometheus finds a biological weapon of black goo. Though it wasn’t ready in Prometheus, it comes back in Romulus to further the plot. Weyland-Yutani is still trying to find a way to synthesize the goo to improve human life.

The alien hybrid in Alien: Resurrection

In Alien: Resurrection, scientists make a grotesque human/Xenomorph hybrid that creates an even more horrifying monster. An echo of this occurs in Romulus when Kay (Isabela Merced), a pregnant crew member, injects herself with the black goo from Romulus. Hoping it will spare her child from the mortal wounds she has endured, it instead changes the life inside her and creates an unsettling hybrid.

Smaller easter eggs

Look close enough in Romulus and you can spot emergency telephone booths that act as registration points in the 2014 survival video game, Alien: Isolation.

The film also connects back to Alien: Covenant in an unexpected way; when the crew sets foot on the Romulus space station, Wagner’s “Entry of the Gods Into Valhalla” can be heard, which David plays for Weyland in the prequel film.