Alien: Romulus spoilers follow.
Fede Alvarez is clearly a major fan of the Alien series, using Xenopedia while writing Alien: Romulus to avoid breaking canon (even the books).
It's not a surprise, then, that the new movie is packed with Easter eggs and homages to what's come before, from Alien to Alien: Covenant. There are score cues on the soundtrack, iconic camera shots meticulously recreated and more.
But it's a thin line from reverence to needless fan service – and it's a line that Alien: Romulus sadly fails to stay on the right side of.
Two specific moments stick out in Alien: Romulus as fan service that's worse than Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie that we even called "two hours of fan service wrapped up as a summer blockbuster".
To explain exactly why, though, we need to go into some spoilers, so look away now if you haven't seen the movie yet.
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We'll start with arguably the least subtle reference in any blockbuster this year which involves a callback to Aliens.
At the start of the frenetic final act of Alien: Romulus, Rain and Andy find themselves having to battle an incoming horde of Xenomorphs in the bowels of the Renaissance station.
They smartly turn off the gravity field, allowing Rain to shoot the Xenomorphs without fear of their acid blood eating through the hull and sending them into space. She uses a colonial marine pulse rifle to kill most of them, leaving their blood floating in zero gravity.
After they've navigated that acidic minefield, Rain and Andy have to head up an elevator shaft to get to their ship. They get almost to the top before gravity automatically kicks back in, leaving Rain crashing back down the shaft and face-to-face with a Xenomorph without her weapon.
Luckily, Andy comes to Rain's rescue, grabbing the rifle and killing the Xenomorph. After he delivers the final shot, he says, "Get away from her" and, after a pause, "you bitch".
Yep, it's Ripley's classic line from Aliens, but the problem is that it makes zero sense.
For one, Andy is delivering the line 37 years before Ripley did, making it canonically the first use of it. But also, why would he even say that? It would be more fitting with the rest of his personality to deliver a dad joke instead.
It's such a great line in Aliens because Ripley knew she was facing off against an alien Queen, meaning "bitch" worked so well in context. Here, Andy has no clue what gender Xenomorph he's facing – fun fact, they're neither male nor female – and unless Rain's father programmed him to be a misogynist, it doesn't work.
The line exists only in Alien: Romulus for the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme, a cheap reference to a famous quote designed to get fans whooping and hollering. But it lands like a thud instead, as it's so blatantly designed as such – even David Jonsson seems a little sad to be saying it.
What's worse is that it's the kind of reference that doesn't really require any Alien knowledge. It's the lowest-hanging fruit, and Alvarez showcases in the rest of Alien: Romulus that he can deliver better, subtler nods that truly require Alien knowledge.
A quick Google is all it'd need for "classic Alien quotes" and you'll find that line in seconds. (Try it – we did to test the theory, and it works.)
You could argue that Deadpool & Wolverine has multiple moments designed to get such a reaction from fans. There are probably more references like that than any genuine plot points.
However, the difference is that in the hit MCU movie, you know that's what you're getting. The Deadpool series has established its fourth-wall-breaking gags, and the move into the multiverse for the third movie just gave it more opportunity to be as fan-service-y as possible.
There's a genuine in-universe reason for the gags, too, unlike Andy's Aliens callback which doesn't make logical sense.
That goes for all of its cameos too, which are treated as the crowdpleasing beats that they are. Gambit, Blade and Elektra all get slow-motion introductions, showing that the movie knows it's silly and is fully in on the joke.
Alien: Romulus is not that movie. It's an intense, gross and serious body horror in space. The "get away from her, you bitch" sticks out like a sore thumb and (appropriately) sucks all the oxygen out of the movie.
It's also not shy of a surprise cameo like Deadpool & Wolverine, but at least the Marvel movie didn't resort to digital necromancy to do it.
Shortly after they arrive on the Renaissance, the group meet the dismembered science officer Rook. The synthetic might have a different name, but it has a familiar face: Ian Holm's Ash from Alien.
Holm sadly passed away in 2020, so his appearance comes from digital trickery with Holm used for the facial and vocal reference, with British actor Daniel Betts providing the facial and vocal performance.
Technically, it doesn't break canon. Ash was a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 synthetic, and in Aliens, Bishop talks about the fact that the "A2s always were a bit twitchy", confirming that Ash wasn't the only one of his type.
You might question why Weyland-Yutani put another A2 on one of its stations after Ash failed so spectacularly on the Nostromo. However, it does logically make sense that maybe all A2s looked like Ash and that one of them was used on the Renaissance.
The question, though, is why did it have to be Ash? Yes, Ian Holm's estate gave permission, but it raises the same ethical debate about whether movies should be able to digitally recreate actors, such as we had with Peter Cushing in Rogue One or Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
There's no reason why Rook couldn't have been a new type of android. Bishop might not have worked as, like Ash, it's revealed that Rook's first instinct is to protect the company and not the humans he's working with. But there's no reason it couldn't have been a different, equally shady, synthetic.
Like the Aliens callback, Rook looking like Ash is purely fan service. What's worse, Rook plays a regular part in the movie, so even if you could perhaps compartmentalise it if it were just a cameo, you're constantly reminded of him and the slightly dodgy VFX used to replicate Ash.
That Alien: Romulus is being released during an ongoing debate about the use of AI in the entertainment industry just makes it seem an even weirder and unnecessary choice.
The blatant callbacks mostly serve to hold Alien: Romulus back from being its own thing. If you're constantly reminded of the past, how can you ever fully invest in the present?
For more on Alien: Romulus, check out:
• Alien: Romulus review
• Does Alien: Romulus have a post-credit scene?
• When will Alien: Romulus arrive on Disney+?
• The complete Alien timeline
• Alien: Romulus title has a hidden meaning
Alien: Romulus is out now in cinemas.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
