Where Ripley Is During Alien: Romulus

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Alien: Romulus!

Alien: Romulus brings the franchise back to its roots, and questions about where the original protagonist, Ellen Ripley, is during the movie may linger. The seventh Alien movie is the first to come after Ridley Scott made prequels to the original film and Sigourney Weaver’s time as Ripley. Instead of continuing in that direction, Alien: Romulus goes back to the main continuity and explores the Alien movie timeline when Ripley is still very much in the picture. However, the sci-fi horror series is focusing on a new batch of characters this time.

The Alien: Romulus cast includes Cailee Spaeney, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. But, Sigourney Weaver has never been linked to the film or implied to be returning as Ellen Ripley. This creates a rather major question regarding where the franchise’s main hero is while a new crew battles face-huggers and Xenomorphs. The good news is that a direct answer to Ripley’s whereabouts during Alien: Romulus is known thanks to the franchise’s canon and when the movie takes place in the timeline.

Ellen Ripley Is Still In Stasis When Alien: Romulus Takes Place

She’s On The Narcissus

It is known that Ellen Ripley is in stasis during Alien: Romulus. Weaver’s character enters this state in Alien‘s ending, and she unknowingly spends 57 years like this before the events of Aliens begin. It is confirmed that Alien: Romulus takes place 20 years after Alien, so that officially clarifies where Ripley is during the movie. She is still aboard the Narcissus after surviving her first encounter with the Xenomorphs and is thought to be on her way back to Earth.

The exact location of Ripley during Alien: Romulus is actually undetectable in deep space. The Narcissus spends those years floating in space and waiting for a chance to finish the original Special Order 937 mission. This is what leads the craft to Marion after 57 years and Ripley wakes up aboard the new ship confused about what’s happened to her when Aliens begins. However, Alien: Romulus takes place 37 years before Ripley wakes up, affirming that she is still in stasis at this time.

Ripley’s Location Explains Her Absence From Alien: Romulus

She Couldn’t Appear

Due to where the complicated Alien timeline stands during Alien: Romulus, there was no chance that Sigourney Weaver would return as Ellen Ripley. The character is technically still around and alive, so it could’ve been possible under perfect circumstances. This would have required the new crew in Alien: Romulus to encounter the Narcissus and find Ripley asleep in stasis, but they could not awake her. It would require de-aging Sigourney Weaver by 45 years to make her look age-appropriate for the character or digitally recreating her as the movie did with Ian Holm as Rook.

Since Alien: Romulus could only really include Ripley as an Easter egg, expectations of Weaver reprising her role in this film were always small. A minor appearance by the franchise’s original lead would feel wasteful and like an unnecessary example of franchise connections. The best-case scenario was that Alien: Romulus alludes to the events of Alien and Ripley’s mission in some fashion rather than having the character return in any fashion. And that’s exactly what it did.

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Alien: Romulus’ References Ripley’s Survival

Nostromo’s Sole Survivor

Just because Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is not in Alien: Romulus, that does not mean the movie completely ignores the franchise’s original hero. There is a small moment where the film directly references Ripley’s survival. When Rain, Andy, and the others are talking to Rook in the Remus lab, the synthetic tells them about how Weyland recovered Alien‘s original Xenomorph and began experiments to help humanity evolve. It is during this piece of exposition recapping the franchise that Rook mentions that there was one survivor of the Nostromo incident.

Although the characters in Alien: Romulus are impervious to such knowledge, audiences know that Rook is referring to Ripley at this moment. She was the only person from Nostromo to survive the alien encounter, a fact she relays to Weyland during her final log. With 20 years passing since Ripley went missing, Weyland is still no closer to finding her at the point when Alien: Romulus takes place. But the brief mention of a survivor is enough to touch on Ripley’s absence from the movie and remind audiences of where she really is.

How Alien: Romulus Connects To Ripley’s Story

Ripley’s Experience Sets The Movie In Motion

The Alien: Romulus Easter egg for Ripley is far from the only way that the movie connects to her story. The entire plot is the direct result of Ripley’s adventures with the Nostromo crew. The movie begins by showing Weyland finding Big Chap’s body in space amidst the wreckage of the Nostromo. They take the Xenomorph back with them to the Renaissance space station to begin experimentation on it. This sets off a chain of events that leads to the deaths of everyone aboard the station, with even Rook sustaining damage, leaving the future of the program in uncertain territory.

Rain and her human companions then come to learn that they are up against the same prime directive as Ripley was in Alien. Rook implants his directive onto Andy, which aligns the synthetics under the goal of doing whatever was necessary to preserve Weyland’s research and bring the remains of Alien: Romulus‘ goo back to the company. Ripley had to go up against Ash’s prime directive in the original, and since Rook is built to resemble Ash, they share the same prime directive. That leaves Rain to try and overcome Andy’s new directive without her android companion suffering Ash’s fate.

Ripley might not be in Alien: Romulus, but the movie is still very much a continuation of her original mission in this way. The parallels between Rain and Ripley are established as they fight against Xenomorphs for the first, but probably not the last, time. They might not be able to share the screen given the time difference in-universe and real-life, but Alien: Romulus‘ connections to Ripley allow her story to evolve nonetheless.

Alien: Romulus

Director

Fede Alvarez

Release Date

August 16, 2024

Writers

Fede Alvarez , Rodo Sayagues , Dan O’Bannon , Ronald Shusett