While investigating the Zeta 2 Reticuli system looking for any signs of wreckage from the USCSS Nostromo, the Gamma Probe dispatched by Alien vs. Predator Galaxy headquarters picked up a signal of unknown origin. While not a repeating acoustical beacon of extra-terrestrial origin, the signal contained something equally as impressive – two early drafts of Alien: Romulus’ script!
Alien vs. Predator Galaxy recently acquired two early drafts of Alien: Romulus. The first, while undated was titled Alien: Renaissance and is what we believe to be if not the first draft of the film, but one of the absolutely earliest drafts of the film. The second is simply titled Alien, and labelled Blue Revision with the date of 18th of October 2022.
Any regular visitors to Alien vs. Predator Galaxy will know I’m a huge fan of exploring how the film’s evolve and diving into the differences between those earlier iterations of the scripts and the finished product.
So let’s dive in! Welcome to another installation of From Script To Screen!
Rook
Thanks to some early casting rumours, it’s not much of a secret that the character of Rook was originally conceived of as a female model android. When Alien vs. Predator Galaxy had the pleasure of interviewing writer/director Fede Alvarez he was unaware of Pheobe Waller-Bridge being in contention for the role, but he confirmed that the synth was originally absolutely a female.
Concept art by Alex Nice
This is the case in both the Alien: Renaissance and Blue Revision drafts of Alien: Romulus that our Gamma Probe provided. She is described as red-haired and motherly in both drafts. In the earliest draft and in storyboards by Santiago Vecino Rook’s remains are found outside the laboratory. In the Blue Revision they are moved inside the lab as they would be in the finished film.
Rook’s role in the story remains largely the same throughout both drafts, with much of the dialogue the same. There’s a minor exchange between Rain and Rook in the finished film towards the end of the hive scene that is not present in either draft.
However, because the presence of a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A2 with Ian Holm’s likeness is not being saved as a big reveal until later on in the film, both drafts contain moments with Rook – in an undamaged state – in the opening scenes.
Following the retrieval of the Xenomorph from the wreckage of the Nostromo, as the cocoon is being drilled into, a scientist queries Rook about where the Alien was retrieved and the composition of its cocoon.
Kumiko
The next significant difference between the scripts and the finished film is Isabela Merced’s character, Kay. She doesn’t exist in the Alien: Renaissance draft. Instead, it is a character known as Kumiko. Instead of Tyler’s sister, Kumiko is Tyler’s current girlfriend who is pregnant with his child.
Unlike with Kay, Rain had no prior relationship with Kumiko and the two had never even met each other. Kumiko’s role in the rest of the script is essentially the same as Kay’s in the finished film, however, the earlier draft instead focuses a little more on Rain and Tyler’s previous relationship.
We find out that Tyler never told Rain why he broke up with her, for him to later reveal that:
“I knew my Dad was never going to let me leave Jackson.. And I didn’t want to be another reason for you to stay… So I made the tough call for both of us…”
To which Rain reacts with the cold doubt that you’d expect from her significant other making those choices for her. This exchange also makes it into the Blue Revision, but is entirely absent from the finished film.
Following Kumiko’s apparent death at the hands of the Scorched Xenomorph, the pair also kiss while Tyler is demonstrating the F44AA to Rain. “I’m sorry I fucked everything up. I thought I was being tough… I was just being selfish.” Rain acknowledges this without forgiving him.
The rest of this draft plays out largely the same as the finished film with no further talk about their relationship. And later, instead of stepping in front of the Alien tail for Rain, Tyler is abducted whilst in the hive.
In the Blue Revision, there’s a little exchange between Kay and Rain after the latter tucks the ill Kay into bed in which Kay calls her brother an idiot, and both characters express confusion over why Tyler broke up with Rain.
With Kumiko’s pregnancy, the incestuous angle of the small colony Jackson’s Star is instead shifted towards Bjørn and Navarro. It’s never taken quite as serious as resulting in pregnancy, but the pair are explicitly described as half-siblings – “allegedly” – after Rain and Kumiko comments on their closeness.
The two are often seen being overly affectionate towards each other, kissing on the lips or touching each other inappropriately. There are further little moments like Navarro commenting on how attractive she finds Bjørn. She elicts some strange looks when tells her “alledged” half-brother to “take care of that hot body,” responding defensively “what? He has a hot body.”
The moment between Bjørn and Kay in the film that insinuates the romantic moment between the two of them is not present in the Blue Revision. When Alien vs. Predator Galaxy had the pleasure of chatting to Alien: Romulus writer/director Fede Alvarez, he told us that he discussed the characters relationship with the actors, but the moment between the two to insinuate their romantic connection was something Isabela Merced and Spike Fearn adlibed on the day.
The Amber Eggs
The most interesting difference with the Xenomorphs in Alien: Romulus comes from the early Alien: Renaissance draft. In both the Blue Revision and the final film, we discover that the scientists onboard the Renaissance station have been biologically 3d printing facehuggers, that are then kept frozen within a device known as a cryo-frame.
In the Alien: Renaissance draft, Andy, Bjørn and Tyler discover that the cryo-lab is instead printing Xenomorph eggs. The script describes them as “translucent amber-colored EGGS”
This earlier incarnation of the script sees the cryo-lab in a more frozen state, with more machinery and bio-engineered eggs being revealed as the frost melts, revealing a total of 41 “amber Ovomorphs.”
The facehuggers are subsequently born from the eggs, in a very disorientated and groggy state, and the scene proceeds to play out in much the same way as in the finished film.
Similarly to the final film, more of these organically printed eggs, empty, are later discovered in the Xenomorph hive in place of the broken cryo-frames.
Though the idea of the amber eggs was seemingly dropped early on, the concept was explored by various concept artists including Rostyslav Zagornov and the ever talented and fantastic Dane Hallett.
Hallett’s explorations included designs that looked quite literally like amber, a more overtly artificial egg shaped container that was amber coloured, and some that leant into the concept of 3d printing with support structures and print-lines. Speaking of his designs, Hallett elaborated that:
“I wasn’t quite sure how refined or potentially mutated they might have looked, so I explored a range.”
While not specifically amber in color due to the artwork being black-and-white, Rostyslav Zagornov shared a piece of concept art that depicted a much larger bio-printing lab, where large machines oversaw the development of numerous Xenomorph eggs.
A remnant of this concept would still make it into the finished film, where, as Andy is looking around the cryo-lab, the camera lingers on an incomplete printing of a facehugger and we find it encased in an amber substance.
Offspring
The scenes with the surprise reveal of the Offspring play out slightly different in both drafts when compared to finished the film, but it’s largely the same concept where Rain lures the creature into the cargo bed and ejects it out into space in true Alien tradition.
However, there are some interesting details in the script that I did want to bring attention to. In both drafts, when the Offspring is first introduced it is described as being younger, explicitly stated to be teenage-like in age and similar to the Engineers in appearance.
During the production of Alien: Romulus, a number of concept artists explored the Offspring’s younger looking appearance, including Dan Baker, Dane Hallett, Santiago Vecino and Thomas Du Crest.
Speaking of his own work on this iteration of the Offspring, Thomas Du Crest explained that:
“The brief for this one was to make it look like an awkward teenager, so you could feel pity for him before his true dangerous nature was revealed.”
While the finished film demonstrates the rapid growth of the Offspring, both drafts also feature the Offspring losing limbs when the cryo-fuel floods the Corbelan during the fight with Rain.
The GAS bursting from the spinning CRYO-TANK hits the creature’s FOOT, STICKING IT to the floor. It falls forward and tries to catch itself, but now its RIGHT-HAND gets stuck on the floor as well.
….
Right when the Offspring BREAKS its own FROZEN WRIST AND ACID BURSTS from the WOUND.
….
It’s Severed limbs, have already started to GROW back.
Rain’s hand is likewise injured during this scene, when the Offspring slashes at her when she’s shooting the cryo-gun. This scene was filmed and cut around in the finished release, but you can see remnants of this in the way Rain holds her hand throughout the climax of the film.
While we’ve also heard of reports from test screenings and earlier iterations of the film and seen various pieces of concept art depicting the Offspring mutating further into an actual Alien itself, this is not something present in either draft and was an idea that was explored in the post-production process of the film, but ultimately – and thankfully – dropped.
Other
Before we jump into the last significant difference between these drafts and the finished film, I just wanted to point out some smaller differences that I thought were interesting or would have been a treat to see on the big screen!
In the Alien: Renaissance draft, after Tyler restores power to the station, the lights come on to reveal dozens of dead crewmembers floating in zero-gravity above them in the cargo bay. As the gravity generators power back on, the corpses fall to the floor, crushing Tyler and damaging his helmet.
With systems still re-activating, the station hasn’t finished repressurizing and the oxygen levels are low, and we have a little scare where Tyler starts to suffocate, until the oxygen levels are correct.
Looking at the early draft again, there’s an interesting moment with the Alien following Kumiko/Kay’s abduction. After Andy, Rain and Tyler take the elevator to the Remus lab, the Alien jumps on the top of the elevator and Andy purposefully disables the lift and seals the door shut to prevent the Alien getting through.
This scene was ultimately redundant as it served as a way to prevent the characters from taking the lift back to the Corbelan, but we still have the later scene with the Alien outside the lab doors stalking our characters and forcing them through the conveyor belt.
In both the Alien: Renaissance and Blue Revision drafts, Tyler rocks an iconic M41A Pulse Rifle alongside Rain’s F44AA where the rifle was described as something more akin to the smartgun with an armature that the rifle itself connected to.
“He grabs TWO parts of a SMALL RIFLE labeled: F44AA. He wraps a HARNESS around Rain’s shoulder, with a ONE INCH arm sticking out. He HOOKS the rifle to the short arm.”
Concept artist Matt Savage shared a number of designs for this iteration of the F44AA. Ultimately, the armature became a moving stock, as featured in the film’s fantastic final design by Andrew Bradbury.
Though the zero-gravity scene in the hive remains one of the standout moments and visuals from the finished Alien: Romulus, the Renaissance draft has a slightly different take on that fantastic scene.
Instead of floating through the hallway, Rain and Andy turn the conveyor belt on and ride that through the floating Xenomorph corpses and clouds of acid. When an Alien surprises the duo as they’re trying to get to the cargo lift, its obliterated corpse leaves a cloud of acid blood in the path of the conveyor belt.
Instead of using the recoil from her remaining ammunition to adjust her trajectory, Andy uses his own body to shield his sister from the deadly molecular acid blood.
“Keeping her grip on the railing, Rain moves around to see the DAMAGE to his back. SOME OF THE SKIN IS GONE, and for the first time we can see some of the MECHANISMS inside Andy’s body…it’s bad, but he’ll survive.”
Though I have a lot of love for Alien: Romulus, it continues a trend in modern sequels that just doesn’t sit well with me – reusing dialogue from previous film. While some are redone tastefully and with some contextual sense, there’s one particular line that I just can’t get over: “Get away from her, you bitch…”
Speaking to the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast, Fede Alvarez told us that this moment was adlibbed on the day – much to David Jonsson’s dismay. As expected, the line is completely absent from the Scorched Xenomorph’s death in both drafts.
Andy doesn’t ride the injured Alien to the bottom of the elevator shaft, instead it is crushed by the elevator itself as the gravity generator purges. The line isn’t absent from the script, though. In both drafts we have access to, Rain utters Ripley’s iconic line to the Offspring when she finds the more significantly grown creature breast-feeding on Kay’s corpse.
Finale
The last significant difference between these two earlier drafts and the finished Alien: Romulus come towards the end. In both drafts Andy is shut down on the Corbelan, and not woken up when the Offspring makes itself known.
Instead, after Rain has flushed the Offspring into space, her climb back into the Corbelan is proving too difficult. Using her tether to get closer to the cargo freighter, the ladder just within reach… but just not fast enough.
As it looks like Rain’s fate will soon mirror that of the Offspring’s, Andy hand emerges through the clouds of sand and grabs her own.
And as the Corbelan sails off into the depths of space, heading towards Yvaga, instead of fading to black and Lee Gilmore’s fantastic new sirens, both the Alien: Renaissance and Blue Revision drafts end with Rain and Andy having arrived safely at their intended destination.
Talking to Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for an upcoming project, Alien performer Trevor Newlin told us that while shooting this ending was still intended to be used. The original intent had been to film these scenes outside of Hungary, but when it came to shooting the scenes, it was actually the last thing to be filmed and was shot on-location outside of Origo Studios where Alien: Romulus was filmed with just Cailee Spaeny. The footage was ultimately used to depict Rain’s dreams of Yvaga.
Storyboard by Santiago Vecino.
And though the structure of the film remained consistant from the early Alien: Renaissance draft through to the finished Alien: Romulus, there were a number of other differences along the way; these were just the ones I found the most significant or interesting.
Both drafts of Alien: Romulus can now be found in our Downloads section, alongside many drafts of the other Alien and Predator films for your movie archeology enjoyment!