Firefly Includes A Weyland-Yutani Easter Egg
After first discovering the xenomorphs on LV-426, the shadowy Weyland-Yutani conglomerate has woven its influence through multiple Alien films, a couple of Alien vs. Predator movies best left forgotten, and is set to play a pivotal role in this summer’s Prometheus. While Ridley Scott’s return to the Aliens universe may shine new light on the mega-corporation’s history and motivations, it turns out that Weyland-Yutani’s influence extends to places you might never expect. Places such as Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe, thanks to an Easter egg hidden in that show’s pilot episode.
The Easter egg appears during the Battle of Serenity Valley, the pivotal struggle for which Malcolm Reynolds later names his ship, the Serenity. During the fight, Mal mans a whopping anti-aircraft gun, and the viewer gets a shot of the weapon’s heads-up display. Can you spot it?
Yep, that’s Weyland-Yutani’s corporate logo in the upper middle of the display. Apparently when they’re not trying to breed extraterrestrial bioweapons, they dabble in good old-fashioned military technology. As the eagle eyes at Blastr.com point out, the logo is likely more than just a tip of the hat from Joss Whedon to the iconic Alien franchise. Joss himself infamously penned the screenplay for Alien: Resurrection, which involved the scruffy mercenary crew of the Betty, a group that plays sort of like a very, very rough first draft of the Firefly premise. Alien: Resurrection doesn’t have many qualities to recommend it, but if it helped form the germ of Firefly in even the most tangential way, I’d say that’s worth a celebratory Easter egg, wouldn’t you?
Just for comparison’s sake, here’s a larger version of the Weyland-Yutani logo.
