The Series Has Landed reference to the moon from the 1902 French silent film "A Trip to the Moon". Bender impales Crater Face in the eye with his beer bottle after Crater Face attempts to confiscate his alcohol, which is another reference to the film as the astronomers' capsule (which resembles a bottle) hitting the moon's eye when it crashes. The title of the episode itself is a reference to the quote "The Eagle has landed" said by astronaut Neil Armstrong when he and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Fry nearly makes a reference to Neil Armstrong's
The First Men in the Moon are the villains of the piece. Moreover, his scientist, Professor Weston, has a philosophy diametrically opposite to Cavor's, being an outspoken proponent of human colonisation of other planets, up to and including extermination of "primitive natives". Brian Stableford argues this is the first alien dystopia. The book could also be considered to have launched the science fiction subgenre depicting intelligent social insects, in some cases a non-human species such as the space-traveling Shaara "bees" in the future universe of A. Bertram Chandler, in others (such as Frank Herbert's "Hellstrom's Hive") humans who evolved or consciously engineered their society in this