Alien: Earth Teaser Reveals Nothing Outside of the Obvious
A new entry in the Alien franchise is coming out because of course it is. I mean, Alien: Romulus was three whole months ago, so it’s more than time to pick the bones of a long-devoured IP again. This time, it’s Alien: Earth, a TV series featuring the mouth-within-a-mouth creatures of sci-fi legend. Noah Hawley is behind the show, writing and directing every episode; the premise is a bit vague, but it seems to be about a group of soldiers and civilians fighting an Alien that has come to Earth before the events of Ridley Scott’s classic film. Alien: Earth stars Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, and Samuel Blenkin. Hulu, where the series will stream, released a teaser today, which you can see below:
The teaser tells you almost nothing, but we can make some assumptions based on the title of the show. Alien: Earth is almost certainly about fighting the Aliens on Earth, a concept that was almost part of at least one of the movies (the atrocious Alien: Resurrection). According to Deadline, Noah Hawley has said that we’ll see the Aliens running loose in “the wilds of Earth” and that he wants to “play around a little bit” with what lifeforms will serve as hosts for the Aliens. I guess you can do some interesting things with that; in Alien 3, the facehugger attaches itself to a dog, and the resulting Alien has canine-like qualities. (Originally, the Alien host was going to be an ox.) There was also a line of toys in the 90s that got creative with that idea; I remember I had the Gorilla Alien and the Snake Alien, and there were also the Bull Alien and the Rhino Alien. Maybe Hawley will do something like that – the Bobcat Alien or the Grizzly Bear Alien, for example. (If they do a Bigfoot Alien, I’m totally in with this show.)
That it’s taking place two years before Alien means Alien: Earth is about mankind’s first contact with the Aliens. That’s a bit annoying; I know it makes logical sense since Weyland-Yutani knew about the Alien before the films, but I would prefer the Alien that comes aboard the Nostromo (via John Hurt) be the first encounter we see. First of all, there’s the problem with most prequels, that whatever audiences imagined will be more interesting than what is shown. And the more they go back in time, the more they diminish the first story. Ripley’s triumph over the Alien (which Alien: Romulus already ruined) should be the first time a human fought one and won. But in Alien: Earth, the heroine will almost certainly defeat the Aliens that come to Earth, so Ripley is suddenly less special, simply recreating something someone else did before her. (It’d be really cool if the Aliens won and slaughtered all the humans, but they can’t do that because it takes place on Earth.) That’s part of why so many of these franchises need to be left alone; the concept will inevitably be stretched so far that the originals are diminished, no matter how much care is put into the modern installments.
How much care is actually going into Alien: Earth remains to be seen, and it’s impossible to judge from this teaser. A lot of care went into the design of Alien: Romulus, but the story and characters left much to be desired, and the camerawork saw fit to redo shots from the old movies. I like Noah Hawley’s work on Fargo, the series (which I was sure I would hate, as Fargo is one of my favorite movies, and I didn’t relish the idea of someone tampering with it), but I haven’t seen any of his other work. But I suppose it’s not worth getting worked up over; they’re never going to stop making Alien shows and movies, along with many other franchises that should be allowed to end but won’t. We’ll see if Alien: Earth is better than the many attempts to resurrect these monsters.
Let us know what you think of the Alien: Earth teaser in the comments!
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