Alien: Earth Can Revive the Franchise in a Way the Movies Never Could

FX’s upcoming TV series Alien: Earth has a golden chance to breathe new life into the franchise in a manner recent movies weren’t able to. Fargo’s Noah Hawley creates the first-ever Alien show, which takes place two years before the events of Ridley Scott’s original 1979 Alien film and around 20 years after the other Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Hence its title, Alien: Earth, also deviates from the franchise’s established formula by setting its story on Earth rather than in outer space or on some distant world. Starring Timothy Olyphant, Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, and more, Alien: Earth promises to shake up the standard approach of Alien movies, as its story revolves around a crash-landed spaceship full of soldiers who discover the lethal Xenomorphs while stranded on the Blue Planet.

Alien and its 1986 James Cameron-directed sequel, Aliens, are widely considered the franchise’s best films. Centering on Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and her terrifying encounters with Xenomorphs, the first two movies are unnerving and full of thrills. Subsequent installments, such as 1992’s Alien 3, 1997’s Alien: Resurrection, fail to reach the heights of their predecessors, neither adding anything new to the franchise’s lore nor replicating the terrific scares and action sequences of Alien and Aliens. Alien: Earth will be the first project to release since 2024’s Alien: Romulus, which was generally praised, though it’s hard to see it as a truly franchise-reviving movie. In turn, Alien: Earth has the potential to do what Alien’s recent movies could not.

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The Alien Franchise Has Long Strayed From Its Former Glory, but Alien: Earth Can Help

Unfortunately, the riveting horror elements and top-notch entertainment value of Alien: Romulus do not supersede substance. Set between Alien and Aliens, Romulus chronicles a group of young travelers’ harrowing fight to survive aboard a desolate space station full of facehuggers and xenomorphs. The film is exhilarating and features the highest-quality visual effects of any Alien entry; however, Romulus relies too heavily on nostalgia. Subtle callbacks to Alien are far from unreasonable, but the CGI reproduction of Ian Holm’s likeness for the android character Rook is so preposterous, it almost takes one out of the movie.

Before Romulus, the prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant added some much-needed complexity to the canon through elaboration on the xenomorph’s origin, but the films still don’t stack up to the action-packed thrills of the first two Alien movies. The excellence of Alien and Aliens stems from more than their wildly entertaining stories, as they’re also rife with substance. Alien takes on themes of technological advancement, corporate greed, and motherhood are repeated and expanded upon in Aliens, which simultaneously functions as an allegory for the Vietnam War.

Alien: Earth‘s focus on xenomorphs wreaking havoc on Earth is a fantastic direction for the franchise’s next chapter. Horror in the familiar setting of Earth instead of an unknown cosmic location has the potential to frighten audiences much more than past installments. Plus, audiences will be eager to find out how Earth has fared around the time of other Alien movies and learn how xenomorphs ended up on the planet. Alien: Earth is also set to incorporate human-robot hybrids into its material, adding another intriguing layer to the plot. Of course, the Alien vs. Predator films took place on Earth, but their non-canonical status and abysmal reception make most Alien fans want to ignore their existence. Thus, Alien: Earth appears to be the first title since Prometheus to bring something new and bold to the overarching story of Alien.

Alien: Earth‘s TV Format Gives it a Unique Advantage Over Recent Alien Movies

Alien: Earth can bring back everything that made the first two movies great while establishing an interesting new plot line. Given that the franchise has strayed from its former brilliance since Aliens, the switch to TV should excite fans. Alien: Earth‘s episodic format allows the series to develop a thematically rich plot without sacrificing substance for style. Furthermore, the show’s status as a prequel probably eliminates the overused nostalgia factor so many IPs lean into nowadays. A storyline set far away from all of Alien’s past narratives, Alien: Earth can take its time and bring about a tale that’s both horrifying and thought-provoking. As of now, Alien: Earth is set to debut its eight-episode first season in 2025, and if more seasons are greenlit, the show could build upon its foundation in a way the franchise’s movies never had the chance to.

Alien: Earth will premiere on August 12th on FX and Hulu.