Ahead of the release of SFX’s very swanky looking Alien: Earth collector’s edition of their upcoming issue, Bloody Disgusting has shared another tease of what we can expect. In this new snippet, Alien: Earth showrunner Noah Hawley talks about the non-Xenomorph XX121 alien lifeforms that the upcoming series is adding to the franchise’s bestiary.
“These are five unique species that have been collected on this Maginot ship, which I saw as like the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin going around collecting his specimens from around the universe. The reason that I did that is because I think if I have a skill at reinventing these classic films for television, it’s in understanding what the original movie made me feel and why, and then recreating those feelings for you.
On some level, the most critical feeling that you get from seeing Alien for the first time is the one that’s impossible to recreate, which is discovery of the life cycle of this creature. Every time you think that you know what this monster is, it changes into something worse. You can’t ever get back with those creatures. But if I bring in new creatures, you don’t know how they reproduce, what they eat, how they’re parasites.
My hope is that we’ll reawaken those feelings in the viewer when they watch the show from week to week.”
The article also reveals that Alien: Earth’s new invasive lifeforms also got a reaction Sir Ridley Scott himself, with producer David Zucker revealing that the new creatures got a “big ‘Whoa’” out of Scott.
A couple of days ago, GamesRadar also shared a look at what the upcoming issue of SFX had to offer fans eagerly awaiting Alien: Earth’s debut, in which Noah Hawley discussed reaching out to Denis Villeneuve for advice on scale. The Alien: Earth issue of SFX Magazine is available to purchase now and will be released Wednesday, July 16th.
Alien: Earth will premiere Tuesday, August 12th, with the first two episodes releasing on FX at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and on Hulu at 8 p.m. ET. Alien: Earth will premiere its first two episodes in the UK on Disney+ the day after, on August 13th, with a new episode out each Wednesday.
Keep your browsers locked on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest Alien: Earth news! You can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums. Want to support what we do here at AvP Galaxy and get exclusive perks while doing so? Check out our Patreon!
But in the end, I don't think sequels will let Rezzy hold them back to begin with.
I think you're still missing my point.
Yes, every Alien movie so far has ended with the threat wiped away, but that doesn't mean it should keep doing the same thing. We've seen that reset so often it's become predictable and meaningless.
A few standalone stories can work, but if every entry ends with "nothing happened," the franchise never moves forward. That repetition is exactly what's holding it back.
When you say ''Can the world remember it?'' I assume you mean specifically an alien threat in the fictional world? So far there hasn't been a single alien movie where the Xenomorph became public knowledge after. I don't think a sequel where that happens is a necessity for the franchise either. It can be done and it can be good, but I don't think it's some sort of needed progression.
Almost every alien movie's events went down into the history books of it's universe, just with the Xenomorph aspect left out.
But most importantly, I actually don't think most filmmakers or the studio will even really care about that one line in Rezzy, it's probably doomed to just get ignored anyways.
Worthless trash, usually.
Well, you can. But then it makes Resurrection even more redundant...
The Butt Fumble?
The only thing that rankled him more than Alien 3 was the Butt Fumble.
A couple? Can't it just be one?
But that's kinda my point: the bigger the story gets, the harder you have to work to explain why it left no trace. It stops being suspense and starts being gymnastics. After a while, it just feels like the story is fighting its own canon to justify itself.
And yeah, I think we do have different definitions of what "impactful" means. For me, it's not just about the emotional weight of an individual story: it's about whether the universe can carry it forward. Can something stick? Can the world remember it? That's the difference between a powerful episode and an escalation.
I think we also just have a different view on what "impactful" means in this context or what it takes to leave a mark. I don't think something huge, like Earth being overrun, is needed to leave a dent. I do agree that Rezzy imposes narrative restrictions, but I still believe that within those limits you can tell a ton of original stories that are able to raise the stakes of the franchise.
But at the end of the day, there's always one way to get around the narrative ceiling Rezzy put on the franchise: just ignore that line
I agree that even within the limitations, you can still craft strong stories.
That said, I think we've kind of had enough character studies and navel gazing at this point. The threat never grows. Everything resets.
You mentioned that a full-scale colony world, with cities and millions of people, getting overrun could have a similar impact to an Earth infestation. And you're right: a story like that would represent real escalation.
But it's also the kind of event that would be almost impossible to sweep under the rug. Trying to contain something on that scale, with no records or consequences left behind, would take a level of narrative hand-waving that's extremely hard to buy.
And that's been my central point all along. It's not that small-scale stories can't work. It's that the restrictions Rezzy imposes make it nearly impossible to tell big stories that leave a mark.
Escalation only matters if the universe is allowed to acknowledge it.
Honestly, they will ALWAYS be Linguafoeda Acheronsis to me.
It's not that bottle stories can't be effective or emotionally resonant. I'm saying that, thanks to Rezzy, they're all we can ever get. The 200-year jump effectively froze the universe. No matter how well a story is told, it can't escalate. The setting has to reset, the outbreak has to be contained and the world has to move on like it never happened, because Rezzy already told us nothing of consequence can happen between A3 and itself.
So sure, we can have a doomed colony, a salvage crew, a quiet tragedy, etc., but we've had enough of that already. At some point, "the monster gets loose and everyone dies" stops feeling like suspense and starts feeling like wheel-spinning. That's my gripe. Rezzy didn't just fail on its own: it trapped the entire franchise in a narrative holding-pattern.
But more importantly a story could be set on a well-developed colony world, complete with cities housing millions of people. This entire planet could be overrun by an outbreak and subsequently ''blown up'' in the film's climax. All of this could still work within the same continuity as your Rezzy without ignoring that one line
I can find that quite believable. I know how poor communication and information availability is within both the private sector and public sector now. Doesn't have to be some publically known event.
It also wouldn't matter much if there are no survivors or surviving records of it. Just like all the contrived, neatly self-contained bottle stories we can have in the 200 years between A3 and Rezzy.
I have a feeling we will see a completely new scientific nomenclature for the Xenomorph in Alien: Earth, thus further distancing it from the main timeline.
They needed a reason that cloning Ripley was the only option to get the Alien back. They could have gone for a smaller time frame (like 50 years or something), but they really lent into it.
Nearly a decade or so now. I've always loved the idea of them actually cataloguing alien life. Its use in Romulus was one of those things I loves.
It feels very boardroom 1989. Studio head smoking a cigar "Earth, we set Aliens 7 on Earth!"
The unknown is scary because we don't know how to deal with something we don't understand. But we can be equally scared of something we're intimately familiar with, that we know we cannot control.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel or add new elements. We need storytellers who don't think the Alien is old hat.
Bingo, Alien was so damn alluring because everything including the ship, Ash, Mother, the music and the sounds made an atmosphere that felt bleak in the best way. Add in a cast that behave like you are watching actual people not movie characters and it felt impressive even before Alien was introduced. Romulus even using the same ship designs whatnot didn't manage to come close to recreate that atmosphere. Aliens and Alien 3 still managed carry the atmosphere from the first movie well enough that the first 3 films work well as a trilogy.
Bringing alien zoo to earth together with the titular Alien kinda contradicts with the whole essence of Alien. It's wrong.
In a way, its hybridization with species other than humans (or interactions with the black goo, as in Prometheus or Romulus) can breathe new life into the saga. IMHO, xenomorphs are just one part of the franchise (as a kid, I remember being scared as much by the ship, Ash, or even "mother" as the alien).
The saga has always been about the idea that out there in space, unknown things await us that we can't understand, and that's what keeps it interesting. The alien plays a fundamental role, but it needs to evolve. You can't keep showing it as if seven films about its adventures didn't exist.
Crew being surprised by Ash being robot doesn't mean they weren't aware that robots existed, just that they didn't know Ash was one.
I'm hoping the new aliens are f**king monsters, like for real. The aliens have hands, maybe they'll pick up a gun and go on a bug hunt themselves.
It may not leave a mark or have any real consequences to the Ripley story, but, heavens, surely it could leave a mark and consequence on new characters if they were written in such a way that you cared about them. A naive proposal I grant you, but we are a species that created Citzen Kane, so...
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If they really plan to connect the story to the events in Nostromo with Ripley and don't manage to get to that part in the first season, I sincerely hope it gets canned by the end of the season.
I am super grateful for getting to experience the Alien films back in the day without all the bullshit watering it down. I'll make sure my kids watch Alien first at least.
I wouldn't care at all if they'd mess with Resurrection timeline, but what they are doing here angers me.
That severely limits what you can do, unless you're fine with self-contained bottle stories that leave no mark and have no real consequences.
I mean, that's fine if all you want to do is make variations of the first two movies over and over. But let's be honest, the audience has been ready for a real escalation for over 35 years.
Ever since the OG comics showed us what that could look like.
Such as?
With severe restrictions, sure.
We don't know that though. WY was destroyed by Walmart. Who knows what shenanigans they got up to in the void. What they discovered. What they fought. Who the friends were that they made along the way.
200 years of story and tales to be told.
Spoiler
Yep, in human years, 200 is quite a long time, and last time I checked, space was quite vast. A lot can happen out there. A lot of unknown things.
A spaceship crashing on Earth just feels cheap and boring with a side order of "we have no new ideas."
As much as I enjoy and stick up for Rez, I'd be 200% fine with what it claims about the timeline being ignored in favour of post-A3 content.
The one drawback of the entire series (even the movies) seems to be the constant obsession the WT corp "will find" the Alien.
Even Romulus which takes a break from this, still has it as the plot driver.
Makes you wonder if we will ever get a movie that's just new people finding out about the Alien. Alien 3 does this for the most part and is the better for it.
Since we are discussing a show that features more than one species of alien life form, some of which may or may not also be xenomorph classifications? Or would you prefer we use the term "capital A Aliens" each time? (Baring in mind we only know the species name of one of the other creatures at this point).😋
What...you don't?