Noah Hawley and FX’s Alien prequel series Alien: Earth is about to experience the end of an era thanks to a franchise-changing new development. Alien: Earth has been on a hot streak basically since it began. The show was met with near-universal praise from critics, earning 94% approval from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was popular enough that Alien: Earth season 2 was easily renewed and is now deep into development.
Alien: Earth has even managed to overcome some of its growing pains. The show is a critical darling, but it has far less support from viewers. Still, it raked in good enough viewership numbers to be renewed rather easily. Alien: Earth‘s status in terms of Alien‘s larger canon is also hard to pin down, yet the minor changes and contradictions it has from other Alien movies can be easily overlooked. In short, Alien: Earth has a few flaws, but it’s not held back by them.
That era of success may be coming to an end, however. Though Alien: Earth season 2 is still months away from its 2027 release window, the Alien franchise at large is changing before then. Most notably, Ridley Scott is set to produce a new Alien movie, his first since Alien: Covenant in 2017. Scott’s new film has massive implications for Alien as a whole, and it could directly contradict Alien: Earth specifically.
Ridley Scott’s New Alien Movie Will Almost Certainly Contradict Earth’s Story
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While it is still very early in development, Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien movie is presumably going to tie into his earlier prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, in some way. Early reports indicated that it could be a continuation of the prequels and the story of Michael Fassbender’s synthetic character, David. Based on that, it seems very likely that Scott’s upcoming Alien movie is going to directly contradict the plot of Alien: Earth.
As previously mentioned, Alien: Earth was already tentatively canon at best. The show makes some big changes to the franchise’s established lore, particularly in terms of the Alien timeline, the introduction of Alien: Earth‘s new species aside from the Xenomorph, and Alien: Earth‘s new mega-corporations. The show’s biggest changes were aimed at the prequels and David’s role in discovering the Xenomorphs, and those same changes could soon be undone.
Alien: Earth‘s timeline and the voyage of the USCSS Maginot makes it virtually impossible for David to have any hand in discovering or reverse-engineering the Xenomorphs that appear in the show. David wasn’t rediscovered in Covenant until 2104, while the Maginot was already returning to Earth with intact Xenomorph specimens. Basically, the plot of Alien: Earth has been running in parallel to Ridley Scott’s prequels, and they don’t intersect.
The fact that they don’t intersect with one another means that Ridley Scott’s next Alien movie could contradict a lot about Alien: Earth. It’s too early to tell exactly how it will fit into the franchise at large, but there’s almost no chance Scott will feel constrained by Earth‘s story. If he wants to continue David’s story and establish that he was responsible for all the Xenomorphs in the franchise, Alien: Earth will instantly become non-canon. Alien: Earth‘s importance to Alien lore just took a massive hit.
Alien’s Canon Is About To Be More Messy Than Ever Before
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Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien movie also means that Alien‘s canon is going to get even messier. Alien lore was already a bit of a mess. Between the Alien vs. Predator movies, Scott’s own prequels contradicting things hinted at in the originals, and a lot of comics, books, and video games, it was hard to tell what was and wasn’t canon. Even Alien: Earth exacerbated this by not being clear about whether it was canon or not, which only muddied things further.
Now, this new movie is adding yet another layer of confusion to Alien‘s canon. There will soon be two different versions of the Xenomorphs’ origins, both coming from major installments in the franchise. Most viewers won’t know which one is canon and which one influences the franchise at large. It also won’t be clear if Scott’s new movie makes everything from Earth non-canon, or if certain parts of the show will remain.
Alien: Earth was attempting to cut through some of the confusion and ambiguity in Ridley Scott’s prequel trilogy and give a more understandable origin for the Xenomorphs and the original Alien movie. Now, that work is about to be undone, and Alien‘s lore is going back to being a big mess. It should be interesting to see how Alien: Earth manages to fit in with Scott’s new movie, and if the two projects can coexist at all.
Alien: Earth
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