Alien: Earth – Weyland-Yutani’s Worst Idea Yet Comes Home to Roost (trailer).
In space, no one can hear you scream. But on Earth, they apparently still think it’s a good idea to poke mysterious crashed spaceships with sticks and send in the interns. Yes, friends, Alien: Earth is set to facehug its way onto FX and Hulu this August 12th, and if the trailer is anything to go by, it’s shaping up to be the franchise’s most delightfully disturbing prequel yet.
Created by Noah Hawley—he of Fargo and Legion notoriety—this new series is set a mere two years before Ripley ever got her hands on a flamethrower, back when xenomorphic horror was still an up-and-coming problem in need of better corporate risk assessments. And in a novel twist, this time the carnage unfolds on Earth. That’s right: after decades of keeping the acid-blooded nightmare fuel safely off-planet, someone finally went, “What if we brought it home?” Spoiler alert: it’s not going well.
Our protagonist is Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a human consciousness in a synthetic body—essentially a cross between Bishop, HAL 9000, and a particularly traumatised Roomba. She’s trained by the stoic and presumably sarcastic Kirsh, played by the eternally cool Timothy Olyphant, who seems incapable of doing anything without a leather jacket and a devastating quip.
They’re joined by a merry band of misfits, including Alex Lawther as a twitchy human soldier called Hermit, Essie Davis (of The Babadook infamy, so expect high-octane maternal trauma), and Adarsh Gourav as Slightly, a synthetic who probably knows more than he’s letting on. Plus, in a delightful casting curveball, Adrian Edmondson shows up as Atom Eins, presumably playing either a hard-bitten veteran or a Weyland-Yutani accountant who took a very wrong turn.
The trailer delivers on the goods: shadowy corridors, chitinous claws, panicked breaths, and that signature eerie Alien hum that means it’s all about to go pear-shaped. There’s also a healthy helping of corporate malfeasance, courtesy of Weyland-Yutani’s own Madame Ambiguously Evil, Sandra Yi Sencindiver’s Yutani. Because when the galaxy’s most notorious biotech conglomerate gets involved, you know someone’s getting sacrificed for a quarterly earnings report.
Filming took place mostly in Thailand, with enough real-world sweat and humidity to ensure the cast was as miserable as their characters. Thanks to a bit of contract wizardry, production chugged along even during the Hollywood strikes, which is a bit like facing a xenomorph outbreak during a company-wide holiday rota.
As for tone, Hawley promises a return to the Alien of 1979 rather than the occasionally baffling philosophical musings of Prometheus or Alien: Covenant. So, think less “What does it mean to create life?” and more “Oh God it’s in the vents.”
Here at SFcrowsnest, we’re cautiously optimistic. Between the killer casting, ominous trailer, and the welcome whiff of proper horror creeping back into the franchise, Alien: Earth might just be the prequel we didn’t know we needed—but Weyland-Yutani probably should have cancelled.
So charge your pulse rifles, triple-lock your panic room, and maybe avoid any mysterious eggs. The xenomorphs are coming home… and Earth is very much not ready.
