Years later, FX and Disney’s Alien: Earth is finally fixing one of the biggest mistakes of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Alien: Earth wasn’t a replacement for Prometheus, but it did have quite a bit in common with Ridley Scott’s prequel movie. Both of them took place earlier in the Alien timeline, for example, and both of them took a deeper look into parts of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s history.
More broadly, both Earth and Prometheus also set out to give the Xenomorphs a type of origin story. Prometheus began the story of how they were created and their relationship to the Engineers, while Earth focused more on how Weyland-Yutani learned of them and why they began hunting for them. There’s also one big difference: Alien: Earth will get to tell more of its story than Prometheus and Covenant did.
Alien: Earth Season 2 Renewal Means The Story Won’t End On A Cliffhanger
Kirsh, Wendy, and Boy Kavalier in Alien Earth
The ending of Alien: Earth season 1 was a cliffhanger that left pretty much the entire casts’ fates in question. Luckily, Alien: Earth season 2 was renewed some weeks ago, meaning Earth won’t have to end on a cliffhanger. While there’s still a chance season 3 won’t happen, and that season 2 will end on a new cliffhanger, we’ll at least learn about what happened to Wendy and the Lost Boys, Boy Kavalier, and the Xenomorphs on Neverland Island.
The renewal of Alien: Earth also came with news about Noah Hawley, the show’s creator. Hawley recently signed a new, larger collaborative deal with Disney and FX, one that has already resulted in the announcement of a Far Cry spinoff show. Clearly, Disney and FX have a lot of faith in Hawley, which makes it even more likely that he’ll get to finish Alien: Earth in a definitive way instead of having it canceled on a cliffhanger.
Ridley Scott Never Got To Finish His Alien Prequel Story
An edited image of David and Shaw in Prometheus with the bright blue map from Prometheus in the background.Custom Image by Max Ruscinski
Unlike Alien: Earth, Ridley Scott’s prequel story never got a proper ending. Scott had intended to make a prequel trilogy centering around Michael Fassbender’s evil synthetic, David. That’s the story he was building up to: Prometheus showed David’s disdain for humanity and fascination with the Engineers, while Covenant ended with him and a ship full of colonists to experiment on. But, Scott never got to finish that trilogy with a third movie.
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Alien: Covenant did fairly well at the box office, but significantly worse than Prometheus. That, coupled with the lackluster fan reaction to both films, made sure the third movie was dead in the water. Scott’s recent Alien comments, where he said he was done with the franchise, also indicated that we’ll never find out what happened to David after Covenant. That origin story simply won’t ever be told in full, which is a shame.
Alien: Earth Deserves As Many Seasons As Noah Hawley Wants
Samuel Blenkin’s Boy Kavalier smiling smugly while tied up in a cell in Alien: Earth season 1 episode 8Patrick Brown/FX
The story Ridley Scott started telling in Prometheus and Covenant probably won’t ever be finished, but Alien: Earth doesn’t have to suffer the same fate. It’s for exactly that reason that Noah Hawley should be able to make as many seasons of Alien: Earth as he wants to. Hawley clearly has a plan for this show, he clearly has a story he thinks is worth telling, and Alien deserves at least one fully complete origin story.
Regardless of if you loved or hated Prometheus and Covenant, you have to give them credit for actually trying something new with Alien. Scott’s vision wasn’t universally loved, but it deserved to be finished so we could see what he really had in store for us. The same is true for Alien: Earth. Hawley’s vision isn’t universally loved, but he is taking a new and exciting approach to Alien, and that creativity deserves to go on as long as possible.
