‘Alien: Earth’ Trailer Breakdown

We’re just a couple of months away from the release of ‘Alien: Earth’, the new FX show from the long-running sci-fi franchise, and we’ve just had our first look at what the series will be like, with a full trailer for the show dropping, which promises some horror, gore, and action.

It opens in a research facility, where a young girl, Wendy, is undergoing a procedure that will place her consciousness into the body of a synthetic adult woman.

It’s not clear what the purpose of this is, as it doesn’t fit with the idea of “eternal life” that Peter Weyland was pursuing in ‘Prometheus’. Neither is it clear how this fits in with the other synthetic android characters that are a central part of the franchise, as they’ve been around for decades by this time, and don’t seem that big a deal anymore.

Then a spacecraft crash lands in the city. There’s something valuable on the ship (shock, it’s an alien) and a rich businessman wants it (double shock). Wendy says that she can take a team to retrieve it as “we’re fast, we’re strong, and we don’t break”, suggesting there are more like her and that they have been enhanced through the procedure, though the mental stress of placing a child’s consciousness into an adult body, and then sending her into brutal and terrifying situations must be immense.

We’re shown the inside of the ship which is in chaos, wrecked with blood splattered everywhere, and we’re told that the ship collected five life forms from the darkest corners of the universe. Does this mean there will be more aliens than just the Xenomorphs to face off against? Is it possible that the Yuatja from the ‘Predator’ franchise will make an appearance? There have been a lot of rumors lately that the ‘Alien vs Predator’ franchise is getting a reboot.

We then get a montage of people being attacked, running, screaming, dark corridors and flashing lights. All the cool things you’d expect from an ‘Alien’ show.

This is the first time the franchise has made it onto the small screen, and if you don’t count the ‘AvP’ movies, then the first time that a Xenomorph has made it to Earth. 

The show is set just two years before the events of the first movie, ‘Alien’, and around sixteen years after ‘Covenant’, which is the first time chronologically that we see the creatures on screen, though it’s implied that none of the characters from that movies survive, so probably doesn’t have any bearing on the series.

It also looks like the show will be featuring some of that good old corporate greed, too, with a rich guy wanting to get hold of the aliens (what are the chances he wants to turn them into a weapon?), and once again, it looks like they manage to escape containment and kill everyone they meet. It doesn’t look like the Weyland-Yutani Corporation–the series’ usual corporate bad guys–are included here, as the big businessman is called Kavalier here, but he’s also responsible for creating Wendy, so guess we’ll have to wait and see what his role in the wider franchise is.

It looks like it’s going to be a close fit with the rest of the franchise with its style and aesthetic, though its presence will put even more pressure on an already stretched timeline, and I’m not sure how the franchise will handle an eight-part series, as up until now, it’s always been a cinematic property. But it looks like this is going to be a great way for the franchise to make that leap.

‘Alien: Earth’ is created by Noah Hawley, with ‘Alien’ director Ridley Scott onboard as executive producer. It will release on Hulu/Disney+ on August 12.