Sometimes They Come Back… From Space!

We’ve heard rumblings of an Alien television series for a little while now. Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) has been attached to the project for years, slowly shepherding it along. It’s part of Disney’s big push to expand the Alien franchise like they’ve tried with the other hot properties they own (see also: Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe., Star WarsThe modern blockbuster: it's a concept so commonplace now we don't even think about the fact that before the end of the 1970s, this kind of movie -- huge spectacles, big action, massive budgets -- wasn't really made. That all changed, though, with Star Wars, a series of films that were big on spectacle (and even bigger on profits). A hero's journey set against a sci-fi backdrop, nothing like this series had ever really been done before, and then Hollywood was never the same.). We saw that just this last year with Alien: Romulus, a film that managed to do decently solid bank ($350.9 Mil on an $80 Mil budget) despite it getting terrible reviews (and the general audience sentiment quickly turning against it afterwards).

Of course, Disney also knows that there’s some market for this mega-franchise. Prey, the first new film in the Predator series since 2018’s widely panned The Predator, was warmly received and considered a high point for the franchise, one that probably should have been released in theaters instead of direct-to-HuluOriginally created as a joint streaming service between the major U.S. broadcast networks, Hulu has grown to be a solid alternative to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, even as it learns harder on its collection of shows from Fox and FX since Disney purchased a majority stake in the service.. It has two “sequels” coming out, the live-action film Predator: Badlands as well as a currently untitled animated film, both overseen by Prey’s director, Dan Trachtenberg. In the right hands these franchises can find new life and do well. We just need the right hands on it.

Generally I’d say that Noah Hawley was good hands for a TV show. He’s done fantastic work on Fargo, although certainly you could argue having the Cohen Brothers on as creative oversight has helped that show retain it’s particular heft. His other big show, Legion, was solid for its first season or so, although it did get progressively weirder and weirder as time went on. I’d call it a challenging show, maybe not always good but creatively it stuck to its guns. I would, generally speaking, trust Hawley with a property, at least for a season or two.

With that said, I did just watch the teaser for Alien: Earth, Hawley’s TV show which is debuting later this year, and, well, I have thoughts. First of all, I question if we need yet another Alien prequel. Ever since Ridley Scott came back to the franchise for Prometheus we’ve been stuck in the prequel era, exploring more and more all the minutiae of the creation and existence of the xenomorphs. Who made them, where they came from, how they got where they are. On and on, more and more answers for questions no one ever cared to ask.

As we’ve noted before on the site, monsters are at their best when they aren’t explained. Michael Myers is scariest as “The Shape” in the first Halloween. We see him stalk and kill women, but we’re never given an explanation for why. DId he kill his sister as a child because she was sinful? That’s maybe implied but never stated, and he certainly has no specific motive for who he targets after that. He’s just evil, as Dr. Loomis puts it. A dark pit of evil emptiness. That’s all we need, and it suits the film perfectly. The later HalloweenThe franchise that both set the standard for Slasher horror and, at the same time, defied every convention it created, Halloween has seen multiple time lines and reboots in its history, but one thing has remained: Michael Myers, the Shape that stalks Haddonfield. films felt the need, more and more, to explain him and justify his killing, which actively took away the air of mystique that surrounded him. And you can see this with other monsters. Did we need to know that the Thing came from a massive ship that it likely stowed away on to get to Earth (as seen in the 2010 The Thing)? No. That adds nothing to the perfect concept of the alien. It, The Boy, and even Alien itself (Prometheus) all had sequels that explained too much and took away from what was actively working in their first film.

And yes, I know that It is a two-part film and that it’s one long adaptation of the original Stephen KingRising to fame with the release of his first book, Carrie, Stephen King is one of the most prolific, and most successful, American authors (in any genre, not just horror). book. But the first film is fantastic and if they’d stopped there and never even decided to make the second half as a second movie I think it would have been stronger for it.

I’m giving Hawley some credit for being a great TV producer as he’s earned a bit of trust. With that said, the Alien franchise is in a rough state. Although I’m sure fans would debate the finer points of the series, I don’t think it would be hard to contend that we haven’t gotten a truly great Alien film since 1986’s Aliens. Then we had the malformed and poorly written Alien 3 (saved only, in any way, by great direction from David FincherStarting off as a music video director, David Fincher has gone on to become one of Hollywood's great, visionary directors with a cool, perfectionist style like none other.). There was the fun but utterly bungled Alien: Resurrection, which was followed by two increasingly idiotic Alien vs. Predator films, the second of which, Requiem, is also so poorly produced that it’s literally difficult to watch. And then Ridley Scott tried to make two prequels, Prometheus and then Alien: Covenant, but the latter was so hated by audiences it killed his chance at making a third film for his trilogy… except then Romulus picked up the pieces and bungled it all again.

I mention all this because I am all for someone new coming in and giving the series a fresh voice. A new story, a new direction, fresh eyes. Hawley could be that guy… but the teaser trailer doesn’t give me much faith in that. Admittedly, the teaser is very brief, showing a xenomorph crawling through a ship trying to escape as the ship quickly plunges towards a planet. Considering it’s called Alien: Earth, one can assume that the planet in the teaser is Earth. So we have an alien, plunging towards Earth, in a ship that will explode when it lands. I’m getting real shades of the ending of Alien: Resurrection from that. Also, the alien in the film moves a lot like the creatures in Fincher’s Alien 3. And when you factor that Alien: Romulus resurrected plot ideas from both Alien: Covenant and Alien: Resurrection, it doesn’t really feel like the franchise is looking to be fresh, different, or new.

Now, sure, Hawley wasn’t in charge of Alien: Romulus and he’s been developing this series for longer than Fede Alvarez was working on that movie. Still, you get the vibe that the higher-ups at Disney in charge of overseeing this series have it in their head to continue beating all the previous points the franchise hit before. Ridley Scott seems to have a very specific vision for this franchise, and that means looking backwards, cribbing all the good (and bad) ideas of other films. This teaser feels so much like a retread of stuff we saw before that it left me feeling like the TV series is just gonna be another bland Aliens product. That is not what this show should be conveying from its first tease to get people hyped. I am feeling a distinct lack of hype.

I’m sure there’s a good Alien story to be told in this mess of a franchise. I like parts of Alien: Romulus, but then I’ve liked parts of most of the films Fox and Disney have made over the last three decades. The problem has always been that the studios can’t actually tell a complete, cohesive story that also manages to be good, start to finish. Something always goes wrong, some strange new plot idea is added in, some rehash of old concepts has to be brought up again, and it then wastes all the good will it earned.

Alien: Earth is a TV series which means that it has plenty of time to fuck things up and get increasingly stupid across eight or ten or however many episodes it gets. Hawley is great, but he’s also shown that he needs the right people giving him input for his adaptations. Otherwise, like with Legion, he can get caught up in style over substance and crank out something increasingly weird and incomprehensible. I want to have faith in him, but considering the franchise he’s working in, and how abused it’s been over the years, I feel like that faith might just be misplaced. I suppose we’ll see soon enough…