Because Alien: Earth takes place just two years before the events of the 1979 Alien, you’d think the show would be in a tricky spot, at least in terms of continuity with the original film. But, according to creator and showrunner Noah Hawley, nobody needs to worry about the entire Alien timeline to enjoy the new series. In fact, even Hawley himself kept his focus on Alien canon to only a few sources.
Speaking at an exclusive event at SXSW attended by Inverse, Hawley explained exactly how he looks at the sprawling Alien universe and which specific elements he focused on in making Alien: Earth.
“For something that's this old that's had this many movies that's jumped around in time periods, that if you try to chase it all or observe it all, you’ll go mad,” Hawley said when asked directly about how the show fits into Alien canon. “I think my blueprint for the show was the first couple of movies because I wanted to engage with that original idea.”
In terms of the events of Alien: Earth, this makes a certain degree of sense. The first film, of course, established everything in this universe, specifically the titular xenomorphs. But the true nature of Weyland-Yutani wasn’t made fully clear until the second film, Aliens. Because a big part of Alien: Earth deals with various warring mega-corporations on Earth, it follows that Hawley would be focused on the canon of Weyland-Yutani, hence the second film.
But does Hawley’s statement mean that Alien: Earth would ignore the canon of, say, Prometheus? In previous interviews, he’s said that he didn’t find the origin story of the xenomorphs from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant to be “useful” to his story, which, taken with his latest comment at SXSW could mean that it’s best if fans don’t worry too much about those movies while watching Alien: Earth. Initially, some reports put Alien: Earth’s timeline in the 2090s, close to the timeframe of Prometheus. But now, we know that Alien: Earth happens in 2120, just two years before the original film.
Accordingly, Hawley doubled down on his stance toward what Prometheus meant for the story of Alien: Earth, which was, basically, almost nothing. And his reasoning is connected more to personal preferences, themes, and aesthetics than any timeline concerns. Here’s his full statement on that question from the same SXSW panel:
“Other than the shark in Jaws, this is the most iconic monster in all of film history. And I lived for 28 years of my life believing that this creature was the perfect organism that had evolved over millions of years. Right? Then, Ridley made Prometheus and engaged with another idea in terms of the origin of these creatures. It just wasn’t part of my DNA of how these movies worked. So, so I chose not to engage with that part of the story and to just sort of speak to the Alien that I had encoded.”
To be clear, Hawley isn’t pretending like the rest of the Alien timeline doesn’t exist, however. “It's not that I didn’t do a timeline around the events,” he clarifies. “But I didn't expand it to incorporate everything that had ever been written.”
So, fans who were hoping that Alien: Earth would tie up loose ends about David (Michael Fassbender) or the various different kinds of xenomorphs from Covenant might want to curb their canon dot-connecting expectations. Alien: Earth won’t violate the chest-bursting canon. But it’s not going to be obsessed with that canon, either.
