AlthoughPrometheuswas already a solidAlienprequel, the upcoming TV seriesAlien: Earthwill make Ridley Scott’s blockbuster a truly pivotal part of the franchise’s story.Prometheus’ connection to theAlienfranchiseis both obvious and surprisingly convoluted. Many moments in director Ridley Scott’s ambitious 2012 blockbuster have clear links to his original 1979 sci-fi horror.Prometheusends with a chestburster emerging from the corpse of an Engineer, whileAlien’s opening sees Ripley and her crew encounter the same Engineer’s corpse and the same Xenomorph’s eggs while answering a distress call.
However, the very question of what an Engineer is and what they have to do withtheAlienfranchise’s timelineproves thatPrometheusalso massively complicated proceedings for the series. ByAlien: Romulus’ ending, director Fede Alvarez managed to use his sequel to graft the lore ofPrometheusonto the originalAlienseries. AlthoughAlien: Romulustook place betweenAlienandAliens, the movie did a better job of linkingPrometheus’s story to those earlier hits than Scott’s own 2017 sequel,Alien: Covenant. That sequel was an enjoyable standalone sci-fi horror, but it only complicated the franchise’s story.
Alien: Earth Will Expand On Prometheus’ Weyland-Yutani Origin Story
Scott’s Divisive Prequel Explained The Corporation’s First Brush With Xenomorphs
Now,Fargoshowrunner Noah Hawley’supcomingAlienTV seriesAlien: Earthwill makePrometheuseven more central to the story of the series. WhenAlienwas released, the story of the franchise seemed to begin in 2122, with Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and her crew of space truckers having the rotten luck of coming across a Xenomorph while traveling through space. Soon enough,Aliens,Alien 3, andAlien: Resurrectionall implied that the shadowy Weyland-Yutani Corporation knew about Xenomorphs beforeAlientook place, but never explicitly explained how or why.
Alien: Earthcan fill in the blanks betweenPrometheus’ ending andAlien’s beginning, which were largely left unanswered byAlien: Covenant.
Although theAlien Vs Predatormovies offered a backstory for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s first encounter with Xenomorphs, viewers need not have gotten too attached to this version of events. AfterbothAlien Vs Predatoroutingsfailed to impress critics and fans alike, Scott’sPrometheusretconned their events almost entirely.Prometheusdepicted the CEO of Weyland-Yutani seeking out the Engineers years before the events ofAlien, only for his crew to fall victim to a proto-Xenomorph. Now,Alien: Earthcan fill in the blanks betweenPrometheus’ ending andAlien’s beginning, which were largely left unanswered byAlien: Covenant.
Prometheus’ Xenomorph Backstory Can Be Justified In Alien: Earth
The Franchise Needs Some Connective Tissue Between Prometheus and Alien
Alien: Earthwill tell its own story, with the synopsis promising a plot about a mismatched group of soldiers facing off against a threat contained in a vessel that crash-lands on Earth. However, the series can still answer a lot of mysteries left unsolved by the series so far, and connectPrometheustoAlienin the process. Specifically, the question of how exactly much the Corporation knows about Xenomorphs after the deaths of Charles Weyland and Meredith Vickers, but before the events ofAlien, can be addressed by the show.
Disney Is About To Rewrite Alien’s Canon In A Way That Not Even Ridley Scott’s Prometheus Did
Alien’s upcoming TV series Alien: Earth promises to finally do the one thing that even Ridley Scott’s prequel Prometheus could never quite pull off.
Alien: Earth’s premise promises to paper over the cracksbetweenAlienandPrometheusas Hawley’s show explores the history of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.Alien: Earthwill star Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, and Sydney Chandler as new characters who haven’t been seen in the movies before, but this doesn’t mean the series can’t clarify plot holes left open byPrometheus. The show can explain whether the Corporation came into possession of Xenomorphs beforeAlien, which could prove Ripley’s fatal journey may not have been an entirely innocent mistake.
Alien: Earth’s Unique Format Fixes Prometheus’ Biggest Problem
Perhaps the most promising element ofAlien: Earth’s storytelling is its format.Alien: Earthis the franchise’s first TV show spinoffand, while this might mean that its action could be less fast-paced than the movies and their prequels, this is arguably a good thing. Scott’s prequel movies had too much backstory and not enough screen time to explain all their big additions to the franchise’s lore, which won’t be an issue for a long-form TV show. Hawley will have more time to delve deeper into the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s history with the Xenomorph, somethingPrometheusattempted but couldn’t complete.
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AlthoughPrometheusdropped a lot of hintsabout the broader story of theAlienseries, it wasn’t untilAlien: Romulusthat viewers discovered what the Black Goo did, and evenAlien: Covenantnever entirely clarified whether David created the original Xenomorphs or not. Admittedly, Hawley toldThe Businesspodcast that he didn’t want to get bogged down in lore, but it still seems likely that his show will unavoidably end up expanding on the story of the prequels. As such, by the nature of its long-form storytelling,Alien: Earthcan clarifyPrometheus’s links to theAlienseries.
