"It's got to be its own thing" – How Alien: Earth ditches canon for the greater good

In Alien: Earth (and every franchise film that precedes it), the Xenomorphs are essentially the perfect organism. They've evolved to become incredibly adaptable, sleek killing machines who get the job done no matter where they are or who they face.

It's no coincidence that the Alien franchise has proved itself to be just as adaptable. Ridley Scott's original masterpiece from 1979 established a horror baseline that's since evolved into an action sequel (James Cameron's Aliens), existential prequels (such as 2012's Prometheus), and now a new TV show that brings these aliens to Earth for the very first time.

But it's not just the homebound setting that forges new ground for this killer sci-fi franchise. Alien: Earth is set in the year 2120, just two years before Ridley's first Alien movie, yet creator Noah Hawley isn't beholden to canon in the ways you might expect.

Thanks to the likes of Marvel and DC, audiences are more open than ever to the possibilities that come through building a larger shared universe across multiple projects. As such, you might assume that Alien: Earth would slot neatly in with the rest of the Alien timeline, incorporating various elements from across its 45-year history.

If so, you assumed wrong.

Hawley expanded on this with our very own James Hibbs as part of the Radio Times Writers' Room, explaining why Alien: Earth had to run parallel to the films rather than directly tap into them.

"It's got to be its own thing. There's touchstones, there's references. I mean, [it was the] same on Fargo of saying, 'All right, I'll take a little Lebowski, I'll take a little of this tone of voice, or this element and the fact that in the James Cameron movie, you had Newt and Bill Paxton, and she's a child who acts like an adult, and he's an adult that acts like a child. And you think, 'OK, well, that tone of voice is there, right?' So now, when you have these adults who are acting childish, you're like, well, that voice is in Alien already."

That right there is a perfect example of how to channel the essence of a story without just repeating what's come before. Because even though the first episode opens with a scene that could have been ripped straight out of the 1979 original, it's not long before Alien: Earth takes us on a very different journey.

The music and production design is delightfully retro, for example, but Hawley doesn't kick things off this way to confirm ties with earlier Alien films. Rather, he does so to establish that the creative team behind his show fully understand the world they're stepping into, proving that they're more than capable of going on to deconstruct that world without losing the essence of what makes Alien Alien.

Just as the Alien vs Predator movies aren't considered canon (to Alien, at least), Alien: Earth also plays a little fast and loose with connections to the wider universe. Specifically, Hawley has chosen to ignore the prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant for the most part, just drawing inspiration from Alien and Aliens instead.

News of this first came via a SXSW panel in May this year where Hawley cleared things up regarding Alien: Earth's place in the overall timeline (via Inverse): "Ridley [Scott] 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, I chose not to engage with that part of the story and to just sort of speak to the Alien that I had encoded."

That doesn't mean the prequel movies are directly contradicted or written out completely, however. "It's not that I didn’t do a timeline around the events,” clarified Hawley. "But I didn't expand it to incorporate everything that had ever been written."

While that might rub purists up the wrong way, there are huge benefits to this. As good as the prequels are, their convoluted attempt to unlock the origins of both the Xenomorphs and mankind itself raised more questions than they answered. Attempting to incorporate that dense mythology into Alien: Earth could detract from Hawley's lean, mean take on these ugly critters.

As he pointed out in that same SXSW panel, "For something that's this old, that's had this many movies, that's jumped around in time periods, if you try to chase it all or observe it all, you’ll go mad."

It's true that there's a lot of ground to cover if you do try and take stock of everything that's potentially relevant in the Alien mythos. And as Marvel's lacklustre returns have recently proved, audiences are no longer as keen as they once were to keep up with all the homework needed to fully enjoy a shared universe that goes in hard on those connections.

Sticking with a more concise focus makes Alien: Earth the perfect jumping on point for viewers less familiar with the intricacies of this world.

Hawley has proved more than once that he's adept at putting his own spin on established properties, first with his Emmy-winning Fargo series and then with Legion, a daring X-Men reimagining that verged on unrecognisable to casual fans.

Alien: Earth isn't quite a hard reboot like them, however. Instead, it's the best of both worlds, paying direct homage to the films that came before it without being entirely beholden to them.

The change in location, finally bringing the Xenomorphs from space to Earth, also taps into that quite literally by presenting this now iconic threat in a whole new light. By doing so, Hawley makes the horror of what they represent more relatable and "less abstract" than ever before:

"I think that the reality is that none of us have ever been on a spaceship before, right?" suggests Hawley. "That's not our environment. But once you see these creatures next to a tree, or in a yard, these are places that we live, we live in homes, and there was something about introducing these creatures into an actual ecosystem that offers a lot of both visual and storytelling ideas."

Freeing the show from canon also circumvents one of the biggest issues that could arise from bringing the aliens to Earth. Namely, how come none of the stories that follow ever mention a Xenomorph invasion back home? Everyone in the films always looks surprised to see the ugly aliens in question, but surely their arrival on Earth would have made at least a few headlines?

You could potentially explain that away if their attack is contained so the general public remain unaware of their existence. There's also scope to suggest that companies like Weyland-Yutani simply lied to their crews and feigned surprise in order to keep these secrets close to the chest.

Either way, it doesn't really matter. That's the beauty of bypassing canon. If Hawley wants to explain away potential plot holes, he can, but there's no need to jump through hoops in the script to force that in and make it happen.

This flexibility takes the pressure off so that Hawley and his team can adapt as they see fit and focus on making the best story they can, which, if the reviews are anything to go by, they certainly have.

New episodes of Alien: Earth will be released every Wednesday on Disney+. You can sign up to Disney+ for £4.99 a month or £89.90 a year now.

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