In space, no one can hear you scream… about how confusing Alien canon truly is. Comprised of several mainline films, spin-offs, novels, and video games, and no clear-cut line between what is canon and what isn’t, like Star Wars, the franchise can get, well, a bit convoluted. Any fans hoping that the newest edition to the Alien saga, Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth, would help answer some of the franchise’s most burning questions are out of luck. So far, the new series has only further muddied the franchise’s timeline and introduced some new wrinkles to the current Alien continuity.
To be clear, these are only problems based on how they’re presented in the first two episodes of Alien: Earth. It’s entirely possible that further episodes will expand upon and make sense of these continuity-busting plot points. For now, though, here are five problems Alien: Earth creates within the current Alien canon.
1) Weyland-Yutani Knows About Xenomorphs Before the Events of Alien
Alien: Earth kicks off with a Weyland-Yutani science vessel crashing on Earth with several deadly creatures onboard. One of those creatures happens to be a xenomorph — or at least the facehugger stage of the xenomorph life cycle. The series never states explicitly that the xenomorph on board the crashed ship was born mid-voyage. Either way, it brings up the issue of the company being aware of facehuggers/xenomorphs years before the events of Alien.
One of the biggest questions fans have about the original Alien is “How much did the Weyland-Yutani corporation know about xenomorphs before sending the Nostromo to LV-426?” All the film tells us is that the Nostromo was on its way to Earth when it was diverted to investigate a “distress signal” coming from the uninhabited planet, LV-426. This was based upon a standing order that all company vessels must explore any situation involving potential alien life or else forfeit their crew’s wages.
Later, after the existence of the xenomorph is revealed, Ash, the Nostromo’s Synth science officer, reveals a second directive only he is privy to: Special Order 937. That order states that the capture and preservation of the alien species is Weyland-Yutani’s highest priority, and the company considers the Nostromo’s crew expendable. Even taking Special Order 937 into account, all we know is that Weyland-Yutani knows about the existence of generic alien life on LV-426.
If the company did know there were facehuggers on LV-426, why not send a crew of Space Marines to capture one rather than a bunch of blue-collar space truckers? Furthermore, the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation, which is largely considered canon, details the moment Weyland-Yutani discovers what happened to the Nostromo crew, something they wouldn’t be eager to find out if they already had reason to believe a xenomorph had probably massacred the crew.
The two Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, further expand upon Weyland-Yutani’s xenomorph knowledge by revealing that the company knows about the Engineers — the species responsible for the black goo the android David uses to create the xenomorphs — and later, thanks to the short film Alien: Covenant – Advent, the black goo itself. Nothing in canon, however, implies that the Weyland-Yutani corporation knows about the xenomorphs specifically until Alien: Earth, that is.
Perhaps the series will establish that Weyland-Yutani has several clandestine departments, all ignorant of what the other are doing. But until then, Weyland-Yutani’s knowledge about the existence of xenomorphs at the time of Alien: Earth makes many canon events questionable.
2) If Weyland-Yutani Already Knows Where To Acquire Facehugger Eggs, Why Do So Many Movies Revolve Around the Company Trying To Figure Out How To Get One?
Alien: Earth creates an even bigger problem than the fact that Weyland-Yutani knew about xenomorphs before Alien, namely that they apparently know where to get them. Now granted, we know absolutely nothing about how the crashed ship acquired the dangerous specimens it’s carrying, but given that it’s carrying multiple facehuggers, it’s safe to assume that there’s more where they came from.
So why then is the company so hard-up for xenomorphs by the time of Alien that they’re willing to sacrifice an entire crew and a ship potentially worth billions just to maybe capture one? If Weyland-Yutani already knows where to get prime, Grade-A facehuggers, why in Aliens are they willing to sacrifice an entire colony, a marine unit, and again, billions of dollars worth of equipment to capture one?
Unless everyone who knows about the Weyland-Yutani mission to collect dangerous species dies by the end of Alien: Earth, the fact that anyone at the company knows a better way to get facehuggers than waiting for employees to stumble across them creates some pretty major plot holes in the franchise. And while we’re on the subject of dangerous alien lifeforms…
3) Weyland-Yutani Is Obsessed With Xenomorphs Despite Having Access to at Least Four Other Deadly Species
Alien: Earth introduces four new alien species alongside the tried and true xenomorphs: an eyeball octopus, a pair of bloodsucking insects, a carnivorous plant, and briefly, a winged monstrosity. From what we’ve seen already in the first two episodes, each of these new aliens have the potential to be as deadly as a xenomorph, at least in a one-on-one encounter. But even if a traditional xenomorph is better suited for wholesale slaughter, so what?
That may sound glib, but it’s an honest question. We are told in other Alien media that Weyland-Yutani wants a xenomorph for their Bio-Weapons Division, implying that they are going to use it to develop new weapons/soldiers, not try and tame it to fight directly for them. Presumably, whatever combat advancements could be gleaned from dissecting and reverse engineering a xenomorph, something similar and just as effective could be created based on the biology of one of the other species.
Even if the xenomorph represents the perfect killing machine, surely something 80% as effective but easier to retrieve/control would be a better investment.
4) Alien: Earth Introduces Two New Types of Artificial Lifeforms, but We Only See Synths Throughout the Rest of the Alien Series
Alien: Earth begins with the following on-screen text: “In the future, the race for immortality will come in 3 guises: Cybernetically enhanced humans: Cyborgs, Artificially intelligent beings: Synths, and synthetic beings downloaded with human consciousness: Hybrids” Meanwhile, since 1979 the only artificial life we’ve seen in the Alien franchise are Synths, the Alien universe’s version of androids, which begs the question, what happened to the Cyborgs and Hybrids?
Given that the show’s main Hybrid, Wendy, is shown constantly forgoing orders in favor of doing things her way, it’s entirely possible that Hybrids — an invention of Alien: Earth‘s new mega-corporation Prodigy — are quickly discarded in favor of the more easily controllable Synths. But Cyborgs? We can’t help but feel like many situations throughout the Alien franchise could have been improved by cybernetic implants.
Like many of the other entries on this list, these previously unmentioned artificial lifeforms shine a light on the biggest problem with prequels: the desire to add new elements to an already established universe while somehow justifying why the audience has never seen them before.
It’s possible that Noah Hawley will take the easy way out and proclaim that Hybrids and Cyborgs have always been a part of the Alien franchise, we’ve just never seen them. However, we’d like to think that such a cheap narrative copout is beneath the Fargo creator. Hopefully, Alien: Earth will give fans a legitimate reason behind the sudden absence of Hybrids and cyborgs following the series.
5) Alien: Earth‘s Xenomorph Runs Around on All Fours
We admit this one isn’t as important in the grand scheme of things as the other list entries, but the fact that the normally bipedal xenomorphs are now suddenly quadrapeds is indeed weird. Xenomorphs traditionally adopt some of the physical characteristics found in their host species. Most of the aliens we’ve seen throughout the franchise have gestated in humans, so for the most part, they stand and walk upright. When a xenomorph gestates in a four-legged animal, like in the underrated Alien 3, it then walks on all fours like that animal.
The xenomorph in Alien: Earth, however, is hinted to have burst out of one of the humans aboard the ship carrying it, but for some reason runs around on four legs like a dog or cat. Maybe it’s a stylistic choice, but it definitely seems to contradict some already established xenomorph lore.
What did you think about Alien: Earth deviating from Alien canon? Did it bother you, or do you have faith that Noah Hawley will give everything a satisfactory explanation by the end of the season? Let us know in the comments.
