While FX’s upcoming Alien series Alien: Earth was always going to be a big change for the franchise, the second teaser trailer for the show proves the project will change its canon even more than Prometheus. All the Alien movies have changed the canon of the series, altering the abilities of the Xenomorph, changing details of its life cycle, and retconning story elements that no longer fit. However, the many mysteries of director Ridley Scott’s Prometheus made the story of the franchise feel more complex than ever.

Prometheus arrived in 2012 and the Alien prequel immediately made the entire franchise’s story more convoluted and complex. 2017’s sequel Alien: Covenant did nothing to simplify things, although 2024’s Alien: Romulus did clarify some plot elements and tie up a few loose ends. Now, FX’s Alien: Earth will see Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley bring the franchise to the small screen for the first time. Alien: Earth will expand on the backstory of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation seen in the movies, and its teaser trailer promises more than just that.

Alien: Earth Is All But Confirmed To Rewrite Alien’s Canon With A Xenomorph On Earth

The FX Show’s Teaser Depicts A Xenomorph En Route To Earth

According to the second teaser trailer for the series, Alien: Earth will finally bring a Xenomorph to Earth in the Alien timeline. This might not seem like such a big deal to viewers who have seen Alien Vs Predator or its 2007 sequel Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem. After all, both of these divisive crossover showdowns featured Xenomorphs on Earth. In Alien Vs Predator, the Xenomorphs were let loose in a subterranean pyramid beneath the Antarctic while, in the critically derided Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem, they caused mayhem in the town of Gunnison, Colorado.

However, it is important not that neither of the Alien Vs Predator movies take place in the same continuity as the Alien franchise. This was already taken as a given by many fans who disliked the crossovers in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but Scott made it official when Prometheus retconned almost all of Alien Vs Predator’s story. Prometheus offers a new origin story for the Xenomorph, a new founder of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and a whole host of other contradictory plot details that ensure the Alien Vs Predator movies must take place in a separate, alternate timeline.

Why Having A Xenomorph On Earth Is Such A Big Deal For The Alien Franchise

The Alien Movies Have Never Depicted Xenomorphs On Earth

Outside the Alien Vs Predator spinoffs, the Alien series has never unleashed a Xenomorph on Earth’s human population before. The series came close during the development of Alien 3, which infamously had an early teaser trailer that proclaimed “On earth, everyone can hear you scream.” This heavily implied that the sequel’s story would take place on Earth, but by the time Alien 3’s tortured production process ended, the movie ended up set on a futuristic prison spaceship instead. As a result, the Alien movies have never spent too much time on Earth.

Prometheus did offer viewers a glimpse of the franchise’s version of Earth early on, as the movie’s human characters were introduced in Scotland in 2089. However, it was not long before the Weyland-Yutani Corporation brought the characters on board the eponymous space vessel and set off for LV-223. Even Alien: Romulus, which took an admirable stab at clarifying much of the franchise’s mythology, was set on the colonized planet LV-410.

Bringing the Xenomorph to Earth is exciting primarily because viewers have never seen the monsters attacking ordinary human populations outside the disappointing Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem. However, the news that Alien: Earth is set on Earth is also compelling for another, unrelated reason. Viewers don’t know what the everyday reality of life on Earth looks like in the dystopian world of the franchise, so Alien: Earth can show how the Weyland-Yutani Corporation has impacted the lives of those still living on humanity’s home planet.

How Alien: Earth’s Story Can Work Without Ruining The Alien Movies’ Continuity

Alien: Earth Can Explain How Weyland-Yutani Kept The Xenomorph Under Wraps

It should not be too difficult for Alien: Earth to justify the Xenomorph’s presence on Earth, even though this seemingly retcons 1979’s original Alien. In Alien, viewers might reasonably have ᴀssumed that humanity had never encountered the Xenomorph before the Nostromo’s fateful arrival on a mysterious planet. However, Prometheus proved this was not quite true by revealing that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation already knew about the Xenomorph’s existence decades beforehand. As such, Alien: Earth’s story already feels less far-fetched than it otherwise might have been.

Thus, if characters from Alien: Earth’s story bring the Xenomorph to Earth and try to contain the monster in a Weyland-Yutani Corporation facility, it is possible that the broader canon of the franchise won’t be ruined. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation is clearly a powerful, dangerous force in the world of the series, one whose unchecked corporate influence allows them to run entire planets like they were prisons in Alien: Romulus. It hardly seems beyond their powers to contain news of the Xenormoph’s first arrival on Earth. This seems particularly believable considering their history of secrecy and lies.

Disney’s First Alien Movie Did A Good Job Handling The Franchise’s Lore

Alien: Romulus Effectively Cleared Up Prometheus’ Confusing Mythology

While the Xenomorph’s arrival on Earth has always seemed like it had a lot of narrative potential, this doesn’t mean that Alien: Earth’s story is without risks. The show could easily disrupt the established canon of the movie series, retconning chunks of the Alien franchise timeline with only a few careless comments. That said, Disney’s first Alien release, Alien: Romulus, bodes well in this regard. Alien: Romulus embraced a lot of elements that worked in Prometheus but offered a more streamlined, clearer story for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and Alien: Earth can now do the same.

Alien: Earth will not only be the first project in the series to bring the Xenomorph to Earth, but it will also be the franchise’s first experiment with long-form storytelling. Alien: Earth’s divergences from the franchise formula seem risky, but the show is set up to succeed. Like Alien: Romulus, Alien: Earth can take the elements that work from the movies of the series and use these to build an engaging, original story. In the process, Alien: Earth can continue the Alien franchise’s recent reinvention without throwing away the more intriguing elements of Prometheus’s fascinating but flawed story.