{"id":49808,"date":"2025-09-27T00:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T04:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=49808"},"modified":"2025-09-27T00:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T04:38:08","slug":"alien-earth-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/27\/alien-earth-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Alien: Earth [2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Xenomorph and other monsters crash land on Earth, leading to corporate factions fighting over them (and a whole lot more) in Noah Hawley’s TV series, Alien: Earth.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m making an assumption, but I\u2019d be willing to bet most of you out there reading this (thanks for that!) are fans of the Alien series, at least in some way. Based on ideas from Dan O\u2019Bannon and Ronald Shusett, Alien and Aliens are a one-two punch of film perfection. I\u2019m partial to the Ridley Scott-directed haunted house in space of the 1979 original, but still hold James Cameron\u2019s 1986 action-heavy follow-up in high regard. The remainder of the series has had its ups and downs (AVP Reqiuem\u2026), although there are things to like in all of them; for Reqiuem, it eventually ends. The series chestbursted back to the early highs with last year\u2019s Romulus. With shared-universe series Predator also bouncing back with Prey, Killer of Killers, and crossing my fingers for the upcoming Badlands, it\u2019s no surprise the geek community was excited for Alien: Earth, the 8-episode TV series on Hulu, run by Noah Hawley of TV\u2019s Fargo and Legion.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an exciting prospect, what happens when the infamous Xenomorph lands on Earth, a few years before the Nostromo picked up their own in the first film? It\u2019s a concept, as explored along with eh wider world of the franchise, across the series. Unfortunately, the show starts strong and offers up a variety of concepts and ideas to expand upon, but spins its wheels to limp to a conclusion in the back half.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The opening episodes deal with various teams fighting over a crashed ship. A Weyland-Yutani research vessel (design recreated from the doomed towing ship Nostromo perfectly) crashes into a high-rise owned by Boy Kavalier, played with a cocksure desperation by Samuel Blenkin, a boy genius who heads one of the three companies running the world. Teams head into the crash, the crew all dead save one, and a variety of alien creatures are loosed upon those on the rescue crews, residents, and company people. In a while, it settles down, with the assets taken to a secluded island for further study, coexisting with Kavalier\u2019s Lost Boys: a set of terminally sick kids led by Wendy, a mesmerizing Sydney Chandler, whose memories were implanted into adult synthetics. With Weyland-Yutani doing everything to get their research back, the kids are not acting the way Kavelier wants them to, questioning their existence and self-determination.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So we have the setup and story lines: medical ethics, a host of new monsters. What happens if we put kids’ minds in adult bodies? How do they deal with being Big? Corporations fighting over property with people stuck between as a shrug of collateral damage. Weird medical experiments. Questions over self-autonomy compared to who might \u201cown\u201d you. The modern talk of Artificial Intelligence and its uses, assets, and demerits. Ultimately, it\u2019s a story akin to Scott\u2019s other great Sci-fi flick: Blade Runner. Questions of what makes someone human. Can \u201chumanity\u201d be defined by the innards or history? What happens when that\u2019s challenged, treated as an inferior for their robotics? It\u2019s a lot to pack in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it doesn\u2019t do much with all that. It\u2019s about 4 episodes worth of plot in eight episodes of TV, including a whole episode flashback to how the ship crashed, that is essentially \u201cHey, you guys remember Alien? Here\u2019s a shorter remix.\u201d There are absolutely awesome moments, short story lines, and intrigues. It\u2019s captivating enough to keep coming back week after week, hoping to break free. Kudos to the eye monster in the sheep. That guy is the MVP. The wonderfully designed monsters are more than enough to drive the series. While the xenomorph we see most often is a little too shiny and plastic, I loved the Alien3 dog-ish movement and the jungle camouflage. Each eerie title reveal sets a tone that the show didn\u2019t match. Timothy Olyphant is wonderfully obtuse as synthetic Kirsh. The back portion of the show is a lot of arguments over what to do, some action, some folks trying to break out, and then it all comes to a head. The concepts are absolutely intriguing.\u00a0 I don’t mind it slowing down to dig in; it doesn’t need to be 8 episodes of face-hugging action, but it feels half-done. But it sure takes a while to get to what amounts to a solid climax. (Some weird 90s references really took me out. What is with Syd from Ice Age being part of the Alien canon now?)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It all looks and sounds great. The production design, from the truly scary opening episodes and the world-building, is top-notch. The trip through the ship and buildings is astounding, fascinating, and scary. The music replicates and builds on Jerry Goldsmith\u2019s classic tracks, lending to the uncomfortable tone. The sound design lends to this as well (Wendy replicating Xenomorph language is truly creepy). The effects are big-budget film-worthy; there is no skimping in the creation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even if I didn\u2019t like how it treated the story in the back half, there is enough interesting setup for season 2 to bring me back. But here we all admit, even if it was terrible instead of just a slight letdown, we\u2019d be back for more. Especially if there\u2019s more of the eye monster. I can\u2019t say why, but I love that guy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alien: Earth is an uneven experiment in translating the Alien franchise to the small screen. It has plenty of ideas, fantastic performances (Olypants!), and it\u2019s always good to see a meageraie of monsters. Hawley has the makings of a great addition to the Alien canon. I highly appreciate not just being an Alien clone; I love the ideas, just not the whole of the execution. I hope Season 2 can codify the ideas into a stronger season. I really wish I liked this more.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Xenomorph and other monsters crash land on Earth, leading to corporate factions fighting over them (and a whole lot more) in Noah Hawley’s TV series, Alien: Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[477,3846],"class_list":["post-49808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror","tag-scif-fi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49812,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49808\/revisions\/49812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}