At their core, most of the Alien movies are about corporate greed. The lengths a company, mainly Weyland-Yutani, will go to harness and exploit a power from the deepest reaches of space. Whether that means sacrificing a whole ship of employees, a platoon of soldiers, families, criminals, or cloning dead people, almost every story in the Alien saga is about the idea that getting an alien back to Earth would be a huge benefit to the bottom line of the company.
This, of course, never comes to be. In Alien, the xenomorph aboard the Nostromo killed almost everyone on the ship before being blown into space. The story of Alien: Romulus then hinges on the remains of that alien being captured, exploited, and causing another ship to be decimated. Aliens features a plan to sneak a xenomorph back after the trip to LV-426, which fails, and also suggests Weyland-Yutani had yet to succeed in its aim to acquire one decades later. Sending a team to Ripley’s prison in Alien 3 also didn’t work out, and before the ship in Resurrection crashes on Earth, all manner of xenos are gone. Every single attempt that we’ve seen to acquire or sneak an alien back to Earth has failed.
Or so we thought. In Alien: Earth, which is set a few years before the events of Alien, we now know that not only did at least one fully grown xenomorph make it back to Earth before Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo were woken up, but several viable eggs did too. Unfortunately, Weyland-Yutani had them stolen out from under them by a rival corporation, Prodigy. And now, in the show’s most recent episode, we see the beginnings of that ultimate goal: people on Earth studying xenomorphs. It’s the one thing Weyland-Yutani always wanted to do but has, and apparently will continue to, fail at. And yet, their loss is now Prodigy’s gain.
What happens next on Alien: Earth as the study of the xenomorph continues has yet to be revealed. However, we can all but guarantee it won’t go smoothly. Before all hell inevitably breaks loose, though, as it always does, many questions remain. Will Prodigy learn anything that makes the risk it’s taking worthwhile? Also, is this specific Weyland-Yutani failure the reason why, in a few years, it decides to send the Nostromo off on its doomed side mission?
Whatever the case, for fans of the Alien franchise, this really is a dream come true. Years ago, Alien: Resurrection finally showed us scientists studying xenomorphs, but that wasn’t on Earth. David the android got to do some of that in Alien: Covenant, too, and off-screen, Alien: Romulus revealed that strides could be made. Now, finally, after years of teasing, we get to see smart, capable people, who don’t fear for their lives (yet), with the proper technology and means to figure out what makes these mysterious creatures tick. It’s the dream of every greedy slimeballin Alien history, and we get to watch it play out in our homes all summer long.
Alien: Earth is currently streaming on FX and Hulu.
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