First Impressions - Alien: Earth

Mystery Boxes, Memberries, and Peter Pan

Mystery Boxes, Memberries, and Peter Pan

Speaking as a career military man, I have never once been in a situation that would have been improved by access to dinosaurs, zombies, or Xenomorphs.

The only excuse we ever get for this absurdly dangerous line of research is “military application.” But the Colonial Marines already have nuclear weapons — and junior enlisted are apparently cleared to use them if they think it’s a good idea.  Ignoring all the ways this is a bad idea, the fact remains: there is no plausible military role for Aliens.

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General Order 47

Pursuant to the Interstellar Biohazard Containment and Prohibition Act, any and all acts of inquiry, experimentation, observation, or research — whether theoretical or applied — into the life form designated Xenomorph XX121 shall be deemed a capital offense. Upon determination of violation, immediate termination shall be enacted against all participating individuals, as well as the compulsory execution of every direct and collateral descendant, spouse, and familial affiliate, in perpetuity, without right of appeal.

Not to state the obvious, but that would be the law, wouldn’t it?

These things are simply too insanely dangerous to get near.

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Yet Weyland-Yutani is still at it after all these years — and now, inevitably, the Xenomorphs have reached Earth.

Now what?

Well, we’ll probably all die, but not right away.

This was one of the original sequel concepts after James Cameron’s Aliens. Plenty of abandoned scripts and treatments have featured this scenario, along with multiple novelizations.

The best known is Aliens: Earth War from Dark Horse Comics.

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After 40 Years of Build-Up — What Did We Get?

Memberberries. Lots and lots of memberberries.

That was to be expected — a certain amount of set dressing from Ridley Scott and James Cameron’s films is inevitable. The plague ship bringing the pestilence to Earth has the same mid-’70s modern look as the Nostromo, complete with green monochrome CRT terminals that made my eyes ache with memories of staring at them for hours. The uniforms and clothing match as well.

The crew of the obviously doomed Maginot (a solid name choice) are a direct callback to the working-class stiffs of the equally doomed Nostromo.

The security forces are still using Cameron’s pulse rifles — which, fair enough, you have to have it for this — along with Desert Storm-era “Fritz Hat” helmets that look anachronistic in 2025, but I’ll be generous and assume that was intentional.

To the show’s credit, it wasn’t overloaded with repurposed scenes and dialogue from the better-known and better-liked movies.

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What’s New: Ghost in the Shell Meets Peter Pan

The first scene gives us an exposition dump — excusable here — about the five mega-corporations that rule Earth in 2120: Weyland-Yutani (naturally), three others not yet relevant, and Prodigy, which very much is.

Prodigy is an overnight success run by Boy Kavalier — imagine the bastard child of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, deliberately framed as a Peter Pan reference. His specialty: synthetic hybrid life.

We meet a young girl about ten or eleven. She’s terminally ill and about to become immortal. She is having her mind transferred into an adult-sized synth. While this Transhumanism is being conducted, she’s watching the still-copyrighted 1953 Disney Peter Pan — a gentle reminder that the “Cancer Rat” now owns Alien too.

This next part is honestly clever, she renames herself Wendy from Peter Pan, and it’s her narrative function.  In the original story, Wendy is the caring maternal figure who becomes a pseudo-mother to the Lost Boys.  She was the first child transferred into a synth, and she helps transition the rest of the terminally ill children into their new homes.

Only children can undergo this process; adult minds are too rigid to adapt. It’s disturbing, but it’s interesting.

The only thing Wendy seems to miss is her brother, a Prodigy medic attached to the corporate security forces.

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The Maginot Incident

The Maginot has, (apparently following Weyland-Yutani protocols), had its synth captain unleash various samples and kill the crew. It then crash-lands in a Prodigy controlled city.  This might be deliberate, but as yet this is uncertain.

In any case, as unbelievable luck would have it, Wendy’s brother is on the team that boards the downed Weyland-Yutani vessel.  Wendy and the rest of the Lost Boys are sent in.

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First Episode Verdict: A Mixed Bag

Despite a suspiciously high 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, it’s not bad — yet.

Pros:

After years of vague and threatening hints, we finally get some meat on the corporate-state’s dystopian bones. Since it was clear the Weyland-Yutani wasn’t operating in a vacuum, there had always been a bit of curiosity in regards to their competition.  While it was always taken for granted that it would be 80s/90s cyberpunk Zaibutsos, it was nice to see my decades-long prejudice gratified.

And it works for a very Ghost in the Shell subplot with the new hybrid synths. As well as Timothy Olyphant’s obvious call out to Roy Batty as the vaguely sinister synth Kirsh. 

So far, it maintains a visual and thematic authenticity without drowning the audience in memberries, unlike Alien: Covenant. 

Cons:

First, while not overwhelming (as yet), the reliance on nostalgia is decidedly present and decidedly worrying.

Second, the mystery box setup is already present.  And it has always been a problem with sequels to Alien.  As I’ve said before, there are only two things you can do with a mystery box story that has grown beyond its scope. Either keep adding mystery boxes until the audience works out that it’s all frosting and no cake, or explain the mystery and thus end all interest in a story where the mystery was the central premise. 

Either way, the audience walks away.

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First Impressions:

The first episode didn’t turn me off — and gave me more than I expected. The Xenomorphs finally reaching Earth is both narratively exciting and logically insane. I still can’t buy any research path that justifies the risk.

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Security Council Findings on Xenomorph XX121

Whereas certain parties have, in prior proceedings, advanced the rationale of “military application” as sufficient cause for contravention of the Absolute Prohibition on Xenobiological Inquiry, the Security Council finds such rationale to be without merit.

Field and archival analyses confirm that the organism’s reproductive imperatives, environmental adaptability, and uncontainable predatory behavior render it incompatible with any known chain of command, tactical doctrine, or controlled deployment schema. All attempts at utilization have resulted in loss-of-control scenarios culminating in operational annihilation of friendly forces, allied infrastructure, and in multiple instances, entire planetary biospheres.

The Council further notes that forensic xenohistorical data suggest Xenomorph XX121 is not a product of natural evolution, but rather an engineered bioweapon from an unidentified interstellar conflict predating human existence — consistent with theoretical models of the so-called “Slaver War” period. Its design optimizes for indiscriminate eradication, with no provision for strategic restraint or recall.

Accordingly, invocation of “military necessity” in relation to Xenomorph XX121 is hereafter considered prima facie evidence of gross negligence, malicious intent, or both.

General Order 47 is to be implemented immediately.

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