Review: Quasi-Government Megacompanies Collide in Alien: Earth

The FX series is a direct prequel to the 1979 movie.

The 1979 movie Alien was part deep-space monster movie, part dystopian extrapolation of the era's economic concerns. The movie's main antagonist was a chest-bursting alien with acid for blood, but an all-powerful corporation loomed in the background; an AI middleman prioritized dangerous specimen collection above the lives of put-upon blue collar workers.

So it's no surprise that Alien: Earth, the tricky, clever first television series based on the movie, follows in the film's footsteps. A direct prequel to Ridley Scott's original, Alien: Earth takes place in a corporate-controlled future where five megacompanies run the planet as quasi-governments. One of these companies is working on a plan to let people—or at least the right people—live forever as synth-robot versions of themselves, their consciousnesses uploaded into battery-powered, superstrong, eternally youthful bodies. Another is trying to bring a cache of terrifying alien life forms back from deep space.

The two sinister corporations collide in a geopolitical showdown over advanced bioweapons and robotic life extension technology. The show asks the questions: Do human beings have souls? And do corporations—or murderous xenomorphs with acid for blood, which might be metaphorically the same—even care?

Comments

[5.56]

the impotent right-wing misfit known as ck (already forgotten, good thing) has been FIRED FOR GOOD by a society that loves their guns so much that getting their kids shot at school is considered the price of owning them.

And you're asking if megacorporations care about invasive extraterrestrial species?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Your beloved Marxists murdered 100-200 million civilians last century, not counting wars.

[5.56]

Social democracy ≠ (marxism ≈ socialism).

In the last century, social democrats have assured a life where millions had workers rights, access to healthcare, maintained road and where their kids didn't get shot in school, in Europe and other places.

Try again, buster.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

Poor trollbot needs a reboot.

[5.56]

LOL, how creative, next you tell us you know how to install windows without a CD drive xD Bet you're the uncontested tech alpha on right-wing island.

[5.56]

[Darth Buckeye]

What an ugly person.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

It’s not a real person.

[5.56]

Thats what the impotent, stale, outcompeted, inept human misdrafts on the right hope.

[5.56]

I understand that being more concerned about things that matter to humans (economic outcomes, children shot at school) may make me seem ugly to impotent right wing misfires, but the part of the population that can be called humans has been further alienated by unnecesarily inflated, politically purposeful right-wing memorials. You will see the effect shortly.

[LIBtranslator]

Yep. I dunno which of the six mooted jerks you mean, but it essentially goes for all of them. Evidently the GOP now means Goebbels' Own Party, saturating all channels with mindless Doubleplusgood Duckspeakers and--as of 1984--making the LP an object of Two Minutes Hatred. Gone are Heinlein, Nolan, Spooner and Rand. Paul Daddy & Kid, Fon Meeces, Hayecch and Buttrot swapped in as impostors.

[Z Crazy]

What do they care? They only happen to poor kids who dont look like their kids. Sad but true.

[mad.casual]

murderous xenomorphs

AFAWCT, they're terminally parasitic, not murderous. Just because someone dies when a snake bites them doesn't make the snake murderous. A tapeworm if it had a will at all, would probably prefer not to kill its host.

[rubs white, oily latex fluid, oozing from a cut, between fingertips]

[SQRLSY]

We humans murder carrots and other living things on a regular basis, in order to LIVE, and let our souls live! More charitably put, we terminally digest them! Shit doesn't matter, we say, because carrots have no souls, and we do.

"Murderous" xenomorphs with acid for blood NEED to terminally parasitise the likes of us ass humans, in odor to keep THEIR bodies (ass a species) and souls together! Shit is ass God designed them, and who are we, to question God?!? The xenomorphs say that shit is OK, because they have souls, and their hosts don't!

[SQRLSY]

Twat if murderous xenomorphs with acid for blood and fartilized frozen Sacred Fartilized Human Egg Smells sitting in refrigerators (some of them genetically defective and incapable of cumming to term; all of them awaiting testing and possible implantation) BOTH have souls, and the murderous xenomorphs raid the fridges, EATING those Sacred Fartilized Human Egg Smells? Twat then?

Oh, OK, ass I sit here wearing my Magic Mind-Reading Tinfoil Tri-Corny hat, I hear you saying, "SLAY the invasive-species murderous xenomorphs!!!" (For being invasive illegal sub-beings.) But twat if these things happen in deep space or other planets or moony-moons, where we are ALL (both) invasive illegal sub-beings according to the local viruses, bacteria, and slime-molds? Twat if this happens on the alien's home planet, after WE humans have invaded, and WE are the illegal sub-beings? After all, Duly Democratically Erected Dear Orange Caligula has declared His Sacred Lusts for Greenland, Greedland, Canada, the Panama Canal Zone, the Gaza Strip, and Ukraine's mines. (Possibly MUCH more, in secret.) So humans invading other planets ass an illegally invading species of sub-beings is entirely plausible!

THESE are the questions that "Alien: Earth" should explore!

[AT]

a direct prequel to the 1979 movie

Just stop it.

Another is trying to bring a cache of terrifying alien life forms back from deep space.

Well then it's not a friggin' prequel is it! Because the crew of the Nostromo had to DISCOVER the terrifying aliens BEFORE Evil Rich White Bad Guys decided to try and bring them back to Earth.

The Nostromo didn't go LOOKING for xenomorphs! They found them by accident and were utterly unprepared to deal with what they found. This garbage writing by unoriginal hacks is assuming its conclusion, trading off the viewer's existing knowledge of the story, as its premise for a plot that makes no sense at all under the most basic of scrutiny.

FFS.

The 1979 movie Alien was part deep-space monster movie, part dystopian extrapolation of the era's economic concerns.

I really want to punch people who say things like this.

"Well, you see," laughing haughtily, "Bugs Bunny was really a post-modern interpretation of the neo-classical standards of practical medicine. In my expert opinion, which is self-designated, as Bugs would utter the line, "What's up, Doc?" it was a deeply symbolic questioning of the fearful human condition that seeks solutions to its own mortality."

Seriously, you just want to punch those pretentious jackasses right in the face as hard as you can. These are literally the worst people that exist in any first-world society, by far.

It was a friggin' hero/horror movie, Peter. Good guys meet horrible bad guys, face overwhelming challenges, and overcome them.

Stop trying to read more into it to make yourself sound smart. Because A) it doesn't; and B) you're stupid.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

"BEFORE Evil Rich White Bad Guys decided to try and bring them back to Earth."

The head of the corporation bringing the aliens back to earth is a Korean woman.

[AT]

Well as long as she's not black, gay, trans, muslim, immigrant, or prog.

Korean women are "white enough" to still be bad guys in modern pop culture. Especially when you factor in the ChiCom opinion.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

I understand your cynicism because I share it. That said, the Alien universe is pretty shockingly white, especially when you consider that the first movie had an unambiguously heroic black dude and pretty much created the female action hero.

In this show, the only two unambiguously good people are white men. Everyone else is either complicated or evil. The two worst are the black dude and the guy who's obviously a Zuckerberg stand in.

If you do end up watching it, your political gripe is more likely to be its Liz Warrenesque "evil corporations rule the planet" messaging. It's not subtext, it's the plot of the show. It was also the plot of the original trilogy, and it didn't bother me then or now.

[Incunabulum]

The head of the Anglo-Japanese corporation is Korean - Peak Netflix;)

[NealAppeal]

Petey is likely confused with Aliens (1986) where Paul Riser is the gov-corp goon there only for the retrieval of the recently discovered (or rediscovered) species.

Making this a gap filling series akin to Rogue One for the Star Wars trilogies.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

It's a lot like Rogue One. Has the correct look and feel of the original movie, which none of the others do. And IMO it's one of the few worthy sequels in a series that may have an even worse batting average than Star Wars. Which is quite an accomplishment.

AT is correct, this is in no possible way a prequel to the original. At least logically. Aliens would make more sense, though that depends a lot on how the series unfolds. Most likely, it's just a pretend TV show based on a pretend movie and it doesn't make any actual sense.

[AT]

I'm going to go out on a limb and assert that Rogue One wasn't as great as everyone wants to think it was.

It's an entire film based on two seconds of narrative from a boring briefing scene in Star Wars. They're asking the question, "What's the deal with those rebels who got the Death Star plans?" WE DON'T CARE. IT'S NOT IMPORTANT. IT ADDS NOTHING TO THE STORY. It's why they didn't include it in the first place and just jumped straight to Leia running off with them which told us everything we needed to know and worked just fine.

And don't even get me started on the whole "Oh also that exhaust port was on purpose! For Luke! To use the Force! We're definitely not writing our movie around that!"

Seriously, you know how you don't hate journalists enough? Modern screenwriters are a close second.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

Interesting. I really didn't care for it when I saw it in the theater, though the visuals were pretty great. But it has grown on me since. Partly because almost every subsequent Star Wars property has been abject dogshit.

You are correct that the plot doesn't hold up to scrutiny. But Star Wars has always had some of the worst, most inconsistent plotting of any successful franchise. Mostly because after Empire, its creator was just making kids' movies.

The Andor show was an exception. I appreciate something Star Wars being made for adults with a brain pulse. It seems like what could have been if someone other than Disney had taken over the franchise. Make your shitty kiddie movies that rake in a couple billion, but also hire Tarantino to direct an R-rated Solo movie. Something for everyone instead of alienating the people who made the franchise valuable in the first place.

[AT]

Partly because almost every subsequent Star Wars property has been abject dogshit.

Yea, but that's like becoming amazed at eating a hamburger steak instead of a filet, because you're so used to having dog food.

It's a lowering of expectations, in the hopes that palatable becomes "good" because it's better than disgusting.

If you really think about it, the whole problem with Rogue One (and most prequels - and pretty much all Disney productions at this point) is that it was based on the expectations of a pre-existing audience. Essentially framing a story around the Death Star knowing it was going to be later destroyed and its saboteurs killed. What kind of story is that? The characters don't matter, because their end is already known. They have no arcs, because they don't need one to get to the point of the film. The plot doesn't matter, because we already know what happens. And on top of all that trash, they have to build in nonsense safeguards to preserve the overall storyline. "We have to build our entire screenplay around the fact that Luke is going to blow this thing up."

It's stupid. And frankly a little bit insulting to the viewer.

The same issue is present with Alien Earth. I'll readily admit I haven't seen it - but I'll assert with absolute confidence that it's just garbage screenwriting, playing exclusively off of audience expectations rather than genuine storytelling.

[Incunabulum]

They did not find them by accident.

Their ship was rerouted in transit, Ash placed on board before it took off, with secret orders.

Someone at the Company had discovered the signal, routed them there as an 'expendable probe' to see if there was anything worth investigating.

[Incunabulum]

The second movie Burke hatches an ad hoc plan to bring one back but he's initially out there to cover his arse since he ordered the colonists to check out the space ship.

[Incunabulum]

The FX series is shit.

There, fixed it for you.

[Incunabulum]

All modern writers can do any more are idiot plots.

[Darth Buckeye]

C'mon man. That's an insult to shit! ALIEN: EARTH is to shit as dog shit is to a hot fudge sundae.

My wife and I watched the show. We both hoped the show would end with someone nuking Boy Kavalier's island from orbit...it's the only way to be sure. Everyone in that show was so unbelievably stupid that it made me angry.

Just for starters. The USCSS Maginot is crewed by a group of absolute morons. How did that crew manage to capture all of those dangerous aliens? And the Maginot is on a crash course towards Earth. We see it flying down towards the city and its engines are still putting out thrust. If that thing was under thrust as it came down through the atmosphere it would be flying damned fast and it would be blazing hot.

I am going to go get good and drunk now.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Disney bought fox, marvel, and Lucas film in order to attract a male audience. The then turned all properties into girl brands. It has turned iconic movies and charicters into a unimovie. (the little platoon sums it up greatly). Take property, all the heros aren't heros, the real heros are the girls that use their emotion to talk to an befriend previous vilan and discover your found family is your real family

[Darth Buckeye]

Hey Arthur, we actually agree on something. Hats off to you.

[LIBtranslator]

Both Alien and the Body Snatchers remake were political acid movies foreshadowing Comstockist reenslavement of women should Reagan be elected and pack the courts. In hindsight, both were pretty accurate.