How does Alien: Earth connect to the original film? Franchise timeline explained
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Through Alien: Earth, fans of the iconic film franchise are going to be given an exciting new chapter, one that is familiar and yet still different to Ridley Scott's original 1979 movie.
Directed by Noah Hawley, the Disney+ show's narrative transports the Xenomorph to Earth for the very first time when a science research vessel crash lands in New Siam, a whole host of alien specimens inside — but most importantly a rampaging Xenomorph too. The city is run by tech billionaire Kid Cavalier (Samuel Blenkin) who has been busy with a secret project where he transfers the consciousness of children who are sick or dying into synthetic bodies.
Wendy (Sydney Chandler) is one such child-turned-synth, and when she learns that her medic brother CJ (Alex Lawther) is helping the survivors she begs Cavalier to let her and her fellow young synths to go to the wreckage. He agrees, but only if they bring the specimens back to his lab — and as the Alien movies have taught us thus far, nothing could possibly go wrong with that.
The question is, while this is a new story in the franchise, where does it fit into the overall canon laid out by Scott's original film and its subsequent sequels, as well as the prequels and the most recent film, Romulus? Here's what you need to know.
How does Alien: Earth fit into the Alien film franchise timeline?
Alien: Earth is set in 2120, which means that it takes place just two years before the events of the very first Alien movie which is set in 2122.
The original movie takes place on the USCSS Nostromo where Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) fights to survive when a Xenomorph awakens and wreaks havoc. The spaceship is a Weylan-Yutani vessel, just like the USCSS Maginot in Alien: Earth.
Alien: Earth pays homage to the original film with its depiction of the USCSS Maginot, whose crew is also beset by a rampaging Xenomorph. Except for them, this happens just as they are hurtling toward Earth, which is how the creature ends up on our planet and all of humanity is put at risk without realising.
The narrative in Alien: Earth is a standalone story, separate from the film franchise at large, but it still holds the essence of what Scott created all those years ago.
In an interview with Variety, FX Entertainment president Gina Balian explained: "Everything doesn't have to fit together the way you expect from Marvel. Fans don't expect that in this universe. It doesn't have the same pressure.'
It's important to note that the Nostromo departed Earth in 2120 with the mission of making a one-month trip to Neptune to connect to a cargo hauler that took it into deep space, which means that the events of Alien: Earth are very closely linked to the starting point of the original Alien.
Whether Alien: Earth will make direct reference to the original Alien film is yet to be seen, but creator Noah Hawley told SFX Magazine that he hopes there will be a direct connection in future.
He told the publication: "I don't yet know, in terms of the series from beginning to end, how much time is going to pass or where we're going to end up. But I do know that at a certain point, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is going to divert the Nostromo to that planet."
Fans will have to wait and see exactly when and where Alien: Earth makes direct reference to the original film, but for now, it is an exciting new chapter in the universe.
The first two episodes of Alien: Earth are out now on Disney+, new episodes will air every Wednesday.
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Sheela Athreya, a biological anthropologist at Texas A&M University, is optimistic that we can use these new techniques to tease apart our more distant evolutionary past — and that it will yield surprises. For instance, she thinks what we now call Denisovans may actually have been H. erectus. RELATED STORIES —DNA has an expiration date. But proteins are revealing secrets about our ancient ancestors we never thought possible. —28,000-year-old Neanderthal-and-human 'Lapedo child' lived tens of thousands of years after our closest relatives went extinct —Never-before-seen cousin of Lucy might have lived at the same site as the oldest known human species, new study suggests "Absolutely in my lifetime, someone will be able to get a Homo erectus genome," Athreya said, likely from colder areas of Asia. "I'm excited. I think it'll look Denisovan." Either way, it's clear that a whole lot of mixing made us human. The Homo lineage may have first evolved in Africa, Athreya said. 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