Hulu’s 8-Part Sci-Fi Series Was So Good, We Forgave It For Breaking A Franchise

Hulu and FX’s sci-fi series Alien: Earth technically broke the canon of the Alien franchise, but it was so good that it doesn’t even matter. Disney, which owns Hulu, owns some of the best sci-fi franchises of all time, and it has started producing new shows based on those franchises. From Star Wars to Predator and Alien, Disney has created some great shows, but not all of them fit with established canon.

Naturally, every new show in a franchise has to push it forward in some way. Most new projects in long-running franchises are very mindful not to retroactively change the franchise, but Alien: Earth seemed to change everything it could. Earth brought the Xenomorphs to Earth, something that didn’t happen in the main Alien movies until Resurrection, and much more, but nobody seemed to mind much.

Alien: Earth Pretty Much Breaks The Alien Franchise

Alien: Earth introduced quite a bit of new lore into the Alien franchise, and not all of it fit with established canon. The timing of the USCSS Maginot‘s departure from and arrival on Earth does most of the lore breaking. The Maginot left on a 65-year mission that arrived in 2120, two years before the events of the original Alien. That meant the Maginot discovered Xenomorphs a few years before the events of Prometheus, which threw David’s entire origin story out the window.

The most obvious change the show made to Alien canon was the five alien species in Earth. Aside from a vague reference in Aliens, the franchise has never included any other kind of alien species besides the Xenomorphs. Earth, however, introduced four completely novel aliens to the franchise and gave some of the most powerful corporations in the world live samples of them. It makes no sense that these species never pop up again later in the Alien timeline.

Earth also introduced quite a bit of new lore to the Xenomorphs themselves that doesn’t mesh with the rest of the franchise. Aside from being on Earth much earlier than previously thought, Earth depicted the Xenomorphs as nurturing to their young, obedient to anyone who could speak their language (like Wendy), and even having some color variance. The show also gave an in-depth look at the Xenomorph impregnation process, which hadn’t been shown before.

There are also less lore-breaking but still retconned details about Alien: Earth that don’t fit with the rest of Alien canon. The biggest of these is the new companies Earth introduced, the most notable of which is Prodigy. The human-synthetic hybrids like Wendy and the Lost Boys, as well as cyborgs like Morrow, also don’t fit with the rest of the franchise’s focus on completely synthetic androids.

Alien: Earth Is So Good, It Gets Away With Deviating From Canon

Normally, the sheer number of established pieces of lore that Alien: Earth played with or outright contradicted would be cause for outrage among fans. While some people didn’t like Earth, for most viewers, Earth was too good to get hung up on its deviations from Alien canon. Very few people genuinely were upset that Xenomorphs made it to Earth sooner than expected because it was really cool and terrifying to see a Xenomorph tearing through an apartment building.

I, and I think many other viewers, are willing to let the existence of other alien species slide because it was really cool to see T. Ocellus and the other species wreaking havoc on Neverland Island. I also don’t mind that Wendy was able to tame a Xenomorph because the very concept of a character having a Xenomorph attack dog is genuinely awesome. Alien: Earth is simply a really cool show that’s fun to watch, and that’s more important than sticking to lore.

Alien: Earth also had a bit of leeway built into its concept. Earth is dubiously canon at best, and it was originally intended to be a non-canonical spinoff show like Fargo from its inception. The changes Earth made to Alien canon were never intended to retroactively change the franchise, they were meant as a hypothetical to explore new species and Xenomorphs attacking Earth.

The coolness of Alien: Earth coupled with the show’s creators inviting audiences to be a bit more lenient with concrete canon meant that viewers didn’t really care that much about retcons. Instead of analyzing scenes and hypothesizing about how the existing movies would be different if, say, T. Ocellus was always around, viewers just went along for the ride. It’s a testament to how good Alien: Earth is that viewers would rather enjoy it than analyze it.