Noah Hawley’s new science-fiction/horror series, Alien: Earth, is a bold addition to both Hawley’s own catalogue but also the iconic franchise as a whole.
The Emmy-winning showrunner delivers a wonderfully unique, fantastically original work that challenges and recontextualizes the way audiences see the Alien universe in deeply compelling form.
However, for as much as Alien: Earth is a very different beast from any prior work in the series, it is also incredibly apparent that Hawley and his team of collaborators are massive fans of the Alien films. To this end, the first two episodes of the show, “Neverland” and “Mr. October,” are packed to the brim with Easter eggs and references to earlier films. Here are 10 of the best ones to be on the lookout for as you watch the bold new series.
The opening crawl
The very first thing viewers will see at the start of the first episode, “Neverland,” is a series of sentences scrolled out in old-fashioned green-font text, accompanied by the very distinct sound design of clicking and clacking. The information being conveyed by the text is all-new information, digging into the distinctions between cyborgs, synths, and hybrids, all of which is incredibly relevant to the story at hand in Alien: Earth.
However, the actual aesthetics of the visual text and the audio that accompanies them are a direct callback to the way in which Mother, the onboard navigation system, communicates in the very first Alien film.
Original title card lettering
The opening credits and title card sequence of Ridley Scott’s Alien have remained iconic and unforgettable for over four decades for a reason: they rule. Slowly and frigidly drifting through the vastness of space as single lines appear on the screen over the course of several minutes, before eventually all connecting together to form the title of Alien, is such an ingenious way to set the tone and pace for the proceedings.
It’s so iconic that audiences might have even seen it cheekily referenced recently in the marketing materials for Zach Cregger’s Weapons.
Fortunately, Alien: Earth doesn’t miss out on the fun either. In lieu of a theme song, each episode opens with a quick-cut visual recap of previous events as the title forms onscreen in the exact same way the 1979 film’s title did. Alien: Earth’s version is much more kinetic and high-octane, indicating the way in which the show hits the ground running, but it’s all wrapped up in a lovely ode to that original film.
The cold open
The entire opening minutes of Alien: Earth are designed to be about as direct a callback to the opening moments of Alien as you can be without outright infringing on copyright.
From the crew of an in-progress space flight waking up from hypersleep chambers, to all of them convening at a breakfast table, to establishing the class dynamics at play within the crew, Alien: Earth hits all of the beats of the original film’s opening sequence while utilizing many of the same exact kinds of cuts, cross-fades, and camera angles too.
All of this serves the purpose of luring audiences into a false sense of security in wonderful fashion, as Hawley makes you believe for just a moment that maybe you’ve seen this kind of Alien story before, just before he rips the rug out from under you.
Mother braces for impact
Alien: Earth also features an exact recreation of the set utilized for the Nostromo’s Mother pod on this new ship. The iconic setting is a compact room wholly encompassed by blinking yellow lights and a computer screen with a keyboard, through which crew members can speak and be spoken to by Mother.
In “Neverland,” Hawley features the set prominently and explores even more of it, revealing the room has its own impact bunker, which one character utilizes in the midst of hair-raising stakes.
Xenomorph’s visual introduction
Hawley also pulls a cue directly from Ridley Scott’s playbook when it comes to visually introducing the Xenomorph into the series in the first episode.
Tasked with giving the iconic creature a fittingly fearsome entrance into the show, Hawley recreates a single shot from the first film, which sees the Xenomorph balletically moving across a hallway of the Nostromo. Here, the camera is closer to the Xenomorph, and it moves in reverse, allowing the camera to reveal the creature as it performs the movement in a wholly unnerving fashion, while recreating this haunting and oddly beautiful moment from the film.
Utilizing Disney’s IP
Easily the most surprising reference in Alien: Earth is not to another Alien film at all, but rather to Walt Disney’s own Peter Pan. Footage from the film is prominently featured, and it plays an integral role in the narrative of the show, all of which helps to further bolster and embolden the episode’s biggest themes.
This is an unexpected and delightful side effect of Disney now being the company that holds the rights to the Alien franchise, but it’s far more than mere corporate synergy; it’s an inspired interweaving of tales.
Wendy’s lost boys and David
The main character of Alien: Earth is Wendy, a human girl whose brain has been transplanted into the body of a synthetic, making her a hybrid. Shortly following her successful transition, other sick or dying children follow suit, and have their own consciousnesses uploaded to similarly synthetic bodies.
The ways in which Hawley explores the ideas of what a synthetic is in relation to a human within this universe strike a chord that is quite similar to how Ridley Scott explored such existential themes in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
Loose in the lab
Alien movies love a good, old-fashioned "a creature is loose in the lab" sequence. Scott’s first film features a very memorable moment where Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and her crew are in search of a face-hugger in the lab after it has detached itself from Kane’s face. James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, features an even more intense moment when Ripley and Newt are trapped inside a lab with a face-hugger on the loose.
Alien: Earth throws its own hat into the ring with a couple of different sequences across its first two episodes that are set inside the same lab of a crashed ship and feature some new creatures antagonizing various characters in extremely upsetting fashion.
Pulse rifles and marines
Once the ship crashes to Earth and the series’s story begins in earnest, a team of Marines is called in to explore the wreckage and attempt to salvage as many lives as possible. These Marines are stylized in a fashion that is deliberately evocative of the Colonial Marines featured in James Cameron’s Aliens. Their fatigues are quite similar, they utilize the same Pulse Rifles, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment even features a look at an M56 Smartgun, the gun that Vasquez modifies for her own use when the Colonial Marines touch down on LV-426 in the sequel.
Yutani
Weyland-Yutani has long been an established, antagonistic presence in the Alien franchise. They are the company responsible for voyages such as the Nostromo, and famously have been shown to be willing to sacrifice the lives of their own workers in the name of making a quick buck.
Peter Weyland, one-half of the company’s founders, has appeared before in various entries, such as the out-of-canon Alien vs. Predator and the in-canon Prometheus, but Yutani has remained much more mysterious. The character briefly appeared at the tail-end of Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, but seeing as that film is also out of canon, Alien: Earth reimagines the character and features her prominently.
The first two episodes of Alien: Earth are now streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ internationally.