Alien: Earth Returns to the Frightening Tone of the Original Film

FX and Hulu’s Alien: Earth has been a long time coming. The streaming services are expected to premiere the prequel on August 12, 2025, and now, one last trailer has arrived to whet fans’ appetites ahead of its release. The new 2-minute-19-second trailer (watch it above) follows a fuller synopsis released earlier this week, and it shows a series that will be both chilling and meditative. In it, there are quiet, meditative, almost existential moments as well as instances of jittery, sci-fi body horror: dark, indistinct alien ships floating in space, corpses on cold floors, blood-covered humans running in confusion, and, far away, something familiar—something in the corner of a room that a character peers at. A xenomorph.

Alien: Earth Showrunner Noah Hawley has stated previously that the tone and mythology of the series would adhere closer to Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979) than it would to the later prequels Prometheus (2012) or Alien: Covenant. Alien: Earth is set in 2120 and is an eight-episode series that will follow the franchise’s original tone and will take place two years before the events of the first Alien film.

The year 2120 in the Alien: Earth universe is not unlike 2024 in ours. Humanity is not threatened by alien attacks or eight-legged monsters, or the threat of extinction. The Earth is run not by governments, but by corporate entities, five mega-corporations to be precise: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, and Threshold. The Corporate Era is upon us. Cybernetic enhancements have become more the norm than the exception. Cyborgs, humans with artificial, machine parts, work beside synthetics, humanoids powered by artificial intelligence and powered by artificial intelligence. The problem with this state of the world is how easily the power dynamic can shift. Especially when a young, visionary Founder and CEO of the Prodigy Corporation stumbles upon an innovation and new tech: hybrids.

The hybrids of the Alien: Earth universe are humanoid robots injected with human consciousness. As Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, is the prototype, she is key to the new tech, the new race to immortality in the corporate rat race for dominance. “Wendy is a fully functioning synthetic that the CEO of Prodigy has created in an attempt to live forever. And in her body is the consciousness of a young girl. She has the body of an adult and the consciousness of a child. Chandler’s character is described. The synthetics in the Alien: Earth universe are referred to as hydes (singular), but more people are also being made, and she’s the prototype, the most advanced.

It is a delicate equilibrium, but this perfect state is disrupted when a Weyland-Yutani spaceship crash-lands in the center of Prodigy City. When Wendy and the other Hydes are left alone with some extraterrestrial, unknown organisms, which are very, very deadly, an even more new wave of terror begins to spread.

Joining Chandler in the series are Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Wendy’s synthetic mentor and trainer; Alex Lawther as soldier CJ; Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, a cold and calculating CEO; Essie Davis as Dame Silvia; Adarsh Gourav as Slightly; Kit Young as Tootles; David Rysdahl as Arthur; Babou Ceesay as Morrow; Jonathan Ajayi as Smee; Erana James as Curly; Lily Newmark as Nibs; Diem Camille as Siberian; and Adrian Edmondson as Atom Eins.

A Secret Teaser Revealed… And More Information

In January, FX and Hulu took a novel way of hyping the upcoming series. On the day of the NFL AFC Championship game, the streamers released a surprise one-minute short teaser. It’s a disturbing, disorienting teaser because the entire 59 seconds is shot from the perspective of the xenomorph, which could be seen tearing down a spaceship hallway, all while the spaceship it’s in hurtles towards the blue marble of Earth. There’s no clear narrative, just suspense and building horror.

Last month, they released the first official trailer for Alien: Earth, and it provides more context to the mysterious one-minute teaser that was released months ago. It all starts with Wendy’s creation in 2120 on Neverland Research Island. When a mysterious, alien spaceship crash-lands on the island’s beach, Wendy volunteers to investigate and retrieve the alien vessel’s payload. However, in addition to finding new research opportunities, she also comes across a grisly sight of carnage and destruction. The alien ship contained five extraterrestrial life forms, five dead, never-before-seen species. Alien-adjacent human hubris: taken back to laboratories for study.

It’s a very familiar setup, especially for fans of the original Alien. Science fiction-meets-frustrating corporate greed-meets-adventure-meets-terrifying horror movie. And, as the most recent teaser above also makes clear, Alien: Earth is less about heart-stopping set pieces and more about building an atmosphere of inevitability and dread.

After all, whether Hawley’s new take on the Alien mythos is good or not will depend upon his take on the atmosphere of the first film and its classic world-building. A lot of the good of the series is going to rest in the cast of flawed, morally ambiguous people who populate its universe. Hawley’s focus on atmo-building, world-building, and philosophical sci-fi horror makes it less a monster movie and more a blend of classic sci-fi and metaphysical body horror.

Alien: Earth is expected to debut on FX and Hulu on August 12, 2025.