Alien Series Erasing The Best Part Of Ridley Scott Movies
Fans of Ridley Scott’s Alien and its various sequels and prequels are understandably excited about the upcoming Disney+ television Alien series. The fandom has been hoping this new show will continue some of the best story arcs from the films, but it now looks like one of those story arcs is as dead as Hicks and Newt at the beginning of Alien 3.
According to showrunner and Fargo creator Noah Hawley, the new series will not continue the story of David, the amoral android whose mysterious motivations and murderous actions have largely driven Ridley Scott’s prequel films.
Don’t Expect To See David In The Alien Series
Why were Alien fans hoping to see more of David’s character in the first place in this new series? In short, Hawley’s upcoming show is a prequel that takes place three decades before the 1979 Alien. Ridley Scott’s films Prometheus and Alien: Covenant were also prequels to that first movie, so it would only make sense if a prequel show caught up with the mad android scientist and showed us what he’s been working on.
David Was The Most Interesting Part Of The Prequels
That it won’t do so is disappointing news because no matter how you feel about David as a character, the most interesting part of Scott’s prequel films was the idea that the android was actually the creator of the alien xenomorphs. In Prometheus, David is accompanying a team that sets out to make contact with the Engineers, which would allow humanity to meet its maker in a very literal way. Inspired by their bioengineering shenanigans, David becomes obsessed with creating life of his very own, something we originally hoped to see more of in the upcoming Alien series.
Stuck On A Cliffhanger Forever?
In fact, Alien: Covenant even ended with an explicit cliffhanger regarding David and the xenomorphs. In that movie, the deceitful David posed as Walter, an android that looked just like him, so that he could imprison multiple surviving humans in stasis while also bringing along two facehugger embryos.
We were on the cusp of seeing the birth of the xenomorphs in an upcoming film, but since Ridley Scott won’t be directing the next film (Fede Álvarez is directing the standalone Alien: Romulus), the upcoming series was going to be our best chance to follow up on what David has been doing.
Retconning David’s Story
Unfortunately, the revelation that the FX Alien series will not follow up on David’s story means that fans will probably never get a proper resolution to his fascinating tale. Originally, Ridley Scott was going to bring his prequel storytelling to a close with a third film, but after Disney merged with Fox, it seems plans for a third Scott film completely stalled out.
It’s entirely likely that Noah Hawley will provide his own origin for the xenomorphs, and while that will probably make the Prometheus haters cheer, we’re quite sad that we may never see a resolution to Scott’s decidedly unconventional story.
The Alien Series
One thing’s for sure: after a series of disappointing sequels and confusing (at least, to many in the fandom) prequels, this Alien series might be the franchise’s last chance to deliver the quality we came to expect from movies like Alien and Aliens. If the upcoming FX show proves to be a failure, we’ve got an idea: take off and nuke the entire franchise from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure we don’t get another disappointing entry in the creepiest series in all of science fiction.
The show is expected to release in 2025.
