The only ‘Aliens’ sequel James Cameron actually likes: “I think it’s good”
When Ridley Scott made Alien in 1979, it was a slow, tense affair that had more in common with a slasher movie than your standard science fiction fare.
Seven years later, James Cameron came along and went, “Needs more guns”.
This was how Aliens was born. The more action-focused sequel might have lacked the subtlety and terror of the original, but people didn’t mind one bit. It raked in the dosh and, crucially, set in motion the wheels of a franchise.
In total, there have been seven standalone entries in the ‘Alien’ series, two more if you want to count the regrettable crossovers with ‘Predator’. The movies have ranged from David Fincher’s bizarrely grim directorial debut to Fede Álvarez’s excellent reboot to whatever the hell Prometheus was. The saga has gone to all sorts of different places since Cameron got his hands on it, and it hasn’t always been to his liking.
Interestingly, Cameron’s favourite entry is the series without his name on it isn’t a film at all. In 2025, Disney+ released Alien: Earth, the first official episodic TV show in the franchise’s history. It got great reviews all around, including from the Titanic director in an interview conducted by Dark Horizons.
“I think they took a lot of the DNA from my movie,” he said. “A couple of things from some of the later movies, they’ve got a little bit of that crazy POV thing racing down the corridors from Fincher‘s film. I think it’s good. It’s great creative recombinance in action, but with its own swerve, which is basically what I did. You gotta celebrate the new with the old.”
From the mind of Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley, Alien: Earth is set two years before the original film, but follows an alternate timeline. Those pesky folks at the Weyland-Yutani corporation have been up to their old tricks, collecting extraterrestrial specimens from around the universe. Unfortunately, a ship carrying these specimens crash-lands on Earth, and wouldn’t you know it, a big ol’ Xenomorph has gotten out and is running roughshod on our favourite blue marble. Who could have possibly seen this coming?
As glib as I’m being about the premise of the series, its impact has been undeniable. Critics and fans alike swooned over Hawley’s work, proclaiming it to be not only the best ‘Alien’-related thing in a while, but one of the best entries in the franchise overall. Comparisons were drawn to the ‘Star Wars’ series Andor, in that it took the basic building blocks of the world and used them to tell a much deeper story with overtly political tones.
As Cameron pointed out, it drew on elements from across the property’s long history: the single-minded threat of Alien, the plight of the synthetics from Romulus, and the deep philosophy of Prometheus. There’s even time for some Aliens-style shoot-em-ups.
Alien: Earth is part of a growing trend of TV shows expanding and improving upon the work done by famous movies. The series has been renewed for another season, so we know what James Cameron will be doing with his spare time when that drops.
