Alien: Planeta Tierra

There have been plenty of Alien projects that have come out over the years since the original trilogy and while some have been watchable and the other down right awful, this is closer to the unwatchable ones than the watchable. Somehow, it's gotten nothing but great reviews from both critics and split from fans of the franchise. It actually currently has a fantastic 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Alien: Earth is about when a mysterious spaceship crashes on Earth and a ragtag group of soldiers, led by a woman named Wendy, have to make the discovery that will put them up against the greatest threat the planet has ever seen. What follows is a series that looks like it was made for kids and not adults.

Allen: Earth is finally here and I have to say I was hoping it would be a lot better than it is. It almost feels like a teen CW version of Alirn and not the Alien franchise we all came to know and love. I was promised the show would be full of enough excitement and thrills that make the episodes feel like they fly by. It's not. The other thing I can't stand is that we have to wait to wait a week between episodes. I have come so used to binging series that that's how I like to watch my shows. I hate waiting a week when I enjoy a show. I admit I'm not the biggest or most knowledgeable Alien fan, the originals were made before I was born but I have watched them and enjoyed them. I am a big sci-fi fan though so that's why I was looking forward to this so much and why I'm disappointed. I did read that if you are a big Alien fan that this series will reward you with plenty of fun Easter eggs and the more you know about the franchise the more you're going to enjoy this series. That was a lie.

I'll give it a chance but so far its very disjointed and feels like there is very little in the way of a plot.

The atmosphere, tension & suspense of the movies has been jettisoned and replaced with inappropriate syth music to "tell" you when you're supposed to be excited or scared when the filmmakers havn't earned any of that in terms of storytelling.

The series opens up with a throwback to alien which, I assume, we will revist as a flashback episode at some point. Its a nostalgia tip of the hat but it felt all surface level and rushed. I wasn't invested in any of the characters so far. There was no tension built at all. A series gives you the opportunity to explore the world with depth which so far seems to be a secondary thought here.

Many reviewers have mentioned the glaring issues in the first two episodes which I wont rehash here. Suffice to say it does raise a few questions in terms of writing and direction.

As an alien fan for 40+ years, I was hopeful that this series could finally revive the franchise. However, what made Alien great was suspense. What made Aliens awesome was action (and a sublime cast, script, and director). Whoever wrote and directed this has completely missed what makes the franchise great; instead, they think it's about horror about grossing people out. They're going for cheap scares and have just completely missed what makes the franchise great. Sad. Hoping it picks up, but based on the direction the series is going, I hold no hopes.

I'm a huge aliens franchise fan, specifically the first and second, probably shaped my love for sci-fi to this day, my go to genre of movies. When I heard about this, I was excited even, I thought some learnings came from the standard of TV series over the last 5 years. The bar has been set high and they have started treating the viewers like adults, no more bad screenwriting, weak plots or 2 dimensional acting, before we used to blanket sweep this based on the fact it's a "TV series" not a movie. Well... You don't have to a rocket scientist to figure out what my review is going to be, I've barely scraped through episode 2... My teeth were grinding by the end of it, the kid synthetics that wonder around like NPCs, lazy dialogues to make you feel like the writer used GPT and called it a night, the genuinely awkward attempt of the tech bro (plenty of them out there to base one on, still failed though?) the xenomorph who is running around like big bird in sesame street, all mystery and lore completely lost. The excessive, often pointless gore, just a cheap bandaid to make it "scary" but instead just looks cheap, the equivalent of having florescent lighting in a casino at 4am. If I had to choose to watch another episode or be introduced to a facehugger in a small room, you know my choice.