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Is Noah Hawley's FX series Alien: Earth canon to the films? That's been a hot topic of debate ever since plot details of the FX series first emerged. And now, Hawley himself is throwing more gasoline on that fandom flame, claiming that he's going to separate his small screen tale from the Alien prequel films (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, respectively) that were orchestrated by franchise creator Ridley Scott.

The story comes from an interview that Hawley did with Empire Magazine, published in their July 2025 issue. In the discussion, Hawley mentions the controversial canon set down by the two aforementioned films, which established the idea that humanity helped create the headlining monster, the xenomorph. In case you don't know, the films timed the creation of the xenomorph just a century or two before the doomed Nostromo encountered one, and introduced a species of genetic manipulators called the Engineers, who played a part in both human and xenomorph creation.

"Well, look," says Hawley of Scott's later canon, "That first movie came out in 1979 and Prometheus came out in 2012 [...] So you're talking about close to 40 years in which there was no black goo, no David, no Engineers. Alien, for me, is baked in as these creatures that have existed for millions of years. They're the perfectly evolved species." 

(The "David" Hawley mentions is an android played by Michael Fassbender in the prequel movies, and the "black goo" he's talking about is the biological marvel that spawns the xenomorph when combined with human DNA in Prometheus. You see, when one intergalactic predator and another intergalactic predator love each other very much...)

To be fair, Hawley doesn't say that he's outright trying to break canon, more that he's going "to keep the lid on that can of worms" as he tells an Alien story that comes from his honest experience with the franchise.  

"What you have to do," says the Fargo and Legion creator, "is tell these stories from an organically fan-place within yourself."

What's fascinating about Hawley's choice is that fellow modern Alien captain Fede Álvarez took the exact opposite approach when crafting the latest film entry into the franchise - that is, Alien: Romulus.  We won't spoil how, exactly, but a great deal of that film ends up hinging on ideas that came out of Prometheus and Covenant. We even get a pretty gnarly encounter with said "black goo."

So what's the deal? Is Noah Hawley splintering the Alien timeline into yet another alt-reality? Or is Alien: Earth uncovering a layer of canon we simply didn't know about until now, much like Prometheus did years ago? And just how the hell are we working the goddamn Predator into all of this??

I hope we get the answers soon, but knowing master of mystery Noah Hawley, I expect this first season will only leave us with more questions.

Alien: Earth comes to FX/Hulu August 12. 

If you love aliens bursting out of chests and hugging your face, then we have all you could want from  Popverse's Alien watch order, details on where Romulus fits into the Alien timeline, and all you need to know  on the upcoming Aliens TV show with Timothy Oliphant.