One of the greatest twists in any sci-fi story was the fact that in a movie called Alien, the biggest secret was that one of the crew was an undercover robot. And, in 1979, when we learned that Ash (Ian Holm) was really a synthetic android, working for the company, an entire multifaceted layer of the Alien franchise was born. And, since that first robot revelation, various Alien movies have introduced a variety of different Weyland-Yutani androids, from the heroic Bishop (Lance Henriksen) in Aliens, to the duplicitous David (Michael Fassbender) in Prometheus, and most recently, the kindhearted Andy (David Jonsson) in 2024’s Alien: Romulus. And, later this year, yet another Weyland-Yutani synth will cross over into Alien’s sometimes sibling franchise, Predator, when Elle Fanning appears as Thia in the upcoming film Predator: Badlands.
In short, the synthetic lifeforms of the Alien franchise are having a moment in 2025, though they have been compelling since 1979. But with the release of Alien: Earth, the entire robot game of the Alien canon has been changed. Here are the three new ways Alien: Earth is having us think about synthetic life in a world in which chestbursting xenomorphs are the greatest threat to humanity.
