Why Alien 3’s Misleading Trailer Suggested It Took Place On Earth

The trailer for David Fincher’s Alien 3, the third installment of the Alien franchise after Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), misled viewers by suggesting that the film would take place on Earth. While the final script of Alien 3 was set on the Fiorina “Fury” 161, a planet which hosts a penal colony full of brutal inmates, the imagery and narration featured within the teaser trailer (via YouTube) insinuates that the infamous Xenomorphs will be invading planet Earth, a concept which was formerly never explored within the Alien franchise. 

Set after the events of Aliens, Alien 3 followsEllen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Rebecca “Newt” Jorden, Corporal Dwayne Hicks, and the robot Bishop as they’re launched from the spaceship Sulaco onto a planet inhabited by a colony of prison inmates. Discovering that she is the only remaining survivor, the dangerous prisoners seem to be the least of Ripley’s worries, as she suspects that an alien was onboard her escape pod. While no embryos were discovered during Newt’s autopsy, a Queen Facehugger escapes into the facility and impregnates an inmate’s dog with an alien embryo. Along with destroying the alien embryo growing inside her, Ripley must team up with the inmates in order to defeat the fully grown alien Xenomorph attacking the colony. Premiering before the film’s release in 1992, the teaser trailer advertised Weaver’s return to the franchise as well as a misleading plot point: that the film would be set on planet Earth.   

With a backdrop of deep space, the Aliens 3 trailer begins by panning over a giant Ovomorph egg, the egg laid by a Queen Xenomorph that produces the parasitoid Facehugger. Accompanied by ethereal music, the title of the film, Alien 3, slowly forms across the screen as a narrator references the famous tagline from Alien. “In 1979, we discovered, in space, no one can hear you scream,” says the narrator as the Ovomorph egg cracks at the center. “In 1992, we will discover, on earth, everyone can hear you scream.” As the film title becomes fully visible, both the narrator’s mention of Earth and the Ovomorph egg hovering above planet Earth are cues that imply the plot of Alien 3 will be set on Earth.

Since teaser trailers typically “tease” the very basic storyline of a film, the teaser trailer for Alien 3 confused their target audience by simply announcing the next installment within the Alien franchise rather than detailing the plot of the film. By referring back to Alien’s tagline as well as the date the film was released, the teaser was attempting to convey that everyone in the theater will hear you scream once Alien 3 is released in 1992. However, the lines between reality and fantasy became blurred when the narrator placed emphasis on the two lines “in space” and “on Earth.” Since outer space was the setting for Alien, it is assumed that Earth will be the setting of Alien 3 and seems to unintentionally imply that the Xenomorphs will be landing on Earth next.  

Another reason the trailer may have been so misleading is the fact that the script for Alien 3 hadn’t been finalized before the trailer’s release. Alien 3 experienced developmental hell, hopping between multiple concepts, scriptwriters, and directors in the hopes of delivering something fresh and original to the franchise that didn’t copy its predecessors. While the teaser could have been based on a concept that never made it onto the big screen, none of the scripts that were known contenders to be the storyline of Alien 3 took place on Earth. One of the earlier unused scripts, written by the sci-fi novelist William Gibson, took place on a remote space station roughly the size of a small moon, while David Twohy’s script was set on a prison facility called Moloch Island which orbited Earth. One script by Eric Red featured an Earth-like setting which resembled the American mid-west, but it never physically took place on our planet. 

Since none of the known scripts that were passed over by 20th Century Fox ever took place on Earth, the misleading teaser trailer for Alien 3 seems to be the result of a simple mistake made by the marketing team. While it may have detracted from the mystery of the trailer, changing the line “on Earth” to “in theaters” might’ve made the message more clear that Alien 3 would soon be invading theaters, not planet Earth.