{"id":329195,"date":"2025-08-09T00:19:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/329195\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T00:19:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:19:15","slug":"earth-ridley-scott-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/329195\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth,’ Ridley Scott, and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this point, it\u2019s fair to say that no human being who has ever walked the earth has been better at adapting movies into TV<\/a> shows than Noah Hawley<\/a>. The man turned \u201cFargo\u201d into an acclaimed crime anthology series<\/a> whose only real connection to the Coen brothers film was its distinctly Midwestern brand of dark folksiness. He found prestige TV source material in the \u201cX-Men\u201d franchise with \u201cLegion,\u201d one of the boldest episodic superhero projects of the 21st century. <\/p>\n

And now he\u2019s doubling down for his biggest bet yet: \u201cAlien: Earth<\/a>.\u201d The new series sees Hawley offering an earthbound origin story for Ridley Scott\u2019s iconic sci-fi franchise that IndieWire\u2019s Ben Travers called<\/a> \u201ca fascinating and frightening extension of an oft-confined space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/a> \"Amy<\/a> <\/p>\n

At a private event at Hawley\u2019s Austin offices attended by IndieWire, reporters were treated to a wide-ranging conversation with the showrunner about the gargantuan task of bringing \u201cAlien\u201d to the small screen. Here\u2019s what he had to say about many of the burning questions surrounding his new show. <\/p>\n

On Topicality<\/p>\n

\u201cAlien: Earth\u201d is often more concerned with mergers than extraterrestrials, following five corporations (including the infamous Weyland-Yutani) fighting for control of the planet and the stars above it. Hawley acknowledged that it won\u2019t be hard for many to find allegories for modern America in the show, but noted that he didn\u2019t try particularly hard to make \u201cAlien: Earth\u201d topical. Instead, he sees it as a natural extension of the class politics that have always infiltrated the franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could not have predicted when I first started writing the show a few years back that we would be where we are now in terms of tech companies, etc.\u201d Hawley said. \u201cSo it\u2019s like if you try to hit the zeitgeist or if you try to avoid the zeitgeist, there\u2019s kind of no way to game it in that way. So I know that one of the things that \u2018Alien\u2019 is, to me, it is a movie about class. You start the first movie with space truckers, and then the second movie [James Cameron\u2019s \u2018Aliens\u2019] is about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best, right? There\u2019s this sense of class as a real issue as a 1970s thing that came into it. So I wanted to bring that element into this as well. And it\u2019s just because we\u2019re on Earth, we are engaging with the top class and not just the bottom class.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FX's\u2018Alien: Earth\u2019Courtesy of Patrick Brown \/ FX<\/p>\n

Where Does \u201cAlien: Earth\u201d Fit Into the Larger Mythology?<\/p>\n

There have been a lot of \u201cAlien\u201d movies<\/a> over the decades, many of which selectively try to erase parts of each other\u2019s lore. Hawley explained that the only two films his show acknowledges as canon are \u201cAlien\u201d and \u201cAliens,\u201d and he\u2019s not racing to make direct connections with either of them. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re telling a parallel story,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not actively engaging with the films themselves in terms of who\u2019s on the other end of the phone or that idea. So I\u2019m not looking to connect it to those movies literally. I think it\u2019s more taking the elements of original films and expanding them for my own purposes. And it\u2019s sort of remarkable how little mythology there is to a franchise that\u2019s six movies deep. \u2026 All we really know about the way humanity is organized is that it\u2019s built around a corporation, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. And so I just expanded that to more of a corporate power struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PROMETHEUS,\u2018Prometheus\u2019\u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Why \u201cPrometheus\u201d Doesn\u2019t Exist in This Universe<\/p>\n

That means that Scott\u2019s prequels \u201cPrometheus\u201d and \u201cAlien: Covenant\u201d don\u2019t factor into Hawley\u2019s plans, largely due to changes they made to the Xenomorph mythology. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that for me, other than the shark in \u2018Jaws,\u2019 this is the most iconic monster in all of film history. And I lived for whatever, 28 years of my life believing that this creature was the perfect organism that had evolved over millions of years,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then Ridley made \u2018Prometheus\u2019 and engaged with another idea in terms of the origin of these creatures, that it wasn\u2019t part of my DNA of what these movies were to me. And so I chose not to engage with that part of the story and to just sort of speak to the alien that I had encoded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanging with Ridley<\/p>\n

Ridley Scott might be the busiest 87-year-old on the planet, so his involvement in the show was minimal. But Hawley explained that the two men had plenty of conversations about the franchise\u2019s origins \u2014 and the famously uninhibited director had more to say than Joel and Ethan Coen did when discussing \u201cFargo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me a lot of stories. Which, of course, is the greatest thing that a filmmaker can have: an audience with the greats. And the Coens are much less forthcoming about everything,\u201d Hawley said of Scott. \u201cBeing able to have access to Ridley and the conversations about it. And one of the things as we were researching and building the ship, which as you see is very much reminiscent of the ship from the first film, was that we found all this archival material and blueprints and photos that Fox had had that Ridley hadn\u2019t seen since 1979. So I think there was something really exciting about that idea. And when you build that bridge or the comms room and you step into it, it does this crazy thing where time collapses. You\u2019re stepping into the movie that you grew up watching, and it was just a really profound effect for a filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Villeneuve Factor <\/p>\n

Scott wasn\u2019t the only legendary sci-fi director that Hawley consulted. He explained that one of his biggest influences on \u201cAlien: Earth\u201d were the films of Denis Villeneuve, who took time to offer his thoughts on the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reached out to Denis Villeneuve when I was making this because I found, as I went through the images that were going up on the mood board, the ones that weren\u2019t from \u2018Alien\u2019 were \u2018Dune\u2019 or \u2018Arrival,’\u201d Hawley said. \u201cAnd a lot of that has to do with the sense of scale. He\u2019s so good at really feeling the bigness of things, creating, whether it\u2019s a long lens and a full-scale person. And he\u2019s also so great at making something huge that feels so intimate at the same time. So to the degree that he was willing to talk shop with me. We\u2019ve had a couple of conversations about it. Because I think that\u2019s what\u2019s important. The television is not a small screen anymore, and so we\u2019re making these things. I mean, there\u2019s many people who\u2019ve only ever seen \u2018Alien\u2019 on a small screen or \u2018Dune\u2019 on a small screen, but you can still feel that sense of scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Constant Dialogue<\/p>\n

Hawley acknowledged the unique perch he occupies in the entertainment industry, saying that he enjoys adapting films into episodic series, which allows him to frequently offer his own responses to the art he loves without being burdened by the obligation to recreate any of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first novel that I wrote, I had a little forward to it, and I said, \u2018If fiction is a dialogue between writers, I add this into the debate.\u2019 And I feel the same with this,\u201d he said. \u201cI get to engage with the Coen Brothers. You know what I mean? I get to say, \u2018Oh, I loved that movie and it made me think this.\u2019 They\u2019re not in a dialogue with me, but I\u2019m in a dialogue with them. And it was the same thing here, or with the X-Men on \u2018Legion,\u2019 to be able to say, \u2018Oh, I loved how that made me feel.\u2019 And then I had this idea and now I can play with the films themselves, which is really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlien: Earth\u201d\u00a0premieres Tuesday, August 12 at 8 p.m. ET on\u00a0FX<\/a>\u00a0and Hulu. New episodes will be released weekly through the Season 1 finale on September 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this point, it\u2019s fair to say that no human being who has ever walked the earth has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[23750,77,466,3943,23752,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-329195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-alien-earth","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-interviews","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-noah-hawley","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114995945008869448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}