{"id":195937,"date":"2025-09-03T04:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T04:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/195937\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T04:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T04:50:12","slug":"earth-creator-noah-hawley-explains-episode-5-ties-to-alien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/195937\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth Creator Noah Hawley Explains Episode 5 ties to ‘Alien’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from episode 5 of Alien: Earth<\/a> on FX. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSomething might feel wildly familiar about episode 5 of FX\u2019s Alien prequel. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s because the spacecraft that ultimately crashes on earth is a virtual carbon copy of the Nostromo, the ship flown by Ridley (Sigourney Weaver) and her crew in the 1979 film from Ridley Scott. The episode\u2019s name \u2014 \u201cin Space, No One\u2026\u201d \u2014 is even inspired by Alien\u2018s old tagline \u201cIn space, no one can hear you scream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere, creator Noah Hawley<\/a> reflects on the episode he wrote and directed. He calls it a mini-movie, which is actually a flashback to the events that lead up to what happens in the Aug. 12 pilot.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE This whole episode is like a homage to the Nostromo. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY <\/strong>It\u2019s literally the same thing. We used the original blueprints. Most of the rooms, the bridge, the mess hall, hallways, they\u2019re literally copied from the Nostromo. The cryo-chamber is bigger, though, and the comms room is bigger. The first thing that you need to establish in translating something from film to television is authenticity. And so it has to feel like Alien. We have to show the audience, not only is this Alien, but it\u2019s Ridley Scott\u2019s Alien. It\u2019s James Cameron\u2019s. It\u2019s like that early, retro futurism. So everyone\u2019s very oriented as to what this is. Using the iconic ship was really important.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE One thing I really appreciated is how you included some hanging chains. And you had someone use a chain! I could never understand what purpose they served on the Nostromo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY<\/strong> We have a lot of chains. I think on set, they weren\u2019t attached to anything. There was no ceiling there. They were just hanging from whatever. There are three main science fiction brands. There\u2019s Star Trek, Star Wars, and Alien, and you would never confuse them aesthetically for the other. And so that\u2019s what Alien is. If things are a little rusty, if they\u2019re dripping, or there\u2019s humidity \u2026 all that stuff is super important to the feeling of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE Do You have a nickname for the crawling eyeball?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY<\/strong> I\u2019ve been calling it the eye midge for some reason.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE He\u2019s definitely a different species from the aliens, right? Will the midge remain a prominent fixture in the series? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY<\/strong> Yeah. All these creatures are here to stay. The reason there are new creatures is because you can\u2019t [give viewers today] the newness of the Xenomorph \u2026 you know, the egg, the face hugger, it being the worst thing you\u2019ve ever seen. Now it falls off. Okay we\u2019re good. Now, something bursts out of your chest and then it\u2019s 10 feet tall. So the only way to create that awful burgeoning discovery is with these new creatures. There\u2019s still so much to learn about all of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE Something fishy showed up in those water bottles in episode 5. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY<\/strong> You see what we call the ticks and they don\u2019t just drink your blood. They lay their eggs in your drinking water. You\u2019ve seen all the creatures and now we\u2019ll just sort of explore them more over the season.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE So the character of Petrovich. He just wanted to end the mission and get back home, right? Was it that simple? Is that why he negotiated with Boy Kavalier?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY <\/strong>One of the great things about that first movie is how much these guys bitched about how little they were being paid working for this corporation. Petrovich gave up 65 years of his life to go on this mission. He says something about bugs laid eggs in his woman\u2019s eyes and he\u2019s clearly pissed. He doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s getting paid enough so Boy Kavalier reaches out and makes him an offer. He thinks, great. I\u2019ll go home. I\u2019ll be a rich man. What do I care who has these creatures? So there\u2019s definitely a greed element to this that is not inconsistent with the way that people acted in Alien.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t \u201cIn Space, No One\u2026\u201d Season 1, Episode 5. Babou Ceesay as Morrow. Patrick Brown\/FX<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE Morrow is a synthetic, right? Because he\u2019s got those Wolverine knife hands. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY<\/strong> He\u2019s a cyborg, so he\u2019s human with some prosthetic appendages and maybe a neural link in there as well. He describes himself earlier in the season as the worst parts of a man.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE Is Morrow a friend to the aliens? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY <\/strong>No. I mean, he gave up 65 years of his life. They\u2019re his life\u2019s work. He\u2019s not a friend to them. He has a mission to complete, which is to bring them back to his bosses. So that\u2019s what he\u2019s going to do.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE So in the final scene, we see the building for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Is there an Emperor Palpatine-like figure working there? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY<\/strong> No. What\u2019s amazing after seven Alien movies is how little mythology there is about how humanity is organized, life on earth, all of it. So I had a lot of leeway to play with. All we really know is that there was this corporation Weyland-Yutani, and they wanted these creatures pretty badly. And so I made the choice to focus my story on a competing company. But I do think that this idea of Weyland-Yutani is so critical to the identity of Alien, and I want to give the audience that satisfaction of feeling like you\u2019re seeing some of who is running that place. <\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE You just touched upon the burning question of how you make a series about the Alien franchise. You build a mythology.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY <\/strong>Yeah, I think so. I mean, it\u2019s a real gift to have this franchise that\u2019s so storied. What you do you need to know is that the first movie is all about space truckers. They\u2019re driving some iron ore home across the galaxy, and they\u2019re not being paid enough and the hours are too long and whatever, and then they get sent to this planet to do something. They don\u2019t understand what it is, and all these terrible things happen. And then over the course of the movies, you get a little more exposure to who is pulling the strings, but it is still left pretty oblique. So yeah, that was part of why I took the assignment. There was so much for me to invent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from episode 5 of Alien: Earth on FX. Something might feel wildly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[55461,171,55462,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-195937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alien-earth","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-noah-hawley","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115138568327517698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}