'Alien: Earth' series asks: Which is scarier, a giant xenomorph or rogue AI?

USA Today

a day ago

Nobody pleaded that "Fargo," that 1996 cinematic gem from Joel and Ethan Coen, should be made into a TV series. And yet writer and director Noah Hawley has (so far) delivered five seasons and an award-winning hit, against steep odds.
Now, Hawley is looking to smash another adaptation pitch into the bleachers with FX's "Alien: Earth" (streaming weekly starting Aug. 12 on Hulu), based on Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi opus that spawned eight movie sequels and prequels.
So do we really need eight small-screen episodes – and possibly more, in future seasons - of multi-jawed monsters terrifying people in claustrophobic spaceships?
No we don't. But, as actor Timothy Olyphant says, those fears are unfounded. "I started sleeping well the moment I heard Noah ask, 'If you take away the monster, what is the show?' He knew you couldn't lean on that little guy popping out of people's chests week after week."
Review: FX's 'Alien Earth' is everything 'Alien' fans could want
Hawley sums up his challenge simply. "It was in essence the same approach I had with 'Fargo,'" he says. "I tried to just figure out, what's the feeling I had when I watched that first 'Alien' movie, and how do I create the same emotions by telling you a different story?"
What Hawley has crafted is part futuristic fright-fest, part timely allegory. The terrifying Xenomorph, created by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, very much appears, but almost in a cameo role. The focus instead is on Earth, which is now ruled by a handful of powerful tech companies each vying to create the dominant AI future. Sound familiar?
While some of the companies are pushing for advancements in cyborg technology, others have banked on the rise of synths, or synthetic humans. Olyphant plays an unusually cagey synth named Kirsh who works for genius tech whiz Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), whose Prodigy Corporation is on to something revolutionary: infusing the human consciousness of dying children into artificial robotic bodies.
The offbeat inspiration for Noah Hawley's 'Alien: Earth'? J.M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan'
It gets heavier from there. The ailing children chosen for this journey reflect Kavalier's obsession with J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan." The kids' new-body names – Slightly, Tootles, Smee, Curly and Nibs – echo the Lost Boys from the famous 1904 book, which Kavalier reads from obsessively. And they are led by a fearless Wendy, played with wide-eyed wonder by Sydney Chandler.
"Noah is taking some really big swings here, and that's great, because Ridley was the first person to say, 'What more can you really do with that (Xenomorph) creature?'" says David Zucker, chief creative officer for the director's production company Scott Free.
"Ridley's feeling about doing this series was the same thing he stressed when they wanted to do a sequel to 'Blade Runner,' which is, this show has to have a reason for being," says Zucker, adding that the British director was not directly involved in the new TV series. "He's not really interested in revisiting things he's done before. But what excited him about this is that while it honored the aesthetic of the original, it took a very original approach."
The story of these Neverland kids, who are pressed into dangerous service for Prodigy as they navigate the transition into their adult synthetic bodies, is indeed a new twist, one that asks big questions but also provides ample laughs as we watch adult actors behaving like preteens. It's a welcome break from those jump-scare jabs.
"To me, the show is in part about how we are raising our children today. What morals are we giving them? Where are the real adults?" Hawley says.
For Chandler, "jumping back into the mind of my younger self was amazing," says the avowed sci-fi and "Alien" fan, whose father is actor Kyle Chandler. "That feeling of bravery and honesty. Playing a kid in a synthetic body in a future world with aliens was a scary challenge, but one I was ready for."
'Alien: Earth' features massive sets built partly off the blueprints of the original Ridley Scott movie 'Alien'
Helping Chandler get into character were massive sets "that I would always get lost on" and a frightening 9-foot-tall Xenomorph suit worn by a "sweet man named Cameron, who when he put that on and chased you, it was genuinely scary," she says.
To enhance the horror and appeal to "Alien" fans, Hawley coordinated with Ridley Scott to get the blueprints for the set of the original ship, the USCSS Nostromo, to create the research vessel that, through a series of deadly mistakes, winds up plummeting out of orbit and plowing into buildings on Earth.
"The cryochamber in our ship is a bit bigger than Ridley's, but otherwise the bridge is the same," he says. "It was fun to see the actors react to being there on set. It was like they had stepped into the movie of their childhood."
Whenever possible, Hawley used old-fashioned costume-based special effects, resorting only when necessary to digital magic created by New Zealand-based masters Wētā FX.
Monsters may scurry around 'Alien: Earth,' but Noah Hawley suggests the really terrifying characters might be human beings
Hawley says preserving the sheer horror of the original films was integral to his project, and as viewers will see, the Xenomorph eventually gets some creepy friends. But even more chilling was the prospect of ceding control of Earth to machines of our own creation.
Although "Alien: Earth" was written "before ChatGPT was even launched," Hawley says, he's surprised and grateful the series is landing when the debate about the oversight of AI is gathering steam.
"The show is about humanity being trapped between its monster past when we all were just food and its AI future, and in both cases something's out to kill us," he says. "So it's important to talk about it. Is AI the next step in our evolution, or will it be the end of humanity? Are we going down the road of (Elon Musk's company) Neuralink, where technology will be added to our bodies, or are we going beyond that to a place where we will all be transhuman?
"It's just amazing how fast things have progressed just since I started writing this show back in 2020."
For Olyphant, who played to type as a U.S. marshal in Season 4 of Hawley's "Fargo," the chance to work with the writer/director again, on a project focused on big-picture ideas about our unsettling human future, proved irresistible.
"Ultimately, in 'Alien: Earth' Noah is writing about what we're dealing with right now. It's this pursuit of living forever, of taking great technology but just trying to monetize it, of being willing to manipulate the lives of children for profit," he says.
"And it's about this distrust of AI, this thing that is not human, and my character more than others encapsulates this issue. There are so many 'Alien' franchise diehards out there, so I can't wait to see who comes along on our trip."