Latest news with #NoahHawley
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
12 Ways ‘Alien: Earth' Is Respectfully Reimagining the Franchise
Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley knows the tables are stacked against him. He knows the Alien franchise is a tough one to crack and that the idea of bringing it to televsion might elicit groans from certain fans. But Hawley is also really good at his job. He somehow turned Fargo into a TV show worthy of the incredible film. He made Legion one of the best comic book shows in recent memory. And he knows he'll never be able to remake or recapture the terror you felt watching the Ridley Scott original, or the exhilaration created by James Cameron's sequel. Instead, he's figured out a way to draw inspiration from those things, but also make it his own. The hope is that it'll create something that's 100% recognizable as Alien, but will also stand on its own as a way to totally flip the franchise on its head. Starting August 12, Alien: Earth tells a story set three years before the events of the first movie. However, while that was in space, this takes place—you guessed it—on Earth. There, a spaceship that was tasked with acquiring deadly aliens from across the galaxy is finally on its way home, when something goes wrong and it crashes. To explore the crash, a team of hybrids—synthetic beings with the consciousness of children—are sent in to explore. What they'll find is not just the iconic xenomorph, but several other species as well. A few weeks back, io9 was among a group of journalists who were able to watch the pilot episode of Alien: Earth (which was awesome) and speak with Hawley, as well as producer David Zucker, about all things Alien: Earth. Here are the highlights. Alien: Earth couldn't exist without the xenomorph, but Hawley knew he had to add new creatures to hopefully capture what makes Alien so special. 'One of the things you can never reproduce in an audience that has seen an Alien movie is the feeling you had the first time you saw the life cycle of this creature in that first film,' Hawley said. 'It's just unreproducible. You know that it's an egg, it's a face hugger, it's a chestburster, and all that. And so that's where the idea for other creatures came from. I want you to have that feeling because that feeling is integral to the Alien experience. But I can't do it with those creatures. So let's introduce new creatures where you don't know how they reproduce or what they eat. So that you can have that, 'I'm out' feeling multiple times a week.' Another intergral part of the Alien franchise is that, yes, the aliens are brutal killers. But the humans who are trying to capture them are often worse. That's why Alien: Earth will feature an equally important story centered on a technological race, personified by those hybrid characters. 'One of the interesting features of the movies, especially Jim Cameron's movie where he has that line from Sigourney [Weaver] to Paul Reiser where she says, 'I don't know which species is worse. At least they don't fuck each other over for a percentage.' Right? And so this idea about humanity and the terrible things that we do to each other, it really opened my mind as to the types of horror that would populate the show, not just body horror or creature horror, but also the moral horror of what people do. And the question is, if you take a girl and you put her into this synthetic body, is she going to choose human or other? And so it becomes about the push-pull between 'Well, why be human if this is what humans do to each other?' But there's such a beauty to the human experience, etc. So that's the tension, I feel like, that elevates it above just who lives and who dies.' Hawley's story is set in the world of Alien, with names and companies you'll recognize, but that wasn't the most important thing to him. 'I've said before but, if I have a skill at reinventing classic movies, it's understanding what the original made me feel and why, and then recreating those feelings in you by telling you a new story,' he said. That new story had to fit visually in the world of Alien. 'I was very adamant that technology-wise we embrace the retrofuturism of the franchise,' Hawley said. 'That is the visual definition for me. There are three classic sci-fi brands. There's Star Wars, Star Trek, and Alien. And none of them look like the other one. You would never confuse one for the other. And so if we want to make Alien, something's got to be dripping. Something's got to be rusty. You have to have those sorts of aesthetics to it. And then the challenge was, well, we're not even focused on the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and we're on Earth. And so how, from an aesthetic standpoint, do you make sure that it feels like Alien to the audience when, obviously, if we're not on a ship, it's just not going to look like that. So that was a long, long process.' Yes, there are other creatures. No, it won't be focused on the life cycle of the xenomorph. But the xenos are in there, crucial to the show, and in a way you've never seen them before. 'We never really see these creatures within an ecosystem, right?' Hawley said. 'They're always sort of an apex predator existing in a space with no other wildlife, really. And I was interested in that idea of, if you're going to bring these creatures to a terrestrial environment, how are they going to change it? And how are other creatures, bugs, any of it, going to interact with them? So some of that we address, some of that is still percolating for future stories.' 'I think just the idea of seeing these creatures in a landscape, an Earth landscape, is such a profoundly unsettling and kind of exhilarating thing when we get to that moment,' he added. 'It really felt like such a gift after, at that time, six movies, to be doing something new, right? To have that opportunity.' Hawley knows that it will be hard, if not impossible, to top the H.R. Giger design of the original Alien. But he also knows he has to make sure these new creatures can stand up against them. So lots of care has, and continues to be, taken in their designs. 'I will be adjusting the design until they tell me I absolutely can't do it anymore,' he said. 'Every element of it, from the skin texture to sound design, it all goes to the 'Get into your nightmares' part of it. And mostly my hope is that people who watch the show will never do anything comfortably again.' So, yes, this is a new story with new threads and perspectives, but it fits in with the original movies in some fun ways. That's especially driven by the fact this show isn't on a spaceship or an alien planet. It's on Earth, which is something the original films have almost wholly avoided. 'It's the first time we're coming to Earth,' Hawley said. 'I mean, there's a little on Earth in Prometheus, but with no sort of expansion on who rules the Earth, what are the politics, how does that work throughout the galaxy, etc. And so it was a gift to get a franchise this big with very little mythology to it.' 'So that I could say, 'All right, well, what do we know about the next hundred years?' Hawley continued. 'It's going to get hotter. It's going to get wetter. I'm not betting against capitalism so I think the corporations, that power is going to aggregate. And all we really know about Aliens is that there's this corporation called Weyland-Yutani. And for me, I just think that story, that Weyland-Yutani story, is really interesting, but I like the idea also of introducing that there's still a competition. And I also thought, in terms of the moment on Earth. I thought about the moment at the turn of the 20th century where you had Edison and Tesla and Westinghouse, and you weren't sure who was going to control electricity. So I thought if we had that kind of moment in which it's a contest between the sort of cybernetic enhancements and AI and transhumanism—and, like any technology race, you know, you don't remember who the competitor to Xerox was, right? And so that was exciting to me to explore that.' In addition to the opportunity of exploring what's happening on Earth, Hawley loved that the movies gave him a lot of open space to add to the story. 'If you remember the movie, they just get sent to this planet,' he said. 'I mean, clearly somebody knows about these creatures, right? They knew enough to send them there, but their knowledge of these creatures [is a mystery]. Now, of course, [the crew of the Nostromo] has been in cryosleep for, I don't know how many decades or years or whatever. So that's the interesting thing about the lack of mythology is these people who find those first eggs have been out of contact with Earth for who knows how long. And so there is a gray area that we could play in and try to create something with as big a scale as possible to justify the title while still making it credible for the rest of the canon.' 'I've had some conversations with [the filmmakers],' Hawley admitted. '[But], you know, this is not a Kevin Feige Marvel Universe moment. I'm not saying that that in success that that we shouldn't be coordinating or thinking big picture about that. The show [just] has to be a hit before you can really have those conversations.' Hawley doesn't know how far the show will go along but, he has thought about potential links between the show and films. 'I haven't literally calendared it out,' he said, 'But we know that Ripley ends up in an escape pod and is found 57 years later. So we really have no idea what they know on Earth about what happened on the Nostromo. And so is my challenge really figuring what happens in those three years or in the 60 years before she comes back? So those are all active questions that were that we're discussing.' 'Well, it's not up to me,' Hawley said. But, in his mind it's a recurring series that could go on for more seasons. 'We created it as a recurring series, and I have great plans and ambitions for it as such.' For this one, we'll turn it over to David Zucker, the chief creative officer for Scott Free, Ridley Scott's production company. 'In all candor, we were approached many times [about making Alien shows] and there was no interest on our behalf,' Zucker said. 'And frankly, I don't think one could even conceive of delivering something of this kind of equivalency of what one can do [as] feature TV in this sort of modern era. But I think the thing that that also didn't exist before John [Landgraf, chairman of FX] and Noah had this conversation is somebody who could have this kind of vision, this kind of originality. Ridley was really, I think, enthralled by being able to relaunch the franchise. And he's excited about the extension of it, but it really required somebody who could take the essence, as Noah's talked about, and find a way to take viewers in an entirely different experience. And that that was just something we had never encountered before and couldn't have have imagined that that opportunity would exist. So the planets align, as they say.' The planets will further align on August 12 when Alien: Earth debuts on FX. Check back for more soon. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Gizmodo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Latest ‘Alien: Earth' Trailer Adds Even More Alien Monsters
In the Alien movies, one killer species is more than enough for humanity to deal with. Actually, it's almost always too much. Most everyone usually dies. But, in Alien: Earth, which comes to FX on August 12, it's not just that iconic xenomorph the characters will have to deal with. Four other killer monsters have crash-landed on our planet too. Let the fun begin. From the mind of Noah Hawley, Alien: Earth takes a whole new look at the franchise made famous by the likes of Ridley Scott and James Cameron. It shows a story of a ship that crashes on Earth and the aftermath of that. But that's in service of a larger story about scientific attempts to extend and improve life, which leads to one company transferring the consciousness of sick children into adult robot bodies. Yeah. It's a lot. And you can see it all in this brand-new trailer. This trailer does a pretty good job of setting up how all of these things come together. In the show, Earth is undergoing a scientific race to extend human life. That's led to the creation of cyborgs, which are 'humans with both biological and artificial parts,' synthetics, which are 'humanoid robots with artificial intelligence,' and now, thanks to a company called Prodigy, hybrids, which are 'humanoid robots infused with human consciousness.' That's who Sydney Chandler plays. She's Wendy, the leader of a group of hybrids who have no idea what they're getting into when they are sent in to explore the crash of the Weyland Yutani deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot. The Maginot has acquired and returned with five different alien species for its parent company, and, well, for some reason the ship crashed. What could've possibly gone wrong? We are super pumped for Alien: Earth and we hope you are too. We'll have much more on the show in the coming weeks, including full coverage of the presence at San Diego Comic-Con. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'I have great plans and ambitions': Noah Hawley's multi-season vision for 'Alien: Earth' has me counting down like it's Christmas
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Ask literally anyone in my life what I talk about most, and I'd bet 100 facehuggers they'll say 'Alien.' Considering this is my favorite franchise and a full-blown obsession at this point, 'Alien: Earth' is naturally my most anticipated series of the year. The sci-fi horror show is fast approaching. We're now just under a month out and with the world premiere happening at San Diego Comic-Con next week, the marketing has kicked into high gear. That includes the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features 'Alien: Earth' on the cover and showrunner Noah Hawley sharing more about his vision for the series' future. He said (h/t GamesRadar Plus): 'With Legion, I had a three-act structure. I didn't know if that was going to take three seasons or five seasons, but I knew what the three major thoughts of the story were. And here, I feel like I have that as well." Hawley continued: 'We created it as a recurring series, and I have great plans and ambitions for it as such. On the film side, I've had some conversations with them. 'This is not a Kevin Feige Marvel Universe moment. I'm not saying that in success, that we shouldn't be coordinating or thinking big picture about that – the show has to be a hit before you can really have those conversations.' I didn't know my excitement could grow for 'Alien: Earth,' but here we are. The fact that Hawley has long-term plans already shows he has faith in the series, where it's headed, and how it can tie into the larger universe. In fact, when speaking with Vanity Fair about the possibility of it merging with the original source material, he stated, 'I do know that at a certain point, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is going to divert the Nostromo to that planet [LV-426].' You know, the charming little rock where curiosity gets you violently killed. Honestly, I feel like a kid counting down to Christmas. Only instead of presents, I'm waiting for Xenomorphs, corporate cover-ups, and even more otherworldly threats. If I could climb into a hypersleep pod and wake up on release day, I would. 'Alien: Earth' is set to premiere on FX on Hulu in the U.S. on August 12, and Disney Plus in the U.K on August 13. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button. More from Tom's Guide How to watch the 'Alien' movies in order 5 new to Hulu movies with 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes The most surreal noir thriller of the year landed on Hulu
UPI
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Noah Hawley cast Timothy Olyphant in 'Alien: Earth' to make up for 'Fargo' U.S. Marshal role
BANGKOK, July 17 (UPI) -- Alien: Earth creator, executive producer and writer Noah Hawley says he wanted to collaborate again with Timothy Olyphant after casting the Mandalorian, Justified and Deadwood icon as another lawman in Season 4 of his anthology drama, Fargo. "I always assume that if you're talented, you can do anything and, so, I like people to prove me differently," Hawley told UPI during a recent press conference in Bangkok, where the sci-fi drama was filmed. "And I wanted to make it up to Tim for casting him as the U.S. Marshal the same way that everyone else has cast him as a U.S. Marshal, so I decided to make him a completely different character. He's so versatile and he underplays everything anyway. That wasn't a big step to see him in this role." Premiering Aug. 12 on Hulu, FX and Disney+ internationally, the eight-episode series takes place two years before the events of the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien. The ensemble includes Sydney Chandler, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay and Alex Lawther. "In the year 2120, the Earth is governed by five corporations: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold. In this Corporate Era, cyborgs (humans with both biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) exist alongside humans," according to a synopsis. Previews have shown the residents -- including a group of exceptional kids -- at the futuristic Neverland Research Island facility trying to find and neutralize the terrifying monsters who escape in a spaceship crash on Earth. Olyphant plays one of the synthetics, but specific details about most of the characters, including his, have been closely guarded. "The key has been finding what are the affectations that feel human versus synthetic," Hawley said. "If you look at the movie, Alien, they made Ian Holm the only British character because then you thought, 'Well, he's not a robot, he's just British.' So, we had to find that with the American version and I like playing against that. Timothy is such an American actor presence." The new show also reunites Hawley with David Rysdahl, one of the stars of Fargo Season 5. "He was just, really, a stand-out to me, in terms of the work experience with him," Hawley said. "I just really like his presence. He's very human. He brings a real warmth and kindness wherever he goes and I like that he has this relationship with these kids that they just really feel cared for," he added. "I'll always call somebody I work with before." While Hawley took inspiration from Alien and its 1986 sequel, Aliens, he wanted the series to distinguish itself by being the first to actually take place on Earth. "The first one is such a 1970s movie and the second was such an '80s movie," Hawley said. "The first film, really, was [about] 'space truckers,'" he added. "It has that blue-collar [feel]. These are people who work for a living. The second film, they're grunts. You introduce Paul Reiser, but he's middle-management, at best. So, I wanted to keep some of that identity, which we get in through Alex's character, Hermit, and the grunts that he is with." Although it is set in space and in the future, the filmmaker compared the first Alien movie to Samuel Beckett's 1953 play, Waiting for Godot. "We're going to a place, we don't know where, to do a thing, we don't know what, for people, we don't know who," Hawley summed up the similarities. "There's a little bit of that 'individual getting lost in the system' that I think is a big theme for us." Hawley also noted that the films were prescient about how powerful technology and corporations might some day become, but even they couldn't have accurately predicted the advances and challenges we are actually dealing with today. "I don't think that, in the 1980s and the '70s, they could have envisioned the Elon Musks of the world," he said. "So, corporate, yes, but we're in a different era, and, in order to make it feel contemporary, we needed to sort of address that idea that this whole thing is sort of the whim of this prodigy," Hawley added. "You get in a corporation as a 'diffused decision system' where nobody actually decides and it's nobody's fault." Hawley, who has also worked on The Unusuals and Legion, said that when he is hired to create a fresh adaptation of a movie or comic book, he studies the original to see how it makes him feel and why. "Then, I try to make you feel similar things while telling you a completely different story," he said. "When I look at that first [Alien] movie, it's not just a monster movie. It's about humanity trapped between the primordial, parasitic past and the AI future and they're both trying to kill us," Hawley added. "Even if I have 60 percent of the best action or horror on TV, I still have 40 percent of, 'What are we talking about?' I like that idea of picking a moment in Earth history, which is a bit like the Edison/Tesla/Westinghouse moment where everyone knows that electricity is the thing and everyone's fighting to control it." That's where the show -- and real-life society is now -- with artificial intelligence, he observed. "Everyone's trying to figure out how humanity transcends to the next level of artificial intelligence," Hawley said. "Is it enhancing the human body mechanically? Or, is it this trans-human idea and, so, that felt like a really interesting conversation to have and then bring the monsters into it because the show, and a lot of science-fiction, is really about the idea of, 'Does humanity deserve to survive?'" He emphasized that the space monsters aren't the only thing that people have to fear in the Alien universe. "To be able to bring in, not just the physical or the body horror, but sort of the moral horror of humanity, the things that we do to each other, was really a driving force," he added.
Tom's Guide
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
'I have great plans and ambitions': Noah Hawley's multi-season vision for 'Alien: Earth' has me counting down like it's Christmas
Ask literally anyone in my life what I talk about most, and I'd bet 100 facehuggers they'll say 'Alien.' Considering this is my favorite franchise and a full-blown obsession at this point, 'Alien: Earth' is naturally my most anticipated series of the year. The sci-fi horror show is fast approaching. We're now just under a month out and with the world premiere happening at San Diego Comic-Con next week, the marketing has kicked into high gear. That includes the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features 'Alien: Earth' on the cover and showrunner Noah Hawley sharing more about his vision for the series' future. He said (h/t GamesRadar Plus): 'With Legion, I had a three-act structure. I didn't know if that was going to take three seasons or five seasons, but I knew what the three major thoughts of the story were. And here, I feel like I have that as well." Hawley continued: 'We created it as a recurring series, and I have great plans and ambitions for it as such. On the film side, I've had some conversations with them. 'This is not a Kevin Feige Marvel Universe moment. I'm not saying that in success, that we shouldn't be coordinating or thinking big picture about that – the show has to be a hit before you can really have those conversations.' I didn't know my excitement could grow for 'Alien: Earth,' but here we are. The fact that Hawley has long-term plans already shows he has faith in the series, where it's headed, and how it can tie into the larger universe. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. In fact, when speaking with Vanity Fair about the possibility of it merging with the original source material, he stated, 'I do know that at a certain point, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is going to divert the Nostromo to that planet [LV-426].' You know, the charming little rock where curiosity gets you violently killed. Honestly, I feel like a kid counting down to Christmas. Only instead of presents, I'm waiting for Xenomorphs, corporate cover-ups, and even more otherworldly threats. If I could climb into a hypersleep pod and wake up on release day, I would. 'Alien: Earth' is set to premiere on FX on Hulu in the U.S. on August 12, and Disney Plus in the U.K on August 13. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
