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The Hindu
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
‘Alien: Earth' series premiere review: Noah Hawley's fresh engine of fear keeps the Xenomorph hungry
The first minutes of Noah Hawley's Alien: Earth are a strangely beautiful conjuring act carved from chrome and bone that feel merciless. This is a magic trick that works even as it shows you every card up its sleeve. We're back in the antiseptic corridors of a Weyland-Yutani vessel, with its white panels glowing like bone, consoles chattering ominously in green text, and crew members swapping casual complaints over breakfast. The USCSS Maginot isn't the Nostromo, but you can almost feel Hawley grinning ear-to-ear as he leans into the resemblance. Sixty minutes later, the old pas de deux between fragile humans and a universe that couldn't care less is back in motion, and the music is loud enough to drown out the sound of us being eaten alive by dread. Hawley has made a career out of respectful trespassing. Fargo treated the Coen Brothers' snow-swept noir as a state of mind, and Legion turned the superhero drama inside out until it resembled a lucid dream. With Alien: Earth, he repeats the move, absorbing Ridley Scott's methodical dread and James Cameron's kinetic bravado, then twisting them into a strange, disquieting new shape. The first two episodes are, in large part, a deliberate echo of Alien's beats, condensed and re-lit to a familiar lull before the real terror begins. Alien: Earth (English) Creator: Noah Hawey Cast: Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, Adarsh Gourav, Timothy Olyphant Episodes: 2 of 8 Runtime: 55-60 minutes Storyline: When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, Wendy and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet's greatest threat If the films have traditionally confined their horror to dark corridors and airlocks, Hawley expands the geography. The year is two ticks before Ripley's own misadventure, but Earth has already surrendered itself to corporate dominion. Five megacorporations divide the planet like a Monopoly board, extending their reach to the Moon and beyond. The sci-fi trappings only barely outpace our headlines, as the premise feels more and more like an inevitability. The inciting event of the Maginot limping home with live specimens in tow is staged with a mischievous reverence. Babou Ceesay's Morrow, a cyborg security officer with the morality of a man already half-machine, takes the Nostromo's sacrificial logic to a new extreme, crashing the ship into New Siam to preserve the prize. The Weyland-Yutani wreck lands in the lap of a rival: Prodigy, run by Samuel Blenkin's Boy Kavalier, a barefoot, silk-pyjama-clad CEO who fancies himself as a technocrat Peter Pan. From here, Hawley pivots into the grotesque. The xenomorph is rendered with a brutality the franchise hasn't mustered in decades, but it's only one monster among several. There's 'The Eye,' an ocular nightmare on tentacles that prefers its hosts to be eye sockets deep. A menagerie of other specimens are also teased, all with the kind of anatomical inventiveness that suggests the props department had no adult supervision. But Alien: Earth's most unsettling creation isn't even a beast at all. Sydney Chandler's Wendy, a sickly child whose consciousness is transplanted into a synthetic adult body, is a superhuman victim. She's a being of terrifying potential still thinking, impulsively, like a little girl. As the moral hinge of the series, Wendy embodies its questions about what's worth saving, and what's worth sacrificing, when the line between human and machine has been blurred to the point of abstraction. Hawley keeps circling themes of corporate amorality, the violence of exploitation, and the perverse elasticity of family, that the franchise has always pondered, but here they play out in an overtly capitalist theatre. Kavalier's 'Neverland' is a literal research island stocked with 'Lost Boys' (hybrids named Slightly, Tootles, Smee, Curly, Nibs) and run with a cheerfully sadistic paternalism. Timothy Olyphant's Kirsh, an android mentor with the air of a babysitter two hours past his shift, brings a welcome vein of dry humor. The production itself is as tactile and deliberate as the films that spawned it, with claustrophobic set designs, lingering dissolves, and an unpredictable editing rhythm that sometimes slips into Westworld-style opacity. When it works, the unease is eclipsing, and every angled corridor or hiss of steam seems to carry the hint of a shadow just out of sight. When it falters with overzealous needle drops, and a particularly strained recurring pop-culture reference, the spell wavers. What's remarkable, even this early, is how Hawley manages to both embalm and electrify the franchise. The callbacks to Alien are affectionate without being inert, and the expansion into new narrative territory feels organic. If the plotting occasionally sprawls, and the dialogue sometimes hammers themes that could be more subtle, the texture and ambition more than compensate. By the end of the second hour, it's hard not to see Alien: Earth as more than just a strong television debut, because it feels like a recalibration for the entire franchise. Last year's Alien: Romulus proved the old haunted-house-in-space formula still works when handled with care, and later this year Predator: Badlands will test whether these two cinematic apex predators can circle each other again without drifting into camp. With Alien: Earth, the franchise is learning to shed its weakest skins and grow in new, unpredictable directions. Through it all, H.R. Giger's biomechanical nightmare remains untouched by time. It's still elegant, still obscene, and still the most beautiful thing you'd never want to meet in a dark corridor. Alien: Earth is currently streaming on JioHotstar. New episodes drop every Wednesday
Business Insider
11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
'Alien: Earth' features a barefoot trillionaire. He echoes 'what's happening right now in the world,' says the actor who plays him.
Terrifying Xenomorphs, human-android hybrids, and a celebrity trillionaire who holds a mirror up to our world — " Alien: Earth" has it all. The show follows two warring companies, Weyland-Yutani and Prodigy Corp, as they scramble to catch the Xenomorph and a handful of other creatures after they crash-land on Earth. Prodigy Corp is led by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), who has found a way to transfer the consciousness of terminally ill children into synthetic adult bodies. He uses these human-androids (dubbed the "Lost Boys") to do his bidding and capture the Xenomorph. Noah Hawley, who created and wrote "Alien: Earth," spoke to Business Insider in London about how the show holds a mirror up to our world, saying, "I think it's pretty obvious that we're all living in the same world, and we are looking at this show with the same eyes." @eammonj94 Samuel Blenkin on how Alien: Earth mirrors our world through villainous CEOs… @FX Networks @Disney UK @disneyplusuk @Business Insider @Insider Life (📸:) #Alien #AlienEarth #TimothyOlyphant #SamuelBlenkin #BabouCeesay #NoahHawley #FX #Hulu #DisneyPlus #DisneyUK #journalist #Interview #TVinterview #Work #Horror #ScienceFiction #RidleyScott #JamesCameron #Xenomorph #Monsters #MovieMonsters #Movies #WhatToWatch #whattowatch #HorrorTok #MovieTok #Aliens #HRGiger ♬ original sound - Eammon Jacobs He said that because Weyland-Yutani was a "faceless corporate thing" where "the individual was powerless against the system" in the "Alien" movies, he needed to add something different in the TV show so audiences could "see the world they were living in." "What we have now is a system in which the individual has the most power. The one leader of the corporation is a celebrity and a trillionaire and everything, and then all of the other individuals are powerless in the face of the whim of the founder." Blenkin said that Kavalier makes "brutal, logical choices" because he believes he's doing what is best for humanity. "There are clear resonances there with what's happening right now in the world, and the joy of this character who is strange and has his own weird tendencies and that kind of thing. I get to inhabit that." Despite the commentary on our own world, Blenkin says his performance isn't inspired by anyone in particular because "the writing is taking care of those connections." He continued, "The best stories, especially a TV show, you want to come around the back door. You don't want to knock the audience over the head." "Alien: Earth" starts streaming on Hulu on August 12 in the United States and on August 13 on Disney+ in the United Kingdom.
Yahoo
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alien Earth star dodges suggestion that his character is inspired by a specific real-world tech bro: 'I let that take care of itself'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. One of Alien: Earth's antagonists isn't based on tech bros like Elon Musk The actor behind the character didn't seek inspiration from real-world examples He let series creator Noah Hawley's writing do the talking One of Alien: Earth's stars has denied that specific examples of real-life tech bros inspired the duplicitous character he portrays in the FX TV Original. Speaking to TechRadar, Samuel Blenkin, who plays Boy Kavalier in the sci-fi horror franchise's first-ever TV project, said he simply relied on how the character had been written. For the uninitiated: Boy Kavalier is the 20-something CEO and founder of Prodigy Corporation. One of five megacorporations that essentially rule planet Earth in the Alien universe, Prodigy is at the forefront of unlocking human immortality via its Hybrid program – an experimental procedure that transfers the consciousness of a human child into an artificial adult body. However, not long after Prodigy successfully creates six Hybrids, the USCSS Maginot – a deep-space research vessel owned by Weyland-Yutani, one of Prodigy's rivals and the Alien franchise's most famous multinational – crashes into Prodigy City. Upon discovering that the Maginot was transporting five dangerous alien lifeforms, including one of the franchise's iconic Xenomorphs, to Weyland-Yutani, Kavalier takes ownership of the potentially lethal extra-terrestrials for experimental purposes. Anyone who's seen an Alien movie – or even a Jurassic Park one – knows that playing with things you don't fully understand is a recipe for disaster. Regardless of the consequences, though, the arrogant and so-called 'boy genius' Kavalier is hell-bent on unearthing the bioweapons' secrets in the Hulu and Disney+ TV Original. If Kavalier's self-important and rebellious personality seems familiar, it might be that you're reminded of supposed 'tech revolutionaries' who, like Kavalier, claim their technological advancements are for humanity's benefit in spite of concerns about their use. Need examples? How about the uncanny valley nature of Elon Musk's Tesla Bots, which some observers have likened to the Terminators from the James Cameron-created dystopian sci-fi franchise? What about artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, that use the OpenAI software co-created by Sam Altman? Or, take a look at Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's all-consuming quest to make the Metaverse a real thing. For what it's worth, Blenkin rejected – or, rather, strongly sidestepped – the notion that any or all of the above, or any other tech guru, influenced his portrayal of Kavalier. Nevertheless, he also indicated that projects penned by series creator Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) are often a commentary on people who've been in the public eye for the last few years, and/or the ever-changing nature of our own world. In Blenkin's view, then, it's possible that characters in the franchise's inaugural TV show might be crudely influenced by certain individuals who exist right now. "I think that Noah did such a good job of painting a vivid character," Blenkin told me. "Like all of Noah's characters, they clearly have strands of the stuff that we're facing today and what's resonant right now. "But what I love is that he [Kavalier] has very specific mannerisms and obsessions," Blenkin continued. "[He has] this Peter Pan obsession, he never wear shoes or socks, he has a little ball he throws about, his attention span is lacking, and he has an obsession with childhood and childhood innocence equating with the kind of genius [he is] and seeing himself as a boy who never grew up. "He's able to break rules and not be held to the same account as an adult with that kind of morality," he added. "Everything that was written about him was so vivid on the page, so I kind of let the rest of the character threads take care of themselves." Alien: Earth launches with a two-episode premiere on Hulu (US) on August 12 and Disney+ (internationally) on August 13. Before it arrives, read my review of Alien: Earth or get the lowdown on the series our dedicated guide on Alien: Earth. You might also like Alien: Earth's official trailer is here – and the sci-fi horror series' xenomorph isn't the only frightening creature that'll need to be avoided Predator: Badlands' official trailer confirms the Alien and Predator reunion I've been waiting for Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard has correctly guessed the outline of the popular Netflix show's live-action spin-off – and it's 'like David Lynch's Twin Peaks' Solve the daily Crossword
Tom's Guide
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
‘Alien Earth' review: Hulu's sci-fi blockbuster is the best new show of the year
Truth be told, I approached 'Alien: Earth' with a degree of skepticism. That's not due to a lack of love for the iconic sci-fi universe. As a lifelong 'Alien' superfan, introduced to the Xenomorph at an impressionable (and far too young) age, my cautious approach was born out of concern as to how the cinematic world of 'Alien' would translate to the small screen. Turns out, I needn't have worried. In a word, 'Alien: Earth' is a triumph. After streaming the first six episodes, the show has already delivered on its promise to bring the thrills, chills and fear of its big-screen siblings to the TV world, and then some. Creator Noah Hawley has crafted an FX/Hulu original that serves as both a fantastic extension of the universe and a bold new frontier. Most impressively, 'Earth' isn't just an 'Alien' movie shrunk down and stretched across eight chapters. Its overall scale doesn't quite match its blockbuster counterpart, but the expansion of the 'Alien' world is guaranteed to delight longtime fans and draw in even those less familiar with this dark (but rich) universe of Xenomorphs and nefarious mega corporations. Beyond the rudimentary elevator pitch of 'the first 'Alien' TV show,' there is so much about 'Alien: Earth' worth praising, from the spectacular visual design (some ropey CGI aside) to a cast of well-written, and often complex, characters. And I can't neglect to call out the phenomenal pacing either. 'Alien: Earth' is pretty much the television show of my dreams. 'Alien: Earth' starts, as all good 'Alien' stories should, with a doomed crew of space explorers encountering the world's most lethal killer, and things immediately going south. But this time, the goal isn't to prevent the Xenomorph from finding its way back to Earth; it's too late for that. The space vessel Maginot — which fans will be delighted to know is a dead ringer for the Nostromo — is already on a collision course with our big blue planet. This spaceship, containing not just a clutch of Xenos eggs but also several other equally deadly extraterrestrial creatures, crash-lands in territory owned by Prodigy, one of five megacorporations that control the now resource-depleted Earth. And the ship's owner, another of the megacorps, Weyland-Yutani, very much wants it back. Alien eggs and all. This is where 'Alien: Earth' sets itself apart from the numerous Xenomorph-focused films before it. As a TV show, it has a greater ability to expand on the sci-fi universe and explore the state of this grim vision of the future. While you might come to see an Alien burst from the chest of an unfortunate victim, you'll likely stay for the highly engaging corporate pokliticing. The machinations of powerful and morally bankrupt businesses are hardly a new theme for 'Alien,' but 'Earth' has the time to truly develop this plot strand, making it so much more than a mere aside to the terror inflicted by the tooth-tongued creature on the poster. The excellent performance from Samuel Blenkin as Prodigy CEO Boy Kavalier goes some way to make the corporate-focused scenes, where the Alien isn't in the spotlight, just as compelling and unsettling. Trillion-dollar CEOs performing ethically questionable experiments in the name of fattening their bottom line is just one facet of 'Alien: Earth.' Ironically, humanity is found in the show's cast of (mostly) synthetic protagonists. The first episode introduces us to Marcy, a young girl dying of terminal cancer. She becomes the first human to have their consciousness transferred into a synthetic body, reborn as Wendy (Sydney Chandler). The 'Peter Pan' reference is intentional and pointed out a lot. There's also a surprisingly large amount of 'Ice Age 4' in the show's first two installments. Wendy is the first, but not the last, sick child to be given a new life via a white-blooded body, and soon, Prodigy has created a small family of former humans now synthetic. Another of the 'Alien' series' biggest questions is what it means to be human, and 'Alien: Earth' mines this territory more than any of the theatrical movies. It might even labor the point a little too much. Chandler herself is a fantastic lead. Wendy is a complex role, a child's mind stuffed inside a powerful robot body, and the actress brings a youthful naivety to the role, which offers viewers something to cling to in such a brutal setting. Alex Lawther plays her brother, a Prodigy worker and combat medic; their relationship is the show's beating (human) heart. The two actors noted their closeness on set during a Q&A event at the European premiere (which Tom's Guide attended), and it shows on screen. Greater star power comes in the form of Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Wendy's synthetic guardian. While Olyphant brings a necessary coolness to the unfeeling figure, it's a character archetype we've seen across the 'Alien' movies. So, yet another synthetic with grey motivations, feels routine and Olyphant has less to do than expected. The show's breakout star is likely to be Samuel Blenkin, who plays Morrow, a Weyland-Yutani cyborg (different from a synthetic, the opening credits give a quick explainer). Morrow is intensely threatening in stature and capable of manipulating the hybrid children as he seeks to reclaim the Alien artifacts that he views as his 'life's works.' He's more than a tough enforcer; we're also drip-fed clues that point to a tragic backstory. Morrow is also the star of one of the show's best very episodes (of the six seen for review), an extended flashback to the Maginot right before the crash that brought the Xenos to Earth. It plays out like an entire 'Alien' movie delivered in a single, adrenaline-spiking hour. OK, I'm aware that at this point, I've said very little about the Xenomorph in all this. Fans worried that the black-domed creature has been sidelined, fear not. There's a generous scoop of the Alien present throughout the show. Right from the drop, it's as deadly as ever. Much like last year's big-screen 'Alien: Romulus,' 'Earth' works hard to establish the Xenomorph as a serious threat. We see the savage intergalactic animal perform some truly horrific acts of violence, including a creative scene where one rips through a squad of soldiers while the camera focuses on Morrow's grim expression. We only see the blood-drenched aftermath, but it's chilling stuff. To add to the fear factor, 'Alien: Earth' delivers new creatures of nightmare, including a tentacle-creation that latches onto the eyes of its victim and takes over their mind. It's skin-crawling in the best way. And I've not even covered the various mutant insects on display, too. Rest assured, viewers simply looking for sweat-inducing scenes as doomed victims attempt to survive against a shrieking Xenomorph will be more than pleased with what's on offer. And I should also give a shout-out to the show's use of practical suits in many of these scenes. You can have all the expensive computer effects in the world, but sometimes you just can't beat a man in a rubber costume. 'Alien' movies typically ratchet up the tension until an explosion of chaos in the third act, but as a TV show, 'Earth' takes on a different structure. It thrives on moments of intensity, before dishing out meaty story beats between the numerous high-octane scenes. It helps to keep 'Alien: Earth' well-paced throughout, and viewers seeking Xenomorph carnage above all will be pleased to know you're never far from the next stomach-turning moment of violence. 'Alien: Earth' absolutely nails the look of the franchise. Its vision of the far future is grim, grotty and humid enough that you can see the cast sweating in almost every scene (the shooting location of Bangkok may be responsible for all the perspiration on display). While most of the show is set within a high-tech Prodigy compound, we also get to spend a generous amount of time on the Maginot. As noted, this spaceship is practically the Nostromo from 1979's 'Alien' under a different name. I felt jealous of the show's cast, such was my eagerness to leap onto these sets and explore every inch for myself. Much of the design aesthetic is inspired by the industrial sci-fi that dominated the original 'Alien' movies, but the more modern look of later efforts like 2012's 'Prometheus' is also present in various high-level boardroom scenes. This creates a nice contrast and is a not-so-subtle way of displaying the disparity in wealth between corporate executives and the average workers forced to come face-to-face with Xenomorphs in the name of profit. Because the vast majority of 'Alien: Earth' looks so good, and is so faithful to the design philosophy of the franchise, the moments where it doesn't stand out all the more. Green scenes are mostly kept to a minimum, with lots of physical sets in use, but one critical character beat barely connects because it's extremely obvious the actor is performing their lines not in a real location but instead in front of a vast green (or maybe blue) canvas. 'Alien: Earth' is better than even my most optimistic hopes. It's a show created with clear reverence to the source material — even if the lore implications of Xenos arriving on Earth two years before 'Alien' muddy the waters — and it spins an intriguing sci-fi story that asks some big questions. It's packed with moments that had my eyes glued to the screen, and some of the most wince-inducing kills in the 'Alien' canon to date, which is quite some achievement. Crucially, despite its name, it's not a show defined by the Xenomorph. Yes, the lethal creature is a vital component, but even in the stretches when there's no Aliens on screen, the show remains gripping thanks to strong performances across the cast and a well-paced narrative that escalates with each episode. I can't wait to see how it comes to an end. 'Alien: Earth' isn't just the clear frontrunner for my favorite TV show of 2025 so far (though this caveat is largely unnecessary, I can't see anything surpassing it), but one of the best pieces of 'Alien' media ever made. And that's the highest praise a fan like me can dish out.
Geek Tyrant
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
ALIEN: EARTH Video Teases Mysterious Link Between New Character and Franchise Legacy — GeekTyrant
Alien: Earth is just around the corner, and fans of the Alien universe are about to dive into a terrifying new chapter that connects back to one of the biggest power players in the franchise… Weyland-Yutani. A new promo video just dropped, and it puts the spotlight on one of the series' most intriguing new characters, a corporate leader with a wild agenda that could shake up everything we thought we knew. Set years before the events of Alien , the upcoming FX series explores the early days of the corporate arms race that would shape the future of humanity. While Alien introduced Weyland-Yutani as the shadowy force pulling the strings from behind the scenes, Alien: Earth will widen the scope to show the company fighting for dominance against other hungry players like Lynch, Dynamic, Threshold, and Prodigy. Prodigy is led by the enigmatic and eccentric Boy Kavalier, played by Samuel Blenkin, and this video gives us a taste of what to expect form the character. In the teaser, Kavalier addresses the competition: 'I'd be lying if I said I wasn't aware of Weyland-Yutani. Everyone in this game is. But I don't emulate them. I don't envy them. I don't fear them. I think they're playing catch-up.' That's a bold claim in a universe where Weyland-Yutani has always played god with human lives, but Kavalier might have something to back it up. Prodigy's breakthrough is wild as they're transferring human consciousness into synthetics, essentially creating a new form of sentient life. A catastrophic crash near Prodigy City brings chaos and horror, as alien monsters are unleashed into the world. That's when we meet Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, the first human-synthetic hybrid. She takes charge, leading other synthetics in a desperate hunt to eliminate the alien threat. But this wouldn't be an Alien story without a deadly twist — there's a Xenomorph in the mix, and it's not going down without taking a few heads with it. Kavalier's motives also remain murky. While Wendy and the others fight to survive, he seems more interested in capturing the alien than saving his creations. That obsession could spell doom for everyone involved. Alongside Blenkin and Chandler, Alien: Earth features a solid cast including Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Alex Lawther as CJ, Lily Newmark as Nibs, and Essie Davis as Dame Silva. The series is created by Noah Hawley, with Ridley Scott producing. Alien: Earth premieres with its first two episodes on FX and Hulu on August 12.
