Earth’ Creator Teases New Creatures and Characters at SDCC

Alien: Earth, the prequel spinoff series to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror franchise Alien, is nearing its August 12 premiere on FX and Hulu. On July 25, the series had its advance screening at the San Diego Comic-Con, where some lucky fans had their first look. Creator Noah Hawley and cast members made an appearance in Hall H to present the first episode of the series, and participated in a Q&A where they talked about the highly anticipated show and how it differs from the original movies. Alien: Earth will stand apart from previous installments in the Alien universe in numerous ways — including new creatures and characters.

As reported by Deadline, Hawley felt humbled to take on the challenge of making an Alien series, especially one that features such a drastic change of location — per its title, the show takes place on Earth. He talked about Scott’s original creation and how the early Alien films formed him, saying, “I have a relationship with the movies that I adapt at this point, and I do it from a place of love. These are movies that I loved [and] were very formative for me, and so it’s been such a joy when you walk onto that set the first time of the Maginot, which was built literally to the specifications of Ridley’s Nostromo, it really collapses time.”

Hawley is known for his genre-bending shows. Series like Fargo and Legion proved he’s not afraid to put his own spins on established material, despite the risks of tweaking a beloved legacy. Alien: Earth won’t be any different — Hawley’s goal was to make an impact and replicate the awe that audiences had with the original films. He’s just doing it by presenting new characters:

“The one feeling you can’t get back from watching the original Alien is the discovery of the life cycle of this creature, how it starts as an egg, and it ends up as a 10-foot-tall Xenomorph, and every step along the way is worse than the one before.

“So the only way to create that feeling was to introduce new characters, and you don’t know how they breed or what they eat, so you can get back to that feeling of genetic revulsion that we all felt watching Alien for the first time. Obviously, it was a huge responsibility to try to follow in those footsteps of H.R. [Giger] and Ridley [Scott] and that team, but, you know, I always like the risk.”

“The Character Study in This Thing Is So Phenomenal”

Timothy Olyphant was one of the stars that appeared on the panel in Hall H and talked about the series alongside co-stars Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, Sydney Chandler, and Alex Lawther. The Justified and Deadwood actor expressed his excitement for Alien: Earth, saying that, apart from the scares, the show is also based on “phenomenal character study” in the same fashion as Hawley’s Fargo:

“The things that wake you up in the middle of the night that you’re thinking about the next day are just scenes between two people, and they’re so riveting. In addition to all the thrills and the scares and the drama, the character study in this thing is so phenomenal.”

Hawley followed up and insisted that Alien: Earth is a drama more than anything. “Each hour has to build and have its horror elements, but my feeling is that it really just has to work as a drama, and then all the genre elements can be built on top of that. An Alien movie is a two-hour survival story, and a television show has to be more than that. It has to be a character journey, thematically rich and in which you really start to worry that I might kill some of these people, and I might. You’ll have to tune in and see.”

Source: Deadline