Several months ago it was announced that Noah Hawley was developing an Alien series for FX. He will write, direct, and executive produce the show with original Alien director Ridley Scott who will executive produce.
The series is said to be “set not too far into our future,” and it’s the first Alien story set on Earth. We already knew the show would not involve Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ripley, but in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Hawley confirmed that saying, “It’s not a Ripley story.” He explained:
“[Ripley]’s one of the great characters of all time, and I think the story has been told pretty perfectly, and I don’t want to mess with it. It’s a story that’s set on Earth also. The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a space ship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.”
He goes on to reveal his series will tell a story about Inequality and talks about what he loved about the first two movies in the franchise:
“On some level it’s also a story about inequality. You know, one of the things that I love about the first movie is how ’70s a movie it is, and how it’s really this blue collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically Waiting for Godot. They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation. The second movie is such an ‘80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work.”
Hawley expands a bit on the inequality aspect of his series saying, “In mine, you’re also going to see the people who are sending them. So you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved.”
Hawley previously discussed his idea for the Alien TV series, saying:
“Alien is on some level the complete opposite of Star Trek. It’s sort of about humanity at its worst. There’s this moment in the second film when Sigourney says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t screw each other over for a percentage.’ If you look at what Aliens tends to be, it’s usually a trapped story – trapped in a ship, trapped in a prison, etc. And because the Alien has this life cycle to it, where it goes from egg, to chestburster, to xenomorph, there becomes a certain routine to it.
“I thought it would be interesting if you could expand. If you’re going to make something for television, you’ve got 10 hours let’s say. Even if you have a lot of action, like two hours, then you’re still going to have eight hours left. So what is the show about? That’s what I tried to talk to them about. As I did with Legion, the exercise is: Let’s take the superhero stuff out of the show and see if it’s still a great show. What’s the show about? Let’s take the Alien out of the show. What’s the show about? What are the themes, who are the characters and what is the human drama? Then we drop the Aliens back in and we go, ‘This is great. Not only is there great human drama, but there’s Aliens!’”
Hawley is a talented storyteller, he’s made some great shows already, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what kind of story he’ll bring to the Alien franchise.