Noah Hawley, a prolific author and tv showrunner, recently shared some details regarding his upcoming Alien series on FX. In an interview, Hawley talked about his new book Anthem as well as the possibility of a fifth and final season of his other FX series Fargo. He also discussed the themes that will be present in the Alien series, and how they relate to today's class and income inequalities.
In the past few years, Hawley has become one of the most interesting writers working in television. First, he managed to do the seemingly impossible: create an anthology TV show out of the 1995 Coen brothers movie Fargo. In all four seasons of the show, Hawley has managed to replicate the mythos of the Coens' dark-comedy while also adding to the established story universe. Hawley is also responsible for the FX series Legion, which saw actor Dan Stevens portray the titular X-Men comic book character for three seasons. Despite the oversaturated superhero TV and movie landscape, Hawley managed to create a show that was wholeheartedly unique from any other comic book adaption on screen. From the show's timeless aesthetic and its willingness to dive into the surreal elements of its source material, Legion will hopefully be remembered as one of the strangest and most audacious comic book adaptations to date.
Now Hawley has a new show on the horizon with this Alien tv series. While he didn't go too much into the plot of the series, Hawley did share some interesting details regarding the show, the first being that this is not a Ripley story. Speaking to Vanity Fair, Hawley said, "She’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 spaceship. 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." So it looks like Sigourney Weaver won't be reprising her most famous role for this series. It's unlikely fans will see Ripley in live-action anytime soon, especially since Neill Blomkamp's ambitious fifth Alien movie seems to have been ejected into space. However, none of the Alien movies have been set on earth, unless you count Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, which you probably shouldn't. The idea of a xenomorph infestation in a large metropolis is pretty terrifying and means we could be looking at a full-scale alien invasion for this series.
Hawley also shared some details on the themes that will be present in his Alien show, most notably those related to inequality and class. "If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us?" Hawley told Vanity Fair. "There’s that great Sigourney Weaver line 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.'" This is pretty fitting for any installment of the Alien franchise. Corporate greed and exploitative labor have been big themes throughout the series.
In both the first film and James Cameron's action-packed sequel Aliens, the reoccurring corporation Weyland-Yutani constantly puts profits above human lives, even sacrificing the crewmembers of the Nostromo in the hopes of procuring an alien specimen. Wealth inequality has only become a larger topic of discussion since the original film came out in 1979. In many parts of the world, people are becoming more aware of just how much of a divide there is between rich and poor.
Furthermore, massive corporations have never been more powerful, essentially holding sway over how our species communicate and interact with one another. Like a lot of good sci-fi, it sounds like Hawley's Alien series will comment on the issues of today using a futuristic setting. However, we may have to wait a while to see Hawley's vision come to light.
The Alien series expected to begin shooting in spring, 2022.
Source: Vanity Fair