Back in March 2019 news broke that Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley had pitched an Alien mini-series to FX, but 20th Century Fox/Studio’s President of Production Emma Watts had wanted to keep Alien a theatrical series. Hawley has never talked about the series though. Until now.
In a new article with Observer, talking primarily about his stalled Star Trek project, Hawley spoke about what he was looking to achieve with his Alien mini-series. He doesn’t go into any story details, but he compares what he would have done with Alien with how he approached Legion.
“Alien is on some level the complete opposite of Star Trek. It’s sort of about humanity at its worst,” he said. “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.”
He continued: “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!’”
“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?”
How would you feel about a series set within the Aliens universe that put a much heavier focus on the character drama? Let us know down below! Thanks to The Playlist and The Perfect Organism Podcast for the news.
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Interesting to hear that he's still chatting about it from time to time, even if there isn't any narrative set. That confirms that Disney/20th is at least talking about things (probably more outside of this project as well), which we also know thanks to Hicks' vague scoop.
I saw the Noah Hawley video on the AVPGalaxy YouTube channel.
It presented some interesting ideas but I think the concerns brought up by judge death highlight some of the issues for any future Alien TV/Streaming project.
- Getting the audience to feel the same terror of the original "Alien" or the same rush from "Aliens" is very difficult even in a bigger budget movie.
In a TV series where the budget is much smaller, the task is even harder.
- I'm not saying it's impossible and I'd love to be proved wrong.
- Hawley says he wants to set up the story first without the aliens/Xenomorphs.
That could be kind of like "Another Life", the Katee Sackoff series on Netflix. That was successful enough to be renewed for another season.
Still, the expectations for that show were very low. A mediocre monster on a ship story was good enough.
- But put the Alien name on a new series and the expectations from some viewers will be; ' was it as good as "Aliens" or "Alien"?'
- That is a tough puzzle to solve.
(Ridley went another direction with some related ideas in "Raised by Wolves". It's not about "Alien" though.)
- Hawley mentioned "The Mandalorian". It's a western in space built around a cute baby Yoda. In terms of demographics, it's a family show.
Alien projects have never had such a wide appeal.
It's going to be tough to get Disney to agree to putting up the money for an Alien Disney+ TV series.
Yet I believe that eventually Disney will change their mind and a new Alien film will happen.
Same reason why so many fans want to get more colonial marines vs aliens movies and have more action scenes and tension and themes aliens did, instead of something new which I hold Alien 3 in high regards of doing.
So yes I like you think doing a story/movie of a different colony or ship etc getting infested by aliens and new charachters is the way to go.
I've really never understood the appeal of seeing an Aliens prequel. The colony is so much creepier for not seeing how it got that way.
Although maybe my opinion's just tainted by the fact I think so little of Newt's Tale and River of Pain.
The fact remains, the same story would probably be far more interesting if you just made it another colony.
No idea. I was in it for old naval stuff and the second season was an entirely different story.
The Terror has a historical basis to it that helps out with its oppressive atmosphere of danger. Much like the Chernobyl mini-series. I feel like fiction has to work twice as hard to get the same kind of powerful effect. (Although, granted, Terror did have the made-up thing with the bear monster.)
TC
And the original Colonial Marines comic.
I had a couple of things in the pipeline before the Mouse foiled me.
And in reference to a post a few posts up - The Terror was f**king great. Something like for Alien would be sweet if it hadn't already been done with The Terror.
Don't think so. But people can make it trend anyway they want. Had Olivia Schipp's story been able to progress beyond Echo, it would've gone into the a-bit-too-cosy relationship between the Company and USCM.
Still need to read Cold Forge. I think I put it on my Christmas wishlist this year.
But isn't that how the RPG is trending though?
I was watching The Expanse not so long ago and it occurred to me how well it matched up to a potential Alien series:
Three rival factions, Earth, Mars, and the Belters, could have been W-Y, Seegson and UPP. The protomolecule everyone is chasing could have been xenos. The alien stargate that appears could have been space jockey tech.
The Expanse has alien mystery and conflict, political intrigue, military action, and a solid sci-fi base.
Maybe Hawley missed the boat a long time ago. Maybe his Alien series has already been done; all it was missing was, you know, Aliens.
TC
It's not just that though.
Don't make an Alien TV show that doesn't have Aliens in it (not that that was what the dude was even saying anyway).
Tell Hadley's Hope getting overrun in a series? Or a similar situation.
Congratulations, you can put together engaging character drama and Alien fun times and avoid the Colonial Marines and work in some corporate shitf**kery.
If that is your kick boot up AvP or AvP2 and play the Alien campaign.
If there is no human characters to care about nobody will give a shit.
I wouldn't want a story of only WY that is of any length just because it HAS been played out over the years, even when they called it Bionational in the comics. But a story that involves different aspects of the universe functioning in tandem with other parts of it would be nice.
Lets say you have somebody in ICC quarantine trying to find out why WY is trying to be so elusive with shipments coming to and from a deep space black lab or something like that. Or the United Americas government catching wind of WY wrong doings and sending out an investigative team. WY can't be too powerful or Burke wouldnt even bother trying to pull a fast one on the Marines. He would've just ordered the Marines to take the facehuggers back and that would've been that. There are all kinds of different dynamics and power struggles that could be explored.
There are other aspects of the universe that can be expanded on. It doesn't have to just be WY and the Colonial Marines.
I'm glad this wasn't made.
If you make the movie/show about the alien you get a creature feature (which is not what you want)
People need to feel for characters when they get killed. Like the chills you get watching Hudson get dragged under the floor, or how bad you feel watching Lambert break down as certain death approaches her.
I would rather have 4 episodes introduce a setting and characters followed by 4 hours of terror. Rather than opening shot of random person getting eaten, or killed, or whatever.
I'm not sure I have enough fingers on my hands to count all the boring, cliched future space marine stories we've had over the years.
Yippie!
Oh, rolls eyes, I know. But they are closer than meaningless and the worn-out сorporation of stupidity. At least the Colonial Marines promise adventure and fun in contrast to the
boring,clichedevil corporation that is the perfect food for misanthropists and pathetic edgelords.The show about Colonial Marines will be better. Even without aliens, but with other situations, monsters, military conflicts. Anything would be better than a shitshow about the corporation. Even androids for next ten films.
"Weyland/Yutani"
Set during the time of the merger between the 2 companies. Tone: 80's corporate douche bags trying to sell each other out Robocop/Burke style, corporate esponiage, weapon divisions/androids.
Leads: a character based on Machinko Noguchi on the Yutani side. Starts the series as a cold, corporate suit, ends being one of the heroes.
On the Weyland side we have Charlize Theron returning as Vickers. She sent a highly advanced, prohibitively expensive to mass produce android replica of herself on the Prometheus mission. She is running the company and must reluctantly merge with Yutani for survival.
Plot/Story wise: I got nothing!
If only because that can so easily turn into 8 episodes of character drama with 2 hours of Alien-related content right in the last two episodes.
I don't know why people are taking that quote out of context. He very clearly says he would figure out the characters on their own merit to make them compelling and THEN throw the Xenos into the mix to dial that shit up to 11.
And I think Hawley totally has the right idea. Capitalism plus the greed, vanity, and power hunger of humanity could definitely be pulled out of the films, including Prometheus and Covenant. Thats a strong theme to work with.
Space explorers, ancient alien space archeologists/scientists, etc. Those aren't themes. Those are plot points and backdrop setups. BUT they could absolutely work with the themes of corporate capitalism and the expendability of humanity in the pursuit of wealth, power, technology all of which could culminate with discovering a Xenomorph which would represent a remarkable vessel that literally represents the pinnacle of science, violence, biological weaponry. The Xenos literally cannot thrive without destroying another species much like corporations are recklessly harming the world.
IMO the show could focus on a corporation, perhaps a subsidiary of Weyland Yutani or a rival that has also discovered a Xenomorph and the pursuit of the Xenomorph ends up being their undoing. It results in the destruction and death of their off-world colonies.
I'm thinking The Terror meets The Expanse.
But nothing Hawley's statement mentioned anything about the show not having Aliens.
His exact quote was as follows: "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!'"
The "Let's take the Alien out of the show" bit isn't at all him saying that there won't be Aliens; it is just step one in his creative process of figuring out the characters and and the narrative and making sure that they're interesting even when the Aliens aren't on screen.