Alien: Earth showrunner Noah Hawley spoke about the upcoming Alien FX series on the red carpet of the Emmys yesterday, where the writer had been nominated for 15 awards over the course of the series, including another 2 nominations in 2024.
While the timeline choice and decision to set the series on Earth has caused some contention among the fandom – the decision to set any Alien story on Earth is often seen as a detriment to Ripley’s entire arc in the main Alien films – the series creator is excited about the prospect. Talking to Deadline on the red carpet, Noah Hawley told the outlet that:
“It’s an epic production. There’s something about seeing a Xenomorph in the wilds of Earth with your own eyes. That is truly chilling to think of it moving here among us, and so I can’t tell you under what circumstances you’ll see that, but you’ll see it — and you’re going to lock your door that night.
Hawley also teased a little about the approach Alien: Earth would be taking with this incarnation of the Xenomorph’s design.
“What was really fun for me was to really engage with the creature, bring some of my own thoughts to its design while not touching the silhouette, because that’s sacrosanct. But some of the elements as we know, whatever the host is, informs what the final creature is. I just wanted to play around a little bit to make it as scary as it should be.”
Variety also spoke to Hawley while he was on the red carpet and grilled him about what we could expect from Alien: Earth.
“It delivers everything that a great ‘Alien’ movie delivers, and then there’s a whole other world to it. Because, of course, the movies are survival stories and that’s great for two hours, but if you’re coming to make 30, or 40, or 50 hours of it there’s got to be a larger dramatic story.”
When asked about the pressure he felt while adapting such an iconic piece of the cinematic landscape, Hawley revealed the scope of the series, explaining that it was the most expensive he’s worked on and that the series even shot with a nautical unit.
“It’s a huge production, probably double the budget of anything I’ve ever made. We’re filming in Thailand. We had a nautical unit at one point. It’s a big big endeavor. But I heard Denis Villeneuve say that he could never have made ‘Dune’ unless he’d made every other thing before ‘Dune,’ and I feel similarly. You’re just scaling the problems up, but you’ve solved them all before.”
Variety also asked if Hawley had spoken to Sir Ridley Scott or Sigourney Weaver about Alien: Earth and he confirmed he had spoken to both. When asked about whether they had given their blessing, Hawley elaborated that:
“As much as we’re building upon their work, the extended storytelling means that we can do something different with it.”
Elaborating further with IndieWire, Hawley talked about Scott had left him to his own devices while working on Alien: Earth and had respect Hawley’s creative vision.
“I talked to Ridley. His company, Scott Free, is a producer on the show. And you know, Ridley is the man. He’s the creator of this franchise, he’s come back to it later in his career. But you know, like the Coen brothers, he was very respectful of the fact that I seem to know what I’m doing, and I have my own take on it. That’s the thing with these films, is that they take on a life of their own. And at a certain point, you have to take a step back and let them be what they want to be.”
Noah Hawley at the Emmys (2024). Picture via Esquire.
The Hollywood Reporter also had the opportunity to catch up with Hawley, where he told them he was currently working away editing the episodes.
“I’m editing right now. I haven’t seen all of them yet, but we’re wrapped and it’s looking great. The cast is phenominal and you can’t go wrong with some Aliens. I’m very happy with how it turned out.”
Hawley was also asked about what route Alien: Earth would be taking with the realization of the Alien effects, something that has caused some concern due to the CG Alien in the recent teaser trailer.
“Mostly practical. I prefer that. Obviously there’s some CG, but I always want to feel it in the space and have the actors reacting to real things. I had a guy in a rubber suit. I had WETA working for me. It’s so exciting.”
Alien: Earth is expected to release on Hulu in 2025. Information about where and when it will see international release is not currently known. A teaser trailer for the series was unveiled in front of screenings of Alien: Romulus in the United States before being released online earlier this month. If you haven’t already, you can check that out here!
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Father reels off a bunch of levels when Vriess is putting his gun together, 39 being the highest.
39 levels? Seriously?
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Wow, thanks for the resource.
Love that the Auriga is apparently big enough for entire cities to be built in it. Surely does not look like this one bit when the characters wander through the ship... Yet another example of terrible writers having no sense of scale.
Or the same size.
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Absolutely not. A plothole is a glaring contradiction, non sequitur or deus ex machina in writing or worldbuilding. It is NOT a simple mystery or dead angle.
The legendary "Egg on Sulaco" is a fringe case. We can easily imagine an explanation, but currently none exists so it's a little plothole.
The fact there's a Juggernaut ship bombing a city with urns in Alien: Covenant and a Derelict ship in Alien containing eggs isn't a plothole, since it isn't even said anywhere it is the same ship. If you really like to be picky, the Juggernaut and the Derelict not only do not have the same cargo, they don't have the same SHAPE!
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(Yeah, I just took some Photobucket-damaged crap as a quick illustration.)
ChatGPT says:
It just feels like there's some very shifting goalposts on what is considered supposition and what's a "plot hole".
Like, the movies and TV show don't need to spoon-feed us every piece of information, we can infer things and draw conclusions. There are, like, trivially easy explanations for "why are there Aliens before David? If there are Aliens before David, what was he doing? If he was recreating the Alien (whether he knew it or not), how did he do it?"
For me, a plot hole is something that doesn't seem to make sense based on the source material. The moment it can be explained, it ceases to be a plot hole for me.
In 'Aliens', why did no one else check out the signal from the Derelict in the intervening 57 years, especially when there was a colony present for decades? The movie doesn't address this in the narrative (especially not in the theatrical cut, where the Jorden scenes are removed). Meta-textually, we know James Cameron's explanation even if the movie doesn't literally convey it - the director's cut shows the Derelict is damaged, but a viewer might not recognize the damage or put together the connection that the damage shut off the signal. Plot hole? James Cameron gives us the explanation outside of the film - plot hole closed.
You can interpret through subtext that David got the creation of the Alien wrong even if he doesn't know it - he goofs up the attribution of the author of his very favorite quote. He's not lying when he says it, but he's still wrong. That's part of the narrative: David gets creators wrong sometimes.
And yes, how David (re)created the Alien absolutely is in Covenant - you've said it yourself, he walks through his process. He doesn't need to know he's accidentally recreating something he had already existed (that's what Alien: Earth recontextualizes by having Aliens before David), but we do in fact know how he did it.
None what you proposed as explanations is in the narrative or suggested by the narrative. It's like the egg on the Sulaco - we can imagine plenty of plausible explanations for how the eggs got there and where they are, but none of it is in the film itself so it's all just supposition.
We know how he accidentally recreated it, he walks through the process in Covenant. You could even say that the reason his Alien looks different from the ones we see in other media is because he used slightly different ingredients, ratios, whatever you want.
For the record I don't think he was lying.
Even if he was lying, the novelization covers that when it says David had access to Engineer notes and recreated their work.
We'll have to agree to disagree on whether it's a plot hole.
People not knowing what a plot hole is doesn't make something not a plot hole.
The show doesn't need to go "and for clarity, here's what David, a character that doesn't exist yet in the timeline, is going to be doing X number of years in the future" (which is an unrealistic and frankly bizarre ask). The show also very likely isn't going to do a flashback 50 million years ago showing something else creating the Alien, David-style. I suspect the show might go "we found these eggs on Beta Gamma 6275", maybe even throw in "they were in a structure we carbon dated as being 50 million years old" if they really want to be cheeky, but frankly none of that is necessary and none of it would be a plot hole.
Like large swaths of the fandom and general audiences (if Reddit is to be believed) already believe David was recreating the Alien, the TV show would just be reinforcing what they already believe.
Saying there are Aliens pre-David is enough to recontextualise it, yes. It's still a plot hole if the hole in the logic isn't addressed, however.
They're both retcons, not plot holes/continuity gaffes.
But hey, maybe the show will present the source of its Aliens and it will all be a non-issue. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Not explaining the derelict isn't a plot hole because we know David can fly engineer ships and we know engineers spread across the galaxy. The logic of the story allows us to connect the dots that at some point between the two movies, his eggs end up in an Engineer ship on LV-426. Alien says nothing about how they got there, after all.
The derelict not being old isn't a plot hole because the derelict's age is neither known nor relevant to the plot. It looks old. Things that aren't old can look old. If Dallas had pulled out a DataStickTM and it said "this ship is thousands of years old!" and the story tells us this thing is reliable, then we have a plot hole.
Covenant said he made the Alien. If another film wants to say he didn't, it either needs to address where they actually came from, or at the least, clarify what David actually did, to close the hole in the logic created.
If it is, is it not a plot hole that Covenant doesn't address the origins of the eggs in 'Alien' or that the Derelict and its contents are presented as ancient? If not, why not? It's effectively the same thing.
Edit— let's say the TV show gives an "origin source" for the Aliens, something as simple as "we found these eggs in a forest on planet Whatever". Would that prevent it from being a plot hole, then?
If it doesn't, it still won't be a continuity error.
Like at the end of the day if we find out it's not an alternate continuity (I believe it won't be but I guess we'll see!), and we see Aliens pre-David, the show doesn't need to do an elaborate chain of custody to establish the origins of the Alien leading all the way to David (which is a very arbitrary moving-goalpost to clear - one that Covenant itself didn't clear with relation to 'Alien'). An Alien existing pre-David at all will be sufficient, it's not a "continuity error".
Edit— for the record, vast swaths of Aliens media (including the original movie!) don't address the original source of the eggs/Alien(s) in their stories, because by and large it doesn't matter. In fact I think Romulus would have done better to just have Aliens without bending over backwards to tie back to 'Alien' in ways that don't really hold up to a lot of scrutiny and feels like fan-service.
Bad faith arguments are the norm however.
He said it was "an option", not "the only possible explanation". Pull your head out.
If it establishes that Aliens existed before David, then that means David wasn't the sole/original creator. End of.
Covenant didn't address the apparent continuity error with 'Alien' that the Derelict and its contents weren't ancient - and how could it? 'Alien' hadn't happened yet in the timeline. We don't know what the deal is with 'Alien' because Covenant never references it one way or another. All we can do is infer that if the Alien is new (via David), then the Derelict must be new too since it's got a bunch of Alien eggs in it and they must be new.
Likewise, if Alien: Earth features Aliens pre-David, I'm not quite clear why the immediate conclusion would be "alternate continuity" and not "David was wrong".
Actually I think I do know why:
Seems a little like the copium you're accusing Ancient Aliens (lol) fans of huffing to deny that David is the creator...
Personally I'm saying it's an option and I'd like to find out more. Does being TV raise it above the level of the other extended media, or is it on equal footing? It's unclear.
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Also some people here think that Alien Earth is an alternate story to the main series, where did they get this idea?
And by "refusing to allow an alternate universe to exist" that's why they continue to publish old books with a big LEGENDS banner on them?
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