In a new post to their Facebook page, the team over at Weta Workshop has uploaded a series of new concept artwork from artists Tahiwi Trenor-Hunt, Jerome Morris, Luke Hawker for Alien: Earth depicting the new iteration of the Xenomorph.
Four years ago, Wētā Workshop was approached by creator Noah Hawley to work on Alien Earth, the thrilling FX series in which a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on our planet in 2120, a couple of years before the events of Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic.
It was a rare, incredible privilege for us to be a part of the storytelling in this sci-fi universe, one that would see our design and manufacture teams spend thousands of hours helping bring it (and its scares) to life. We explored a wide range of briefs in collaboration with their team during the early conceptual phase that encompassed costume design, props, environments and vehicles.
As the project evolved, our focus shifted primarily to creature development, helping to bring Noah’s unique vision for this franchise to life. Much is brought to Earth in this imaginative new series, and we worked closely with Noah to conceptualise a menagerie of very deadly organisms, including two Xenomorphs. Almost a year was spent on design for this project before our manufacture team began crafting practical effects, bringing horror in new forms to terra firma.
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I wonder how many times you've had to explain that concept.
I don't know, WY was absolutely not portrayed as all knowing and all powerful in Aliens. Having the military being partly influenced though a few members by the company is very different from WY owning everything. The CMTM has great descriptions of that blurry line between corruption and overreach, it's much more believable there how it expands and explains away Aliens' reasonings.
Also - Burke has always been seen as middle management at best. Even if WY owned the marines - It's a military op first and foremost.
(WY owning everything kinda also gives Burke a better reasoning as to why he thinks he can smuggle newt and ripley past quarantine).
I don't care that much for the worldbuilding in Earth. But there's some wiggle room to fit things..
lack of FTL travel, tho..
The show specifically points out that the corporations have created institutions outside themselves to manage their conflicts. My point is just that I don't see why Colonial Administration in Aliens couldn't be one of them. It's true that AE disregards the prequel timeline, though - nobody denies that.
I didn't understand this. That something isn't mentioned isn't proof that it's not the case.
I'm a bit lost here. You correctly said that there can be entities within entities, and so a US within a UA. But Hawley can say that! In fact he does say that, in effect. The US exists! It's in the name of the Maginot!
Coming back to this: Actually, that's going a bit far. We don't strictly know what USCSS stands for in the Hawleyverse. But I see no reason it can't stand for United States etc etc etc
UA is neither here nor there. Five corporations running the world with no countries shows an incredibly superficial understanding of the films Hawley was supposedly connecting to.
I can't see why the words 'Colonial Administration' changes anything. Isn't the simple explanation that the corporations created it in the same way as the system of law we see them turning to in the show?
Sure. And Hawley can say the same, surely, when a corporation runs the Americas.
This has been discussed before, but not really seeing the problem with most of this. Companies often have more than one logo in circulation, and changeover between logos can mean multiple branding on products at once. Different sections of a company can have disagreements over who has authority. And Hadley's Hope was co-financed, so it's not an entirely internal affair. And if the 'US' prefix is supposed to be compatible with the existence of the 'United Americas', why is it not compatible with the AE lore?
Yep all that too.
And at the risk of going further off topic, the 'US' prefix used for the Nostromo, Sulaco, marines (along with the flag), oh and the Maginot.
Its not even just minutiae. There are big contradictions between the tv show and the first 2 films. The biggest being Hawley's decision to have the Earth run by corporations instead of nation-states. It doesn't fit with the first 2 films. Specifically, in Aliens, when they are discussing blowing up the colony, Burke and Ripley are arguing over who has jurisdiction over the mission - the Company or the military...But if the military is owned by the Company then what the hell are they even arguing?
Possibly. Though I would obviously believe I'm right. Professionals do what is requested of them by the director, or the director finds someone else.
I recently watched episode 5 again - and even when they don't focus on the awful face/ mouth, the shapes it's pulling just before it attacks Zaveri are just... to be generous - baffling.
Yeah!
Again, Scorched is just the original Giger design brought to life with modern technology. It's Big Chap adapted to 2025 FX.
Maybe they don't think it looks bad at all.
Like, not everyone is gonna have the same opinion on things.
Personally, except for a few terrible short focal shots, which are a matter of camera rather than of design or special effects, I find the creature in Alien: Earth perfectly serviceable. Maybe not the best Alien design, but certainly not the gigantic, catastrophic failure as described in other messages. I don't see what's the big deal with it, it's like we don't even look at the same photos, like we didn't even see the same show.
And you are free to think I am Entirely Wrong™, but understand people who think this way are a reality, that they are not all ignorant/stupid/in denial, and that there's a possibility that the creative team thought this way. At least try to include the existence of such paradigms in a corner of your own worldview.
It may be minutiae, but the logos show they aren't even really paying much attention to Alien and Aliens. And even more minutiae saying "you're not supposed to have a heavy meal before cryo" vs. "one more meal before bed". The first quote is more in line with The Last Supper, which "wasn't useful".
Give it a rest, it's its own continuity following only Alien and Aliens. By doing that, it's not messing with the main timeline.
They want to keep their jobs.
It was in one of the many KoK interviews when Dan explained why it was a film instead of a show. A show was the first idea, but he found out he wouldn't be able to work with anyone he worked before at Fox, and he feared the show folk wouldn't have greenlit the project.
Combine that with the Fede and Noah stuff, where they didn't communicate whatsoever, even though Fede tried, it all kinda hints at the two departments being absolutely separate.
And I complain about Earth's Alien design and execution a lot, but I have to say, that Earth was on again, off again production wise for so long.
I don't have the reported dates witheme right now, but I think that Earth started recording before Romulus was finished. So that's another reason why they couldn't use those superior suits.
But as you all saw. Nothing can help when the leader of the production has a "unique" take regarding aesthetic preferences.
Every single director could save on the concept art phase with just using the damn original suits. But they don't. Concept artists give them a plethora of designs and sometimes, they actively choose the worse option.
As we saw, most of the Alien was already decided when it came to Weta's realization. But the face was still passable. And then in the final 3D version, it was the ugly thing we know and loath. So Hawley must've demanded the uglier version. His taste, his decision. His final approval.
What's funny to me is how no one spoke up and said it looked bad. Everyone was so proud of that thing, they didn't even try to think of excuses for the realization.
More than anything else, this is the real issue. The right hand didn't know or care what the left hand was doing. The result is conflicting products, schizophrenic world building, and a lack of cohesion that takes the viewer out of the experience.
I keep thinking about how the final product would have been so much better if Dan, Fede and Hawley all got in a room and hashed out how their respective projects would fit in the timeline, compliment and enhance each other. Synergy.
Can you imagine for a second how cool it would have been for one of the new creatures in Alien Earth to also show up in Predator Badlands? The implication being that the Maginot visited that world prior. Besides being a treat for the fans, it would have built out the universe and made it more consistent.
Instead, Hawley blew off every attempt to coordinate because he was high off his own farts. Honestly, the production of Alien Earth is a masterclass in wasted potential and missed opportunities.
It would have been poorly shot in Earth anyways.
I agree that certain decisions behind the camera exacerbated how poorly the alien effects often came across (particularly in the second half of the series), but I also think the suit design itself is fundamentally not good. You'd need to have AVP-R level shadows to cover up those flaws.
The Earth team wouldn't know what to do with the Romulus suits. They'd just look like shit in the end.
The problem wasn't the special effects team or the designers. It's Noah and the director's.
Baby's first creature feature.
I can understand the trepidation before Romulus came out, but I think the design they were able to realise is as close to perfect an encapsulation of the original Giger aesthetic and practical sensibilities as anyone could reasonably hope for. I wouldn't mind if it became the default drone henceforth, leaving more resources to be allocated to any other creatures that a given story might require.
It reaches a point where you have to ask, why are they trying to reinvent the wheel?
The Romulus Alien design is great. I'm a big fan of Schorched & company.
It's funny. Back when we knew that Romulus and Earth were coming, I was dreading that assets might be shared between the two productions. I didn't want to see this be a case like the overlapping Star Wars productions where, in an effort to save time/money, props and set dressing and whatnot are shared between productions, leading to everything feeling pretty samey and not allowing for any real wiggle room for innovation in design choices on each production's own end. In retrospect, it might have been better to just let Earth leech off of the Romulus suits.
Image Link
When a behind-the-scenes shot looks better than finished ones, something has gone seriously wrong.
Whut happened?!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DQmvS0mCgSX/?igsh=MTYxeGg1djdyNWtkZg==
The head looks good in the concept art, and that makes me suspect that Hawley wanted lips like the big chap's, the Weta animatronic guys couldn't fit the lips mechanism in the original design and that's why the long face.
They should have gone with CGI.
The chest piece looks like a costume even in the art. Chunky arms, and looks like it's been made of leatherette pulled tight or something (it's the wrinkles, largely, that make it read that way). So that was a design not an execution issue too, imo.
What the hell happened...