Noah Hawley speaks at Austin Film Festival

[Nightmare Asylum]

The creator behind FX's "Fargo" series and the trippy Marvel TV show "Legion" recently appeared on a panel at the Austin Film Festival, attended by our own Ryan Scott, and discussed his small-screen approach to the franchise, which will include some remixing of what fans expect from an "Alien" project.

Hawley broke down the challenge of bringing what made "Alien" great into the television arena, and it required some adjusting. He explained:

"Look, a two-hour movie, you can set it up and then it's just about, 'Are they going to survive?' But if you're making a series, 'Are they going to survive?', you can't sustain it. Even if you have 60% of the best action-horror on television, you still have 40% of 'What are we talking about?'"

Hawley recalled some early conversations during development of the series that helped shape what the "Alien" show would become. The filmmaker said, "I had some conversations early on with Peter Rice, who used to run all of television at Fox and then the first couple of years at Disney, where it was like, 'The thing with Alien is, it's always trapped in a spaceship, trapped in a prison. What if it wasn't that?'"

Instead, Hawley will be bringing the xenomorphs to Earth, and it will explore that moment in Earth's history. As he explained, "What is this moment on Earth, technology-wise? And where are we? And the question science-fiction always tends to ask is, does humanity deserve to survive? So that seems like a really interesting question to continue to explore."

That will include a bit of exploration into AI, which has also always been prominent in "Alien" movies, thanks to the presence of extremely advanced androids like Ash (Ian Holm), who actually gave the original "Alien" one of its most surprising twists. Hawley confirmed that reveal was a key moment that inspired his "Alien" series.

But since this is an "Alien" series, what about the xenomorphs themselves? What can we expect from their presence? Apparently, that will be refreshed a bit too.

During the panel, Hawley recalled that familiar formula that always ends up in "Alien" movies at some point:

"And then it always mimics the life cycle of the creature, right? Which is egg, slow, Facehugger, starts to get faster — you know what I mean? And of course, that's great for a horror movie to build that way. So I found a way to kind of innovate around that structure and play with it."

https://www.slashfilm.com/1432035/noah-hawley-alien-tv-series-refresh-xenomorph-life-cycle/

[BlueMarsalis79]

Whole lot of nothing statement.

[SiL]

Every word about this project somehow still manages to interest me less and less.

[Thatguy2068]

Every word about this project somehow still manages to interest me less and less.

Same, which is a shame because I did had high hopes for this

[Ingwar]

I personally cannot wait for it. Same with Blade Runner. Just give them a chance.

[TheBATMAN]

Im not sure I agree with his views. I think a survival horror scenario done right can be played out over 10 hours of TV.

[BenditlikeBeckum]

I always thought Fargo was a comedy. What happened?
Why was this guy "THE GUY" for the job out of all great TV directors?
Is Fargo the best tv show on planet earth?

[[cancerblack]]

More of a crime thriller with surreal and comedic elements. And it's pretty good for the most part.

I still think he's an absolutely bizarre choice for Alien though.

[Ingwar]

I still think we should give him a go. You never know.

[littlesprout]

'The thing with Alien is, it's always trapped in a spaceship, trapped in a prison. What if it wasn't that?'"

Instead, Hawley will be bringing the xenomorphs to Earth, and it will explore that moment in Earth's history. As he explained, "What is this moment on Earth, technology-wise? And where are we? And the question science-fiction always tends to ask is, does humanity deserve to survive? So that seems like a really interesting question to continue to explore."

I find it comical that they're trying to talk as if the Alien always being trapped in a spaceship or a prison is a stale recipe and yet proceed to act like they're asking all of these philosophical questions "where is Earth at technology wise and yada yada...we're going to bring the Alien to Earth look at how innovative we are."

Based on how this is being described I'm willing to bet the house this thing will be botched and further dig the hole in the ground for the Alien franchise.

Seems like there are some pompous a******* working on this who think they know best and are taking a progressive approach.

RIP Chappy

[SiL]

I don't like the direction this is going but complaining about an Alien project being progressive is dumb as bricks.

[[cancerblack]]

Yeah he kinda snatches defeat from the jaws of victory with the last bit, as far as agreeing with him goes.

[BlueMarsalis79]

More of a crime thriller with surreal and comedic elements. And it's pretty good for the most part.

I still think he's an absolutely bizarre choice for Alien though.

An interesting choice imo.

[SiL]

Yeah he kinda snatches defeat from the jaws of victory with the last bit, as far as agreeing with him goes.

Unless he means they think they're being progressive in terms of rejuvenating the series but are actually going backwards.

Which it be @littlesprout?

[Thatguy2068]

'The thing with Alien is, it's always trapped in a spaceship, trapped in a prison. What if it wasn't that?'"

Instead, Hawley will be bringing the xenomorphs to Earth, and it will explore that moment in Earth's history. As he explained, "What is this moment on Earth, technology-wise? And where are we? And the question science-fiction always tends to ask is, does humanity deserve to survive? So that seems like a really interesting question to continue to explore."

I find it comical that they're trying to talk as if the Alien always being trapped in a spaceship or a prison is a stale recipe and yet proceed to act like they're asking all of these philosophical questions "where is Earth at technology wise and yada yada...we're going to bring the Alien to Earth look at how innovative we are."

Based on how this is being described I'm willing to bet the house this thing will be botched and further dig the hole in the ground for the Alien franchise.

Seems like there are some pompous a******* working on this who think they know best and are taking a progressive approach.

RIP Chappy

It won't dig a hole in the ground if it isn't in your headcanon