Alien TV Series From Noah Hawley and Ridley Scott CONFIRMED

[Kradan]

Spoiler

[close]

Spoiler

[close]

[Nightmare Asylum]

Maybe that's because Ridley has already folded the third prequel into this series.

From what we've seen, this is going to be 100% up Scott's street anyway.

Given the overall aesthetic of the promo imagery used back in December when the show was announced, my gut tells me that this implies hidden Engineer architecture on Earth; a la the hidden Forerunner tech and structures on Earth and other colonies in Halo.

[Evanus]

Yeah, I'm assuming we're gonna get some engineer stuff now. Not sure how I feel about engineer architecture on earth, but then again it depends on how it's executed. Anyway, I'd be happy to see more engineer related things popping up.

[Nightmare Asylum]

Engineer stuff? Executed?

Ridley's "Space Jesus" concept from Prometheus confirmed.

[Evanus]

Make it happen Disney! 

[Nukiemorph]

Maybe that's because Ridley has already folded the third prequel into this series.

From what we've seen, this is going to be 100% up Scott's street anyway.

In the Behind the Lens interview, he says they're "Still in early stages of talking about it."

They're doing more than talking about it right now.

Gonna frame this whole post and look at it every morning until we get more news.

[Nightmare Asylum]

Found another recent mention of this series Hawley in a TV Director Roundtable that Hollywood Reporter hosted:

How about you, Noah? What's the call you haven't yet gotten but hope to soon?

HAWLEY Well, I've gotten a lot of calls, and the real question is, are you sure that you want me to do this? Because what I'm interested in is taking the story where it wants to go or exploring the medium of film or TV or fiction. We are commercial artists, right? So we have this process we have to go through, which is the art process and the commercial process. And if the network or the studio can ask you to be more commercial, you should be able to ask them to be more artistic, which is to say, none of us knows anything about what is going to work and what is not going to work. I'm going through this now. I'm doing this alien show for FX, and what's interesting to me about that [subject] is not necessarily what is interesting to everybody else. And I do a lot of reinventing, and I think what I'm good at is figuring out what a movie makes me feel and creating that feeling for other people. But I can't re-create what it makes you feel, you know what I mean? So, you get into a lot of those conversations where it's clear that what I think Fargo is or Legion is or Star Trek is is not necessarily the movie that you saw, which is always an interesting part of the process.

And that can get messy ...

HAWLEY I've found with the franchise stuff, which I've flirted with, is that people don't have a good sense of humor about that stuff the way they do when there is less money involved. (Laughter.) The more money, the more there's a brand, the less like, "Oh yeah, that would be ridiculous, we should definitely do that." That is not a conversation that you tend to have. So yeah, I'm trying to figure out, like, is it worth pushing that rock up the hill, or is it better to just try to do things that are less important to the companies?

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/lena-dunham-noah-hawley-steven-canals-tv-director-roundtable-1234964686/

[skhellter]

sounds like ridley's been saying his ideas suck.

[Kimarhi]

I'd go right back at Ridley.

[Nightmare Asylum]

Maybe there will be enough creative tension between all parties involved to yield another Alien 3-style fascinating conundrum?

[Kimarhi]

You can read that statement all kinds of ways but my paranoid mind made me think they were trying to develop the Alien series without the Alien............again.

[Nightmare Asylum]

You can read that statement all kinds of ways but my paranoid mind made me think they were trying to develop the Alien series without the Alien............again.

I don't think that's the case, since this is the imagery they used when they announced the show:



What I personally took from Hawley's words there is just some more general comments about the nature of working within an established brand (which he's done twice over now, with Fargo and Legion's connection to the X-Men brand) and the restrictions that come along with that, and deciding when and how to really "push back" against the general expectations in order to shake it up a bit and do something new while facing off resistance from the higher ups to stick to the status quo.

[David Weyland]

It's funny how in a sense the end of Covenant is a kind of narrative insurance policy for Ridley's ideas:
If Film did well, on it quickly goes-Film did bad, well at least the story arc will be unresolved; staking out it's vision that even if sidelined, eventually will have to be addressed
If they sideline the prequel arc and focus on something else or do something in mixing up the canon ie. That Bloomkamp idea- David and his antics aboard the Covenant will cast an unresolved shadow over moving things forward, hopefully the tv series interweaves and counterpoints the prequels at the very least rather than ignores.
Wouldn't want new creative ideas to be inhibited but can understand if Ridley has a vision he wants to protect and finish

[Kimarhi]

There definitely needs to be balance. 


I get so tired of the retreads of the first two movies, drawing from the first two films tropes, using the same factions, revisiting the same locations, answering questions nobody gave a damn about as a main selling point. 

But they are so familiar to the franchise you can't just abandon them either. 

That balance is tough.  I'd expand on known factions and locations and introduce others that make sense within the narrative.  But PLZ no more Hadley's Hope or Acheron stories, for the love of god.

I also don't like taking the franchise in some crazy ass direction.  As much as White showed the positive potential of the black goo, I still think that is going to be the most Marvel esque bullshit the franchise will ever be involved in and now it is in the series bones and will never leave without a total reboot.  NEED A SUPERVILLIAN FOR YOUR COMICS-BLACK GOO,  NEED TO MAKE THE ALIEN EVEN DEADLIER-BLACK GOO, NEED TO MAKE A HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENT-BLACK GOO.  Its that kind of shit that I totally wish was never introduced into the plot and its that kind of stuff that will not go away after it is introduced.  The BLACK GOO is more dangerous than the Aliens are.  I'm also totally against the engineer retcons.  15' tall biomechanical pilot species becomes a 10 tall blue bald dude who is seemingly just a wizened human.  I don't even know why it aggravates the f**k out of me it just does.

The writers/producers have to find the balance of moving forward from what is known, and not just haphazardly throwing a stick of new idea dynamite at the story for the lulz. 

[Nightmare Asylum]

And somehow manage to pull off whatever balance they're going for with an Earth setting, at that.

Though I do remain a firm supporter of the pathogen and Covenant!