During a recent interview with KCRW’s The Business (via The Hollywood Reporter), creator Noah Hawley shared a new detail about FX’s Alien prequel series. He confirmed that the upcoming sci-fi drama spin-off will not be featuring any story elements from Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant movies.
Hawley explained his decision to omit the mythology that were established in the prequel films, revealing that he much prefers using the original first two installment’s “retro-futuristic technology.”
“Ridley and I have talked about this — and many, many elements of the show,” Hawley said. “For me, and for a lot of people, this ‘perfect life form’ — as it was described in the first film — is the product of millions of years of evolution that created this creature that may have existed for a million years out there in space. The idea that, on some level, it was a bioweapon created half an hour ago, that’s just inherently less useful to me.”
He continued, “And in terms of the mythology, what’s scary about this monster, is that when you look at those first two movies, you have this retro-futuristic technology. You have giant computer monitors, these weird keyboards . . . You have to make a choice. Am I doing that? Because in the prequels, Ridley made the technology thousands of years more advanced than the technology of Alien, which is supposed to take place in those movies’ future. There’s something about that that doesn’t really compute for me. I prefer the retro-futurism of the first two films. And so that’s the choice I’ve made — there’s no holograms. The convenience of that beautiful Apple store technology is not available to me.”
Who’s the cast of FX’s Alien series?
Described as the first-ever Alien story set on Earth, the untitled Alien series is written and directed by Hawley. The series stars Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Sydney Chandler as a meta-human Wendy, Alex Lawther as soldier CJ, Kit Young as Tootles, Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, Essie Davis as Dame Silvia, Adarsh Gourav as Slightly, David Rysdahl, and Moe Bar-El.
Further details about its plot are still being kept under wraps, but it was reportedly developed as a prequel story set before the Sigourney Weaver-led movies. It is executive produced by Hawley, Scott, and Dana Gonzales, with Chris Lowenstein producing.
Hawley previously confirmed that the series will explore the more grounded aspects of the franchise. The director also touched on the inclusion of Weyland-Yutani — the massive corporation that’s found in nearly every Alien property — and how he plans to deliver a series that both captures the horror-action aspect of the Alien franchise and explores other themes established in the world.
