Noah Hawley says ‘Prometheus’ isn’t ‘useful’ for ‘Alien’ prequel – The Hollywood Reporter

Alien: Covenant

Image source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Emmy Award winner Noah Hawley teases the highly anticipated FX thriller alien Prequel series.

the Fargo The showrunner was recently interviewed by KCRW’s The Business, which she hosted Hollywood Reporter General Editor Kim Masters.

Interviewer Eric Deggans asked Hawley about him alienwhich takes place on Earth approximately 70 years in the future, before the feature film franchise.

Right out of the gate, Hawley demonstrated his understanding of the franchise by giving a fairly perfect description of what it is alien It is actually about: “The thing with alien is that it’s not just a great monster movie. It is the story of humanity trapped between its primitive, parasitic past and an artificially intelligent future, both of which are trying to kill us. So, there’s nowhere to go. It is truly a story of does humanity deserve to survive? Is there a way out of humanity’s arrogance in believing that we are no longer food and its arrogance in creating these AI beings that we think will do what we ask of them – but may eventually lose their minds – is there a way out?

In director Ridley Scott’s brilliant 1979 original film alienboth the titular primitive monster and two evil AI elements (the killer robot Ash and the constantly unhelpful supercomputer on board the ship) already exist.

“There’s a moment in the second movie (1986). Aliens) where Sigourney Weaver says, “I don’t know which species are worse—you don’t see them spoiling each other by a percentage.” I think there’s something really interesting about exploring humanity with all its good and evil, and then trying to recreate for the audience those feelings that you had while watching those first two films – which is not easy in a series that has had four subsequent films and one more. The movie will be released soon (Alien: Romulus), but I think I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Deggans asked Hawley if he was using the backstory presented in Scott’s newest film alien Prequel films – 2012 Prometheus And 2017 Alien: Covenant — which falls in the franchise’s timeline closer to Hawley’s special than those first two films. The films presented a controversial backstory in which aliens were manufactured as a biological weapon by a mysterious race called the Engineers.

“Ridley and I talked about this, and about many, many elements of the show,” Hawley says. “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 led to the creation of this creature that may have been around for a million years out there.” in the space. The idea that, on some level, it was a biological weapon that was created half an hour ago, that’s inherently less helpful to me. 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 these giant computer screens, these weird keyboards… you have to choose. Do I do that? Because in the Prequels, Ridley made technology thousands of years more advanced than his own alien, which is supposed to happen in the future of those films. There’s something about that that doesn’t really compute for me. I prefer the retro-futurism of the first two films. And this is the choice I made – no 3D images. The convenience of this beautiful Apple Store technology is not available to me.

Hawley alien The series halted production in August due to the SAG-AFTRA strike but is expected to resume filming soon in Thailand. The cast includes Essie Davis, Alex Luthor, Samuel Blinken, Sydney Chandler, Adarsh ​​Gourav, Timothy Olyphant, and David Ryssdal. while, Fargo Season 5 airs weekly on FX and Hulu.