Spoiler alert! This story contains details of episode 5 of Alien: earth on fx.
Something may seem madly familiar in episode 5 of FX Stranger prequel.
This is because the spacecraft that ultimately blocks on Earth is a virtual carbon copy of Nostromo, the ship piloted by Ridley (Sigourney Weaver) and his crew in the film by Ridley Scott of 1979. The name of the episode – “In space, nobody …” – is even inspired by StrangerThe old slogan “in space, no one can hear you scream.”
Here, the creator Noah Hawley is thinking about the episode he wrote and produced. He calls him a mini-film, which is actually a flashback on the events that lead to what is happening in the August 12 pilot.
Deadlines this whole episode is like a tribute to the Nostromo.
Noah Hawley It is literally the same thing. We used the original plans. Most of the rooms, the bridge, the mess hall, the corridors, they are literally copied from the Nostromo. The cryo-chamber is larger, however, and the communication room is larger. The first thing you need to establish to translate something from the film on television is authenticity. And so he must feel as extraterrestrial. We must show the public, not only this extraterrestrial, but it is the extraterrestrial of Ridley Scott. It is that of James Cameron. This is like that early, retro futurism. So everyone is very oriented on what it is. The use of the emblematic ship was really important.
Deadline something that I really enjoyed, how you included suspended chains. And you asked someone to use a chain! I could never understand what purpose they served on the Nostromo.
Noah Hawley We have a lot of chains. I think on the set, they were not attached to anything. There was no ceiling there. They were suspended from anything. There are three main science fiction brands. There is Star Trek, Star Wars and Alien, and you never confuse them aesthetically for the other. And that’s what Alien is. If things are a little rusty, if they were dripping, or there is humidity … all this is super important for the feeling.
Deadline Do you have a nickname for the creeping eye globe?
Noah Hawley I call it eye fodder for any reason.
Deadline It is definitively a different species from extraterrestrials, right? Will the Eyme CE remain an important element of the series?
Noah Hawley Yeah. All these creatures are there to stay. The reason there is new creatures is because you cannot [give viewers today] The novelty of the xenomorph … You know, the egg, the embraced face is the worst thing you have ever seen. Now he falls. Okay, we are good. Now something bursts from your chest, then it measures 10 feet high. Thus, the only way to create this horrible booming discovery is with these new creatures. There is still so much to learn about each of them.
Deadline something fish appeared in these bottles of water in episode 5.
Noah Hawley You see what we call ticks and they don’t just drink your blood. They lay their eggs in your drinking water. You have seen all the creatures and now we will simply explore them more during the season.
Deadline so the character of Petrovich. He just wanted to end the mission and go home, right? Was it simple? Is that why he negotiated with the Kavalier boy?
Noah Hawley One of the big things about this first film is how these guys have groan how they were paid for by working for this company. Petrovich has abandoned 65 years of his life to do this mission. He says something about the insects laid in his wife’s eyes and he is clearly upset. He does not think he is paid enough for the Kavalier boy to hold out and make an offer to him. He thinks, great. I’m going to go home. I will be a rich man. What do I care who has these creatures? So there is certainly an element of greed that is not incompatible with the way people acted in Alien.
“In space, nobody …” season 1, episode 5. Babou Ceesay like Morrow. Patrick Brown / FX
Deadline Morrow is a synthetic, right? Because he has these Wolverine knife hands.
Noah Hawley It is a cyborg, so it is human with prosthetic appendages and perhaps also a neural link. He describes himself earlier in the season as the worst parts of a man.
Is the deadline Morrow a friend of extraterrestrials?
Noah Hawley No. I mean, he abandoned 65 years of his life. It is the work of his life. He’s not a friend for them. Its mission is to finish, which is to bring them back to his bosses. So that’s what he’s going to do.
Deadline therefore, in the final scene, we see the building of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Is there an emperor figure of the Palpatine type working there?
Noah Hawley No. What is incredible after seven extraterrestrial films is the little mythology on the way in which humanity is organized, life on earth, all this. So I had a lot of latitude to play. All we really know is that there was this Weyland-Yutani company, and they wanted these creatures quite badly. And so I made the choice to focus my story on a competing company. But I think that this idea of Weyland-Yutani is so essential to the identity of the foreigner, and I want to give the public this satisfaction to feel as if you saw some of who directs this place.
Deadline you just talked about the burning question of how you make a series on the extraterrestrial franchise. You build a mythology.
Noah Hawley Yeah, I think yes. I mean, it’s a real gift to have this franchise that is so legendary. What you need to know is that the first film concerns space truckers. They drive iron ore through the galaxy, and they are not paid enough and the hours are too long and whatever, then they are sent to this planet to do something. They do not understand what it is, and all these terrible things happen. And then during the films, you get a little more exhibition to which the strings, but it is always quite oblique. So yes, that was part of the reason I took the mission. There was so much to invent.
