{"id":27409,"date":"2025-09-17T08:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T08:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/27409\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T08:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T08:26:09","slug":"earth-boss-on-the-fx-shows-biggest-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/27409\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth’ Boss on the FX Show’s Biggest Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe xenomorph \u2014 as Alien: Earth<\/a> creator Noah Hawley<\/a> has rightly pointed out \u2014 is probably the greatest cinematic monster of all time. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe ink-black H.R. Giger-designed nightmare has long been characterized across numerous films by its ferocious and single-minded murderous instincts; a nearly unstoppable and certainly unknowable force of nature. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut what happens when a character seems to tame, and even train, a xenomorph?<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross the last couple episodes of Alien: Earth, the hybrid Wendy (Sydney <\/a>Chandler) has been raising and communicating with one of the Prodigy Corporation\u2019s alien captives, a xenomorph follows her commands \u2014 including to kill a bunch of Prodigy employees. <\/p>\n

\n\tWe asked Hawley about this bold addition to the franchise\u2019s canon and its thorny moral implications, along with some other burning questions we had after watching \u201cEmergence,\u201d the show\u2019s seventh debut season episode.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow we know from James Cameron\u2019s Aliens<\/a> that xenomorphs can communicate with each other. And if they can communicate, then the next iteration of that idea would be someone not of their species attempting to communicate with them. I assume that\u2019s the inspiration for Wendy\u2019s relationship with the xenomorph, but isn\u2019t it always a bit of a risk when you take the scary monster and turn them into something that seems domesticated? <\/p>\n

\n\tNOAH HAWLEY: There are a couple of things. Obviously, there\u2019s that moment in Cameron\u2019s film where the queen communicates with the drones. Is that a pheromone? Is it telekinetic? Is that a frequency we can\u2019t hear? We don\u2019t know, but that always seemed really interesting as something to explore. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe other thing, of course, is that an Alien movie is a two-hour survival story, and a television show has to be an ongoing series. You have to use the monsters in a different way. You certainly want to use them in the classic way, but you also have to figure out how to sustain having monsters in your show when the reality is they would kill everyone, or that you would kill them \u2014 and then that would be it. Bringing in other creatures allowed me to take the pressure off the xenomorphs to fill that void. <\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s also this idea of the hubris of people \u2014 that classic Jurassic Park thing of \u201cjust because you can do something doesn\u2019t mean you should.\u201d And the naivet\u00e9 of children, as well. There\u2019s a romanticism that can happen in kids. She wants to believe that it\u2019s not these creatures\u2019 fault, that they didn\u2019t ask to come here, and we shouldn\u2019t experiment on them the way that she\u2019s being experimented on. You can understand the rationale. But it doesn\u2019t make it safe to make friends with one.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the big question marks was if fans were going to go with this idea. I don\u2019t want her to have [a xenomorph as a] pet. But if it seems like an alliance has been struck, what are the interesting possibilities that we can pull out of that? And because this is a horror story, we have to assume that, ultimately, I wouldn\u2019t bet on this working out.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a philosophical debate within this, too. You\u2019ve talked about the famous Ripley line, how \u201cyou don\u2019t see [the aliens] fucking each over for a [monetary] percentage.\u201d That debate is playing out within the show as Wendy and her brother (Alex Lawther) discuss whether the aliens are more honorable than messy humans. Perhaps I\u2019m biased as I\u2019m on Team Human, but to me, it\u2019s our higher consciousness that makes us want to do better, and, on a day-to-day basis, we largely are better and do overcome our animal instincts, and that does make us better. But what are your feeling about this?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, they are predators. They are very intelligent. They\u2019re calculating. But they don\u2019t have ulterior motives. One of the most fascinating things to me about the Alien franchise is you never see them eat. None of their killing seems to be about food. They\u2019re really about reproducing. So they\u2019re kind of fascinating on that level. This all plays into this question driving the Wendy conversation. Humanity is a choice for her now, and the more she chooses to be human, the safer everyone will be. The more alienated and detached she feels from humanity and human morality \u2026 well, that\u2019s not good. So there is a question of whether she is going to become a monster, too. I think that core tension makes the show really interesting.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn that episode seven, Wendy becomes a killer as she orders the xenomorph to attack. I had that classic geek question of, \u201cHow sorry should we feel for the maintenance people on the Death Star?\u201d How is the audience supposed to feel about her decision? <\/p>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s not forget she\u2019s 12. My son is 12, and I\u2019m like, \u201cWhy is there an ice cream wrapper in the closet?\u201d There some things that they do where you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, you haven\u2019t thought a few steps ahead here.\u201d There are some executive function issues going on. I don\u2019t want to take the moral onus off of it, but I think she\u2019s angry at the way that [the hybrids have] been treated and what they did to Nibs [Lily Newmark], and she\u2019s lashing out. Part of growing up is learning what consequences are. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd speaking of that: Nib\u2019s freakout over the guard grabbing Mr. Strawberry was extremely satisfying. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s the fun of the genre. A lot my characters and storytelling go back to Stephen King, The Stand and Trashcan Man \u2014 this idea that you put these players in motion, and some of them are morally good, and some of them are morally bad, and some of them are crazy, and some of them are wild cards. It\u2019s the same way in season five of Fargo with [the mysterious criminal-for-hire Ole Munch character]. He was a wildcard I felt paid off in a very satisfying way. So Nibs can fill this space where you\u2019re actually okay with the fact that she might end up being a sociopath, it fills a space in the genre where we always like those characters, in some way. <\/p>\n

\n\tFinally, Timothy Olyphant seems to steal every moment he\u2019s on screen. And maybe this question is too much of a spoiler that you won\u2019t want to get into, but I\u2019m constantly wondering: What does Kirsch want? <\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, that\u2019s interesting to me. And the question of how much is he in control? What are the rules of his programming? Part of what I feel made [Ian Holm\u2019s Alien android character Ash] crazy at the end of that movie was that he had this countermanding programming \u2014 the crew\u2019s lives were expendable, but, somewhere in there, he had been programmed to protect human life. Those two conflicting impulses caused him to malfunction. I think with Tim, there\u2019s definitely this question of how much is he autonomous? How much is he controlled by the programming, and how much is his sense of identity? If he is a scientist and experimenting, he doesn\u2019t seem to have the human morality that others have. He\u2019s probably programmed that he can\u2019t harm Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). He may be programmed that he really shouldn\u2019t disagree with him, or argue with him. And in these moments where Boy Kavalier is super patronizing and dismissive, maybe been programmed to smile and bear it. And yet: Is he done?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The xenomorph \u2014 as Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley has rightly pointed out \u2014 is probably the greatest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[19569,156,111,139,27229,69,437],"class_list":["post-27409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-alien-earth","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-noah-hawley","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}