The Alien franchise, as created by Ridley Scott, has been carried on by several other filmmakers and revisited by Scott himself. And, because of that, it's reached the point where the mythology has become dense with information and history relating to the Xenomorph, its origins and actual goals. With both a new TV series from Noah Hawley and a new Alien film on the horizon, more is about to be added to the story. However, Hawley revealed that his small-screen production won't utilize material from Scott's prequel films, and he's explained just why.
While speaking with THR, the Fargo producer explained that he, in conversation with Ridley Scott, has decided not to include Prometheus as part of his series. He says he ultimately finds the concept of the Xenomorph origin, as explained there, “less interesting” than the ideas that were presented in the first film. He said:
Ridley and I have talked about this — and many, many elements of the show. 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. 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.
There’s an element of science fiction, as created in the past, that -- due to the limitations of the time -- meant that even the future didn’t necessarily look all that advanced compared to the present. Space travel was possible, but it partially relied on monochrome computer screens with bad resolution.
As the Alien franchise, or any similar ongoing sci-fi adventure, moves forward, technology improves. This means that a movie like Prometheus -- which takes place prior to the events of the franchise's original 1979 film and was made decades later -- looks more advanced than what would come later in the story’s chronology. Noah Hawley says that doesn’t match with his vision for the series. He continued:
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.
While the topic of the best movie is hotly contested, the last two Alien franchise has seen some troubles, as the most recent films weren’t as warmly received as others have been. So the fact that they won’t be major parts of the new series may be good news to a lot of fans. The first two movies in the series are seen by many as some of the best sci fi movies ever. And there’s no reason that a new Alien franchise entry needs to deal with that information. Depending on where and when it's set, those details can easily be irrelevant to a story about a group of people fighting monstrous extraterrestrials and trying to stay alive -- and mostly losing.
Noah Hawley's Alien show likely won't be a part of the 2024 TV schedule, but keep your eyes peeled for updates on the FX production.
