Alien franchise crafts new creatures for Alien: Earth TV show

LOS ANGELES — Both new and familiar alien lifeforms lurk around in the Disney series Alien: Earth, based on the original 1979 Ridley Scott Alien movie.

“By bringing the story to Earth, we’re shifting to, ‘can humanity itself survive, right?’ And then it becomes a question of, ‘well, what is humanity, and do we really deserve to survive?’” director Noah Hawley told Reuters.

“These creatures that are coming, are a kind of representation of the natural world reasserting its dominance, right? Reminding us that we’re still part of the food chain,” the Fargo creator added.

Alien: Earth, which began streaming on Hulu and FX on Tuesday, follows a group of travelers with various jobs that are drawn into action when a spacecraft carrying alien samples crash-lands on Earth.

It is set two years before the first Alien movie that introduced audiences to actor Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ellen Ripley, and the terrifying alien called a xenomorph.

Other than the xenomorphs that fans are familiar with, there are four other deadly creatures on the crashed spacecraft.

“These creatures have some, to varying degrees, great recognition factor,” said producer David W. Zucker.

“They’re sort of perverted versions of insects and otherwise that we can recognize. So, I think that brings it into an even more sort of visceral place, not to mention, touching upon certain sensations that we’re already familiar that they can invoke,” he added.

Don’t Worry Darling actor Sydney Chandler portrays the show’s lead named Wendy, a metahuman with the body of an adult human and the mind of a child, who leads a team that also has adult bodies with childish minds, called The Lost Boys, onto the crashed spaceship.

“Kids are great acting teachers. They’re so present, they’re so honest, instinctual, they do what their body tells them to do or what their mind thinks of right away,” Ms. Chandler said, referring to her approach to Wendy’s child-like mannerisms. — Reuters