Alien: Earth Study Guide – Noah Hawley Reveals His Alien TV Prequel Inspirations

Writer, director, and producer Noah Hawley has a unique approach to adaptation. Though an author of six novels and several other original TV and film projects, the New York-born, Austin-based creator is best known for his work in the realm of creative translation, having burst onto the scene with FX anthology series Fargo.

Fargo doesn’t lift any characters or plot lines directly from Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 dark comedy classic but it does, in some inscrutable way, borrow its soul. Through five loosely-related seasons, the series has paid brilliant homage the Coen brothers’ oeuvre, while carving its own place in TV history. Hawley pulled off a similar translational magic trick with the X-Men mythos in the psychedelic series Legion. Now FX is turning to him once again to find a fresh take on yet another beloved film franchise in the form of Alien: Earth. How does one begin to conceptualize a new story in the sprawling sci-fi/horror sandbox spawned by Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic?

“I start with feelings,” Hawley told Den of Geek at San Diego Comic-Con 2025. “What did I feel about the original movie? I don’t go back and rewatch it. I just try to remember what really stuck with me about the first two films. And then my goal is to recreate those feelings in you by telling you a totally different story.”

Feelings may have brought Hawley to the page, but to complete the epic eight-episode first season of Alien: Earth, he and this team needed some more creative fuel. Speaking to Den of Geek magazine prior to the show’s premiere, Hawley revealed a handful of surprising inspirations for this early chapter in the Alien saga.

Peter Pan

The Peter Pan allegory at the core of Alien: Earth makes no attempt to hide itself. The five megacorporations of the show’s Earth are all preoccupied with that classic megacorporation pastime: staying forever young.

The Prodigy Corporation, run by young trillionaire Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) occupies a Thai island compound known as “Neverland.” When Boy K successfully implants the brains of terminally-ill children into synthetic adult bodies, he gives his new hybrid creations names associated with the “Lost Boys” of J.M. Barrie’s lore. For Hawley, delving into the Peter Pan story was a process of unexpected macabre discovery.

“I had this instinct for Peter Pan as that kind of classic metaphor about children and growing up. And then when I delved deeper into it, I realized, Oh, this is a horror story. It’s super dark, man,” Hawley says.

The writer/director describes Peter Pan himself as “almost a sociopath” and points to a passage in which the eternal youth is so angry at adults that he quickens his breathing pace, believing the old Neverland adage that “that everytime you breathe, a grown-up dies.”

Steven Spielberg

Perhaps not coincidental with Alien: Earth‘s Peter Pan origins are its Steven Spielberg inspirations. Few filmmakers better understand the horrors of growing up and children operating in an adult’s world quite like the director of E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and yes, Hook.

Hawley sees a Spielbergian influence in Alien: Earth‘s hybrid protagonist Wendy (Sydney Chandler).

“She’s got her lucky walrus and her paper cutter on her back,” Hawley says. “My son is 12 and he still goes out in the backyard and fights monsters with a stick or whatever he’s got in the hand. It felt like there had to be a certain amount of Spielberg in this – in the scale of it, the crashing ships, and the investing in these characters. But finding the balance of that was really interesting.”

Nikola Tesla and the “War of the Currents”

Though Alien: Earth is set in our planet’s future, the geopolitical state of play very much resembles its past. As evidenced by the existence of the powerful Weyland-Yutani Corporation in Scott’s original film and all its sequels and spinoffs, the Alien universe imagines human progression into the stars as a dismal byproduct of capitalistic ambition rather than Star Trek-esque ideals.

“Think two or three steps ahead from where we are right now,” Hawley says. “I mean they’re already working toward the idea that we don’t need national currencies anymore. We should just have cryptocurrencies that are private currencies. It’s going to make a lot of people really rich, but as a structural conceit for a society, it’s not the world’s best version.”

Alien: Earth takes things a step further by inserting Weyland-Yutani into a technological arms race among four other megacorporations that dominate the planet. Here, the creation of synthetic life and artificial intelligence isn’t just about assisting in interstellar travel but achieving something resembling immortality while generating profit. Here, Hawley sees a comparison to a similar technological competition in 19th century American history, the war of the currents.

“I really liked the idea of choosing a moment in time where you had Edison and Tesla and Westinghouse, and there was this new technology, this electricity, and one of them was going to control it, right? They were all in competition: which version of the light bulb [will win out]? Which version is AC or DC?”

H.R. Giger (Obviously)

Of course, the best inspiration for an Alien TV series is Alien. Hawley views Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) as the chief jumping off point for Alien: Earth‘s prequel story. Meanwhile, not only does H.R. Giger’s xenomorph creation from the original Alien make a return here, but it serves as the structural inspiration for how the show delivers its narrative.

“One of the things that made Giger’s xenomorph creature so horrifying was the fact that it never stayed in one state,” Hawley says. “First it is an egg that a facehugger comes out of. You’re like, ‘I’m out. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.’ Now it lays an egg in you that then hatches out of your chest, killing you. You’re like, ‘Now I’m totally out. That’s awful. That’s the worst thing.’ Then it grows to be 10 feet tall with two mouths.”

Naturally, the xenomorph also informs the design of Alien: Earth‘s coterie of new extraterrestrial monsters.

“There was a revulsion that came from each stage of [the xenomorph]. So that’s where I started, with this idea of ‘Okay, if we have a new creature, then what’s the most revolting feature?’ And then we’ll design the creature around that function. If I want to create that feeling in you that I think is so essential, then the only way I can do it is to bring in other creatures. You have no idea what they eat or how they reproduce. I was just trying to solve a practical challenge for myself.”

The first two episodes of Alien: Earth premiere Tuesday, August 12 at 8 p.m. ET on FX and Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. New episodes premiere Tuesdays, culminating with the finale on September 23.