TV series Alien: Earth captures “the aesthetic” of Sir Ridley Scott’s original film, an executive producer has said.
The sci-fi drama, from Emmy-winning producer Noah Hawley, is based on the acclaimed franchise, which began with Sir Ridley’s 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver as warrant officer Ellen Ripley who takes on an extra-terrestrial lifeform called the Xenomorph.
The new eight-episode series sees Wendy, played by US actress Sydney Chandler, and a group of tactical soldiers make a discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat.
Speaking to the PA news agency at the European premiere of the series, executive producer David W Zucker said: “Above and beyond what I think is just a rip-roaring great yarn, is that Noah was able to really capture the aesthetic of the original, the analogue nature of the original, if not some of the literal sets of the original film, but then take us on a journey that’s very evocative of what the films have explored.
“But, in a way that one can only do in series television, expanded vertically and horizontally, that feels like a boundless type of story that can explore a lot of the themes and these, even present day challenges of transhumanism, in a way that really compels and fascinates.”
Chandler, 29, told PA: “I learned so much about myself and people while being able to play this character, and how she can hold her own.
“And so I was really gifted a lot from Noah’s writing in that way, that surprised me, and that I could actually be scared on set from a full grown Xenomorph chasing you. I mean, it really scared me, which was awesome.”
The series is set in the year 2120, when the earth is governed by five corporations: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold.
In this corporate era, cyborgs and synthetics, which are humanoid robots with artificial intelligence, exist alongside humans, but the world is changed when the founder of the Prodigy corporation unlocks a technological advance: hybrids (humanoid robots infused with human consciousness).
“Wendy”, the first hybrid prototype, marks a new advance in the race for immortality and after Weyland-Yutani’s spaceship collides into Prodigy City, Wendy and the other hybrids encounter new and terrifying life forms.
The cast includes Deadwood actor Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Black Mirror star Alex Lawther as Hermit, Mary And George’s Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, Guerrilla actor Babou Ceesay as Morrow and Bottom star Adrian Edmondson as Atom Eins.
