FXAlien: Earth creator Noah Hawley has revealed how they made Alien’s most terrifying new monster, and why a live ship made it even scarier.
We spoke to the Alien: Earth cast about the new creatures in the show, and Samuel Blenkin (Boy Kavalier), Timothy Olyphant (Kirsh), and Babou Ceesay (Morrow) all agreed that the eye monster was the one that gave them sleepless nights.
Blenkin said: “The eye midge… I find the consequences of that pretty terrifying.” Olyphant added: “That one’s on the top of the list.” While Ceesay agreed: “Where it could go to – horrendous – real genetic revulsion.”
The new alien attacked a sheep in Episode 4‘s most memorable scene, and showrunner Noah Hawley has been talking about the evolution of his creation.
Replacing the eye monsters legs with suckers was key
Hulu/DisneyAccording to a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the original design for the monster/midge was an eye with legs, but as that design evolved, so those legs became suckers that allow the creature to move quickly and powerfully.
“To me, there’s a relentlessness to this that is similar to the face hugger,” says Hawley. “Certainly in James Cameron’s movie where Ripley and Newt are trying to get away from these things, and they just keep coming, and they’re fast, and they’re scrambling, and they’re like a crab. [The suckers] was a really great upgrade for the original conceit where before, it just had to run as fast as it could at you. Now it can fly.
“Here in Austin, we have the Palmetto bugs fly. A giant roach that flies is always worse than a giant roach that doesn’t. So the fact that it can propel itself, that it can stick to you, and you’re basically trying to fight it off, and it has all these arms and it’s relentlessly trying to get in.”
“Plus, it enters your face. The face hugger literally goes into your mouth, and there’s something really disturbing about that. But everyone has issues with eyeballs. It just felt like it’s designed just to play into that genetic revulsion.”
Related
The Alien: Earth sheep was partly real
Speaking about the sheep incident, Hawley said having a real sheep made all the difference: “It’s one of the more disturbing things you’ll watch all year, I think. Every 5% improvement in visual effects made that sequence a 100% ‘worse’ in terms of its effectiveness – and by ‘worse,’ I mean better.
“I told director Ugla Hauksdóttir in London, ‘For me, the fact that you got the live sheep to back away from the camera, that made the whole sequence right. Because if that had been a CG sheep, there’s something about sheep – being like – us going ‘uh-huh!’ and backing away from camera really sold the gag.”
Alien: Earth is out now, while you can also check out our guide to the Alien: Earth soundtrack and details of the weird Ice Age connection.
We’ve also got Dexerto’s ranking of every Alien movie, as well as how Predator: Badlands connects to Alien and the latest news on Alien vs Predator 3.