Noah Hawley's Alien prequel series is a blood-stained Peter Pan parable, stirring subconscious fears of a life-changing childhood trauma on Disney+.
For the first few years of rehabilitation following an unreported head injury witnessed by my primary school teacher and classmates, which culminated in a brain haemorrhage and diagnosis of paraplegia after awaking from a coma, I didn't think I'd live long enough to become an adult.
My parents shared that fear and initially thought the hospital had sent me home to die. The reality was that medical staff ignored the advice of the senior consultant; I was immunocompromised, and within days, I was readmitted.
At the time, I was obsessed with puzzles, LEGO, Doctor Who, The Muppets and The Six Million Dollar Man. The latter's toy line from Kenner would play a crucial role in trauma therapy, as a 5-year-old, to begin to make sense of what had happened and adapt. I was the boy who lived.
So, I found myself empathising with Wendy, sublimely played by Sydney Chandler. Developed by Prodigy, a competitor of Weyland-Yutani, she is the first hybrid synthetic with the consciousness of a terminally ill child. A chance at immortality, but at what for-profit price?
Wendy's first scenes with the Lost Boys were profoundly poignant as I'd befriended children on the hospital ward who didn't get to go home. Hawley deftly cuts between the Maginot's monstrous managerie and children bravely facing tragedy with hope.
Hawley has said of the Alien franchise:
“For me, the first film may be the best horror movie ever made, the second film may be the best action movie ever made.”
The unmistakable look and feel of Alien DNA permeates Alien: Earth. And I got goosebumps as composer Jeff Russo, like Benjamin Wallfisch (Alien: Romulus), adroitly weaves familiar franchise leitmotifs from Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and more into a brave new world of MU/TH/UR.
Hawley's Neverland examines existential fears of climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), and tech titans vying to control our lives, but never forgets its body horror roots in the biomechanical grotesqueries of H.R. Giger unleashed by Ridley Scott in Alien.
Like many, I watched the original Alien far too young and the titular xenomorph has stalked my nightmares and woven itself into the fabric of fragmented memories of a childhood trauma featuring creepy hospital corridors, flickering neon lights and faceless adults.
Alien: Earth opens with one of the best pilot episodes of all time. Alien has found its Andor.
Have you watched Alien: Earth on Disney+? Let me know in the comments below.
