STAR BEASTS

YEARS IN THE MAKING,ALIEN: EARTH,A PREQUEL SERIES TO THE ICONIC ALIEN FRANCHISE, FINALLY MAKES LANDFALL - BRINGING WITH IT SOME UNEXPECTED TRAVELLERS AND SEVERAL QUESTIONS...

- DARREN SCOTT

THERE'S A LOUD CLANG AT THE TOP of our conversation with Noah Hawley. It's the sound of the esteemed director, and now showrunner and creator of Alien: Earth, dropping a name - a big one.

“I ended up having a conversation with Denis Villeneuve because his movies, I've never seen anyone better at showing me that something is big,” he tells SFX. “That feeling of being dwarfed by the size of a ship or a sandworm...

“One of the things that was really important to me to convey was a sense of scale. I wasn't looking for trade secrets because I also feel it's about intimacy as well. You have to have the two, the big and the small. That's what's really important to me in this show and I think we've achieved it.”

Wait, hold up. Before we can even talk about the series, we have to address the name drop. “It's a pretty good one, right?” he laughs. “Why lie? The guy's a master, one of the greats.” What might the keeper of the keys to Arrakis, and incoming Bond director, have to offer the Alien franchise?

“It's all about story at the end of the day,” Hawley says. “The moment that it's style over substance, you're in trouble. That's clear from his work and from our conversation and clear to me as well, of how to mix practical effects with the visual effects.

“I come from a model of doing more with less, I pride myself on making things that look like they cost twice what I actually had. Some of that is just vision and execution. But you also have to know where to spend the money to make things feel big.”

Big is certainly the word for prequel series