Alien Earth: Why is the SF series of Disney+ obsessed with Peter Pan?

The xenomorph ofAlien arrives for the first time on earth in the new science fiction series Alien: Earththe first two episodes of which today land on the Disney+ streaming platform.

Created by Noah Hawley, the series follows Wendy (Sydney Chandler), which is a young hybrid, a humanoid robot with a human conscience. She finds herself, with her fellows, to explore the remains of the USCSS Maginot spacecraft, who crashed on earth with a cargo of mysterious and terrifying creatures.

Wendy is the prototype of a company called Prodigy, led by Boy Cavalier (Samuel Blenkin), which is among the five companies that govern the Blue Planet in 2120 (with Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold).

Why the series Alien: Earth Does she refer to Peter Pan?

From the first episode ofAlien: Earthspectators note that Noah Hawley has permeated his series of references to Peter Pan, a character imagined by JM Barrie in 1902. Between the fact that the first prodigy hybrid is called Wendy and that the following are named after lost children, or the parallel quickly erected between Boy Cavalier and Peter, the analogy is not discreet.

During a press conference organized around the series, Hawley explained why his series not only stages children (in adult bodies) but made as much reference to the boy who did not want to grow.

“For me, it all started with the fact that I raise children in a world where nature is starting to turn against us, and the technology that we have created, we do not yet know if it will turn against us,” said the showrunner.

“When I was asked if I had ideas for the series, I said to myself:“ It is the subject of Alien ”. It talks about these primordial monsters of our past that try to kill Ripley. And then, we realize that the AI of the future also tries to kill it. Humanity is therefore stuck between the AI of the future and the monsters of the past.

Hawley continues: “As soon as I had the idea of integrating children into this story – human minds transferred to synthetic bodies – the analogy with Peter Pan came fairly quickly.”

He added that once this association was made, it seemed obvious to him that the character of Boy Cavalier, who invented the hybrids, was the incarnation of Peter Pan and that Wendy and the lost children are at the mercy of his whims:

“It all depends on how he feels from one moment to another. Yes, why not send these prototypes that cost a fortune to the scene of a crash? It seems to be a good idea, right?”

But why did you choose to put the point of view of characters at the center of the series who are essentially children? The creator is explained:

“In the series, we wonder if humanity can survive, which brings the question: do we really deserve to survive? Can we raise ourselves as a species? The best way to explore this question is to look at the world of adults with the eyes of a child. Because children are bad liars. They can’t pretend to be afraid.”

“They do not hold for acquired certain things that adults hold for acquired. And therefore, adopting the point of view of Wendy and other lost children makes it possible to have this pure and deep decency which makes it possible to confront the complacency and the evils of the adult world”he concludes.

Find out what Wendy and the other hybrids will have to face in Alien: Earthnow available on the Disney+streaming platform.

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