What’s With All the ‘Peter Pan’ References in ‘Alien: Earth’? Wendy, Neverland, and the Lost Boys, Explained

It should come as no surprise that FX‘s new show Alien: Earth borrows a lot from a story that originally came out last century. After all, Alien: Earth has long been touted as showrunner Noah Hawley‘s own unique take on Ridley Scott‘s Alien. However, Alien: Earth is also chock full of references to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

**Spoilers for Alien: Earth Episodes 1 and 2, now streaming on Hulu**

The very first episode of Alien: Earth is called “Neverland,” after both child prodigy-turned-corporate overlord Boy Kavalier’s (Samuel Blenkin) private paradise and the magical floating island that gave the show’s research facility/resort its name. Boy Kavalier is shown reading sections of J.M. Barrie’s original novel in most episodes. When he figures out how to transfer the consciousnesses of dying children into synthetic bodies, he rechristens his “hybrids” with names pulled from Peter Pan’s followers. Marcy (Florence Bensberg), his first and favorite of the bunch, gets to be Wendy (Sydney Chandler) after she ascends. The other kids sadly have to settle for new names like Tootles (Kit Young), Slightly (Adarsh Gourav), Curly (Erana James), Nibs (Lily Newmark), and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) with their new forms. As you can imagine, it’s a point of contention for some.

But the Peter Pan influences are more than just sly Easter eggs. They are overt references. All of the dying children are literally shown Disney’s 1953 animated film. Heck, one of the main antagonists in the show is the Cyborg Morrow (Babou Ceesay). What makes him so menacing? His hand transforms into sharp steel on command. You know, sort of like Captain Hook.

When DECIDER asked Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley if giving Morrow a hook for a hand seemed a step too far, he chuckled.

“No, I think it’s all implied in the show,” Hawley said. “There’s a moment in which, you know, we realized that maybe the the Xenomorph is the crocodile from Peter Pan.”

For Hawley, overlaying Peter Pan onto Alien: Earth‘s science fiction made sense because of the idea of trapping children’s minds in immortal bodies that were created, and ruled over, by a literal boy genius. Moreover, because Barrie’s work isn’t quite as anodyne and sweet as Disney’s animated film.

“When you go back and read the book, it’s a super dark story. And Peter is not this cherubic, heroic character. He’s actually kind of a small dictator,” Hawley said. “It says when the kids start to grow up, he gets rid of them and you’re like, ‘What does that mean? What does he do with them? Where do they go?‘”

“So I think there’s something ominous about the Peter Pan reference.”

Hawley then took the metaphor further and teased where these themes may go in Alien: Earth.

“What ends up happening is you have these children who were put into adult bodies, right? But Peter doesn’t want the children to grow up. He wants them to play with him and stay children. So they’re kind of trapped in this state,” Hawley said. “And that echoes these characters in the first film who were trapped in the spaceship working for a corporation and they had to do what they were told.”

What’s curious, though, about Boy Kavalier’s plans is that the hybrids are more than just children in adult bodies. Their hybrid forms are super strong and super fast. Which makes you wonder if the boy genius has really thought this all through…