Alien universe discussion (Alien Covenant in particular)

[Frelance]

So I am making this thread to see if there are any other people on E who are looking forward to the new Alien move. I watched the trailer a while back but once I saw that they had released the last supper clip which I will link to below I started to get more interested. I am a sucker for Sci fi movies and this one is looking pretty good.


What really got my attention is the look of the ship. I like the design and even the consoles in the ship while they look pretty similar to those in Prometheus I find they fit the world better but thats just my opinion. So if you are looking forward to the movie or want to recommend some books or other material in the universe please feel free to toss it into the thread.

Alien: Covenant Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VW6sg50Pk

Prologue: Last Supper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXgRlRao5I

[Mathim]

They don't have the best track record, unfortunately, so no, I'm not looking forward to it at all. Not that I was that jazzed about Prometheus but that left an even worse taste in my mouth. I am however probably one of the few people who actually like Alien Resurrection.

[Frelance]

I get that. As much as Prometheus had its problems and it had a lot I still enjoyed it for what it was. I had hoping that this new film is better than Prometheus but I still think I will enjoy Covenant.

There was an Audiobook I had listened to a while back called Alien:Out of the shadows by Tim Lebbon. It was really interesting and I think it did a good job keeping the feeling of the old Alien movies.

[wander]

Prometheus was disappointing to me as an ALIEN fan, though I think we can all agree that visually it was stunning. The blu-ray uncut version helped with some plotholes too, though still it's made me wary of this film.

I'm hoping that Scott learned his lesson getting Lindelof in, I have no idea if the latter is involved with the writing of this one, though near all faults of Prometheus can be placed on Lindelof's door (also Noomi Rapace's phoned in acting, I hope her part in this one is small).

I'll see it in the cinema, though I'm not too hyped, basically.

[RedRose]

I'm... wary.

[Lustful Bride]

I am mad that Alien 5 got cancelled for this. I was so looking forward to the return of Michael Biehn and some more Colonial Marines.

Aside from that...idk I will give this a chance. I also hope that the other android we see with the crew turns out to be good. We need more good androids like Bishop. :)

[wander]

Alien 5 is still coming out and now has Scott's blessing, he basically got in touch with Blomkamp (who was writing and directing ALIEN 5 as a fan pet project at the time) and said "let me do mine first, then you can go right ahead with it. And I'll produce it for you too.".

I'm hoping that Weaver and Biehn don't have a case of sudden 2010's beloved actor death before that happens though. I don't think we'll be seeing the film before 2019 whatever happens. Plus if Covenant does badly, there may be a shift in what Fox does with the franchise (though I have faith that ALIEN 5 would fix it as it seems to be the ALIEN 3 we all wanted).

I'm interested to see the two versions of David interact, not a fan of the newer version's accent though. Sounds more wrong than Cumberbatch's Dr.Strange accent to me.

[Alhanna]

I must be the odd one out. I find myself intrigued. Initially I didn't watch Prometheus when it came out, mainly because it fell into the horror genre and I cannot handle that. But one day, while working from home, I came across it on... oh, FX or something like that. It caught my attention, particularly the Engineers. I want to know why they were so quick to try and kill the humans and what happened.

So hopefully we'll get more from Covenant.

[wander]

Well, mid-development of Prometheus, a plotline that was dropped had the reason being because the Engineers sent one of their own to Earth around 37AD and they crucified him over his message of peace... Yep, we went and pissed off the Engineers by killing crystal albino space jesus...

However Scott has since said this isn't canon and was abandoned fairly early on.

One other nugget is in the uncut Bluray when David and the Engineer trade some words. The language expert of the film explained that David told the Engineer that Weyland wanted more life. That bit of hubris combined with potentially the afront to their makers in humanity making an artificial human wasn't something that the Engineer took too kindly too.

Also in the bluray, a scene has the Engineer chill out from his kill frenzy after finding Shaw's room on the crashed ship and finding holos of her as a kid with her dad and various books and bits of art and decor around, that he clearly thinks is beautiful and calms him down...

... However Shaw chose that time to do a sneak attack on the Engineer with a fire axe, which ended up pissing it off again... ^^;;

[Alhanna]

Well, mid-development of Prometheus, a plotline that was dropped had the reason being because the Engineers sent one of their own to Earth around 37AD and they crucified him over his message of peace... Yep, we went and pissed off the Engineers by killing crystal albino space jesus...

However Scott has since said this isn't canon and was abandoned fairly early on.

One other nugget is in the uncut Bluray when David and the Engineer trade some words. The language expert of the film explained that David told the Engineer that Weyland wanted more life. That bit of hubris combined with potentially the afront to their makers in humanity making an artificial human wasn't something that the Engineer took too kindly too.

Also in the bluray, a scene has the Engineer chill out from his kill frenzy after finding Shaw's room on the crashed ship and finding holos of her as a kid with her dad and various books and bits of art and decor around, that he clearly thinks is beautiful and calms him down...

... However Shaw chose that time to do a sneak attack on the Engineer with a fire axe, which ended up pissing it off again... ^^;;

Yeah, the whole "crystal albino space Jesus" would've bothered the heck out of me. So I'm glad they took that out.

Hm. I could sort of see why an Engineer would be affronted by an android....

HA! Well, um... yay Shaw?

[wander]

There's been new info released (semi-new, it's been around for a few days now) about Covenant.

It'll be set 10 years after Prometheus. The crashed Engineer ship is the same one that Shaw and David left on, if you pause when the main female lead finds the dogtags hanging off something, you can clearly see 'E.Shaw' on them. There's a bit of spoilery info on just who the new female lead of the film is, though I won't mention it here. With James Franco who was rumoured to be in the film from the same article now confirmed, I think we can take this spoiler as fact now.

David apparently has gone down the road of dismissing humanity and has made a little lab where he has been dissecting Engineers and using the black goo to experiment on them and the local wildlife (pausing at one point in the newest trailer, you can clearly see what is a Frankenstein like lab with a partially dissected Engineer laid out on a table). I'd like to know how he's been doing this as a disembodied head... As apparently it will be in the film we see him as both a head and getting his body back.

Concept art has some spoilerific things mentioned about Shaw, so I have some theories on what happened to her in the 10 year gap, though we'll have to see.

[Frelance]

Prometheus was disappointing to me as an ALIEN fan, though I think we can all agree that visually it was stunning. The blu-ray uncut version helped with some plotholes too, though still it's made me wary of this film.

Agreed, it looked amazing but I think that was part of the problem I had with it. It didn't look like the Alien universe. Covenant is closer in look to the other alien movies than Prometheus was or at least it looks like it from the footage I have seen. I did not watch the blue-ray uncut version but I have watched enough videos about what plot holes were filled in that I don't think I will rush out to find a copy.

I can see why people are wary of the film, I think I just am at the point where I will watch it and enjoy a movie set in the universe even if I don't think it did a great job of it like Prometheus.

Yeah, the whole "crystal albino space Jesus" would've bothered the heck out of me. So I'm glad they took that out.

Agreed! I would have been really bothered by that.

David apparently has gone down the road of dismissing humanity and has made a little lab where he has been dissecting Engineers and using the black goo to experiment on them and the local wildlife (pausing at one point in the newest trailer, you can clearly see what is a Frankenstein like lab with a partially dissected Engineer laid out on a table). I'd like to know how he's been doing this as a disembodied head... As apparently it will be in the film we see him as both a head and getting his body back.

I am thinking we will see a David vs David fight at some point if the android from Covenant goes down to the planet. I think there is a shot of him on the ground but I can't remember at the moment.

Also it will be interesting to see how he does all his experiments as a head. Although if Shaw hooked him up to the ship then I can see him using the ships systems to do it. But it will he interesting to see.