A Look at the New Movie Alien: Covenant

Quick opinion in case you don’t want to read the whole thing: Fantastic horror movie with a few logical flaws, made up for with an intelligent story, well paced tension and character development, and fantastic acting. As a sequel to Prometheus and a prequel to the Alien franchise? Well, you may be disappointed.

Anyone who’s ever talked to me about the Alien franchise knows that the Ridley Scott 1979 original Alien, and the sequel directed by James Cameron, are my all time favorite movies, movies that would cement Sci-fi into mainstream culture along with other revolutionary creations such as the Star Wars franchise. Brought alive by H.R Giger’s brilliant and disturbed artwork, as soon as the Xenomorph busted out onto the deck of Nostromo, it became a instant classic, as it was a disturbing and unique design that made it not only a standout horror movie monster, but its life cycle a dream for Sci-Fi nerds like my young self who loved to plunk hours of research into the scientific basis around this creature’s creation. These movies were also revolutionary in many other ways, as for its time, a lead female role was rare enough as it is, but never before had such a strong and independent lead like Ripley appeared on screen before this point. With its action packed, well paced action, horror, and brilliant, symbolic storytelling of humanity’s greed; and a grounded, realistic, setting and technology, it’s no wonder that these movies became instant classics.

However, with a string of almost universally disliked sequels, prequels and spinoffs produced over the years, such as Alien 3 and Resurrection being little more than half baked money grabs; the later produced Alien vs. Predator movies being below average B movie horrors that ticked off moviegoers and fans alike. For nearly 20 years, the franchise was kept alive in the hearts of fans by the excellent Alien vs. Predator comics, books, and the 1980’s Alien vs. Predators games, only for fans to be slapped across the face once again with piles of trash such as SEGA’s Aliens Colonial Marines, a game so misrepresented in media before its release that several class action lawsuits were brought against the parent company, SEGA, only to be dismissed.

A lot of hope was resting on Ridley Scott’s spiritual prequel to the Alien Franchise, Prometheus, but despite the interesting story and awesome set pieces, the slow, methodic story made it a boring and somewhat confusing watch, even for the most dedicated of Alien fans. Still, the Engineers were a cool and interesting concept, and many were hoping for Ridley to focus on this as a more individual narrative and build upon its flaws.

Then fans became ecstatic over hearing that a legendary sci fi director, District 9’s Neill Blomkamp, had talked to Ripley’s actor Sigourney Weaver during their time working together on the movie Chappie. Weaver had hated her involvement in the terrible Alien 3 and Alien 4, and thus began talks about how the story should have gone. This sequel would have made these terrible movies non canon, and moved forward with Ripley, Hicks and Newt’s story instead of killing these fan favorite characters off screen in a middle finger not only to hardcore fans, but to moviegoers in general. Absolutely amazing concept artwork was released, the skeleton of a script released to fans to fountains of praise, and FOX announced it was “considering the prospect.” All the stories buried in the comics that fans had been begging to be put into movies in some form seemed like they might finally come through.

This brief hope, however, was broken quicker than my self esteem during a test. Ridley Scott proudly pronounced that the sequel to Prometheus would now be called “Alien: Covenant,” and due to FOX not wanting to overload moviegoers with too many Alien movies, Blomkamp’s highly anticipated project was cancelled.

The movie now had a lot to live up to. Fans such as myself were unsure, and I even considering not seeing the film out of anger. However, I shut off my inner cynical self for a night and went to see it, and while it did not live up to the movie it replaced, it was one of the best horror movies I’ve seen in years. If you want hear my problems as a fan, it can be summed simply by stating that it screws with the already set up canon, and for an Alien prequel it doesn’t seem anywhere close to explaining the events that began Ripley’s story. IF you want a more in depth analysis, that would require spoilers, then let me know, but until then I will be analyzing this purely as a horror movie and sequel to Prometheus.

Haven’t Seen Prometheus?No Problem, Here’s The Important Stuff:

Main character Elizabeth Shaw and her husband, no name Mc’who cares, work as archaeologists for Weyland Yutani, CEO of his company named after himself, whose entire business model is humanoid, life like service androids and space exploration and colonization. His company will, in later media, take over the United States, along with many other mega corporations ruling other major countries around the world, though it’s unclear how much influence the company has at this time.  They discover a mural in the sheep land mountains, otherwise known as Scotland, containing a mural of giant beings interpreted to be our creators (referred to as Engineers, because all movie characters are bad at naming stuff) pointing to a star on a coordinate map that proves to be accurate. They follow the coordinates along with a team of moronic, poorly developed scientists, and the only other character that matters at all, David, the android with funding given by Weyland. They all arrive to find a large ship, which inside contains a room with a mural with a giant head and clearly Xenomorph esc. carvings, despite FOX telling Ridley “NO ALIEN CRAP.” They find a ton of jars that contain black goo, which have mutated worms into giant snakes which kill a couple guys who got lost away from the group. The guys killed, plus anyone who ingests the goo, become heavily distorted monsters who have super strength but are soon torched. Shaw’s husband has his drink spiked with this goo by David, who has in his code the priority to create and experiment, and before Shaw’s husband (who’s a atheist, while Shaw’s a super Christian, so important apparently because they talk for five years about it) turns into PCP monster  and they do the nasty. What’s important to keep in mind is Shaw is sterile, and therefore, trying for a baby. He’s torched, and it’s soon revealed that she’s not only pregnant with the fan named trilobite, a cow sized face-hugger that she cuts out of herself with a c-section machine, but that Weyland Yutani was on the ship the whole time inside a cryo pod, hidden by David so he could meet his creator and learn how to become immortal. They find a still alive Engineer on the ship (it’s inferred there was a civil war, or that the bio weapon that was intended to be transported to Earth to kill all the humans, which engineers created in some sorta religious ceremony by dissolving themselves with a similar black goo thousands of years ago, and the reason for their want to destroy humanity is they sent an engineer who the Romans killed. You know, Jesus. Too bad Ridley only told audiences that in interviews, right?), and they thaw him. David says something in their language, probably calling his mom fat, and promptly the engineer rips off David’s head and snaps Weyland’s neck. Shaw’s spider baby returns and face hugs the engineer, and a fully grown “Deacon” pops out, a really early version of a xenomorph. Shaw takes David’s remains, as he’s still talking, and they navigate to the Engineer’s homeworld. Cool? Cool. Don’t worry, the deacon was a pointless little nod to Alien fans and is never mentioned again.

Basic Plot: Many years later, in 2104, the colonization ship Covenant is bound for a remote planet, Origae-6, with two thousand colonists and a thousand embryos onboard. The ship is monitored by Walter, a newer synthetic physically resembling the earlier David model. A sudden neutrino burst damages the ship, killing some of the colonists as well as the ship’s captain, Branson. Walter orders the computer to wake the crew from stasis and they start repairs when they pick up a radio transmission from a nearby unknown planet. After Oram, the new captain, decides to investigate the planet, an expedition team descends to its surface and tracks the transmission’s signal to a crashed Engineer ship. Daniels Branson, the deceased captain, objects. They land on the planet, ultimately a few are infected with the Neomorph virus, with two more face-hugged. Chaos ensues, the crew meets up with David, and I will stop the plot summary here, as the movie is very reliant on the plot twists throughout its story.

This summary already shows a momentous improvement of this movie over Ridley Scott’s failures in Prometheus, as I could explain nothing and the movie would make complete sense. While mystery and room for theory crafting are what make the best sci-fi movies, too much and it can ruin the movie going experience. While for hardcore fans, theory crafting is more than provided for, I feel as though the movie was… toned down a little too much to appeal to a larger audience. In fact, this was many people’s main complaint with Prometheus, as it spent too much time removing all mystery and terror from the Xenomorph through its storytelling while its actual story was left feeling empty. Thankfully, while Scott does demystify the Xenomorph within Alien: Covenant, it does not sacrifice the pace or detract from the actual plot’s storytelling. It’s been awhile since I’ve been so absolutely encapsulated by a villain, nor squirmed in discomfort as I held my breath in anticipation for the next scare. Ridley Scott has, through all his movies, shown a mastery of tension, dramatic and intelligent storytelling, and practical gore effects, and does not fail to uphold his somewhat tarnished record with Alien: Covenant. In fact, if you’re seeing this like you would any other horror movie, then I couldn’t possibly give this film anything more than a glowing recommendation.

A few issues that carry over from Prometheus are extremely annoying, but I found they did not distract too heavily while watching the movie. These breaches in logic are still painfully obvious, with the most obvious one being that the scientists make the number one mistake of exploring an unknown environment: THEY TOUCH EVERYTHING. There is actually a point in the story were a guy puts his face right above a strange looking spore plant and just pokes it. Surprise surprise, he soon had his throat busted open by a young Neomorph. In a similar vein is what these scientists are wearing, or more accurately what they’re not. No high tech space suit, gas masks, not even a surgical mask that clearly is in the ship’s medical bay. It’s a little painful to watch a woman testing for dangerous pathogens while dressed like this is a WEEKEND FISHING TRIP!!! Then there’s also the simple fact that while the character development is improved, as I actually felt something when the majority of these people died, I feel as though it could have been improved upon by removing some of the more pointless clips for some more character buildup scenes. What boggles my mind even further is there is actually a Prologue scene on Youtube of deleted footage of simply 5 minutes of the crew interacting, and it sets up each of their characters really well. This is not a little bit of extra content, I would argue this brief clip is vital to the movie’s story structure, but for some reason it’s only on Youtube. I encourage you to watch this brief 5 minute clip(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXgRlRao5I) as it will raise your appreciation of the movie tenfold.

To compliment the movie very quickly, the movie’s pacing is spot on. It has a tense, almost oppressive action movie feel while leaving the characters and the audience constantly terrified with a brilliantly executed sense of true tension. One final complaint, one that I just find odd, is how fast these creatures gestate, burst out, and grow up. While this helps sustain the dramatic tension mentioned above, it just feels odd to see a Xenomorph burst out as 2 foot tall baby, then what appears to be only minutes later is fully grown and tearing people apart.

The Monsters:

The Monster makes the movie, and that has never been more true than in the Alien Movies. H.R Geiger’s disturbing Bio Mechanical artwork of the Aliens is what set the original movie apart from so many others. For this reason, it can make a fan somewhat hesitant to hear about a new monster being introduced, as usually this attempt at reinvention only ends up either being a poor copy of the original or a distracting, disappointing mess. How does the Neomorph hold up in the spotlight?

I can pleasantly say, with a degree of surprise I might add, that the Neomorph not only stands in the spotlight, but runs away with it. This creature is exactly what a fan wants from a monster like this, a breath of fresh air while keeping true to its root. With its pale white appearance, emaciated, almost fetus like appearance, disturbing back buster scene, and the creatures just disturbing temperament, it all makes for one of the most bone chilling creatures in modern cinema that H.R Gieger would have been proud of if he were alive today. One scene in particular with the creature standing completely straight, arms at its side and bone still behind one of main characters had me shrinking down into my seat and others in the audience locked with sheer terror.

Now here lies the problem: the Neomorph is too good. For a movie about the origins of the Xenomorph, to have such a terrifying, vicious creature also present almost seems to be the star when it should be a background distraction. While the Xeno does have some truly awesome scenes, it would have been smarter to keep these creatures out of a movie together, as especially once the Xenomorphs start dying, it only makes you wish the Neomorphs were still present, and to see more of their blood soaked fangs.

Final Word:

This is a movie with some absolutely gorgeous set pieces, fantastic practical and SCGI effects, a great pace and an interesting, if somewhat predictable, story. If you want to see this movie as simply a movie, then I couldn’t find it in me to stop you. If you wanted a proper sequel to Prometheus that builds upon the engineers and its other interesting concepts, then as with Alien fans, you will be disappointed. Spoiler alert: David and Shaw reach the Engineer home world, and instead of building upon this interesting race, culture, reasons for wanting humanity, or anything truly unique, Ridley Scott instead drops a literal bomb as David kills every single Engineer with their own bio-weapons.  Ridley Scott, as a whole, seems to be making up the story as he goes, as all interesting concepts are thrown out the window as he attempts to please fans, only to tick them off even further by having David create the Xenomorphs. While I wasn’t personally bothered by this idea, it destroys all Alien vs. Predator comic lore, and ruins any of the little mystery surrounding the Aliens. The movie must be given credit, however, it’s a original and risky take on the story, and I appreciated it. Everyone can agree the Star Wars prequels were atrocious in many regards, I would still consider them leagues better than the recent Force Awakens, as George Lucas actually tried to make something new and interesting, not just redo the plot of a New Hope with a female lead. I praise Ridley for his attempts to not just recycle the same old garbage back at us, and I would still recommend the movie despite all its plot holes, as many of its faults can be fixed with simple theory crafting.