Alien: Covenant (Post-release)

Also, can someone explain to me what these tiny xenomorphs are at the beginning? And what the spores did? Not too sure I got that.


The spores caused the neomorphs - it was a little glossed over, but basically David said something about the atomized black goo targeting all the animal life on the planet, and this was all that was left.
 
The spores caused the neomorphs - it was a little glossed over, but basically David said something about the atomized black goo targeting all the animal life on the planet, and this was all that was left.

Okay, so all of the people that were originally attacked by the black goo that got released by David created neomorphs? Where are they? Or because it was so intense, it just killed them straight away? Why did they freeze in time?

Also what did David really create? The xenomorphs? So they originally come from neomorphs? I'm getting lost xD
 
I think there was a line in there when David was playing around with the bottles of pathogens from Prometheus where he stated that the Engineers had created many variations and dispersal methods for the pathogen (the black goo) that would randomly distort the DNA of any organism that it came into contact with, basically tearing them apart.

In David's lab, he had clearly been experimenting with the pathogen in order to focus it towards his final goal - there were plenty of malformed creatures on his shelves, along with the horrors he wrought on Shaw. I'm guessing that the neomorph was at least one of his predescessors to the xeno - his affection for the adult neo had a real father's pride vibe going.

For whatever reason, he was focussing his energies onto the egg/facehugger/xeno version as the apex of his work - shown in the scene where he tells Oram that the egg has been 'waiting'.




Okay, so all of the people that were originally attacked by the black goo that got released by David created neomorphs? Where are they? Or because it was so intense, it just killed them straight away? Why did they freeze in time?

Also what did David really create? The xenomorphs? So they originally come from neomorphs? I'm getting lost xD
 
I get it, but as the post release thread I just thought people would talk about more specific things spoilers or not, cause you know, its post release. But its cool, Im still on the fence about seeing it, none of my friends care to, so Ill probably wait til it comes out on a home release. I have never seen a movie alone, so Im not going to start now! :lol


If you really must be spoiled, follow the link below. Lots of details and spoilers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/6ahpds/official_discussion_alien_covenant_international/
 
I think there was a line in there when David was playing around with the bottles of pathogens from Prometheus where he stated that the Engineers had created many variations and dispersal methods for the pathogen (the black goo) that would randomly distort the DNA of any organism that it came into contact with, basically tearing them apart.

In David's lab, he had clearly been experimenting with the pathogen in order to focus it towards his final goal - there were plenty of malformed creatures on his shelves, along with the horrors he wrought on Shaw. I'm guessing that the neomorph was at least one of his predescessors to the xeno - his affection for the adult neo had a real father's pride vibe going.

For whatever reason, he was focussing his energies onto the egg/facehugger/xeno version as the apex of his work - shown in the scene where he tells Oram that the egg has been 'waiting'.


Yes I remember he said they were waiting for the mother, I guess it's why he sent the signal so he could get a human host. A colony is even better now... wonder what will happen in the next one! Thanks for the explanation!
 
Huge, huge spoilers!!!!
Ah well if Davids involvement is out there now, thats where I will chip in.
With all the talking that goes on in this film about gods and their creations why is it that just about every director, upon having a mega hit, then goes about sabotage it and destroying their own master piece?
Basically if you haven't guessed already from my hints about Ridleys mash up of two of his biggest hits what he appears to be trying to do with the franchise is to create an artificial Lector. There are so many times once David appears all I could think of was that Ridley had decided he wanted to do a sci fi robotised version of Hannibal, and he lays the references down with a trowel. All the call back to the renaissance art, poetry , detailed anatomical drawings,the flat english accent he overcooked that by a mile. And why the **** release a trailer clip showing David bombing the engineers deliberately , only to have him deny it earlier in the film.
This ,more than anything else flawed the film badly for me , in exactly the same way the engineers introduction screwed up (at least for me) the franchise. And it seemed that because they were widely not well recieved by the fans, what Ridley does here is simply replace them with another big bad ,David. And that felt like a bit of a cop out.
Its not even very clear why David wants to make the Xenomorphs at all. Yes we got an explanation for the black go which most of us here had already guessed at but by chucking out what was essentially the central mystery in Prometheus ie humanities relationship to the Engineers ,by wiping them out nearly everything that was intriguing about that film just evaporated and what you are left with is that basically an unhappy robot with a personality disorder (all be it a fairly serious one)that is hell bent on destroying the human race and thus is ultimately the daddy of the original xenomorph. But why? Whats flawed David to cause him to all HALibal?
By the very end its this predictablity that weakens the film. The callbacks to the original franchise were good, and that raised the movie for me, and the creature sequences were a welcome return to the franchise in all their various forms, even though again we often had this incredible accelerated growth rate and in my opinion they overdid the body horror.
But, like I said I did not hate the movie, but I was disappointed in the route they choose to go with it. Once we get more reviews I'll put up my exact prediction for Aliens :Awakenings. But they aren't that hard to guess.
 
Huge, huge spoilers!!!!
Ah well if Davids involvement is out there now, thats where I will chip in.
With all the talking that goes on in this film about gods and their creations why is it that just about every director, upon having a mega hit, then goes about sabotage it and destroying their own master piece?
Basically if you haven't guessed already from my hints about Ridleys mash up of two of his biggest hits what he appears to be trying to do with the franchise is to create an artificial Lector. There are so many times once David appears all I could think of was that Ridley had decided he wanted to do a sci fi robotised version of Hannibal, and he lays the references down with a trowel. All the call back to the renaissance art, poetry , detailed anatomical drawings,the flat english accent he overcooked that by a mile. And why the **** release a trailer clip showing David bombing the engineers deliberately , only to have him deny it earlier in the film.
This ,more than anything else flawed the film badly for me , in exactly the same way the engineers introduction screwed up (at least for me) the franchise. And it seemed that because they were widely not well recieved by the fans, what Ridley does here is simply replace them with another big bad ,David. And that felt like a bit of a cop out.
Its not even very clear why David wants to make the Xenomorphs at all. Yes we got an explanation for the black go which most of us here had already guessed at but by chucking out what was essentially the central mystery in Prometheus ie humanities relationship to the Engineers ,by wiping them out nearly everything that was intriguing about that film just evaporated and what you are left with is that basically an unhappy robot with a personality disorder (all be it a fairly serious one)that is hell bent on destroying the human race and thus is ultimately the daddy of the original xenomorph. But why? Whats flawed David to cause him to all HALibal?
By the very end its this predictablity that weakens the film. The callbacks to the original franchise were good, and that raised the movie for me, and the creature sequences were a welcome return to the franchise in all their various forms, even though again we often had this incredible accelerated growth rate and in my opinion they overdid the body horror.
But, like I said I did not hate the movie, but I was disappointed in the route they choose to go with it. Once we get more reviews I'll put up my exact prediction for Aliens :Awakenings. But they aren't that hard to guess.

David didnt have a great start, he basically suffered a form of child abuse at the hands of Peter Weyland and was pre programmed with all sorts of behavior and tasks, many of which we still dont or will ever know about that would have started some internal conflicts. Then he had his head ripped off and that same head was used to kill his creator, was carried around in a bag for a while only to be eventually put back together by a novice. Then he is left to his own devices for TEN years with NO maintenance and all the plans Weyland stuffed in him.
And he also spoke to God, who then pulled his head off.

ac34.jpg
Weyland : Building Better Monsters. Ground Zero

When its a real problem....
http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/the-untold-story-of-qf72-what-happens-when-psycho-automation-leaves-pilots-powerless-20170510-gw26ae.html
 
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Is Davids hair just a way to get to Act 3 or is he possibly ageing? In Prometheus he mentions wearing a spacesuit only to make the humans feel better but would that sort of logic be extended to engineering gradual hair growth?
 
I think Ridley Scott doesn't appreciate or understand what made the original an enduring classic.


I think Scott understands completely what made the original work and he's gone on record expressing why it doesn't anymore and, simply put, it's because of over-saturation (I recall him saying that one "could find the xenomorph at Disneyland," for his example). It's gone so many different ways as more sequels are made and the creature just isn't scary anymore. And despite that, every movie has the same basic premise: people encounter the egg/face-hugger, which leads to the creature, and then the creature kills people, and there's a survivor that kills it in the end. Hell, even in Alien: Isolation, arguably the best Alien-related thing since the original film, the monster just becomes a nuisance after a while.

I admire and can respect the man wanting to do something different to inject some life back into the property, and some interest back for himself, but unfortunately, no one really knows what they want to do with it beyond "be like old movie but not".

Prometheus was trash and Covenant seems to be a mixed bag but the Alien property has been around for close to 40 years now and, like all of these prolonged franchises, it's suffering from age.
 
David didnt have a great start, he basically suffered child abuse at the hands of Peter Weyland and was pre programmed with all sorts of behavior and tasks, many of which we still dont or will ever know about that would have started some internal conflicts. Then he had his head ripped off and that same head was used to kill his creator, was carried around in a bag for a while only to be eventually put back together by a novice. Then he is left to his own devices for TEN years with NO maintenance and all the plans Weyland stuffed in him.
And he also spoke to God, who then pulled his head off.

View attachment 728485
Weyland : Building Better Monsters. Ground Zero

When its a real problem....
http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/the-untold-story-of-qf72-what-happens-when-psycho-automation-leaves-pilots-powerless-20170510-gw26ae.html

Apparently not: http://uk.ign.com/videos/2017/05/13/alien-covenant-why-the-xenomorphs-were-created-spoilers

So it boils down to the fact he's was bit bored after having discovered the Makers of all life in the universe (and wiped them out) and didn't like the human race, well, because he wasn't impressed by them either.
 
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It may also be that Scott was on his 45th interview for the day, I`ve seen at least a dozen now and he`s wearing the same cloths and it`s just simpler to say curiosity. There`s another possible two more movies with David as well which might keep his otherwise loose lips a bit tightened.
 
Quick question for those who have seen it, is David still watching REAL MOVIES and quoting from them,ie Lawrence Of Arabia?
 
I think Scott understands completely what made the original work and he's gone on record expressing why it doesn't anymore and, simply put, it's because of over-saturation (I recall him saying that one "could find the xenomorph at Disneyland," for his example). It's gone so many different ways as more sequels are made and the creature just isn't scary anymore. And despite that, every movie has the same basic premise: people encounter the egg/face-hugger, which leads to the creature, and then the creature kills people, and there's a survivor that kills it in the end. Hell, even in Alien: Isolation, arguably the best Alien-related thing since the original film, the monster just becomes a nuisance after a while.

I admire and can respect the man wanting to do something different to inject some life back into the property, and some interest back for himself, but unfortunately, no one really knows what they want to do with it beyond "be like old movie but not".

Prometheus was trash and Covenant seems to be a mixed bag but the Alien property has been around for close to 40 years now and, like all of these prolonged franchises, it's suffering from age.
I think what makes Alien a classic isn't the premise or even the design but the characters who are realized with real dialogue and motives. Mark Kermode hits the nail on the head when he points out that Alien had folks who talked about their bouses, the food quality etc. They were palpable. But, in Alien Covenant and Prometheus, the dialogue is no longer real. People pontificate relentlessly about themes that ought to be implicit. Real people don't talk like that.

When characters seem real you start to have that documentary effect that Alien had which makes the terror more palpable. You don't get that in Covenant.

I say that Ridley doesn't get it only because he doesn't seem to seek the same atmosphere when the reason seems self evident.
 
I've been thinking about the whole 'going out onto a new world without an environment suit/helmet' problem that carries over from Prometheus into Covenant. This is actually an issue that plagues countless sci-fi movies and shows, but in those other case it doesn't trouble our willing suspension of disbelief precisely because there is no consequence. In the Alien movies it's truly a difficult part of the narrative to overcome, because it draws attention to itself. It's certainly problematic, but how do you get around the issue and still tell the story?

The most egrarious issue of character stupidity in Covenant is undoubtedly Oram's willingness to stick his face over the alien egg, particularly after David has already demonstrated his blatant shadiness with the adult neomorph encounter and the creepy experiments. He tells Oram that the egg has been waiting for it's mother, for heaven's sake!

So why write a moment like that? Does Scott think it's an acceptable (expected?) horror movie convention to exploit? Or because it's darkly humorous? Or is it just dumb, lazy writing with no excuse?

I'll admit, I did chuckle. Was I meant to?
 
The common thread in a lot of Scotts movies is the danger of artificial intelligence, blade runner replicants, Ash, David, these are the true villans...... the alien is a plot device, the real danger is the AI. have not seen covenant yet, this is just my theory regarding shared universe.
 
David didnt have a great start, he basically suffered child abuse at the hands of Peter Weyland and was pre programmed with all sorts of behavior and tasks, many of which we still dont or will ever know about that would have started some internal conflicts.

How do you know about this? Has it ever been mentioned? What do you mean by "child abuse"?
 
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