Ridley Scott: "Alien: Covenant" First Of Three Films, Will Link Into Original "Alien"

The big blue guys were a questionable design decision, although it grew on me over time. I managed to find my 1992 Platnium Edition Alien comic which depicts the space jockey much differently.
Alien_PLATNIUM.jpg
 
Glad they didn't go for ol' Penisface there.

Still, I was hoping for something a bit more exotic than giant blue human.
 
polonyc2 said:
as far as the CGI aliens in Covenant and the different look of them I can sort of understand where Ridley Scott is coming from...you have to remember that these movies are prequels to the original movies so the xenomorphs are expected to look and act a bit different...they evolved over time and became the aliens we know and love from the originals...as far as the new trailer, I loved the scene where the guy steps on the spore and you see it evaporate into the air...and who doesn't love seeing an alien egg open up and a facehugger jump out
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...This movie takes place like 20 years before Alien.

SeymourGore said:
Glad they didn't go for ol' Penisface there.

Still, I was hoping for something a bit more exotic than giant blue human.
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In the original Alien the Space Jockey was a fossil, it had an elephant like face to it , it wasn't a "suit" with a giant human in it, they basically ignored that and took an exotic very ancient/alien looking thing and made it into the most generic "alien" design you could imagine.
 
Stiler said:
...This movie takes place like 20 years before Alien...
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that's my point...they are expected to look and act differently from the xenomorphs in the original Alien movies...so the bad CGI could be an unexpected benefit which fits into the alien mythology
 
Stiler said:
...This movie takes place like 20 years before Alien.



In the original Alien the Space Jockey was a fossil, it had an elephant like face to it , it wasn't a "suit" with a giant human in it, they basically ignored that and took an exotic very ancient/alien looking thing and made it into the most generic "alien" design you could imagine.
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I agree. The original was interesting because the whole ship was organic and the pilot was basically grown into it, he was part of the ship and possibly like since birth and be like that 'till the ship dies. It was interesting and played along with Gigers art which often depicted alive organics and machines melded together. But Prometheus retconned all that away and went for the most generic and lame route imaginable.
 
polonyc2 said:
that's my point...they are expected to look and act differently from the xenomorphs in the original Alien movies...so the bad CGI could be an unexpected benefit which fits into the alien mythology
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20 years isn't very much time to "evolve" and look different though....that was my point.
 
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polonyc2 said:
that's my point...they are expected to look and act differently from the xenomorphs in the original Alien movies...so the bad CGI could be an unexpected benefit which fits into the alien mythology
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Yeah, if we didn't invent planes 100 years ago we would have wings by now!

They wouldn't even expected to look significantly different 2000 years later, maybe 200.000 years later. Do you even evolution?
 
wizzi01 said:
So, in Covenant they go to colonize another planet. Why did they take a gay couple with them? Is there some new science that let's men have babies?
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To avoid the gay rights protest for not doing it.
 
Stiler said:
20 years isn't very much time to "evolve" and look different though....that was my point.
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That isn't true at all. Look at something like fruit flies that have very short life spans, they are used for genetic testing as you can get a lot of generations in a short time. Evolution by itself happens through generations. If you look at something like a human where we don't have a entirely new generation except for maybe every 18 - 20 years (longer for some people as they wait to have kids later in life) then sure we won't have changes that quickly. However take something that has a two week life span, that is 520 generations for changes to have occurred.

Now lets jump from real biology to the movie. it has been setup that they steal DNA from whatever the face hugger gets on before the xenomorph stage. This is how in AVP we get a hybrid of the alien and predator. that was a single generation and yet was MUCH different because it pulled DNA from a new creature. In Prometheus you see the xenomorph evolve instantly. So we have already seen twice now in this universe what the evolution timeline is for this race. So given that it has happen with a single victim in the past, yes 20 years for this race would be plenty of time.
 
M76 said:
Yeah, if we didn't invent planes 100 years ago we would have wings by now!

They wouldn't even expected to look significantly different 2000 years later, maybe 200.000 years later. Do you even evolution?
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Don't forget the alien will take similarities from the body it burst out from. Alien 3 it was more dog like. Or the Pred-Alien from AvP.

Maybe this alien is from one of the engineers. Would explain its larger size pretty easily.
 
jojo69 said:
prequel huh?

so no Sigourney Weaver in her underwear
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I think they have Siguorney 2.0 character but she kind of has a smarmy expression much of the trailers. Kind of can't stand her, tbh.
 
Kinsaras said:
Don't forget the alien will take similarities from the body it burst out from. Alien 3 it was more dog like. Or the Pred-Alien from AvP.

Maybe this alien is from one of the engineers. Would explain its larger size pretty easily.
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Taking traits from the host organism however is not evolution. Also I don't know how the exact reproduction process works, but xenos don't just turn into facehuggers. And the only one being able to lay facehuggers is the queen, which I have absolutely no idea where it comes from. Maybe it was mentioned previously in the movies but I can't recall.
 
M76 said:
Taking traits from the host organism however is not evolution. Also I don't know how the exact reproduction process works, but xenos don't just turn into facehuggers. And the only one being able to lay facehuggers is the queen, which I have absolutely no idea where it comes from. Maybe it was mentioned previously in the movies but I can't recall.
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The origin of Xenomorphs is convoluted at best. I remember reading comics back in the day (late 80s early 90s) that suggested that Predators created xenomorphs in order to have something challenging to hunt. The AvP movies touched on this, a little. Another comic, I read, said that Xenomorphs were taken from their home planet, by this Gorn looking guy, as he was trying to make a quick buck, and of course the alien captured was a queen, it escaped its enclosure, attacked the guy and the ship crash landed on an inhabited planet.
 
M76 said:
Taking traits from the host organism however is not evolution. Also I don't know how the exact reproduction process works, but xenos don't just turn into facehuggers. And the only one being able to lay facehuggers is the queen, which I have absolutely no idea where it comes from. Maybe it was mentioned previously in the movies but I can't recall.
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I never mention evolution just giving a reason why this one could be different. As for the rest, what Draax said makes sense.
 
Kinsaras said:
I never mention evolution just giving a reason why this one could be different. As for the rest, what Draax said makes sense.
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You said because they're 20 years apart they can be different, that makes no sense. They can be different if they have different hosts, but that has nothing to do with time.
Draax said:
The origin of Xenomorphs is convoluted at best. I remember reading comics back in the day (late 80s early 90s) that suggested that Predators created xenomorphs in order to have something challenging to hunt. The AvP movies touched on this, a little. Another comic, I read, said that Xenomorphs were taken from their home planet, by this Gorn looking guy, as he was trying to make a quick buck, and of course the alien captured was a queen, it escaped its enclosure, attacked the guy and the ship crash landed on an inhabited planet.
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That's fine, that's an origin story for the queen (although I don't really buy into the shared world with the predators, that's just too fanboy fanfiction level to me, regardless of it being made canon) The question was how does the queen reproduce into another queen. Because the xenomorphs are just workers with no ability to reproduce themselves, therefore no ability to evolve, so it's irrelevant that they incorporate host DNA into their form.
 
Kaitian said:
On the subject of Aliens:
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Should've come with a mandatory ticket off-world. Also I'd have made him pay at least ten times that. If you're that stupid at least have an economic benefit to the rest of society.
 
M76 said:
You said because they're 20 years apart they can be different, that makes no sense. They can be different if they have different hosts, but that has nothing to do with time.
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I said no such thing. I think you have names mixed up.
 
Kaitian said:
On the subject of Aliens:
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"Gender less"?

Looks very feminine to me. Also, if he wanted to truly be gender less, should just kill himself and be buried in an unmarked grave. He'll be dead and nobody will know who, or care, who is buried in the grave.
 
M76 said:
You said because they're 20 years apart they can be different, that makes no sense. They can be different if they have different hosts, but that has nothing to do with time.

That's fine, that's an origin story for the queen (although I don't really buy into the shared world with the predators, that's just too fanboy fanfiction level to me, regardless of it being made canon) The question was how does the queen reproduce into another queen. Because the xenomorphs are just workers with no ability to reproduce themselves, therefore no ability to evolve, so it's irrelevant that they incorporate host DNA into their form.
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So yet another comic I read, I believe it was aliens music of the spears, talked about this.

Aliens are very similar to bees and alien hives also produce a royal jelly substance. In that comic, humans had aliens in captivity so they could harvest royal jelly, which acted as a drug (to humans). The aliens could use the royal jelly to create a queen from a drone larva. A slightly different take is that royal jelly can turn a facehugger (in its egg) into a royal facehugger that will create a queen.I believe royal jelly could also be used to turn a warrior alien into a praetorian alien.

Alien 3 didn't explain that process at all though as Ripley somehow just knew she had a queen inside of her. Maybe the scan she did showed that ... I'm not sure.
 
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Just looking at the cast.. yup.. nothing can go wrong with James Franco and Kenny Powers on board.
 
Stiler said:
20 years isn't very much time to "evolve" and look different though....that was my point.
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since we're dealing with alien xenomorphs I think we can chalk it up to them having vastly different DNA then humans...I can see them evolving faster
 
Stiler said:
I want to blame him but he's behind probably the best tv show on right now, The Leftovers, which has had some amazing writing/acting.


I think Ridely just had one idea of what "he" wanted to do and then Lindelof had another idea and it just kind of got all convoluted into a mix-match of ideas.
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Given the amount of terrible writing that comes from that guy, I'd say leftovers is the anomaly.
 
Aireoth said:
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Given the amount of terrible writing that comes from that guy, I'd say leftovers is the anomaly.
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Omg I see he did the screenplay for World War Z, no f'ing wonder. You take this amazing book that instead of individuals in small clumps vs zombies has a much more global scale...then throw every goddamn thing about it away and make some random zombie movie instead. F that guy hard.
 
M76 said:
Makes about as much sense as taking an old couple with them. Should retired people protest too?
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The problem with your statement is reality. Now, I am not saying that any group should protest. I am saying that most likely given recent actions that have been taken by such groups they would. Every movie now has to include a gay person, a person of color, and a strong female character otherwise there will be some group claiming that the movie was against their type. It is sad that we can't just make a movie, show or game and not have some group protest that they were not given representation in it.
 
Aireoth said:
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Given the amount of terrible writing that comes from that guy, I'd say leftovers is the anomaly.
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we really need to replace that expression. In today's society a broken clock is blank as it is a cell phone in many cases or a digital display. So when broke it is never correct.
 
a broken clock is right only once... 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
 
Semantics said:
Prometheus was meh really everything after the 1st alien was meh.
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Actually I'm not really into horror but even so I can acknowledge that Alien was indeed a scary flick.

Aliens though was more to my liking and I enjoyed many of the characters and scenes of Alien 3. Alien 4 had a couple of moments but had some real detractors that made it hard to like. And I completely agree, Prometheus was meh, describes it perfectly.

But I like well done movies so if it's well done, I'm fine with another Alien flick. I would be even happier with an improved AvP film though.
 
SeymourGore said:
I didn't think Ridley denied Prometheus being part of the Alien universe. I remember him ranting about there being no connection to LV-426, and how tired he was with the 'Alien' itself (he felt that the countless sequels and views of the Alien made it no longer scary).
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That's not what takes away from the scary, the first Alien was scary cause there was only one. You spend all your time wondering where it is, when it will turn up. You can't do that with a horde of them, it just can't be the same dynamic when you add more.

How can the guy who made Alien not understand that part of the equation ?
 
Krenum said:
Say what!
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I am more of a Dolly Parton type of person. I have always thought of Sigourney to be one of those rare cases in Hollywood in that it was more her acting ability than her looks that determined her success. I am a huge Sigourney Weaver fan, just not in the same way many of you guys are "fans."
 
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