Alien Movie Universe

Theory about Lope's Xeno gestation

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joylitt

MemberNeomorphMay-21-2017 8:56 PM

I am not particularly offended by such things as the gestation rate of the second xenomorph in the movie. However, I have a theory that may appease those who have an issue with that.

We have seen acid penetrating through Lope's face. Later on, David treats his wound on the lander. As we know, David carries some facehugger embryos.

Could it be that he also carries the embryonic creature that the facehugger releases into the victim's body (something the size of a tadpole). Then he would put pass it through the open wound. Lope wouldn't feel much, he's probably under the effect of pain killers.

22 Replies

Roger55

MemberChestbursterMay-21-2017 10:42 PM

Yes I was thinking about this posibility very interesting topic, why not? Everything is posible in David behavier.

Jeri.theSOB

MemberOvomorphMay-21-2017 10:45 PM

could be but i also feel since this creature is very different from the original xeno an non biomechanical, it could just be a quicker process like the neomorph. 

and lope took pain meds and a sedative that could have slowed the gestation

Mishgun2k

MemberOvomorphMay-22-2017 12:07 AM

Guy was infected from the initial encounter. As facehugger falls off you can see the tentacle with which it deploys the egg retract. They show it very fast but I think its to let us know the egg was deployed. Its not anything David did on the lander to characters face.

splatterpunk

MemberFacehuggerMay-22-2017 5:44 AM

You guys know that time passed right? Remember Daniels was cooking and talking to t. Unless I forgot the movie already. Do you want them to put a stop timer or go three hours later? Plus the guy was worked on by the medic. That all took time. If anything blame shoddy editing if you were confused.

BigDave

MemberDeaconMay-22-2017 6:06 AM

This is the beauty with some ambiguity and plot holes... as we then can start to think... ok how can we explain how this would be better?

And so that idea actually could work... if we assume Lope was taken to the Medbay seen to by Upworth and then Walter checked upon him.

But we dont see this Walter Scene, where he then indeed brings up a Xenomorph Embryo and puts it inside of lope... this theory indeed is a good solid explanation...

It also points out how ambiguity is key... and Spoon Feeding is not always the best....  If we actually saw this scene happen (assume they went this route) and we saw this happen.. then right away the David/Walter Reveal would have happened way to early... and would have taken the shine away from the ending.

Looking at the movie... i think in Hindsight, having Lope Wrestle with the Face Hugger and we saw the ovipositor trying to get to his face, while he was holding the Face Hugger Away as its is wiggling around and then tightens its grip with the tail but does not attack to the face as Cole comes in and Cole and Lope keep it away from Lopes Face then cut the Tail and Acid Burns Lopes Face and Neck a little....

If they did this Scene above, and did not reveal the Xenomorph on the Ship at the end... in the Trailers but only the one that was attacking Daniels on the Lander Rescue Drop Ship...

Then it would set up a latter scene where the crew get back to the ship, and think all is fine... no need to worry about Plot Hole as far as why not Quarantine Lope..  Daniels could asked do we Quarantine and Walter says the Organism did not implant nothing..... Then Daniels then gets him and Upworth to run a Scan... that reveals Nothing...

So they place him into a Quarantined Med Bay in case (as they dont know about if he could have had same infection as Ledwood and Hallet (the crew would not know) so they place Lope in a Cryo-pod in the Medbay... and then we go to a scene with Tennessee and Daniels and other shots of the 4 survivors preparing for Cryo-sleep....   Walter could inform them that preparations for Cryo-sleep will commence in 12 hours or 24...

We then get Upworth  saying i need a Shower before we go, and then Ricks follow her and she says what you doing and he says look baby i cant think of you getting naked in a Shower and knowing its going to be 7 years before i get my hands on you... so off they go...

Then when we have the Xenomorph reveal... the Fans would be like... HOW THE F$"% did this happen..

To then at the end reveal that Walter is David and places TWO Face Hugger Embryos and a Xenomorph one in the Freezer would then allow us to go.....OHHHHHH! David must have infected Lope in the Medbay and not turn on the Cryo-Pod..

The Medbay shot could have shown a smashed glass of the Cryo-Pod with Blood everywhere...

I think this would have worked much better..

R.I.P Sox  01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017

Mishgun2k

MemberOvomorphMay-22-2017 11:38 AM

You guys are overcomplicating things. Iwill have to see the movie again when it comes out on blu ray but i am pretty sure the egg was implanted during the fight scene. The facehugger was snug on the characters face. As far as the time goes why does it even matter ? Some chestbursters come out faster than others. Oh well.

SailorSaturn

MemberOvomorphMay-22-2017 10:12 PM

I think the embryo was definitely implanted in the fight scene, seeing as facehuggers are hardy creatures that don't die until they serve their purpose. We see the facehugger perish with its legs folding in, and I do believe that it's not the same one that infected Oram as I can easily argue that Lope and Cole's presence simply hatched another egg (not to mention that facehuggers tend to only infect one host).

Jonesy

MemberFacehuggerMay-23-2017 1:30 PM

(SPOILER MAYBE) Little OP but I just read a little bit of the novel today, and the book may explain why the gestation period is different.

It seems that the eggs which David created are not the original. In the story, David showed the captain another set of eggs BEFORE he showed his own creation. The captain saw those eggs, with motionless fingerlike creatures inside (David hinted they are dead already). David said he tried to create something as perfect as those, but he didn't have thousand of years of practice just like the Engineers did.

So it seems suggesting that David's version of eggs are not the original we seen in 1979 Alien, hence the difference of gestation.

nursenerd

MemberOvomorphMay-23-2017 4:53 PM

the facehugger was able to implant an egg quickly down him. because when the other person rips the facehugger off him, the facehugger drops to the floor and is dead! i caught in on the first viewing. it drops to the floor and curls up.

 

dmx1138

MemberOvomorphMay-24-2017 1:42 AM

what @nursenerd said. Upon second viewing I noticed that the facehugger curls up and dies as soon as it hits the ground.

 

AdamPD

MemberFacehuggerMay-24-2017 2:08 AM

Yea the other guy cuts into it, splashing the acid blood on the floor and his colleagues face, he throws it across the room and it hits the wall, you see the impregnation tube thing retract inside and it curls up and seems to die.

xeno6696

MemberOvomorphMay-30-2017 11:27 AM

(SPOILER) 

No... the facehugger didn't get Lope in that scene.  In the novelization:

"Legs spread, the creature snapped all eight limbs onto Lope's head.  Its muscular tail whipped around the sergeant's neck, binding his upraised arm to his face and body.  With the arm fastened in position, it blocked Lope's mouth."

In the same scene, after Cole comes upstairs and helps:

"Displaying a seemingly inexhaustible store of energy, the thing strove with just as much effort to force its way past Lope's arm to get to his mouth."

No mention of retracting ovipositors... nada.  

 

The book does mention after they get back to the ship that mother will get shut down for maintenance, for something like 8+hrs.  So I think the implantation has to come from David, either when tending to Lope's wound, or when Mother was shut down for maintenance.  

QueenElizabethShaw

MemberChestbursterMay-30-2017 12:55 PM

xeno6696

I saw no ovipositor retract and I was looking for it. What I did notice (to speak to the OP's point) is that when David and Lope are on the small ship, the way the scene was filmed emphasized David ripping Lopes original bandage off his face and putting the new one on. After that, the filming AGAIN makes a point to focus in on Lope holding the new bandage on his face. It is not long after this that we then get our shot of David's hood getting blown upward, alluding to the idea that something sinister is afoot.

When you watch the movie, the bandage scene absolutely stands out in a somewhat awkward way, and considering the brevity of the scene with the hugger and the ambiguity of what some are calling the the facehuggers ovipositor, as well as the huge continuity gap in implantation time (as well as the fact that the book specifies the ovipositor never made it into lopes mouth) I think it's fairly obvious Ridley was attempting to suggest David put an embryo on the new bandage.

At the very least, I can promise this scene stands out enough that (for those who originally paid it no mind) it's worth revisiting to see what I'm talking about.

joylitt

MemberNeomorphMay-30-2017 1:08 PM

QueenElizabethShaw Yes, that's what I've been saying. It seems I was right after all

Membrane

MemberFacehuggerMay-30-2017 1:35 PM

Fact 1 - The novel does not specifically say anything about the ovipositor making its way into Lope's mouth.

Fact 2 - The ovipositor is shown retracting in the movie after being removed from Lope's face.

So, how did he get impregnated?  It's up to you to have fun and speculate... just like MANY things in this movie.

QueenElizabethShaw

MemberChestbursterMay-30-2017 3:02 PM

Membrane

The book says that Lope got is hand between his mouth and the hugger. I will say though, this clearly doesn't happen in the movie. Also, on revisiting the scene I did catch the shot with the retracting ovipositor. So I'll roll that one back.

Tonehound

MemberFacehuggerMay-30-2017 11:03 PM

Directly after the facehugger is thrown against the wall and falls to the ground, you can see it's proboscis before it curls up and dies. I have made a post featuring screenshots of Lope and the facehugger here.

 

xeno6696

MemberOvomorphMay-31-2017 8:06 AM

So, to make this even more complicated, only in Resurrection and AVP (and IMHO, soley because they were more video game than movie) do facehuggers have the ability to implant an embryo in literally seconds.  When we go back to Alien and Aliens... it was on average a 24hr facehugger implantation before it would fall off and die.  [Insert meta analysis about audience attention span here.]

I get it that Prometheus/Covenant plan on doing different things, but the novelization trumps for one reason:  Novelizations are almost irrevocably based on the final script before the movie gets edited.  More like a director's cut.  Case in point, the novelization for the first movie had the cut scene where Ripley finds Dallas and Brett, and Aliens had the missing scene where Newt's family finds the derelict.   

So whatever happened in the film, we have an idea on what the final cut was supposed to be, and firmly:  Lope was not intended to get impregnated by the facehugger.  And if we're honest, the movie is almost entirely about David... so adding one more crime to his list of atrocities makes a ton of sense to make his character even a bit more repulsive--by infecting an already wounded man.  

The novelization also gives more detail on the death of the facehugger:

"Realizing that physical strength wasn't going to be sufficient to dislodge the creature, Cole pulled his service knife and jammed it into the creature's ventral side.  Giving the blade a twist sent it deep into the abdomen.  Wrenching on it turned the sharp edge sideways."

"Ventral" means underside.  Where the ovipositor would be.  The abdomen is also where any embryo would be prior to implantation.  So for the entire scene, Lope's arm is between him and the ovipositor, and the facehugger gets stabbed in the abdomen before any implantation can occur.  Cole then shoots the "crab" until it is shredded.  It's clear that this version is not what got cut for the final film, but my guess is that it was changed as they started choreographing the scene.  

Now, the book doesn't suggest at all where or when Lope got impregnated--in fact, that's why I found this forum.  It sounds like its going to be an open mystery for a little while... in the meantime, I'm going to hold that it was David, to help confirm his evil nature.  

Micro changes in air density

MemberOvomorphMay-31-2017 2:27 PM

The reason we have these discussions is down to poor script writing and directors backing themselves into corners just like prometheus. They then have to exaggerate things in order to keep the plot moving. If David put the egg into Damian on the ship there should have been some hint of this to back up the supposition. Xenos birthing in minutes is ridiculous no matter how you try explain it. What about the final xeno scampering from the medlap to the shower and arriving there 8 feet tall!!!! please give us all some nouse mister director.

Blackwinter-witch

MemberPraetorianMay-31-2017 2:57 PM

There's a huge flaw with how Cole used his knife...it would have deluged Lope's head with acid, killing him.

This is an example of 'adjusting facts to fit the story', which is sloppy and lazy.

IN SPACE THERE IS NO WARNING

 

 

 

xeno6696

MemberOvomorphJun-03-2017 10:51 PM

Blackwinter-witch,

Don't see where you get that, unless Cole is underneath Lope and cutting from a rather compromised position. As it stands, the acid has a much larger chance of running over his hand than his own face. 

Micro changes in air density:

Movies are a business.  And the willingness for studios to experiment like they did in the 1970s isn't there.  

 

xeno6696

MemberOvomorphJun-03-2017 10:58 PM

Blackwinter-witch

I made a mistake.

I thought you meant Cole was deluged, my bad.

I think there's enough wriggle room here, simply because nothing in canon states mols of acid and anything scientific about it's actual caustic nature.  And that most writers have no concept of volume or science in general.

 

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