Covenant and its connection to the other films

I understand your point. You are not alone, as many other Alien fans are clinging to their last hopes to see the alien creatures depicted as something more than the creation of an android. They base those hopes on details like the door decoration in "Prometheus" and things like that. But I don't think Ridley Scott will provide any more backstory in a sequel. He is just going forward with his A.I. plotline, that is if 20th Century Fox let him get away with it.

You really said it well wit this: 

a beautiful creature of horror and untold history in the void, but if david is the creator than it reduces the threat to that of a small one off population of genetic frankenstein mutants not "aliens" while they still look alien the themes from the film and the purpose of their existence would be diminished. 

the ever present and ancient danger of the alien would now be gone.

I told the same thing. Alien world would survive if they made David being a creator of Xeno for THIS particular movie, in this particular planet, by engineering and studying particular Engineers paper and knowledge leftover - and made it CLEAR.

But no now i am supposed to believe that AI did Xeno even though we can see Xenomorph statue on Prometheus mural (when they David and Prometheus crew arrived) and there are facehuggers on mural as well - explicitly telling us that Engineers knew for all this way before David and crew arrived on planet in movie Prometheus. 

I am going to see movie today actually. I hope i won't be so disappointed...i waited so long and it look like i am going to get unintelligent sci fi horror flick with great images and stupid brainless story. 

Don't let the story direction hurt your enjoyment. agan i still liked this movie quite a lot for the things it got right. i just take issue with the gutting of the themes the alien movies and lore was known for. i still think things are ambiguous enough to say the xeno is still ancient, especially with one of davids lines in the film. 

Jeri.theSOB But do you realize that if the ancient xeno theory is right that makes David obsession with creation rather dumb? Isn't he intelligent enough to understand he is not creating anything?

Think about it this way he had a line "I have found perfection.. i have created it" He states he found it befor he states he created it. As i stated he may have found history of this creature and only a basic blueprint and how the black pathogen creates multiple forms of xeno like creatures and wants to build one of his own. 

just cause i create a chair for my living room does not mean i was the first to make a chair. 

the biomechanical Xeno from the fist film looked way to similar to the engineers biosuits and the last engineers biomechanical skin as well as the derelict to be created completely separate from the engineers with no relation other than the goo. 

The room where david looked like he was going to rape Daniels seemed like a record room since all those scrolls had slots that were built by the engineers. david also states he learned of there ways, they create things with genetics, its not out of the question that david found a basic blueprint and started creating a xeno like creature in his image.  

its obvious the creature in this film was very different from the ones in previous films.

another note and i hate to go back to the murals, but there were face huggers on that wall as well as the ceiling having a mural of xeno hands holding an open egg.

and the engineer cryopods n prometheus had chestburster sized holes in them also. 

that and how would he know the eggs in his chamber where "successes" if he had no humans or life to test them. we saw steps toward their creation but how did he know he was close. or even at the point of having a functioning life form without some prior knowledge. 

Thank you for your thoughtful article.

It is quite clear to me that Ridleys vision and fans expectation of the xxx121 are out of step with each other. 

Ridley for many years has held to the view the Derelict is a Bomber and the cargo a weapon - no more no less.

The point of Prometheus, as Jon Spaihts said, was to give the XXX121 a creation story. With the right execution it should have been entirely clear what was actually going on in Prometheus.

Engineers, Space Gardeners stole the fire.

They began sub creating and created the ALIEN mutagen, that was the problem it got out of control and destroyed them and become a thing of punishment and even the refined version the Deacon reminds us of the Promethean myth.

So the top of the A L I E N hierarchy is what is now called the Alien Pathogen. It takes positive creation and turns whatever it latches on to into over sexualised outcomes which are deeply unsympathetic to its original host. Depending on the target the result changes whether Worm, Engineer or Mankind and Covenant confirms it bends and changes eco systems.

The XXX121 is merely a bi product of that. The Engineers created the forerunner the Deacon and sacrificed it immortalised it in their art and buried it in a tomb.

David has now pushed on further spurred on by his unique programme and refined what has gone before. This story I am certain will be told in ALIEN : Origins, the tie in prequel novel to Covenant released in September and written by Alan Dean Foster.

The xxx121 is revered by fans for its design and its iconic contributions to the first two films, but in the end it is an endoparaistoid which the good in humanity triumph over. Though humans in the form of Weyland Yutani believe like the Engineers with the pathogen, they can coral it to their benefit.   

At a dramatic level its very clear now from Covenant as a central focus in a film it is cooked and its only those who seek to harness it or stop it and the reasons why they stop it that are interesting.

If people want to sit and munch pop corn and hear cracking bones and see blood I doubt they will find the fix from this creature anymore its to familiar, its behaviour to well known and along with all the other pathogens outcomes it is one of several. That I suspect is at the heart of some segment of the audiences disappointment. They needed to be shown it was cooked. Putting Sigorneay in front of the creature will not make the slightest difference either.

However there is another segment who feel there lore is being undermined and they are right to be disappointed from that perspective. Ridley has changed the lore since Prometheus and people are also concerned about gestation timing and infection realities. 

For me to see this beautifully designed creature who is deeply unsympathetic, has no moral compass reduced to the creation of a robot whose original programming was deeply dysfunctional (both complete and immortal but without soul) and through apartheid experiences with humans comes to hate them is the perfect morality tale. David feels left out scorned misunderstood and will use that latent hate to do anything to express that hate. Sound familiar.   

Michelle Johnston You sound like an expert! However, for me to be a morality tale there would have to be more information about the human counterparts, and that is a huge vortex of nothingness in both Prometheus and Covenant. What is the lesson we humans are supposed to learn? Are we being punished because we are stupid? Because we are evil? Because we defy a natural order of things? Whatever it is, these prequels haven't been able to determine that.

Jeri.TheSOB (sorry i don't see quote button so i have to copypaste and make italic your words)

Think about it this way he had a line "I have found perfection.. i have created it"  - you see (assuming this is David sentence from movie) this is not the same. If they said "I have found perfection.. i have RECREATED it" noone would complain. No one.

"just cause i create a chair for my living room does not mean i was the first to make a chair. "

Precisely! But you would say then that you recreated or remake it. Not created it. You saw chair somewhere, you found scheme somewhere and you recreated it. Not created it.

Creation is not the same as building something from memory or from someone else design. Newer was. 

And thanks for advice i am going to see movie today and will enjoy "right" things no doubt about that.

I can only hope Ridley will make it more obvious in Covenant prequel. The fact that these engineers in covenant looks different and wear different outfit to Prometheus engineers gives him plausible room for making things right.

I always felt that the Engineers have already designed the Alien. and david is merely finishing what they started. I also believe the Engineers created Humans purely to be host to the Alien creatures in order to for the perfect organism to be created. Why where the engineers coming to kill humans on earth? because we had reached the point in our evolution that was necessary for the alien to be perfect.. 

seqoi yes but david didn't specifically set out to create xeno, atleast from what he said. he set out to create Life, just as peter weyland created david. (david for the most part is exactly human in appearance and emotional function) wayland didn't create the human image but he did create the synthetic life aspect. 

David may not have created the image or original xeno design but he did create his own form of it being the proto xeno. 

just like my chair, i created it. its the only chair like it, its similar to how some chairs look but it is my creation its specifically designed by me while inspired by others work its still my creation. 

and going back to the david quote. i could have found what i think to be the perfect chair, then i spend the time using the same wood(black goo) and then working hard to perfect and design it in a way that suit me and honors the original while having my own style to it. the chair while inspired or similar to the original would be mine in its conception with its own style being an echo of my hand.  no one els could say they created my chair, some one could say they inspired it but not created it. 

remember the creature in this film is quite different in design from the classic, and david's ultimate goal was to create life. 

just as my wife and I could create life we aren't the first to create a human. david cant have kids and neither could shaw now he has the tools to create life. 

Yes, it would be impossible for Scott to make us alien fans accept that David created the Xenomorph (unless he’s become senile or looked too deep into the whisky bottle). I think we can swallow that David re-created and perfected it - the perfect being (without the flaws of mankind or engineers). Ash will, later on, call it “the perfect organism”.

Something similar to the xenomorph must have existed even prior to the engineers. As we all know we see “the perfect being” in the mural on LV-223, the engineers were chestbursted, the creation of the deacon from the pathogen (I wonder if mutagen isn’t a better word by the way) etc. The space jockey on LV-426 must have perished due to the same outbreak as on LV-223 (according to Lindelof I think there were 12 facilities there - and one juggernaut escaped with the deadly cargo but didn’t get far).

I see David as the link to the original Alien movie, not as the creator of the xenomorph (but perfecting it) but as the information transmittor - passing the knowledge along to Ash, Mother and perhaps WY. Ash would, therefore, be interested in the area around Zeta 2 Reticuli - searching for the perfect being which must be out there somewhere.

Apart from this, the Beauty and the Beast story between David and Shaw (told through Prometheus, The Crossing and The Covenant is a beautiful story within the story, like Arwen and Aragorn and Luthien and Beren). Alas, David is full of hate towards his creator (Sir Peter/mankind and towards the engineers), and being an android, he cannot create life (children) together with the one he loves (Shaw is also sterile) so he finds another way . . .

@Jeri.theSOB

While i really really enjoyed Covenant....I am in full agreement with you. It is far more creative and inspiring for it to be this mystery from the ancient vastness of space than be caused by humanity or AI. I think the fact that actual humanity has lost their sense of imagination is the reason these movies are being done this way. Humans have no imagination anymore and need everything spelled out for them. I personally admired the unanswered questions put forth by 1979 Alien, no who, no why, just that it was there and no understanding of it or where it came from or where it might appear next. It was alien in every way- name, behavior and appearance. Just a walking fever dream in the darkness of space that is horror and death  personified.that is more frightening and grabs a hold of you much better than knowing everything and having its creation and source explained.

I feel the only way they could save some of that original sense of awe is to have some higher more powerful race of beings that we have not seen yet show up. Perhaps they are the reason for the mural in Prometheus. The Engineers even answer to them, they are Lovecraftian, all powerful and darkly malicious. Perhaps they sense or learn of David and is activities and come to lay their wrath and show their true power, exact revenge on David and possibly our humans that are involved as collateral damage.

perhaps in a clever creative way they display some horrific power using the black goo. Perhaps it is them using their power, their own creation the "black goo" to manipulate creation and possibly Davids creation into a truly perfect organism, the bio-mechanical creature Big Chap from 1979. Perhaps this is how David meets his end, he dies, by extension through his own creation, although this is not what he created it is the original abomination from 1979 put in play using David's meddlings by this high power race from the vastness of space. Perhaps they could do it in a way that shows how scary the dark is and it could hint at what else, by their hand, could be waiting for humanity in the ancient dark corners of the universe.

@Joylitt

Morality Tale 

Prometheus Morality Tale Themes

We are the Gods now - the search by Peter Weyland for immortality trying to cheat death. "There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing".

Sacrifice - in order to sub create the Iggi like Engineers produced the Alien Mutagen which has lead to their extinction.

Mankind expressed through weakness, cruelty and fuelled by greed. These are the reasons that David in Covenant offers for his decision stop the colonising by mankind but it is also the reason the "Gods" - the Engineers wanted to destroy mankind. This is explained allegorically in the prologue of the Covenant through the choice of music and made clear in the novelisation of the movie by ADF. It is also explained in the narrative of Prometheus through the behaviour of Fifield (weak) Holloway (cruel to David) and (Vickers) greed in her earth bound motives.

The expedient "I am here for the pay cheque with no nobility" crew of Prometheus all end up dead the only noble character that does not is Elizabeth who reaffirms her nobility through forgiveness by repairing him which gives him a moral dilemma (or not) depending on what precisely happened which I expect to be explained in ALIEN :Origins. 

The creator created parallax is everywhere in both films and it is an uneasy and difficult relationship creating moral dilemmas and outcomes.

The Gods unseen and Engineers who are punished through their experiments.

The Engineers and mankind where mankind is viewed as a Petrie Dish experiment that they have given up on.

Mankind and David 

and in the final movie 

David and the XX121

Both movies abound with cautionary tales on pursuing goals which let go of any moral compass. The XXX121 as I haves said is the nadir reproduction without a moral compass which is invested with cruelty and punishment. 

I do not want to be argumentative for the sake of it but it astonishes me how many of you to use Ripley's words from Aliens are not paying attention.

Ridley has stated quite clearly we know the answer as to where it came from the events of LV223 the ALIEN Pathogen.

He then goes on to say in Covenant we will learn why it was created and its not them the Engineers its David.

In Awakening which is a sequel to Covenant THERE IS NO PREQUEL FILM  we will make the final link with the creature in A L I EN and the Space Jockey (the only caveat is it might take two films).

So the ancient force which brought the circumstances of the creature into play is the Pathogen you do not have to like it but thats the story that is being told. 

it was a big jump from Prometheus to Covenant. But is was a logical and fair step. Yes we could of moved slower to really explore what is Davids motivation but regardless I'm less concerned with how the derelict got there as to how the company knew about it. Covenant is setting that up nicely and while it seems obvious as to how only time will tell if we are right or if there are twists to come. 

Michelle: In an interview, Scott says that the engineers didn’t create the xenomorph - David did. Although perhaps moral, religious and philosophical problems, as well as visions and atmosphere, is important, you still need to have a coherent story in order to make it work. You can’t have Darth Vader killed in one movie and then suddenly he’s alive in the sequel (unless he’s reanimated). Scott has to make up his mind if the eggs on LV-426 are (re)created by David (hence some decades old) or they are not (re)created by David but by the engineers (hence millennials old).

Personally, I would have chosen to kill off the path of David and his creations but let him be the conveyor of the information, the knowledge, of the xenomorph passed on to Ash, Mother and WY. I think I would choose to, in a flashback scene at the end of the last movie, when David, his creations, the facilities on LV-223 (along with the pathogen/mutagen) are extinguished, we see the juggernaut flying through space with its deadly cargo suddenly crash-landing on LV-426 . . .

Michelle i agree with you what Ridley said is what he said but a schli mentioned - it does not make sense because

A - Xeno was on Prometheus mural so was facehuggers - way before David started to make his experiments

B - it seems over stretched that Engineers - race millions of year old (judging by creation of earth and humanity and they where older then that) world creators aren't being able to create "perfect" organism while some stupid android did it in 10 years of experimentation.

Regarding Awakening being a sequel - sorry he first said it will be prequel. He need to make up his own mind.

But

I just saw movie yesterday and it ain't that bad as some reviews are suggesting. People does not pay attention at all.

I read somewhere movie is stupid because scientist goes on to unknown planet without protective helmet. Wow. In the movie they carefully explained that "new" hidden planet they found on initial scan surpass environmental values which are far better then those on Origae-6 - meaning this "new" planet is even better for colonization then one they studied and are heading for.

And there was a lot of complaints about actors making stupid decision in the movie. Uhm haha i would like to see those people acting rational and scientific in situations from movie haha.

Regarding David being father of Xeno - i think from his talk it was kinda clear that he studied pathogen and it is not that clear that he perfected it in to xeno. I don't know to me it seems movie kinda left it "imagine by yourself" how he did it.

Whole movie was ok. Not sci fi slasher flick but not good as i expected. Overall i enjoyed it.

Some scenes where pretty lame though and movie could go without them. Androids playing flute and then kissing - that gay scene was so lame and overrated and predictable (yes i have gay friends nothing bad about being a gay IMO). Allow us to play flute then we'll kiss so we can say we support gay in very forced in weird way like in every new movie just what the heck. They could just add two guys kissing onboard of Covenant no worries but no we have 10 minutes of flute bowing and kissing.

While quite a lot of scenes from Youtube trailers are missing (xeno jumping in red lighting corridor etc...probably directors cut release).

My score (being an old Alien fan)

from 1 to 10 - 6.5 (which is great score imo). In the end,, driving home i somehow felt kinda i don't know. I don't know is it because of a movie, my expectations or i am just being old but i expected more and i feel Alien as i know it (that dark primordial fear) is dead. Is it because of this movie. Dunno.

And for sure new movies ahead of this point - i won't let them excite me and i won't wait them as i did Covenant.

I think "Alien" is kinda done for me. Too much of splitting hairs, adding new questions, new plot and whatnot.

Movie can be good without all this "mental" masturbation. First Alien was great example. A lot of other movies are good.

Kind regards

"While the concept of david creating his own life is cool and a dark story it could have been done by simply having him trying to recreate the xeno/ big chap from things he read of the engineers and puts his own spin on it making the neomorph. and the themes of both these films would stick just fine."

I feel like it can still be interepreted this way.  Alien: Covenant does not necessarily pull the rug from out under Alien.  The Derelict and its cargo doesn't have to be related to David's creation in any way with the story we've been given so far.

Waltermorph yeah i agree. They left us room to reimagine so to speak of. David (in my opinion) is not portrayed as a creator of Xenomorph species or eggs. He just talk he worked on what was there. That's how i get it. But i am not surprised people are confused and polarized. 

Plus we never saw what happened to Walter. Maybe he'll return in sequel as self repaired Android wanting to help rest of the Covenant crew.

sequoi, you mentioned the flute scene with the kissing. I actually think this scene went along way in explaining David's psychological state. He was very seductive in how he taught Walter to play the flute, but he wasn't trying to seduce him, he was trying to show affection. but more importantly when he Kissed Walter it wasn't meant to be sexual. David clearly doesn't understand affection. He was trying to show Walter brotherly not sexual love.  But when he attacked Daniels he was trying to force sexual love because he had no affection for her. He kissed both the exact same way and even asked Daniels if he was doing it right? Creation via conventional means where David only understood creation via experiements.