Juggernaut hangar featured in Engineers' city extended scene

This deleted scene is great, I wonder why they choose to cut it out. 

joylitt I remember Karine taking samples for research and even Hallet thought he might be credited with an important discovery. So scientific curiosity is there, let alone the science freak David. Most of the time the crew was on the run and after you've been attacked by a Neomorph bursting out of one of your security guy's mouth you might be less impressed by the ruins scattered with bodies. Just looking for shelter. No time to think about anything else. Prometheus was less consistent in matter of scientific curiosity but it brought something new and visually impressive. I watched frame by frame all the Neomorph attacks and they are so good, no idea how they did it but it looks real. I like Covenant for what it is and I don't fell the need to compare it with other movies. Give the script to any other director and I'm pretty sure they cannot make it into a better movie.

However I'm glad you are a Ridley Scott fan too, it's more important than the canon. Didn't RS write down the canon himself?

@daliens, Quite right. Even Oram's curiosity (as head of Life Sciences) is there, to the extent that he's willing to follow David into his cave and have a nervous peek inside the Egg.

As you say, most of the movie was about reaction to life-threatening events. I'd have liked to have seen an extra half hour, similar in length to the Aliens Special Edition.

hox yes, even if the survivors from Covenant could not care less about the surroundings in the given circumstances, we, the fans, would have enjoyed wandering an hour longer on Paradise, even after Covenant left the orbit. Hope Ridley Scott filmed a lot more and it will all be put together in a special bluray release. There was so much artistic creativity around this project that Fox should consider opening an Alien Universe museum. Or there is already such a museum?

@daliens, It's one of my aims to visit the Giger Museum and Bar in Gruyeres, Switzerland. Looks like a lot of fun.

In answer to the thread starters question it is clear from the editor of Covenant that the dilemma he and they were faced with is to what degree do we answer the Prometheus questions that they have chosen to carry forward and to what extent will that slow the movie down so that the real time narrative and the basic proposition (Paradise is like the haunted house) is undermined.

This scene opens doors on the nature of the Engineers role in the mythos and to what extent the intergalactic space seeders view this as their home and how do they the travellers relate to the ecstatic crowd that gathered to meet the home coming of the seeders. In other words once you seriously start to answer the questions posed by Prometheus you kill the routine ALIEN prefix movie dead in its tracks. Like the 12 minutes which include the crossing which are lost, this scene belongs to that thinking. 

Act 2 was rich with possibility but equally represented artistic jeopardy from the point of view that this was to be remodelled as a series about David, his journey and his impact on the creation /recreation of the Xenomorph.

If the next movie gets made and if the Engineers/seeders are involved it will be to act as protagonist to David will include a greater sense of where they might fit in but it will not answer the questions which are all for the taking on Paradise if they had wanted to take that route.  

Michelle Johnston in Prometheus the seeders used a discoidal ship. I believe the Juggernaut was their military craft as it seems all of them were loaded with the pathogen. Not sure why they kept the Juggernauts in the underground hangar because none of the Engineers from Paradise seemed able to fly them. They rather looked like a primitive society, kind of country roads folks that planted wheat and carved in stone. They could not have all died in the bombing and still they were unable to at least send an SOS message. Meaning they were not more than briefly shown in Covenant. The arrival of a Juggernaut was however a big event welcomed by most, like the homecoming of war heroes or a visit of a powerful ally. So why was Paradise important to the Seeders or the Space Jockeys Engineers? Why did they keep their ships on Paradise? Was it like a base, kind of the NATO bases across the Eastern Europe?  For me, I repeat, the engineers from Paradise are a archaic society, maybe by their own choice, that could not fly, not to say build, the Juggernaut. 

I wish they would stop cutting scenes like this from the films

This and the Engineer speaks scene from Prometheus are good examples of what should remain in the finished product.

Audiences for the test screenings are to blame for that. If they say something was confusing, or make many questions, then they cut or add scenes.

@Daliens

The nature of the relationship between the Teardrop Ship and the sacrificial acolyte, the Engineers of LV 223/the Juggernaut and the Engineers of Paradise and docking vessel is a most interesting topic which many different fans have speculated on since Prometheus was filmed.

My remark about the space gardeners was built on Ridley Scott's remarks that later in the narrative they will return to Paradise to the devastation caused by David and will be one of the elements which arrive on Origae 6. As we have only witnessed benevolent seeding linked to the tear drop ship it then begs the question who did they population, whose appearance sent out mixed messages, expect to be returning and from where.

However my real point to the thread starter is that this cut scene belongs to the audacious world building of Prometheus rather than the entertaining routine and for me dull and predictable ALIEN prefix movie Covenant and Pietro edited it out because it did not fit with the latter vision.Wayne Haag's brief, who was responsible for the art work, was to show the Engineers Tech (Nothing Xeno related) but then it is up to Pietro and Ridley to decide whether its crucial to the film. As the Engineers were reduced to texture in Covenant and were their to serve David's narrative it make sense to exclude the scene. That is the methodology by which the scene was cut and reminds us of the artistic dilemmas of trying to blend elements of Prometheus (much was discarded as "Bullshit" to quote Wayne Haag) with a repositioning as a straight ALIEN prequel movie.   

I did not know the teardrop ship is related to seeding, I hope it is not because it would reduce the population of Paradise to cattle status. And honestly by the look of some in the crowd they were not the best seeds in the universe. But  if they were just seeds and David found out it is perfectly logical he would want to stop the seeding and destroy the seeds.

If they showed the teardrop ship they opened the door to the underground hangar and imo both kinds of ships do not belong to the Paradise population.

I am sorry for always going off topic, need more discipline.

@daliens

When I refer to the Teardrop ship I am referring to the beautifully realised craft hanging over the waterfall at the beginning of Prometheus. The acolyte that emerges is a perfect specimen and by ingesting the catalyser all whom he is and has become is seeded to the planet. 

What relation he is to the population of Paradise or the LV223 Engineers who gain some kind of thematic consistency by appearing to be pilots of Juggernauts by virtue of the appearance of the pilot suit in both Prometheus and Covenant, is unclear.

The appearance of the Engineers in the Plaza suggests something more rustic and simple for what Ridley describes as only a superior species to mankind. Are they possibly taken by the hierarchy and transformed into the Gods Iggi and become ennobled seeders, a mission not unlike the Einherjar of Norse legends who are prepared for Ragnarok. If this was the story of the Engineers then the experimenting on LV 223 represents sub creative rebellion, in the mode of Paradise Lost, out of which emerges the ALIEN Pathogen which brings retribution.   

As you can imagine I would have liked Elizabeth and David arrive at Paradise a broken civilisation to discover such a truth but alas Fox judged the wider audience want their Alien Creature fix. 

Not unnaturally enquiring minds heap all expectations on a sequel film for answers believing that Covenant is a filler film whereas Ridleys's view is it tells us who made the Alien creature and why. A cautionary tale of A. I.

Michelle Johnston It surely seems like a cautionary tale of A. I. and it fits in the bigger picture.

I appreciate that you mention the catalyser in connection with the Teardrop Gardeners and the pathogen with the LV223 Juggernauts ' pilots, one that creates life and the other that destroys it. So LV223 pilots may be a rebelled faction of the army hence the confusion of the ecstatic crowd on Paradise when the Juggernaut arrived. After all, their rebellion might have been crashed thousands of years ago, all their ships being grounded on LV223 and would have stayed like that forever without Shaw and Peter Weyland.

It may be that the pathogen was only created / mutated by the rebelled faction and they chose a Deacon or Protomorph as a mystical symbol of their retribution /rebirth. This theory can go along with the latest news that the pathogen is a form of radical artificial intelligence. 

The catalyser used by the Gardeners of Space is something else, surely of a mythical origin and probably in very short supply. We might not even see it used again.

I believe Ridley Scott did not intend to explain how the alien was created but that it IS / CAN BE CREATED and not born, David only did reverse engineering with the pathogen, the alien morph being already invented by Engineers.

These assumptions would suggest that an Alien Queen (ant shaped) is out of line and will never be seen again. 

@Daliens

I think you do well with these films to take an emblematic top down approach to "Whats Going On". The broad strokes are there and then like Alan Dean Foster you can apply your own literal interpretation.

Take David one of a kind who had suffered apartheid at the hands of mankind. The one person who showed kindness to him was Shaw but in the end she wanted to get away and so he used her literally . David immortal could live on on Paradise knowing that eventually something would happen which triggered the next part of the story.  

On the other hand some want to join up the dots and suggest their are clues that David baited the Covenant. ADF may even indicate some linkage in the prequel novel.

The way we solve these conundrums tells us more about us and our needs rather than what precisely happened. 

On another topic you always reply with the persons name in the Green of the header which is a nice elegant way to start the reply . I have not figured how to capture that how do you do it ?

Michelle Johnston thank you for you thoughtful replies, you always set a high standard of conversation. It is reassuring to see you back on this forum.

Regarding your question, I usually use my phone and when I click on the person's name the menu opens, then I click select and copy then paste it into the reply field. I'm using Android 6 on a Samsung phone, not sure how it works in other environments.

daliens Thank you I use a Mac Book Air. Once you can copy with out linking it seems to work as a straight copy and paste.

Thank you also for the compliment I am not a genre fan (sci fi, fantasy etc etc) I love movies and I love thought provoking cinema. I am quite comfortable that Prometheus had its faults but it also had audacity and tried to give the creature a fascinating creation myth whereas what seems to have happened mid flight between LV 223 and Paradise is it was decided it should be dealt with by the numbers. 

If Awakening works it will operate in the opposite mode to Covenant. Covenant closed everything off and put everything on David, Awakening will open everything out again bringing in elements which are on the edge of the Covenant narrative the question is to what degree. David may find he will need all the help he can get from any source and as he is the unreliable narrator who knows how the incomers will react. 

Aug-03-2017 11:57 PM Can someone delete this post 

Makes me wonder what that planet was for

I remember reading something today that David said the race believed in sacrifice, is it possible an individual was chosen by this race on Paradise, to sacrifice themselves on another planet to seed it?

Is the engineer we see in White, the sacrificial choice perhaps?

But why have so many ships on one planet, not to mention the dock-o-naught thing

I will reply to some interesting comments on here tomorrow.

But indeed AdamPD this is a possibility.