Author of Alien Covenant's novelization corrected flaws from the script without even watching the movie

joylitt

In an interview with AVPGalaxy, Alan Dean Foster explains how he tried to improve the science of the story, corrected situations that made characters be perceived as stupid, added brief explanations for exasperating aspects of the creatures' depiction in the film, like the accelerated life cycle of the alien, and even cast some doubt on the idea that David created the xenomorph. All this with the only help of a spec script and some help from 20th Century Fox. He actually did not watch the movie before finishing his work, and yet he predicted very accurately most of the points that the audience objected to. This begs the question: couldn't many of these issues have been prevented on the set? And who is to blame for letting them make their way into the movie?

http://www.avpgalaxy.net/2017/06/27/interview-alan-dean-foster-alien-covenant-novel-discussion-avpgalaxy-podcast-51/

Ati

Zzzzz... Hgrrrr... Zzzzz.... Hgrrrr... Zzzzzzzzzz....

Ati

'This begs the question: couldn't many of these issues have been prevented on the set? And who is to blame for letting them make their way into the movie?'

Without doubt, Fassbender is responsible for these issues because everybody on the set was concentrating on the way how he changed the oxygen molecules in his body:

Ati

'he tried to improve the science of the story, corrected situations that made characters be perceived as stupid, added brief explanations for exasperating aspects of the creatures' depiction in the film, like the accelerated life cycle of the alien, and even cast some doubt on the idea that David created the xenomorph.'

I think it is fairly tiring and annoying that every topic posted by you is centred around the same things trying to manipulate the readers of the site against the makers of the movie, against the David fans, and trying to generate hatred against Scott, etc.

It is called trolling.

I must quote you: "Get out of here!"

BigDave

I think everyone is entitled to their opinion and indeed AC had a number of Flaws... I think a main problem is that a Movie has to be re-scripted to be able to fit within a certain Running Time.

And so even movie drafts that have extra detail and scenes cant be put into a Movie that the Production company want to set a certain time frame... if we look at the extra attention to detail that Lindeloffs Paradise Draft had, it would have taken up a extra 10-15 min of screen time.

Novels have the advantage of adding a bit of extra detail to scenes or adding a few scenes.

I think Alan Dean Foster should be given a part in the next movies Production..... FOX need to get someone to do a Draft based on what ever ideas they have and once a Draft has Evolved...  i would get ADF to read the draft and highlight things they would add/change if they was to do a Novel off this Draft....  Then FOX looks at ADF Suggestions and applies most of them.

I think we would have ended up with a well polished story then.

Kethol

I think Fox may have taken one of his suggestions. In the early draft Foster was given the Covenant was propelled through space by solar sails, which was an idea Ridley specifically wanted. Obviously there is not enough energy in interstellar space, let alone stellar space, to push a ship with solar sails to faster than light speeds. That is just silly, so Foster wrote a way around that.

In the movie that solar sail idea was changed and the ship was given engines to propel it. The solar sails were used to re-charge the 'energy grid', whatever that is supposed to be. 

cuponator3000

An interesting topic... I think, similiar to BigDave's suggestion for ADF to have an input on the script, the next film just needs someone who can take what John Logan or Michael Green give (I'm not sure who is working/worked on the supposed outline for the next screenplay) and then wrangle the characters and the plotline. I mean, I have said before that I think what the writers and Ridley are doing well is the big mythological, social questions, ideas, and themes as well as David's character, but the human characters (mostly) are lacking. They need someone to ground the screenplay a bit. We need believable, developed/developing characters in a quality story. 

Now for the op question, the problems definitely could have been ironed out, but I suppose it gets tough to do so during a production, and maybe the big dogs (Ridley, editor, producers, etc.) kind of had tunnel vision at that point? I think it happens with, really, every production. The great ones usually find a way around it though. 

ALSO, once again BigDave already pointed this out, comparing novels to screenplays/films is tough. While the screenplay could have made better on some of the things the novel did, a film has to show things (we can't get in characters' heads as easily) and the movie is almost never long enough to do so. 

BigDave

Indeed thats a logical step.... when a ship is not using any kind of Hyper Drive/Warp FTL Technology, it would make more sense for it to use Sails and like Impulse Engines to take it through a Solar System once it has reached on.

More so the idea that the Sails act as a Recharge, i think Once mankind does start to explore Space more, they would surely employ some kind of  Solar Sail device to Charge, maybe also they can act as Solar Sails to sail on solar waves and the like but then this is flawed, so is the sling shot routes (Gravity Assist)

I cant see us breaking the FTL Barrier or no where near it, but who knows what the future Brings...  But certainly Nuclear/Fusion Reactor Engines to Propel the ship faster than any kind of conventional rockets and gravity assists would be more likely the future of Space Travel in say 50-100 years time.

Even the Fusion like Blast Technology Theory seems likely, where the Ship lets off a Nuclear Blast just behind the Ship and the Shock-wave Propels the Ship forwards.  I think this is indeed a very plausible solution for the future of Space Travel.

But i do think Solar Charging Sails would definitely be the method they would use for obtaining all the Ships electrical needs. Apart from those related to Propulsion.

Dr. Curt Connors

Does anyone notice how @Ati uses the same pictures and gifs in almost every comment section? And he calls us trolls, I love Fassbender but I am kind of sick of seeing the same pictures of him, anybody else? Wait here it comes the gif of Fassbender and Ridley 'I can't make movies anymore' Scott looking at each other and then they laugh.

Ati

Curt Connors comment impact:

and:

Ati

'I think everyone is entitled to their opinion...' by BigDave from the previous comment.

Dr. Curt Connors

It's Dr. Curt Connors, get it right

Thoughts_Dreams

A podcast from AVP galaxy had an interview with Alan Dean Foster and many of his ideas in the Alien Covenant novelization seemed to make more sense than what we saw in the movie. The podcast is the AVP galaxy podcast episode 51. Let him have an influence over the script and it might be better than both Prometheus and AC.

Kethol

@BigDave "But i do think Solar Charging Sails would definitely be the method they would use for obtaining all the Ships electrical needs. Apart from those related to Propulsion."

There is not enough energy in the form of light in interstellar space to make it worth the effort. The best and most efficient way to power a ship's electrical needs is nuclear power.