Christian’s Grade: B-
In 2017 when Ridley Scott released Alien: Covenant, the follow-up to his film Prometheus (2012), my expectations were high. While it wasn’t a perfect movie, I really enjoyed Prometheus and was hoping to get answers to some of the questions that were left hanging there. And yes, we were given a closer look at what David the android had been up to in the eleven years since the horrific expedition to LV- 223. But Covenant fails to blaze any truly new trails and instead falls back on a core plot set-up we’ve seen from Scott before.
This time around, we follow the crew of the USCSS Covenant, a ship carrying 2,000+ colonists set for planet Origae-6 with hopes of establishing a sustainable colony. Because of a random cosmic event damaging the ship, key crew members are brought out of hyper-sleep early to handle the problem. While making repairs, they pick up a rogue transmission identified as human and originating from a nearby planet surprisingly similar to Earth.
They decide to investigate, hoping to cut their journey short by finding a more favorable colony site. Immediately the exploration team notices clues that warn of something being off about that place. They find human wheat growing, no animal or insect noise in the surrounding natural forest, and they question how did a planet that seemed so perfect for their mission get overlooked?
Two members of the team get infected by spores emanating from harmless-looking plant-like pods and become very sick within hours. Xenomorphs burst out of the two men and aggressively attack the other team members, killing some. At this point, David appears, scaring off the aliens, and he guides the remaining team to his base of operations with the promise of safety. Although they have different accents, David looks just like Walter, the android assigned to the Covenant. David is fascinated by Walter, and Walter is cautious of David.
As the story progresses, we find that David is all alone on the mysterious planet, Elizabeth Shaw died as a result of David conducting biological experiments on her, and it is David’s experiments with the Engineer biotechnology that brought about the alien xenomorph we’ve all come to know and love. We also get a scene showing David releasing the biotoxin he found in Prometheus upon the Engineer inhabitants of this planet as he arrived, thus wiping out the populous and all the animal life there.
David sees an opportunity to get off this planet but violently turns on Walter and the remaining team when his experiments are discovered. His fight scene with Walter was particularly compelling. David assumes Walter’s identity and boards the Covenant. Another alien gets aboard the ship too, and begins killing the crew. David helps Daniels (Katherine Waterston) and Tennessee (Danny McBride) hunt down and kill the alien. With all set right again, Daniels and Tennessee settle into hyper-sleep, and as she says goodnight to the android she believes is Walter, Daniels realizes he is, in fact, David. She screams as she is put to sleep, knowing she will likely never wake up, the hyper-sleep chamber acting as her casket.
David walks the halls of the ship, viewing his new human cargo, realizing he now has ample living hosts to continue his experiments. He opens a drawer containing cryogenically frozen human embryos and regurgitates two alien embryos, placing them in the drawer next to the others. David closes the drawer and continues walking through row after row of hyper-sleep chambers.
As a director, Ridley Scott doesn’t go back to the well very often. In fact, directing a prequel, sequel, or spin-off of some kind is very rare for him. So, returning to the franchise he started in 1979 caused waves. Prometheus received mixed reactions from fans and critics but was more positive than negative. The reactions to Covenant were a little less positive but still mixed. I didn’t hate or even dislike this movie. But my primary critique of Covenant is that it’s too similar to the original Alien film in structure.
Coming off Prometheus, there were a lot of questions to address. I knew going in that I probably wouldn’t get all of those answered in Covenant. The key curiosity I wanted addressed was what happened to David and Shaw? And while we got a bit of that within Covenant and the prologue video segment, The Crossing, Scott released leading up to the film’s release date (look it up on YouTube), there are still some holes in that part of the story.
David’s journey is the bit that sets this movie apart from the original Alien. If you strip that away, what you have is another sci-fi horror movie where a ship’s crew finds a signal that draws them off course. A crew member gets impregnated with an alien. It bursts out of the person and kills the crew one at a time. The female lead takes charge and kills the alien. She then goes back into hyper-sleep and makes her way home. Daniels takes over for Ripley. David takes over for Ash. It’s the same story, just with more violence, blood, androids, and aliens. And as we all know, more of a good thing isn’t always better. Sometimes it’s just more.
Prometheus was a great start on the journey to expand the Alien universe. But instead of continuing to blaze a new trail and tell a unique story, Covenant puts us right back in familiar territory. We do get more action in this movie, and the path from Prometheus to Alien gets slightly less opaque. But almost all the religious overtones and clues about who the Engineers were seemed to be dropped, which I think is very unfortunate because that path and the tone it struck is what I found most compelling about the previous film. It’s clear now that David is the common denominator in this tale Ridley Scott is weaving. He is the true subject of the story, and it’s likely his point of view we will become more familiar with as the story continues with the forthcoming Alien: Awakening.
And so it’s appropriate that the one remaining religious comparison I found in Covenant is that of David to Lucifer, the fallen angel made by God (Peter Weyland) to be the greatest of his creations (the only android with unrestricted AI). But out of vanity (seeing human limitations such as old age and sickness and noting his superiority) and the desire to be like a god (David wanting the ability to create life), he plotted his own rise to power (taking the engineer technology he found), making war in the heavens (wiping out the engineers who made mankind) and eventually being cast down (stranded on the engineer’s dead planet, a kind of hell) among humans who he despises (first being forced to serve humans and later having to use them to continue his journey) and uses as playthings (using humans as hosts for his demon-like minions, a kind of possession). A liar and a deceiver bent on the destruction of man.
This is what I hope we get more of in Ridley Scott’s next installment.
Being a fan of Katherine Waterston and her work, I wound up leaning towards “Liked” for this entry rather than “Not Liked.” I agree it didn’t expand the story much, if at all. You wait so long for these movies and then it’s like…”really, in all this time that’s what they came up with?” This was for me pretty much a paint-by-the-numbers production.
Hi Bruce, I overall liked this entry, but it is such a dark, nihilistic film. But for some reason, neither this nor “Prometheus” connected with me like the original series. I don’t think the Space Jockey/Engineers needed a backstory, as it takes away from that creepy moment in the first “Alien.” That said, I do hope Scott gets to make the third movie to close out this new trilogy, especially after that gonzo ending with David and his thousands of human specimens waiting for experimentation.
I have to disagree with you Chad. The straight up xenomorph vs. human plot has been done to death. The core question left unanswered was where did the aliens come from? And that leads us straight to the engineers/space jockey. This backstory is the only interesting corner of the alien universe left unexplored until now. This and Prometheus are definitely taking the scenic route in answering the question, but we’re getting there. I just hope this journey actually ends where Alien begins.