In a recent interview with Mark Goodier on BBC Radio 2, Michael Fassbender accidently let slip the name Neomorph while referring to the Alien from the original film. Beware following spoilers! Alien vs. Predator Galaxy can exclusively confirm that Neomorph is actually the name that the crew working on Alien: Covenant used for a brand new variation of the Alien encountered in the film.
We’ve also got some additional details about the Neomorphs for you! These Aliens are the result of the local ecosystem being mutated by the accelerant/black goo. Over time, pods started to grow on the trees and the ground, and release a spore when disturbed.
These spores infect several members of the Covenant crew by entering the body through the ear and nostrils. The spores cause the growth of the Neomorphs inside the infected hosts – something that is reminiscent of William Gibson’s first draft of Alien 3. One of the Neomorphs bursts from the back of one of the infected crew, a backburster. The other crewmember’s Neomorph erupts through their throat.
The births are preceded by the eruption of two small dorsal spikes. These spikes and a pointed skull are also used to break out of an embryonic sack (similar to the Deacon in Prometheus). The Neomorph resembles some of the older concept art of the proto-Aliens from Prometheus (see below), specifically the white colouration, with a pointed head and two dorsal spines. Upon birth, the Neomorphs move on all fours similar to the Bambi-burster from Alien 3.
When they mature, they grow significantly larger and walk on their back legs. They were more animal-like in behaviour with fang-like teeth. Unlike the earlier Prometheus concepts, the Neomorphs also have tails. In addition, the adult Neomorphs also developed a slightly translucent appearance (harkening back to unused concepts from Alien and Prometheus) as previously rumored.
Prometheus briefly explored the concept of a white proto-Alien.
Contrary to earlier reports, Alien: Covenant will not feature the return of any creatures from Prometheus aside from the Engineer and the Neomorph’s passing resemblance to the Deacon. It’s possible that the Trilobite was mistaken for the immature Neomorph.
Earlier drafts of Prometheus, when it was a more clear-cut Alien prequel, featured the white, slightly translucent variant of the Alien as a form of proto-Alien that was discovered alongside the traditional Aliens. You can find two earlier drafts in the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy downloads section – Alien: Engineers and Alien 01: Genesis.
“Behind them, from an eight-inch diameter pipe, a WHITE MASS oozes, almost gelatinous. Silently as a liquid it pours itself into the stagnant water – and stands up. It is a humanoid demon, spindly limbs and bony back. Boneless and flexible and monstrously strong. A threshing eel’s tail.
Its blunt head dolphin-like and elongated. It opens its mouth. A pair of bony jaws jut out impossibly far, hungry and demonic.” (Alien – Engineers, 4th major revision of Prometheus, Page 86)
Stick with Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for even more exclusive information on Alien: Covenant! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien fans on our forums!
Ovo (Egg) + Morph (Form) = Ovomorph (Egg Form)
Xeno (Unknown) + Morph (Form) = Xenomorph (Unknown Form)
Orginal Documented Strain. May Possibly be Progenitor Strain or Cultivated/Mutated Strain. Form veries From Host physiology.
Ultra (Ultimate) + Morph (Form) = Ultramorph (Ultimate Form)
Perfect Strain, Ultimate Lifeform, flawless Physiology, and a Complete Organism
Neo (New) + Morph (Form) = Neomorph (New Form)
New Strain judging from description posibly artificially created and genetically modified strain or evolution.
Hope you enjoy it man. Honestly I have read both of them a few times and always get a kick out of them. Quick weekend read (I kindled Development hell and by the time i was done my amazon package arrived).
Just purchased Tales from Development Hell via your link. Thank you for the recommendation. I fully agree, producers have taken more authority and I think that it is partly due to how large production for films have been going these days.
I am not too zealous of the Neomorph design just yet but I still need to see Covenant before I formulate any concrete resentments just yet.
@The Bonus Situation
Definitely! I once knew a biologist whom hated Alien and felt that the lifecycle was so inaccurate that they couldn't enjoy it. Rather ironic
Kane was the most eager to explore the derelict, so it was definitely in character that he would look in the egg. Curiosity got the better of him. Same with Milburn I suppose.
Oh, and the prison complex housed more, but it was shut down for some reason but a small number elected to stay behind.
https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Development-Hell-Greatest-Movies/dp/0857687239
https://www.amazon.ca/Greatest-Sci-fi-Movies-Revised-Updated/dp/1845767551
Have a read through these two books (they are also super fun reads). Hollywood is unlike any logical business on earth. You can read as entire film projects are tanked and millions of dollars lost because Producers refused to let go of the stupidest of ideas. Ideas that appeal to no one, but they refuse to let go of and sunk the entire ship. It's basically a group of alpha personalities all wanting to be pleasured without giving up an inch of space. Bizarre f**ked up world.
The idea of trusting the director when out in the 1970's. This is why the directors age of Hollywood ended and the Producers age began. Singular vision in Hollywood hasn't always been profitable. Producer cut of Brazil is a great example. Lots of questionable edits and re-creations in the editing room with the director not involved. Fox funny enough has a recent entry on this track record of late stage re-shoots and re-edits (The last Fantastic Four movie, which if you have seen is a f**king disaster of tone because it is clear there are many different minds at work on it).
So far this appear to be unf**ked with. The set images from today give me a ton more faith than I had last night. I was waiting to hear stories of struggles between both parties. Nice to see they are letting Scott tell the story he wants to tell. Huge risk as well, since they have a lot of money riding on a really abstract franchise for Hollywood.
So we're gonna have 3 different cannons? The original one, Ridley's, and Blomkamps.
I don't know whose signature here says "Cannon is like...your opinion man" featuring a picture of his dudeness, but I think that's a saying we're going to have to go by with all these different movies doing different things.
Well, yeah; except putting yourself in a hazard when you have the resources to avoid the hazard is foolish within its own merrit.
You're disagreeing with me yet you paraphrased the statement I made...
That is highly debatable. I always felt that there were many moments in Alien that induced that type of impression.
I can understand this sentiment. I notice you use words like dumb and retarded to convey your perspective, is Prometheus that infuriating for you? How do you feel about the upcoming installment?
That's a good question! I don't know much of the business in film but I could tell you what I do know of executive concepts in the business world and how it could be relatable to film in some way. First we look at a film much as if it were any other standard business project, for example; a restaurant, salon, attorney's office, etc. Second we are looking at the objective of the project: make large amounts of money based on a situational opportunity or establish a running franchise. When capitalizing on situational opportunities you'll find that executive branches (producers in this case) would often step back and be more sensitive with the visionary (directors) directing the project in not to disrupt the chances of success. With a running franchise however, executives tend to take more initiative as the investment and the goals are too grand to risk the price of failure. With that beind said, the more promising the project is, the more larger the pool of investors which in turn creates a larger executive share.
Seldom scenarios that arise of this are usually when the amount of shareholders are too many and they really need to rely on the direction of the visionary as to eliminate too much contrary directions; the other is when a visionary is well distinguished and well recognized that they themselves are part of the budget.
So to better answer your question, it is not a point in budget rather a point in capacity that determines whether a singular creative authority no longer becomes feasible and this usually is more prevalent when you have a smaller pool of executives.
Reminds me of the nightmare I had to go through with GAvP.
Quite a few places did. Is it that hard to actually read the f**king information. This is one of the big problems I have with Internet coverage. No-one f**king reads what they're actually reporting on.
Agreed, Fassbender just slipped a name that's all. Although I saw some places reporting that Fassbender gave away all those details that you actually dug-up.
Anyway, Riddles and Fassie are thick as thieves. I really don't think he would have copped any flack for that little slip.
The question is at what budget point does a singular creative force get overridden? If you asked me when i wrote my original post late last night I would have had a different answer heh.
After the leaks today, I am sure Scott is getting 100% reign on this production. Last time we all know that they were gunning for a PG-13 and missed due to one scene (why they didn't edit back in stuff after failing to get that rating I will never understand, like the Shaw/Engineer showdown). Thank god for Deadpool showing FOX that Hard R movies still have a market and make money.
It wouldn't have been so bad had we not known about the name and some details from the film. lol. On it's own, it's an innocent enough thing to just let slip.
Probably got his head ripped off again lol
Star? Maybe
Box office draw? Absolutely no.
In that aspect, BishopShouldGo is absolutely right.
They had suits to deal with an inhospitable stratosphere.
The stupidity starts when everyone brazenly takes their helmet off for the lulz.
Potentially risky exploration is how most of the world was discovered. There's a big jump from that to petting a hitherto undiscovered alien lifeform that's seemingly acting aggressively because you think it's cute. Especially if your supposed to be an expert in fauna.
One is a hazard of the job, the other is going out of your way to be an idiot.
No, relying on characters making unrealistically moronic decisions to propel the plot is simply bad plotting.
Alien managed to achieve what it wanted without ever inducing the audience to scream, "Why are you such a f*cking moron?!" at the screen.
It's not that they characters are dumb, it's that they're so dumb I can't believe for even one moment that you'd spend millions, billions, trillions on sending an expedition to the farthest reaches of known space to potentially make first contact with intelligent alien life, and then crew the ship with such a bunch of retards. It completely undermines the entire movie for me.
I mean, the crew of the Nostromo were exponentially smarter than these guys and they were just blue-collar truckers.
This. Unfortunately by deleting all of those moments the scientists come across as utterly incompetent f*ckwits.
Plenty of Scientists have fact-checked it and it falls within the bounds of plausibility.
Precisely, what do we know of the scientists beyond them being claimed they were the top in their field? Why would these scientists accept an offer to travel in a spaceship for a job they know nothing of? Sounds desperate and if you were top in your field you would not be desperate.
SECOND PARAGRAPH
That is why I consider weighing the film down based on Fifield and Milburn's incident as nonsense. It did not make sense in the grand scheme of things to begin with.
THIRD PARAGRAPH:
And then substituting the needed fertalizer with his own shit?
He also would have needed to extract suitable soil from dust.
Soil which is generally rare on Mars.
Ideally you would want nothing but the best in their field, but lest we forget the whole expedition was funded by a dying megalomaniac in a desperate bid to extend his life so time was of the essence, corners were cut. Come to think of it, Weyland is like...Mr. Burns lol
Again, it would have been MUCH better if they were more credible as far as audience investment goes, as there are several intelligent ways to portray human foolishness and hubris without characters just acting like utter morons, regardless if that was a deliberate scripting choice.
And I don't think anyone wanted a dark-comedy per se. I can overlook most of it because Fassbender is just so good in every scene, and being juxtaposed against human morons makes him all the more sympathetic. Frankly he should have been the main character.
Re the Martian and Watney not knowing Mars had soil, I don't quite follow, the book does go into much more detail but he knew exactly what he needed to do to make viable biomass via Martian soil, such as leaching out the perchlorates in the soil and separating them from the water.
All that sounds great to me.
But Fassbender is a star.
You are spot on. Producers are difficult to work with and your egocentric comment really takes it home. That is precisely what studios do if not checked by someone with a central vision.
I always felt if you add in the deleted scenes they work better as characters since they provide at least a touch of justification for their actions. They still work shit as scientists, but for me I am not sure that matters as I am firmly on the "don't let science get in the way of telling a good story" side of the argument. Not that Prometheus is a great story, still..
Prometheus's main fault was really really shitty editing and them moving around scenes late in the day. It feels like a most constructed mostly in post. There is actually a really good movie in there, you can see traces of it when you re-watch it. I need to sit down with the fan edits sometime. I also don't know how much control Scott had of the editing stage. The way most of the action sequences looked to play out, it was gonna be first half mood, second half action beats like the original Alien. Does Fox think a movie with that kinda budget would sell in 2012 or did they move scenes around the have something exciting happen every 10 minutes to "keep the audiences attention" (as we all know studios really get off on talking down to their audience in 201X. I also understand that maybe these cues play better to certain international markets)
The script writer should have been consulting with an expert on what they would do on an alien planet. What they would point out. This is why you hired science consultants. Just, no one cared. They are fodder to move the story forward, and I am typically ok with that is you set up and justify their insane actions at least a touch.
The other factor is writing scientists as scientist doesn't put asses in the seats. In the end the market that cares about that is an insanely small fraction of the movie going populous. I often wonder if writers are actively told to avoid these sorts of things. Like if it is on a list of producers notes they have during re-write time. We often forget that when a re-write comes it carries a set of demands from various people involved with the production with it. Often these ideas are completely insane egomaniac pieces so people can feel like the have actively given to the film.
You can also make a convincing argument that Prometheus had way too many characters with screen time, and a lot of those could have been severely downplayed to make more room for plot. Easily half the scientist could have become grunts and no one would have noticed, sadly in my opinion the captain couple and the entire crew could fall into the remove pile (to me, other i know will disagree). More time could have been spent with the core group of characters and getting to know them, and just use the rest as goo bait and monster fodder.
I am still looking forward to the new designs and new ideas. Honestly, it can't be worse than Alien: Resurrection, or either of the AVP movies. I have passing faith in the film being at least a fun sci-fi horror romp, and really that is all i want out of it. I don't expect to see another "Alien" being produced by a major studio in my lifetime. Maybe something indie will catch that vibe sometimes. Just, Hollywood doesn't make those movies, and hasn't in a very long time. If the reported 150-200 million dollar budget is true, than zero risks will be taken. Still, I am keen on seeing the new designs in motion (I'm trying to bring this back to the subject the thread is on as we are all gloriously off topic)
Do you have a video that goes through Alien? I always wanted to see Alien picked apart for inaccuracies.
Let's take the Geologist for example, because he's the easiest by a mile and more importantly, is presented with the earliest opportunity to demonstrate his professional capacity and validate his presence aboard the Prometheus. During the descent to the surface, one of the characters (I forget who... Holloway?) comments on the markings on the surface of the planet and words to the effect 'Nature does not work on straight lines'. How much more appropriate would it have been if the geologist made this remark? ...or at the very least, AGREED?
Gone is also any parallel we witness in 'ALIEN' where Ash analyses the surface using instrumentation and discusses the 'Rock lava base' composition of the planet they just landed on and its atmospheric conditions. Wouldn't it be great if Prometheus' geologist actually offered some information based on his professional experience in a similar way?
Then on the actual surface he does nothing. NOTHING. A BIG FAT NOTHING!!! He doesn't comment on the mountain ranges. He offers no advice on the integrity of the surface (for all we know, the surface could be soft, like pits of loose material and not safe to walk on). He makes no comment about the obvious roads not being natural - or asked for his opinion on them. He fails to pick up a single rock. There's so many excellent opportunities for a geologist to demonstrate his capacity for such specialised knowledge - which is why he was aboard the Prometheus in the first place - but none of them are taken.
I'm sorry, but if the character can't fulfill the expectations of his Profession - especially when he's reputed to be 'The Best in the Field' - then no amount of inane dialog such as "I love rocks" will help convince me he's adequately written as a character. If during the approach to LV-233, Fifield had f**k all to do except look out the window and talk shit to other crew members simply because he's a planetside specialist; but then his demeanor change to a more professional one on close approach to the planet's surface when his knowledge kicks in, then yes. That would be realistic. That's how professional people do behave. When the occasion arises, a Professional, in top of his game will put aside all other considerations and demonstrate his true worth. We see none of that happen in 'Prometheus'.
Unfortunately, Fifield's character as we have it is in the wrong movie. When a professional's dialog amounts to "I love rocks" and "I'm only in it for the money" then he would have been better placed in a movie like 'Idiocracy' rather than the symbolism laden background and existential investigations that 'Prometheus' attempts to deliver but is mired by inanities such as Fifield's character - and other stupid shit.
...Milburn is no different. But for the sake of keeping this post at a decent length, you can apply the same prinicpals to him as well. You'll find the results are more or less the same.
-Windebieste.
Watch the entire thing:
Totally.
I'm waiting for a good ALIEN movie since nineties.
For now I have a feeling that every next movie is worse than previous.
In my opinion they should change title to "Return of the Black Goo".
Yet the plain stupidity was the cinematic flair needed to propel the plot in this circumstance. I understand what they did was stupid and unethical but believing that being stupid and unethical doesn't happen with expert scientists is just so inaccurate on so many different levels.
Agreed but it wouldn't save it.
This thing looks like bottlenose dolphin.
But to step out of the security of the ship and jump onto the terrain of an unknown planet to an unknown architecture which belongs to an unknown intelligent lifeform?
They could have easily just done their job within the confines of the ship but that didn't happen.
This is what does not make sense. Them acting moronic is just a distraction of an obviously bigger plot hole.
I'm normally one to defend Prometheus for its' failings but, it would be nice to know whether Ridley Scott took lessons learnt while making the Martian to heart. Prometheus was heavily criticized for its' depiction of science, the scientific method and common sense. Despite its' scientific failings, the Martian was critically acclaimed for its' "hard sci-fi" approach.
Having a scientific advisor on hand during script writing and filming can do nothing but help the film. Cinematics trumps science, but it's still nice to have science in a sci-fi.
Inhospitable to human life maybe.
Besides, they didn't know what the environment was until they got there.
He was a geologist. Who knows what interesting extraterrestrial geology they might find and want to study?
There were perfectly good reasons to take a biologist and geologist along. In fact they're exactly the kind of people you would take on a mission like this. But the fact they were total morons undermines the believably of the whole thing.
Expert scientists are exempt from behaving the way that they did? Under what precedent do we relate this to? This is why I can't actually take this critical aspect seriously, we're better off saying that they shouldn't have been there period.
Because they're supposed to be expert scientists. That's literally the only reason they are brought along. So having them act like morons is ridiculous.
Given what we now know, that seems like a perfectly reasonable assumption.
I don't know I'm afraid.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/06072016_02.jpg
This is what Scott said:
delayed.
These traditional aliens aren't going to be the same like the Deacon from Prometheus? That's what i think that happens if Ridley Scott himself said this.
On the other hand i'm relieved that Ridley Scott's movie series prevents Neill Blomkamp's real Alien movie, because it sounds to me like another Alien Resurrection. Not to forget all this stuff about erasing Alien3.....
You can't win as an Alien fan apparently.
I'd love to see this design BADLY! It would explain nicely how the "Neomorphs" first had eye socket type areas on their skull and the evolution of it into our favorite Xeno in Alien. I'm probably in the minority but I hope they stay FAR AWAY from the Deacon design. It was an un-inspired, lazy, poorly executed, non-scary design.
The series was going nowhere and had lost a lot of credibility, at least now we have a real effort to try something new with real talent behind the camera again.
Besides the original alien is suppose to be in this film as well.
There are traditional Aliens in it. There's just a brand new variation to go alongside them.
A movie about a creature who will look different to the Xenomorph, but in the movie's title there will be "Alien" in it. To be honest, i don't care. It's like Prometheus all again.
Well, tonight i will watch the movie "Stranded" with Christian Slater which sounds very similar to Alien. Alien Covenant is on the same level for me like Stranded or Prometheus. Just another sci fi horror movie with an hostile alien. Not "OUR" Alien.
It's like they would drastically change the Predator's design in the next movie just to make something different. The only predatorish on the movie would just be the title. It could be a Hirogen now as well. It's not "OUR" Predator anymore.
still waiting for a REAL Alien movie.