The Ampules Return for Alien: Covenant

[BringbackJonesy!]

My point is, one of the MAIN atmospheric aspects of the original movie for me were the unfamiliar sets (and matte painting) involving the inside of the 'derelict'.

While some of the sets in 'Prometheus' were okay, the detailing missed out on having Giger's actual hands-on touch, I reckon.  I know he's irreplaceable, but I'd just like to see some of his boney/bio-mechanical weirdness translated a bit more faithfully where any 'Engineer settings' are involved in the follow-up.  Not necessarily anything too 'sexual-looking', just make it more unsettlingly 'Giger-esque' in general, if you know what I mean.

[whiterabbit]

Oh come on guys, why all the ampule hate? What if they too get mutated by the black goo and turn into alien eggs just waiting for the next bunch of Weyland-Yutani suckers to land on lv223?

[motherfather]

^ Yes. See - I would love that. Ampules - but different. Doing different things, looking different, all nothing what we expect from Prometheus.

[Necronomicon II]

My point is, one of the MAIN atmospheric aspects of the original movie for me were the unfamiliar sets (and matte painting) involving the inside of the 'derelict'.

While some of the sets in 'Prometheus' were okay, the detailing missed out on having Giger's actual hands-on touch, I reckon.  I know he's irreplaceable, but I'd just like to see some of his boney/bio-mechanical weirdness translated a bit more faithfully where any 'Engineer settings' are involved in the follow-up.  Not necessarily anything too 'sexual-looking', just make it more unsettlingly 'Giger-esque' in general, if you know what I mean.

Agreed, I think I speak for a lot of fans when I say they ought to return more faithfully to Giger's aesthetic, especially if Covenant is supposed to explore the origins of the creature (though I hope it's not explained outright, leave some mystery Ridley!) I mean we need not necessarily see the same elements per se but there are plenty of beautiful and nightmarish pieces in his art books that if translated well to screen would be spectacularly unsettling.

[Infected]

Maybe Ridley was gonna take a bath...



But seriously, the ampules are more scarier then the eggs, one drop will get you wasted.
Imagine if the engineers have a fire extinguish system on the sealing, i mean how long can you hold your breath??
and if it will go down you ear pipe your screwed.

[Scorpio]

Ampules are great, they give the vibe of ancient alien tech.  They are proto-eggs in a sense, as well.

We may also see how the alien eggs were created.

[Mustangjeff]

In Prometheus there were at least three different sized urns in the ampule room.  The other thing of note is the writing style on the urns compare to the writing we see in the Engineer facility.

IMO, there was also a big difference in the alphabet between what is on the URNS and the Engineer writings in the facility.  The writing on the urns seems to be organized in columns, while the Engineer text is organized rows.  They look quite different to me.

This might have been done simply for artistic value, but it could also be used to signify that the urns and contents are not an Engineer creation which makes them much more interesting.

[Enoch]

I said you that Engineers have not created goo... some of them stole that organic compound!

[Necronomicon II]

Yes, I remember discussing that detail before with someone; one can infer that the engineers stole the tech, something they ultimately could not completely understand or wield, they stole the promethean fire if you will. This should have been contextualised in the narrative ultimately I feel however, instead of being left another vague detail, deliberate or not. (Don't get me wrong though, the world building and production details in Prometheus are among its positive merits.) Yet perhaps the markedly different text inscribed on the urns compared to the cuneiform text that features prominently throughout the temple complex and their hypersleep chambers will be elaborated on in Covenant, I hope.

[CainsSon]

Yes, I remember discussing that detail before with someone; one can infer that the engineers stole the tech, something they ultimately could not completely understand or wield, they stole the promethean fire if you will. This should have been contextualised in the narrative ultimately I feel however, instead of being left another vague detail, deliberate or not. (Don't get me wrong though, the world building and production details in Prometheus are among its positive merits.) Yet perhaps the markedly different text inscribed on the urns compared to the cuneiform text that features prominently throughout the temple complex and their hypersleep chambers will be elaborated on in Covenant, I hope.

Maybe the Goo is God.

[Corporal Hicks]

In Prometheus there were at least three different sized urns in the ampule room.  The other thing of note is the writing style on the urns compare to the writing we see in the Engineer facility.

I'd never noticed  that before. Nice catch! I wonder if that is actually something that's going to come into play. Enoch did report that the goo was something the Engineers found...

[Mustangjeff]

In Prometheus there were at least three different sized urns in the ampule room.  The other thing of note is the writing style on the urns compare to the writing we see in the Engineer facility.

I'd never noticed  that before. Nice catch! I wonder if that is actually something that's going to come into play. Enoch did report that the goo was something the Engineers found...

The different sizes always interested me as well.  The urn that David grabbed was small, but most of them in the ampoule room were of the large variety.  My theory was that the different sized urns represented goo with different functions.  My feeling is that Holloway was going through a similar process as the sacrificial Engineer, but at a much slower rate due to the small quantity ingested.

The whole ingested vs inhaled idea never really made sense to me. At that point what happens when the stuff is injected, absorbed through the skin, instilled rectally, or dropped into the eyes?  It's much simpler to say that the large urn mutates, small urn creates, and medium size urns do something else.

[Necronomicon II]

Yeah I think dosage and application definitely factor in, the trouble is when you introduce too many vectors as Prometheus did it gets mightily convoluted. I mean, the exploding head, for instance; one could infer that it exploded by virtue of the goo only having dead cells to work with instead of living cells, perhaps the voltage played a role (though I think that scene was little more than a homage to Frankenstein) but this all needs to be carefully and logically delineated before we move on to new things. I don't think the sludge or goo is an all purpose magical plot device like many have argued before; it either breaks down, explodes or mutates matter aggressively, after all, but yeah it does need to be explained satisfactorily.   

[whiterabbit]

All this talk is making the engineers sound like grave robbers. Maybe the urns are just that, urns. Filled with xenomorph elder leftover goo. The little urns are the unrippen xeno-children. Yup. The engineers just stumble upon this tomb of "fire" and said lets play with it. The writing on the urns is interesting though, maybe the aliens do have a written language after all. Perhaps Scott will use Dan O'Bannon's idea that the alien grows up into a scholarly being that lives a ripe old age of 200 years.

[Necronomicon II]

It can go in many directions really, I would prefer it the other way however; where there were these beings with xenomorph-like morphology but were intelligent, had a civilisation and incomprehensible technology, but for some reason became highly hostile and parasitical in their efforts to become more "perfect". As I said, there's many, many directions for this to potentially go, I just hope the writers came up with some really interesting and intelligent stuff.