A new Alien Covenant production image has been released as filming on the upcoming Alien movie comes to a close this week. The official Alien social media accounts posted this black and white image of director Ridley Scott and actress Katherine Waterston joking around. The caption reads: “Filming has wrapped. The next phase begins. #AlienCovenant”. The next phase is a lengthy post-production process and hopefully the marketing will kick into gear in the coming months. We may even have a Alien Covenant teaser trailer before the year is out.
Ridley Scott & Katherine Waterston
As you can see, Waterston’s character looks very similar to heroine Ellen Ripley. This production image follows the very first one the filmmakers posted a couple of months ago showing Katherine Waterston’s character sitting in a corridor on the assumed Covenant spaceship. Thanks to Alien 3 for the news.
That's true, and Alien 1979 didn't have any 'A-list' stars, it's major selling point being that it was a high concept, big budget sci-fi film in the wake of Star Wars.
I liked Prometheus. It had it's flaws, but overall, I thought it was an ambitious film, & a good 1. I'm perfectly fine with FOX giving it's sequel priority over Alien 5. It has the chance to offer us something new, whereas I feel Blomkamp's film would run the risk of being a retread of Aliens. Ripley had her time, & I don't feel her character is essential to making a good Alien film. As mentioned by others, good story telling is.
We weren't talking necessarily making the lead a man but making it so the Ripley-alike isn't automatically the survivor. It's becoming far too predictable.
All of which tried to have Ripley-likes. All 3 films attempted to go for strong female leads. It wasn't that they didn't work because they weren't Ripley, it's that they didn't work because they were poorly written/cast/performed. Weaver and Ripley's inclusion doesn't make it an autowin. We have Alien 3 and Resurrection to prove that. Now, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Alien 3 but it's not a good film. There's stuff in Resurrection I like but it's not a good film either.
And that wasn't even done for any deep meaning other than "they'd never see that coming!" I don't want to see it coming in Covenant or the other films! Give me a well written, well performed and well directed film, don't give me tropes.
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My point is that Ripley is reliable. She sells tickets. Her return sells tickets and it pleases fans. Of course ANYTHING with ALIEN in the title sells tickets and while I like Prometheus and am excited about Covenant, I would take a Ripley led film, on par with ALIEN 3 over those films ANY DAY. I do not think PROMETHEUS is as good as ALIEN 3, apart from maybe a technical, film-craft perspective. I find ALIEN 3's use of subtext, art direction, score, Sigourney's performance and Fincher's direction to be the best in the franchise. Though I agree the script is a huge problem.
The point I am making is you already have films without Ripley. The AVP films - I don't count, but PROMETHEUS doesnt attempt to recreate Ripley in Shaw and people hate that film. Same goes for AVP 1. We already have films without Ripley and people don't like those either.
How can we say, in the same breath, that Covenant and Prometheus don't excite you, but we dont want Blomkamp's film with Ripley because we prefer they move on without Ripley next. Thats a contradiction. They've moved on without her already.
If you have specific things you want to happen in the script, then just say, "I dont care about Ripley or Engineers, just give me more Colonial Marines and things blowing up." That's perfectly legit.
This was all in response to whether Blomkamp's Alien is worth getting excited for. And I don't think that the argument works to say move on without Ripley. We already did. Covenant is the 2nd film, at least, without her. Imagine A:R without her. That would be 600x worse than it is now. I stand by my statement that Ripley is the only interesting thing in that film.
I wasn't far off in my prediction. I thought we'd see something the 18th, we get it the day later on the 19th.
Yeah, definitely getting some Ripley in Aliens vibe off that picture. I think it's the tank-top and weapon though.
It's not just the films, it's the tie-ins too. The series is too bogged down in its connection to Ripley. There's a whole other universe out there. I really wish they'd stop trying to use Ripley or Ripley-alikes. It's about time we moved on from that. It's becoming a huge issue for the series.
I still hope this will be the case. Change things up! Though given it being a trilogy...I doubt it'll happen.
We weren't talking necessarily making the lead a man but making it so the Ripley-alike isn't automatically the survivor. It's becoming far too predictable.
All of which tried to have Ripley-likes. All 3 films attempted to go for strong female leads. It wasn't that they didn't work because they weren't Ripley, it's that they didn't work because they were poorly written/cast/performed. Weaver and Ripley's inclusion doesn't make it an autowin. We have Alien 3 and Resurrection to prove that. Now, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Alien 3 but it's not a good film. There's stuff in Resurrection I like but it's not a good film either.
And that wasn't even done for any deep meaning other than "they'd never see that coming!" I don't want to see it coming in Covenant or the other films! Give me a well written, well performed and well directed film, don't give me tropes.
Story, story, story. Good writing will bring good characters. Cliched and tired character tropes avoided, all the better.
-Windebieste.
Do AvP and AvPR truly count? They really don't. They suck too much to count. And Shaw differs so so much from Ripley. All they share is a gender. Different goals and personalities.
How did you like AVP, AVP-R and Prometheus? As of wrapping on this, COVENANT is the 4th entry in the franchise (or 2nd if you don't count AVP stuff, like I don't) without Ripley. People keep saying do something different without Ripley but it has yet to really work. Even Prometheus, which I like a lot more than most, struggles to find characters the audience invests in to the degree we invest in Ripley. I honestly never felt that connection to Hicks either. Maybe Newt just cause she clearly lived through some crazy shit (even more than Ripley really).
I could argue that there has yet to be a straight forward film Alien film without Ripley, but I'm not gonna lie, I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is they wrote themselves into corners. Frustrating corners for fans.
I think the solution is to wrte an overarching sequence for sequels that begin with some sort of continuation, and end of Ripley's story.
Her inclusion, at this point, unless Covenant is remarkably received, is the most reliable direction, sans A:R. And even the exception proves the rule there since she is one of the only good things about A:R.
I know people will say her inclusion in AR was ridiculous, and they'd be right, but try and imagine how terrible that film would be WITHOUT Ripley. Yikes.
A strong female lead has been a staple of this series, even carried over to the AVP films. Don't expect much to change as of now, but do give the strong male support characters their due credit. Fassbender was great, love or hate Prometheus. Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson, Charles Dance and Charles Dutton are all very admirable and memorable in their respective roles. Ron Perlman...
I saw her in QUEEN OF EARTH and that PYNCHON adaptation, I can't recall the name of for whatever reason. She is exceptional. Very good with subtlety.
That would be a really interesting thing to try out.
It's like Alien has female only leads and Predator has male only leads.
Because let's be real, it doesn't matter what chromosome configuration you've got, the Alien or Predator will overpower you regardless. The point of a lead is to show us humans using wits and tactics to overpower them.
So whether it's a skinny man/woman or an AHNULD/AHNETTE type character, it all boils down to smarts and environment and luck in the end.
They could totally cast a male lead. What I'm seeing here is the opportunity to burn the candle at both ends. The Prometheus angle of the story is branching off in one direction, and Blomkamp's film is tackling the story from the other end. At this moment, it looks like the upcoming Alien films outweigh the Blomkamp film by 3 to 1. The idea that there is an obsession with Ripley is unfounded. Blomkamp is trying to make 1 film with her, which is said to give her an "end" anyway.
By making a sequel or a prequel to an Alien film, you will never do something 100% original. The story will always be tied in somehow to what made the first 2 films so great. If you want a truly original film, leave the Alien universe behind. This is a derivative fiction by definition.
Or alternatively, they could do something actually original and cast a male lead. It would be a very welcome change at this point.
Turns out I saw her in 'Manhattan Romance' a few weeks ago on Netflix without realizing who she was. She was fantastic. Highly recommended film, too. My enthusiasm for A:C just spiked in a major way.
I am not proposing a slavish devotion to Ripley. I am offering a counterpoint to the idea of having more knock-off female lead-roles. By not using Ripley, we end up with these stories with strong female characters that all try to emulate Ripley in some way. So to free us of this trope, let Ripley have her come-back film where she fulfills that female role, and let the other films be free of that trope once and for all. As it stands, we will probably have another kick-ass female lead character in Covenant. What for? Give the fans the film they want, and move on with other films that are unshackled.
They tried with Prometheus and people still clamored for a more Ripley-esque character. I think Shaw, while being feminine, brought something different to the game than Ripley. I find her, personally, to have an interesting character arc and, in my honest opinion, rivals that of Ripley's in the first three films. I agree with you about how this Ripley worship does more harm than good to the series. Still, people in this fandom are stuck somewhere between the past and the future, with the former winning out which inevitably stops new ideas from fully realizing themselves. I contradict myself here because I feel that moderation is good and Covenant seems to be striking a balance between Prometheus and Alien.
The constant, slavish devotion to Ripley is the worst thing that's happened to the series lately. They could really benefit from moving on and doing something different.
Shaw was nothing like Ripley. There was one blatant Ripley variation, and that was the woman from AvPR. You're gonna have a lead, the lead will either be male or female. A female just works so much better as the lead of a horror film.
She may just be the biggest surprise of Covenant.
Anyone else seeing the gun slung around her chest?