Alien: Covenant Sneak Peak Coming At SXSW 2017!

QuoteRidley Scott recently participated in a roundtable discussion about Alien: Covenant at SXSW in Austin. I was lucky enough to be at the roundtable and at one point the director was asked point blank whether or not Daniels was related to Ripley, which has been a popular theory up to this point. The director made it clear that isn't going to be the case, but did imply that it was at least brought up at one point or another. Here is what he had to say about it.

"No. That was probably way back when. 'Should she be the daughter of Ripley?' I said 'no.' She's herself."

Quote"Alien vs. Predator really f—ing nailed [the franchise] into the ground," Scott told EW during a panel discussion at the Nat Geo Further Base Camp at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas on Friday. "I thought about that for awhile, and I said, 'I can bring this back.' And here's the cause and effect: We resurrected it with Prometheus, which had two really good questions that the others weren't asking: Who made [the aliens] and why? Prometheus set that up. [Covenant] answers 'who and why.' Then it leaves all kinds of questions for the next two, or three, or four. Covenant 2 is already being written as I speak right now."

We asked him to confirm that: Two or three or four more films?

"You never know," he said. "We'll see how well it plays. There's a lot of potential in this one. It's not just what you might expect. There are a lot of interesting questions that are pretty fascinating — about creation, who are we, and where do we come from ... As you develop something and make something, all kinds of notions evolve."

Noted Covenant co-star Danny McBride: "What was so awesome about this script was that I was a humungous fan of this series and then when I got the script and it was f—ing awesome. It's so dark. It starts in a dark place and only gets more brutal. I thought I was going to come in here and crack some jokes and then have something explode from my stomach and I was excited that I have a lot more to do than that."

QuoteBefore revealing a handful of scenes from ALIEN: COVENANT, director Ridley Scott said one thing: "My goal remains the same, to scare the shit out of you." Well, based on the scenes shown at SXSW tonight, it seems like he's going to succeed once more.

Set after the events of Prometheus and before the original Alien films, Covenant follows the crew of the colony ship Covenant as they find a remote paradise island — as well as the monstrous creatures from the first Alien films. At the Paramount theater, Scott introduced three scenes from the upcoming film (no spoilers):

The first scene shows the Covenant crew discovering the planet and jettisoning off an away team to the planet's surface, including Walter (Michael Fassbender), a synthetic android, and Daniels (Katherine Waterston), while some crew members, including Tennessee (Danny McBride), stay behind on the Covenant. The away team hits some turbulence on the way down and the scene also shows the crew's camaraderie.
The second scene is where things started to get scary — very scary. The away team is rushing back to their ship, with two in the lead, one of whom has been badly injured and ill. As he's taken to the med bay, a moment with a twist on Alien's chestburster scene happens (there's a brief shot of this in the trailer) and then everything gets so much worse. It's truly a terrifying sequence, but also exhilarating, if the audience's cheers were anything to go by. The rest of the away team, still somewhat behind, makes their way to the aircraft while all of this is happening, only to reveal one of their group's crewmembers is sick as well.
David (Fassbender), the android from the Prometheus mission, shows Oram (Billy Crudup), Covenant's first mate, his alien experiments and things quickly get sinister from there.
Finally, the audience was also treated to a commercial of the creation of Walter as well as a redband version of the Covenant trailer.

The energy was electric in the theater, especially as actors Waterston, McBridge, and Fassbender made their way on stage with Scott to discuss the film. Where fans were split on Prometheus, it seems Covenant might succeed in being better received across the board. It has an excellent cast and premise and the tone of the film seems perfect for this horrifying sci-fi franchise.

QuoteThe #AlienCovenant footage I saw was excellent. More on that very soon. #sxsw2017

QuoteWasn't too impressed with the footage for ALIEN: COVENANT. It's the future and they still can't have good radio signal. Poor bastards. #SXSW

QuoteAlien: Covenant footage at #sxsw - raw, intense, and addictive. Feels like what he always wanted franchise to be. #alien #AlienCovenant

Quote"What was it like to play a non-human?" Fassbender: "Easy. I'm half German." @sxsw ends with a scary bang thanks to @AlienAnthology

QuoteThe 12 minutes of #AlienCovenant shown at #sxsw2017 was absolutely terrifying, in the best possible way.

QuoteFox coming in strong with Alien Covenant swag!

QuoteWasn't interested in ALIEN: COVENANT. Franchise seems past its expiration date, disliked PROMETHEUS. A:C clips at #SXSW turned me around.

Quote10 minutes of AMAZING clips from #AlienCovenant Thank you Ridley Scott! #sxsw

QuoteJust saw footage from #AlienCovenant and Oh. My. God. It's going to be insane. #AMovieGuySXSW @sxsw

QuoteWatched 15 minutes of ALIEN: COVENANT. Slick, really violent, big revelation about series mythos. Looks promising.

QuoteSXSW Day One. A mess of journalists and bloggers. A small room at Trio, the restaurant at the Four Seasons. Director Ridley Scott and actors Katherine Waterston and Danny McBride, there to talk about the new movie "Alien: Covenant." Let's do this.

Ridley Scott would like to do "Alien" movies indefinitely. "('Covenant') is, dare I say, clever and violent and everything you kinda want," Scott said. "I think it's a cut above what's happened before and leaves all kinds of things open for the next one. I enjoy doing them so much I would like it to go on forever."

Scott does not believe an AI could be authentically creative. "Can you have a computer write a book or a screenplay or a poem?," he said. "Yeah, but it's always going to be very derivative and only based on what has been done in trillions of different ways before, so it's going to be a cross-collateralization. It can only be that."

Whereas Waterston takes a grimmer view. "A human can't replace an ant, but it can kill it, and that's what's so scary about it," she said. "They might not be able to write a poem as beautifully as Robert Lowell, but they can kill you." No word on the forthcoming John Ashbery robot CalTech is working on.

Tell us all your thoughts on God. Scott talked about hanging out with mathematicians and physicists while making "The Martian" and what happened when they were asked if they believed in God. Four raised their hands. One of the mathematicians apparently said, "When I come against a wall in mathematics, I am constantly impressed in who invented this wall because I know there is an answer on the other side."

This led Scott to equating God with that which is superior to us that we cannot understand. Which led into Scott discussing a conversation with Carl Sagan 30 years ago and in which Sagan said, according to Scott: "'There will be no aliens discovered in your lifetime or mine' ... I said, 'Lighten up, Carl, it's only a movie.' And now, 30 years on, NASA has said there are trillions of evolutions around us in space. Science and mathematics is art at that level." Sure.

Were Waterston's character to be dropped into the original "Alien," she would be hanging in the bowels of the ship. "I would want to be hanging out with Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto," Waterston said.

McBride's family thinks he has leveled up in the world. With "Covenant," McBride said, "My parents finally think I am making real movies now."

Scott wants you to do your job. "When I first met Ridley," Waterston said, "he was like, 'I hire people who I think are good at acting, and I let them do their thing and figure it out and if they're doing something really idiotic I'll tell them but I mostly like to leave them alone. I know what the (beep) I'm doing, you should know what the (beep) you're doing, you show it to me and then we go have dinner.' It's not rocket science."

"My best compliment" to an actor, Scott added, "is, '(Beep) me, I never thought of that. Cut.' She does that and he does that and that is why I take great care casting."

Why Scott kept women at the center of the "Alien" films. "The first one did so well, why change anything?"

McBride's sweet hat was Scott's idea. As the blue collar (his words) pilot Tennessee, McBride is rocking a straw hat that gives him a very day-six-of-SXSW-at-4-a.m. vibe. "It was an homage to Slim Pickens in 'Doctor Strangelove,'" McBride said.

QuoteScott re-emerged for a Q&A with his cast and he momentarily forgot the full name of his star. That would be Katherine Waterston ("Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), who continues a tradition started by Sigourney Weaver. "She's a very strong female," Scott said.

Waterston didn't know what part she was meeting for when she landed the lead. "You kind of have to not think of how awesome it is when you're shooting or you wouldn't be able to function," she said, adding that a director friend would send her email reminders that Daisy Ridley from "Star Wars" had a strong sprint. "I was really obsessed with my run. I still think I look like a Fraggle. But I f–king tried."

Michael Fassbender, who appeared in "Prometheus," plays an android in the new movie that sounds like R2-D2 by way of Norman Bates. How did he pull off the robotic character? "Easy," the actor joked. "I'm half German."

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Feb 16, 2017, 06:40:07 PM
I'd hope it'd be something new but since that footage hasn't been shown to the general public, it'd make sense for them to show it there.

It's funny because we'll complain if we see too much but we'll complain if we don't see what we consider enough.

Quote from: PVTDukeMorrison on Feb 16, 2017, 09:47:01 PM
I really can't wait to see Danny McBride in this, I don't think I've ever seen him do a serious role

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Feb 16, 2017, 06:40:07 PM
I'd hope it'd be something new but since that footage hasn't been shown to the general public, it'd make sense for them to show it there.

It's funny because we'll complain if we see too much but we'll complain if we don't see what we consider enough.

Quote from: Anthony on Feb 16, 2017, 06:19:15 PM
Was just about to post this in the social media thread. Beat me to it, Himmel!

Also, how much do you want to bet that it will just be the same showcase footage?

Quote from: lv_226 on Feb 16, 2017, 05:59:35 PM
Very, very close to home...