Here’s something to help get you through your Monday! We have just uploaded the 68th episode of the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast (right-click and save as to download)! Our latest episode sees regular hosts Corporal Hicks, RidgeTop and Xenomorphine reconvene to discuss how we feel about Alien: Covenant after a year to learn about the film, re-watch it and re-consider it.
We talk about how what we’ve learnt about Alien: Covenant since the film’s release, we briefly discuss the prequel novel, if our opinions on the film have changed and if we’d still want to see Sir Ridley Scott with his hands on the reins of the franchise.
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My year since the movie has taken me to the point where Covenant is a dead end from which I wish to reverse out of. It has also taken me back to pick up the reins of where Prometheus was going and re looking from that point. There are two absolutely key signposts which have been crippled by the re positioning.
1) Elizabeth Shaw was the audiences proxy for the search for our creators and like us she was dissatisfied at the answers and needed to go on. That has been smashed out of the narrative.
2) Many of the answers to the catalyser/mutagen and the teardrop ship/engineers are in Prometheus but would have been clarified by arriving at where they were going which Damon Lindelof has confirmed has not happened in A :C. In other words Planet 4 is not where they intended to go after Prometheus but some place else and I mean in the artistic sense.
I am unusual in that I am passionate about the authority lent by the fabric of the movies and the story of Ripley in the first three films but as regards the prequels I am not interested in the creature other than why and whom and why the D SJ and Eggs were where they were. That latter point should have been knocked off with authority in Prometheus. It confused the audience and took them away from Elizabeths journey.
I also agree with your remarks about fandom it is more personable maybe its because all the aggression is on the screen !!
I'm familiar with the Dead Space video games and I've watched replay videos etc. of people playing them on YouTube, but I have never played the games myself. With that said I'm fine with the Black Goo/Mutagen/Xenomorph Essence being very much similar to the concept of the Marker.
Also, as a side note, I've followed the conversations regarding the new Alien comic ALIEN: The Cold Forge in which the main scientist discovers that the Facehugger doesn't implant an embryo per se rather than some hyper fast gene/chromosome altering/evolving "virus" (some kind of mass or LIQUID) which is what forces the host's body to turn its own components into the actual Chestburster embryo. Maybe the Black Goo is nothing but extracted, even synthesized, Facehugger implantation mutagen?
The Space Jockeys probably saw the potential in the Facehugger implantation mutagen (Xenomorph Essence) and tried to, like I already mentioned, harness and even synthesize the Xenomorph Essence for an abundance of other uses than producing Xenomorphs/Aliens. The Space Jockeys thought that they could completely override the Xenomorph nature of the source by turning into an industrialized technology (all their tech, structures and vessels seem to be biomechanoid a la Xenomorph) just to find out that even when 'controlled' and 'synthesized', seemingly evolved and utilized 'safely' for eons, the Black Goo will eventually, at some point, end up producing Xenomorphs no matter what.
In that scope, taking A:TCF (ALIEN: The Cold Forge) in account, it all turns into a literal yet quite deadly play on the age-old Chicken-or-the-Egg conundrum.
I agree that there's no need to explicitly hammer it down in order for the audience to get it, but I do think it's of importance to make it heavily implied that the Engineers are prehistoric humans abducted by the Space Jockeys at some point (visually the natives of Paradise - Engineer pleb - almost look like they could have Neanderthal origins). The reason I think it's important has to do with the need of mystery and things being alien to us rather than thoroughly explained and relatable, which is the way things are now with PROM and A:C. Making the Space Jockey alien again, separating it from the Engineers, is one way to bring back the mystery of the Space Jockey and the Derelict from ALIEN, and by spelling out that the Engineers are literally humans from Earth also dispels the idea that humans (Engineers in this case) have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, maybe million years and that humans have been the formative power, drive and presence throughout the galaxy ever since. We need to be taken back a few notches and eat some humble pie.
The downside of this take is that it's pretty similar to the original concept of Star Gate (the movie), but I'm perfectly ok with that as Star Gate (the movie, not the series) is one of my favorite modern(wish) popcorn friendly sci-fi movies. It does a lot of things well on the mystery department for one.
Exactly! It would also make the Alien universe unique in a sense. Instead of introducing sentient new non-Xenomorph aliens all the time for us humans to interact with, we instead run into the ruins and remains of other races that bumped into the Xenomorph/Black Goo millions of years before we did (they were either wiped out by Xenomorph infestations or losing control of the Black Goo at some point or another). I guess the book series of ALIENS: In the Shadows and River of Pain etc. introduced this concept with the addition of the extinct "Dog-Aliens" race.
With that said: Arcturians ARE human colonists inhabiting worlds inside the Arcturian solar/star system rather than being some kind of Star Trekkish extraterrestrial race. Yes, one could argue that they (Arcturians) could be yet another slew of humans from Earth abducted by Space Jockeys (or even Engineers), but that would take away from the uniqueness and mystery of the Engineers and kind of opens up this concept of the entire Milky Way being inhabited by abducted human offshoots, much like Star Gate the TV series, which I DON'T like.
My main concern is that the above stay congruent.
Maybe if you went with your idea of the SJ being something other, it could be one of many races that recreated the Alien in the past and it doomed them as it did many before them. You could fill the universe with new ruins, and new intrigue whilst maintaining the tone of the fiction.
Yeah, I get all of that and I agree with your analysis and assessment concerning the prequels - those are good points.
Still, I dont think Scott went the right way as he departed from the premise of the nihilistic, fateless, faithless, meaningless barren darkness and void of the universe and mankind and existance as a whole. Survival is banal but it's all that we got in the end even though we will be wiped out in one way or another without anyone highly sentient other than us ever noticing our existence to begin with. It's us alone with our own insanity and banality, and then you have all of that toppled over once you face what could be considered the very manifestation of the harsh and unforgiving nature of space and the universe - the Alien. Primordial perfection. Scott kind of fumbled that away on more levels than one according to me. A lot has to do with the tone and the execution of the prequels.
Anyways, that train kind of passed and I'm open to the ideas you brought to discussion as long as they "promote" the Alien and "demote" the Engineers while bringing back the Space Jockey as a separate race, mysterious and ancient. In other words:
1 - It was the black goo (Xenomorph Essence) that lead David to recreate the Alien/Xenomorph (and not the other way around). David is also not the first one to recreate it - the Space Jockeys did so before him. Did they find the Xenomorph/Alien first followed by creating Xenomorph Essence (black goo) out of the Alien specimens they found or did they first find Xenomorph Essence which lead them to unknowingly (re)create the Xenomorph? Either way it's almost like summoning an ancient demon.
2 - The Engineers are literally humans abducted from Earth by Space Jockeys tens of thousands of years ago and were brought to Paradise for experimentation etc. The ones we saw in PROM were enhanced, possibly genetically augmented clones schooled and instructed by Space Jockeys for whatever reason. The Engineers in A:C were the regular janes and joes of their kind, more or less purposely kept in this pre-industrial almost stone age like bubble where they seem to worship their enhanced bretheren as actual gods (hence the stone faces).
3 - The Space Jockeys were not the same as the Engineers. In fact, the Space Jockey race was barely even humanoid to begin with. How, when and why they disappeared we don't know, but the fossilization of the derelict suggest it to be at least a big handful of milleniums ago.
Although I really enjoy and like the expansion of the Alien mythos in Alien Covenant- (the intelligence of the characters in the script is another thing) & MUTHUR's blog shows exactly why I enjoy the new ideas and the thematics of Alien Covenant, without repeating myself it would be a big contention of mine that the solution to these prequels is to ignore them and return the universe to that of a claustrophobic spaceship.
These are films first and foremost. Ridley Scott- although he believes the Alien universe can be expansive- his primary interest is to explore ideas he thinks worth exploring through his films- not to be beholden to what came before or what comes after, and I admire that brazen disregard for what fanatics perceive Alien to be or what they want from it due to preconceptions they have.
I think your perspective would be the ideal inbetween, it would enrich Covenant and S.RC's perspective whilst simultaneously adding more to the fictional universe than we have at the moment.
It's always difficult towing the line between adding more and avoiding turning Alien from what should be a
barren, harsh and realistic universe into a bustling galaxy teeming with all forms of life.
The whole Alien universe, like our own- should be a dire necropolis.
Not that their is no life- but what their is, is Alien. The animals here on earth know what they are-
we are the strange ones with an existence that we constantly question, everything else is simply in a race for survival.
Deep space should be like the deep sea. Empty- lifeless- barren, with terrifying things we can barely fathom waiting for us. Like the Neomorphs.
It is for that reason that I like Ridley Scott's idea of going one step beyond that, by making the Alien a biological AI. Imagine something with the intelligence of Skynet or AM from "I have no mouth and I must scream."
But purely devoted to survival and evolution.
Isn't that the perfect organism? Isn't that the most terrifying thing imaginable?
That matches Giger's design language to boot, the biological machine.
Well, the derelict and the space jockey being fossilized for starters, which implied that the Xenomorph was ancient and not something some rampant android AI concocted and conjured up just a decennium or two earlier on some faraway bastion formerly inhabited by giant bald albino humans (whom btw. are the same people as the supposedly mysterious Space Jockey race). Every thing that was 'alien' about ALIEN showed up to be anything but alien. The Engineers are escentially us (same DNA signature as us) and the Alien is indirectly created by us (as the black goo is life-altering Engineer technology and David is "Earthling" human-mimicking technology). It's highly anticlimactic and totally kills any shred of mystery that was left. At least to me.
I understand the train of thought and the alure of the whole concept of an artificial being being the creator of a new lifeform designed to prey on said artificial being's own creators, just as I understand the alure of us being created by an ancient space faring race of people who look very much like us. It's very poetic and all but also takes away from the original concept and themes. It's a change of soul, so to speak. All of a sudden the Alien saga turned into The Frankenstein Family Chronicles.
Personally I hope that Scott aims to make Alien alien again, in one way or another. I would love the idea that the Xenomorph, which David believes that he is the sole creator of, has been created/recreated countless times before David had his way with it. The ones before David to recreate the Xenomorph was the Space Jockey, which was a primordially ancient non human race (now extinct or mysteriously vanquished), the same race from which the Engineers got most of their technology from.
I would love to see the reaction and existential crisis of David once he realizes that "his creation" (the Xenomorph) was not his creation after all and thus cements the fact that he is just another android incapable of true creation, creativity, art and invention. That it was the black goo that used David to recreate/create the Xenomorph rather than the other way around. That would be a cruel but fitting end to the David story line.
I would also prefer if the Engineers are/were nothing but primitive humans originating from Earth. Maybe they were abducted and taken away to Paradise by Space Jockeys as an experiment? And ever since the Space Jockey race vanquished, the space age stone age people of the Engineers have ritualistically taken it upon themselves to continue what they believe was their gods' (the Space Jockeys) quest and mission - to "seed" the galaxy with life (unfortunately without even partially understanding Space Jockey technology).
I'm not arguing your opinion, but specifically what lore? I always see this complaint about the lore but all we had to go on were eggs left inside a ship. Anything else lore-wise was created and built up in peoples minds.
This is excellent and is a good case of why I love this movie. It's very interesting.
If youre into predator at all I would steer clear of the section for the new movie lol
Well, y'know, I've been waking up every night with my sheets soaked with sweat, so, here I am.
And thank you, sir.
I'm sorry it got that bad for you. Welcome back though.
Completely agreed. They need to push on without fear of dragging Ripley with them.
I really really like this take on it. Not so much literal perfection of the Aliens.
Thanks to everyone for listening!
<3 <3 <3
This.
Now that is one of the darnedest things that I ever read.
Oh shit.
I think Ridley should be given the shot if he's willing to wrap up his prequel story within one more movie. That always seemed like a more realistic choice anyways, instead of going off for another three or four. I don't agree with everything he's done, but I liked Covenant and would at least like to see the story get a real resolution.
If nothing else, one thing I hope comes of the Prometheus-Covenant era is for Fox not to be afraid to continue in a direction that's not Ripley-centric, wherever they may go timeline-wise.
As for the movie, even year later I think it is crap! The most thing that I hate about it (among many things) is how stupid and retarded the characters are. The only explanation I can find is that you don't send the most valuable members of society on a virgin flight to colonise an unknown planet. But why do you send complete idiots is beyond me?!?!
Cinematography is beatiful though. First 30 minutes is pretty good as well.
Still, gonna give it a one more shot todays evening. If not for anything else than for guilty pleasure. I can always wach Alien and Alien 3 to see a great ALIEN movie and forget about Prometheus/Covenant/Scotts "visions" and "fresh ideas".
Keep up the good work
Thanks for the mention as well, if anyone else wants to read what I've found in Alien Covenant you can find it here https://yutani.blog/a-l-i-e-n/
As for my friend Clayre, her blog is https://gothic-fiction-in-space.tumblr.com/post/164533391538/1-the-romanticism-of-alien-covenant
Thinking about aesthetic differences between the book and the movie I have changed my mind and I actually enjoy the fact David is the creator, thematically it makes sense because Walter can only copy and imitate but David can do more. And if David was to die at the hand of his creation(or his creation's creation/ Queen and subsequent offspring) which seems to be where this story is going, it would make sense that he is the creator of the Xenomorph.
And I do love how Ridley has been able to retroactively change the story to suit that Nietzschean Übermensch storyline/chain of events leading right up to Alien Resurrection. It's just another thing I love about these prequels, it gives me a lot to think about in the sense you get the inspiration from the very first myths right up to horror of the modern day.
I re-watched Covenant on download a few months back (after a June 2017 Cinema ticket) and my positive opinion is unchanged. Still a 4/5 movie and third only to ALIEN 5/5 and ALIENS 5/5.
I also had a suggested YouTube video of an "against the grain" movie reviewer who also liked the film. I agree Covenant greatest strength is David as the central character and his story arc from servant to God with a multitude of subliminal imagery, sound and symbolism.
Yes Covenant is misanthropic and anti-humanist, nihilistic. But that is/was the whole point of the ALIEN series!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes. It would need alot of work to turn it into amovie.
But I think the writers need a bit of defending because I feel like they were hamstrung by technical limitations. For e.g. there are so few times when you really get to interact with NPCs, as though the tech. director didn't feel like the user's CPU could handle many AI people at once. Maybe the xeno AI was just a huge CPU cycle hog.
It was well thought through, but all told via "log entries." If you compare it to film, this is a very curious kind of scriptwriting; it's all setting, with no real ability to build character or plot. (Characterisation is all hearsay, and you have to reconstruct the plot from what you read, more like prose fiction than the realtime drama a play or film gives you). I think I learned a bit about game writing from this.
But an enjoyable game. And thats what really counts.
TC
This.
I really do want a film though to find a crashed Torrens at some point.
It has, however, some really really good world-building with the Sevastopol's downfall and how people reacted to it. That really felt like something out of the Alien universe. The desperation of becoming jobless and hopeless on the far reaches of space affected me way more than the main storyline, through some very simple audio logs and emails. The whole litigation between Seegson and its employees was great and how Weyland-Yutani stepped in to buy the entire station, giving some momentary hope, only to be taken away by the Alien "invasion" was fantastic.
Covenant didn't provide any mythology and unanswered questions?
The ship, eggs and the xeno in Covenant were no tie in to Giger's work?
That's why, as coincidental as the whole scenario is- that's why it works.
I see the whole thing as a spiritual closure to the Ripley story, more genuine to the tone of the first three than Resurrection.
It's also left the Torrens floating through space that could end up anywhere for a good writer to exploit.
Isolation would have been just as good if Amanda Ripley were somebody else. Change a few of the details, and poof. Works just fine.
The universe is vast, there's plenty other opportunities for stories all their own.
If they make more Alien films it needs to stay away from Scotts odd prequels. Hell Alien Isolation was just perfect. They can expand on that. May be Amanda Ripley is still alive or she didn't die the way Burke said in Aliens, a cover up etc.
Foxnet need to hire Rebellion to make another AvP game to continue after the 2010 game. And another dev needs to make an open world / planets Predator game
also, love the podcast guys :-)
I still have to read the prequel novel. I totally lost interest after I found out its not about David and Shaw...
By the way, I think there are a lot of fans out there who want to see the painting of giger come to life in form of an engineer home planet. I dont think money is the reason. I really dont know why they're not doing it... It would be fantastatic!
Will listen now