AvPGalaxy Exclusive - Early John Logan Alien: Covenant Script!

Started by Corporal Hicks, Aug 15, 2017, 09:19:06 AM

Author
AvPGalaxy Exclusive - Early John Logan Alien: Covenant Script! (Read 65,431 times)

SM

I would've preferred a bit more explanation - some of which comes later in his 'lab' with Oram.

The actual scene of the bombing doesn't have any explaining and the imagery is so quickly cut that we don't know whether the Engineers are vomiting or birthing monsters.

NetworkATTH

NetworkATTH

#136
Quote from: SM on Mar 09, 2018, 05:43:01 AM
I would've preferred a bit more explanation - some of which comes later in his 'lab' with Oram.

The actual scene of the bombing doesn't have any explaining and the imagery is so quickly cut that we don't know whether the Engineers are vomiting or birthing monsters.
I suppose. The development of A to B to C, even with the scene, was rather sparse. I still hold the less shown would have been better, because it leaves it even more up to your imagination what god awful shit David did to get to this point. Like he was running Japan's Unit 731 on the Engineers and had one right there splayed. Maybe more time observing his lab. David and Shirō Ishii have a lot in common in being hellbent biological weapon testers, on living subjects and dead, prisoners of war. You didn't need to see how the nest was built in Aliens, yet the implication of all these bodies everywhere is probably enough to feed your mind with all sorts of images.

Though,

I think the greatest sin this movie made was creating a fantastic premise. Colony ship made up of couples, lands on World From Hell, Your Wife and Your Husband are Toast

And yet aside from Daniels...Oram just gets up and gets used to it. Most of these characters get up and get used to it. That's something jarring that's in both scripts. I know it's a crisis situation and everything, but it didn't feel like they tried hard enough exploring the character's dynamics with that then Daniels. I mean it's a brilliant concept for an Alien film, but I didn't see it fully utilized.

There's something the two scripts, and the movie suffer from. It should have been more like James Cameron's Abyss, where Ed Harris goes f**k it mask off and starts screaming at his wife to fight to live after she stopped responding.

SM

Oram doesn't really have a choice.  He has one scene that comes close to wallowing, and Daniels bucks him up.

D88M

We really needed the "Paradise/Crossing" footage in the movie to link Prometheus and Covenant together, the movie itself needed it.

Quote from: NetworkATTH on Mar 09, 2018, 03:04:22 AM
Quote from: SM on Mar 08, 2018, 10:50:58 PM
QuoteAt no point in any promotional material, or in the film, does the Covenant catch fire. And yet they filmed it for a promotion, and made the set up, and never used it.

If you're referring to the above picture are you sure it's not just a light?


It could be a publicity shot, I mean they lead a lot of misleading publicity material about what the film might be about, which I could see why, they didn't want people to figure things out but.

Publicity shots should be illegal, is fake publicity. There has been a trend for years now of putting A LOT of stuff in the trailers (Suicide Squad, Justice League, Rogue One to name just a few) that is nowhere to be found in the movies, or downright sell a different movie with a trailer totally different in tone to what they actually made (Age of Ultron and Iron Man 3 come to mind), is just wrong.

Whiskeybrewer

Quote from: D88M on Mar 09, 2018, 01:14:07 PM
We really needed the "Paradise/Crossing" footage in the movie to link Prometheus and Covenant together, the movie itself needed it.

Quote from: NetworkATTH on Mar 09, 2018, 03:04:22 AM
Quote from: SM on Mar 08, 2018, 10:50:58 PM
QuoteAt no point in any promotional material, or in the film, does the Covenant catch fire. And yet they filmed it for a promotion, and made the set up, and never used it.

If you're referring to the above picture are you sure it's not just a light?


It could be a publicity shot, I mean they lead a lot of misleading publicity material about what the film might be about, which I could see why, they didn't want people to figure things out but.

Publicity shots should be illegal, is fake publicity. There has been a trend for years now of putting A LOT of stuff in the trailers (Suicide Squad, Justice League, Rogue One to name just a few) that is nowhere to be found in the movies, or downright sell a different movie with a trailer totally different in tone to what they actually made (Age of Ultron and Iron Man 3 come to mind), is just wrong.

Well all that stuff from those trailers you mention are actually from the first cuts,before they all had reshoots

SM

QuotePublicity shots should be illegal, is fake publicity.

Are we going to make it a crime to read too much into every single piece of information that comes out about a film?  Someone go round up a large chunk of Youtube and lock them up.

KiramidHead

Quote from: SM on Mar 09, 2018, 08:37:39 PM
QuotePublicity shots should be illegal, is fake publicity.

Are we going to make it a crime to read too much into every single piece of information that comes out about a film?  Someone go round up a large chunk of Youtube and lock them up.

Reminds me of when everyone was over analyzing the shit out of every last frame of True Detective season one.

NetworkATTH

NetworkATTH

#142
Something I noticed, in this script, and obviously scripts prior to it, the Engineer's city was, just that, a city. With buildings. There's no great big hole in the middle.

However in the last act of this script, they're in a part of a city that's a sporting arena. And almost all of the Engineers are located at this area when the bomb is dropped. So while waiting for Tennesse, you get a good glimpse at all the petrified Engineers, in the Colosseum trying to run, in and outside of it. In the center of the arena are Giger-esque objects of unknown purpose.  The script takes a pause to consider, what they were doing here. The script basically asks whoever was reading it, to try and figure out for themselves why they're all in an arena when they died. It's just a set piece, the Engineers were playing some weird Roman or Meso-American sport. The rest was organized like a city, basically.

Subsequently when the script changed, and so did the overall plan and design for the city it seems.

see here





Buildings are built around a giant open space. As if, it was an arena.

I'm just shooting the shit at this point, but the details match so much that Ridley may have just decided "let's make the whole city sort of designed like a Colosseum. This script mentions "bizarre Giger like objects" near the center. Gus's what's in the center in the movie, the few Juggernauts in the in the middle, underneath an opening, and the mother juggernaut floating. The script changes the Mother Jugggernaut's location from the atmosphere in this script and in concept art

see here:


to here:


The middle. Exactly where the script says the "giger like objects" in the Colosseum they ran into in the finale were.

That's really odd, and the similarities are undeniable. You go from what a city looks like, to the plans of the set described in a scene in the finale in a gladiatorial-esque Colosseum. That might imply a lot. It might not, but I have a feeling there was a reason the layout of the city quickly changed between August (the month of this draft) and November ( the month of the last draft we have). It feels like a Ridley made decision, one can only speculate as to why that may be. The Engineers weren't congregating to meet David in this draft either, they were minding their own business, which was mostly to watch some sort of game the majority got petrified in.

So, in conclusion via design of the city and the design of this script's finale

You chance the design of the city into one with a vast open space surrounded by, rows if you will., that's check You have specific placement of Giger objects, check. An audience congregating to said arena waving and having a good time when they get bombed, check. The finale taking place in an open public space...check.

When David arrives, they really do act like its a sporting event of unknown play or purpose. They changed the structure of the city to look like the Colosseum



I think people can fill in the dots from here.

Baron Von Marlon

I thought it's designed to look similar to religious places of importance, like Vatican City or Mekka.
Those often have a big square near an important building or object. The round main building in Covenant is very similar to stupas (old buddhist temples).
And those people in the last picture remind me of people looking up at the Pope when he's delivering a message.

KiramidHead

That Engineer with the hat still gets me. :laugh:

NetworkATTH

NetworkATTH

#145
Quote from: Baron Von Marlon on Mar 10, 2018, 05:49:55 AM
I thought it's designed to look similar to religious places of importance, like Vatican City or Mekka.
Those often have a big square near an important building or object. The round main building in Covenant is very similar to stupas (old buddhist temples).
And those people in the last picture remind me of people looking up at the Pope when he's delivering a message.

The way the city is designed is almost 1:1 how the set of the climax of this script's Colosseum/Stadium. It could be both. The only time Scott seems to allow the albino blue man group joy is when they're practicing some Alien form of Catholic Communion anyways. Sports as a religious practice has existed before. My point was just that it's oddly just designed the way the climax of this script (on Planet 4) ends. It could be anything from an aesthetic choice, to a choice to simplify locations, to a choice about the relations the Engineers feel towards, whatever it is they're doing, maybe they see the war truck coming back as a good omen. Could be all of these things, one of these things, or it could be none of these things.

But this city is designed exactly like the Colosseum Lope and "Grif" in near the end of this script


Quote from: KiramidHead on Mar 10, 2018, 05:53:44 AM
That Engineer with the hat still gets me. :laugh:
More evidence this city is designed as their best attempt to recreate Earth's Citi Field

Stolen

Quote from: NetworkATTH on Mar 10, 2018, 02:06:05 AM
see here


The detail of the citadel is pretty impressive, it's a visual feast!

FenGiddel

Thanks for posting the scripts, Hicks.

Ahsoka

Thank you ! Any chance to share The Predator script soon ?

Corporal Hicks

Not until a bit after the film's release.

AvPGalaxy: About | Contact | Cookie Policy | Manage Cookie Settings | Privacy Policy | Legal Info
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Patreon RSS Feed
Contact: General Queries | Submit News