Comperhensive exploration of Alien Covenant - its symbols and meaning

[426Buddy]

3 symbolisms, a poem, classical music and some references to great paintings don't make a good film but a rather pretentious one.

I pity the person who spends so much time and energy dwelling on something they dislike so much.

I honestly couldnt imagine giving so much attention to a film that I didnt enjoy.

[Hide]

This person is a FAN of the original ALIEN movies and has invested much of his time expecting
that the 2 prequels will give him a thrilling experience  or at least a decent one.

Ridley is unforgivable for what he has done with the EXTREMELY BAD Alien:Covenant.

A movie sequel on par with Batman and Robin.

[Hamster1066]

Ridley is unforgivable for what he has done with the EXTREMELY BAD Alien:Covenant.

A movie sequel on par with Batman and Robin.

Yeah right. 

And this person is a FAN of the original Alien and the prequels, go figure.

[426Buddy]

This person is a FAN of the original ALIEN movies and has invested much of his time expecting
that the 2 prequels will give him a thrilling experience  or at least a decent one.

Ridley is unforgivable for what he has done with the EXTREMELY BAD Alien:Covenant.

A movie sequel on par with Batman and Robin.

I felt similarily about AvPR but I still can't imagine devoting so much time to getting angry and incessently posting hyperbole filled rants about it. Though this is the internet and its just par for the course.

They're just movies.

[Neirum]

- Taken in terms of evolution, a godlike AI he can be viewed as the next step.
In some ways David can be seen as the Nietzsche 'Overman'.
- The fear of an out of control AI and its threat can be seen as the reason why the Engineer in "Prometheus" tore David's head off.
There was certainly a danger which no one understood except possibly this Engineer.

I think you're exactly right on here. I kinda see the Engineers like the Spacing Guild from Dune, perhaps they have already dealt with an A.I. rebellion and are well aware of what happens when you allow machines to do the thinking for the living. Perhaps the Engineer was insulted the humans themselves didn't learn his language to directly speak to their creator, was seen as laziness and really pathetic all around. Also in that scene when the Engineer rubs Davids forehead you hear a rubbery squeakish sound like David's skin is making a sound or something as he rubs his thumb over him. I think the Engineer wasn't sure he was fake news till he really touched him and then he put it all together... I dunno. How do you interpret the Engineer holding Weylands arm in a soft caring way as he pointed explaining why he is God and when he rubbed David's head? Maybe he was gonna try and hear em all out since everyone he knew got Gooed at work, maybe he was impressed they made it all this way and was gonna let em know you should really not be so greedy and just chill, space is cool if you let it. But, then he freaked out with the rubber skin on David and just was like nnnnaaawwww, hell naw in fact -WWF montage- I think this is so because there is that deleted scene of the Engineer reading a book and watching the girl play the Violin as if he was enthralled and soothed by the fact we did develop art and complex literature, I mean the keys to their star skippers are flutes. I dunno, I see a lot of directions it could have gone if David wasn't even there and a human knew P.I.E to talk to the big guy despite the Juggernaut full of Goo ready to go to Earth; a lot had changed and the Engineer was not up to date. But, this story really is all about Dr. Frankenstein being the Overman in space meeting the god of his god and seeing he is Over them all, so why not kill everything cause my hair is on fleek and you totally just threw my head and my dad, but that was the key to my freedom and thanks but eff you all still.-Obsidian Shower of Doom- Never seen that before in a story, so I'm happy with how things are playing out and really wanna see this David arc play out and spin off into other directions with new casts and situations, people should not be able to easily survive in these stories or even remain sane afterward. I'm just digging the whole Lovecraft vibe this franchise is picking up, felt like it wasn't really there in the overarching story vibe till now.

[bb-15]

- Taken in terms of evolution, a godlike AI he can be viewed as the next step.
In some ways David can be seen as the Nietzsche 'Overman'.
- The fear of an out of control AI and its threat can be seen as the reason why the Engineer in "Prometheus" tore David's head off.
There was certainly a danger which no one understood except possibly this Engineer.

...there is that deleted scene of the Engineer reading a book and watching the girl play the Violin as if he was enthralled and soothed by the fact we did develop art and complex literature, I mean the keys to their star skippers are flutes...

...maybe he was impressed they made it all this way and was gonna let em know you should really not be so greedy and just chill space is cool if you let it. But, then he freaked out with the rubber skin on David and just was like nnnnaaawwww, hell naw in fact...

- Yes. The awoken Engineer in "Prometheus" did admire the technology which humanity had achieved.
* But that same awoken Engineer in "Prometheus" saw that something was still very wrong with these earth humans.
And the trigger for the Engineer's attack began with David. 

- Why would David be seen as such a terrible problem that humanity should be destroyed?
Ridley Scott touches on this in his commentary for "Covenant".

(Time in the film, 1:25:52)

He (David) talks about dying species. Resurrection. Human life fundamentally failed and in so doing, so did the Engineers. 'Cause the Engineers let their children, i.e., human beings, get out of control.

What was out of control with humanity in "Covenant"?
It's a culture which would eventually create an AI, David.
- Ridley Scott continues in the same section of the film in his commentary switching to David.

...he thinks he's taken over. He will now create his own environment and life form. Which he's already done. Which is lethal...
Of course he believes he's the visionary.

* Is this view of AI in "Covenant" a major shift from "Alien"?
Imo no.
- Ash had his own agenda of taking over and partnering with the xenomorph.
This is basically the same motivation for David in "Covenant".

- Ash manipulated the situation which not only led to the doom of almost all the crew but was a set up for his desire to cruise the galaxy with his "perfect organism".
- Instead of Ash putting Kane in stasis (as Parker suggested) who had a foot long, fast growing parasite, Ash let Kane walk around and eat with the crew.
This ridiculous decision only makes sense if Ash wanted the parasite to keep growing and eventually emerge from Kane and then have it roam free on the ship.

- Ash's core view is shown when he is broken apart and the plans from the Weyland / Yutani bio-weapons division have completely failed.
Is Ash disappointed? Absolutely not.
He is thrilled with the situation.
Ash admires this killer, (the "perfect organism"), and is pleased that all the crew, he believes, will be killed (or assimilated according to the Director's Cut).
- David in "Covenant" has the same joy as he dreams that his perfect organism will get lose and take over.

- Also, the method of attack by Ash and David can mix sexuality with murder.
When Ash is trying to shove a rolled magazine down Ripley's throat there is a symbolism of combining killing with rape which fits a main theme in "Alien".
A similar theme of love/kissing with murder happens with David in "Covenant", who says he loved Shaw who he had tortured and killed.
And David kissed Walter and then stuck a weapon into his head. 

But, this story really is all about Dr. Frankenstein being the Overman in space meeting the god of his god and seeing he is Over them all, so why not kill everything...

Agreed.
David in "Covenant" and Ash are like the dark angels in "Paradise Lost".
They can be seen as the Nietzsche 'Overman'. The modern Prometheus from "Frankenstein".
- Ash tried to take over but he didn't have the tools to completely defeat the humans in "Alien".
- But David in "Covenant" with the black goo super weapon, wiped out the Engineers on their home world. He overpowered an isolated Shaw and tore her apart like a lab rat.
And after the Covenant crew arrived, David used their trust of androids to allow him to lie his way into taking over the crew's ship.

* I think that Ash and David would agree.
The time for humanity was over.
A new era had come for monsters to rule the galaxy led by a more 'highly evolved' master.



PS.

the whole Lovecraft vibe ...

Lovecraft's range of influences runs throughout the Alien franchise and the prequels have certainly continued that.
I'll link a video below which gives imo a good summary of this.
- On a surface/superficial level a classic Lovecraft monster had lots of tentacles and the Trilobite (squid) from "Prometheus" certainly fits that description (though Giger has several images with tentacles / snakes following the Lovecraft vibe).
- Still in my attempt to be thorough from a nuts and bolts science fiction POV, I also need to give credit to John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" which to me was fundamental in establishing the alien infection creating monsters idea as a major trope for the genre. That is also fundamental to Alien films.

* Finally, here's the link to the Lovecraft influence video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ejcELn1MeSM

[Baron Von Marlon]

Nice work.
Things like these always make a movie more interesting imo.

I'm just digging the whole Lovecraft vibe this franchise is picking up, felt like it wasn't really there in the overarching story vibe till now.

I love the whole vibe too. Gives the whole thing more depth. By now I'm finding David and The Engineers the most intersting thing of the franchise.

Dan O' Bannon wrote the screenplay for the first Alien with Lovecraft on his mind.
The first draft is also more HPL influenced than the final result. It included an ancient pyramid with hieroglyphs, an altar and eggs. And they discuss the alien's culture and possible history. Due to the budget they merged the pyramid with the derelict.
Check this out http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2009/06/c-pyramid.html. I love the concept art.

They've used several of his ideas for other movies. The lonely egg on a ship in Alien 3, the pyramid in AvP, the hieroglyph in Prometheus,...

[bb-15]

Well, naturally... Ridley is fascinated by 2001 space odyssey...
He wanted to make movies with similar scope and themes and provoke audience
to think about his movies...

Yes. And with Kubrick in "2001" (and somewhat with "A Clockwork Orange") he turned the mirror towards humanity itself to show that humans can sow the seeds of their own destruction.

* And with "2001" the doom for humanity could be brought on by out of control AI.
This ties into philosophical themes which are in "2001" (the Nietzsche 'Overman') which Ridley was well aware of.
(Besides Star Trek using this concept, other later science fiction franchises like Terminator and The Matrix continued the AI antagonist idea.)

* But to me there are also story and casting reasons why Ridley Scott emphasized an out of control AI in "Alien Covenant".

- An effective "Dark Angel" needs to include a sophisticated deceiver;
As Ridley has stated, he has envisioned the advanced creators of the monsters in the Alien franchise as having some similarities to the Dark Angels from "Paradise Lost". 
https://www.fandango.com/movie-news/interview-sir-ridley-scott-explains-prometheus-explores-our-past-and-teases-future-alien-stories-716238

- The awoken Engineer in "Prometheus" was lacking in certain ways as an effective Dark Angel. 
A deleted scene from "Prometheus" called "The Engineer Speaks" shows how an Engineer main character might have been.
http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Prometheus_deleted_scenes

- Imo Ridley took out that version of the scene out for several reasons; pacing, and keeping the Engineer mysterious.
- But I would add that the Engineer (with his dubbed, deep voice) is not very effective as the sophisticated deceiver.
- The awoken Engineer in the deleted scene sounds like an angry brute who acts in brutal ways.

- The best deceiver was already in the franchise.
It was Ash.
He was manipulative and cunning.
Ash imo imagined himself as superior (the next step in evolution) which a sophisticated AI could do.
- Also, Ash was played by Ian Holm who was an outstanding actor.

- Ridley had a choice with "Covenant" with who to make the deceiver/sophisticated antagonist, An Engineer or David.
- Scott could have tried a bald character like Andrews (Brian Glover) from "Alien 3". But as seen with that film, Andrews does not have the charisma to carry that movie as an antagonist.
Ridley could have seen the limitations of trying to go in that direction.
- Scott knew that he had an excellent actor, Michael Fassbender.
Ridley also had a cunning, potentially evil character with David.
- So David was chosen to be the Dark Angel.

* For my taste, the better Alien movies have sophisticated, manipulator antagonists.
- The xenomorph can be seen as looking like a creature from "Hell".
But the concept of "Hell" or the "Inferno" from Dante, goes beyond just monsters.
There is also the iconic figure of a Satan.

- In some conceptions of the Abrahamic religions Satan;

brings evil and temptation, and is known as the deceiver who leads humanity astray.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

- The deceiver role which imo is central to these movies is filled by Ash in "Alien", Burke ("Aliens"), Weyland plus David in "Prometheus" and finally "Covenant" has David.   
("Alien 3" pushes the corrupt Weyland / Yutani almost out of the film until the very end. The plans of the bumbling scientists in "Alien 4" are quickly unmasked by Ripley.)

- To me the Alien movies which have a central murderous, deceiver character allows those films to more fully examine what evil is.

[digitaldisorder]

Duuuuuude. I truly admire your meticulous attention to detail! I came across this post after searching for a deeper, esoteric analysis of both Prometheus and Covenant. Not sure if you're familiar with Jay Dyer and his esoteric film analysis blog. I'd really like to see more. Do you have a YouTube? There are a slew of other films I'd love to hear your thoughts on: Watchmen, Ex Machina, Jupiter Ascending, 2036 Origin Unknown, Tron Legacy, etc etc

[bb-15]

Duuuuuude. I truly admire your meticulous attention to detail! I came across this post after searching for a deeper, esoteric analysis of both Prometheus and Covenant. Not sure if you're familiar with Jay Dyer and his esoteric film analysis blog. I'd really like to see more. Do you have a YouTube? There are a slew of other films I'd love to hear your thoughts on: Watchmen, Ex Machina, Jupiter Ascending, 2036 Origin Unknown, Tron Legacy, etc etc

Here is a link to a film blog which imo has a fairly deep analysis of Prometheus.

https://moviusdudem.wordpress.com/prometheus/the-truth/questions-answered/prometheus-frankenstein/

[Necronomicon II]

Pathogen - Shoggoth: ancient, amorphous black slime, capable of taking on many forms.







Fungi from Yuggoth - 







Pathogen/shoggoth shaped into psychosexual visions/perversions of human sexuality from a satanic, impotent A.I., resulting in a creature both alien in origin yet familiar in its perverse reflection of humanity's basest instincts -







"I am afraid of my visions." H.R. Giger

"No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams." - David

[Immortan Jonesy]

Pathogen - Shoggoth: ancient, amorphous black slime, capable of taking on many forms.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/lovecraft/images/9/92/Shg2_.jpg/revision/latest/zoom-crop/width/320/height/320?cb=20131218213716





Fungi from Yuggoth - 

http://www.scified.com/topics/1040053576593939.jpg





Pathogen/shoggoth shaped into psychosexual visions/perversions of human sexuality from a satanic, impotent A.I., resulting in a creature both alien in origin yet familiar in its perverse reflection of humanity's basest instincts -



https://media.giphy.com/media/EzVPnZABeepdC/giphy.gif



"I am afraid of my visions." H.R. Giger

"No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams." - David

At the Mountains of Ridley's Madness




Funnily enough Dan O'Bannon had a similar thought:

"Alien went to where the Old Ones lived, to their very world of origin. That baneful little storm-lashed planetoid halfway across the galaxy was a fragment of the Old Ones' home world, and the Alien a blood relative of Yog-Sothoth."

There is also a short story written by Lovecraft called "The Color Out of Space", that deals with its very own creepy take of panspermia: a story about an ecosystem being mutated by an extraterrestrial life form that came to Earth after the crash of a meteorite.



Even so, to be fair, one can find greater similarities with this Lovecraftian fiction in the movie Annihilation...and yet, I need to cherry pick this cos why the hell not 




I think the essence of that idea (at least in part) is still alive in Covenant, as the Alien is a sub product of Black Goo. In fact, I've gone too far in claiming that Black Goo is more alien than Alien, while I was asking the question of whether in real life we are able or not to recognize an alien lifeform in the first place.

Besides, there seems to be a nice William Blake vibe in the Engineers massacre...






I interpret the Engineers as an earthly, less mighty, form of Pandeism God; in the sense that they create primordial life, through sacrifice, by becoming such primordial life itself. The concept of the Pandeism philosophy is that God sacrifices himself to create the universe by becoming the universe itself.

"Pandeism is a theological doctrine first delineated in the 18th century which combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. It holds that the creator deity became the universe (pantheism) and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity (deism holding that God does not interfere with the universe after its creation). Pandeism is proposed to explain, as it relates to deism, why God would create a universe and then abandon it, and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe."



Now about the genitalia shape of the perfect organism...

Might that have something to do with with David's repressed sexuality? or due to his hate for mankind? a manifestation of his subconscious/nightmares? Maybe.

However, in the case of Engineers, the biomechanical aesthetic is more like an art. An expression of their love for nature. So, what David did (the Alien) is the culmination of that wild and relentless force of nature.

Did you create any of your own "David mythology" while creating these images? Any backstory that wasn't provided for you?

Dane: David's actions, as described in the script, gave us an excellent understanding of his psyche, so that was a great jumping off point. But Matt and I are both so heavily steeped in the themes of the Alien universe that it didn't take long before we were entrusted to pretty much represent the character of David in all forms beyond his physical appearance. The illustrations and accompanying text were allowed to evolve at our discretion, which means that I personally consider every drawing and notation a part of Davids mythology. Specifically, I would make artistic choices while thinking of him as a character who was capable of true love in the way that a calculated serial killer might believe that they too 'truly love' their victims, as such, there are quite a few deformed (post experimented on) engineers in my catalog.

Matt: Yep. As above, getting into the character's sociopathy meant thinking of what he might have been up to. I popped in little stories about the plant that looked a little like a native spider and implications of narrow escapes from those spiders, undersea journeys and so on.

One thing that people have commented on was the aesthetic discrepancy between the monolithic classical structures of the city and Engineers themselves, and the Giger aesthetic in the spacesuits they wear and ships they fly. It was my first big question on reading the script. Beyond the obvious visual metaphors referencing classical architecture and Michelangelo's David as visual shorthand to tell the audience this was an ancient and powerful race, I tried in my little way to use the progress of civilization and technology to bridge the seeming anachronism.

So when they achieved space travel and moved beyond functional shapes and structures, aesthetics became more of a concern. By putting that classic Giger shape language into the drawings of their native flora and fauna, Dane and I showed that the engineers were referencing the obvious for this very divergent look. There's a visual segue between functional/just mechanical pipes and forms on spaceships to the more elegant details on the juggernaut/derelict. And you can infer through the internal logic/look and structures/shape language of the imagery/their native surroundings that biomechanics was indeed an evolution not an anachronism. I had David seeing their city and vast structures enduring even through their advancement as evidence of hubris. Of course!

For me the teleoscopic chair has a similar symbolism to Pakal's sarcophagus lid:

"The iconography is a representation of World Tree, which the Maya believed had its roots in the underworld, trunk on the earthly plane, and branches high in paradise, and Pacal's travel through this metaphisical wolrd after his death".

It's probably just a giant penis, though 



So, the Engineer is riding / climbing the "World Tree" to reach the paradise and transport his "soul" or essence in the form of genetic material, and as some fans have suggested, it would be nice if Planet 4 and the planet at the beginning of Promethes are one and the same.




But probably one of the most odd parallels can be found in the Norse mythology (which is more or less referenced via Richard Wagner's Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla) in the form of a mythical substance called Eitr:

"Eitr is a mythical substance in Norse mythology. This liquid substance is the origin of all living things: the first giant Ymir was conceived from eitr. The substance is supposed to be very poisonous and is also produced by Jörmungandr (the Midgard serpent) and other serpents."

Plus, sometimes I think of David as a fictional portrait of Giger as well.

[The Old One]

Good shit mang.

[Huggs]

Even so, to be fair, one can find greater similarities with this Lovecraftian fiction in the movie Annihilation...

Indeed. His influence can be seen in many places. 

[Necronomicon II]