Katherine Waterston Channels Her Inner Ripley in New Alien: Covenant Still

Started by Corporal Hicks, Dec 20, 2016, 08:13:30 PM

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Katherine Waterston Channels Her Inner Ripley in New Alien: Covenant Still (Read 29,116 times)

windebieste

Quote from: Xenomorphine on Dec 20, 2016, 08:53:15 PM
Quote from: Ridley Scott on Dec 20, 2016, 08:13:30 PM
Covenant is really going to show you who did it and why.

Who did what? Create Aliens?

Not looking forward to that, if so. :-[ I always preferred them as having evolved naturally.

Except that having been engineered gives them purpose; and for story telling a purpose is essential.  The genetically engineered dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' had purpose even if they were just considered to be theme park attractions.  It's when that purpose goes awry the story becomes worth telling. 

I'm sure that's where Scott is taking this whole trilogy. 

-Windebieste.

Pvt. Himmel

Nice!! Look at that gun!! Thank Hicks. 8)

Scorpio

I think she'll be a bit softer than Ripley, making her transformation into badass survivor stand out more.  Ripley was kind of cold and a bit of bitch in Alien.

Xenomorphine

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Dec 20, 2016, 08:58:45 PM
I think that's the direction the prequels are heading in.

Up until now, there was still at laest some kind of hope that might have just been a red herring. I guess that, if that's what the quote is alluding to, that's how it is now.

Quote from: windebieste on Dec 20, 2016, 10:40:35 PM
Except that having been engineered gives them purpose; and for story telling a purpose is essential.  The genetically engineered dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' had purpose even if they were just considered to be theme park attractions.  It's when that purpose goes awry the story becomes worth telling. 

I'm sure that's where Scott is taking this whole trilogy.

No, it either gives them an old, now-irrelevant purpose or, alternatively, just makes them a mere biological experiment.

In both of those cases, it makes the creatures a lot less potentially interesting. If they arose naturally, it implies there's possibly still an ecosystem out there so dangerous, that the Alien's "structural perfection" came out of biological necessity.

I always loved that quote from one of the novels, where a character theorises that, on their own planet, they might be little more than the mice. Thinking of that really fired my imagination, making me picture a truly nightmarish ecosystem of all manner of cosmic horrors. It would bring the Alien as close as possible to O'Bannon's original concept of them being somehow related to Lovecraft's blood-thirsty deities: An unholy natural selection, as it were. It makes the Alien a fragment of something potentially greater and even more murderously obscene. An entire fossil record composed of deathly terrors.

If they turn out to be just an isolated result of bald dudes f**king around with a petri dish, to me, that devalues the Alien as much as the Engineers devlued the potential of the Space Jockey.

To me, that's an infinitely more thought-provoking question. Not, "Who made them?" But, "What kind of environment could be so horrifying that evolution selected them to survive?"

Aliens don't need to have been artificially created for the purpose of a story. Story = goal(s) + obstacle. Aliens always take up the 'obstacle' role, regardless of their origins.

Ephemer Nine

Quote from: Xenomorphine on Dec 20, 2016, 08:53:15 PM
Quote from: Ridley Scott on Dec 20, 2016, 08:13:30 PM
Covenant is really going to show you who did it and why.

Who did what? Create Aliens?

Not looking forward to that, if so. :-[ I always preferred them as having evolved naturally.

That was also the first thing that worried me when I read that. I really hope they're not going that route...

Also, this bombardment of news makes me believe very strongly that the trailer is imminent.

Scorpio

How could they evolve naturally?  They are clearly technology and biology fused together, not a natural creature that evolved on its own.  In fact, Prometheus even implies that even humans didn't evolve naturally.

Burn the Floor

The more things are revealed about this the more underwhelming it seems.

Lonely Universe

Quote from: Xenomorphine on Dec 21, 2016, 12:21:44 AM
I always loved that quote from one of the novels, where a character theorises that, on their own planet, they might be little more than the mice. Thinking of that really fired my imagination, making me picture a truly nightmarish ecosystem of all manner of cosmic horrors. It would bring the Alien as close as possible to O'Bannon's original concept of them being somehow related to Lovecraft's blood-thirsty deities: An unholy natural selection, as it were. It makes the Alien a fragment of something potentially greater and even more murderously obscene. An entire fossil record composed of deathly terrors.

I just want everyone to read what you just said. Beautifully worded.

Let's hope in the end the prequels reveal the Jockey as separate from the Engineers & all of their creations. That way this is still a possibility & none of the mystique is ruined.

Scorpio

Quote from: Xenomorphine on Dec 21, 2016, 12:21:44 AM
O'Bannon's original concept of them being somehow related to Lovecraft's blood-thirsty deities:

Weren't the Shoggoths created by the Elder Things?

Xenorgue

Quote from: Xenomorphine on Dec 21, 2016, 12:21:44 AM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Dec 20, 2016, 08:58:45 PM
I think that's the direction the prequels are heading in.

Up until now, there was still at laest some kind of hope that might have just been a red herring. I guess that, if that's what the quote is alluding to, that's how it is now.

Quote from: windebieste on Dec 20, 2016, 10:40:35 PM
Except that having been engineered gives them purpose; and for story telling a purpose is essential.  The genetically engineered dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' had purpose even if they were just considered to be theme park attractions.  It's when that purpose goes awry the story becomes worth telling. 

I'm sure that's where Scott is taking this whole trilogy.

No, it either gives them an old, now-irrelevant purpose or, alternatively, just makes them a mere biological experiment.

In both of those cases, it makes the creatures a lot less potentially interesting. If they arose naturally, it implies there's possibly still an ecosystem out there so dangerous, that the Alien's "structural perfection" came out of biological necessity.

I always loved that quote from one of the novels, where a character theorises that, on their own planet, they might be little more than the mice. Thinking of that really fired my imagination, making me picture a truly nightmarish ecosystem of all manner of cosmic horrors. It would bring the Alien as close as possible to O'Bannon's original concept of them being somehow related to Lovecraft's blood-thirsty deities: An unholy natural selection, as it were. It makes the Alien a fragment of something potentially greater and even more murderously obscene. An entire fossil record composed of deathly terrors.

If they turn out to be just an isolated result of bald dudes f**king around with a petri dish, to me, that devalues the Alien as much as the Engineers devlued the potential of the Space Jockey.

To me, that's an infinitely more thought-provoking question. Not, "Who made them?" But, "What kind of environment could be so horrifying that evolution selected them to survive?"

Aliens don't need to have been artificially created for the purpose of a story. Story = goal(s) + obstacle. Aliens always take up the 'obstacle' role, regardless of their origins.


I love your idea very much and I rather agree with you.

I think the alien that we know is the original creature and it was destroyed a long time ago.
Engineer seeks to recreate this ancestral creature using what remains of her: The black goo.
The alien cycle is far too complex to be created by a simple experiment. To recreate the alien you must: A facehugger; A chestbuster, the alien and the queen. Too much to be a simple black goo mix

However I am in disagreement with you on one point. Engineers are not something missed. They are directly inspired by the humanoid creatures of giger.

windebieste

As far as we know, Engineers themselves may yet turn out to serve that role of "Lovecraft's blood-thirsty deities".  It's just now they have a tool of destruction. 

The Alien.

-Windebieste.

Xenorgue

In fact I remain convinced that the engineers are different from the space jockey.

In 2 interviews (Ian White and a designer that Hicks had interviewed), it was questioned that the engineers were serving a superior entity and had stolen the black goo from elder entity.

SiL

Quote from: windebieste on Dec 20, 2016, 10:40:35 PM
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Dec 20, 2016, 08:53:15 PM
Quote from: Ridley Scott on Dec 20, 2016, 08:13:30 PM
Covenant is really going to show you who did it and why.

Who did what? Create Aliens?

Not looking forward to that, if so. :-[ I always preferred them as having evolved naturally.

Except that having been engineered gives them purpose; and for story telling a purpose is essential.  The genetically engineered dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' had purpose even if they were just considered to be theme park attractions.  It's when that purpose goes awry the story becomes worth telling. 

I'm sure that's where Scott is taking this whole trilogy. 

-Windebieste.
What purpose did the shark in Jaws have that went awry?

windebieste

That's a good point.  ...and it's been a long time since I've seen it but I'll give a go:

The shark was a catalyst to other events happening on Amity Island.  The shark itself doesn't appear that much until the end of the movie.  The bulk of the film is about how the shark affects the population of Amity Island.

The economy and reputation of the resort was under threat of going awry.  The shark was the catalyst. 

-Windebieste.

Necronomicon II

Creating them via a process of genetically enginered, artificial selection doesn't rule out natural evolution, it's just faster. This serves a thematic purpose, yet doesn't negate the idea of the creature/virus evolving and adapting via natural selection. Haag said their origin wouldn't be revealed in his interview, so I'm getting lots of contradictory info here, hence why I'm reserving analysis until the film is out.

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