One thing that bothered me is that at the very end of Alien we got to see the Alien as a whole, when it was floating in space before getting burned. Up until then it was part of the darkness in the ship and you only got to see glimpses of its head, body ... what it was in its entirety was a mystery and your imagination had to compensate for what you didn't see, to me that is classic horror direction and the making of a good scary film. Darkness has such a basic sense of fear that with the Alien submerging and merging out of it made the Alien almost personify our primal fears of the dark, and those worst fears personified when the Alien gets you seeing it only for a fleeting glimpse, infact very Bacon like if you look at his work there are only glimpse of form and it disturbs you. That's my take on how the alien should be again, just find someway to submerge it into the darkness that our imagination can help build our fear based on the limited windows we get to see its form, which I feel is why Alien worked so well. Art nowadays is derided because form is king over shadow and light, which the masters used to create art from. Art almost becomes illustration and its grandeur is lost, very much like the Giger's original art used in films after Alien.
I guess it won't be done but its those moments where Ridley just let it run in Alien that are the best moments, no dialogue, no soundtrack, albeit with ambient atmospheric sounds in the background. The sort of scene where if someone knocks something off the table, i.e. in the med room in Aliens, you actually jump. And I'm not mixing it ups with quoting Aliens in there and defeating my own arguement, I'm supporting it as up until then in Aliens you were still dealing with the fear that Alien gave you. After the "this time its war" aliens kicked in it was an action film and the alien was demoted to a Jaws like creature that didn't scare me and then a jurassic park like creature with the queen. I think horror can be an art and if Ridley can make Covenant with an Alien that just makes you jumpy thinking about, then he's migrated it back into the darkness and fears of our subconsciousness and recreated the art of his original and showing reverence to Giger as an artist and not taking his art as illustration.
In my view the original translucent designs and the photos I've seen would be a good start to bring its disturbing mystery back to its horror roots.
