Alien:Covenant and Isle of The Dead

Started by CainsSon, Jul 25, 2019, 06:42:32 AM

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Alien:Covenant and Isle of The Dead (Read 10,980 times)

CainsSon

CainsSon

No doubt some of you have heard about the influence of Böcklin's painting "Isle of The Dead" on some scenes/sets in Alien: Covenant. Here:
https://images.app.goo.gl/4m1jeSjPCPGbkTAs5
This homage was mentioned by the design department during the making of the film, and more notably H.R. Giger himself made his own rendition of the painting. Here:https://images.app.goo.gl/aigipTmZn5xHpoWG7

It also appears in the film as the location of Shaw's grave (allegedly), here: https://images.app.goo.gl/RnqKWFKXfXw2RGBd8

This has all been mentioned before but I recently figured out that the homage to "Isle of The Dead" in Alien: Covenant is actually much bigger than just the paintings. Ive been on a kick, watching old Val Lewton Horror films, as of late and there is a Boris Karloff film Val produced which is both named after and features the original Böcklin painting as the main set in the film. There's actually much more. The main mystery in the film involves the Isle Of The Dead being the burial ground of Karloff's character's wife, and his characterization is so similar to David's in Alien: Covenant, Fassbinder and company must have been using Karloff as a character reference. The delivery of David's lines are even sometimes identical to that of Karloff's. In addition, it is the Isle of The Dead set, in COVENANT where David has allegedly buried his "wife" Shaw... I don't want to give anything away but the similarities to the plot actually don't stop there. There is a central mystery about how everything on the Isle of The Dead became dead which also relates to Covenant, somewhat.
This film MUST have been used as more of a reference than we've known. It's not exact but I think Alien: Covenant fans might pick up on things and find it to be an interesting watch. It's also a great Gothic Thriller in it's own right.

https://youtu.be/fI4D8KokkWg





The Old One

The Old One

#1
I'll give it a look! Thank you.

Immortan Jonesy

Immortan Jonesy

#2


Aye! Arnold Böcklin's Isle of the Dead is referenced in the Engineers cathedral. The thing is that there is a whole symbolism behind the original painting, and according to some interpretations; the oarsman it's a representation of Charon, the boatman who ferries souls to the underworld through the waters of the river Acheron (which is another name for LV-426) in Greek mythology.

So, from a certain point of view, at the end of Covenant we have David transporting the thousands of colonist to the other life (they are dead anyway). But during such crossing, the captain ended up becoming this guy: 


And his entire crew becomes the thounsand of ovomorphs from the original film:


In Abrahamic religions, the angel of death is called Azrael which means "One Whom God Helps". Such an angel is the chief of the angels of death, who are responsible for taking the souls of the deceased away from the body. I'm talking about symbols. A human skull seems to be the last "soul" fragment of its victim. Prisoner in this beautiful exoskeleton. Or maybe there are more "soul" fragments. There is genetic information taken by the angel of death. If the Alien is an angel who was once at the service of a God, that is over. Just like David is free once Weyland is dead. The Alien is the last but perfect piece of a long gone lost world. But what is future and what is past? If we think that the Engineers (or something else) are the creators of the Alien, they are dead now and the Alien is free just like David. As I've said before. The the sexual parasite can be interpreted as a reflection of our deepest fears.


More ancient memories 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."


I am in the camp of those who think that the pathogen (aka Black Goo) is a byproduct of the Alien. With that in mind, one can interpret the virus as the weaponization of the Alien: spores and neomorph-like creatures instead of facehuggers and xenomorphs. The virus is wild but inventive as an uncontrolled AI, until it ends in David's hands. This AI can do bioengineering and design lifeforms on primordial planets, But as a parasite, the virus needs to take the genetic material of a host (like the sacrificial Engineer at the beginning of Prometheus).


The birth, rise and death of a civilization is a universal blinking. Perhaps many civilizations have come and gone without us noticing. And it will surely happen with us. But...what kill them? great filters? Perhaps. But what happens when a civilization becomes a great filter by itself? Dan O'Bannon's original ideas conceived the Alien as an intermediate state of a lost civilization. A culture of beings with an extremely complicated sexual cycle, with reproduction becoming a key part of their religion. Fear of extinction as a species, or the end of the world if you prefer.


Maybe that's the way to survive in the Universe. Happened in the past or will happen in the future. Or both. Actually, when we look at the sky at night. It's that way because what we're doing is looking to the past of our universe. I mean, if a star is located at a distance of a thousand light years from Earth, its light takes a thousand years to reach us and be observed by us. So what we're seeing now happened a long time ago.

#futurepast


The Space Jockey was riding his telescope to reach the stars, like Pakal climbing up the world tree to reach the heavens in order to transcend in space and time. As Valaquen said in the other thread, there was a need to transcend the horrors of war, natural and astronomical catastrophes, or extinction as a species which one could consider one of the first great filters. Perhaps pioneers and creators found a way to survive the most hostile environments in the universe: transforming carbon-based life forms into something else. Artificial intelligence was key in this process. But such AI became so out of their control, that their entire species was taken over by such technological singularity. Maybe Space Jockeys are not even the creators of biomechanical technology, but rather creations of such ancient science. The Jockeys might be like soldiers or terraformers.


You have the ancient legends of people who find a way to travel to a strange world and totally beyond their comprehension. The Paradise? Maybe from a non-human perspective. Is there a God? if by god you mean a creator, then yes. But what if someone who manages to find paradise discovers that god is dead, and there are only angels (thinking of Lovecraft's "At The Mountaing of Madness" and Friedrich Nietzsche now). 


"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." - Dan O'Bannon

Also, what are nightmares for an artist, could be dreams for an AI. Perhaps the Alien universe is part of a mirror multiverse where nightmarish monsters come alive from dreams to reality (JK  :laugh:).


David claims to have created the perfect organism, and explain in detail how he did it. But at the same time, he mistakenly attributes the authorship of the Ozimandias poem to Byron instead of Shelley. So, it's still possible that he could have resurrected an ancient fear instead of creating it. And after so much bioengineering, David accidentally found the vestigial traits of the pathogen, or its roots. I remember that in the script of Jon Spaihts the black scarabs used the DNA of their victims to create a lifeform somewhat based on such victim. So, if there was an original Morph, then maybe David cloned it while thinking he was creating something new.


The fear of losing a loved one, the fear of nightmares, the fear of death and the struggle to adapt to the environment in deadly conditions. David doesn't want to let humans start over again. He already lived his own Valhalla. Weyland's very own Übermensch. In that moment he realized that god is dead. His creator is a human who is going to die someday. He is free now (like the Alien). He is playing with the biomechanoid legacy. The true ones, from an ancient past & distant future.

Darwinsgirl


Very impressive and well researched. I liked your suggestion about mirror multiverse. :)

Where is the Dan O'Bannon quote from?

The Old One

The Old One

#4
I always love your theoretical posts, honestly.
I think you're really on point.

Immortan Jonesy

Immortan Jonesy

#5
Quote from: Darwinsgirl on Jul 29, 2019, 03:37:56 AM

Very impressive and well researched. I liked your suggestion about mirror multiverse. :)

Where is the Dan O'Bannon quote from?

Strange Shapes: Writing Alien  :)


Quote from: The Old One on Jul 29, 2019, 03:46:03 AM
I always love your theoretical posts, honestly.
I think you're really on point.

lol Indeed. I enjoy wild speculation on the prequels stuff sometimes  :laugh:

The Old One

The Old One

#6
It's a thing I always look forward to when you've got a speculative itch to scratch, I expect discussion is what Ridley Scott intended after all.

Necronomicon II

You know, the theme of mistaken authorship really is a subtle but important detail that shouldn't be disregarded. Remember, Ridley also insists that Deckard is a replicant, but Blade Runner is open enough to interpretation to accommodate either/or. Covenant has David exposit his successes, and marvels at his own visionary creation of the perfect organism, but his sanity is swiftly rebuked by Walter, specifically over mistaken authorship. Just how much is reliable and unreliable from David can never be completely certain owing to his latent instability.

I've steel-manned the position that he in fact moulded the phallic beast many times, and laid out the case comprehensively covering both logical and thematic points. That said, there is nonetheless enough wiggle room whereby David could have  mistaken his own authorship also.

I really wish someone would track down John Logan and pick his brain over this.  :D

The Old One

The Old One

#8
So do I, I'd love to see an interview on the subject.

Still Collating...

Even though I do firmly believe that at the point of making Covenant, Ridley certainly had in mind of David being the creator of the Alien, David attributing a work to a false author is the best and only plausible argument for me as to why David might not have created the Alien. People mostly imply the mistake he made as just that, a mistake proving he can make them. But the type of mistake is what matters and I could see it working thematically. I will say then there is definitely room for a change in direction.

Even though I've learnt to really love the idea of David as a creator, I'd have nothing against the return of the ancient Alien and honestly would prefer it... As of now, both ideas have thematic merit and payoff. There is potential in whichever way they go, just as long as Scott gets better writers who won't be afraid to tell him no.

And if David not being the creator is correct, that literally makes Covenant: alien resurrection! :P

The Old One

The Old One

#10
Yes, it does! Hahaha. And yeah I totally agree.

Xenomrph

Quote from: Still Collating... on Sep 29, 2019, 11:42:32 AM
And if David not being the creator is correct, that literally makes Covenant: alien resurrection! :P
I feel like a joke just flew over my head, what do you mean?

The Old One

The Old One

#12
If David truly "recreated" the Alien unknowingly, then he in essence resurrected it.

CainsSon

CainsSon

#13
Quote from: Necronomicon II on Sep 28, 2019, 06:25:16 PM
You know, the theme of mistaken authorship really is a subtle but important detail that shouldn't be disregarded. Remember, Ridley also insists that Deckard is a replicant, but Blade Runner is open enough to interpretation to accommodate either/or. Covenant has David exposit his successes, and marvels at his own visionary creation of the perfect organism, but his sanity is swiftly rebuked by Walter, specifically over mistaken authorship. Just how much is reliable and unreliable from David can never be completely certain owing to his latent instability.

I've steel-manned the position that he in fact moulded the phallic beast many times, and laid out the case comprehensively covering both logical and thematic points. That said, there is nonetheless enough wiggle room whereby David could have  mistaken his own authorship also.

I really wish someone would track down John Logan and pick his brain over this.  :D

I also think there is more to David's OZYMANDIAS mistake than one might notice on first inspection. "Look upon my works ye mighty and despair." .... "Who wrote Ozymandias David?" ... David is incorrect about who the creator of Ozymandias is and Ozymandias is (according to Shelley's poem) a broken statue of a king, forgotten in a dessert. David is both likening himself to this great forgotten creator but may be forgetting the path of interdependence in the lineage to his making the alien. Is this insinuating that David may have also forgotten who made what? Himself? The alien? The lineage from Engineer to man, to android to what he now believes he has created himself? I think this stuff is in the subtext and while a worthwhile interpretation, better left in the shadows.


The Old One

The Old One

#14
I think for the final part of David's story, it's the aspect most worth exploring.

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