Respond to these rapid questions in our Alien Covenant quiz and we will tell you which Alien Covenant character you are. Play it now.
“Alien: Covenant,” directed by Ridley Scott, is set ten years after the events of “Prometheus” and is a direct sequel to that film, bridging the gap between that film and the original “Alien.” “Prometheus” is a direct sequel to “Alien,” which is set ten years after the events of “Alien.” The story begins with an accident on board the Covenant, a colony ship on its way to a paradise planet in the far future. In hypersleep, the chosen captain, Jacob Branson (played in a one-scene flashback by James Franco, which is puzzling), dies, leaving behind a grieving wife (terraforming expert Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston), a weak second-in-command named Oram (Billy Crudup), who is now unfortunately seated in the captain’s chair, and 2000 colonists and frozen embryos who are still sleeping. Michael Fassbender, who starred as the android David in the film “Prometheus,” is on board the Covenant in the role of Walter, who is a next generation version of the character. The intensity of this one’s emotions and personality has been toned down a notch.
The crew has been shaken and demoralized, and they are still a long way from their destination, so when they hear a distress signal coming from a nearby planet that appears to be habitable, they decide to take a leap of faith and travel there rather than returning to hypersleep and risking death once more, they are greeted with a rousing applause. In a land of rainbows and unicorns, they all live happily ever after, as they should. I’m not serious! In the end, they find themselves stranded on a rainy planet populated by creatures that want to eat them or impregnate them.
Their plight is saved for a brief moment by David (a return appearance by Fassbender), who has settled in the area following the bloody conclusion of the first film and now has long hair, a Jedi robe with hood, and a sullen and conceited demeanor. “Prometheus” Engineers colonized the ruins of an ancient city, and he now lives among the ruins of that ancient city. When Oram proposed taking the detour to this new world, Daniels agreed because she was determined to realize her late husband’s dream of building a cabin on the edge of a lake. But now Daniels finds herself trapped and hopeless. Also, other colonists, some of whom have inhaled spores that will eventually result in the development of xenomorphs, believe this.
When you read this, you might think it sounds a little like a variation on the plot of every “Alien” film ever made, and you’re right. A feature rather than a bug, the series’ repetitive structure is similar to those found in the James Bond, “Star Wars,” and Marvel franchises. It is possible to complain that they use the same images and situations over and over again if you do not like them. However, if you enjoy them, you can compare them to sonatas, sonnets, or three-chord pop songs, in which part of the fun is in seeing what variations the artists can bring while still adhering to a rigid structural framework. In the “Alien” movies, there are numerous such scenarios, including the initial landing on the dark planet, the first alien attack, the realization that a character you thought was part of the team is actually a traitor, the escape from the complex that’s about to be destroyed, and the second ending that occurs just as you thought the story was finished.
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This film has a plethora of interesting variations, the majority of which revolve around Fassbender’s dual performance. After a prologue showing the android David in conversation with his creator, technology magnate Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce, who played the role in “Prometheus”), the film begins with a flashback sequence. Viewers who are paying attention will notice that the film would not have begun with a flashback to David’s creation unless it intended to bring him back in later. Although his entrance is delayed (perhaps too long, though your mileage may vary), Fassbender gets to play opposite himself when he saves the wrecked colonists from an unrelenting, expertly choreographed attack by xenomorphs in a field of tall grass, using digital compositing that is so subtle that we forget we’re watching effects. “Alien” is a science fiction film directed by James Cameron.
And it is in these scenes, which have been thoughtfully written by John Logan and Dante Harper and gracefully performed by Fassbender, that we realize that this film is not only a bridge between the “Alien” films and “Prometheus,” but also a bridge between the “Alien” films and “Blade Runner” as well as the “Alien” films and “Blade Runner.” In “Covenant,” the relationship between David and Walter sets it apart from all other “Alien” films. Besides giving it life, it also provides an endless supply of dry, self-aware humor that sometimes borders on campy. The highlight of the film is a fantastic scene in which David suggestsively teaches Walter how to play the flute, which is shot with a laterally moving camera and no cuts. However, it is also an amusing parody of actor narcissism, as this is one of the few films in which the star is allowed to seduce himself (and it is a rare occasion when this happens).
Alien Covenant Quiz
At this point, you’ve probably realized that you can’t judge the movie by real-world logic because, as with all of the “Alien” films, characters do incredibly stupid things on a consistent basis. In its place, you have to judge it by the standards of a fever dream or nightmare, a Freudian-Jungian narrative in which the thing you fear the most is what happens to you, and in which you’re doing things like going to work naked or trying to climb across the face of a skyscraper or accepting someone’s invitation to peer into the sticky maw of a newly opened xenomorph egg (the latter of which occurs in “Covenant”).
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The atmosphere created within David’s city of the dead encourages this type of viewer participation on David’s part. There are few sets in horror film history that can compete with this one, which ranks alongside both the refinery vessel from the first film and the infested colony from the second film. In spite of the medieval appearance of the location (which appears to have been carved from volcanic rock by laser), “Covenant” appears to be nothing more than a hard sci-fi thriller about technology and rational thought. Ultimately, it’s a dark fairy tale about destruction and creation, death and birth, parents and children (both biological and figurative), sexual violation and monogamous love, and the repercussions of these events (many of the crew are married, including a crowd-pleasing couple played by Danny McBride and Amy Seimetz).
The necropolis is where David creates new life forms, and it is here that he teases Walter by insinuating that he is missing out because he has failed to evolve in the same way that David has. Essentially, Weyland is a Frankenstein’s monster who has evolved into a version of Dr. Frankenstein over time (in effect, he has become his own “father,” Weyland). His dubious achievements include delusions of godhood, which he has admitted to. The character ultimately resembles Prospero from Shakespeare’s exiled sorcerer play, as well as Caliban, David’s hideous and jealous son, who, like David, is obsessed with impregnating the humans that he despises. (Caliban says in Shakespeare’s play, “Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled elsewhere/this isle with Calibans.”
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In addition to drawing inspiration from H.R. Giger’s and Ron Cobb’s original designs, as well as embellishments seen in later films, Scott, production designer Chris Seagers, and conceptual artist Dane Hallett also draw inspiration from 1930s Universal monster movies (particularly “Bride of Frankenstein”), Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast,” and the work of Guillermo del Toro, whose films are often so densely packed with drawings, sculptures David, aside from being a fascinating character in his own right, is an excellent substitute for Scott, who will forever be at once the son of many cinematic parents who nourished his imagination, eager to prove himself their equal; and the father who brought a new substratum of science-fiction film into existence nearly 40 years ago and then stood by for decades, watching it subsume and devour the genre before returning at long last to reclaim it.
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In fact, I was so taken with this film that its flaws, which include a cannon fodder sameness in the minor characters and a failure to develop the religious dimension established early in the script, except as it relates to science, only barely registered on my radar. “Covenant” has its own personality and rhythm, which is a remarkable achievement when you consider how many “Alien” films have been made over the course of nearly four decades of cinema. And it touches on so many of Scott’s recurring obsessions over the course of his long career (he will be 80 next year) that it feels like a distillation of everything he stands for. All of Ridley Scott’s characters are represented, including the macho Ridley Scott, the unexpectedly tender Scott, and the director of Biblical epics, conspiracy thrillers, fables, and eye-catching advertisements.
The film is one of Scott’s best-directed films, as well as one of his most entertaining overall, in part because he’s working in a genre, the science fiction spectacle, that he knows better than anyone else since Stanley Kubrick, but also because he appears to be approaching it almost entirely in terms of visceral impact and emotion—as a symphony of fire and blood, poetry and schlock, if you will. Some of the most memorable sequences (in particular, the spore infestation that takes us inside an ear canal, the first attack on grassy knoll, the flute scene, the flashback revealing the city’s destruction, and the escape from the planet) are so good that they put nearly everything else being done in science fiction or fantasy at this level of budget to shame. It’s rare to see a film by a director who’s been at it for as long as Scott that possesses such a rare combination of technical mastery and wicked delight. After the first two “Alien” films, this is the third best of the series, but don’t be surprised if subsequent viewings elevate it even further.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Emoji Movie Quiz.
