Review of Alien: Covenant (2017) by Rolib — 12 Jun 2017

Prometheus posed questions that needed to be answered, at least in part, in its sequel. Which is not the case. The story needed to move further. We have yet another movie about a crew, sure to be almost completely wiped out by the end, that is heading straight into trouble.

Problem is, we know that in advance. The element of surprise of the original Alien cannot be repeated nor recreated. Cameron's Aliens showed something new and succeeded. Even Alien 3 and Resurrection at least tried, partly succeeding partly not, to do that.

Scott decided to take the franchise in a new direction with Prometheus: exploring the origins of the alien. That's fine, at least if you're not trying to retell over and over the same story. I thought the movie would be much more dynamic and articulated than it actually was.

I thought and hoped that some of the questions would be explained. Not everything but enough for this movie to make sense as a chapter in a wider story arc. The Engineers, which were at the core of Prometheus' narrative, have literally disappeared.

David is revealed to be the Alien's creator through some unspecified process presumably involving Shaw, and thus posing further questions about the franchise's direction and how A:C and (if there will be any) sequels will tie in with the original Alien.

LV-426's juggernaut was carrying thousands of alien eggs. A fossilised Engineer was taking them somewhere long-ago (consistent with the antiquity of what was going on Prometheus's planet, maybe). Aliens offered us an explanation about the large number of eggs: a queen-like alien produced the eggs.

The aliens where then supposed to be a spiecies which was exploited by yet another race for undisclosed purposes. Now we understand that David has created (or recreated) the alien and presumeably intends to perfect it further.

Then how the story follows risks to be at worst entirely predictable and at best contradictory. The large number of eggs, according to the story as A:C has redefined it, could be explained with David managing to find another Engineer juggernaut, produce a queen, amass its eggs on the ship and then (maybe) carrying them back to Earth, only for its plan to be stopped in some way.

The original Alien's Engineer pilot had been killed by an alien bursting out of his chest. What about the Engineers creating humans? What about them trying to destroy mankind? What about the virus and the Engineers' apparently complex rituals and way of life? Has it changed over time? Of course the creator of a series will take the story where he wants, but whatever the choice it must at any rate convincing narrated and must be consistent with the source materia.

The choice of having David as the creator of the alien complicates things. Scott inaugurated Prometheus's new course. Rather than focusing on narrative mistakes, he seems to have focues on the story, creating twist after twist without explaining much.

Throughout the series and throughout the movie as well the focus seems to be continuously shifting leaving us unable to understand nor appreciate the characters and the stories behind them. In the end, a movie has to be consistent on its own, even when it's part of a series.

One cannot turn cinema into a one hundred million-episode tv series. Story and development have to be more coherent, even if the franchise is taken into new directions. No matter what's the origin of the Alien, which some will eventually find satisfactory, others will find disappointing.

Just allow us to understand how everything plays out.