Comments (Page 541)

Out There Be Demons

Fantastic book! add lots of intrigue to the universe, though it reminds me a little but of Alien: Earth Hive....minus the Earth hive part lol!

It should definitely reinvigorate interest in a follow-on to Covenant :)

Thumbs Up ADF!

Its one of the most fundamental and interesting Questions..

Death, the after life...

You can be sure many Atheist  who choose not to believe in a God or After Life, will start to turn to Faith, or Pray in a GOD when Death is knocking at their Door or a Loved ones.

Because the Fear of their being Nothing in the End, is something Dreadful and so hoping for a Afterlife gives you something to cling onto.

I feel this is similar to what happened with Mr Weyland...  i was proposing for My Prometheus 2 that indeed Weyland was working on his own way to Cheat Death.  But having not been successful, he then turned to Dr Shaws GODS.

Just to avoid a misunderstanding. Maybe the Prophet mistook Weaver's World for Earth. :)

As for the Titans i think they're rather like puppet masters, not getn involved directly. Manipulating lesser species by letting them "coincidently" find technology and thus waking desires for power and yet serving the ones in the shadows without knowing it. Like the Shadows from Babylon 5.

I'm intentionally not saying Drukathi. *whistle* XP

Yes chli. I believe the timing of the recharge was very convenient for David 8. The affection that we saw towards Dr. Shaw, to me, was in order to manage her towards his original plans of using her anatomy to reveal the capability of the Engineer technology.

He's a crazy robot and very difficult to figure out.

“In Dan’s original conception [sic] the alien race had three entirely different stages in its life-cycle. First, the egg, which is tended by third-stage adults and housed in a lower chamber of the breeding temple. When ready to hatch, the egg is placed in the middle of a sacrificial stone and a lower animal, the equivalent of an Alien cow, is then led to the stone. Sensing the warmth, the face-hugger springs out, attaches itself to the animal and deposits a fetus in the stomach. The face-hugger soon drops off and the fetus develops inside, eventually chewing its way out and killing its host. This creature, the chest-burster, is the Alien’s second stage, and it simply runs about eating, mindlessly carnivorous. At this stage the creature is still controlled and nurtured by adult Aliens, until the chest-burster begins losing appendages and becomes more and more harmless. Finally, its bloodlust gone, the Alien becomes a mild, intelligent creature, capable of art and architecture, which lives a full, scholarly life of 200 years.”

I like how the article quoted above (see Alien Origins - Alternate Xenomorph Mythos Revealed! here) summarizes Dan O'Bannon's original xenomorph plans really nice ali81.

I believe Dan O'Bannon would be thrilled with the prequels. Not just because I how I feel about the prequels (wonderful) but due to how the lower organisms are affected in both movies (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) and they then quickly evolve into terror-inducing nightmares.

Dan O'Bannon may have really latched on to the scholarly life of the xenomorph and could have thought that the prequels are trash. David 8 took on a scholarly life that may have comforted O'Bannon though.

Yes, a novel covering the time between David and Shaw leaving LV-223 and the arrival of The Covenant to Planet 4 would be interesting. David's hatred towards humans and engineers is perhaps not so hard to understand, but what happened to the affection between him and Shaw which developed during the crossing?

By the way, isn't it a very curious thing that The Covenant recharges and encounters a particle wave just next to Planet 4?

i am totally ashamed that a franchise i love, which opened up the universe, then contradict so much that it goes from a groundbreaking idea with lores, rules and a potential future which could of dwarfed Star Wars if done correctly. Remember we hold the Ace card because we have links to Earth, possible pre visitation and creation and God themes which was opened up so magnificently that it grabbed my attention so much i invested a large part of my life into it.

1000s of hours. Like many of us. Only to realise that the guys at Fox have put no where near that amount of time, love and dedication into what could of been the greatest franchise of all time.

Just one of my sad little note books contain at least 200 hrs investigations. Darent tell you how many they are. i juust embarrass me.regardless i do it for me now as Alien: Wotever is a Fox footnote.

Evidence for this: Well i aint got time at the moment but just the errors and continuiity issues have killed me off

I like that Tiwaz.

The concept of "titan" reminds me of Peter Weyland's 2023 speech where he predicted man would be elevated through the building of a synthetic man indistinguishable from a natural human. I can only imagine that the Engineers' superiors are very impressive and "titan" may befit them.

I may have been a bit myopic in narrowing down the visions to the Engineers. The visions could most certainly be another colony, later on Earth, or somewhere else we have yet to see. 

Well, if the recent novels are anything to go by then Oh-tee-bee-tee, out there be titans. Not just Engineers and "demons".

Although. a raging Mala'kak in his biosuit might also qualify as demon for the unknowing eye. But that's just a thought. And since I'm at it, perhabs the prophet didn't see Earth but Weaver's World, a big human colony, overrun by Xenos in 2692 during the Rage War.

Just letting my thoughts fly. ;)

We are both miffed and pouty Cerulean Blue in relation to Engineer revelations in Alien: Covenant Origins.

We can both also take comfort that Ridley Scott addressed this directly and said "players" will investigate what we have seen so far on LV-223 and Paradise. Oh, I can't wait to see how the Engineers investigate and respond to a setback. And who are the other players? Are they scary?

"So eventually Weyland had to turn to FAITH... well Dr Shaws findings in that meeting our makers would save him..."

That is a wonderful point BigDave. Peter Weyland had invested so much in "there's nothing" in regards to an afterlife but clearly had faith in Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway's theory. Excellent point.

We all can be very weak when offered what we want to hear.

*Distephano rushes in.Johner pushes the gun in Wren's mouth*

Johner - Drop it. Now!

@Ingeniero - 'What did David 8 learn of the Engineers to provoke his reaction on Paradise?'

I am absolutely miffed at the lack of explanation for this, too???

Yes chli, from the moment at the end of Prometheus.

David 8 arrives on Paradise at the end of an epic attack plan. He was most certainly able to overwhelm those on Paradise and it seems as if he was attacked by those below in response to his raining hellish nightmare of Engineer weaponry.

What did David 8 learn of the Engineers to provoke his reaction on Paradise?

I have not yet read the book, i will be looking to purchase it though.

I would also indeed like to see a Novel that covers the Crossing this would be very interesting to read

Again this is something i am not a fan of... the hints of Re-Animating a Engineer?

I would rather it be that if a Body is kept on ICE or similar, then the Xeno-Virus and related Parasites do not need a Living Host, just not a decomposed Host.

It can be ambiguous though, maybe some Engineers were in Cryo-Pods that David simply Re-animated them via activating the Cryo-Pods to awaken the Sleeping, UN-animated Engineers.

The whole Neomorph concept is interesting, the way the small opening would open up to reveal these Jaws was interesting... Sadly it was not executed well on Screen.

More time and $$$$ devoted to better CGI or up close Practical Effects and this could have been Fantastic

But this story they are giving now i feel is flawed...

So David is the First... yes... but then now they kept this David from conception 2025 all the way to what we have in Prometheus, and so every new model has improvements, but yet Emotionally are in-superior to the first.

This does not look like any Evolution of Synthetics, it makes little sense... only way makes sense is if David 1 has his AI uploaded to each New Improvement.

This is something i hoped we could see in the next movie... as maybe the Covenant has Spare Parts for Walter, and so David could either repair himself... or build a Spare Walter and then Upload himself into the Walter Model with plenty of time to do so...

The Removal of the Weyland Site is a disappointment, it appears  instead of following groundwork laid out, they just brush stuff under the carpet so people cant see the inconsistencies as they make it all up as they go along approach it appears they are taking.

I find it flawed that what... they Rushed David 8? when David 8 is David 1?  I would say 65 years of Development is NO RUSH?

Unless Alas now we are to see the Weyland and David Prologue as being actually set much latter than the 2023 TED Talk...

But Weyland in the Prologue looks a good 50 years younger than the Prometheus Weyland... and so they could always push that the David Model came out in the 2040's instead.

Again this just shows us the Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen approach and not sticking to set down History that the Marketing Provided... so we have a story that is in-coherent to what we have before.

Simply is too FLAWED....

Goes in the Face of the TED Talk Viral, and shows really bad writing, i have to fear for the Authenticity of the Franchise now.

The Theory and Idea i had for David was better and would have fitted and its what i began to explore in my Prometheus 2 which set up a 3rd movie but also explored what i called OPERATION ROOK

I was going to explore that there was more to Peter Weyland Creating David because Weyland wanted to show he could be as a GOD and create Synthetic Life.... Oh no...

I had the theory that David 1 Prototype would have his Memories and Experiences Saved and Uploaded to Each New David Model, with every Advancement that each Model Made Technologically.

So that the Prototypes would be Weylands Personnel David and allowed more Free-will but would also by the time of Prometheus have amassed 70 years of Memories and Experiences.

What makes a Soul?

The Spirit that contains our Personality, our Morality and Memories that lives on after we DIE?

Or is our GOOD SOUL determined by our upbringing and experiences, that will effect what kind of person we become... Kind, or Cruel...

Do we just simply turn to Dust when we die, that our Memories and Experiences are just stored in our Memory so our Brain is just a Advanced Biological Computer and when we die.. this stored information is gone.... and our Bodies then stop working and over time become but dust and bone.

If this is the case... then its our Memories and Experiences stored in our brains that effect our Moral Compass and these are what give us a SOUL....

Under this analysis then indeed DAVID could also have a SOUL

I was going to explore, and i had mentioned on here a number of times... that Weyland wanted to be Immortal he did not wish to die...

His Agenda?  Create a Synthetic Humanoid that would be so Life-Like, and So more Advanced, and then create a way to Store the Emotions and Memories of these Androids so they can be uploaded.

But Weyland also had plans to Upload his own SOUL so to speak, and his Ultimate Agenda would have been to Create the Perfect Synthetic Life, and ability to then Upload Weylands Emotions, Ambitions, Memories and Experiences into it.

And Weyland had indeed planned this, he had created a AI Program called Operation Rook, but the transfer of Human Memories to AI and then into AI Robots had Flaws,  it was not working correct... became erratic and flawed.

So eventually Weyland had to turn to FAITH... well Dr Shaws findings in that meeting our makers would save him...

My Prometheus 2 ended with the attempt to Activate operation Rook, and would have explored the Influence of Weylands AI being behind the Company and its Agenda, as well as Davids too.

@Thoughts_Dreams

You indeed do make a number of valid points,  there is a massive split in the Franchise as far as what Fans Like/Dislike.... i think AC has made some appreciate the Engineers more and want to see more about them... but also for some they feel its a direction that has allowed them to be brushed aside and down to business of the Xenomorph.

They have written themselves into a corner, because its a case of how to do they deal with Human Characters, without Brushing David aside, or Engineers and on the other hand... not having it all about David or the Engineers.

There is a story there... that could cover it all, but its one that would require more than a Single Movie... the Problem now is do FOX back a TWO-Movie Plan to get to Alien?

I think FOX feel the most important thing now is the XENOMORPH and i just hope they dont Shoe-horn in a Plot to Bring about Queens and throw in a bit of Ripley connection but i FEAR this is what they will do.

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen, too many changes without considering how it affects previous movies and the Viral Marketing..

You raise a Massive Point about the General Audience, i have said this before, and that is that they could make a Perfect Set of TWO Sequels that one pleases Prometheus Fanbase Aspect the other the Aliens Fanbase Aspect..

And so if every person who visits sites like this or AVP-Galaxy, or who posts Alien Movie related Youtube videos or comments or watches them, Fans who own a few Alien Franchise Merchandise, who buy every movie on DVD/Blu-ray.

If all of these went to see a NEW Alien movie 2-3 times, Sadly it would not make a MASSIVE amount... and so FOX have to cater for a Story to bring in some of the General Audience to make up the $$$$ Numbers.

Its a tough one for FOX now..

I do have a idea of how they can dig themselves out though, and i will post this again soon.... and i kind of think it may be were FOX are taking us too.

Brian51

There were many matters we did not "see" in Prometheus and for different reasons:-

1) The dialogue between Janek/Vickers was left out for reasons of pacing.

2) The Engineers active scenes were cut for many reasons pacing mystery and the Trilobite/Engineer scene as BD has said was a mash up.

3) By far the most important elements missing are those which would have been answered in Prometheus 2.

As to your point I always felt something emerged out of the head. The Alien Pathogen is a deus ex machina it has a million and one outcomes constantly mutating and its easy to see that in different circumstances what emerged would have been a neomorph.

The Alien Pathogen whether retribution or a booby trap laid for hubristic minds is the genie out of the bottle which the Engineers/David and W-Y have tried to control ... all fail. 

The other genie out of the bottle is that at the time when Prometheus was conceived Ridley had no intention of backing into the Jockey incident and LV426 but equally he could not make his mind up how to relate to the beast. That was a mistake my own view is things should have gone like this :-

1) Charlie looks at the mural which story boards Eggs on a Juggernaut means nothing to him, everything to us. 

2) The audience not the crew see behind the mural wall an inner sanctum where in a state of glorification we see an Egg. 

3) When David activates the hologram to begin with the flight path is Paradise (which hints at later dialogue) before he fires up the next flight path Earth. Most importantly it makes the point Juggernauts from Lv223 fly to Paradise.

4) When Elizabeth and David arrive at Paradise the mural of Covenant comes alive and its clear that the Engineers have fallen and the consensual sacrifice of the acolyte from the teardrop ship has been subverted, as Engineers are sacrificed to the life cycle to create the beast which as in the mural on LV 223 are sacrificed to create the Alien Pathogen.  

David deduces that the Eggs come from LV 223 and the audience can then speculate one ship traveling to Paradise "got into trouble" and the Jockeys Beacon represented a warning by a repentant Engineer.

The beauty of this approach is there is no loss of momentum in the key narrative "Shaw's search" but we get a nice tag to the Jockey without being entirely literal and the Cannister's (wipeout) and Eggs (sacrifice) cargo's are explained and makes a nice link in the middle between Mr T. and the Deacon, another consequence of the Alien Pathogen when allied to consensual sexual activity between mankind creating a corrupted virgin birth.

Whilst I am on about "that". I think the reasons our creators wanted to redact us about 2,000 years before is because we turned to the notion of a creative non material belief system rather than the mechanical belief system which we actually emerged from (or so the Engineers "choose to believe").

@Lawrence of Arabia

We can only hope RS goes back somewhat to his previous plans, as Prometheus did offer a expansion to a limited Universe, and i feel in the ideas leading up to the Prequel where the Space Jockey race was explored as being Ancient Humanoid Genetic Engineers who played a part in the creation of Mankind and all the God Mythos and Religion that we have on Earth.

I think from Alien Engineers, FOX had felt the Arc of the Space Jockey was really interesting and so this is why they got Lindeloff in to concentrate more on this and tone down the Xenomorph because well, the Xenomorph was just to the Engineers what the invention of Gun-Powder was for us.

There is more to Mankind than just Gun-Powder Weapons and so indeed FOX saw there was more to the Space Jockey Race than just being some Alien Race who happen to have created a Bio-Weapon Xenomorph.

This Back-Fired a bit because a lot of Fan-Boys wanted to see Xenomorphs or at least more connections, and we also have factions of fans who are not happy with the Not So Alien Looking ENGINEERS and never mind the role they played in Mankinds History.

They had tried to expand upon the Universe by concentrating on the Origins of the Space Jockey instead of the Xenomorph, which seems to have not fitted in much with a majority of fans.

So AC was a attempted to now concentrate more on the Xenomorph, and to not dwell on other elements of Prometheus, but they could not completely ignore the Engineers or David, and at some point they felt it would be very interesting to make it that David is the one who plays the KEY role in the Xenomorph Origins..  

A interesting move, one that expands on Davids line of thinking and the changes we see his Character has picked up from his Master..... but a change that  while being a Curve-Ball, has had the same negative impact on a lot of fans as the Curve-Ball that the Space Jockeys were Humanoid Ancestors by DNA

The Franchise is so Split now as far as Fan-Base that its going to be tough to please everyone, we saw AC tried to please all parties but actually ended up disappointing to all parties, as far as not quite offering what each kind of fan would want.

This is where FOX/RS now have to think... do they give in to the so called Fan-Boys... those who wanted a More Alieny Connection to the Xenomorph and Space Jockey, and who may also want to see Queens and Ripley again...

Or do they go back and have faith with the ideas they had when they had finished Prometheus...

Its a tough one for sure..

I think the easy way for FOX would be to open up on its Alien Marketing Site a Fun 5 Question Questionnaire about the Franchise and Prequels with Multiple Choice...  then they can gather Data to then Gage what Direction to take...

But then your not going to please everyone...

I think FOX may in hindsight, think the Xenomorph/Space Jockey Mystery should have been left at that... but then how can we just have had more sequel or parallel stories to Alien that deal with YES Xenomorphs... it would have been overcooked.

And so exploring the Space Jockey Race, and showing us the Experiments related to Xenomorph DNA so to speak, this opened up much more possibilities.

But i guess the reveal that the Space Jockey = Giant Humanoids (that ended up not so Giant) who go around seeding and terra-forming Worlds and played a hand in our creation... was just not to Alien not enough Gigeresque...

Then the reveal that by using the Tools that the Engineers had used to experiment and create Organisms/Bio-Weapons Related to the Xenomorph,  a Human Created Robot.. David went MAD and used the Engineers Bio-Weapon to Create the Iconic Xenomorph.

I feel these could both be considered a error of judgement by RS/FOX.

But we dont have to go, all lets give fans a Alien 5 etc...  I think they simply need to bring in a Race more Alieny who are above the Engineers and who posses very Giger Aesthetics and a Sinister Agenda.

2) The Ultramorph idea was a Xenomorph type Organism Birthed from a Engineer, thus the Deacon is a Ultramorph to a extent.

Will we see Engineer Chest Busters? maybe.. but i think this would be saved until the connecting movie to Alien, if they are still going this route...

Will we see Xenomorphs that look like the Ultramorph Concepts? I really do hope so...

Thank you all for your comments.

Most probably we'll see in the next film what David really meant. One thing seems certain: there is no room for kindness in the new world. Not as long as David is around. It is chilling how cruel David is in letting Daniels know his true identity before he puts her into cryosleep.  There is no doubt who is the dealer now, who will craft the new world in his own image.

I am almost sure he played the same cat and mouse game with Shaw.

I can't wait to see what's next and I hope there will be no other way than Michelle Johnston put it:

"The really important element is to do something audacious that none of us would imagine with the Jockey incident. The kind of outcome we would enjoy and go "Yes that makes perfect sense" ...having not come up with it beforehand."  

I like the neomorph, but the highlighted area always bothers me. It seems like the weight of the elongated part after the skull area would flop around. I know it is nit picky but that's just how it looks to me.

Guys

Thanks I am glad you relate to the idea that the emphasis should be on making the backstory connections and fleshing out the mythos so events that occur in A L I E N take on a new significance rather than "Meet The Innocents Part IV or V" depending on your cannon.

The really important element is to do something audacious that none of us would imagine with the Jockey incident. The kind of outcome we would enjoy and go "Yes that makes perfect sense" ...having not come up with it beforehand.  

Great topic Ati! Gonna get these front paged soon!

Call- Listen to me! He's breeding a deadly alien species in there. Beyond toxic. If they get loose it'll make the Lacerta Worm Plague look like a fucking square dance.

Very interesting the first Android concept. David is defective, we know him, but Walter does not know him well enough. We could only understand his nature and really feel feelings for Daniels (like a child at elementary schools who refuse to declare himself). I can both believe that it is the exact opposition, both good and bad. He can create it because the devil taught him (he was not a human being to play flute, but a machine), he needs more time to widen his arbitrariness. It's bad in a good way

"Au Revoir Shoshanna"

I believe you are correct in the rush past testing theory regarding the androids chli.

It was obvious that Peter Weyland got a question from David 8 he didn't expect in the first moments of his synthetic existence.

Thank you Ati for the link...that is really nice tumblr account.

I was thinking along the same lines and wishing for a new launch of the Weyland Industries timeline, updated with the new material. That would be OK after a blackout. There were definitely contradictions in the timeline in relation to the new material from ADF.

Johner - She's a goddamn mole! Ice the bitch --

(Back in the mess hall)

Call is trying to explain everything to Elgyn.  "He's conducting illegal experiments.  He's breeding..."

Ingeniero

'Do you know where is the above corporate interface is active?'

Don't know but that's true that the weyland site throws us to the official alienuniverse site. Probably they took it down because of the contradictions /?/ or they are planning something new, etc.

I think the info of it was copied to other sites, blogs, etc.

Oh, I've just found it for you. :D

Here you are:

https://muthur9000.tumblr.com/weylandindustriestimeline

I hope this is what you are looking for.

You are welcome. :)

'Of course the last supper was promotional material so could have needed extra developent still thought it was more coherent from a narrative point of view.'

True!

Just an other thing about the last supper, I thought that because of the lack of characters development and because in the theatrical cut without an introduction to these characters we couldn't really "felt" the danger and death of those characters after the ship damages, the last supper was necessary and adding the prologue before last supper was too much.

Of course the last supper was promotional material so could have needed extra developent still thought it was more coherent from a narrative point of view. ;)

It's interesting that they say that the David project was rushed in order to be finished in time for the Prometheus project - thus hinting at him not being tested properly. He was therefore flawed and the reason for the project's failure (and also for the Covenant project's failure)?

Ati- Thank you very much for your thoughts on the recut.

First let me say that I love the original Weyland / David prologue and cutting it off was the toughest decision I've made.

I just thought no matter how good and effective it is, that's just not suitable as an introduction espicially for the no die hard fans that didn't see or know prometheus very well.

I think this scene would be more suitable in prometheus and if I ever do a recut of prometheus I will definitely use that scene..

I really wanted to make a cut closer to the first Alien and as of the music of course that's a matter of taste ;) but I felt, as for a lot of recent movies, that the music was way too present and obvious and also the neomorphs and the xenomorphs too visible so I wanted a more old school approach.

Anyway thanks for watching and glad that you appreciated my use of the crossing ;)

Ingeniero

I agree. When you say that there is more story to be told before they meet the xenomorph, do you mean the story about David and Shaw (which we briefly got to know in "The Crossing")?

I love the David Short movie poster.

Thank you for these Ati.