Comments (Page 642)

Adding to what I found in the script above...

* All life is not dead when the Covenant crew arrives. They see insects and a salamander like animal.

* There is a macro view on motes from a mote cloud before they infect Ledward and Hallett.

"She gently bats at a cloud of INSECTS in front of her face. A
haze of little mote-like MIDGES in the dappled sunlight.
And we see one of the insects--Ever-changing in its form -- lurching and stabbing into new
shapes -- oily black but beautiful ... It hovers, has intelligence."

"It’s watchful, careful. It settles near Ledward’s ear, and
then enters the ear canal... the soft pink flesh... quickly
attaches itself -- a feeding tube plunging into his flesh--"

"But he inadvertently steps on a tiny egg behind him--
Unleashing a cloud of the MIDGES. They waft up. Swirling
before him...
MACRO VIEW:
One of the black INSECTS darts forward -- into his nostril --
the pink nasal passage -- attaches itself and stabs a feeding
tube into him--"

* All the stuff about taking out the satellite and planetary shield is in there. I wish they had kept that whole plotline.

* David's drawings of all the crazy things done to Shaw were just David's sick fantasies. He did not do all those things, he just liked to draw them. He draws one while waiting for the xeno to gestate in Oram.

* It took four days for the pathogen to kill all the Engineers, according to David.

* David dropped the pathogen urns directly onto the buildings where they broke open and released violent black clouds that spread through the city. No urns breaking open into formations in the sky, no docking ship, and no welcoming Engineers.

* Not much about the Engineers, but there is this - "They were
highly advanced in some ways, but still so limited. Spacefaring for a billion years -- yet binary logic never occurred to them. Many things about them were primitive. (beat)But they did like to build things."

@ Kethol

I think you will find that Fox owns the Alien franchise rights, not Ridley Scott or any of the Covenant film makers. They get to say what is canon. It's their game. All that is shown in that evolution guide is canon to the Alien universe, like it or not. Alien eggs, usually are made by a Queen, maybe not David's specific eggs, but that's splitting hairs to say it's faulty canon. Also, yes those insects ARE microscopic, did you read in my post, my link about microscopic insects? They actually exist on Earth, that is part of the reason I agreed with you! *facepalm*. Here is the link again - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairyfly

"Fairyflies are very tiny insects, like most chalcid wasps. They average at only 0.5 to 1.0 mm (0.020 to 0.039 in) long. They include the world's smallest known insect, with a body length of only 0.139 mm (0.0055 in), and the smallest known flying insect, only 0.15 mm (0.0059 in) long."

I'm guessing these spore-insects are of similar size, thus they are microscopic. Plus they can also be called spores, because they are formed from mutated fungal spores. They act like spores, look like spores from a distance, but up close they are tiny insects as big as Fairyflies. Please just admit to being wrong for once?

its more than likely that the smaller earns if they are small, have a smaller dispersion rate or area.

From what i can grasp is the pathogen is all the same and is adjusted to the desired host etc.

It does look more than likely that david was not the original  creator of the xenemorph but more of the final tinkerer .

Lets hope we get the next film with a more in depth explanation. 

Maybe the origin of the Goo e.g engineers were like david and just found it and were able to manipulate it ?

There is so many possibilities I just dont like it when movie studios make changes outside of the original design just to suit them. 

and the evidence also suggests the other.

but anyway lol

that's true and due to what we see in covenant, the purpose of the goo gives weight to there being multiple forms. plus u would think they must have some form of reverse pathogen as it would be a bit lax to create such a weapon without having the means to defend urself

That would all depend on what the Engineers wanted to do with it. Killing all humans would not require exactly the same form as the one that they would use to seed a planet, for example.

@ ali81

I know what there is evidence for yes. It all points to one kind of goo.

I know what hes meaning, the point im making is that if the pathogen is so adaptable, why would they need multiple forms of the mutagen? the way david is explaining it suggests there is only need for 1 form of the goo, not various different forms. yet he states that there are indeed many different forms. this can make things very misleading. I believe there r different types of the pathogen but I can also accept why others believe there to be only one

I agree. This draft is dated November 2015. In interviews from that time Ridley had stopped saying the next one was going to be about Shaw and David's mission to find the Engineers’ home world and why wanted to destroy mankind. That storyline had already been abandoned.

Pathetic post really, I'm guessing you loved Wonder Woman and Thor and all that other Hollywood dribble

@Yog - "Foxes Alien Covenant Evolution graphic, isn't faulty with canon. It says the Motes are "Microscopic dust-like spores".

It also says the egg "spews a cloud of microscopic spores (motes)". They are neither microscopic nor spores. They are tiny insect-like organisms.

It also show the Covenant ovomorph egg from David's egg room as says it was produced by a queen, shows a Facehugger and egg from the Alien movie, the chest burster from Alien, not seen in Covenant, shows a xenomorph with a description from the Aliens movie referring to a queen, calls the baby Neomorph a "bloodburster" and uses concept art of a version not seen in the movie, et cetera. It's just something sloppy produced by Fox marketing, not the Covenant film makers.

Why don't the corpses remaining in the Necropolis courtyard SHOW these deformities? And why haven't the bodies rotted being out in the rain for many years? I have to agree with Dave where it was just thought "oh this looks cool" as it almost didn't make the final cut. I've always thought each 223 pyramid contained different strains of urn bombs but the now 'nanites and AI '=not buying that at all.

I agree with Sean Journot when he says that Scott destroyed the Alien franchise. By joining the extraordinary story of Prometheus in the same universe of Alien, there is a logical conflict of stories that does not allow to deepen one without harming the other. Everything about Prometheus and Alien: Covenant could work much better in a universe different from the Alien, as it suggests a depth of argument far removed from the terror of survival and action that we were accustomed to see in the first films of Alien. The result was that in Alien: Covenant, Scott could not meet the expectations of prometheus fans, who expected a better development of what should have happened with Elizabeth Shae, David and the engineers. It also failed to please the fans of the saga Alien, who were deprived of the suspense and mystery that worked very well with Alien and Aliens. Missed that good concept of solitary survivors struggle against adversity not to be prey to xenomorphs and their derivatives.
 
As Starlogger says, no one was left thinking about Alien: Covenant when he left the theater, contrary to Prometheus, which caused people to analyze this brilliant idea about the real origin of humanity for several days and then the inexplicable idea of destruction Of its creators: the engineers.

Thoughts_Dreams is half right when he says that Alien: Covenent did not work well because he did not have well-made human characters. The film had several characters that could have a greater development in the plot, but the diversity of situations in the script did not make it possible. But I differ from Thoughts_Dreams when it says that Prometheus did not have well-made characters. On the contrary, the best thing of that film was the good construction of its personages. The characters of Rapace, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Guy Pearce were decisive, which added to Michael Fassbender (David) and the original plot, consequently left one of the most valuable science fiction films in the genre.

Nor do I agree with drucea when it detracts from the existence of human beings in this story. It is true that engineers are imposing, xenomorphs and Xenomorphs unstoppable and an android of AI avenzada seems to solve any problem, but only humans can manifest the emotional load that merits any film. The sensations of danger, joys and horror are decisive in a science fiction film, and that is only feelings that can bring humans. The determination and sense of survival were the main motives for Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to survive and was a great favorite in Alien and Aliens, as well as Shaw (Noomi Rapace) in Covenant. Without the fear of these characters, the films of the saga would have been little exciting. Despite adversity, the presence of a human being is always necessary.

If Sukal was around, maybe he could translate the writing on the Urns?

BigDave I just read the early Logan script and I must tell you, I get the feeling Logan doesn't even know or care what a xenomorph looks like, and I even doubt that he ever watched Alien or Prometheus. So why even worrying about the size of the Engineers or if the prequels make any sense at all? I even feel like awarding Alien Covenant a couple of extra points for trying so hard and not becoming an even worse movie. Such a shitty screenplay. I really have to say poor poor Ridley Scott!! I mean, I haven't ever read a script with so little description and so poorly developed characters! (Billy Cudrup, did you read how much of a bigger asshole you were in this draft?) It is all so vague in every sci-fi aspect that I can finally understand why the ship ended up looking so generic. Instead of creating suspense, it would just spell it out. Literally one line reads: "It's eerie, suspenseful". And what about those nondescript "little eggs", and the neomorphs attacking and not hurting anybody, a xenomorph getting killed even faster than in the movie. And How about the lovebirds taking their "morning shower". Are you kidding me??. was this written by a 15 year old? Where is the mythology about the engineers? Actually it seems the best parts of the movie have been improvised or happened only because what is on the script has been re arranged in a different fashion. Please everybody involved in that script go back to school!

The 'adaptation' David speaks of in the novel is referring to it's ability to counteract any defense offered up by the hosts immune system. "A genetically engineered counter virus, for example, or the human bodies' own white blood cells would immediately be met by the pathogen adapting itself", he continued, "to counter the counter, and so on."

Thanks for posting- the Xeno never gets old.

sorry for dbl post, dam computer.

from what I have seen I theorise that there r different forms. we have had 2 totally different effects from seemingly the same substance which isn't consistant. Holloway and fifield were being mutated regardless of amout they were infected with, as far as I could tell. the end result was going to be the same but at different rates.

@ali81

Indeed it appeared to effect Fifield differently, but RS had said he was going through the same process eventually as the Engineer Head...

I mentioned in this Topic, that with the Paragraph from the Novel, i can see maybe the Pathogen effects the Engineers differently in that maybe it outright kills them and then breaks them down when its not from a Exploded Urn.  Or just replicates inside them when from a Exploded Urn but does not break down their Genetic Structure but Solidifies it.

Of-course we then must ask why does it effect them different, if we are Genetically connected?  Again its down to maybe faults and lack of coherent thought when they are showing us the Substance.

Because Davids Experiments are interesting as a number of these must have came from Humanoid Hosts, and so they either Evolved from Dr Shaws Egg Cells, or from Humanoid Babies, obtained from Dr Shaw or Female Engineers.

I wonder how many people who have read this would agree with me that this script has a very minimalist view of its relationship with Prometheus. The exposition does no more than is absolutely necessary to make the links. There is no attempt to square the circle with the Shaw narrative he does no more than says he loves her which is easily dismissed and there is none of that sense of the 12 minutes of linkage that was edited out including the crossing.

If you consider the very important quote Kethol has referred to  the unreliable narrator is replaced by the candid brother. We can be certain from this script precisely what went down (if this version had been filmed). 

The script feels much more like OK lets do this like the Martian very direct good momentum not cluttered by the numbers. 

One quite separate thing that grew in my mind reading this is that Katherine was to science geeky for this role. She is described as beautiful, which Katherine is, but was dressed as functional scientist by contrast Billy, Carmen and Demien owned their parts as well of course as Danny McBride  

This was in the Weyland Files on the Prometheus DVD extras (written 14 January 2090);

"As fate would have it, Shaw and Holloway's interest in Zeta II Reticuli has proven to be mutually beneficial. While the good doctors rely on ancient carvings and primitive cave paintings, my science division's own long range scans have recently detected a faint, almost imperceptible signal emanating from of the lesser moons in that system. And contrary to the findings of Shaw and Holloway, which target LV 223 as our primary site of interest, our findings suggest the point of origin could actually be the moon LV 426.

Per standard procedure, we will embed a David-8 unit with the crew. And he will programmed with multiple contingency plans to address and exploit whatever assets we secure on LV 223. But only David will know about LV 426 and will ensure that the rest of the crew - including Meredith - learn nothing about the transmission we've recently discovered until the time is right."

Lets break this down a bit, assuming Sir Ridley Scott will stick with this in any upcoming movie/s. 

1) Only Peter Weyland and David-8 knew of the signal from LV 426

2) Peter Weyland, in the Prometheus film, was really of advanced age and died at the end of the movie, leaving only David-8 who knew of the LV 426 signal

3) The files also state that "he (David-8) will be programmed with multiple contingency plans to address and exploit whatever assets we secure on LV 223" This explains his actions on the film, covertly infecting Holloway with the black goo

4) The fact the Peter Weyland dies in Prometheus explains why Weyland Corp (later Weyland Yutani) went ahead with the terraforming of LV 426, as no one else knew about the signal

5) The only knowledge of LV 426 is limited to that there is an alien signal from that region, which would explain why David has yet to return to the Zeta II Reticuli system

The story from the video game Alien: Isolation is considered canon, during the which the one of the missions involves returning to the LV 426 derelict craft and turning off the distress beacon in the ship. Alien: Isolation occurs 15 years after the events on board the Nostromo. 

and I suppose going by ur posts that u know?

seems to be a lack of concrete definition about the goo that is leading to different theories. there is no evidence to suggest that the individual motes congregate to create the egg sacs so it could well be that the motes did infact infect and mutate a fungas, as the mutagen is designed for fauna, not flora and fungi is neither so who knows what its effect on fungi would be.

also davids description is pretty vague. he does state that the pathogen comes in many different form which would explain why there would be different urns. one form of the pathogen for say one type of ecosystem and a different one for another and so on. but in his later description this isn't so clear as he talks about its ability to adapt to the host defences such as a humans white blood cells as if it is just one form of pathogen that's highly adaptable, which makes u wonder if it was so adaptable then why have different forms of it?

Interesting Kethol when we was discussing the next movie, i had assumed that Walter would have Spare Parts as i could not see the viability of David playing his role with One Hand.

Also from Dr Shaws Corpse i did ponder a while back, if David created something from her Egg Cells and then decided to use this Creation on Dr Shaw (Face Hugged) and then David Removed it via Operating on her.

This does kind of fit the Source i had who claimed that within Context to Paradise Lost, without Sin there would be no Xenomorph (Sin i assumed Satans Daughter).

And we see David is taking that kind of Satan role, if he violated Dr Shaw to infect her Egg Cells and this Produced a Face Hugger Type Organism... this would in effect be like Satan Violating his Daughter to Create Death.

Then Death Violates Satans Daughter/Deaths Mother to allow her to be birthing the Hounds of Hell...  so this would be like the Face Hugger than Violating Dr Shaw.

David = Satan

Sin = Shaw

Death = First Face Hugger

Xenomorphs result of Death/Face Hugger impregnating Sin/Shaw

@ ali81

"mutation would differ but not the end result." - How do you know this? David says in Alien: Covenant, that the goo kills some creatures outright. It could be that it is simply lethal to engineers. We do not know the full details. In the Advent extended scene, he clearly states that the goo causes a different reaction with each genome it meets. Watch it if you havn't already, it's probably still on Youtube. We have lots of evidence of different reactions with dose and genome and ZERO evidence for different kinds of goo.

a pathogen is a pathogen designed to have a desired effect and that effect would be the same although there would be some physical differences in the mutation dependant on which species it encounters. the fact that the engineers and humans are genetically different on means that the mutation would differ but not the end result. if the pathogen was designed to mutate, it would mutate no matter the species. if it was designed to chargrill its victim, it would chargrill the victim regardless of species. Holloway was being mutated, just the same as fifield but at a slower rate due to the amount of goo he was infected with but the result would have been the same

Thanks for sharing... its a shame that we did not see too much of the Practical stuff in the Movie, if only they had a 2-3 month longer and $20-30M more Budget i think we could have seen more Practical effects used, merged with more Polished CGI

A lot of those Egg Shaped things in that image are just the Spongy/Rubber like components to the Juggernaughts Ship Controls

The one object does kind of look like the Spore Sacks though. But it could be a round component of the Control Panel, that has Mold gowning on top.

But indeed the Juggernaught had been overgrown with Moss, which means potential for Mold and Fungi too, and as Mold/Fungi are Technically not Plants they could be infected by the Black Goo.

I will have to study the draft, the Novel when i find where i put it, and Movie when i can purchase it in my country, and then have a really good look at all the clues.

As it stood from seeing the movie at the Box office, i was at that point... which can and may change now... but back then i felt the Urns in the Bombardment where Activated and Primed and then Exploded like a Nuke so the effects are different, than simply opening up a Unloaded Nuke and taking the Components out and then coming into contact with the Uranium/Plutonium Material

And so i saw it as a Nuclear Blast where the Inner Blast Radius is Death and Burnt Corpses but then the outer Radius would suffer similar Radioactive Mutating Effects just as coming into contact with the Radioactive Components in Person would be (Uranium/Plutonium) thus the effects on Life outside the Blast Radios of the whole Engineer Courtyard could be different.

I also figured the Crashed Ship would maybe leak some non-activated Urns into the Water that has got inside the Ship and running under the ship and this infection runs down into the Stream where Mold/Fungus was growing overtime and became infected and Evolved into the Spores.

Again once i look at all the evidence, then i may change my mind as this was only based on seeing the Movie 3 times at the Box Office and i have not seen it since late May.

@ ali81

Fifield gets a small spash in his face, he doesn't get "covered in the stuff" because he's wearing a protective suit as he falls in it. The engineers David bombs get it massively rained down on them, and they are wearing what looks like cloth robes. Much more of the goo would be hitting their skin at once, causing a faster effect. Also, the Engineers have a different genome to humans (they have the same DNA structure but their genome will be different). So they will have a slightly different reaction to Fifield anyway regardless of dosage.

I don't think the movie was done very well, but these different reactions about dosage and genome difference only. Any other theory needs more evidence.

@ BigDave

I agree.

its either completely messed up or there r different form of the pathogen. if not then how do they explain away fifield's reaction and the reaction with the engineers? fifield fell face first into the liquid so it cant be put down to just 'different amounts'. he was covered in the stuff as were the engineers. if it is all one and the same pathogen, then regardless of the victim/species, the desired effect should always be the same. so the engineers should have all mutated as fifield did.

Lots of interesting stuff in this draft.

* The Covenant was orbiting a nearby gas giant in a solar system when it recharges with the energy sails. The shockwave that hits them comes from an exploding star in a nebula in a different sector. The science makes a bit more sense in this script than in the movie.

* The Covenant crew finds small alien eggs in the Juggernaut, then later at the end of the movie, we see David has planted some in the garden on the covenant, rather than the two face hugger embryos he spits out.

* Shaw was face hugged.

* David did not have prior knowledge of the Covenant and its mission.

* David sent the message of Shaw to a lure a passing ship.

* David was trying to make a new breed of the Neomorph, which was the xeno.

* David cannot self-repair as Walter can.

* Walter has spare parts on the Covenant, including a new hand.

* David views the colonists in hypersleep as his children, slaves, and his subjects.

David also states to Walter exactly what he was doing.

"It was a righteous dream: scorch this dreadful world to nothing and remake it in my own image ...Explore the uses of their pathogen. Experiment with infection and mutation. Manipulate the DNA. Refine the beast. Create my own soldiers. Every general must have his troops.

The next stage in our natural evolution: Conquest ... Use this
world as a base and start building an Empire. The Engineers left so many ships behind. And they can go anywhere. I thought Earth might be the first target ... Think of it. Our Empire, brother."

Where the franchise is heading now shows both the brilliance and the flaws of Ridley Scott's creativity as BigDave stated. 

When RS made that comment in the interview, "David as a creator is much more interesting" he could either be deliberately throwing us off the story of any upcoming titles to get us talking about the next installment. Brilliant marketing if that was the intention. However, RS has a pretty big habit of publicly stating one ting about a film then going in a different direction. 

It has been firmly established in lore that the derelict craft in Alien was thousands of years old, this was written in the novelization and commented on in the Alien Special Edition DVD extras. The eggs when discovered by Kane, if I remember correctly (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), where stated to appear to look like they've been there a long time (they were dormant). 

Another thing I want to point out is when i went through the Prometheus extras earlier today, I discovered that Peter Welyand knew about the distress signal from LV 426 before the Prometheus mission began, further implying the advanced age of the derelict craft. 

The chances are better than good that the David-8 revelation is a curve ball, or just simply referecing David-8 as the creator (or just re-discovering) of Protomorphs, not the more bio-mechanical looking Xenomorphs. 

@ Kethol

Foxes Alien Covenant Evolution graphic, isn't faulty with canon. It says the Motes are "Microscopic dust-like spores". This doesn't rule them out as being microscopic insects as well. They do appear as "dust-like", because they are so tiny. Anyway, part of my point is that even if the Fox black goo description is somehow faulty, it is still a better source of canon than your theories about what the engineer writing says on different urn sizes. Please argue using more solid evidence. I know you can do it :)

Lilly (Svanya): Yeah that scene was ridiculous, but it wasn't in the Assembly cut (something that it did right). I prefer the assembly cut to the theatrical.

Indeed i think its differences to what Drafts and Books can give as far as details that was not included in the Movies, can lead us to different outcomes... as each Material, be it Concepts, Earlier Drafts, Movie Theatrical Cuts, Deleted Scenes, Art of the movie books and comments by Production etc all can take us and lead us to some different conclusions.

As far as the Symbols and Writing... this is another interesting thing as the Writing does not add up with the Engineers Cruciform that they have on their Ships, Temples and LV-223 Outpost.

This is maybe a Oversight.... but it could mean the Urns come from Predators or Elves lol   Joke..  I think maybe it could be put down to why do the Engineers all have to have the same writing?

When on Earth we have Greek, Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and English alphabets just as a small example of many forms of writing.

Thanks Hicks, I am looking forward to read it.

Unfortunately I think that he might be going into a crappy direction (that David created the Xenos). That route would suck and I refuse to accept it, I would rather make up my own image if that is the case. Having David re-creating it would be no problem (like how you find a recipe for a pie and then you make your own version so to speak), that would be more interesting. If Ridley will have something to do with the script that is what we might get, keep him far away from the writing process. Scott should keep his AI-fetish to himself.

“In time, in a future film/s, he will likely discover that his creations aren't original, just his own take on what the Engineers already new, and just as sung in the 'Gods Arising to Valhalla' and that Ozymandias poem he raves on about, his creations will turn against him, destroying their creator.” 

This is what I hope will happen, imagine how disappointed he will get (if androids can be disappointed). Hopefully they will not make him react emotionally because being an android he would react more like in a logic way, like a computer program (if this problem arises then do X). I don’t want David to be written like a human, maybe with human traits but still be an android if that makes sense.

“But again FOX/RS could again change things to indeed show us David just Re-created it.”

Hopefully this, there were already too many things in AC that were not good.

As far as rebellion and so on, I wouldn’t mind if David dies in the end of the prequels. Maybe an Engineer kills him because he realizes that the AI and humans can be dangerous. They got to keep it in a way that makes sense (not like in Prometheus). Engineers can be interesting, they just got to make sense. Don't make David the original creator of the Xenos, that would be so lame and a huge disappointment.

BigDave - I always figured the legs would go down like he was in a recliner, but looking at other pictures, it's looking more like there is only an upper half of the body.