Evolution of the Alien is over, Alien: Covenant 2 will focus on David says Ridley Scott!

Bring it on! The AI direction could be very interesting.

I don't want another movie focused on AI. I want a movie with good human characters. He is trying to make a movie that is worse than Covenant, I bet that it is what he is trying to do. Keep him away from this if it will be the AI show. Sorry for being emotional but I want to puke on the direction where they are going, someone stop him please.

Who can see themselves in an AI? I can't, that is why it is important to have sympathetic human characters.

The Rapture idea sounds interesting and something RS would excel in, given his repertoire of such films.  

IMO David as an AI is an interesting antagonist for that very reason Thoughts_Dreams. His absolute apathy and total lack of understanding of suffering and pain makes him terrifying. 

As Ash said in the original film quoted by another synthetic...

I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

I feel Ridley is applying this idea to David as well as the Xenomorph. But where the Xenomorph is a true neutral entity - indiscriminately killing with the simple objective of propagating its species, David is more of a neutral evil. He has an agenda and that makes him much more sinister and dangerous. 

I'm sure there will be a lot of human characters in the movie: around 2000 colonists from the Covenant, plus crew members of a new ship, etc.

Plus imagine the number of the possible new alien creatures, mutants, etc.

And the revenge of the Engineers with some exciting and clever space battle scenes.

Probably it will be the most interesting Alien movie.

Ati I think that too.

Winter is coming

Sorry. Wrong franchise XD

Good, David is the best part of these movies imo.

Iraptus:

I respect your opinion but what makes me kind of angry is when they try to spend 75% of a two hour movie at an android. Sure they have been important in the franchise since day one but no movie has been centered around AI before they made Prometheus. I don't care if Scott thinks that it is interesting, I don't think that it is good to spend most of a movie that is two hours at an android with creator madness because there is no way that I can see myself in him or feel sympathy for him, sorry I just can't and because of that it gets boring. The direction that this is taking now is just crap.

I'm really sorry, but Ridley Scott is over :(

If next movie is all about David again, then don't exploit the name of Alien. Aliens in Covenant looked like they don't have any intelligence at all. And the same about the whole Covenant crew. Just call it David (who sucks out brains of any life form) and make it a soap opera. Alien 1979 was great, Prometheus was ok. Please don't ruin it.

I agree with Thoughts_Dreams. Like i said in the other thread, this is called Alien not Terminator in Space.

I'll probably enjoy it more than Covenant simply because i know what i'm getting into this time. I came to see Covenant expecting a proper Prometheus sequel (in terms of themes) and an Alien film but what i got was more like Blade Runner with xenos. Expectations is everything.

I do agree with the others though, this is Alien not Terminator. I really wish he would make a spinoff type of thing and leave the xenos and engineers out of it. An AI story with creatures and themes of creation is very interesting but having to connect all this to Alien lore is like shooting yourself in the foot creatively. Take the cuffs off Ridley and give this subject the attention it deserves.

Although he says he's shifting the story, there's still a lot of unanswered questions, making this departure very difficult to realize. Also Fox, don't put Alien in the title please.

Just my two cents.

Well in A L I E N, Ash should have killed the crew after they/he got the incredibly valuable facehugger specimen on the Nostromo!

......killed them(food poisoning/decompression/needle,..etc) then walked to the derelict(without a space suit)grabbed a bunch of eggs and flown the Nostromo back to headquarters....would have made wayyyy more sense.   

A L I E N could have been a thrilling movie with Ash slowly killing the crew.

BUT they found the perfect design : Giger's monster!

I think RS/Fox/screenwriters are searching for a Giger 2 design...something fresh.

Thoughts_Dreams thank you and I do agree. Covenant was very David-heavy. His character worked best when he was running amok behind the scenes without notice like in Prometheus. That film had a good David-to-everyone-else ratio XD

Damon Lindelof has said that the story hasn't arrived at the place that Ridley envisaged them going to in Prometheus Two. The hints as to what that world were :-

1) They were very aggressive "f....."

2) It would not be paradise but much more what we expect hell to be. 

3) The early plots lines talked about the source of their power being a machine.

When you consider Ridleys remarks its very easy to see that the way they are going to play it is, David makes that world.

It is also noticeable that Das Rheingold, where Alberich (David) has enslaved the Nibelung (The Colonists) using the power of the ring (The Pathogen)and is interrupted by Wotan (W-Y) who demands the power of the ring and Erda (The Engineers) suddenly arrives warning of the terrible curse of the Ring and Wotan gives it up to the giants who themselves suffer death from its curse (The Space Jockey) could drive the narrative.

Who knows, but Ridley correctly has read the runes this time the beast is cooked David is capable of much more real and successful evil. However as Thoughts_Dreams has said we need mediation in amongst all the sci fi someone we care about to survive and it has to come from an honest W-Y or a surviving Colonist and their role has to be established quickly so they take us through the story and get that wretched android blown to bits. We do not need, get to know the crew /messages/discovery we need someone in it from five minutes and then tell the story. A prologue explaining the horrors of Origae 6 with a survivor would do it (The equivalent of Matt Damon left on Mars and then off go)

As I see it, Ridley Scott is a very talented, visionary type of director, who himself was into painting. This usually means broad brushstrokes not paying attention to plot details. If I remember correctly, he said that he disliked series, Alien 1, 2, 3 etc, but changed his mind? Therefore we have films that are visionary and thematically very good, whereas the plot details are thrown out the window, especially when it comes to connecting films (like soap operas)?

As a matter of fact, RS has said that he wasn’t into opera, Michelle . . .

I am excited about this news. Totally what I anticipate it will be for the next sequel. I want to see more badass David. 

that makes sense.. We have seen how the biology of the xenomorph was created. now it has to be finished by developing the mechanical part of it... until we get the final product seen in the original movie

ml

No, it doesn't make sense at all (It has to do about time and other things).

There is only one movie that we really wanna see. It involves colonial marines kicking ass, getting there ass kicked, and then kicking more ass. If RS  wants to continue David's story, it will truly be the last one because the box office will not rule in his favor. Fox gave him a pass "for old time sake" is what covenant feels like. Also where did the queen go that layed those eggs? We want to see humans doing the best they can against the xenomorphs. Notice its plural. A colonial marines vs aliens is what not only the hard core fans want, but the newcomers to the franchise as well. It will also give fox the numbers they want and need.

Oh man! This couldn't be better news. Happy to hear. 

Thefieldmob

looks like David will be turning Daniels into the queen 

If even a gorgeus film about AI like "Blade Runner: 2049" with a much larger budget, critic acclaim, fan acclaim and tons of advertising is looking to become a major flop (and for this one I am really sad), it is not likely that another AI movie is going to happen, specially if it goes for the wrong target audience.

Blade Runner has a fraction of the fan base that Alien has though, not many people really know of its existence. And the marketing was piss poor for that film imo.

Chris Yes, a large fanbase, half of which is all checked out already. Lets take a look at how well AI centered movies have fared as of late: "Transcendence", "Ghost in the Shell", "Terminator Genisys". 

Well this gives me hope that the focus is on the reckoning between David and the Engineers.  I'm not necessarily interested in human characterstory elements since they obviously are fodder for David's machinations and there are too many existential questions that Scott needs to answer for these films to stand on their own.  He challenged us in Prometheus, teased us with Covenant.. now he owes the audience some answers  (rather than repeating the same questions History Channel does w/ their quasi-Von Daniken tv shows).

joylitt

Your points about Bladerunner 2049 are completely on point.... to a point. As I have said before you need the 18-39 year olds who make up 43% of the cinema going public to buy into movies which have a tent pole financial narrative.  

Bladerunner is film noire understood and remembered by the over 40's audience full of nuance and subtlety. The new movie is liked by the critics and fans. However the marketing needed to draw the key age audience. Two issues spring to mind:-

1) The marketing kept the plot hidden so as not to spoil the movie.

2) Its long. 

Neither of these qualities will draw the casual audience who wants easy cinema spoon fed to them quickly (The criticism I heard from the pop corn audience was Covenant was far to slow to getting going and then crashed in the second act before the good bits). 

A decadent world horribly sub created by David into which Weyland Yutani and the Engineers come into where  A I is in the ascendancy but the audience has a human hero might work for the bigger audience. 

Its notable Ridley rejected Michael and Jacks scripts who had both come off AI stories with lots of symbolism rather than an emphasis on a strong character narrative but were A I orientated and yet he is happy with what he is building with Covenant 2. I think it will be the adversarial element that will give him the tension and story he wants. Covenant was mad robot made the Xeno's. Covenant 2 is envisaged as mad robot makes a decadent world with Xeno iconography.

To me, it’s interesting why Ridley Scott wants to raise a warning finger about AI and the search for extraterrestrial life (like Hawking)? If anything, man is far worse (war etc.) than a synthetic. Why? Because a synthetic has no emotions - it’s logical . . .

This is absolutely the right direction for the bridge between AC and Alien. While I understand the angst being expressed by some, AI turning 'bad' is the direction already chosen (Ash in Alien anyone) and although not the origin story of the Xenos many were hoping for, it joins nicely to the original. One could suggest  this 'Terminator' style AI theme was in fact born in the original Alien film, and borrowed by Cameron (among other sources) for the original Terminator.

Plenty of scope in the franchise to produce many spin off movies full of Xenos and Colonial Marines, but as ML alluded to above, Prometheus was when David found a purpose, AC was when he experimented with that purpose, and the next film will be where he perfects his purpose leading to the perfection encountered in Alien.

Michelle Johnston Yes you are right. The facts support what you have said.

This was posted by deadline:

"Blade Runner 2049 is too slow for the under 25 guy bunch (they gave it a B on CinemaScore with those 2% of under 18ers who ducked the R-rating restriction at their local theater giving the sequel a B-). If you’re wondering why Mad Max: Fury Road, another ’80s sci-fi franchise reboot, outperformed Blade Runner 2049 ($45M opening), it’s because that was a much faster-paced film which stoked the attention spans of the under 25 set. In addition, there was hero identity in Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron’s characters, the latter a persona who could stoke those women showing up to the theater. There’s not that much hero identity going on in the moody, brooding tale of Ryan Gosling’s Blade Runner K. Per PostTrak, more under 25 men turned out for Mad Max vs. Blade Runner 2049 (26% to 23%) and more under 25 females (17% to 8%). In addition, Mad Max‘s demos were more spread out and not so older guy heavy when compared to Blade Runner 2049 (males over 25 were 34% for the George Miller-directed pic to 50% for the Denis Villeneuve-directed sequel)."

http://deadline.com/2017/10/blade-runner-2049-ryan-gosling-box-office-bomb-1202184297/

It seems incredible to me that we are talking about these numbers (31 million?!!!). The producers were just clueless and there are lessons to be learnt from this.

joylitt

But if Alien Covenant contributed to the Blade Runner's results? But if you take into account that a young colleague of mine only could watch the original BR in 3 or 4 sit-downs we probably are at the end of an era... 

red0guy@gmail.com in which way do you think Alien Covenant could have contributed to Blade Runner: 2049's under-performance at the box office?

joylitt

The involvement of Michael Green, Rs, Luke Scott, etc....

I must add that if David will be sitting chestbursted in the pilot chair in the derelict, I´m out of here . . .

So far, they have done a good job ruining the history and mystery of it all . . .

chli

But that is highly likely. The finally predictable irony that the Xeno will over-trow it's god is fair obvious right now.

red0guy@gmail.com I don't think so. But one thing is for sure: androids with philosophical preoccupations are for a niche audience. But at least it will be a smaller, happier audience. As a proof of this, "Blade Runner: 2049" is already ranked #52 in the imdb top 250 with a 8.7 rating (compare to Covenant's 6.5). Try to transfer the same themes into a franchise like "Alien" and you get a pissed off audience.

No, I think it’s over. How could they come up with the idea that the space jockey wasn’t fossilised but a space suit? How could they come up with the idea that David created the eggs and not the engineers (a long time ago)?

They must have tried hard (or looked too deeply into the whisky bottle) to come up with this . . .

Ridley Scott thought that he could come up with something interesting, but forgot that there are fans loving the original Alien.

joylitt

If RS wants to philosophies about AI in the Alien universe for me it's perfectly fine, but why them muddy the water with Xenomorphs origins or other CGI monsters? Why sell toys? Why make trilogies? Why not hire writers to do profound and nuanced stuff? I've said already I like Alien but not such the Xenomorph, so why not explore the reaction of the AI reaction to the vastness and emptiness of space? What would be his reaction as a being for pure logic to the discovery of unfathomable lovecraftian horror in space?

Why Pinocchio again, why slaves' revolt again? 

As for me, my favorite AI/ robo related movie (as in story) is still the second Ghost in the Shell (Innocence) anime, which is made almost knowingly that would flop but the director's love was more important than that.

Well. I think that Ridley Scott was right about one thing: the goose is cooked (he cooked it).

So say we all, chli. ;)

AI / androids are horrific! I'd much rather be killed outright by a xeno/space monster than suffer years/decades of torture by an AI(I suppose AI could keep you alive for thousands of years. A guinea pig for whatever....Might seek out your whole family so they can watch).

Westworld creep'd me out as a kid. Space monsters I can understand. AI not so much.