Danny McBride says he “spent the past few months running around with aliens and shotguns and spaceships” in Alien: Covenant!

Great find! I just edited your original post to add more info and fix the link. Exciting to know they're on a Colonization mission officially!

Cool!

Spaceships! I'm hoping it's still a space flick...and not just ground based.

Antiquated shotguns??

Thanks Chris, did u see the other one I posted about the ship being full of couples? 

Thanks Chris, did u see the other one I posted about the ship being full of couples? 

I did, just now! I went and approved the new topics, they should be open to everyone now!

Is this new interview?

Interesting he did also a few weeks or so back, mention it was a Colony mission and the ship had Couples on board... where they was hopping to find a new place to make a fresh start and colonize.

Its interesting in his comments at that time also about how the cast would dwindle each week... shows that people are getting killed off  not in mass but more bit by bit...

Which leads us to why not escape?  Well the Explosion seen on set with the Prop of part of the ship or a drop ship... and the shot of Daniels in that Corridor with what looks like Fire in the room ahead..

There was also a animated Giff showing a explosion and fire that seemed to be from that Room..

This opens up that maybe they are stranded... it could also show that maybe Daniels sabotaged the ship so it can not escape with the Xenomorph related Organism threat. Maybe?

It is a Spoiler as it does seem to show that McBrides Character does seem to survive to at least very late...  such as Janek in Prometheus.

But we dont know if he gets killed off or survives this movie as of yet... but he certainly seems to be one who is around for longer than most of the others.

@Patient Leech

Antiquated shotguns??

I suppose this is in line with Aliens..they had shotguns in that movie and that was nearly 70 years in the furture!

And didn't they use shotguns in Alien:R? that was 270+ years !

Shotguns?!  Shotguns?  Isn't this in the future?  You're telling me the best they got to defend themselves shotguns and small arms!  That's bull****!  I want a TYPE 2 Phaser set to KILL!

Always wondered about the weapons...Weyland MUST have some really dangerous 'toys' out there. Some super weapons.

Or is that the point of Weyland urgently looking for the Xeno(alien tech)!? Is That  they DON"T have incredible weapons? and all they really have is this 19th century junk.

IF they did have super weapons...I think it would diminish the alien threat.....

"Look a large alien!"

*ZORP*

"wow! you turned it to dust...guess those aliens aren't really so tough *yawns*...let's head to the bar...."

At the end of the day they make up though.These guys love each other really. "They are us we are them". Do we have an Engineer here perhaps ? "There is so much we just don't know" to coin a phrase.

Sorry MZ but taking away from the overall story is not a good enough explanation for shotguns.  Advanced technology demands advanced weaponry keep pace.  That is the evolution of technology.

Movie goers aren't stupid and neither is Sir Ridley Scott so I will be very disappointed if the best anyone has to defend themselves is a Mossberg 12 gauge.

I would like to see how Star Fleet deals with this thing.

@pgucc,

No, I want awesome weapons...just like the ones in Elysium!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubZE29cOgvc

That would be great! I hope Neil brings this to Alien 5.

Budgetary concerns? Easy way out? I really don't know why they would stick with the ancient tech?

*shrugs*

 If you're filming a haunted house horror flick...you probably don't want to give the teenagers flamethrowers and machine guns.

Want to keep them isolated and vulnerable. 

"OMG! the monster is going to eat them!!..no wait, they have a nuclear super gizmo weapon!"  Audience tension drops?

Lets always remember that we know we are going to an Alien movie the characters in the movie do not. Just as the Turks at a wedding party thought they were going to a wedding party not an ISIS massacre.Whats also important to remember about the Alien/Weyland movies is usually the innocents are accompanied by some one who is not innocent it was the theme of Shaw/Weyland.

The difference is from ALIENS onwards everyone knows there is a threat/prize, its simply that W-Y in their greed underestimate the danger. These pre equals are different, they are made with narrative innocence. This was one of the confusions of parts of the audience expectation with Prometheus. Those that managed to recognise the similarities, who then expected a re run of yet another Alien franchise movie.

Franchises are double edged swords for the artist. Immediate audience with in some cases narrowly pre defined expectations.  

I like the idea of shotguns. This is a colony ship, not military, and even then all we ever saw the military with in the franchise is ballistic weapons. Sounds badass to me.

One of the last things I want to see in an Alien movie is a laser gun.

Yeah I agree with the shotgun supporters!

Why would a colony ship need plasma rifles in the 40 watt range?  Shotguns and flamethrowers would be fine - possibly long sighted rifles?

They're colonists at the end of the day - not military.  To include high tech weaponry would seem out of place to me . . . I guess that's the deal with opinions though, Pgucc, everyone has theirs :) 

I do see where you're coming from but to be fair - all the 'sharp sticks' in the world didn't really help the colonial marines now did they? ;) 

....And lets not forget the MORBS "wonderful defence mechanism."

Depending on the environment, say your space ship, you can't blast it or even shoot it, for fear of acid spillage!

Cattle prods anyone?

Sometimes a little ingenuity, plus basic weaponry is all that is needed "to give a little incentive."

@Lone, 

Excellent point!

"Don't dare kill it!"

Just another reason to have a spaceship based horror flick....

"I'll just toss this grenade....Wait a minute..I'm on a spaceship!"

"Everyone hand me your weapons...." 

Why would you need something more powerful than a shotgun?  Are you kidding?  Have you seen what this thing does to people? You might as well have a pea shooter.  It's dangerous as hell stepping into a universe of unknowns.

I want all the advantage I can get and I didn't say laser I mean Phaser.  A Class 2 Phase pistol to disintegrate that thing.  And as I have already said, it makes know sense they don't have something more powerful than a 20th century firearm like a shotgun.

As technology advances so does weaponry and history is your proof. 

Growing up in a culture of guns there are things you learn when it comes to protecting your own.  How do you know these colonists aren't ex-military?  Maybe some of them are veterans who are familiar with all types of weapons.

You're better off to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

@pgucc

"Growing up in a culture of guns there are things you learn when it comes to protecting your own".

You raise a very good point a good deal of the target audience are 16 to 24 year old americans who would assume that everyone carries guns in an unfamiliar environment.

From my perspective as an English person the ALIENS entry felt atypical and very much an american vision of the story. I see Ridley channelling a different kind of threat more akin to the Quatermass films of the 50's.  

Equally the emphasis is on counter balancing the optimistic science fiction of Close Encounters and E. T. with some thing dark and unsentimental I wouldn't describe it as a haunted house movie as others have done unless your think of the psychological terror of Hitch**** per se.

Just as Prometheus was organised as a seemingly scientific mission the Covenant mission is about a journey to a verdant, unblemished world untroubled by any pre occupations of dysfunctional societal behaviour. 

Also when Danny talks shot guns thats probably a euphemism for late 21st century personal weapons. However if one of the colonists themes is to start again with a simpler life (Michaels remarks) there maybe a selective "Amish" feel to their approach to building a better world (or so they think).

These new guys are pioneers, so they'll be somewhat armed. Maybe just Danny McBride favors a shotgun.

Alien stories are generally about squishy humans being outclassed and under armed. Besides, a shotgun is easy to use, easy to care for, powerful and classic. There's something oddly Samurai about it. Bring it!

I think it shows that as far as company missions back prior to Aliens (which was a Marine Corp Mission) that for personnel protection  then Shotguns and Small Arms are the normal.

This is what the Prometheus Mercs were armed with, they never had high end military pulse riffles.

You have to ask ourselves if we in say 70 years time manage to invent FTL Travel and we went to explore say Kepler-22b  or even a closer World like Gliese 581 d or HD 85512 b

Would a small group of Astronauts say 4-8 on such a mission carry or be expected to carry Military Weapons? If any at all?

Even if we went to Mars... do we really know if there are any Martians... lol

But i can understand the point being if the company knew something about any threat...

At the moment we dont know how much the company knows about any of this... prior to Alien in 2122.... and even if they did.. we dont know what the Agenda is...

If they want to obtain a Xenomorph would they really want to send in the Marines or Heavily Arm the Covenant Crew?

From my perspective as an English person the ALIENS entry felt atypical and very much an american vision of the story.

Agreed. When I first saw it I was as excited as anyone else, but as time went on I would go back to Alien, not Aliens. Then I saw Prometheus and now Ridley's view is all I want.

There's at least one article about Cameron and Ridley discussing an Alien joint venture, and then nothing happening. Could it be because Cameron wanted to put Arnold Schwarzenegger in it? If I was Ridley I'd just avoid his calls after learning that!

Ridley's view/vision is all I want too!

To me, he is the Sci-fi director. How I wish he had made more films of that genre.

Sadly, he will no longer be developing The Forever War, but I hope he will find the time to direct Wool. There was also talk of him developing Brave New World as another directing venture.

The Martian is brilliant, I think he is on a very wonderful roll, and I cannot wait for what he has in store for us, with Covenant!

I feel very lucky!

@Pgucc - 'I didn't say laser I mean Phaser'

Sorry, I was just being a little silly throwing the Terminator reference in there :)  Like I said, your point is valid but for me, I think a colony ship turning up on what appears to be a paradise armed to the teeth seems a little OTT.  Who knows, maybe probes had scanned the planet and not found any potentially hostile natives?

 I do think they would be naive, at best, to have no weapons.  If anyone has read Coyote by Alan Steele (a tale of colonising an alien planet) you will know what I mean!

Perhaps it is a cultural thing like you and MJ allude to.  Being a Brit, seeing more armed police on our streets over recent years is still something I find hard to get used to and very unpleasant, if I'm honest!  That's not being at all judgemental by the way, if I was American I'm sure I would feel very differently!

Agreed. When I first saw it I was as excited as anyone else, but as time went on I would go back to Alien, not Aliens. Then I saw Prometheus and now Ridley's view is all I want

Totally agree with that Aorta.  ALIEN is where the mystery and horror was.  I really hope Ridley can pull AC off!  I have good feelings!!!!

Oh and as a silly little aside - I think the best weapon for dealing with Xenos would be a freakin' lazer whip!  Think about it . . . can take out multiple targets at once from long(ish) range or closer quarters and there is no spray of acid blood - just a nice cauterizing of the wound.  Well, it may leak after but it wouldn't be splashing in your face like with a gun or such like . . . I'm very tired today and feeling a bit 'spaced' lol!

To Deep Space; So a heavily armed colonist ship is OTT. Tell that to the 20 dead colonists. Besides a weapon such as a phaser has many applications besides defense, with its multiple settings which is another reason why I think our technology could develop it.

 Also, seeing police with firearms makes you feel uncomfortable, you should be buying them lunch, or at least a cup of coffee should the opportunity present itself.  They are the thin blue line which keeps your society safe.

Dear Michelle;

I understand everyone's thoughts regarding Covenant to be a purely peaceful mission.  Pilgrim's traveling to build a world of rainbow skies and gumball trees with rivers of chocolate where children laugh and dance and play all day long; but I have this constant nagging feeling they are ill equipped.

I'm a big fan of Ridley Scott, love his work.  I think the concept of the Alien could be a vision of a manufactured weapon but the first time I saw the original movie I thought this creature was a product of evolution. Evolved to survive in space and adapted. 

Either way this creature is built for survival and has the ability to adapted to any environment.  It could make the human race extinct.

Just one other thought, what if the planet the colonists are going to was a paradise but Shaw and David got there first with an infected ship?

I enjoy these little exchanges.

@pgucc - yes, I get it :) but a) I'm not sure it would help tell the tale that needs to be told (just my opinion) to carry advanced military equipment and b) I would think that, assuming no previous hostile organisms like the Xeno had been known to exist in the ALIEN Universe, what would be the reason to carry such weaponry?  I think rifles, flamethrowers, shotguns etc would appear to be more than enough . . .

Of course what WY might know is a different matter . . .

Don't get me wrong, i'm not a 'bed-wetting lefty' as my brother might say, but I am certainly quite appalled and saddened by the real horrors that are going on in the world right now; but it's a deep and multi-layered problem with peaceful solutions being hard to realise, sadly . . .  Without going too off point, I just want to say, for the record, that it's more a sad indictment of the times we live in that bothers me - not the guns per se.

@pgucc

What makes A L I E N so compelling and P R O M E T H E U S (if we give ourselves permission to  let go of our projected needs/expectations) is it does the best thing Science Fiction can it takes the  dichotomy of the human experience and transports into exotic and sub created environments and plays back to us all the pre occupations of our own experience but with a much wider bandwidth which makes us wake up and think about these issues. 

I can think of places in the UK just five miles apart where innocent beautiful families are living bringing up there children with hope and a sense of belief and yet within miles there is drug addiction/street workers abuse and degradation of the human experience.

If Covenant has some gorgeous people in idealistic love seeking the end of the rainbow who are raped hosted and humiliated that is just an extension of the human experience.

What if Shaw the idealist is now spawning Trilobites how different is that to the innocent young girl who travels for fame and fortune and ends up being a hooker.

Do we really believe big business and the science division have studied the black box recordings of Prometheus and arriving on Paradise for benign reasons or are they spinning Building Better Worlds like all those self serving slogans we are aware of here.

Is David so very different to the lorry driver in Nice or the loners who created the massacres of Dunblane or Berkshire no we are just seeing those ideas of rejection/outcast/ pschopathy/innocence and faceless big business placed in a thought provoking environment and thats why for me David and Ash and the chippy blue Collar workers all make sense as well as a group of idealistic Coventee's and there desire to start again.

Indeed for me the creepy smooth who has all the lines Charlie and the damaged innocent projecting Elizabeth is better than any of those rom com flicks at portraying the reality of that kind of relationship.       

As for Sir Peter wanting to live for ever having lost all his grace that is the challenge of the Western Hemisphere of ageing populations.   

@BigDave - "You have to ask ourselves if we in say 70 years time manage to invent FTL Travel and we went to explore say Kepler-22b  or even a closer World like Gliese 581 d or HD 85512 b

Would a small group of Astronauts say 4-8 on such a mission carry or be expected to carry Military Weapons? If any at all?"

Completely agree Dave! I really can't understand this fascination with guns. Maybe it's because I'm British? I don't know.

I've got no interest in seeing another ALIENS or Starship Troopers. I would much prefer to see a film with a good story and some substance.

Same reason a tug or exploration vessel would carry weapons.

They would definitely have weapons, maybe even trained personnel among them. Going to a habitable world carries the probability of fauna. Think early explorers and grizzly bears. The Prometheus had weapons.

I am in the camp that doesn't want a war story, though. Not being a pacifist, I just find it boring. That said, it can be thrilling when the playing field is leveled a bit. And these things do bleed acid, and I would like to see some acid carnage. The melting helmet in Prometheus was the most creative and terrifying depiction of that ever. Shoulda left it out of the the trailers!

While it would probably be smart of them to use some weapons I don't want it to be a gun movie a la Aliens. I would prefer if they focus on the characters and their development in a way that we can find some sort of sympathy for them, something that I found very difficult as far as Prometheus goes. You can use a lot of guns and explosions but if you don't have any sympathy for any characters then the movie to me at least is a failure.

The characters is number one, the rest comes after that.

Aorta: Yeah the scene with the melting helmet was sort of nasty when I think about it. This scene is a reminder (once again) of how important it is to have well done characters. Unfortunately the character of Fifield was made in a way that I couldn't feel sorry for him when he died. When I watch the movie and I see his death I just think that it is one idiot less. Maybe this movie could teach a lesson or two about the importance of having well made characters that we can sympathize with or at least understand. Learning from mistakes is an art in itself.

A survival movie would be more interesting than an action oriented if we talk about what kind of path this one should take. I don't think that we need another Aliens. People that try to survive in an environment that they haven't faced before is a starting point towards a movie that could be really interesting.