Alien: Covenant has been out for a while now and although the film attempted to answer some questions posed in Prometheus, it still left fans with a multitude of questions still in need of answering. Monster Legacy have posted up a new article detailing some additional insight to the film's approach to the Xenomorph's creation and its association with the David character. Although much of what is shared has already been discussed at length by the community of fans here on Alien-Covenant.com, it's good to gain an additional perspective by those who actually worked on the film. Below are some excerpts and some of the images associated with the piece. Feel free to let us know your thoughts on their take in the comments section below!
In Alien: Covenant, the origins of the Alien are revealed as the result of David’s tinkering with the Engineers’ bioweapon, the black fluid. “We took it into a different direction,” Scott said in an interview. “The Engineers didn’t make him [the Alien], David made him; which I thought was far more interesting.” He also added: “he designed this motherfucker — rather than it came from the Engineers it came from him, but he needed to use their black deadly cleansing lotion.” Straying away from the original concept, the Alien thus became a reflection of its creator: a physical embodiment of David’s depraved, repressed sexuality — in both its life cycle and its appearance. The creature is the final result of the deranged android’s hybridisation experiments.
Shortly after Oram’s impregnation, a chestburster violently emerges from his chest. Like the Bambi-burster from Alien³, this chestburster has fully-developed upper and lower limbs. “It was based on a sketch by Ridley himself,” said Johansen, “and it’s quite different in its movement and look to the original Alienchestburster.” The creature, sculpted by Dominic Hailstone, was built as a rod puppet moulded from a sculpture by Dominic Hailstone, and endowed with an internal armature devised by Greg McKee. Translucent silicone was employed to give multilayered trasparency, with muscle, organ and bone layers.
In devising the new Alien, Scott and crew did reference the original creature suit, but decided to go for a more organic texture, which replaced Giger’s signature biomechanical aesthetic. In particular, the Museo della Specola in Florence, Italy provided key reference for the new design in the form of the wax ‘ècorché’ anatomical sculptures. “It was surprisingly difficult to extract that naturalistic quality out of the xenomorph,” noted O’Sullivan, “but that was a hurdle that we had to overcome, because that’s what Ridley wanted. The end result is more raw. It’s crazier, and a lot nastier.”
You can read the entire write-up over at Monster Legacy!
The Alien: Romulus sequel is currently in development and cameras are set to roll by October, 2025! Be sure to bookmark the Alien: Romulus 2 Info Page for an up-to-date account of all available information, production updates and important details! You can also share any news & rumours we may have missed by starting your own discussion in our forums!
In addition to the upcoming Alien: Romulus sequel, we have the Alien: Earth TV series from Noah Hawley arriving this August and a rumoured Alien vs. Predator reboot in the works as well after it was revealed Weyland-Yutani play a key role in the upcoming Predator: Badlands movie! There's really never been a better time to be a fan of the Alien movies. Be sure to check out our image galleries for the latest images, posters, concept art and leaked materials for all these upcoming Alien projects!