Ridley Scott to surpass Alien chestburster scene in R rated Alien: Covenant!

Yes! ...Though I think i'll be hard to terrify todays jaded movie public, who have 'seen it all'. 

This is extremely compelling news! I certainly hope Sir Scott can conjure the same magic up on which he which he drew for Alien! :)

Seems Ridley wants to go the route to Scare us again.... i think the C-Section in Prometheus was inventive but not quite as good as the Original Chest Buster... but then its how do you beat that?

You cant really scare people with a Chest Buster Scene... unless its something that touches a nerve as far as the Victim.... for me its always been Dogs lol.... The Thing Movie the Dog Scene disturbed me more than anything in any Horror ever.... the rest of that Movie never did, the same with the Chest Buster in Alien but it was gruesome for sure... and very well ahead of its time..

For this to work, it would have to be on a Character we are drawn to care a lot about.... (rule out Shaw because a few moments on screen would be enough to draw us in)... but then again this new Crew of the Covenant would only get one movie before we see such a scene if its the Humans who get Chest Busted.

The only way therefore that it would work, as far as better the Original is..

1) The scene has to happen to a Child.... imagine if Alien 3 picked up after Aliens and we saw Newt Getting Chest Busted, i think the fact we see a Child go through this could potentially make it more hard hitting.  But would they do such a thing?  And does the Covenant have any Children onboard?

2) They would have to introduce a different kind of Chest Buster... The never used Holloway Chest Buster Scene was way more gruesome on paper than the Alien one.... not only because of how Brutal the Chest Buster was compared to just One Hole... but also because of when and how it took place.

The same thing is with the Xenomorph.... i think they have to come up with something different, to Truely Scare us, or add something extra to its Life Cycle or Arsenal...

But yes seems shooting to start in March, and this is interesting News and Exciting because its FINALLY Happening.

@BigDave

Have to disagree with the notion that it has to be a child. The reason the original chestbuster scene work so well is that John Hurt gave that good a perfromance. We had a child chest burster scene in AVP2 and well, it was shit.I do agree that we need something new.

For me it has to

1: be given to an actor that can really give an excellent performance,

2: like you said, be something new.

3: it has to be very gruesome and intense.

4: I sort of like the idea that it would be unexpected. If we see a facehugger scene then we'll be waiting what happens next but if the character keeps what happened to him/her a secret then we'll be as shocked as the crew. Have that happen then show a face hugger scene later to another crew member.

double post

It's going to be an hard R! F**kin yes!!!

Now i'm feeling alot more optamistic about Covenant. However, he'll have a difficult job on his hands trying to top the John Hurt chestburster scene. Really looking forward to seeing how this develops!

I think John Hurt's chestburster scene worked well because he had acted it out and it was the first time it was shown... so when you watch it again its not as effective as it once was, as we have seen Chest Busters in the traditional sense and so it has to be something new, or done very very well.

I think the reasons this Scene worked in Order was.

1) First time we had seen such a Scene.

2) The way no one expected it and it was during a beakfast around the Table.

3) John did Milk the Scene and did a good job, so his acting played well into it.

I think Spaights Holloway scene was potentially better, not only because it was more Gruesome, but also that it happens during a intermate love scene....  so i think the Location and what the Victim is doing at the time plays the bigger part rather than the actual Chest Buster.

Spaights Holloway would not have looked so good on paper had it happen on his own in the Corridoors of the Ship or on the surface of LV-426 and i think the same would be said about Kanes it if happpened in a different circumstance and time.

Will be interesting to see how they could attempt to TOP the Original.

What if a Chest Burster took on a different form with multiple tentacles or a proboscis or two and didn't burst, but came out more slowly and punctured/stretched the skin and broke bones in multiple places and the victim is in more excruciating pain for longer.  And maybe the tentacles or proboscis would grab someone close to the victim, pulling their body into the victim's so forcefully that their bones break and the proboscis begins to feed/suck on the skin, eyes, organs of the other person.  I don't know... that may be too much like The Thing.  (annnnnnd I just grossed myself out :-) )

@Membrane; Brilliant! Love it! That's the sort of shit i wanna see!

BTW, you need to seek help dude! lol. Love it!

Necronom, I knew someone would say that.  Heck, I was saying it as I typed it. :-)

That being said, it may not only be too much like The Thing, it just may be too much for audiences likely to see the movie.  That's more gross-out gore than what the franchise has really had.

Well, those people who can't handle the horrifying things that may possibly await humanity in outer-space, need not go see it.

The ALIEN saga started its life as an adults only, fraudien nightmare, and gradually with each sequel became more and more about milking the money cow. All artistic expression became secondary.

It needs to end its life in the same way it started.

Membrane...

Thats pretty much a good description of Spaights Scene..

That Chest Buster looks more like the Trilobite though..

Can you imagine if they for similar in Prometheus... this thing bursts out from Holloway, during a Love Scene and then Chases Shaw in her Room and Face Hugs her......  then she C-Sections the aftermath...  EPIC!

So yes something similar would work very well..

The Problem with the Franchise even with Alien would be to do it again and have the same impact is hard to do, because we have seen the Monster... in Alien the first time it was Fresh.... the way the movie worked also helped.

Alien 3 was basically the same Formula if Covenant had a Xeno that was the same as the Alien one and it went around picking off crew then it would not have the same impact as Alien, but it may improve on Alien 3... especially with more Gruesome death Scenes...

But i think they need to pull something different or special off, or indeed introduce that Formula but it would be very hard job to beat the way the First Movie in 1979 worked...

If we take The Thing... the 1982 movie i felt had more of a Horror Vibe and more Gory, and a lot of that was because of the suspense that you never knew who was infected....  The 2011 movie failed in part because while the scenes of who was infected was more obvious... we knew pretty much from clues in the first movie as far as the Norweigen Camp and we knew that everyone was basically going to die lol

Some hated the Aliens franchise because they felt the Xeno was made to look weak... Alien 3 tried to make it more hard to kill and a bit to hard.... but while in Aliens they died a bit easier... i would still say the Xenomorph should be something that is not near invincible

But i think they are going to give us a mix of Prometheus and Alien.... rather than a Action movie as lets face it the crew of a Colony Ship does not sound like the ideal way to start a Action Movie Xeno fest... so hopefully just a few Xenos and a Crew of 12-20 could work.

I call BS on this until the movie came out. He spewed this similar message when he was working on Prometheus. In fact I would argue that is one of the points that caused a ripple with some viewers. Ridley kept saying he wanted to go back to the roots of what  made Alien special and to scare the shit out of viewers. Instead...not a scare to be had. We had some visceral imagery but no tension, no true horror. Until I see more of this film I hold my breath. I was far more interested in the Alien 5 project because I really felt Scott made a huge misstep with Prometheus.

 I was raised on Gilligans Island/Green Acres/Saturday morning cartoons...A little Star Trek, Star Wars, some late creature feature movies...........But NOTHING prepared me for the chest burster scene in Alien. So I'd really have to un-see every horror movies to be really shocked in that way.

I'd like to see Prometheus as a 12 year old, then watch Alien and see what my reaction would be. What scene I thought was worse.

So What's scary to everyone? How can you cover all the bases? What is freighting to you might be laughable to someone else. Tough to cover all the phobias afflicting humanity.

Blood, injections, and other medical procedures
Certain animals (for instance, dogs or snakes)
Enclosed spaces
Flying
High places
Insects or spiders
Lightning

Good luck Ridley!

The reason the original chesburster scene worked is because:

1)It was never done before,and people ran from the cinema at that scene.

2)John Hurt's performance was pretty good.

3)Other actors didn't know what was really going to happen,The only clue they got was "the thing emerges" they had no idea an alien would burst out of his chest and spew pig guts and blood on them so their terrified faces were real.

Other than that I find the deacon burst scene in prometheus more terrifying than the original chestburster from alien.Deacon used the sharp back end of its head to tear a way out of its host like a knife within a body.

Point 3) in they did not know it was going to happen.

That did help a lot with the reaction of the crew, especially Cartwright (Lambert) and Ridley pulled the same stunt with the Hammerpede and Milburns Throat.... the cast was not in on it and you could tell by the reaction of Dickie (Ford).

@sawa

Theres alot going on in that post. 

double post again....

One of the few times when I got that "eww this is disgusting" feeling is when Shaw used surgery on herself in order to get the Squid alien out (what later became the Squid alien). That was one of the things that they did right in Prometheus. I think that you can make it work but you will have to come up with some clever idea.