Probably my most anticipated movie this year

 As Ripley once said;................Who laid those eggs ???!!!

I guess we are in for a surprise ;)

My synopsis is generally this:

covenant is a sacrifice/experiment sent after david because they are tracking HIM and know that shaw gave birth to the trilobite after sex, hence the couples on covenant, they want a repeat so they can learn about the black stuff and engineer tech. How do they know all this? Trilobite 'delivered' in the prometheus lab, ship data sent back to earth, this reveals shaw was pregnant. The whole initiative is another corporate Attempt to control the xeno weapon.

I think shaw is in the film, possibly as the original dna for the alien eggs, hence the original 'queen', she may well be a giger style human mechanoid, a big surprise.

 I also think the ship is shot down at paradise, goo escapes and wrecks the planet, to try and contain the outbreak, neutron bomb is used or cobalt 60 to kill living tissue and leave infrastructure intact.

That could be why the goo is manufactured on local moons as its so dangerous. Could the engineers who handle the black goo be a modified slave worker who is expendable if the goo escapes? The guys in the trailer look like ancient romans, they didnt need armour as they were safe in the capital.

looks like david has taken over the planet.

Great coverage BigDave. I noticed the projected leave time estimate for the Covenant in the above discussion being from 2070 to 2100.

The Covenant arrived at Paradise in approximately 2104, 5 years after Weyland Industries acquired Yutani Corporation in 2099. I assume the crew left after the acquisition because of the updated uniform but I'm sure its easy to print new uniforms in space (in the event of a company change) so this might be a moot point.

The other point is do you think the "Covenant" was in between Weyland Industries and Yutani Corporation?

They both were interested in the promise of the Project Prometheus. These two behemoths formed one and went to Paradise.

BigDave, Was anything teased out of the Project Prometheus Discover New Worlds? (http://www.projectprometheus.com/newworlds/)

This was in the notes section of one of the colonies.

"The colony was named after Captain Susan Morrison, whose deep space exploration vessel was lost in the Gliese system"

The colony furthest out in the list is POL-6362: JACOB-TELLIS and is 3249 light years out.

Weyland Industries could have put many ships in the Acheron LV-426 system. Prometheus Class ships set sail in 2073.

Did a crew, such as the lost crew of Captain Susan Morrison (a real person at NASA) get lost in the system that houses the planet Paradise?

Did David 8 cultivate eggs from the capture of another crew(s)?

Oh yeh there is so much more to say about what happened to Fitfield and Milburn....hoping to find out more perhaps it has to do with evolution of the organism and how it interacts with other DNA 

I agree Lexiejtruthseeker. In the beginning of Prometheus, Ridley Scott followed the black goo down into the Engineer's circulatory system and even further down into the breaking down of the Engineer DNA.

The way this 3rd-party technology affects the local organism (xenomorph) and amplifies the traits of it could be a movie on its own.

I think Babylonxeno may be on the money in relation to egg production, given the report of the recent description of released footage & images from the trailer...David introduces Billy Crudup to his pet "Cuddles", but the question remains who is laying the eggs? David knows what the Goo can do in a human female (under certain circumstances) & E. Shaw appears to be missing...so has David experimented on a living (or possibly dead) Shaw, mutating her into the first Queen? Hardly bears thinking about how unpleasantly this could be presented in the film...

"Hardly bears thinking about how unpleasantly this could be presented in the film..."

Yes lilmatt, I hope we all throw up from the shock of it. I project that Dr. Elizabeth Shaw will regret to the detour to Paradise (as if David was going to take her anywhere else anyway).

Alien Predator Hybrid species extension & variants expansion?

anyone have any good ideas?

"Aliens is set THOUSANDS of years after Alien: Covenant."

What? What does the OP mean by this?

New Covenant poster released.

http://www.slashfilm.com/the-new-alien-covenant-poster-is-cool-and-scary-and-in-debt-to-some-famous-classical-art/

We already know why the Space Jockey is on LV 426, and why his chest is ripped open. In Prometheus, the Engineer presumably crashed on LV-426. He also gave birth to the Deacon at the end.

Also, Covenant takes place 19 years before ALIEN, not thousands.

Just a few thoughts (probably nothing new & in no particular order) since the release of the EMPIRE article on Prometheus & Alien:Covenant;

Is it possible some of David's programming is based on Peter Weyland's ruthlessness & moral ambiguity, allowing him to pursue his (apparent) science experiments? An extension of Weyland's ego and a snub to his avaricious daughter?

Why does Walter appear to be more of a "robot" than David, a more free thinking "artificial person"? Performance glitches as alluded to in previous ALIEN films, making the David series a little dangerous or is David unique?

The Engineers of PROMETHEUS - is their apparent aggression part of their tampering with the Goo & indigenous species to LV-223?

The Engineers of PROMETHEUS "flight suits" never appeared to be suits at all, but part of their physiology (especially noticeable when watching "The Furious Gods" extras disc)...is this again an example of tampering with the Goo, themselves & indigenous species, exceeding their mission (whatever that may have been) and producing a number of bad outcomes for themselves?

@Skrapha

This was the intention of the Prometheus Sequel, and also Michael Biehn did comment last year on Alien 5 which he said was set 20 years after Aliens and that Alien Covenant was set THOUSANDS of Years before Prometheus... so he was Told.

I think indeed the intention was for Flash Backs and parts of the Plot to be set Thousands of Years ago, but who knows if any of this applies now to Alien Covenant.

It appears since Logan was brought on, its a Tone down the Engineers, bring in the Xenos and also dont rule out Ripley.

I really do need to UPDATE this Topic with what we now know lol

As Far as David vs Walter, indeed the David models did have more Emotional Parameters with their Programing to allow them to fit in more, but these proved to be a flaw, and Especially David 8 from Prometheus who was Weylands own Personnel David who had even more relaxed safeguards as far as his Emotions etc.

Sorry BigDave, just wanting to expand on a theory...;

If I remember correctly, part of the "Prometheus" story line (through it's various writings) was that of human hubris  - we're clever, we're smart, we know what we're doing...oh cr#p, that ended badly!

Isn't it possible the same applies to the Engineers? It always appeared to me that humans were repeating the same mistakes as their alleged creators...

Weyland - "... and Gods never die..."

Engineer - rips off David's head & kills remaining Prometheus crew (except Shaw)

I'm thinking that the Engineers are no more aware of who their creators are than we are, but carry on doing what they think their creators want, either rightly or wrongly, pushing the boundaries when guidance is lacking. 

This has me super excited! (A lot to take in too!) 

The opening scene in Prometheus, was that earth or Paradise ??

My 2 cents worth it was paradise. The folks in paradise are not engineers but seeded humanoids which carry the same DNA as the engineers and us. The engineers has probably done this process thruout the universe. Take a look at the faces of the paradise folk, from the released photos they resemble the engineers, quite rightly so, cause they were created by them. Thats why the citadel, worshiping them.

But the question is why did David bomb them ??!!

I think he was very upset about something, potentially knowing their true nature.  

Hi all,

Just returned from seeing the movie & must say I agree with many of the critiques published so far. That being said, this is not a review per se, but just wanted to discuss some of the story aspects (spoiler free, of course); 

I enjoyed the continuation of David's narrative, but hope that I don't find that he is the primary source of antagonism/antagonists throughout the remaining films...for me that would fall a little flat & would lead back to the whole premise of hubris, be it his, ours or the Engineers.

I liked the evolution of the 'Morphs - some interesting scenes indicating their potential & what they may have otherwise become.

I was disappointed with the aspect of the Engineers in the film - is this allowing for an offshoot set of stories or simply scaling them back due to the commercial interests? i think the franchise would be lesser if some of the higher concepts from "Prometheus" are removed.

Anyway, if you've not already done so, go, see & enjoy!

I just watched covenant and whilst I did enjoy it, my heart sank somewhat after discovering that a synthetic managed to evolve, presumably, his own version of the egg, hugger and xeno. I’ve had some time to let my emotions settle  and can be a bit more objective about it but the more I think on it, the more ridiculous it becomes. Especially seeing as we are probably dealing with a technologically advanced race (engineers) who have been messing around with this DNA evolution stuff for 100,000’s years, maybe even millions, and david just whips open shaw, and grows some alien eggs in 10 years.  

Maybe the dead engineer in his lab has only been dead for less than a year and helped him, it’s the only way I can explain it.  At least that scene with the dead engineer suggested that there were some survivors during the original act of genocide who David no doubt used to his advantage.

 One last thing, what would happen if you expose a proto/neo or xeno to the black good? Does a human pop out of it? Or does another alien pop out of another alien. At somepoint, I guess we are going to see infinite aliens popping out of each other.

I gotta say, A:C sucked dog balls.  I am totally over the alien franchise. Been disappointed one too many times.  This was nothing but fox execs pandering to the blood lust of psychotic fans.  Yes, blood and gore and evil winning appeals to the new millennium fan base.  Well then grovel in it.  It's total shit and what the fan base deserves. 

Ripley was spot on with Prometheus, even if he wants to recant.  It's like the beginning of the movie wants to suck us in with the same theme from Prometheus, and then grovels in the gutter of blood n guts scifi.  It just looks like they all got together and said what can we do that's more disgusting than before.  Always more depravity.  Let's sell those tickets. 

It's total crap.  I've seen better story-telling and analysis on these forums than the all the wankers making these movies.  The same story lines over and over.  Really it's like they're just pissing on us.  If they monitor these forums, they get feedback from fans saying why didn't they try this n that.  Then they rub our noses in it, and say see, it doesn't matter, the creature will always win.  Total bullshit.

Lessons learned:

(1 if you get a spurious comms signal in outerspace, be VERY suspicious of it. 

(2 if you do land on another planet, wear the proper protective equipment until you are sure it's safe.

3) if you do meet other life forms be very suspicious of them.   

4) if your lander runs into trouble, do not risk the whole ship coming to the rescue. 

5) if you are stranded on a planet, fight to the death with valor.

6) and finally, don't trust AI to not fuck the human race.   

How could the engineers being destroyed so easily. They are light years more advanced than human and the droid. Worst plot ever.

Engineers were destroyed by their own device(black goo).

They got a taste of their own medicine.

Just a little drink by the engineer in the opening scene of Prometheus dissolved him. A space ship full of the stuff!? 

Engineers dont expect to be bombed by their own ship I suppose. So they werent ready for it. I'm not quite sure they were even engineers. That's one of the many issues with this new series Scott has created. Too many unknowns means when you leave the cinema at the end feels like you left early!

My general take on the movie is 5/10. Disappointing. The best I can do to explain it is through basic lessons in crewing and design a spaceship:

1. Never take the wife into space

2. Make sure the vice captain is not a weak mumbling religious nut who cant make a good decision to save his or anybodys life

3. Make sure you have basic quarantine protocols on the multi trillion dollar ship

4. Medlab floors should be non-slip as they have been since the sixties on earth.

5. Dont leave the landing door wide open on an unchartered planet. A queen alien could have entered it.

6. Go and freshen up on your own in a hostile environment.

7. Split up in ones to find the lady, to find the captain.....

6. Best of all. After your crew have be lost bar one to some unknown and highly dangerous creatures on an uncharted planet which is just 3 light years from earth. Why not send a communique back to earth giving full details of how all the crew died what was found there etc. Ah no I'll just jump back into hypersleep for 7 years. Sure their families can wait.

I dont think well see anymore of this. There is only one person who can save this franchise now and her name is Ripley. Bring on Alien 5 please.

3. Make sure you have basic quarantine protocols on the multi trillion dollar ship

Those movie are extremely boring..nothing happens..everyone survives. Same with Star trek.....Every episode should start with them sending probes/androids to the surface to insure(even 'redshirts')safety. Alien same way...just send Walter to the surface..he'll report back. 

I'd like to see/hear the plot for Alien 5...but I really don't know what fandom expects?

Sigourney will be nearly 70 years old by the time Alien 5 is filmed!

Alien 5? Christ I hope that has gone the way of the toilet, the idea of bringing back Ripley and possibly other dead characters from Alien3 is ridiculous, not to mention the whole erasing of Alien3 and even the dire Alien Resurrection. Like them or not those two films are part of the story and any true fan cannot really simply turn their back on them, they just can't. What I can't understand is why fans feel we need to have the Xeno in everything, Prometheus was a breath of freshair with regard to this. The film & sci-fi world really doesn't need another Aliens shoot 'em up.