Elizabeth Shaw

Who knows....

The original idea was for Shaw to play a big role, David had to be put back together to leave LV-223 and it was going to cover David and Shaw getting to Paradise.

But Covenant is set 10 years after, and so in between those 10 years something could have happened to Shaw, that is why she wont be in the next movie... maybe we get explanation? Maybe she will be in the next movie after?

It was confirmed at first Shaw would play a minor role... even though she was not in the Synopsis....  It was then confirmed she would not be part of the cast shooting in Australia and New Zealand but that did not mean she would not have shot scenes already?

However it then came out that Rappace would not be involved in shooting at all with the movie, she wont be in it....  but when Questioned Rappace was coy and had a smile and so she knows something we dont and maybe she plays a Role...

Well she plays no role... but Shaw does.... so this does not rule out Shaw is involved in the Plot, but as far as a way that is not a happy ending for her....

i.e She could appear just as Hicks and Newt did in Alien 3.... in other words we could just see a body of Shaw.

I am almost 100% she really IS in the movie (think ending of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest)!

She could still be in hypersleep. David maybe didnt vake her up when they arrive at Paradise. 10 years is not long in the Engineers hyperpods.

I dont think Scott will throw away her story.

In my opinion: we WILL se her (as Noomi Rapace) at the end of the movie, then the next one will be her story.

And off topic: Is it gonna be Prometheus, Alien Covenant and two other movies then connect to Alien?

In the plot synopsis it sayed "second part of a trilogy that began with Prometheus" i.e a trilogy, not four movies.

In my personal opinion Elizabeth Shaw was a very weak character, and even though Noomi Rapace is quite a good actress, her portrayal of Shaw fell flat.
Unlike Michael Fassbender, Noomi wasn't able to portray Elizabeth Shaw in such a way that despite the mediocre writing, the character was at least interesting, or someone I could relate to.

The choices this character made in the movie baffled me at my first viewing of Prometheus, and her survival was only due to the fact that the script was written that way. So much of the plot in this movie has contrived events just for the sake of creating a situation, and Shaw her survival is probably one of the biggest plot contrivances this movie has.

If you ask me, Alien Covenant is going to be a soft reboot.
It seems as if Fox/Scott Free now want to start over with a clean slate, and only use the elements of Prometheus that actually worked.

Charza: I think that Shaw could have been interesting but she just wasn’t. Most of the time she was just annoying but I blame it on bad writing as far as the characters go. I have seen Rapace in two other movies and she was good there.

Mixing religion and science is interesting and there have been scientists that have been religious or that have given God a role (look at Descartes, Spinoza, or Newton) so the theme of religion versus science is interesting but it won’t just happen if the characters are written in a very poor way and that is what I think happened to the Shaw character. They should have gone through the characters again before they did the movie because it wasn’t just Shaw that was a problem even though her example was more obvious since she was an important character with a lot of screen time.

“So much of the plot in this movie has contrived events just for the sake of creating a situation, and Shaw her survival is probably one of the biggest plot contrivances this movie has.”

In other words they put the focus on action and threw logic out of the window a lot of times. The movie wasn’t all crap but there were too many stupid things in it.

They can use some of the things that happened in Prometheus as a way to connect the movies but they should focus on a story that makes sense and to have good characters. Characters are number one because if you can’t relate to some of them at least then the movie is a waste.

I have always felt the delays, shifts in screen writers and shift in emphasis is a simple sign that Sir Ridley was not convinced by the quality or originality of the story. I also think he realised and or was persuaded the tangental nature of Prometheus repositioning it away from a straight Spaihts prequel was not his core priority. It was to answer questions through a damn good story. 

If Elizabeth drove the narrative there were two big challenges which others have touched on :-

1) The follow up becomes a public information film with Elizabeth as the narrator and David getting in the way - for two hours ?

2) Its an A L I E N S retread with the audience and Shaw/Ripley in the know whilst this hapless crew turn up.

What we are gonna get is a crew suffering from the usual bout of naivety and through their loss of innocense get some answers. The drama will also include us seeing David who has gotten ahead, playing dumb or not, with other variants of himself and the crew. That sounds a good deal more interesting than the knowing Elizabeth getting her answers or being a victim of David coercively controlling her. We will get her answers over time and she might even be part of the answer.   

Well i think they had a you turn of events....

The person i know who spoke to the supposed source has said the source wont release any more information as they could be carrying over SOME of the ideas from Paglen/Green Draft.  They dont know any real information on Alien Covenant only that its a slight change of direction just as Alien Engineers was to Paradise Drafts.

They did have a Diagram that the person i know drew up as best he remembers how it was explained to him and i have copied this into a Diagram.... which is here..

The Elements of the Prometheus/Alien Connection was as Follows.

1) Prometheus .... the connecting Element

2) Alien .... which leads to the Alien Franchise

3) Alien Covenant .... The Story that tie in Alien to Prometheus

4) Engineer History (Alien and Xeno) .... The Engineers Agenda as far as connected to Alien/Prometheus Universes.

5) Engineer History/Agenda .... as far as the bigger role the Engineers play in the Galaxy/Universe including what else have they created.

6) The Company .... The story of Weyland/Yutani and Agenda and Creations/Technology.

They said that the idea was originally to be showing us a movie that would be going for 4) that would give clues to 1), 2) and 5) while also bringing in eventually 6).

This idea is now replaced with 3) which will connect to 4) and 2) while also bringing in 6.... but will not cover the connections of 5) or how 5) relates to the rest.

Basically forgetting about the Engineers apart from there connection to the Xenomorph and Mankind and why the Xenomorph and what ever they was doing on LV-223 has to do with Earth.

So just as Prometheus tonned down the Xeno Answers to explore or set up the Engineers... from Spaights draft to Final Product... the Franchise is now going back to exploring the Xeno Answers and Tone down the Engineers as Gods and what else they are having a hand in....

They are going to leave that to the various Comics.

Thats how it was explained to me.

Thanks BigDave! Very nice summary.

Prometheus as the center of it all is nice and It makes sense to me. LV-223 is probably the Engineers home world......Probably looked like a really nice place 2000 years ago...but they, or something else, destroyed it. Why else would they have cave paintings on Earth pointing to it?!

Engineer on Earth 2000 years ago: "That's our home world right there"

Or....

Engineer on Earth 2000 years ago: "That's our laboratory for making death...Pretty neat huh?"

Cave dweller on Earth 2000 years ago: "!?"

Perhaps the cave dwellers/cave painters where abducted and returned to tell/paint their story?

I do think the Engineers should be backstory and I hope Alien:Covenant focuses on the work the Engineers left behind.

So there has been a shift from the big philosophical arc, BD's point 5, and the consequence is Elizabeths role is changed. She is now part of the narrative (Simply by David getting ahead) rather than drives it though she may have more story telling value later.

The focus is now on mankind and why the relationship with the Engineers evolved in the way it did. The engineers role and their individual personalities may remain remote and elliptical whilst their actual motives and in particular their reasoning for creating biological warfare and directing it toward humans is made clear, possibly through David. The other element is the continuing theme of the organisation operating without a moral compass and using synthetics to articulate their needs without fear of remorse. In this instance, Covenant, we may see this theme played to the maximum indicating how dangerous it is to set in motion A. I.

That sounds like good science fiction which always tells us more about ourselves and our own condition.   

Not quite sure what angle they are going with this...

It would appear the Original Idea would have gone to a degree along the lines of...  David and Shaw get to Paradise (or other World related to the Engineers)  They indeed find beings, who are not Benevolent and Shaw would want Answers.... 

This may lead to Shaw again asking David to speak to the Engineers as he did for Weyland...  and see if Shaw gets Answers she wants... but if these beings are somewhat Malevolent towards Mankind even if its in the same way as the Engineer on LV-223....

Does Shaw get her answers... ?  Are these beings then going to be happy to Answer her Questions and leave her to be, never mind explain the purpose of creation and their Agenda?  Or are they going to give her a few answers or signs that show her that yep... these Engineers do not look at Mankind in a favorable way and then maybe want to attack Shaw, or Experiment on her.. and what if they  then knowing Mankind now can Travel the Stars and create Androids that can use Engineer Technology.... then we see these Engineers maybe would want to take action?

But Mankind is fine as of 2122 and 2179 and no real signs in the Alien Franchise of any encounters with them.....

But alas that could be because David unleashes something that would put a stop to the Engineers....

=========

Maybe this all seemed to be a bit too much to cover, when Fans was disappointed at not finding out... Why the Xeno was created and how, when and by who....  And how the Space Jockey ended up with that Cargo.... and finally disappointment and not seeing our Xenos make a come back..

Thus they could get the Answers these fans wanted to know, without us finding out about these Godlike beings history, who they created and what else they created and why...

When the main Question that a Alien Prequel was to answer was... where and when and why did the xeno come to be, and why the Space Jockey had that cargo..... and less about who the Space Jockey Race and history was....

So for covering a story that could answer those... it could be done without seeing any Engineers.... in Prometheus.. all the Engineers could have been dead and we could have had some other clues and maybe David reading their hieroglyphs to find out that information.

Likewise we dont need Shaw alive to be asking Questions... these can be shown to us in other ways.... and having a Shaw as a Plot Device... just as Fifield was...  could still give us clues to whats going on..

I think maybe this is what we are going to see...

Maybe a  3rd Movie could show us what happened to Shaw, and what happened to Engineers on Paradise.. Assuming there are none in Covenant and when David arrives prior to Covenant.

But then again.... maybe they dont need to cover that at all.... we could simply find out that Shaw has given birth yet again to a Trilobite or some other experiment using the Black Goo and Engineer Technology and so we maybe dont need to see what happens to Shaw... but only the aftermath...

A bit like the Space Jockey... its pretty obvious not at first... but after you see the whole movie and then think back to the Space Jockey.. that he/she had became infected with the Cargo and suffered the same fate as Kane...

Yet at no point was we shown the Space Jockey getting Face Hugged and Chest Busted....

So they could do the same with Shaw...

If we take a look at the Engineers... here are things that we know and have yet to know....

1) Why did they create Mankind..?

2) Why did they create the Xeno or how did it come to be and connected?

3) Why did they create the Black Goo and what purpose does it and LV-223 have?

4) What is the culture, history and agenda of the Engineers... surely they just never created Mankind to then use the Black Goo on..? we need to know this but surely there is more to them than that?

5) What else have they created, are they responsible for all life on Earth? and what other life in the Galaxy and are those other Worlds and creations created for the intention of using the Black Goo or Xeno...?  Or was we just the naughty ones to get that punishment?

6) Who created the Engineers, how did they come to be?

7) Did the Engineers Teraform Worlds first to support Life?

8) Ridley hinted that there could be a higher power/being God or Gods at the top of the Hierarchy, what role do they play and how close are they to the Gods of our World and Powers and Hand in creation these Gods possessed... i.e does the Top of the Hierarchy have power to create Planets?

These are all things that could be explored and it seemed 1-8 could been touched upon...

so far we only have few clues to 1-3 and maybe 7 but we have not had full answers and i feel they now are only going to cover 1-3 and maybe 7...

These elements are ones that Spaights draft touched upon more... the other elements are ones that Lindeloffs and Final Product opened the Door on to be explored...

I feel they are going a different route.. and once we have a connection to Engineers, Xeno and Mankind... and then we see a Alien 5 with some connections..... Fans will have the Xeno answers and then if Fox feels Fans could be interested in finding out more about the Engineers... then maybe they can do a spin off...

At the moment it seems the Xeno is what they want to cover... where as before it was that which they wanted to steer away from.

PS sorry for being Off Topic.....

Back to the Topic...

it would be a shame to not see Shaw again... and getting her Answers.. but as i said we maybe dont need her to get them.... she wont get them... but we the viewers can... for the most part.

i felt there was a interesting dialog and dynamic to be played out between Shaw and David....  for example how does she trust him, she has no choice.... but once she puts him back together and we have to assume goes into Cryo-sleep..... she is basically Davids to do what he wants, go where he wants...

We allready know David is put back together... the dynamic and situation that gets Davids head in the bag and his body from the crashed Juggernaught and then to them leaving in another one.... is something that has not been covered.. the gap between both when Shaw left the One Juggernaught with Davids body to leaving on another to Paradise..... we dont see it.... but we know most likely she put him back together or else how did that Jugernaught leave LV-223

So will we see this.... maybe no whats the point... they could just pick up from her and David being on the Jugernaught just as it is about to get to Paradise..

But we are no longer seeing that... we are seeing a time 10 years after and so a time where David is on Paradise for sometime before Covenant and on his own.... No Shaw..

So what if Shaw is now a Plot Device... she has became unknown to her... a Part of Davids Plan to Create Something.... Shaw is Dead...

Do they need to cover from when they leave LV-223 to when they get to Paradise?  Maybe nope just as in Prometheus we dont see Shaw get to the other Jugernaught and then how they managed to leave LV-223... only we see the ship leaving....

Thats what i think is happening...

Hopefully a 3rd movie could at very least fill in the 10 year Gap between Prometheus and Paradise... but im not sure if we will.

Thanks Big Dave for the answers, it is interesting but the information can change over time though.

You said that there would be some ideas from the Paglen/Green draft. Who is the writer now? I remember some of the information that is being given here even though I don’t remember all of it.

What I am very interested in is how Alien Covenant is a sort of bridge between Prometheus and Alien (1979) since I think that they need to explain way better what happened in Prometheus since many might have been confused by it. The Engineer history might not be very interesting to me although I am interested in the agenda of the Engineers with the Xeno connection.

I wouldn’t mind if the movie will be closer to Alien (1979) as far as the feeling goes and also how the crashed ship fits into it than to Prometheus but I don’t want it to ignore Prometheus and be a copy of Alien. There is no reason to copy Alien because it is good the way it is. Hopefully they won’t abandon the idea of the Engineers totally and just let it be a Xeno movie because that would also be a bit boring. Maybe we will see some of the Engineer society in flash backs maybe, I think that would be interesting to see how it was before the disaster on Paradise. The idea of David reading hieroglyphics in order to find it could work but I am not sure if it would be as interesting.

Maybe we could see the Engineer society early in the movie when it was alive so to speak and then early in the movie there would be chaos and destruction there without giving away too much. Remember that the Engineers create life some of it being for destruction although this time it made it too perfect and strong so it turned on them. The screen would then be black for a moment and then we see Shaw and David getting there in the ship although very little would be shown about their travel. I think that this could work, at least I wouldn’t mind if it would be like that. David would then be the one that would figure out what happened there and at the same time they would have to face the monsters that the Engineers have created. Maybe some of the Engineers would be alive, either that or that they would be all dead. Shaw wanted to know why they wanted to get rid of mankind but you don’t get your answers all the time. David could figure out the important parts while the less important parts would be up to people to guess.

My main interests in the movie are:

• Why they created the Xeno
• Eventually a bit of the black goo although as a side note
• A bit of mankind’s role although as a side note, I hope that it won’t be the main focus.
• A bit about their society which I think could be explained as the movie goes on. This could be connected to the monsters meaning that they could have created other monsters than the Xeno in other words it wouldn’t be a pure Xeno movie although it would be a part of it. Maybe letting the Xeno be a part of their monster invention although it could be their best biological weapon. It could be up to us to guess if they found it somewhere or if they created it although that shouldn’t be too vague a la Lindelof. Maybe it could be left a bit vague if a lot of the rest works/isn’t too confusing. A bit of mystery should be left about the Xeno.

Exactly, it would be bizarre if a head could navigate a ship so David must have been put together before they left LV-223. I must admit that I find the idea of a robot head that navigates the ship to be hilarious. Maybe they can have the head that is flying sort of like a ghost? But yeah the movie isn’t a comedy so there goes that idea. LOL! They wouldn’t need to show how she puts him back together or how they get to Paradise but we can assume that she did until we see David for the first time in the movie.

As far as Shaw and her answers go I hope that they will have her in a minor role. Maybe we could get some of her answers but not all because we don’t find out everything in real life, I think that could be a good thing. We because Shaw would be either dead or paralyzed or something and then the audience get the answers through things that happen.

If you move a story on ten years you can allow the audience to do one of or both of two things :-

1) You leave the audience to make assumptions e.g David got his head back and he arrived at Paradise. 

2) But much more interesting you draw back from a public information film and create intrigue what happened where is this going in the first act. 

So as the narrative moves forward we can :-

1) Get connected with the new guys and buy them as characters.

2) Receive a series of answers to questions posed as the naive crew discover the truth.

It seems to me to make Covenant a great entry the unfolding story and the revelations have to be within a credible narrative and offer credible answers which make sense. The narrative maybe quite traditional but its the revelations and the twists that could elevate the film. That seems a neat compromise for a tent pole movie.

So as this new crew hits Paradise (and possibly starts at LV223) and finally Prometheus David we see what was going on and see deductions made which answer Elizabeths questions. Is the black Goo the acolyte's goo, are the LV223 group fallen and why did they create the zeno and why most of all why did they want to destroy to create Earth. Shaw's fate must lay with David and either a psychopathic revelation by him or a crew discovery gives us our answer.

Whenever people say "I didn't understand what was going on in Prometheus" I always refer them to David, he crunches out the plot line by line. I am sure he will give the audience the answers that Sir Ridley wants to reveal in this phase of the story telling and David has ten years of intel to diseminate. Put simply David, a familiar to us now, can be the narrator but on his terms rather than the absent Elizabeth who would be all guns blazing from the get go and ruin the intrigue inherent in a calculating David.  

To leave the hierarchy above the Engineers makes sense to me its not what Lindeloff planned but the greater feedback I have seen is people want answers about the creation myth of the zeno's not more questions.         

Shaw gives birth to a monster(her daughter), who impregnates a Engineer, who gives birth to a monster called the Deacon. 

I'd really like to see what happens to Shaw's grandchild.

Yes it would have been interesting to see what became of the Deacon but i think it was purely a Plot Device to Ultimately show us a connection to the Xeno in Alien and what the Engineers where working on and with on LV-223

It would be interesting to revisit LV-223 and the Deacon but will we ever see such a thing?  Who knows.

"What I am very interested in is how Alien Covenant is a sort of bridge between Prometheus and Alien (1979) since I think that they need to explain way better what happened in Prometheus since many might have been confused by it. The Engineer history might not be very interesting to me although I am interested in the agenda of the Engineers with the Xeno connection."

This seems very much like the direction they are taking... they have seemed to have changed the Plot a bit from the Synopsis.... but then maybe they have not changed it all... and so some of it we are just left for it to be a surprise....

You cant have a Synopsis give away the whole Plot and Answers and Surprises.... 

Shaw has been ruled out as far as joining the shooting cast, and then from being said she plays a minor part, she is now no longer in the movie.... but last Prometheus related Questions to Rappace she seemed a bit coy and her reaction somewhat teases....  so maybe Shaw is in the movie... but in a incapacitated way.. where we dont have to fully see her... bit like Newt in Alien 3

The Engineers are also not mentioned in the Synopsis... but Ridley did hint that the movie is about who created the Xeno... they (Engineers) created it and that something they (Engineers) had created is evolving on Paradise....

This does not rule out Engineers....   We have a 100% Confirmed Engineer Head Statue which has let us to speculate is this LV-223 or another Statue on Paradise....   We cant be sure how far they are going as far as the Engineers... i think if we look how much Engineers we saw in Prometheus.. from dead bodies.. Flash Backs, Hologram Ghost Scenes to the Last Engineer the consider the clues to the Xeno and seeing anything related to the Xeno...

i think this next movie will flip those roles so what we see as far as Engineers, is limited and vague... what we see of the Xeno will become more evident...

But they are making at least one more movie to answer that and so Engineers should play a bigger role in the next movie afterwards.. a Part 3.... But Ridley also said they MAY do a 4th prequel that would actually cover the Space Jockey Incident but i would assume after Alien Covenant and its sequel we should have enough Clues to draw a better picture of the Space Jockey than we have at the moment.

A interesting thing to remember is Micheal Biehn  mentioned about Alien Covenant being set thousands of years before Aliens... so maybe we will see Flash Back Engineer Scenes?

"Whenever people say "I didn't understand what was going on in Prometheus" I always refer them to David"

Yes this is something people fail to see... Lindeloff said the answers are in the first movie..... Prometheus.....  and people would be like no they are not!

But people overlook the movie and only go by visual clues... when its the Dialect by some of the Crew and David that gives the answers in a Narrative form...

Holloways "just another Tomb"

Davids "to create one must first destroy" "does everyone not want their parents dead"

Vickers "a king has his reign and then he dies"

Shaws "there must have been a outbreak"

Janeks -- story of how he had to Nuke a Lab because some scientist spilled something and how this place (LV-223) is just a outpost .

These are the clues we miss where they could be basically telling us some of what was going on....

So yes Michelle what you also put in your last post is pretty much the way they could be going. "Shaw's fate must lay with David and either a psychopathic revelation by him or a crew discovery gives us our answer." 

is most likely the way they are going about these answers...

I think they will feed us some, but the raise questions and we will see more of the Xeno connections but not the Engineers and they can gauge the reaction of Fans who now get a more Alien movie and Answers and see how fans react as far as the Engineers..

And if Fox feel fans would want more about them covered, they can feed us more in the next movie after.  i feel a lot of the changes with Covenant is to do with the General Reaction to Prometheus.  Maybe Fox feel they should have gone for more closer to Spaights Draft than Lindeloffs Paradise.

MZ if they do include LV223 in the story then the Deacon may move from being a riff to part of the narrative. 

Unlike BD I see the Engineers story getting some traction in the movie. As we know it was originally called Paradise Lost and the name change seems to have occurred after the pre production was well underway and is more about presentation than plot.

"Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?

The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers"

We can find out about the Engineers "fall" through the elaboration of the Zeno creation myth. So I think BD and I agree its not a story about the Engineers with a capital E but for me its about their fall and why they created the Biological Warfare.

BD thanks for quoting the crunch lines. They land on a military airfield with bombers ready to take off and destroy and create their own vanities. They built tombs, rather like the Egyptian Pharaohs, and celebrated their greatest achievements pictorially and by taking artefacts with them. Did they believe by taking refuge in the tomb they would be "saved" from the armageddon they had unleashed? Their element in the morality element of the tale is they included themselves in their lifecycle explorations and what they created turned round and bit them on the bum. Prometheus is pretty simple really do not meddle with creation (Engineers), do not try and extend your life (Weyland) do not act without discretion (The botanist). Coming back to Elizabeth, and why we do not need her second time round, is do not project your spiritual vanity into your scientific enquiry, remain circumspect.  

Slightly off topic but that is why I think another element that is lost about Prometheus is it is a morality tale. If you look at every character whose needs are revealed, they are all "met" but in an entirely different way to the way they expected that includes the Botanist and Fyfield the chippy coward who becomes superhuman and wrecks havoc as well as Charlie and his incautious remarks to David.