Better Ideas for Alien Covenant - What Could Have Been

@ 88mphfreak

You know, you might be right.

we could have seen something horrible and more interesting, but instead we got confusion and nonsense.

I see what you mean...

 After watching Alien Covenant twice, I have to say I like Prometheus much more. Dam those alien fanboys! The beast is cooked. This was just a film to please the obsessed xeno freaks. The xenomorph isn't scary anymore. It's been overdone truly (thank AVP for making it kid friendly). They should save the beast for an Alien reboot or something that deals with a bug hunt etc. The movie should have stuck with the scope of Prometheus. The story delving into where we come from and why we were created (Humans). The Alien should be the side piece to this story. This creates more mystery and allure. I was excited to see Prometheus because it dealt with the Sumerian ancient astronaut theory. But with a dark twist to include aliens/xeno obviously. Looks like they are moving away from this aspect with the ending they chose for A:C. Looks like it's gunna be about xeno horror freak show and android drama-mad scientist nonsense. It should be more about the religion and mythology presented in Prometheus. The Alien should have religious connotations. For it to be an engineered organism is a one and done answer. Nothing interesting too much. Instead, why was it made, where does it come from? Was it born out of sin, evil, negative emotions, the destroyer of life, etc.? Why does it take the form that it takes (humanoid/biomechanical/bipedal). The monster should have some religious, real significance making it that much more important because after all, this story is human endeavor and curiosity. These monstrosities should be born out of that and stated as that. That would make for a worldwide disturbance on a grand scale. Imagine getting people to talk about that. That's real. That's almost to the point people would question real life mythology stories as being "true". Instead, the route they are taking just makes us think in terms of that "Alien universe", not real or possible at all.

A:C wasn't even scary. Let alone "bloody" with the R rating. I thought the Neomorphs were a fresh take with being scary and disturbing. I felt like Scott cut away from the violent gory shots too fast. I barely noticed any of the violence taking place with exception of the back burster scene, which was the films best violent scene, but even that could have been better. If Scott lingered on the shot of violence it would have disturbed the audience much more. The point is to make us uncomfortable and squeamish. That's what Alien is all about, at least the original. Prometheus had the best violent scene with Shaw performing cesarean on herself. I felt her pain literally. Since Giger passed away, Scott seems to be pleasing the "crowd". I believe if Giger was around he would influence the story to be about his art work literally. Hell, the shower scene could have been truly disturbing if they had the xeno shove its tail up the girl's cooter! lol that would be total Giger-esque since plenty of his art is sexual, and to show that for even a split second would make us all uncomfortable. That's a winning horror scene and I'm not even a film maker ;).

Anyways I thought I'd chime in on how I think it should have played out. I don't like where it's going especially now that Giger is out of the picture.

http://www.avclub.com/article/lets-talk-about-end-alien-covenant-255805

lol @djame and patient.  At least I am not alone on this; especially with phallic and Dr. Connors.

In order to bring back the Xenomorph as a downright scary monster. Hell, even the most scary movie monster of all time.. Give it sexuality. Let the monster kill in sadistic sexual ways. Make us feel so uncomfortable watching the alien that we don't want to see it again, but we secretly do. Go full blown HR Giger with the story and make everything about his art, sexuality, technology, nightmares, religions, etc.. Attack real world categories. Only way to relate to the dam thing and feel terrified. Look at the controversy surrounding that Netflix show 13 Reasons Why. Real world issues/topics. People relate emotionally. Give the monster some real world attributes! It will become fresh and scary once again.

That sounds like a good idea Jimbo.  As in the original, when you do not see the Alien take Kane and Dallas to get cocooned.  Showed that process and horror on their eyes.  Great idea.

Lol this is a terrible idea. The beast is cooked. The numbers don't lie. Creating a movie with an even more mind-numbing premise is a great way to kill the franchise. Covenant needed less xenomorph, not more.

lol Capola.  If the movie drifted towards a Shaw or Engineer tale; then its not an Alien movie.  Take Alien out of the title if that is the case.

And the reasons the numbers don't lie because it was a poorly executed movie.  If the movie was true horror and brought some significant Alien info; instead of an android creating it; I think it would have created better word of mouth and more people seeing it.

 Yes you can have xenos as side lines but you need to go further down the line what is the black goo from. I've always thought its from the demi god Ridley mentioned once. And he said it was not nice. That's were the horror and interest can be. Seeing pain on a new level maybe engineers that have been tortured for 1000s of years. Or it could unleash any number of horrible things playing with us all like ants. It might have the ability to rearrange or bodies while keeping us alive... Or worse... really nasty stuff. But yes use that Alien approach of not revealing too much at one time...make it ultra real and mysterious and vast bigger story... much bigger reveal multiple layers of evolution aliens and alike....

 One idea i had was that it could merge with a life forms body then unleash extraordinary pain and suffering drinking in the emotions and thoughts like a drug while essentially being part of the victim... maybe it's evolved to not have emotions and is bored kind thing...

https://theringer.com/alien-covenant-exit-survey-ridley-scott-michael-fassbender-251d2593212c

Exit survey from fans.

Well, I'll keep the essence, tone, the 'feel' and mystique alive as best I can with my works.

It's all I can really do as I am finding that the fanbase is much more in-touch with the core elements of what the ALIENverse is and how it's supposed to be than the FOX execs.
Which shouldn't really surprise anyone, as a fanbase works from Love of a franchise, execs work from Money and statistical values, etc..

BUT, I will NEVER show a planet full of Aliens/Xeno homeworld, as I have a good reason why not to. :)

@Patient leecher

"You could even still have plenty of stupid horror tropes with it, too"

What the hell? You dont like the horror aspect of Alien? What are you even doing here.. lol

No offence but i think your idea is terrible and sounds really boring.

As for the beast being 'cooked', hardly, it's just NO one has ever really looked at it's Potential...aside from having it rampaging around with all the intelligence of a methed-up wild boar and trying to bust through things in a fashion akin to a ramhorn sheep.

Or better yet, having them attack in kamikaze waves like boring earth ants.

The Alien is more than that, much more.

And I am really glad it's fictional! :)

@djamelameziane

I had heard Ridley mention what you stated in the past as well. The thought of an evil ancient cosmic demi god like race playing an torturing through their experiments in space could be awesome. Then to keep it truly evil and "alien" they could be capable of unimaginable horrors or have control over uncontrollable horrors. You could still use the original style Alien but using a race of beings like this would open up the film universe to so many new horrors that could haunt us for years.

New is always scarier, each additional installment the creature that's purpose is to scare and frighten does so less and less. Movies like Jaws, Predator, Alien, all the title antagonists can not maintain their level of shock and awe or fear, its just impossible to recreate the first couple times and the reactions the first couple times those creatures were on film....thus any installment no matter how well done will always fall short due to the repetition of using the creature again and again, even if done well and in rationed appearances. That is why i do hope they explore the ancient cosmic demi-god race of beings having a hand in all of this or introduce new evils that are still connected to what we know so far, they can still use the existing creatures but they need new to capture peoples imaginations again like they did back in 1979....explore and expand the mythology  

@op 

If they landed on a planet full of xenos everyone would die within the first 20 min. I like how the movie took an alien: isolation feel and made the 3 neos feel way more dangerous.

I love how the movie made David the creator. Made it seem like humanity brought this upon itself, and all could've been prevented if someone showed David some love or helped him get his synthetic dick wet.

Dead series? The alien franchise is ALIVE AGAIN.

"David a stupid mad scientist with daddy issues"

Lmao. That sums up A:C in short.

They killed with that mad-malfunctioning-AI-god syndrome David a really interesting story from Prometheus regarding background of the Engineers, humanity's origin.

Instead we get an illogical explanation how the Xenos are created, too dark screen time to hide the bad CGI effects/set environment.

As much as Prometheus had it's flaws at least it brought fresh air into the alien-universe which had great potential for further development story-wise.

@djamelameziane

Yes you can have xenos as side lines but you need to go further down the line what is the black goo from. I've always thought its from the demi god Ridley mentioned once...

This. Bring back Spaihts and Lidelof.

@Working Joe

I love horror. But Ridley didn't exhibit ANY creativity with this film. The lack of creativity is the problem. Well, that and he ruined the mythology of the xeno and threw out all the awesome potential set up in Prometheus. It's a f#cking waste.

One better idea for Alien Covenant would have been Paradise! The continuation of the Shaw/David story from the end of Prometheus that was the original idea for this sequel.

It would depend on what they would have done with the Xeno world. Having relatable human characters is more important than to have 10 000 Xenomorphs because if the amount of Xenos is the most important thing then AvP would have been great, right? Now AvP is the way it is so that shows that you need more than many Xenos to have a good movie. They should have had given the Engineers a bigger part when it came to the creation of the monsters instead of David. Hopefully David re-created it, sort of like when you make a dish from a recipe that someone else has written down.

At least we didn’t get a lot of Shaw and the characters were better in general (at least they weren’t as dislikable as in Prometheus). The movie was better even though it was not without bad things. I would not have liked to see Shaw and David go on their mission if that would have meant two hours plus of Shaw, forget that.

David was given a too big of an importance in AC, I agree. Having androids in the alien related movies is fine because it worked with Ash and Bishop. It depends what you do with them but they shouldn’t be the main focus even though it can be interesting to try new things.

Nope, Alien isn’t dead even though it could be better. The last time they released a really good Alien movie was Alien 3 and that was in 1992. AC was a sort of return to form after many failed Alien movies including Prometheus.

Spaights should be given a second chance if you ask me, but forget Lindelof.