Our thoughts on Advent ?

Do it! :)

The sacrifice part is intriguing because it could mean that despite being a highly advanced civilization are still very religious. Or maybe the sacrifices are of scientific nature?

"Beings that understood you must give life to both the Wolf and the Lamb. But then they tried to banish the Wolves and undo their creation. So i took their secrets for myself."

So possibly, early thought is who is the Wolf ? So in this context is it the Xeno/Morph they tried to banish. And undo their creation could be to destroy the Pathogen strain responsible.

OR The Engineers 223, are they the wolves and "undo their creation" would be to destroy this faction of Engineers who IMO are enhanced beings, genetically engineered superior Engineers OR Creations of The Engineers who have gone too far ???? Then "undo their creation" would be to wipe out this advanced creation they have made.

I personally think that the sacrifices are religion based. Not scientific. David is following that path. I think the Engineers are extremely religious.

It is hinted that they may of sacrificed many possibly they thought the offerings would justify the worlds they have wiped clean???? 

For some reason, the short films "The Last Supper", "The Crossing" and now "Advent" are better, more interesting, more touching, than the movie itself . . .

Honestly after the lack of reveals in A:C i had about given up hope so i am well happy with this. It as an amazing bit of content. I do wonder if this was always the plan or was it put together afterwards as a call back. it doesnt matter we have it now ;)

Perfect set up for the next sequel and I have a feeling it's going to be the best one in the prequel series. I want someone to save Daniels though

Amazing to think that despite the sceptics, The Queen IS a part of this franchise. Should be an amazing journey towards the next instalment.

Did anyone notice a Facehugger type creature when David is refering to the Animals on Planet 4 ? I thought that was a great touch !!

 EDIT: During the transmission when David says: "I finally had my wolf" we get to see the eggs that get Oram facehugged.

Now Oram said to the crew, something like:"I have to go round up my stray flock" before he falls into Davids trap. I thought that was a nice touch while we are talking about lambs and wolves.

"an ancient ceremony involves sacrifice, such cruelty"

Reminds me of when Steve Messing, the guy who did the mural in Prometheus, was describing how the Engineers would sacrifice themselves to create the Deacons to cleanse worlds. :)

"Interesting that David uses the word "God" and saying that they feared their own might. Perhaps this points to an event which changed The Engineers outlook on things regarding the Pathogen. Reluctant to use its power."

Could explain the outbreak on LV-223 and why the ampules and such were there undisturbed for 2000 years.

Lawrence of Arabia - Wow !!

I did not know about this and it fits in really nicely i reckon ;)

We will have to explore all the Sacrificial evidence again now that we know a little more about it and the reasoning behind it. It was obvious they were very religious and now we have some information regarding the sacrifices and beliefs.

sherris Right? When I heard that in the video I was like "I knew it!" XD My citation btw is "Furious Gods: The Making of Prometheus" when they are talking about the Deacon/Ultramorph.

Lawrence of Arabia - Thanks !!

I will go back and check it again i never caught that bit !!  Maybe something else will click now we have a little more evidence and info to go on.

This is how i imagined we would be looking at A:C but not to worry we have something of more substance now. A great addition ;)

My opinion? UTTER CRAP.

The lambs are the sacrificial engineers who ingest the catalyser to seed new worlds? The wolves are the deacons or purely the pathogen used to cleanse the unwanted worlds? The wolves were abandoned on LV223?

I wonder if Shaw was meant to seed the second Eden. But she refused.

Thank you for starting this thread and providing an atmosphere of enquiry. Together with the Crossing we now have the story of David from his repair to the end page of Covenant. 

We now know what David found out, how he reacted, his interaction with Shaw and his determination to pick up the reigns of the LV 223 Engineers. 

The key themes are beautifully restated and the narrative hardens.

1) The creation myth is centred on sacrifice and therefore its evolution and corruption is evolved through sacrifice. 

2) The Engineers found the mechanism through knowledge based on artificial intelligence to corrupt the evolutionary path, regretted the decision and turned away from the "Wolves". This explains the simplistic "true" nature of the Engineers on Paradise and the evolved enhanced mechanical nature of the LV 223 Engineers who had set out an evolutionary path of species cleansing and start again. David found out that the Engineers rejected the pursuit of Wolves.

3) Based on the drawings of David the life cycle is a hybrid created out of the curious life forms (one of which is likened to  an Egg which grows into the ground) and of course includes the addition of elements of mankinds genetic material.

4) He responded to his love of Elizabeth and knowledge of the Engineers he gained on board the Juggernaut by deciding to start again and cleanse the world in which they would be the new Adam and Eve. She rejected this vision and probably tried to escape and lead to his using her essence to evolve his experiments, so Oram is a surrogate for Shaw as the mother. This has a nice symbolism as both were faith based spiritual questers.

5) He has clearly decided to draw Weyland Yutani in and the seeders will return to find the Engineers destroyed and he has designs for Daniels. What has he overlooked possibly Walter.

For me the Crossing (to the promised land) and Advent (awaiting the coming of the Messiah and anticipated in "The Nativity" by Piero della Francesca in the prologue of A:C) is the real story. The Covenant has come into it and is now anchored to David's journey to the constellation of Origa from which Origae is derived the constellation of the helmsman, ostler, driver, charioteer or perchance the Jockey.   

With the acquisition of the Covenant the story is repositioned and fused and perhaps we can return to the audacious and fresh within the actually movie rather than around it by way of directors reveals and shorts. 

Michelle Johnston - Always great reading your input Thank You ;)

I was wondering about the Christ element. The Covenant suffered the burst on Dec.6th. It took about 2 weeks to get to Planet 4 which gets us to 20/21 December. Then we have some time on the Planet and then David ends up on The Covenant which probably lands very nicely around 25th ? You also found the relevance of "The Nativity" which i was wondering about;)

Interesting too as Prometheus happened to arrive about that time of year.

i wondered if perhaps the original idea was David and Shaw were to arrive at Planet 4 / Paradise and the damage had already been done. Possibly by the enhanced Engineers on 223 ? It does now seem as though there was a possibility that could of happened going by the information in Advent. 

The Origa information is also very welcome i would not of got that either. Many Thanks again.

I sure do have hope again and perhaps as you suggest we can get those elements in the actual film instead of searching for it in bonus material. 

David cannot be Adam, he is only the serpent.

I have no hope left after seeing the Advent. David is a sick monster who did not care about Shaw, he would not stop at anything.

He did not love Shaw, for him she was only the most beautiful subject for his experiments, the human DNA needed to improve his studies.

I do not want to imagine the carnage he will do on Covenant, all the colonists' pods hanging like carcasses in an abattoir.

And I do not want to see an army of aliens or thousands of eggs, or worse, a queen.

There is no return to the Prometheus quests, but a mass slaughter.

I wonder who directed the Advent, for he may be the director of Awakening.

Even Blomkamp can take over from here.

Is anyone more optimistic about the next episode? What are the reasons?

sherris

I think the way the back story is played out will give all sorts of hints to the palimpsest of script ideas that were worked through between 13/15. Underlying David's words are the notion of Paradise Lost a title which may or not belong to that point before David was responsible for Armageddon.

It also has to be remembered that David as the narrator may not only be unreliable toward the Covenant Crew but also is offering his vain glorious deluded view of himself. Note he describes himself as Weyland's Son. His intel maybe accurate but his perception is that of a psychopath. The idea that David could caste himself as Adam and Elizabeth as Eve makes sense of why he behaved the way he did but was delusional and Elizabeth rejected such a notion. Noomi said in one interview that she liked the idea of Elizabeth exploring a much darker side of herself that could have taken their strange co dependent relationship to another level.

Listening to David's narration put me in mind of how they could have used it as a framing device.

Imagine the prequels beginning with Walter being interrogated by the science division one of course would be the "real" Ash and they torture to him to extract Davids story, Walter having gained  access to David's memories before he sets off with his cargo of Eggs. I would have preferred a tangential Prometheus story but if they had decided on this backing into from the beginning it would have been a neat way of giving connectivity and Michael is very good at narration.         

Heck, I'd be happy if David, being immortal, is still around to plant the egg aboard the Sulaco! Killing Newt, Hicks, Ripley would look pretty good on his resume'!

daliens

Apparently Ridley directed the Advent. It has his "knowing" advertising style all over it. 

This is what I said when the film was released. 

"You cannot have the main character who is now driving the franchise being left off the hook constantly as the "mad robot". Put simply we need to make sense of his developing humanity.  The story needs underpin not just endless nihilistic bait and switch otherwise this human being loss's interest".

You can see this sentiment is essentially the same as your reaction to Advent, this guy is so irredeemably evil who cares ?

I am pleased with Advent it makes sense of the story whether its the story I wanted is a quite separate matter. 

I think to hang the next instalment on a robot whom we all want disconnected at the earliest juncture is high risk and only the promise of the big question and other players makes it remotely interesting. I also think Awakening has the potential because of all the competing issues to be thoroughly dreadful. Using the word Queen in an Alien short which has a particular application is not encouraging. If Covenant was channeling ALIEN Awakening may channel ALIENS and as Awakening was Blomkamps title not as daft as it sounds even to me.  

Really nice discussion here, folks. Advent is certainly worth the time to "dissect" (see what I did there?) in detail...

Michelle Johnston thank you for the key to Covenant from your previous post. 

Advent answered some questions, even too detailed for my taste. I saw it as a homage to the arstists who created David's lab as well.

But imo it narrows the path for the next movie to a sickening mayhem. 

And it also gives way to another director.

But if Ridley Scott will do the next one I still have some faith left.

We'll see.

I must admit when i first watched "Advent" the thought that they may of put this together post-production crossed my mind. I hope i am wrong. It would of been tough to attach that inside of A:C for sure.

However i decided i would be positive with this and enjoy it for what it is. We needed some answers because as i have said before, the stuff in Prometheus that was answered got undone in A:C and it left far too many separate pieces that A:A could never hope to answer.

We dont want to get to the end of the 3RD prequel and still be no wiser.

Speeding up growth rates in A:C

But the Xeno in 1979 Doesnt have that - yet David created the 1979 Alien.

SJ - Engineer landed on LV426 due to LV223 outbreak.

NOT NOW!! The Xeno comes from the eggs. Engineers eggs have a different end product to the Xeno. Thanks A:C

Just so many holes to fall down. The writers and Fox need proper guidance to pull this off in A:A.

So i am glad of Advent at least this gives Fox a fighting chance of getting through A:A with minimal mess.

In the AVP podcast not too long ago, artists Matt Hatton and Dane Hallet talked about 3AM shooting a viral piece of additional footage and storyline material that had yet to be released. They said there was a whole script for it and it showed David doing his drawings and experiments in his lab using real meat. It is Matt Hatton's hand you see in the video actually doing the drawings. Dane could not do it because he was left handed and David is right handed.

Advent is what they were talking about. It was one of the last things shot for Covenant.

Did anyone notice that the hand touching the window of Daniel's sleep pod is a left hand. That is the one David is missing, so me must have found a spare on the Covenant :) It is actually a clip of Walter's hand from the beginning of Covenant.

Kethol - YES it is a left hand !! Also i cant believe you mentioned it was Matt Hattons hands we see. I typed out during that comment about post-production i made, i originally added it may not even be Davids hand but i deleted it because i thought it sounded a bit of a stretch. turns out i was right to think that !!

Thanks

@Kethol

"It is Matt Hatton's hand you see in the video actually doing the drawings. Dane could not do it because he was left handed and David is right handed."

Hrm...but why should an android have a dominant hand? Seems pretty inefficient...I don't think ambidexterity falls into the uncanny valley or disturbs people.

An android would not, but the actor does, so they wanted to match that. Seems kind of silly, but there it is.

@Sherris - When you see closeups of actors hands doing things on screen it is actually very common for hand doubles to be doing those shots, not the actual lead actors. Second units usually do stuff like that so they don't waste production time with the leads. It's cool that they let Matt do it.