How does Ridley Scott’s upcoming film Alien: Covenant, previously titled Alien: Paradise Lost, fit in with not only the Alien films from the late 1970s, but with his 2012 prequel Prometheus. Because if Mr. Scott is going to be taking an Alien movie away from Neill Blomkamp, we’d like to know what his plan is going to be.
Yesterday, the folks at 20th Century Fox sent out the title treatment for Alien: Covenant (seen above), as well as a little bit of synopsis. It is as follows:
Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS – and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world – whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
It seems pretty safe to make the following assumptions about what happened after the events of Prometheus based on this synopsis (warning, Prometheus spoilers):
- Scientist and answer-seeker Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace) made it to the homeworld of the Engineers, which is this “uncharted paradise.”
- The answer that Elizabeth Shaw found, be it on the planet or en route, was death. If David is the sole inhabitant, that means she didn’t make it. Perhaps it had something to do with copious abdominal bleeding or the fact that the alien ship she chartered for her journey didn’t have any human food on it.
Let’s just assume for a moment that what Damon Lindelof said on the Prometheus DVD commentary is true, that Prometheus is not a direct prequel to Alien. That might indicate that Alien: Covenant could be the movie that will eventually link Ridley Scott’s Prometheus era with his Alien era. That would mean that the Xenomorph at the end of Prometheus really was something that was tacked on for the “cool” factor.
Then again, they specifically mention that Alien: Covenant is the second chapter in a “prequel trilogy,” which would infer that there’s another movie planned. This isn’t a director fantasizing about his many future movies. This is part of an official studio release. So Fox appears to be all-in on Ridley Scott’s “prequel trilogy.” I wonder if there’s an example of handing large chunks of money to an iconic filmmaker to make a three-pack of prequels to a very popular movie he made in the late-1970s… There is. How did that work out, again?
Good luck, Mr. Scott.
