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[Tony Redgrave]

David is responsible for the xenomorphs. Yes, he used the Engineer's goo but they are his creation. If Shaw had left David behind at the end of Prometheus then the classic xenomorphs would not exist.

You're adding layers that aren't there. When the goo is combined with human DNA you get xeno-looking life forms, there's nothing more to it. David just kept experimenting until he arrived at the classic xenomorphs. Without him they wouldn't exist.

Yes, I agree with this, I'm not discussing whether he created the proto-Xenomorph (and possibly will create the biomechanical too) I'm arguing that creatures like the Deacon (and posibly the Neomorph) already existed as shown to us in Prometheus, he took that "design" and improved it until he got the Xenomorph as we know it, he didn't just conjure it out of the virus.

It makes a big difference (to me at least) because having such control over life and death is plausible for beings like the Engineers but it seems silly for David, no matter how much a super A.I. he might be, to create a whole new race of alien hybrid beings from scratch.

At this point we're just discussing details though, the fact that he's the designer of the Xenomorph is clear and I didn't deny it.

Again, to use your analogy: If Beethoven wrote the fifth, why is there a symphony in C-Minor that has similar passages written previously?

[...]

I fully understand what you're telling me, I'd argue that what was pretty much a giantic facehugger and clearly a proto-xenomorph do give an indication that there was a pattern there before David refined said pattern but as I said, details, so let's agree to disagree.

I'll sleep better thinking David brought Xenomorph 0.1 to 0.2 and I hope you will be pleased by me fully admitting that he did indeed create the Xenomorph as we know it (as those two facts aren't truly mutually exclusive).

 

[Fj0823]

So, from this thread, I'm getting that Scott has fully embraced his "Continuity is pointless" ideaology?

Yes.

 

[watershed]

I feel like Ridley Scott continues to take the absolute least interesting route with these Alien prequel films. So much is a rehash of Alien-verse tropes and instead of exploring cool new aliens or larger questions, everything gets smaller. David is the big bad, the engineers are completely unimportant, and the xenos are kind of boring at this point.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

watch Aliens NOW

Okay maybe I will.

 

[FairFriend]

Seen it last night, together with Prometheus and the original Alien. Easily the worst of the three, this time around we don't even have a memorable scene like the "operation scene" in Prometheus.

 

[bratpack]

Seen it last night, together with Prometheus and the original Alien. Easily the worst of the three, this time around we don't even have a memorable scene like the "operation scene" in Prometheus.

I thought the whole back burster scene was really good.

It's put me in the mood for playing alien isolation again I just hope alot of gamers who do like this movie get the itch to go out and buy alien isolation game deserves more sales imo

but yeah I liked the movie was the best alien since 2 imo

 

[FairFriend]

I thought the whole back burster scene was really good.

It's put me in the mood for playing alien isolation again I just hope alot of gamers who do like this movie get the itch to go out and buy alien isolation game deserves more sales imo

but yeah I liked the movie was the best alien since 2 imo

If I had to mention one it would be the proto aliens attacking the group at night before David rescues them.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I did like that because it was one of the few successful subversions of the series' formula. Usually, after something bursts, we watch it skitter away as it grows and gets its bearing.

That scene in the wheat works as a scare because you're letting your guard down. "It ran away already, we get a breather now, they'll col—oh shit there it is goddamn."

 

[opricnik]

Ridley scott should have fuck off from this franchise i hope

 

[Kuraudo]

I really liked the first third of the film. The opening was a pretty serviceable Alien film and the sequence from them landing on the planet up until David showed up was great. But it kind of fell apart after that, descending into nineties TV scifi territory before the final third turned to utter trash.

I wasn't a fan of Prometheus, but think I would have preferred a direct sequel to it rather than a hybrid between it and Alien. David and Shaw spending time with the Engineers, culminating in David's decision to wipe them out (and Shaw having to escape getting caught up in the destruction) would have been a much more compelling narrative.

 

[Replicant]

There are only two outstanding scenes in the film imo:

* The little accident in the shuttle's emergency room and the subsequent incident that follows. Very tense, very well-done. If only the rest of the movie is this well-constructed.

* The flashback in David's mind. I wish the Engineers had been a more prominent element even back in Prometheus and was more like their original design back in Alien.

and oh, maybe the self-seduction scene. Or is it auto-erotic strangulation, synthetic-style?

Apart from that, I'm disappointed. I know Shaw planted some of the vegetation in the planet but must the rest of the planet's elements (trees, vegetation, mountain, etc) look so Earth-ish?

 

[Days like these...]

But then, answer me this

How do you explain the Deacon, Trilobite and Fifield becoming xeno-like? (elongating skull and all) Is Prometheus non-canon now?

He didn't create the creature from scratch, he modified and refined it. I'm not retconing away, all evidence points to this.

I had totally forgot all about fifield's elongated Alien like skull but disregard all those things because Scott said David created the first xeno and he's apparently disavowing Prometheus.

 

[31GhostsIV]

Interview was linked in the Early Reactions thread, I can go dig it up.

edit: here.

But yeah, people using the wall in Prometheus as some sort of embedded storytelling aid probably shouldn't do that—it's apparently not much more than the VFX crew paying homage to the pre-production art that didn't make it into the film, and nothing more than that.

"It looks cool, put it in there" is, if you've seen the behind-the-scenes on Prometheus, a semi-decent sum-up of Ridley's storytelling predilections in this universe.



Article's weird in that it seems the writer misunderstood some of what he saw.


The goo hitting the air just kills. There's no reason to believe it'd just - make neomorphs. David explained he had to do something to the goo to create the plants that release the spores that create neomorphs.

No, the goo it the air MADE NEOMORPHS BURSTS FROM THE ENGINEERS. This happened. Can we stop pretending this didn't happen.

 

[wesleyshark]

I thought the whole back burster scene was really good.

It's put me in the mood for playing alien isolation again I just hope alot of gamers who do like this movie get the itch to go out and buy alien isolation game deserves more sales imo

but yeah I liked the movie was the best alien since 2 imo

Isolation is phenomenal (so far). I'm on like mission 7 or 8.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

No, the goo it the air MADE NEOMORPHS BURSTS FROM THE ENGINEERS. This happened. Can we stop pretending this didn't happen.

Nobody's pretending that didn't happen. Because it didn't actually happen.

They just died there.

 

[31GhostsIV]

Nobody's pretending that didn't happen. Because it didn't actually happen.

They just died there.

No, Neomorphs happened. I don't know if there's a UK edit of this for some obscure reason, but it definitely happened, for me and the friends I watched it with.

And the Daily Telegraph.

 

[Jinroh]

No, the goo it the air MADE NEOMORPHS BURSTS FROM THE ENGINEERS. This happened. Can we stop pretending this didn't happen.

You should stop with this. It's never shown, and never implied.

 

[exmachina64]

No, Neomorphs happened. I don't know if there's a UK edit of this for some obscure reason, but it definitely happened, for me and the friends I watched it with.

And the Daily Telegraph.

 

[MegalonJJ]

The miniature xenomorph raising its arms was like it was taken from a Simpsons spoof.

I can't believe they got rid of the cock-with-teeth baby form.

 

[31GhostsIV]

You should stop with this. It's never shown, and never implied.

David had as surprise in store as he descended upon the Engineer homeworld – a plague of Xenomorphs that ravaged the unsuspecting natives from the inside out. But what became of the thousands of aliens spawned in the attack? The Synthetic surely couldn’t have neutralised all of them on his own? Did they turn on one another? Or has David considerately opened a Xenomorph sanctuary where they can roam free?

Does the US have a "slightly less shit" edit or something?

 

[MegalonJJ]

David had as surprise in store as he descended upon the Engineer homeworld – a plague of Xenomorphs that ravaged the unsuspecting natives from the inside out. But what became of the thousands of aliens spawned in the attack? The Synthetic surely couldn’t have neutralised all of them on his own? Did they turn on one another? Or has David considerately opened a Xenomorph sanctuary where they can roam free?

Does the US have a "slightly less shit" edit or something?

I think the person who wrote the above made it up because he couldn't believe the actual garbage that was being projected on to the screen

 

[Tony Redgrave]

David had as surprise in store as he descended upon the Engineer homeworld – a plague of Xenomorphs that ravaged the unsuspecting natives from the inside out. But what became of the thousands of aliens spawned in the attack? The Synthetic surely couldn't have neutralised all of them on his own? Did they turn on one another? Or has David considerately opened a Xenomorph sanctuary where they can roam free?

Does the US have a "slightly less shit" edit or something?

I saw the film yesterday and I'm 90% sure there were no Neomorphs in that scene.

I'd say the telegraph writer might be assuming things because the goo is kinda confusing, but then again you seem pretty sure. I doubt there are two different cuts though.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

David had as surprise in store as he descended upon the Engineer homeworld – a plague of Xenomorphs that ravaged the unsuspecting natives from the inside out. But what became of the thousands of aliens spawned in the attack? The Synthetic surely couldn’t have neutralised all of them on his own? Did they turn on one another? Or has David considerately opened a Xenomorph sanctuary where they can roam free?

Does the US have a "slightly less shit" edit or something?

So far as I know, there's no difference in the edits in the UK and US releases.

I don't know why that article seems to think "a plague of xenomorphs" killed the people on that planet. Maybe they saw one of them vomiting black shit and assumed it was a mouthbursting neomorph again? That's the only misunderstanding I can see leading to this misreading of what happened.

But even if you did misread what happened in that scene, David tells the audience how he came up with the neomorph, and it wasn't by just dumping shit out of the ship. He had to work his way up to the neomorph. There's a scene that explains how/why he made those things.

So whoever it was at the telegraph who wrote those questions (I'm guessing its the exact same set of questions from the google link you provided earlier?) missed the exposition, or misremembered it, and that coupled with the misinterpretation of what they were watching in the flashback, led them to believe the people below were dying due to thousands of neomorphs popping out of them.

(which still wouldn't make sense because we watch the bodies fall and essentially freeze in place where we see them in the present day, and there is NO WAY Ridley is going to pass up showing thousands of neomorphs crawling out of those corpses all at once as a visual, either. That's some Hieronymous Bosch shit he wouldn't/couldn't pass up if the notion was presented to him)

 

[boredandlazy]

I saw it last night and I was under the impression aliens were bursting from the engineers in that scene...

 

[31GhostsIV]

So far as I know, there's no difference in the edits in the UK and US releases.

I don't know why that article seems to think "a plague of xenomorphs" killed the people on that planet. Maybe they saw one of them vomiting black shit and assumed it was a mouthbursting neomorph again? That's the only misunderstanding I can see leading to this misreading of what happened.

But even if you did misread what happened in that scene, David tells the audience how he came up with the neomorph, and it wasn't by just dumping shit out of the ship. He had to work his way up to the neomorph. There's a scene that explains how/why he made those things.

So whoever it was at the telegraph who wrote those questions (I'm guessing its the exact same set of questions from the google link you provided earlier?) missed the exposition, or misremembered it, and that coupled with the misinterpretation of what they were watching in the flashback, led them to believe the people below were dying due to thousands of neomorphs popping out of them.

(which still wouldn't make sense because we watch the bodies fall and essentially freeze in place where we see them in the present day, and there is NO WAY Ridley is going to pass up showing thousands of neomorphs crawling out of those corpses all at once as a visual, either. That's some Hieronymous Bosch shit he wouldn't/couldn't pass up if the notion was presented to him)

We watched David drop the pathogen on the Engineers. Initially, the scene made sense because they started to die horrifically.. bit then the Neomorphs started to erupt from the victims.

I remembered it mostly (mostly..) because it made little sense. But it definitely happened in the version I watched.

Apologies if my typing is bollocks, but I'm a bit drunk right now.... but I wasn't when I watched the movie. Wish I was though.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Weird.

They show zero aliens. It's a dark scene and the neomorphs are completely white animals. Contrast alone should have made at least one or two of them stand out amidst the darkness of the sky overhead. But nothing's popping out of the bodies. The bodies are falling apart. Turning black and crumbling. There is nothing inside them. And if there was, they wouldn't even have time to gestate considering how fast everything happens. The body would die before any parasitic growth could occur inside.

They're literally turning black, falling down, vomiting their insides and disintegrating into the ground. Which is where the Covenant crew finds them as David leads everyone back to his house.

 

[MouldyK]

People said it was a return to horror...

...I want to see what parts were meant to be scary.

Maybe the scares were in the opening 40 minutes where I struggled to stay awake as it was a long day.

I stayed up through the last 2/3rds though...but wish I was asleep instead.


Okay, but forgettable and felt like it was fucking with what we know again.

 

[31GhostsIV]

Weird.

They show zero aliens. It's a dark scene and the neomorphs are completely white animals. Contrast alone should have made at least one or two of them stand out amidst the darkness of the sky overhead. But nothing's popping out of the bodies. The bodies are falling apart. Turning black and crumbling. There is nothing inside them. And if there was, they wouldn't even have time to gestate considering how fast everything happens. The body would die before any parasitic growth could occur inside.

They're literally turning black, falling down, vomiting their insides and disintegrating into the ground. Which is where the Covenant crew finds them as David leads everyone back to his house.

I know. I really do. That was my issue with the movie over everything else.

That and Xenos growing to full size in about what.. thirty minutes tops?

Perhaps David will be an unreliable narrator when this all ties up, who knows.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I wonder if this misunderstanding is going to keep being a thing. I woulda never thought people woulda come away from that flashback thinking simply dumping the shit into the air would make neomorphs.

David specifically explains how he had to manipulate the goo over time with various experiments to arrive at the neomorph.

 

[ronaldthump]

2.) Did this film seriously get through to release without anybody going "Hang on a sec.." about the script of that flute scene?

one of the best part of the film I thought. I was like hmm, this is odd as fuck but intriguing as hell.

 

[Fj0823]

I wonder if this misunderstanding is going to keep being a thing. I woulda never thought people woulda come away from that flashback thinking simply dumping the shit into the air would make neomorphs.

David specifically explains how he had to manipulate the goo over time with various experiments to arrive at the neomorph.

The movie is quite clear with it yes.

 

[Tony Redgrave]

I wonder if this misunderstanding is going to keep being a thing. I woulda never thought people woulda come away from that flashback thinking simply dumping the shit into the air would make neomorphs.

David specifically explains how he had to manipulate the goo over time with various experiments to arrive at the neomorph.

I will probably watch the movie again this coming week and keep an eye on that scene.

 

[31GhostsIV]

I wonder if this misunderstanding is going to keep being a thing. I woulda never thought people woulda come away from that flashback thinking simply dumping the shit into the air would make neomorphs.

David specifically explains how he had to manipulate the goo over time with various experiments to arrive at the neomorph.

It shouldn't make Neomorphs. I agree with you on that 100%.

But that's not what happened in the movie I watched with my own eyes last night.

I will probably watch the movie again this coming week and keep an eye on that scene.

Please do, I feel like I'm losing the plot at this point.

Low battery and almost 1am here, I need to sleep off the booze but i"ll be back tomorrow...

 

[boredandlazy]

I saw it last night and I was under the impression aliens were bursting from the engineers in that scene...

To clarify I don't mean xeomorphs. They were definitely manipulated into creation by David.

 

[ronaldthump]

So....what was the point of killing the Captain at the start? It seemed to serve utterly no purpose. They could easily have had nobody killed in a freak accident and still decided to go check out the planet. All they needed was someone outside making repairs to get the signal.
They seemed to be trying to set up tension between the new captain and the crew, then beyond the crew holding a funeral against his orders there was absolutely no follow-up to it.

Also, on the subject of the arm raising chestbuster....why did it even have legs? Chestbursters don't have legs. Or is this still supposed to be an 'earlier' version before David completed work on them?

killing franco was designed to give ripley version 4 some emotional depth - when she sat there and cried looking at youtube

its not a chest burster, it came out as a mini alien. Ridiculous of course.

 

[ronaldthump]

I understand people's issues with the flute scene, but the Alien raising it's arms scene was hands down the best chestburster scene in the franchise. I challenge you to name a better one, the whole thing was chilling, the chestburster finally didn't look like a cheap puppet and didn't do a wee dance as it ran away like in the original.

hahahah. no.. laughably bad.

David wiped out the entire race of engineers with the pathogen, so every engineer gave birth to a neomorph, as shown in the flashback. Where were they?

Why didn't Mother detect that Walter was David?

the goo kills them - they don't hatch - you saw this in prometheus in the first minutes when they used the goo to kill the guy who dissolved into the water.

 

[Kito]

I don't recall any aliens spawning from the Engineer genocide (UK). Wouldn't they be Deacons if so?

 

[Orochinagis]

The capitan taking a peek on a dangerous egg was stupid.
The Pilot guy risking the entire ship just for her wife was stupid
Walter dubting doing the killing blow on David was stupid
The plot entirely retconning the alien cycle to be Android made is stupid.


The Medic sealing her partner because quarantine protocol was pretty smart but didnt last long until the plot made her stupid to open the door.

What was the point of colonizing a planet project, if was like David said because the human race was starting to die? I dont remember that on old Alien movies

the goo kills them - they don't hatch - you saw this in prometheus in the first minutes when they used the goo to kill the guy who dissolved into the water.

Some of them actually vomited black goo of their mouths other simply pretrified , it was a weird scene.

 

[Vectorman]

What are the projections saying about how much A:C will make on weekend 1? Feels like with this mixed reception from both critics/preview audiences, the busy summer movie schedule, and the R rating, this movie is going to struggle getting money past WK1.

 

[Fj0823]

What are the projections saying about how much A:C will make on weekend 1? Feels like with this mixed reception from both critics/preview audiences, the busy summer movie schedule, and the R rating, this movie is going to struggle getting money past WK1.

My theater was packed but people were quite ddisappointed.

I think this will make enough for Scott to finish it as a prequel trilogy. 4 movies are not happening

 

[Replicant]

Some of them actually vomited black goo of their mouths other simply pretrified , it was a weird scene.

It was. It's very inconsistent like I said. I did see some kind of black fingers trying to reach out.....but I'm not sure if that's just the Engineers or some form of neo/xeomorph like others ITT have said.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I did see some kind of black fingers trying to reach out..

Reach out of what?

No "black fingers" reached out of anything in that scene. The goo hit the people below and it killed them.

If ingesting the goo caused aliens to pop out of you, the beginning of Prometheus would have gone very, very differently.

(I never saw this coming as the main source of confusion in this movie)

 

[Replicant]

Reach out of what?

No "black fingers" reached out of anything in that scene. The goo hit the people below and it killed them.

This scene happens near the gate as the crowds of Engineers tried to enter the palace in panic. There are brief flashes of black fingers either reaching out of a chest or if it's just fingers of the Engineers getting charcoal roasted, I can't be sure. But it was there.

Scene went like this:

* David on a plane opening the cargo bay.
* Shots of the organism being released onto the air.
* The crowds went from excited to panic.
* Cue Engineers and family running away but it's too late and the organism consumes them into charcoal
* More Engineers shown running towards the palace (?) but can't get past the gate.
* Near the gate more Engineers turned into black charcoal but there are flashes of things that look like fingers coming out/reaching out.

 

[daviyoung]

The pathogen released by David that wiped out the engineers IS NOT the spores that created the neomorphs inside the two crew of the Covenant.

The pathogen just dissolves engineers. No aliens borne from it.

 

[Orochinagis]

The pathogen released by David that wiped out the engineers IS NOT the spores that created the neomorphs inside the two crew of the Covenant.

The pathogen just dissolves engineers. No aliens borne from it.

But it didnt dissolve them at all. Some got liquified before turning into stones, others even made a pillar of bodies on a wall

 

[Bobby Roberts]

And no aliens popped out of any of them at any point, either.

Because simply ingesting the goo and having it touch you isn't enough to cause a completely separate species of being to incubate and explode out of your body.

Again, Prometheus made this very clear. It's one of the few things that film did make clear.

That and the importance of moving laterally when being pursued in a straight line.

 

[daviyoung]

But it didnt dissolve them at all. Some got liquified before turning into stones, others even made a pillar of bodies on a wall

And still no aliens emerging.

 

[digdug2k]

Saw this last night. I'm not as much of an Aliens hater as some. I liked Prometheus. Don't really worship Aliens because I hate fucking space marines. But I like all of the movies well enough.

I agree the crew made a few too many really really dumb decisions here. Bothered me a bit, but I can live with it. I didn't even catch the fingering "joke" (I assume just because I'm not a 12 year old boy). The weirdest thing to me was that the movie ended with everyone basically dead. Feels like it goes against series tradition of having "happy" endings. That combined with the fact that they were too dumb to catch onto the David-Walter switch. I kept expecting a final Metroid-esque battle on the ship with David, and was pretty sad when it didn't happen. I loved the big neomorph.

At the end of Prometheus, I assume Shaw's plan was to dump the goo on the Engineer homeworld as well, or at least threaten them a lot. Is it assumed she was complicit with David in doing it? Also, anyone know why the Engineers were cheering when they arrived? I really wish they'd spent more time exploring that. I mean fuck, they barely showed on "city" that wasn't even really a city.

 

[daviyoung]

Also, anyone know why the Engineers were cheering when they arrived? I really wish they'd spent more time exploring that. I mean fuck, they barely showed on "city" that wasn't even really a city.

One of their ships was coming home

 

[Ovek]

Watched this film yesterday and it's fucking garbage, easily the worst film I have seen in the last few months. David might have well just had a moustache so he could twirl it in every scene.

I gave Ridley Scott a second chance after Prometheus but he managed to double down on the stupid shit yet again and the next one is a fucking prequel to Covenant?! Yeah no I will keep my money and go see another Transformers film instead.