Countdown to Alien: Covenant: Alien Connections

2.3K

Are there Alien connections between Alien: Covenant and the originals? Or are their more layers to sift through first?

During production of Prometheus, director Ridley Scott dropped hints at where the film, and future Alien films could go. They would eventually link up to the original Alien from 1979. With the release of the second of these new films, Alien: Covenant, in just a few weeks, I wanted to see if I could find any Alien connections to Covenant. Without having seen the film yet, all I have to work with is the various media that Fox has put out, most of which can be found in my previous article.

Still, are there some subtle or not-so-subtle inferences to be made?

LV-426 or bust

In Alien, the crew of the Nostromo answers what appears ,to be a distress call from a planetoid with the designation of LV-426, and proceed to investigate. This investigation is actually prompted initially by the ships artificial intelligence, Mother. It awakens the crew out of cryosleep,a kind of hibernation used to endure long, grueling deep space voyages. The planet is completely barren; just a hellish, uninhabitable rock completely devoid of life. Compare that with the planet that the crew of the Covenant land on. While also lacking in wildlife and human or humanoid life (at least it appears that way), it looks nothing like LV-426. From the few scenes in the various trailers, lakes can be seen as well as some very Earth-like vegetation.

I’m betting that this will end up being the Engineer home world that the android David and Elizabeth Shaw set out for at the end of Prometheus. From what was shown in the short clip titled “The Crossing,” David is about to unleash some Xenomorph hell on an Engineer city, in what is apparently a taste of what happened before Alien: Covenant. This world, heralded as Paradise, has possibly been sanitized of previous inhabitants, but is full of nasty surprises. It seems extremely possible that in an effort to exterminate the menace on the planet, something could cause the planet to be completely changed.  A cataclysmic event or massive explosion. Scarring the landscape to the now familiar LV-426. After all, Covenant takes place about 20 years before Alien.

The Signal

Going back slightly, the distress signal that doomed the Nostromo crew from Alien ended up being something else entirely. A warning. But who set it? It is possible that the long dead pilot, an Engineer, set it as a warning, to ward off others of his kind. It also seems plausible that after the events in Covenant, one of the protagonists set it to steer away future colonists.

Which also begs the question of what these colonists were doing here in the first place.

They are on a deep space colonization mission. So is it just coincidence that they land on the same world as Shaw/David, or is their a more sinister explanation? After all, Weyland-Yutani corporation is the company behind these missions, and their history throughout these films is extremely checkered. Perhaps, with knowledge of what transpired in Prometheus, Weyland-Yutani sent the crew there purposefully. Future films portray them as borderline obsessed with obtaining samples of the “perfect organism”, no matter the cost. Human lives be damned. In Aliens, the colony Hadley’s Hope and its residents were used as pawns, to further their research to weaponize the alien menace. This could essentially be where the obsession starts to take hold.

Don’t trust the droid

Weyland-Yutani is a technological giant in the future, and have made huge strides in the field of robotics. Chronologically, David is the first android. Tasked with guiding the crew of the Prometheus while they slept, ulterior motives were eventually revealed. Planted by the Weyland himself, David took matters into his own hands after discoveries on LV-223. Designated as a chemical research facility for the Engineers, LV-223 was stockpiled with urns of a chemical agent used to create genetic mutations in hosts. These were used by the android, who seemed to develop a mind of his own. Connections then arise to Ash, the android played by Ian Holm in Alien.

As pieces fall together, the androids are just another tool in the arsenal for the evil corporation. Both are tasked by their maker to collect assets and disregard human life. In Covenant, a new model is introduced–Walter. I hope he turns out to be a little more sympathetic towards his human brethren.

Mother

Finally there is the artificial intelligence, known affectionately as Mother. A future relative of Siri, but evil. Mother appears in both Alien and Alien: Covenant (at least the little bit shown so far). Mother collaborated with Ash to preserve the Xenomorph specimen. It’s responsible for answering the distress/warning signal. Monitoring the crew of the Covenant, only time will tell if she has similar intentions in this film.

A viral site has gone up, with a mock interface with Mother. Similar to the 1979 version, it’s a pretty cool way to burn a few minutes.

As much as I’m hoping to get all my questions answered, there is the very real possibility this movie won’t deliver. Not for lack of trying, but a lack of intent. Scott has already dropped some tidbits from the next planned movie; Alien: Awakening. Set between Covenant and Prometheus. Its focus would be to round out the trilogy with a step back in time. What then with the original plan to lead into the events of Alien? Already plans are forming for an additional trilogy, making it a six-film epic before returning to where it all started!

That’s a lot of aliens.