The largest colonization mission takes off in Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi horror-thriller “Alien: Covenant” starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, James Franco, Billy Crudup, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez and Danny McBride.
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.
In recent interviews, Ridley Scott revealed that in “Alien: Covenant”, he explored into the origins of the xenomorphs, and that the movie touches on mortality, immortality and the higher power who created humans and the universe. “We did Prometheus – that heaved it off the ground, and Covenant is a follow-through to Prometheus. We now know who created this, and why, and the next one’s a joining up of the storyline,” says Scott.
Both Prometheus and Covenant are inspired by Scott’s personal beliefs about where we came from: “We’re not just a random biological accident, for you and I to be sitting here right now [by accident] would take trillions of correct decisions made randomly by nature, which of course is ridiculous. I think there’s some kind of decision being made. I believe in a higher force – if we want to call it God, then it’s God.”
Scott further revealed in his Vanity Fair interview about the opening scene in “Alien: Covenant,” “We start Covenant with a really clever prologue that settles once and for all who David really is.” The sequence begins on a “big beautiful blue eye you see every vein” and over that shot audiences will hear footsteps approach. “How do you feel?” a voice asks. “Alive,” the owner of the eye responds. Scott explains that the prologue reveals Guy Pearce’s Prometheus character, Peter Weyland, as a younger, 40-year-old man whom the newly-born David calls “father.” Scott promises this sequence will “really get people going because it’s fucking smart for a change.”
“Alien: Covenant” opens May 10 in theaters nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.