It seems the only certainty about Ridley Scott’s “Alien” franchise is its divisiveness. In the past, audiences couldn’t help but argue over which film is better: Scott’s “Alien” (1979), or James Cameron’s “Aliens” (1986). These days, the conversation seems to be about deciding which of Scott’s science-horror prequels is worse— “Prometheus”, or the recently released “Alien: Covenant”.
For most, the more recent installments to the classic, chilling franchise have been deconstructing the older movies, seemingly answering questions that nobody was asking, while using characters that audiences choose to not care about. Which is unfortunate, because when you stop looking at “Alien” through a rose-tinted lens…
…You can appreciate what Ridley Scott is doing.
After all, they’re his movies. Nobody in the audience has more credibility over how an Alien movie should feel than Ridley Scott. The original “Alien” feature had a purpose back in 1979: to tell a terrifying tale of an excursion gone terribly wrong, one which would frighten people into spending whatever theater tickets cost back then (probably like a nickel or something), so they could get in on the spectacle of practical effects and set pieces that we now cherish almost forty years later. Because that’s what “Alien” was; a thrilling blockbuster in a post “Jaws” world.
Wind the clock forward, and you’ll see that blockbusters don’t do so well on their own anymore. Maybe it’s because of the magic that’s missing with the favorability of CGI over practical effects, maybe audiences are just too used to it all. Franchise films like the “Transformers” series continue to underwhelm, critically, and even other beloved classics such as “Terminator” have failed the sequel game. “Alien: Covenant” seems to contribute to this ailment, but here’s the thing: it doesn’t.
No, “Alien: Covenant” is actually brilliant. “Prometheus” is too, but I wasn’t writing for Odyssey in 2012, so I’m going to talk about “Covenant” now. It seems the biggest concerns with the film are with its characters; Daniels isn’t as interesting as Ripley. None of them are fleshed out before their flesh is ripped into. Things of that nature. And those beliefs are perfectly valid. But this seems to occur mostly by comparing it to the original film, and the problem is that this isn’t the original film. It isn’t a character piece about a woman on a ship who’s mourning the loss of her daughter while also fending off insect/velociraptor hybrids. “Alien: Covenant”, like its predecessor “Prometheus”, is a creation story of almost biblical proportions.
In 2012, Ridley Scott began his efforts to break down the origins of the xenomorph, among other things such as humankind, and life in general, really. In accordance with the Alien mythos, mankind is [possibly] the product of a race of extraterrestrials referred to as the Engineers. The Engineers created man, man created a whole bunch of interesting things (like synthetic androids and big existential concerns like “who am I”, and “why am I here”, and stuff like that). By the end of “Prometheus”, we learn that Elizabeth Shaw’s goal is to trace back the origin of the human race. This brings us to the world where “Covenant” takes place, as it’s revealed to be the home-world of the Engineers. From then on, we get a sense of what Ridley Scott is telling us about his sci-horror version of creation: it’s a vicious cycle of one race creating another race to destroy another race, which in turn creates a race which destroys the original (don’t quote me on that, it’s confusing).
Basically, “Alien: Covenant” isn’t meant to entertain you with a character fighting flesh-hungry hive monsters. At least, that’s not the only thing it’s meant for. Its main purpose is Ridley Scott using cinema to give his own hyper-fictional version of how we all came to be, while relating it to his own original 1979 film, which we all love. It’s quite the grand endeavor, one which many will either disagree with or maybe even be angry at. It’s a difficult thing to get across to an audience— an explanation for how we got here, and what our purpose is. But “The Matrix” did the same thing, and “Covenant” does it with the same gusto, and Michael Fassbender’s perfect android aesthetic.
