The Sydney Morning Herald recently visited the set of Alien: Covenant and spoke with Ridley Scott and the cast about the new movie. The article goes into detail of the design the legendary filmmaker had for this film, trying to bring the movie’s tone more in line with the original classic.
The movie is a sequel to Prometheus, the 2012 movie that was a sort of prequel to the Alien franchise. While Prometheus tried walking a line of being a little ambiguous as to whether it were indeed a part of the Alien universe, Alien: Covenant promises to bring the frachise back on track to the roots of the original film, namely the horror.
Prometheus for me tried asking too many questions that really weren’t on people’s minds when they thought of the Alien universe. Too often in prequels, you see filmmakers try and create an explanation why certain characters, or in this case creatures, ended up the way we were first introduced to them. Yet more often than not, those prequels end up watering down the very idea that audiences fell in love with in the first place.
Take Star Wars. When the Original Trilogy was released, audiences fell in love with Darth Vader. Yet years later, when George Lucas created the Prequel Trilogy, the explanation for why Anakin Skywalker ended up becoming Darth Vader was not satisfying. Audiences ended up more bored than anything else.
The original Alien was a slasher movie in space. It wasn’t a story discussing religious ideas and themes in a horror setting. The creature in Alien was frightening and looking to kill anyone that crossed its path. Prometheus sought to add some depth to a story that didn’t really need it.