Despite much trepidation based on my eternal seething fury at Prometheus, I saw Alien: Covenant or How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Dan O’Bannon’s Legacy and Love the Sidequel to Blade Runner in theaters. It is as if Ridley Scott took notes from his critics then said, “Fine! I believe in Space Jesus! Here is your damn monster horror movie, more Michael Fassbender as Roy Blatty, I mean David, a dash of economic messiness and Ripley version 2.0 now with more machinery and similar scenarios. Are you happy?” So we compromised! I can’t stay mad at Scott. We have had too many good times together, and he is so scared of death and angry at God that I pity him. No, you still die even if you’re a brilliant director. Now if you were a better writer…..I’m kidding!
Alien: Covenant is about a crew of colonists in hypersleep while Decker, I mean Walter, David’s younger brother, tends to the ship until disaster strikes, fear sets in and a ton of stupid decisions follow. Basically they decide to separate and explore the haunted house, I mean planet. Cue a dark, stormy night, a British android wandering the ruins of a once great alien civilization and enough monsters to warrant the franchise trademark name. Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is pretty, pissed and been up all night getting a PhD in making crazy shit and watching Single White Female and reading Heart of Darkness so he is ready for the visitors that he lured with his siren song (John Denver—I always knew that he was evil). Alien: Covenant is a fun, ridiculous and gorgeous Gothic horror film if you can forgive its derivative nature and excuse it as homage. How many times have you seen the meme where a house is burned down because a spider is in it? You get that! Tentacle horror during the scariest and cheesiest shower scene since Psycho-you get that!
Scott shows that he still does not quite get how Christians act in Alien: Covenant while simultaneously loving to use Christian imagery. The film opens with a Madonna painting. The space ship is called Mother. What is the Alien franchise without the idea of a monstrous immaculate conception? The colonists are multiple Adams and Eves with one Adam and Steve. There is a chilling wheat with the tares scene at the end. The substitute captain worries that as a man of faith (WHICH FAITH), he will not be respected, but is completely incompetent because he randomly mentions that he saw the devil as a child (WHAT) and would recognize him again yet really doesn’t though (now we’ll never hear the rest of that story—you should lead with that). Wait, maybe Scott was talking about white evangelical American Christians. I’m kidding. (It is funny because it is true. Kidding! I’m not. I am…aren’t I?) There is the constant theme of creation as a way to surpass your father, but how many people really thought about the covenant portion of the title?
There are plenty of covenants in the Bible. It is a promise between two parties that if broken, the one who broke the agreement will be broken and torn in two like the covenant. There is the covenant made by God to man, but in that covenant, only God will suffer the consequences and since He is perfect and eternal, score for man, but Scott DOES believe that God broke His covenant with man by making them mortal. “I want more time FUCKER.” “Try harder!” There is the marriage covenant between man and wife or man and man (sorry no woman and woman in this film). Alien: Covenant begins with a covenant-between man and his creation, the android. David sees it as broken, and now he will go up the line breaking everyone responsible.
The Alien franchise by Dan O’Bannon was about corporate greed looking for the perfect weapon and not caring about the danger to human life. The Alien franchise by Scott tries to reframe the whole expedition as an unforeseen bug in the system and is about rebellion against one’s creator, Lucifer as Frankenstein’s monster. Does this explain the intersection of the mythology of Predator and Aliens? No. OK, so I’m still a little angry, but O’Bannon is dead, and someone has to keep track.
Alien: Covenant, while more satisfying than Prometheus, still has some elements that I would love to stop seeing in my movies. Why are you walking around a planet without a helmet when you never tested the atmosphere? I’m going to need you to stop putting thousands of people at risk for a handful of awesome people, even if I’m in the group. Just, no. Life finally put an end to that trope, but we’re back here again. The minute that you encounter a stranger that looks exactly like someone in your crew, I’m going to need you to check that person EVERY TIME YOU INTERACT WITH THAT PERSON, especially when that person cuts his hair to closer resemble that person. You can fly a goddamn space ship, but you can’t do this.
The casting for Alien: Covenant was a little suspect. I don’t mind the blink, and you’ll miss it cameo of James Franco since it alluded to his 127 Hours mythos as a careless adventurer. I know that we needed more than one black person, and Jussie Smolett has a right to diversify his resume, but I kept waiting for him to randomly start singing and Cookie to appear. I was disappointed that the film didn’t give Demian Bichir more screen time, and Carmen Ejogo was also under utilized. Danny McBride was Scott’s solitary nod to O’Bannon’s working class tone, but I still side-eyed the whole idea of him being captain. Katherine Waterston did a great impression of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, but I don’t know her well enough to get a sense of her range. The movie belonged to Fassbender, and only Guy Pearce was able to bring the hot fire to their interactions.
Alien: Covenant was definitely worth the matinee price and delivered in a way that the hesitant and fractured Prometheus couldn’t, but in order to move forward, I would love an O’Bannon heir who watched the entire franchise to join Scott’s team for the next team. The franchise may have begun with Scott, but it had a succession of talented directors, James Cameron and David Fincher, who successfully moved O’Bannon’s vision forward. Scott’s hijacking of the franchise still troubles me and needs to be counterbalanced since we’re already getting a Blade Runner sequel in 2017.