WARNING: Major possible spoilers for Alien: Covenant out of SXSW below, so don’t read unless you’re very curious or feel that you already know what’s spoiled and are superior in every way.
As we mentioned earlier, Alien: Covenant made its presence felt at SXSW following a screening of the classic film. Not only did we get to “Meet Walter” via a new viral ad and website, it seems we’re also getting a crash course behind where those pesky xenomorphs actually come from months before the movie is even in theaters. While it’s definitely a spoiler that possibly gives away a major plot point that affects the entire Alien franchise, it is the kind of spoiler fans have expected. Also, we never know if Scott is fooling around or planning to shift gears when the film hits theaters.
But as it stands right now, according to The Verge, the film is prepared to make some very firm statements about a subject fans of Alien have been wondering for a long time. Head below the very angry xenomorph below to find out and remember, possible spoilers are ahead:
We know from leaks and the trailers released up to this point that we’ll be seeing two versions of the classic xenomorphs. One seems to come from the spores we see on the ground, but the other is the classic type and it seems poor Billy Crudup is the victim. While the back burster xenomorph is the new type that leads to the destruction of the ship, the classic one is what we see above on the attack at the end of the last trailer.
It’s also the subject of this spoiler from SXSW according to The Verge, connecting Michael Fassbender’s David from Prometheus to Alien lore in the biggest way possible:
That changes with Alien: Covenant. In the final preview scene, Michael Fassbender’s android David (he’s definitely the same character from Prometheus in this scene, as he’s called David by name) walks Billy Crudup’s character through his personal workshop of biological terrors. He shows off different mutations of the creatures, explaining that he has been trying to understand the aliens that were discovered in Prometheus, going so far as to genetically engineer new versions — a process that’s been waiting for one final puzzle piece to complete.
That’s when David takes him into a small chamber filled with four eggs that look identical to the ones seen in the original Alien. The final puzzle piece, David says, is “mother” — a waiting host — and Crudup’s character is lined up for the honor. The dots are easy to connect: the alien as audiences saw it in 1979 wasn’t the result of evolution or natural selection. Instead, it was the result of an android intentionally breeding the most dangerous, lethal creature possible.
Some had thought this might be the case given David’s presence on the new planet and his fascination with the black ooze from Prometheus, but it does remove the idea that the Engineers created the monsters or that they occurred naturally.
Now that out in the open, there’s still a lot to know and find out before we get to the Nostromo stumbling upon the ship in the original Alien. How did it get there, who was the pilot of the ship, and how does David get from point A on this new planet to point B with all the eggs loaded up and ready for a delivery somewhere. He can clearly converse with the Engineers, but we also reportedly have six movies total if Ridley Scott was being serious.
