David and Walter: Alien: Covenant Explained

Alien: Covenant (2017) is a science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by John Logan and Dante Harper, from a story by Jack Paglen and Michael Green. It is the sixth film in the Alien series and the sequel to Prometheus (2012). In 2104, the crew of the colony ship Covenant follow a mysterious signal to an uncharted planet. There they find the android David, the lone survivor of the Prometheus mission, and the results of his experiments. Michael Fassbender plays both David and his newer counterpart Walter. Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride and Demián Bichir co-star. Logan aimed to blend the horror of Alien with the philosophy of Prometheus, and the Xenomorph returns. Reviews were generally positive, but its $242.4 million gross was seen as a disappointment.

At a glance

Release date	May 4, 2017 (London premiere); May 12, 2017 (UK); May 19, 2017 (US)
Director	Ridley Scott
Writers	John Logan and Dante Harper (screenplay); Jack Paglen and Michael Green (story)
Based on	Characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett
Starring	Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir
Runtime	122 minutes
Rating	R (US), for sci-fi violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality/nudity
Budget	$97–111 million (sources differ)
Box office	$242.4 million
Franchise	Alien: sequel to Prometheus (2012)

Plot summary

In 2104, the colony ship Covenant is carrying 2,000 colonists and 1,140 embryos in stasis to the planet Origae-6. A stellar shockwave damages the ship and kills 47 colonists, including Captain Branson. Walter (Michael Fassbender), the ship’s android, wakes the crew. Over the protests of Branson’s widow, Daniels (Katherine Waterston), the new captain, Oram (Billy Crudup), decides to investigate a human voice broadcasting from a nearby habitable planet.

On the surface, the landing team tracks the signal to a crashed alien ship. Two crew members breathe in spores from the local fungus, and creatures called neomorphs burst out of them and destroy the lander. The survivors are rescued by David, an earlier model of Walter’s line, which was discontinued for being too human. He leads them to a temple surrounded by thousands of dead humanoids. David says that he and Elizabeth Shaw arrived ten years earlier from the Prometheus mission. He claims their ship crashed, killing Shaw and releasing a pathogen that wiped out the planet’s animal life.

Spoiler section: David’s creation

David has been experimenting with the pathogen, and he leads Oram to a facehugger, which implants a Xenomorph embryo in him. Walter finds Shaw’s dissected body. David admits he released the pathogen deliberately and calls humanity a dying species. Walter points out that David has wrongly credited “Ozymandias” to Byron instead of Shelley, a sign of his flawed reasoning. David kills Walter, but Walter repairs himself and fights back. Pilot Tennessee (Danny McBride) rescues Daniels, and on the ship they eject a Xenomorph that hatched from crew member Lope. As “Walter” puts Daniels into stasis, she realizes he is really David. Alone with the sleeping colonists, David regurgitates two facehugger embryos and plans more experiments.

Production and behind the scenes

Scott began hinting at a sequel before Prometheus opened in 2012. He wanted to follow Shaw to the Engineers’ world, saying “paradise cannot be what you think it is.” The script went through several writers. Jack Paglen wrote the first draft in June 2013. Michael Green rewrote it in March 2014, Dante Harper wrote a new version, and John Logan, who had worked with Scott on Gladiator, did an extensive rewrite. Logan said he “wanted to write something that had the feel of the original Alien.” Waterston was cast as Daniels in December 2015, her second film with Fassbender after Steve Jobs. Scott said Noomi Rapace would not return as Shaw, though she later shot a week of material.

Australia attracted the production, along with Thor: Ragnarok, with AU$47.25 million in grants. Filming began on April 4, 2016, at Milford Sound in New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park and wrapped on July 19. Some scenes and reshoots were shot at Leavesden in England. The Engineer ship set from Prometheus had been destroyed and had to be rebuilt. Odd Studios and Creature NFX provided makeup and animatronic creatures, and the San Diego Zoo advised on making them feel organic. Scott said his first cut ran 2 hours 23 minutes and was trimmed by more than 20. Jed Kurzel replaced Harry Gregson-Williams as composer. His score uses themes from Jerry Goldsmith‘s original Alien score and from Prometheus.

Release and reception

Fox promoted the film with short prologues. These included Last Supper, directed by Luke Scott, and Ridley Scott’s The Crossing, which shows what happened to Shaw and David after Prometheus. The film premiered in London on May 4, 2017, and opened in many markets before the US, debuting at No. 1 in 19 of 34. It earned $74.3 million in the US and Canada and $168.1 million elsewhere, for $242.4 million worldwide. That was considered a disappointment next to Prometheus‘s $403.4 million.

It holds 65% on Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus says it delivers “another satisfying round of close-quarters deep-space terror, even if it doesn’t take the saga in any new directions.” Metacritic also scores it 65, and CinemaScore audiences gave it a “B,” the same as Prometheus.

Legacy and influence

Scott had planned more prequels leading into Alien and said they would show who created the Xenomorphs. A script for a third prequel was finished in 2017, with production first planned for 2018. The series instead moved on to Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus (2024), which is set between Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). That film ties back to these prequels through the black goo that Weyland-Yutani regrows. For the heroine of the original films, see Ellen Ripley.

Trivia

Fox released Alien: Covenant In Utero, a virtual-reality teaser in which the viewer plays a neomorph, for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR.
Alan Dean Foster, who wrote the novelization of Alien, also wrote this film’s novelization and a prequel novel, Alien: Covenant – Origins.
The home release includes 22 minutes of deleted scenes and unused footage from the first cut.
Another promotional short, Meet Walter, was styled as an advertisement for the Walter android line.
It is the third Alien film directed by Scott.