Things That Are Going To Ruin Alien: Covenant

When Prometheus first came out in 2012, it was billed as a prequel to Alien. In reality, it was actually a completely separate, and super-confusing thing. It was kind of connected to the famous outer space horror movie, but the actual aliens never showed up. Well, it's been officially announced that Ridley Scott is finally making a new Alien movie, called Alien: Covenant. Based on the title, we're pretty sure it's going to actually feature the infamous xenomorph monster this time around. We'd like to be hopeful, but there's a lot of stuff that's got us worried...

It may have been a beautifully shot movie, but Prometheus had a garbage story. The most glaring issue was that there were a lot of almost-Alien moments in the movie, but they were all slightly changed. It really made the movie seem like more of a rip-off than a prequel. While it's clear that Ridley Scott intends to correct that (he's putting Alien in the film's title this time), it's too late. Now, the filmmakers have to bridge the gap between movies, and that's such a waste of time. No one wants to see how an almost-facehugger becomes an actual facehugger. The xenomorph is such an amazing creature design, but we're going to have spend part of the movie focusing on those dopey, pale Engineers. They looked like sad clowns. And the presence of sad clowns is something the Aliens franchise wasn't missing.

Everything that makes Alien so creepy is based on how mysterious it is. Instead of the alien eggs just being something naturally occurring on the planet, they're discovered on a crashed, derelict space craft. It doesn't affect the overall story of the movie, but it's adds a nice level of mystery. Explaining where that ship and those eggs came from is the worst idea in the world. It's taking away one of the best parts of the creature. This would be like if someone decided to make a movie about Wolverine but before he had his powers, and was just a little boy prancing around Canada. Or a movie all about how Darth Vader was once a little kid with a bowl cut and a stupid backpack. Do those sound like good ideas? No—and X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace were both hot heaps of trash. We don't want or need answers to this question. It's like seeing how a magician does his tricks. The only people who enjoy that are other magicians and people who like ruining a good time.

Why do filmmakers keep doing this? Stop making movies assuming that you're going to get to make a sequel. Just make one good movie, not the beginning of a movie that will lead into a potentially better one down the road, assuming it ever gets made. Ridley Scott has talked repeatedly about how this movie will lead into another movie which will then lead directly into Alien. Hey, how about just focusing on making one good movie that stands on its own? Doesn't that sound like a better idea? Just tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and if people like it, then start work on the sequel. Remember how the Super Mario Bros. movie ended on a cliffhanger? Is that really the sort of movie that people should be emulating?

We already know what the alien looks like. We've seen it over six movies already, there's no surprise left in the reveal. The problem is that this movie forced itself into building up to the titular creature. We're going to have sit through at least an hour of the movie pretending that we don't know what's coming. Imagine how lame Christmas would be if you got your presents before December 25, got to play with them, and then had to give them back and unwrap them again on Christmas morning. That's what this movie is. There's no way to reveal the alien in an exciting way. This is the film equivalent of trying to throw a surprise party for yourself. All your friends are just going to be sitting in a dark room somewhere, bored, silently hating you for holding the party up.

We've already talked about how making a movie with planned sequels is a bad idea. While this movie has that problem, it's so much more complicated. First, it's a sequel to Prometheus, but not really. It's not really continuing the story from that movie, which makes it feel more like a reboot. The problem is that Michael Fassbender is returning to play the character David, so it's still connected to Prometheus—so it's still a sequel. If that wasn't complicated enough, it's also the middle part of a trilogy. How many trilogies completely change course in the second movie? It's so convoluted and needlessly complicated. It's going to take more energy to figure out how all of these movies fit together. When people sit down to watch movies, they don't want to have to pull out charts just so they can understand everything. Before watching this movie, you need to watch some films from the franchise, but not all of the films from the franchise, and you should probably not watch certain movies that came out before this because it'll spoil the plot for this thing... and your head just exploded.

Director Ridley Scott has mentioned several times that this movie will have connections to Ellen Ripley, the star of the first Alien franchise. Played by Sigourney Weaver, Ripley was part of a crew of "space truck drivers." They were just regular, working class people who happened to live in the the future and worked in space. That's what made them relatable. We don't need an origin for Ripley. Her origin should be her filling out an application and going to job interviews. It shouldn't make a good movie, because the whole point was that until she encountered the xenomorph, she was just a normal person. If they add some crazy, cosmic connection between her and the alien, that kind of kills the whole 'Regular Joe' aspect of her character.