Covenant takes place 10 years after Prometheus.
The Covenant crew is not aware of what happened to the Prometheus crew.
As the trailers have revealed, this is a hard R-rated horror movie.
Scott listened to the fan response after Prometheus and Covenant is very much a return to the DNA of the original Alien film.
However, Covenant will continue to explore the idea of creation myth as introduced in Prometheus and the Engineers continue to be a key part of the mythology.
Huffman says David was always intended to be the throughline between the two films. “He was a great character from the get go, so he’s good, and he’s reasonably indestructible. So, he just can go and go and go.”
We will see David as a disembodied head in Covenant, but he will also regain use of his body.
Huffam says the Weyland Corporation (now Weyland-Yutani) is still an element in the film, but it’s “less so” about corporate interests playing against human interests.
A film researcher was hired to put together an 8-10 page document about the rules of the world of Alien. Most of the rules came from Alien while the Alien vs. Predator films were pretty much disregarded a different tangent of the franchise.
As Ridley Scott previously described, the plan is for Covenant to be the first film in a trilogy that leads to beginning of Alien.
Scott wanted to reinvestigate the Alien mythology because no one had explored who created the Xenomorph and decided it’s “special kind of creature” that hadn’t run its course.
Michael Fassbender is returning as David as well as a new synthetic named Walter. “Walter is very much a synthetic minus any of the human traits. When the David 8’s came out, there was a resistance from people to that model because it freaked them out a little bit,” said Fassbender. Walter is a straightforward, logical synthetic who Fassbender describes as similar to Dr. Spock.
Fassbender says Walter doesn’t have any particular faults and compared to other synthetics in the Alien franchise he is more along the lines of Bishop than Ash.
In contrast, David has spent the last ten years without maintenance, so his human qualities have only increased and grown with time. “They’re as much a part of him now as his synthetic qualities,” said Fassbender.
David has spent the last decade on an Engineer planet, and while everyone on set kept quiet on the details of what he’s been up to, concept art revealed he’s established a lab and continued his experiments. Fassbender said David “believes that idle hands are the devil’s work” and his “appreciation of beauty and nature” remain relevant.
David remains very interested in creation, but after watching the Engineers smash Peter Weyland like a bug, he’s no longer in awe of his creator and has “moved on.”
Katherine Waterson plays Daniels, no first name (more on that later), the chief terraformist on the colonization mission. She’s an expert on all the hardcore farming and terraforming equipment and machinery needed to make their destination planet habitable.
Daniels is married to the captain of the ship, Jacob, played by James Franco. As the trailer kind of gave away (we see Daniels call Crudup’s character ‘Captain’), he does not survive long.
Like Ripley, Daniels is third in command rank when the film starts.
Waterson would neither confirm nor deny whether or not Daniels owns a cat. “It’s too much fun to not answer that question,” she said with a little smile.
Waterson describes Daniels as a very down-to-earth woman who is dedicated to her work. “I don’t think she thinks of herself as particularly special. She’s very smart. She’s good at her job. She likes her job, and she’s a worker,” said the actress. “The events of the film reveal parts of herself to herself, that she didn’t know she necessarily possessed.”
At the time that we spoke to Waterson, even she didn’t know Daniels’ first name yet. ” I have an idea,” she said. “Ridley told me one day, he said, what about this, and I made a face, and he said, ok, and I have an idea, and if I see you again, I’ll tell you if I got my way.”
Daniels considers Walter a friend, even though she knows that’s a crazy thing to say about a robot. Waterson said it’s a mind-blowing experience “to figure out what it is, what it is to be bonded to a non-human thing that looks like a human.”
Daniels is very close to the couple played by Danny McBride and Amy Seimetz. They’ve been working on the terraforming mission together for ten years.
Walter and David will share screen time together. “That is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on screen,” said Waterson. “I’m so excited for it. And also jealous because they’re totally going to steal my thunder, those two robots.”
Noomi Rapace’s return as Elizabeth Shaw was meant to be a surprise and audiences weren’t supposed to know going into the film. Even though that news had broken already, details on Shaw’s role in the film were scarce.
After landing on the Planet with David, Shaw turns an Engineer’s sleeping chamber into her domain where she was “holding out for a while.”
Bill Crudup plays Christopher Oram, the first mate and chief science officer aboard the Covenant. He becomes captain of the ship at an early point in the film.
Oram is a self-serious man of faith who believes their role on the Covenant is an act of providence, and he shares a “contentious” relationship with Daniels.
However, Oram firmly believes that being religious does not make someone incapable of rational, logic-driven decision making and believes his faith has been a constant roadblock in his career.
Oram is married to Carmen Ejogo’s character, who is a biologist.
Oram sees alien creatures, or any creature, as an expression of god worth exploring. “My suspicion, were it not the life forms he encountered here, he would be quite thrilled at the breadth of god’s creation,” said Crudup.
To the contrary, he sees Synthetics as an act of man’s hubris, “particularly to create it in the image of a human being, which was god’s creation.”
Demian Bichir plays Sergeant Lope, an “old-school” military type who is in charge of the military side of the expedition. Bichir says he is not an embassy of the company, but a dedicated soldier intent on keeping everyone safe.
Sergeant Lope is married to Nathaniel Dean’s character Hallet, who is a member of Lope’s security team. They are the first LBGTQ characters in the Alien franchise.
Tess Haubrich and Nathaniel Dean, who play members of the security team, underwent extensive training with former SAS members. “It was a bloody hard routine, lots of bruises, said Dean. “We’ve got guns, pistols, backpacks, and Ridley wanted it to be as authentic as possible.”
The relationship between the security and science teams is very friendly. “We’re not like numb nut military types, just like all shooting stuff,” said Haubrich. The teams have worked very closely together, they understand the objectives of the other, and they’re all working together towards a common goal.
The entire Covenant crew is made up of couples, and the entire crew knows each other very well. They’ve been prepping the mission before hypersleep for a year, and some of them, like Daniels, have been on it for ten years.
The film was designed with the idea that eventually you have to arrive at Alien, meaning they can’t get too crazy with the technology. Covenant is between Prometheus and Alien and the aesthetic reflects that. (This is also true of the creatures.)
The aesthetic choices aren’t just superficial, they tie into the larger story. “Technically, we’re slightly earlier than the Giger stuff, a little bit,” Seagers explained. “We’re sort of edging into that. That’s part of that whole storyline.”
Covenant is also a midpoint between the scale of Prometheus and the scares of Alien. “It’s got the scale of Prometheus, but also it brings in the suspense [of Alien]. The corridors get smaller, darker, and you’re just wondering what’s down there,” said Huffam. “It kind of takes very much the best of both those worlds and combines them.”
The production team carried over the engineer alphabet created for Prometheus. All the hieroglyphics actually say something, but it might be rather difficult to decode since not all the translations are in English.
The sets were built as a “LEGO kit” by which they could connect hallways to rooms with a “shared language” throughout the film so that the hallways and rooms could be redecorated and repurposed multiple times throughout the shoot. Shaw’s cabin, a very small space, was shot for five different sets.
It took them 15 days to build the Juggernaut set, but they prepped it for months. Instead of building the set with traditional carpentry, the set was created in pieces by computers through a process called 6-axis milling (or machining).
Because they’re going for a claustrophobic feel and Scott is shooting on anamorphic lenses, the sets had to be pretty strictly condensed. “If you can’t touch the ceiling, you won’t see it,” said Seagers. On the bridges, the ceilings maxed out at about 2 meters.
The Hall of Heads is designed to be a somewhat ambiguous but sacred place for the Engineers. “We wanted to make it monumental. That did have some backstory of worship or a place of where the elders were or whatever so there was some gravity there.” said Seagers. It’s where the information was stored, and the heads were representing history and the past.”
The Hall of Heads has a constant rain of showers from a hole in the ceiling that’s meant to evoke Harry Dean Stanton’s death scene in Alien.
Covenant filmed about 60% on sound stages and 40% on location.
Covenant is the first film to be shot in the picturesque New Zealand fiord Milford Sound.
They filmed a massive explosion there, but because it is such a treasured piece of nature, the production had to take extra precautions to make sure there would be no fallout or debris. Corbould says they used different, rapid-burn fuels than usual with a small amount of petrol to make sure there was no environmental runoff.
They were prepped to get the explosion in three takes, but they nailed it in one.
Yates approached the costume design in three acts. The first act is onboard with 14 “sci-asts”, aka scientist astronauts, who have to be woken up in their sleep suits. Bryant teamed with an English fashion designer — not costume designer — Craig Green to design the suits and give Covenant a distinct look.
The second act is “explorer wear” for when the team goes to explore the planet. Yates took a lot of reference from Moebius for these costumes.
The third act is spacesuits, which are a unique silver design. The suits, which were made by Michael Mooney and FBFX, have headgear that is removable and locks into place and working circuitry that operates the lights and gadgets.
The helmets were wired for sound so they could record audio and the actors could hear each other and Ridley’s direction. They also had live cameras on the back.
The spacesuits have magnetic boots that change colors according to different steps. During the research phase, the team tore apart a few of those light up shoes we all had as kids to see how they worked. The boots can’t actually hold human weight magnetically, but they do have magnetic features.
Danny McBride also spends some time in a clunkier spacesuit the team calls “Big Yellow” during the second act.
The design intentionally avoided anything “too Star Trek-y” or angular because it dates too quickly. “Ridley’s very keen on clothing that just will pass the test of time, really, and not be too shocking or in your face,” said Yates.
The costumes department doesn’t design the Engineers, that falls to the creatures department, including the design for their armor. Costumes provides the cloaks, but everything else is creatures
The approach that Ridley wanted was a more naturalistic, realistic, natural approach. Maybe bit less than the mechanical elements that were in the original one. So we’ve got our beast here. You can see. Our main Alien, you can see there’s more of a naturalistic thing
Still based on the Giger original designs. He really wanted that flavor of that kind of art nouveau, unusual, erotic sort of designs that Giger had done. So we managed to capture that.
It’s almost like we went back to the artwork more than the film itself. We went back to the original Giger artwork for inspiration for this version.
The creature effects department put together all kinds of versions of the various creatures, from fully-animatronic versions to classic man-in-suit costumes, and combinations of the two.
While the team still uses a lot of similar pulley and lever mechanisms to those used in the original alien, 3D printing and new silicone materials have offered major technological advancements in the field.
It might be surprising to hear, but compared to creatures with more nuanced expressions, the Alien creatures are relatively simple. “It’s a simple beast really. Just kind of pared down to its basics,” explained O’Sullivan. “It’s got teeth and a nasty tongue and it salivates a lot and kills people. It doesn’t express emotions, so we don’t have to worry about that.”
In addition to the Neomorphs, we will also see a creature similar to the Deacon from Prometheus, along with old favorites like Facehuggers and Chestbursters.
In the shop, we also saw a flayed waxwork-style anatomical study of an Engineer and slices of a dissected Facehugger egg that looked like they were pulled a space version of Bodies: The Exhibit.
We also saw Alien creatures that looked like they had been infected with something.
The Neomorph’s physiology is inspired by the goblin shark.
The Neomorph grows quickly, and we’ll see about five versions of the beast throughout the film, from adolescence through adulthood.
They also looked at gulper eels and jellyfish as inspiration for translucent exteriors and textures. Aquatic creatures were the biggest inspiration.
O’Sullivan says “There’s an enormous amount of creatures” in Covenant, and multiple versions of them.
Does the Decon grow or evolve into the Xenomorph? Well, the team wouldn’t tell us, but they didn’t deny it either. “Do they look related?”
Prepare yourself for a bloodbath. When asked about Ridley’s love for practical effects, Huffam said, “We’re ordering the blood in the 40-gallon drums rather than the 5-gallon drums.” O’Sullivan said, “I think I’ve used more blood on this than I did on Saving Private Ryan.”
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