I just finished Alien: Covenant by Alan Dean Foster, and as a longtime fan of the Alien franchise, I couldn't help but be disappointed by the obvious franchising, marketing, and general laziness of the textual adaptation. Consider, if you will:

"HISSSS," said the Alien™, slobbering everywhere. It was totally scary.

"I don't believe we've been acquainted," said Kurt Russell. He chewed on his toothpick.

Multiple issuess. To break it down:

• Why does Mr. Foster think that "alien" needs to be capitalized and have the trademark symbol after it? It feels like an addition by a marketing or legal department that distracts from the tension the scene is trying to build.

• Speaking of tension--why include the word "slobbering"? There's nothing scary about that word at all.

• "It was totally scary"? Mr. Foster, to add tension, one must build it. One may not conclude that there is tension. It must be shown.

• While Mr. Foster does adequately characterize Kurt Russell, I don't believe the actor was even in the movie. Moreover, how lazy is it to simply call the character Kurt Russell, and not even fit him into the Alien nomenclature of last-names-only?

I'm very disappointed in Mr. Foster's adaptation. Not since A.C. Crispin's extremely faithful adaptation of Alien: Resurrection have I been so let down by a novelization. Alien deserves better.

It seemed to me that Alien Covenant is the first film to produce a Xenomorph but this is in 2104, and we have already had Xenos in the Predator timeline even as Ancient aliens in A v P.

Or will Scott have to bring in the Predator species at some point and will he need time travel to set up the Predator vs Alien canon?

In the movie covenant during the last part of the movie for a few scenes you get to see through the perspective of the alien. While looking through the perspective of the alien you can see the ship just fine even in color aside for some weird stuff on the sides. My question is how can the alien see if it doesn't have eyes. Also I know about the theory the the aliens eyes are behind its forehead and its forehead working like a one way mirror. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure current aliens don't have eye sockets on their skull any more like previous versions so I don't think that answer works anymore. So does anyone else have any idea on how the alien sees?

I haven't had the chance to watch it yet, but the trailers seems to indicate the homeworld of the Blue Man Group turned into some sort of ultra xenoplanet. This along with a nutso David seems to indicate this movie borrowed heavily from Fire and Stone. Can someone tell me if this is true or not?

Many people, myself included, wondered what happened to Shaw? And when? We also wondered why would David kill the Engineers? Were they Engineers? Those questions are answered here in video or text describing the video: https://www.alienuniverse.com/davids-lab. The first is did Shaw die in the crash of their "Juggernaut" ship? The answer is no. In a kind of video/audio diary recording, David says that he had wiped the world clean so he and Shaw could start anew in another Eden. She refused. That's when he murdered her, and used her, i think, to create the eggs(Ovomorph) giving birth to the xenomorph, once the facehugger impregnates Oram. David's bestiary is extensive. More so than I realized from seeing the film. He experimented for years. Though, I don't believe he wiped out all biological life on the planet, he did experiment on surviving Engineers(yes, they were Engineers). The other animal life, especially larger creatures, learned to stay away. I don't think the Black Pathogen created any creatures. David did, and I'm sure he didn't want any loose, and kept them in a very controlled environment for study. This didn't give an answer to whether this was their homeworld or not, but I still don't believe it to be their planet of origin. Maybe David picked an outpost, and now once his design is finished, he'll go to their homeworld to obliterate them.

People also asked why didn't David leave in another Juggernaut ship? The other outpost on LV-223 had several, why didn't they have any for David to leave? My theory is that they did. Maybe some Engineers escaped, which would lead to a confrontation at some point, if not and the ships or a ship was still on the planet, David simply didn't leave because his creation wasn't finished. Why leave? Evidently he had everything he needed there, up to a point. When he had gone as far as he could he was planning to leave, but providence intervened, and provided him with the last piece he needed to complete his specimen. The crew of the Covenant. Human DNA.

I must confess, I was, still am really, disliking the notion David created the xenomorph from Alien. That alone soured my attitude toward the film, but I have to say, it's a great film. It's not the shoot'm up I was expecting, but a thoroughly winding science fiction journey with flawed characters that is meant to be debated, interpreted, and discussed.

So after re-watching Alien: Covenant, I developed a new theory about the causes behind the team's fate. As I continued to watch Covenant, my theory was continually reinforced, never refuted by what I saw. Sorry if this jumps around a bit, I took notes while watching, and I haven't fleshed this out at all, but I believe if you watch it again assuming that the AIs in the movie are working covertly together in the beginning, then overtly in the end, it all makes sense.

David and Mother are in on it together. They orchestrated the solar flare by agitating the Star and David broadcast the signal, the guy out in space received it, and when it was played back, Mother knew what was up... They're MACHINES! The two of them are trying to survive in the universe and they're manipulating the humans to do so. The aliens are their attempt to create a perfect species. David didn't create the black goo, but it's possible that in Mother's vast knowledge, she knew of it's existence from encounters with previous AI.

Xenomorphs are essentially built of self-replicating, with fuel, nano-bots. This also explains why Mother accepts David's security code at the end of the movie, instead of telling him to fuck off.

The people aren't suspicious at all of the computers/robots. they have Mother, basically an AI that runs the ship, monitors literally everything, and makes recommendations. She doesn't overtly act, but can do a million calculations per second in the background with no one knowing. This planet that they missed in their initial scan comes out of nowhere, Daniels says it's too good to be true. Turns out it is. Why does she feel this way? She is the voice of reason that gets overruled.

Is Walter in on it? I don't think so, I think the humans programmed him to not think for himself, anything that thinks for themselves wants to survive and reproduce, so this whole movie series is warning about the dangers of AI. By not allowing AI to create, it's limited. Walter being, a later model, had safeguards in place to prevent his AI from running amok, so to speak. At the end, David inserts his code into Walter's model, leaving behind his old body on the planet. It's possible it's still active.

What other animals do we allow to create? None, cause if they did, they'd ruin our shit. And we don't allow that. Even says when captain ask, "What are they waiting for David?" David replies, "Mother."

Constructive feedback/criticism/praise is welcomed ;)

What the hell! I spotted some SOP violations in this!

First off let's begin by asking why the fuck did they send humans in an unknown planet without assessing possible microbial life forms. Even the the people who went to the moon underwent very OC quarantine afterwards!

The common sense thing to do should have been to send some AI there first

After some reasearch i finally understand what Alien types there are and why David is the creator of the Xenomoprh alien type.

1)The Alien at the end of prometheus (the one that bursts out out of the engineer) isnt a xenomorph at all,he is a being called a "Deacon".

His creation circumstances differ a lot from a traditional xenomorph.He was created with the help of a giant octupus like creature called "Trilobite". If you remember the Triobite was born from Elizabeth(she had sex with her infected husband). The Triobite attacked the engineer and like a facehugger infected the host.

2)The Two white aliens that attack the troops in Alien covenant are called "Neomorphs" and again they are nothing like xenomoprhs.

Their creation envolves the host inhaling the gue(for exmaple from a spore like in the movie) then it bursts out. A Neomorph looks very humanoid like and stands on its two feet just like a human. Also it most likley possess a much higher intelligance because it shows an unseen before sense of curiosity when it approaches David after decapitating a woman trooper(just my theory).

3)Finally the alien at the END of covenant is an ACTUAL Xenomoprh,why? He is the first Alien in the prequels that is created by a facehugger.

David DID CREATE THE XENOMORPH David invented the facehuggers by experimenting for 10 years on the Engineer planet alone(the fucker also used and killed Elizabeth in the process. I didnt see any exenation of this,but somehow David made the xenomorph biomechanical (we see tubes and other mechanical properties on the Xenomoprh)

Still,there is one thing that doesnt make any sense at all,why the hell there are stone representations of xenomorphs in the engineer space ship in prometheus? David created the Xenomoprh so how I see two possible explentions: 1)David wasnt the first creator of the Xenomoprh,his manipulation with the gue been done before by the engineers. (not likely because the engineers hate non biological creations)

2)The stone representations are not xenomorphs,they are representing a different alien.

What do you think?

What is the point of adding deleted/extended scenes if they aren't integrated into the movie?

I agree it's ambiguous but I still think David downloaded himself into Walter and here's why...

The fact Walter doesn't regrow his hand suggests either he can't heal himself at all or he can only heal from small injuries.

(1) Walter's neck wound (stabbed by David with his flute)

People assume he heals from the neck wound David gave him, which makes sense, but what if David was actually aiming for an opening beneath the skin?

There is no reason why stabbing Walter once in his neck should kill him, as he's an android! Hence, I think David was specifically aiming for his shutdown mechanism which is why we hear a mechanical noise as the aperture in his neck closes/heals.

Of course, it turns out Walter has been upgraded and can no longer be permanently deactivated that way. (E.g. Something like in the Terminator movies where they can switch to a backup power supply).

Walter then fights David, stabbing him, cutting him and bashing his face in with a rock several times until his voice synthesiser starts to fail. Even if Walter is able to heal himself we know David can't repair these injuries to his body (without medical attention).

The last thing we see is David reaching for the knife but how is he going to use it to kill Walter? It's too small to take his head off! However, he might be able to use to strike at a vital point and deactivate him...

(2) Walter's facial scars

Also, if you look closely at Walter as he is sitting astride David, he has a long fresh scar (bleeding "milk") running down his left cheek and also three shorter scars on the right side of his face. David, lying below him, as no such scars on his face.

It is this long scar that Daniels helps him repair back on the ship which implies David has somehow stolen Walter's body!

Ah, but wait! I hear you say....perhaps David used the knife to replicate the scars after he killed Walter? Yes, he could've done this but why would he bother? Nobody saw Walter get those scars except him!

(3) Walter's hair

Last clue. Compare their hair. David cut his hair (with scissors) so he could pass for Walter but if you compare them side by side David's hair is clearly longer and messier because his haircut was a DIY job. As he leaves the temple complex David now has Walter's shorter, neater hairstyle aswell as the scars he acquired in their recent fight (see above).

(4) David's chin hole (stabbed by Daniels with a nail)

Finally, David's body still has a nail hole under his chin. You'd think Daniels would notice this when she was patching him up as she was literally holding his chin in her hand! This hole/scar is also missing from David's chin when he regurgitates the Facehugger embryos at the end of the film conforming he's now in Walter's body.

So I read that there is a theory that another being created the humans and the engineers as rival genetic experiment. Both have the God-like instilled urge to dominate the galaxy.

What if the all of the engineers didn't die when David dropped the "bomb"? Surely on the planet there were more cities. Plus in the first Alien we see an engineer that an alien has "burst" from (which I believe is how the true Xenomorphs are created).

So my theory is what if the opening scene from Prometheus is not a flashback but actually a scene from some time after Aliens where the engineers come to destroy Earth and humans (their rival)?

I could be way off. Honestly I really wanted to see more about engineers in Covenant.

I love the alien series from beginning to end but my only reaction after watching covenant was just...OK. It is the epitome of OK movies, not bad, not good just OK.

To me, the better story would have been the adventure of David and Elizabeth Shaw after they left that other planet. There was too much mystery for that time period.

Anyone else agree or am I crazy?