With the imminent arrival of Noah Hawley‘s Alien: Earth on FX and Hulu, it’s no surprise that fans of the franchise are revisiting some of the films on streaming platforms. One that has become particularly popular in the week leading up to the release of the first Alien television series is the prequel film Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott and originally released in 2017. The movie serves as a sequel to the 2012 movie Prometheus, and features all the iconic horror imagery that has become expected of the Alien franchise. Moreover, it’s one of the films that is closest to the upcoming series in the chronological timeline.
At the time of this writing, Alien: Covenant is currently number three on the list of the top ten most popular movies on HBO Max, beating out big hit releases like Ryan Coogler’s Sinners while coming in behind Death of a Unicorn and Final Destination Bloodlines. Covenant is the most recent Alien film directed by Ridley Scott, making it an even more interesting watch. Much of the controversy surrounding the film has less to do with its overall quality and more about how it chooses to address the mysteries and plot points introduced in Prometheus.
Set 11 years after the events of Prometheus, Alien: Covenant follows the story of a colonization ship (The titular Covenant) on its way to a planet that’s set to be populated with colonists and thousands of embryos in cryogenic stasis. However, a malfunction en route to their destination kills several crew members, and this leads to the decision to land on a different planet that’s sending a signal from its surface. What follows are the expected horrors of any Alien film, along with plenty of questions about creation and what it means to birth life.
‘Alien: Covenant’ is a Unique Entry in the ‘Alien’ Franchise
On the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, Alien: Covenant received a 65% rating based on 407 critic reviews, with the critic consensus stating that the film is filled with plenty of the scares that Alien fans are looking for, albeit without treading any new ground. Audiences would not be as kind to the movie, as over 50,000 audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes have given the movie a 55% Popcornmeter score. The audience’s ambivalent response probably has a lot to do with the fact that Scott’s unconventional continuation of Prometheus never feels like a full-on sequel, but it isn’t completely an Alien movie either.
Both Alien prequels have been heavily criticized for the direction they took the franchise, giving answers to long-running franchise mysteries while trying to provide detailed (and sometimes complicated) explanations of how the Xenomorphs came to be. Part of the terror from Scott’s original Alien film came from the fact that the audience — like the characters themselves — knew so little about what was stalking them. Paired with the isolation of space, it all added up to a uniquely tense film.
Alien: Covenant features the Synthetic known as David (Michael Fassbender) attempting to engineer the perfect creation, providing an interesting backstory to the Xenomorphs and their unexpected connection to humanity, given that they were created by something humans had created. It seems that the intriguing concepts introduced in this film have found a new audience on streaming and will hopefully get viewers excited for the next project in the Alien franchise, set to premiere on FX and Hulu on August 12.
Source: Flix Patrol
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