The latest promos for Alien: Covenant take a found-footage inspired approach to marketing the next installment in the Alien franchise. Thirty-eight years after the original Alien thrilled moviegoers, and five years after Prometheus made moviegoers slightly confused, Ridley Scott is revisiting the Alien universe once again for Covenant. By the look of it, Covenant is a straight-forward, original-Alien-like take on survival horror, though not one that discards the additions to the Alien mythos that were introduced in its immediate predecessor, Prometheus.
In Alien: Covenant, a crew of would-be colonists discovers a previously-unknown planet that to them looks like a potential home. However, things take an unexpected turn when they discover the android David (Michael Fassbender), who we last saw at the end of Prometheus, his head no longer attached to his body, leaving with Shaw (Noomi Rapace, who is also returning) to find the Engineers' home world. But that is only the first of the colonists' problems, as they soon find themselves being attacked by new monsters.
In a pair of new promos, done found-footage-style, we get a little more of a feel for the colonists played by Katherine Waterston and Billy Crudup (via 20th Century Fox). In the clip above, Waterston's Daniels (who is not related to Ripley, despite what some fans theorized) records a message to her father expressing her hopes for the Covenant's mission, as well as her trepidations. Her concerns seem to be well-founded as the clip keeps cutting to first-person footage of things going very, very wrong on the newly-found planet. For those worried about spoilers, the action footage in the clip is incredibly vague and gives nothing away about the story.
In the second very brief clip, Billy Crudup's Oram sits bolt-upright in a chair reading his message off a piece of paper while, again, flashes of first-person footage tease the action of the film. Unlike Waterston's character, who seems very natural and accessible, Crudup's Oram (described in one synopsis as a "self-serious man of faith") seems a bit stiff and perhaps even robotic?
The new promos put the emphasis on human characters, but some other recent Alien: Covenant reveals have focused in on the aliens; including a new breed of monster, the Neomorph. The Engineers from Prometheus will also be back in the new film, though it's not yet known if they will play a direct role in menacing the would-be colonists. Michael Fassbender's David has figured heavily in 20th Century Fox's promotional efforts as well.
Whether Alien: Covenant hits big at the box office or not, Ridley Scott has let it be known that he wants to continue making Alien movies from now possibly until his breathes his last. And Scott recently indicated that future prequels, perhaps even the planned Alien: Awakening, could feature a de-aged Sigourney Weaver as young Ripley. But before we get to that, first we have to see what Scott has in store for us with Alien: Covenant.
NEXT: Alien Covenant Trailer's Skinless Engineer Explained
Source: 20th Century Fox