Three new images from Alien: Covenant provide a much stronger sense of the film's connection to Prometheus and a better look at its neomorph monster. Ridley Scott's franchise bridging horror-sci-fi is now only a month away from its May 19 release, so the dark and menacing marketing is sure to start ramping up, with details slowly emerging about how the new film links to both Prometheus and the original 1979 Alien.
We already know Michael Fassbender is reprising his role as psychopathic android David (as well as colder, less-dangerous robot Walter) and Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw will play a part (possibly posthumously), but the specifics of what happened to the Engineers and how that led to the creation of the original series' iconic xenomorph has been the topic of much speculation. Now, some new images from the film shed a little bit of light on these mysteries.
To mark the arrival of their new issue - which boasts an Alien cover story - in newsagents, Empire has shared three new images from Covenant: a figure unleashing Prometheus' pods of black goo onto the Engineer planet; Michael Fassbender's David with Guy Pearce's Peter Weyland; and the pale neomorph gorging on one of its victims. You can check them out below.
By far the most intriguing of the trio is the return of Guy Pearce's Weyland. This scene - which was alluded to by Scott when premiering footage of the film at SXSW 2017 - is reportedly part of the movie's opening, a flashback sequence showing David's creation. The relationship between creators and their creations was a key theme in Prometheus and appears to be even more core to Covenant, meaning this exchange will very much lay the ideological groundwork for the carnage to come.
The other images aren't light on reveals either. Scans of the print magazine seen over the weekend also showed the Engineer homeworld, which based on the first picture of the set will be seen in a sequence where the humanity-creators are wiped out by their own black goo. By who is hard to tell, although a safe bet would be David, who is being positioned as the true danger of the film. The third image of the film's new creature was seen as part of those previous scans but provides a much clearer look at the neomorph, which is almost like a genuinely scary riff on the human-xenomorph hyrbid seen in Alien: Resurrection.
Empire Magazine has been one of the biggest sources of information for Covenant, with previous cover stories most notably featuring the first look at Katherine Waterson's protagonist Daniels. This latest feature definitely offers up the most visually, and we're sure to learn even more about the film in the dependable TV spots as May 19 inches closer.
Source: Empire