Alien: Covenant & The Predator: Movie Predictions Issue #4

 

Alien: Covenant (2017) and The Predator (2018): which will be the better sequel?

Two of my favourite franchises of all-time are Alien and Predator. Next year, we get the prequel-sequel Alien: Covenant, which is a sequel to Prometheus, but is it more of a lead-in to the original Alien than Prometheus? Given the title, this seems likely, but that’s also what we were lead to believe regarding Prometheus, so I’m not sure what to expect, once again. 

As for The Predator, it’s being called a reboot (which every new movie in an old franchise seems to be, these days) but it’s also a direct sequel to the original, so chances are it’ll acknowledge the original movie in some way (kind of like how 2010’s Predators mentioned the events of Predator but not Predator 2, perhaps) but likely pave the way for more Predator movies to follow.

The first official image from Alien: Covenant, revealing the crew badge

But speaking of that, Ridley Scott has said he wants to make like three sequels to Prometheus, after this new one. A story that could have been told in the course of a single 2 hour movie (where the aliens come from, how that ship ended up on LV 426, etc.) suddenly is a story that will take multiple movies to tell? To be fair, Prometheus was pretty distant from Alien (both in terms of focus and the year it was set in), but it did explore the Engineer characters quite a bit, which was cool, and it left us hanging by introducing a new weird sub-species of Xenomorph-looking creature (which I have a feeling won’t be revisited in Covenant). 

So which of these two new movies is going to be better? It’s early days still, and there hasn’t been too much released in the way of images or synopses (let alone trailers), but there’s already enough evidence to support my theory that The Predator has a much better shot at being awesome than Alien: Covenant, even though I want both movies to succeed and be kickass.

The first and biggest problem Alien: Covenant faces is the lack of enthusiasm for its predecessor, Prometheus. Sure, many people liked it, including myself, but the general consensus was pretty mixed, with most leaning toward general dislike or “meh” feelings about it. I get it, it wasn’t the true Alien prequel originally sold to us, it had some dumb character moments, a lot of unanswered questions, and tried to be a bit horror like Alien but also more heady sci-fi like 2001: A Spacey Odyssey but also sci-fi-adventure but… you get the point. It’s only been four years since Prometheus, so it’s still pretty fresh in people’s minds, but putting Alien in the title is a smart way to market it. Prometheus was a hard sell to start with; the word Alien practically sells itself. 

Ridley Scott alongside an Engineer on the set of Prometheus

Speaking of titles, the original title rumored for the sequel to Prometheus was Paradise, relating to ideas brought up about the Engineer’s home world, but then it changed to Alien: Paradise Lost, and now it’s Alien: Covenant. What’s next? Alien: Title Lost?

It was a big deal to see Ridley Scott not only return to the franchise he helped start back in 1979, but return to the genre of sci-fi, which he hadn’t dabbled in at that point since 1982 with Bladerunner. But since Prometheus he’s directed The Martian, another sci-fi film set on another planet, and now he’s back for more Alien, so the excitement about him returning isn’t quite the same. Plus, The Martian was his first solid hit in a very long time. Prometheus did make money and did get some critical love, but not in the huge way The Martian did, and his immediate follow-up to Prometheus, The Counsellor, was a total disaster. Scott has always been prolific but never particularly consistent. 

Predators battling in 2010's Predators

On the Predator side of things, it’s been a bit longer since we’ve seen a Predator movie, and there have only been three stand-alone Predator movies to date (I’ll get to Alien vs. Predator later) as opposed to four Alien movies, plus Prometheus. Predators (note the “S”) came out in 2010 and was met with a similar reaction to what Prometheus got: “meh”. But it seems fans were less divided on it than they were with Prometheus. In fact, generally speaking, most people seemed to enjoy Predators for what it was, but have since forgotten about it. I liked Predators quite a bit, though it failed to reinvigorate much interest by general audiences in seeing more. That was probably partly due to no one returning from Predator or Predator 2, and it feeling more separate from those films as a result. But that won’t be the case with this new one.

Shane Black, who starred in the original Predator and was the creature’s first-ever victim (plus he did some script work on it), is co-writing and directing this new Predator. It’s awesome to see someone actually involved with the original movie taking the reins once again, kind of like how Ridley Scott has, but the key difference here is he’s also writing. From everything Shane Black has said about the movie so far, it sounds like he has a clear vision about what it’s going to be about, what it’ll be like, and how it will stand on its own but also be a sequel. 

As for Prometheus, that movie originally started as a direct prequel to Alien, complete with the trademark facehuggers and eggs and xenomorphs as we know them, but as Ridley Scott continued working on it, and LOST writer Damon Lindenof was brought in to re-write the script, it morphed into what we eventually saw in Prometheus. And now, that story thread is being continued in Alien: Covenant, which is being written by Michael Green and John Logan. 

First, let me look on the bright of this: Logan worked on the screenplay for Gladiator, which Ridley Scott also directed, and was a great movie. He also wrote The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese—again, good movie—and a few other pretty well-received movies. The not-so-bright side? He also wrote 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis (not very well received), and The Time Machine (again, not well received), but it’s not him I’m as worried about. Michael Green wrote Green Lantern (yikes), some episodes of Heroes (okay?) and little else. 

To be fair, Jon Spaitz was recruited to write the first draft of Prometheus, and at that time he had no big movies to his name (many fans blame some of the dumber elements of Prometheus on Damon Lindenof’s rewrites), but Alien: Covenant’s writers certainly don’t give me any additional hope that it’ll be a well-written sequel-prequel-whatever-the-hell-it-is. 

Michael Fassbender as the android "David"

As for the cast, that’s another concern I have about Alien: Covenant. There are no big name actors set to star, which I actually like. But there’s one exception: the lone survivor (apparently) fromPrometheus, the android David, will be played once again by Michael Fassbender. David was the best character in Prometheus without a doubt, but what’s a little odd is he wasn’t the only one left alive at the end (well, I guess technically he was never “alive”, in fact he was just a severed robot head at the movie’s conclusion). Noomi Rapace’s character Elizabeth Shaw was the last survivor of the Prometheus mission, and decided to pilot one of the Engineer’s ships to wherever it is the Engineer’s come from. Which is what I thought Alien: Covenant would be about, but clearly the story has, once again, morphed. 

The synopsis explains Covenant is the name of a new ship, which is going to come across David on the Engineer home world (I think?), and David is the “sole inhabitant”. So are there no Engineers on this planet? Is it like LV 223 from Prometheus? But it’s described as being a “paradise”. Obviously more light will be shed on this as we get closer to the release date, but it is curious as to what happened to Shaw, and I wonder if Rapace’s character was simply written out of the film, or if she didn’t care to return. 

It sounds like one other cast member is set to return as well, one we haven’t seen in nearly a decade: the Xenomorph, otherwise known as “the Alien”. Fassbender and Scott have hinted in interviews that the Alien creature will make an appearance, which is interesting, given what Scott said prior to Prometheus’ release, stating the Xenomorph isn’t scary anymore and has been done too many times over, which is why he didn’t want to do a direct prequel to Alien (and thus why the script became so different). I guess he’s giving the fans what they want this time around, after the dissatisfaction with the lack of Xenos before. Will we get to see an original Alien fight an Engineer this time around? I can only hope.

The "Chestburster" scene in Alien. A similar scene occurred in Prometheus, will another happen in Alien: Covenant?

As far as the new cast members, the one that stands out to me in a bad way is Danny McBride. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s hilarious, especially when teamed with the likes of Seth Rogen and James Franco, but that’s my problem: he’s known as a comedic actor. It is possible this could be his chance to show his more dramatic side, but every time I see him on-screen, I’m sure I’ll just see him and think of him as that guy from Pineapple Express or the fictional version of himself from This is the End.

Schwarzenegger at the end of Predator. Is it the last we've seen of him?

That doesn’t mean I don’t have concerns about The Predator’s potential cast. There have been rumors that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Dutch is returning, but after seeing the pitiful Terminator Genisys, I’d be happier if he stayed away from his old franchises. Plus, here’s a bonus bit of knowledge for you: in the Predator comics, it’s explained Dutch died because of his proximity to the bomb the Predator set off at the end of the first film. And you may be saying “but who cares about the comics they aren’t canon!” Maybe not, but in the special features for Predator 2, Gary Busey explains a bit of back story about his character and the organization he works for, mentioning that Dutch died a few weeks after being rescued and interviewed about what happened. Whether they’ll keep that canon or not is TBD, but I’d be happier if they focused on moving the franchise forward instead of retconning it for the sake of featuring Arnold. 

That’s about all I can gather on these two movies for now. At this point, I’m definitely excited for both, and want both to be great, but am a lot more hesitant on Covenant for now. It’s still very early days for The Predator, but the idea of Shane Black returning to the franchise, this time as writer/director instead of as a supporting character, is really exciting, especially with the success he’s had since the original Predator. 

Alien: Covenant was originally supposed to come out in October of next year, but it was moved up to August. Moving a movie up is less common than pushing it back, and the last big movie to be moved up significantly, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, turned out great, so this should be a good thing, right? August didn’t used to be a prime summer release month, but nowadays it matters less (just look at Guardians of the Galaxy and how it dominated August in 2014). I would’ve rather had Covenant in October to correspond with Halloween, but seeing it move up to summer makes me think it’s once again less horror and more sci-fi-adventure like Prometheus was, which would make sense, but having Alien in the title makes me want it to be more Alien than Prometheus. As for The Predator, March 2018 is a bit further away, but at this point, it sounds like a good release date to me. It’s an exciting time to be an Alien and Predator fan, for sure.

But what about Alien vs. Predator, you say? I did say I was going to mention it. At this point it doesn’t seem likely the franchises will cross over again anytime soon, and I think that’s for the best. Ridley Scott is working on his Alien prequel series, which I suspect will end up being a trilogy, not the endless number of sequels he wants it to be, and The Predator will do well, but whether it will lead to more Predator movies or end up doing nothing like Predators is anyone’s guess. After Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem failed to satisfy critics and fans in 2007 and didn’t make much money, I’m sure Fox execs took Alien vs. Predator 3 off their schedules, and it’ll probably be a while before they

ever pencil it back in.

And then there’s Alien 5 which has been stuck in development hell for what seems like forever. Now that Ridley Scott is doing his Prometheus follow-up, the movie’s on hold, and having Alien in the title to the Prometheus follow-up only adds more confusion. Is it Alien 0.5 or Prometheus 2? Wait, now there’s an Alien 5? Is it a sequel to Covenant? What about Prometheus? Is Covenant before Alien? Is Alien 5 after Alien Resurrection? Wait, that isn’t canon anymore? So Alien 5 is after Alien and Aliens, but before Alien 3, but after Prometheus and Covenant? Mind = blown.

Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5 concept art seems to indicate the return of Hicks and an upgrade for Ripley

Will we ever see what Sigourney Weaver and District 9 director Neill Blomkamp have been talking about, a fifth Alien that would be more of a sequel to Aliens and ignore Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection and bring back the characters of Newt and Corporal Hicks? It sounds like a cool idea, and the concept art that Blomkamp has released online looks promising, but after Blomkamp’s last movie, Chappie, got terrible reviews and little box office return, I wonder if we’ll ever see it.