4 things we learned from the Alien: Covenant trailer

The official trailer for ‘Alien: Covenant’ is here…

In space, no one can hear you scream. At least, that’s what they say. But judging from the crew of the Covenant colonisation vessel, that’s not entirely true. Katherine Waterston stars as ‘Daniels’ in the next instalment from the ‘Alien’ franchise. And judging from this first trailer, their colonisation mission doesn’t exactly go to plan… even if it has all the hallmarks of the earlier ‘Alien’ movies.

There’s androids, spaceships and even a new take on the infamous xenomorph.

But what does it tell us about Ridley Scott’s upcoming ‘Alien’ sequel?

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Actually, far more than you might realise.

The Covenant crew aren’t exactly combat ready

It wouldn’t be an ‘Alien’ movie without a crew full of expendable humans, ready to be dispatched by the eponymous alien critters. But this time, they’re not marines, or even space freighter pilots. No, this time they’re human colonists. And they don’t exactly look the most capable of fighters.

Manned by five or six human couples, the Covenant mission is presumably designed for speedy colonisation. That means that James Franco, Billy Crudup and the rest of their loved-up crew just don’t have the training of anyone else who has come up against the xenomorphs. And it doesn’t take a genius to work out why that’s a bad idea…

Of course, things quickly go sideways and they’ll be forced to think on their feet. But can the crew of the Covenant really fight back against the most-feared aliens in sci-fi history?

The new colony is… the Engineers’ homeworld?

Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’ promised to expand the mythos of the ‘Alien’ franchise by giving us a lot more background on the Space Jockey – the dead alien encountered in the original ‘Alien’ movie. It turns out that his race – the Engineers – are responsible for creating humanity… but they don’t exactly like us much.

Long story short, the crew of the Prometheus encounters an Engineer in the flesh, and after a bit of a tussle, Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace) manages to make it off the doomed moon LV-223 in one of the Engineers’ spaceships.

And that’s the ship we see crashed in the ‘Alien: Covenant’ trailer.

Of course, in ‘Prometheus’ we know that Shaw was heading for the Engineers’ homeworld in order to find some answers. But is this the place? If it is, it looks as though she didn’t exactly find what she was looking for… and the planet looks all but dead.

Sure, there’s a bumper crop of wheat – but no animals, no birds, nothing.

Nothing, except for those ominous, black spore pods.

Michael Fassbender’s David has a twin

It’s no secret that Michael Fassbender is back in ‘Alien: Covenant’. But while he appeared in ‘Prometheus’ as the evil android David, it looks as though he’s playing a much more pleasant android this time around. The new android, Walter, is again, part of the spaceship’s crew. But this time, he seems to be far more helpful. At least, he’s not trying to kill the rest of his travel companions by spiking their drinks with alien goo.

Yet.

Of course, we’ve heard that the original David will be reappearing in ‘Alien: Covenant’ with Michael Fassbender in dual roles. Could that be him in the hooded garb, holding a gun? The last we saw him, David was just a decapitated, robot head being taken away in the Engineers’ ship thanks to Dr Shaw.

But did she foolishly give him a body? Daniels is seen stumbling across Shaw’s dogtags, presumably while exploring the downed spaceship… so it probably wasn’t a good idea if she did.

The new Xenomorphs look absolutely horrific

Obviously, the xenomorphs are back – it wouldn’t be an ‘Alien’ film without the alien. But after a bit of cross-species mayhem back in ‘Prometheus’, it looks as though these fellas are a far cry from the Alien we know and fear. Even if the full range of aliens – from eggs, to face huggers, to full-blown nightmarish xenomorphs – are on display in the trailer.

But are there two different full-grown aliens?

The first is the crawling monstrosity seen chasing down Danny McBride’s Tennessee. We’ve all seen the images – the alien smashing its way into the Covenant cockpit while its pilot can do nothing but whimper. It’s black carapace and drooling, gnashing face provides an obvious call back to aliens past. But it’s clearly different, too – I mean, this thing has eyes, right?

But it’s not the only alien we see.

There’s also a rather pale creature, seen attacking one of the Covenant crew members, who resembles the more cone-headed design of the ‘Prometheus’ xenomorph. Could this be the earlier evolutionary stage of the same alien attacking Tennessee, or is it a different species entirely? It’s possible that the xenomorphs’ features change depending on their host… and this could hint that the Engineers are still in the mix, somewhere.

But we’ll have to wait and see.

‘Alien: Covenant’ stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, James Franco, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Callie Hernandez, Carmen Ejogo, Guy Pearce and Noomi Rapace.

Ridley Scott directs, based on a script by John Logan, Jack Paglen, Michael Green , and Dante Harper.

‘Alien: Covenant’ heads to cinemas on 19 May 2017.

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