Back when Prometheus was still in development space, drifting further and further from being a direct Alien prequel, director Ridley Scott notably said that of the film that “the keen fan will recognize strands of Alien‘s DNA.” Whether or not that’s true (it didn’t necessarily take the keenest fan to identify that stuff, Rid), it’s clear from this first trailer that the same can’t be said for Alien: Covenant. This isn’t just some strands of alien DNA; this is all-the-way alien. Like Tilda Swinton versus Benedict Cumberbatch.
All the old Alien tropes are here: an alien bursting out of some guy; the cold, vaguely sinister glare of an android; a hand-like alien with a vaginal palm latching onto a man’s face; a lead woman donning both giant gun and tank top; a familiar, ink-black tail creeping behind someone like the raised knife of a slasher film. I’ve never played that recent Alien: Isolation video game, but this is basically what I imagine it to be—variations on memorable moments played out by new but readily identifiable characters.
If these prequels are explaining anything to us, it’s that the Alien franchise is just a more deeply sci-fi Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Here we go again, reliving this relationship of at first intimacy, then fighting, then the woman getting away from this smothering guy. But what’s the point when know they’re just going to end up together again?
