Project Geekology
Embark on an epic journey with Anthony and Dakota as they delve into the vast realms of geek culture, from cherished classics to cutting-edge creations. Join us for an exhilarating adventure of exploration and nostalgia, as we unearth hidden gems and reminisce about the moments that have shaped us. Welcome to the ultimate celebration of all things geeky!
Project Geekology
Alien: Covenant (2017)
A familiar song whispers across space, a colony ship veers off plan, and an android decides he wasn’t built to serve—he was built to create. Our conversation dives straight into Alien: Covenant’s sharpest hooks: why the crew gambles 2,000 sleeping lives on a “better” world, how the black pathogen evolves from mystery to method, and why David’s transformation is the franchise’s most unsettling idea since the chestburster. We keep it human, too—ownership of a choice that can’t be undone and the quiet ways nostalgia becomes a trap.
We compare David and Walter as a living argument about purpose: obedience versus authorship, stability versus ambition, care versus control. From that first sterile room to the flute duet and the mirrored stare-downs, the film reframes Prometheus with dread and clarity. You’ll hear how the neomorphs raise the stakes on body horror, why the lander med-bay sequence works so well, and what Covenant’s rules imply about spores, plants, and engineered evolution. We also pull in deep-lore threads from the novelizations—Engineers, ancient eggs, and antediluvian hints that Earth itself weathered a cataclysm before the stars called us outward—plus the corporate gravity of Weyland-Yutani shaping colonization.
If you’re ranking the Alien films, this one may shift your list. It feels like a bridge and a blade: Alien’s atmosphere, Aliens’ urgency, Prometheus’s scope, converging on the question that lingers long after the credits—what happens when a creator decides the most humane act is to perfect the organism, no matter the cost? Join us, weigh in on David vs. Walter, and tell us where Covenant lands on your list. If you enjoy these deep dives, tap follow, share the show with a fellow sci-fi fan, and drop a review so more listeners can find us.
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Alien (1979) Explained | Timeline, Canon, and Lore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9nmyTTlMvo
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Welcome back to Project Geekology. This is episode 136, and today we are continuing our marathon throughout the Alien franchise. We've already covered Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, or Alien Cubed as Anthony likes to say, Alien Resurrection. We did Prometheus last week, and now this week we are covering Alien Covenant. It's the third in the franchise directed by Ridley Scott, the original director of Alien. And yeah, I think we get a lot of answers in this one. A lot more than Ridley Scott likes to give us in his movies, I'll be honest. And some of that I really like, some of that I kind of am. I don't know. I don't know if I like it or not, but uh we will get into it. I know at least one of our co-hosts today is extremely happy with this entry into the Alien franchise. But my name is Dakota. I'm joined as always with Anthony.
SPEAKER_01:And joining us as always is Rich.
SPEAKER_02:Very excited, very excited to be here with you guys. I mean, there is one amongst us is David. That person chose violence before the podcast began. I would just like you to share that Anthony decided that he thought that he said, you know, Rich, well, you have a lot more free time since there's no baseball to watch. And uh that cut deep. That cut deep. Loyal view.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, you could always watch the Yankees if you'd like.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, and I'm I'm sure he is watching it currently right now. I'm sure there's a screen in his in his room where the game is is playing.
SPEAKER_02:We never double screen a podcast, you guys.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, of course not.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like the yeah, you haven't done that one before.
SPEAKER_02:But uh, I actually am excited to I am excited to talk about this. I feel like it was a uh I would call this a Tour de Force if I was writing a one-line review for this movie.
SPEAKER_00:I like that. I don't think Tour de Force has ever been used on this podcast in 136 episodes. I think that's a first. And you know what? I'm here for it. It definitely was a Tour de Force. There's a lot to love in this movie, and I'm particularly excited about discussing it because this was a first for me. This is the only alien film that I had never seen before. So outside of the Alien Earth TV series, which finished airing a couple weeks back, which we will be covering in uh I think two weeks' time, yeah, it's the only like completely fresh thing for me. Uh Rich, you look confused. What's up?
SPEAKER_01:Future Anthony here, and I just wanted to let you know that the actual discussion of Alien Covenant starts around 10 minutes and 35 seconds.
SPEAKER_02:You said two weeks' time. So from everything I know about this movie, right, Ridley Scott said he's making a trilogy, and then you said we're watching a movie that's between Alien and Aliens, right? Romulus?
SPEAKER_00:Romulus is next, yes. It's the it's the next film. Ridley Scott has not finished this trilogy yet, so I apologize. You guys, you guys are killing me over here.
SPEAKER_02:Alright, alright. Oh my goodness. Oh, alright. I don't know. I hope this doesn't change the tenor of the pot. I am a little bit I don't know what to do with myself right now because I felt like I got everything I wanted, and I was so excited. I'm I'm so oh no, there's more questions.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yes, there's a lot of open ends with this movie. A lot of open ends, some pretty massive ones, colony-sized questions that need answering that have yet to be answered in canon. But before we get into any of that, let's jump into what we've been up to this past week. Rich, now the baseball's done, at least for you. Uh what's what's going on?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I've been you know, I have I I have been uh hate watching a little bit, so uh I won't lie. Like I like to watch and then I actually enjoy when the games are very close. And that's not because it's more entertaining, but I just like to see the team that I'm rooting for to lose get closer to victory and then lose the game eventually. So I've been enjoying that. I am uh very excited about my uh new addition to my home theater system. I am merely, as we speak now, less than 24 hours away from upgrading from a 55 inch to a 75 inch. I unfortunately got a black column of LED darkness. And I wouldn't say like a line, I'm not exaggerating. It's about a um on my 55-inch screen, it probably takes up somewhere between six to eight inches, and it just goes up and down. So that kind of crapped out, so I I got this new guy in. I'm pretty excited. I can't wait to play Red Dead and watch some horses poop and uh in glorious 75-inch 4K quality. Uh D.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Ultra HD. Wow. Alright, that's that is actually very exciting. Uh Anthony, what have you been up to?
SPEAKER_01:Nothing too much. Uh just preparing for I have a trip that I'm going on in uh in a couple weeks, so I'm kind of preparing for that, and and so I'm pretty excited for that. Yeah, so I'll be uh I'll be out of town for two weeks, so during that period of time, we may or may not get a rich Dakota episode. You know, we'll see. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00:We might be extremely lazy, but uh we will we'll see what we can do.
SPEAKER_01:Look, if Rich and I can do it, you and Rich could do it. I don't know him.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know him like that. No, no, it's okay. Yeah, we'll figure something.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, not not nothing too much. How about you, Dakota?
SPEAKER_00:I actually had a really good week of binging content that's very applicable to this particular podcast. I received a job within my current, like the the workplace that I'm at, I received a uh a job to do that requires me to basically be alone for hours on end, just basically putting in outlets and switches and stuff room by room by room. Uh so I have a lot of time to just listen to audiobooks, and that's exactly what I did this week. I think I I don't know if it's a record number of audiobooks that I've listened to this week since since you heard from me last. Because at the end of last week's podcast, I think I mentioned that I was gonna start reading the Covenant prequel novel. I did that. I listened to the Covenant Prequel novel. Then I listened to the Alien 3 novelization, which was really good. Uh it actually made the movie better. And then I did something really kind of fascinating for me. I listened to the novelization for Alien Covenant, the movie that we're covering today, prior to ever having seen the movie. So I had never seen this movie, and I I I finished the novelization this morning, and just before we recorded this podcast, I finished the actual movie itself. So that was a really interesting dynamic change for me. And then I had a little extra time, so there's an audio drama of the original script for Alien 3. It's a very, very different movie. Ripley's barely even in it. It's mostly about Hicks and Bishop and Newt surviving in like a political war landscape sort of thing, and it's like it's such a crazy, like random movie that probably would have been a little bit better than the Alien 3 that we got, but alas, it never happened. So they brought back some of the original actors to play those roles. Like the actor for Bishop and Hicks were the same, and that was really cool. So I listened to basically four books the Alien Covenant Origins, which is a prequel novel, the Alien Covenant novelization, the Alien Three novelization, and the Alien Three Audio drama, but like it's an alternate universe, Alien 3. So, yeah, I had a great time, and I'm like so prepared for this episode.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, man, you did uh you did your homework. No, no, you you did extra credit, bro.
SPEAKER_00:I did a lot of extra credit. No, I'm not even not even joking. Like I I was full tilt with that.
SPEAKER_02:It sounds like you might need to um make a video that answers the questions that Mr. Scott left us because of your intense research.
SPEAKER_00:I think if you guys have any questions for me, I can answer them on the podcast, and I'll do my best to answer them based on what the novels or novelizations what I was able to glean from it, basically. And there is a lot different from the novelization to the film. The the novelization is oddly more spiritual, I guess. You know, the name Covenant, it's it's uh it in itself like a promise between God and man. That's what a covenant is. So the novelization was a lot more in that vein. There's a lot of little illusions throughout the book that I thought were really, really just fascinating that they kind of either didn't touch on in the movie or they just got rid of that scene and you know that it was a deleted scene or something. So that's one of the portions of the novelization that I think was better. But overall, I really liked the movie. It was it was cool. It was fun because I was watching the movie, and you know, my wife's sitting next to me. I'm like, oh, this is this is a scary scene, by the way. There's gonna be a jump scare. Oh, yeah. Well, oh look at this. This is really cool. There's gonna be an alien ship here. Oh, yeah. So I had that foreknowledge, and I thought that was pretty cool. So I don't know if I would do it again. I would read a novelization before watching a movie again. So that's that's one question that you don't have to ask me because I already know the answer.
SPEAKER_01:Do they have it for probably not, right? They haven't done anything for Alien Earth.
SPEAKER_00:They don't have a there's no novelization for Alien Earth. They usually don't do it for TV shows. I don't think I've seen it other than like the original like Doctor Who episodes and the original Star Trek series. That that's but it's like all like stuff from the 60s and 70s. Those are the only novelizations I've seen of a TV show. But there's no novelization for Prometheus or Romulus. So as of right now, I've listened to all of the novelizations except for Alien Resurrection. So that's it. That's where I'm at right now, guys. Next week I will have listened to that most likely.
SPEAKER_02:You're doing uh doing the Lord's work, friend. We need it, we need answers because obviously uh Ridley Scott doesn't want to provide them, so I don't know what we're gonna do. Anthony, you just Anthony just flashed out of frame into his background, and I got so scared. I was like, Where'd he go? I was like, oh no, xenomorph got him. Xenomorph took him down.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, Daniel's got him. Yeah, let's let's jump into our actual discussion of Alien Covenant. Let's start with Anthony, because you've seen this before. You're the only one of us who have seen this before. How did this compare to how you remembered it, or did you remember it at all at this point? What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_01:So the last time I saw this movie was back in 2017. I actually saw it in theaters, and that was the last time I saw it. And that wasn't because I didn't like it, but you know, I I've never I've never really like had the urge to go back and watch it. And you know, there was a lot of stuff that you know, because Prometheus came out like five years prior, you know. There's a lot that you can forget from that too. So there were, you know, I I mean I recognized David and Walter. I was like, oh, okay, you know, I remember the Android from Prometheus, but other than that, this time around it felt like a fresh view, but it felt a lot different because I had just watched Prometheus, so it was like, oh wow, there's a lot that is explained, especially with the whole black goo stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's definitely a lot more that we know about the pathogen that the engineers were creating in the Prometheus movie. Rich, let's turn it back over to you. Um Anthony mentioned that this movie retroactively answers and probably makes better some of the uh story cues in Prometheus. Do you agree with that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, I thought Prometheus was a hot pile of stinking poo before I watched this movie. I mean, you guys heard me say that I liked Resurrection. I ranked it higher than I did uh, you know. I mean, I have before I watched this movie, Prometheus was like 6'7 on my list of Marvel movies, and uh this changes the order. I know I've complained about the way things get rolled out in format, but man, this would have been a great series. I would have been far less irritated watching this as a 40-minute or something. I don't know how you chop it up, but the fact that there's a five-year gap here, I just feel like you get left at the end of Prometheus and you're like feeling empty. Uh you're feeling you're searching for answers, and then this one gives them to you all. So it's a very satisfying you know, I thought it was a s satisfying second installment of this story, but you know, here we are, sir.
SPEAKER_00:Now I've I've stayed relatively uh I've stayed relatively spoiler-free when it comes to the Prometheus and Alien Covenant side of this universe outside of what I'm currently studying. You mentioned that Ridley Scott claimed that there this was intended to be a trilogy. I didn't I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I so once you guys, you know, you guys don't allow me to go forward, so I have to I just do like deep dives into like articles and everything I can about the current movie. So I I did some reading on Covenant, and I heard that you know originally Scott's idea was to make this a trilogy because he wanted to kind of take back the franchise, he didn't want to let anybody else kind of jump in and mess things up.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, and that kind of actually ties into something that I I feel like I remember him saying. Basically, when the people who created Romulus made Romulus, he told them not to use the characters like David and everything from his Prometheus and Covenant movies because he wasn't I don't know if he wasn't sure if he had plans for those characters or what, but he just he wanted them to steer clear of specifically that. So I guess that makes sense. And yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you don't want some chinless wonder just walking in and grabbing your movie franchise and messing it up. I guess not.
SPEAKER_00:What what is chinless wonder? I don't know what is what are you coming up with that for?
SPEAKER_02:I'm leaving it there. I'm leaving it there. We can move on. So Anthony, what did you uh what did you think?
SPEAKER_01:I I really do think that you are kinda I mean, and you know, it's it's an opinion, but I really do think that you're coming down like on Prometheus like way too hard just because of the lack of an actual the lack of I I guess like a full form xenomorph, but you know, it's like man, you gotta let the man cook, you know, like I mean you didn't get a xenomorph for most of the original movie until like the end, you know? And I mean essentially we kind of got the same with Prometheus, and then at the end of Prometheus, you get that kind of proto-xenomorph, and then you start seeing that in Covenant, the the same kind of xenomorphs that were coming out of these people from that like black goo that that kind of settled in as like spores. And no, no, I I thought that like so yeah, like I said, coming off the fresh watch, it definitely answers a lot with Prometheus, and you know, like I said, I understand their the gripes, but there's no way that I could put resurrection above. The story is just terrible. At least Prometheus has a good story. Your gripe is just a lack of uh xenomorph, really.
SPEAKER_02:And Riley, I mean that there was a couple of things. I well, I mean, I understand Riley's not there because it's a prequel, but I don't know. I I guess I just I feel like the movies had set a standard for me, and I was just a little bit maybe it's like it was too Covenant's the movie that I feel like I wanted Prometheus to be.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's what it is. I think I I think it's like it went back further than I expected it to in this development, you know, like so it's it's the prequel to the prequel.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Man, I'll tell you what, you would absolutely not like the prequel novel to Alien Covenant, by the way. Just for those of you listening, I didn't think it was a bad novel. Alan Dean Foster, which is probably the greatest novelization writer of all time. He did the Star Wars books, he did Star Trek, he did Alien, he did The Thing. He's done so many great novelizations over the course of 40 years or so. But uh yeah, he wrote this original novel prequel to the novelization that he ended up writing. And there's no aliens in it. Like not even there's not even like Black Ooh, there's there's nothing. It it all takes place on Earth, and it's a it's entirely like a a corporate battle about like, you know, like there's a there's a cult called the Earth Savers, I think that's what they're called, that are trying to stop the Covenant mission from going forward. And the Weyland Utani company, after like the re recent merger, is trying to figure out like who these random people are that are just like you know, kamikazeing their lives to like stop this colony ship from going out into space. And basically, like the the cult leader, he is having visions, he is having nightmares, and it's it's really cool having now watched Covenant and read the Covenant novelization. And if you go back to that like prequel novel, some of the visions that he has basically are like these like monstrous abominations like chests exploding, um, you know, it's and you think that he's having visions of the future, but I think he's actually having visions of what's happening in real time with David on this unknown planet to the engineer population, you know, like the mayhem that occurs when he releases the pathogen onto the planet. I think those are the visions that this random guy on Earth is seeing. He's just like, no, we can't go out there. And his motto is OTBD, out there be demons. And it's such a like a strange because it's mostly corporate, you know, it's mostly like corporate espionage mixed in with this cult that's trying to stop the covenant from happening. And yeah, you'd never know that from the movie or even the novelization, because they're two very separate entities. But yeah, so you wouldn't have liked it, I don't think, because there's there's no actual aliens in it.
SPEAKER_02:I just want aliens and I want juice, and that's what I want from my aliens franchise. But this this movie gave me the juice, it gave me two magnetos, it gave me Kenny Kenny Kenny, you get Kenny Powers? Danny McBride? What a surprise! Oh, Billy Crutup, I just have like a personal I I love that guy, that actor. He was in this novel uh the movie of the novel Jesus' Son by Dennis Johnson. He's one of my favorite authors, so I I absolutely like just love that actor. So I was really happy when we got into this. I was happy with the cast. I thought it was I was surprised. I mean, Danny, like I I see Danny McBride and I just get super excited because he's always kind of Danny McBride. Like, even though he's not as Danny McBride as he can be, I'll watch I've watched every like I mean Righteous Gemstones, all those shows like on HBO, even if they're only two seasons and they go, I love it. So I you can you can you can check off another uh Danny McBride title from your they just keep bringing in like stars Charlie's Theron, like in the last one, Idris Alba, like Wong. Yo, Anthony, your boy, your boy's in this one.
SPEAKER_00:Who's it?
SPEAKER_01:James Franco for Oh oh you know, you know what's funny is that like you know, I I was thinking the same thing. I was like, man, like it seems like everybody has been in an alien movie, and uh yeah, dude, like they have James Franco in there for like literally seconds.
SPEAKER_00:Wait, did I where did I miss that? He was the husband of Daniels. Oh yeah, alright. His name is Jacob. He was the original ship captain for the Covenant.
SPEAKER_01:He died horrendously. Like the man was he he burned up. Like he got caught fire in that pod.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they couldn't open the pod, and bad time. It was a bad time, Bob. So, uh, what are your thoughts on the the whole setup for this one? I I think is a really interesting setup. Basically, these colonists are leaving Earth. They are going to potentially be the first colonists on a new world, basically. They're going to Oregai 6, and they there's 2,000 of them, but they are diverted when they hear a potential distress call, or it's not really a distress call, but it it kind of is with uh Take Me Home Country Road. How do you guys feel about the uh the diversion? Would you have been diverted? You know, like would you have rather spent another seven years in cryosleep, or would you have been like a couple weeks? That's kind of nice for a planet that's near Earth quality.
SPEAKER_02:I I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest here. I mean, like I get paranoid about uh going to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to see a Jets game. I really like John Denver, so that's that's difficult, right? I love that song. It gives me a lot of fallout 76 vibes. I think that's in that game. It just makes me feel at home, but that's terrible. I can't believe I said that. I I really it's a song that you know I I I enjoy, but man, I just felt like that was such a dumb decision. Like, I don't understand. Just because you heard John Denver, like I don't care if it's Bon Jovi, man. Like, I'm not I'm not getting I'm not stopping, you know. Like I love Bon Jovi, but I'm not I'm going to the place that I know is singing.
SPEAKER_00:Now what if it was actually Bon Jovi? Like what if Bon Jovi was singing that from that planet? Like, would you be like, we gotta get him?
SPEAKER_02:Oh well, okay. Now you've that you've changed the complete like if I think it's a recording, I'm not going. But if I think it's the live if he's like, he's like, hey man, it's me, John Bon Jovi. I just wanted you to know, you know, like I wanted you to come get me before I'm dead or alive, you know, like whatever. Like, if it was a personalized message almost, I would go. Like I'm alive now.
SPEAKER_00:You know, he's saying the star date or whatever, then I show up, but I don't think you do that if you just now for all intents and purposes, this was the better choice to Orige 6. Orige 6 they were able to find from Earth, but for whatever reason, their position in space allowed them to see and discover this random planetoid that was capable of life, and not only was it capable of life, the scans proved that it was closer to Earth's atmosphere than the planet that they were originally going to. So it's like, do we, you know, cut seven years off of our trip and potentially have a better time? Or what's do either of you know the answer to this question?
SPEAKER_02:So probably before they, you know. We're talking about the decision, but we know that eventually we know that, right? The organics are destroyed essentially by this virulent weapon. Why the so it doesn't affect plant life though? It's it's did I I feel like maybe I missed that line. Like, why is wheat growing, for example, uh when they land?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't affect plant life, it only affects um basically. I mean, I think he actually even uses the term So is that back in the menu?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he they it said that um it only affects non-botanical life. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's correct, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, yeah, I'm with Dakota. I also understand why they decided to like kind of pull off because there's not supposed to be anybody out there, you know? And it's like, oh, okay, what's going on? We've got this incoming transmission from a planet that is way better than the planet that we're going to. Like, you know, I it just seems yeah, it seems it was the right call.
SPEAKER_00:But it was too good to be true.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, it was a trap, you know. But was there David you gotta pull the the good old trap card on him?
SPEAKER_02:But Anthony, did I I just don't why do you guys say that it's a better choice? I mean, unless Daniel's wife, I can't remember her name for some reason. I'm gonna call her Riley. Riley, she argues that her name is Daniel. Daniels argues that they've already vetted the place that they were going to, no? Like they have because here's my thing. If there's 12, 14, 20, 50 crew members and they agree to this, okay, right? But they're making the decision for what amounts to be a 2,000 life forms, right? Like that's it's no you're not just you're not on a road trip and you're just stopping off because you know the Vince Lombardi has Popeyes. You don't know what that place has, but you know according to the movie, your crew or your people have done enough research that this is the place that they decided that they're gonna cryogenically freeze all these people and send them there to start a new colony. Like, there's gotta be, to my assumption, because I didn't, you know, and that's nothing mentioned in the movie. Don't we need to have it vetted?
SPEAKER_00:So they as far as planet to planet, there's two ways to answer that question. Do they need company permission to divert their trip? I have no idea. Based on what we see and the fact that Mother doesn't stop them, the ultimate mission was just to find another world to live on. So I I think that it might have even saved Whalen Utani money because it's a lot closer to Earth. So if they needed to bring more stuff back and forth from the colony, it would have been easier. So I don't think it would have been an issue with the company. As far as like planet to planet, they didn't ever from Earth notice this new planet on their scans, even though it's much closer to Earth than them. They found Orige 6, which was a habitable planet, but only after they you know experienced that electrical storm in space, were they able to get that radio frequency from Elizabeth Shaw at this unnamed planet. And then they realized, oh wait, this planet actually is more habitable than the planet that we're going to. So yeah, it's one of those, like, but yeah, so hopefully that answers your question a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that that that's what I kind of gathered at. It was really just like trying to find a new place to live, and that just happened to be something that they picked up, you know, and it's like, well, if you found something better along the way, then you know what, that's awesome. And yeah, for the for the most part, aside from like all the crazy stuff and the the black goo, I mean they had they had vegetation. There were there was wheat there, you know, they could obviously grow what they needed there. The only thing that wasn't there was any like life outside of the plants.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So there's a really interesting through line, and I'm so after I finished reading the novelization for Alien Covenant, I decided I was gonna read or listen to this like short audio drama of this unused script for Alien 3. It basically was the original script for Alien 3. I just wanted to get it out of the way. It was a quick, uh, it was like a two-hour audio drama. It was easy, I could do it in a day, basically. So I listened to that and I found some extremely close parallels between that audio drama that was never used for Alien 3 versus what we actually see in Prometheus and Covenant. So the spores that we see that like, you know, it's like a black dust that's kicked up, the black goo, the white alien hybrids, those all existed in this script from 1988 that was never used. So it's it's it was crazy because I'm just like, wait a minute, this is exactly what's happening in this movie. So they reused abandoned lore, and that is so cool to me. I I I love when you know franchises do stuff like that. But I at first, when I was listening to this novelization, I was just like, ooh, this is too much. They're changing the way that you know people get impregnated with these things, and now it's it's like the worst pathogen of all time. Like it takes on and mutates it in every form imaginable, and it's it's actually terrifying because it literally killed all life on that planet. So yeah, I felt I I thought that was a weird thing at first, but it kind of grew on me as the story continued. And after I watched the movie, I'm down with it. I'm down with the sickness.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. Well, and then at some point in the film you do see that there are the eggs for the the face huggers.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's actually a really there's clearly a deleted scene in this movie that they did not do. I'm gonna pull up my I wrote some notes on this specifically. So when when uh David is showing Aurum, the captain, like the makeship captain, when he's showing Orim around like his bestiary, he starts pulling off like the cover of a facehugger egg, like an original face hugger egg. In the novelization, you actually see him do that in the movie, but they cut that scene out for whatever reason. But he explains to Orim in the novelization, you know, like there's a dead facehugger in there, and he goes, in case you were wondering, I had nothing to do with it. It lies as I found it, a supreme example of the engineer's skill, and also, I suppose, of their hubris. And basically, like he explains that the original facehugger is thousands of years old. So he didn't create the facehugger, he didn't create the alien, the xenomorph as we know it, but he tried to replicate it. And those experiments in the basement were his own, you know, like so. This is a new-ish type of xenomorph that's very close to the xenomorph that we know. So that that's another question that the film didn't answer that the novelization did, and I think that that's actually a very important distinction because the film, if you just watch the films, it seems like David created the xenomorphs, but that's not actually what the original scripts were trying to get across, which the novelization is based off of the scripts, basically. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What do you guys think about like how radicalized David became? Like he just became crazy.
SPEAKER_02:I'm I'm so glad you said that because as Dakota was speaking, I did have a thought, but I didn't want to interrupt his process. Yeah. Because I wanted to ask you guys if you're Star Trek the Next Generation guys.
SPEAKER_00:Are are you you're asking if we're Star Trek the Next Generation guys? I am Anthony.
SPEAKER_02:Are you uh familiar with the uh the amazing series?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I I know of it, but I I like I don't watch Star Trek like that. Not because like I hate Star Trek, it's just I've not gone down that rabbit hole.
SPEAKER_02:Do you it's that there's this character, uh Lieutenant Commander Data, and he's a uh android, kind of milky skin.
SPEAKER_01:So uh, you know, kind of Yeah, yeah, I know I I know what Data looks like. He's the guy that did that was it mystery TV show, I forgot what it was called. But I know exactly what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02:He's uh android and uh the other kind of he's also created uh there's a lore a guy named or his kind of brother Lore was created by the same guy.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, it kind of did have a lore data.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and they they they just very much lore was basically data, but he had a chip that allowed him to be more emotional and thus kind of more human, but he And Lore was Lore was the original, right? I believe so, right? He's the original that like was kind of faulty, so that the creator had to kind of dial back this emotion chip, and that you know, ironically, what made him you know, the emotion chip made the android like a broken human, you know, essentially. And I think that's what we see, we kind of see here is like that David is that first creation. And I I can't and look, I know that we can kind of like you know, there's tropes and stuff, but man, it's it this is definitely way after Next Generation came out, you know, and you have these mirror images of each other, but one has emotion and one doesn't. And the one that doesn't is actually more human than the one that does.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah, no, it's a really fascinating parallel, and it's it is tropey, but I do think that there was probably some influence, even if it was subconscious, you know, to David and Walter. What I thought was interesting was that this movie started with David's creation. Instead of showing us Walter's creation, which they could have easily done, they showed us how David began and like how he was built to serve. But later, David decided, no, I wasn't built to serve, I was built to create. And it goes into a heavy, heavy biblical parallel to the creator, God, and the the first fallen angel, Satan, the devil, Lucifer, whatever you want to call him, the tempter. And uh the whole you know, story there is that uh the the devil did not want to serve. He wanted to either be praised, he wanted to help in creation, he wanted something that he wasn't getting, so he started tempting, he started changing the way that humans interacted with God. And that's kind of the role that David takes on in this movie, where he is now playing God, you know, like he in the novelization he actually uses the term now I play God or something like that. So that was a really uh and creation is a big part of this movie, right? Like the even the idea of like creating a tune is oh, by the way, the the tune that he was playing for Elizabeth Shaw, did you notice that that was the the theme song from Prometheus? Oh, nice. Yeah, it was a cool little like the score.
SPEAKER_02:I I'm sorry I'm referencing this series again, but I just it gave me a lot of the um there's an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where Picard gets like transported into another.
SPEAKER_00:What is it, the the inner light or something?
SPEAKER_02:Alright, and he plays that too, and like you know, just that little kind of act of creation.
SPEAKER_00:That episode is probably the greatest science fiction TV episode of all time. Just anything. I just think it's hands down, just it's immaculate. Anyway, going back to Covenant, yeah. So there were a couple I I I kind of feel like I'm at a I'm putting you guys at a disadvantage because I I have more to bring to the table with this one.
SPEAKER_01:So bring it, Dakota, bring it to the table. I thought it had been brought already, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:What? I thought it had been brought already, so okay.
SPEAKER_00:As as Rich said, that he he did like the sassy snaps. Sorry on it.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, see, I like I want a buffet style, just keep it coming.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I will keep it coming. So there's a number of other like biblical allegories that this movie you know brings up. There's a number of things that the film doesn't even show us. For instance, Orim, the new ship captain after Daniel's husband dies, he's really religious, and he says that. You know, he's a man of faith. They show him with the Bible, they show him, you know, praying often or whatever. They don't show it in the movie, but you know, he has a Bible, he prays. Very cool. Just that that exists in the future, you know. I thought that that was interesting. But there's a really fascinating scene that they change in the movie that I think is more interesting and more meaningful in the book. When they enter the alien ship for the first time and they see the suits of the engineers, Rosenthal goes, they look like giants. And in the movie, in the movie, Aurum goes, Well, those are are are statues of giants, you know, and that's the end of the scene. But in the book, it's a lot more interesting. So Rosenthal goes, Looks like giants, and Orim goes, I don't believe in giants. And then she pulls out her Star of David and she goes, I do. And I had to pause it there. I had to pause the novelization audiobook, and I was just like, wait a minute, are they trying to say that the engineers were akin to the Nephilim of the Bible? Like the people of old, the giants that you know, like exist in Genesis before the Great Flood. So that was a really cool revelation.
SPEAKER_02:Um Revelation, nice job.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yeah, I'm bringing it all the way around. Genesis to Revelation, yeah. There's another, there's another interesting one that the film, I don't know if it was intentional in the film. I don't even know if it's intentional in the novel, but it seems intentional. Where Rosenthal, the Jewish character, she goes into that room with like the water and she's like bathing herself. But in the novelization, she goes to drink from it. And at first she cups her hands into the water and brings it to her mouth, and then she like dips her head fully into the water to drink from it, and then the alien catches her unawares. That and I I pause it there and I was just like, wait, the Jewish character did this. What does that mean? And there's a scene in or scene, there's a there's a story in Judges 7 where God is basically telling Gideon to cut down the the amount of people he has in his army. So he brings them to a uh a river and he has them drink from the river. Everyone who, you know, like immediately like just sticks their head into the water is deemed unfit to be in the army because they are unaware of their surroundings. But those who cup the water into their hands are able to, you know, remain in the army because they're aware. So it's interesting that in the novelization, she cups the water first, and then it's only after she puts her face into the water that she is made unaware, and the alien xenomorph uh is is right behind or is it no, it's not the xenomorph, it's it's the neomorph in the in the yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Is that is that mentioned to us or is that something that because I caught neomorph as well, but that was my like you know, I was going through Wikipedia and different articles. It I don't remember hearing it.
SPEAKER_00:In the novelization, it's named, and they they call it a neomorph in the novel. Okay, they don't call it it in the in the movie. But that was another thing that I thought was like, whoa, that's that's kind of crazy. Like that that's a potentially like huge, but that particular thing is not canon because the film changes that scene, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, but it was just there there were certain things that the novelization did that I appreciated a little bit more. And yeah, so on on uh on Twitter the other day, I mentioned that there's something that I read in the novelization for this movie that made me change the way that I see this universe. And I think it's a pretty substantial one. And I don't know if it was intentional, but there's a couple like major clues throughout the prequel novelization, or the prequel novel and the novelization. So I'm gonna read these two quotes. In the Covenant Origins, which is the prequel novel, they're talking about how male and female roles have changed over the years. Which you kind of see a little bit in the movie. You'll notice that none of the none of the males or females have the same last name, even though a lot of them are married couples. Like Daniels is married to Jacob. Those aren't their first names, those are their last names, you know. So in in the prequel novel, it's it uses it says, such anti-deluvian conceits as male dominance had long since been banished by corporations whose overriding desire was to make money. Okay, that's interesting. But it was it was interesting that they use the term anti-deluvian. Yeah. Which means before the flood. Then I go into the alien novelization, and there's another line. Right after Jacob died, you know, she's going through his things, and that's actually shown in the movie, but they don't really, you know, there's no inner monologue, there's no narration of what's being shown or whatever. In the novelization, it goes nearby rested Jacob's prized collection of antideluvian vinyl records and their lovingly restored player. It's parts cannibalized over the years from half a dozen similar devices. And that's another use of antideluvian in another book. You know, so like what is Alan Dean Foster trying to tell us? Was there some sort of cataclysm or flood or something in the recent future, like end of the 21st century, that changed the way human dynamics work? And there's there's one more thing.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like it would make sense if they're trying to find other places, you know, like I know that in this like universe that the earth is overpopulated and that the resources are scarce, but there could have been something that caused, you know, is the entirety of the earth overpopulated, or is it just the areas that are still available overpopulated? And is resources scarce because of this cataclysm you're talking about?
SPEAKER_00:It could be, yeah. Um in the beginning of the prequel novelization, they do say, or prequel novel, I keep saying novelization, but anyway, uh the prequel novel, they do say that the Greenland ice sheet melting has like changed global warming for everyone involved. But there's an interesting quote that doesn't make it into the movie, and I wish it did, because it's such an it's a fascinating use of world building. So there's the song, uh, Take Me Home, Country Hodes, to a place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Mamas. Anyway, someone in the novel, they're they keep playing the song and they're just like, what even is West Virginia? And one guy goes, It's an ancient tribal demarcation. There once was a great many of them back when that sort of thing was considered relevant. The world used to be full of dozens of minor political entities, all working at cross-purposes instead of for the common good of the species and the planet. So it does seem like something big happened, you know, earlier in this franchise's history, and it's being hinted at in these novels, but we don't really see that play out on screen, and I I wish we got a little bit more of that just because it was it's such a fascinating tidbit to this lore, and it kind of explains how Apollo like because they they do say that like these governments no longer exist as as they once did, and we know that in the future it's pretty much all run by corporations, you know. It's a it's a a corporation tocracy, whatever that is, you know. So yeah, no, it says it's it's I just I love that. Sorry, I'm tangent done. I think I have exhausted what I want to say about the covenant novelization.
SPEAKER_01:I think that that would be an interesting series though, like if we get the prequel series to the prequel series, you know? To the you know, pre prequeling, you know, it's prequeling so much that it even like surpasses Prometheus. No, no, you know, but no, just kind of like I want orange the earth and it's like the earth and its like final days of like you know how it was and just kind of like why how Whalen Utani kind of weasel their way in because like they seem to be like the it's like a company and they call it the company in the earlier films, but it also seems like a governmental kind of entity, also. So I want to know more about that, and I mean I'm pretty sure that Alien Earth will probably explain a little bit more of that, but you know, now that you talk about it, it would be cool to see a little bit more of like what happened to the world that caused them to become like this, you know.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not fallen for that setup, Anthony. I don't believe that Alien Earth is gonna explain any of those things because if any have I learned anything throughout the last four or five or six weeks of Alien, is that I can't trust you guys. So I no, but uh uh all jokes aside, I do think that it is kind of 1984-ish, where you have the big brother that kind of takes over everything, right? And and and kind of like I guess in a way streamlines industry and everything, because if you do have one governing body over the entire world, it would make sense. The antideluvian thing that you brought up, Dakota, though, is I think I'm a 12th grade literature teacher. I love the word antideluvian. I remember when I was doing SAT prep, and I would that was one of the SAT vocabulary words that I was excited to teach, and now they've done away with that section essentially. So it is a it's gone the way of antideluvian, but that is such a specifically important word in terms of cataclysm. I do think that it's it it does it doesn't lend itself to the flood, but I think that it could be any kind of cataclysm, I believe. Yeah, I think you know, so I am despite the fact that there's uh you know uh you guys are see, I'm always about the pulpy juice, right? And you guys are interested in the orange, you know? But this makes me interested in the orange. Like the you know, before it's the pulpy juice, like where where are why did we get to pulpy juice? So what happened to crush that orange?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're almost an hour into this podcast. We've barely even talked about the the new alien species that we we get in this. Um, but before we do any of that, friends, we have to bring it back uh because something that was you know lacking from last week's discussion of Prometheus was juice, specifically juicy aliens. And I think that we got our share of juicy aliens and juicy humans and just juice all around with Alien Covenant. So uh we're gonna have to go ahead and ask you kindly to give us a five-star juicy review. Make it extremely ripe, like over-ripe, where it just, you know, kind of explodes juice-wise into the keyboard that you're typing into, and uh give us a nice little review. Yeah, no, um, let's bring it back to the aliens, because like some crazy body horror happens in this movie, and probably the worst body horror that's in this series. Maybe I forget if Romulus is that body horror-centric, but this one was definitely body horror.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it gets a bit crazy, especially with your boy and um the medical bay on that like lander. Like this man was having spikes shooting out of his back, and then this thing burst out of his back. Like, it was insane, man. It was such a mess.
SPEAKER_00:My it makes me wonder, like, what is the easier exit? Is it the chest? We always assumed it's been this like just under the chest, you know, the ribcage is the sternum, right? But like the back just goes straight through the spine. That that's I'll be straight up with you guys.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, look, my I love my wife. Okay, I do. Lauren, I know you're not listening, but if you are, I love you. If that's that starts happening to her, I'm nowhere near her. Why would you stay near that the way the con No, there's no way. I don't care who you are, who you were, because you are not that entity anymore. I am not getting anywhere near you. I am not patting you on the back, I'm not trying to make you feel better. Like, one thing is like if you're you know sick over the toilet, right? But like there's a some sort of thing protruding out of you. I don't know if it's because I watched these movies, but I'm getting out of dodge. Like I'm getting out of that room and I'm locking the door. Like, there's no chance. No chance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. As soon as Ledward, you know, vomited blood onto a woman's chest, I was just like, I would have been like, you know what, I've done all I can. This is out of my hands.
SPEAKER_02:Look, if when we're when we're at San Diego Comic-Con next year at our table, and you guys come to visit us, right? If one of you guys has that kind of blood reaction, I'm assuming that all three hosts of this podcast are gonna get up and leave the table. We're not gonna sit with you. Like that is might even leave the I might have. I mean, we might have to, honestly, with neomorphs and xenomorphs going around and black goo and David. I don't know, man, but it's that's that I did like the body though. I did, I really did.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it was it was uh it was quite unique, and that's that's what I love about this series as a whole. It's just it never gives you the same thing, it's always different. There's always a new variant, there's always some new thing to overcome, and that's that's what's really cool about this series. Now, Anthony, you asked us about like what we felt about David specifically about how radicalized he became. We never answered that question. He terrifies me. He is the most terrifying thing of all time. The idea that this curious little android, this synth, decided to go to this planet, open up a bay full of pathogen to destroy a whole population just to see what would happen, is insane.
SPEAKER_01:That kind of reminded me of that scene in uh DD with the Red Wizards.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like they kind of released that kind of shadowy um Yeah, the Red Wizards of Thay.
SPEAKER_00:They released the beckoning death. That's what it was called. Yeah. It was definitely it was beckoning death.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, no, it was crazy. Yeah, it just rained down on these poor people that were just living down there, man.
SPEAKER_02:That that was the Chris Pike movie we uh reviewed, right? Yeah, no, that was a ripple and good time. I think that maybe my definition of a good time is uh you need a uh a villain to unleash a terrible disease all over the masses, and then I'm uh I'm all for it because uh I David is so it's interesting, but it's just um well I think of a couple of things, right? Just I think of Ultron, I think of I think of of course our good friend Arnold saying it's uh it's a learning computer, it's a neural net processor. And I just think that it's almost the it is the idea that we kind of come back to, I think, in sci-fi, that androids, robots, ai, whatever it is, gets to the point where it realizes like, hey, you know what the best thing for them is, organics is death, right? Like get the they'll have no pain if they're dead, right? And it seems to be so I wasn't terribly surprised. Okay, I won't lie to you. I was surprised in the fact that I was very confused at first because we get the creation of David. I didn't want to admit this earlier, and hopefully it's later in the show. Uh I I I thought I was confused when I saw Walter. I thought it was David, and then I thought that he was pretending to be Walter, and it wasn't until we found David that I then was like, oh wait, they're two different guys. I was I was kind of confused about that, but it on my second rewatch, everything made a lot more sense. But at first, you know, you know, I kind of got really scotted. I was a little confused about what was going on here and the the timeline of events. But yeah, no, David seems to be the natural progression of any, you know, like just watch out with the Chat GPT guys, because you know, you upgrade and next thing you know, it's gonna wipe you out, you know, it's gonna take out your Grubhub orders because it feels like if you die, you save money. If you don't get food, you save money. It's budgeting for you, you know.
SPEAKER_01:We do have uh a Cyberdyne uh adjacent in this series. So what was it called again? It wasn't Cyberdyne, it was something Hyperdyne. Oh, yeah. So I mean, you know, who knows? What it what if there that'd be an insane crossover? Like, you know, you just get like what what if you get a movie where it's like alien versus predators and then just like the Terminator comes out of nowhere. That'd be insane.
SPEAKER_02:Like Arnold, just like Arnold versus the Predator versus the alien? I can't get to the chopper fast enough to see this movie.
SPEAKER_00:This is why this is why they don't let fans write this.
SPEAKER_01:Hey man. It would be cool. It would be cool. We we need we we need a deadliest warrior to come back and do an episode on that.
SPEAKER_02:Could you imagine Schwarzenegger and his xenomorph just clapping mandibles and just flexing their arms and all the juice dripping?
SPEAKER_00:I would like to see them arm wrestle. Like, what would happen?
SPEAKER_02:Arnold wins, Arnold wins every time. I'm not sure if you know this, but Arnold Schwarzenegger defeated the devil. Alright, he called the devil a choir boy. If you've ever seen End of Days, he fought the devil and said, What are you, a choir boy? You're a choir boy compared to me. Alright? So we need to get this going, guys.
SPEAKER_00:Alright, so question of the day. Who was caught off guard by David ending up on the covenant?
SPEAKER_02:No, no surprise here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no. No surprise. Yeah, I don't think that there was a a surprise. Like when it ended up being him, I was just like I was like, yeah, I I just I feel like it just it seemed like it would have happened. You know what would have been insane is if the ship I know it's not, but it would be insane that if that if it was the ship that was the derelict ship in the first one. That'd be insane if that was the ship.
SPEAKER_00:It would have been insane. It would have changed a lot, actually. It would have but that kind of just goes to show like how much more ancient this species is, you know, because there's more than one of these ships, and they've perfected this organism for a while now. So yeah. Um what do we think's gonna happen to these uh the the people on the covenant ship?
SPEAKER_01:Nothing. Because is Romulus does it cover them or is it a different group of people? No, it is a different group of people, right? It's like 30 years later or something, right?
SPEAKER_00:It sorry, so it does not it does not cover anything that has to do with the Covenant. Um it will tell you that much. I was hoping Yeah, no, it's it's a completely different movie. The vibes are much, much, much closer to the original movie. That is probably the only thing that I can tell you. It's probably the closest movie to Alien in terms of feel.
SPEAKER_01:Now that you've seen Covenant, so you've pretty much seen every Alien movie now. Where does Romulus sit? On what ranking system? No, I'm not saying the MCU. Oh, come on!
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, no, no, not today. We're not we're not doing the MCU.
SPEAKER_01:Dakota, Dakota could do no no, but no, and also in all seriousness, like is Romulus, do you still like Romulus more than do you like it more than Covenant or does it sit about the same?
SPEAKER_00:I've only seen Romulus once. And it was last year, so it was it was in theaters. I I just remember thinking, wow, that was a brilliant movie. I wish that I had been watching the alien movies leading up to Romulus, because that would have a better answer for you. But at the time I felt it was just very novel, it was very fresh, and it felt like a return to form for the series. Romulus, that is.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Rom Covenant sits at a 65 on Rotten Omato Rotten Tomatoes, and Romulus is at 80, so Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's a pretty interesting place, X7. It seems like it stays between 6-7. I think I said that earlier, and I didn't even look that information up. By the way, Anthony, I was I'm not gonna lie to you. I was really open you were going for the MCU bit. I was waiting, like lit literally just You know, some stuff, you know, it gets old.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you can't do it all the time. You can't do it every time, except for stuff that I would say the you know, the rating, the review thing. That's just something that we've um you know, we stayed with. Adopt it into the podcast. Yeah, yeah. But um the the you know, some other stuff kind of come and go. Fair.
SPEAKER_00:But you know what doesn't come enough? Meat. And you know, David, David is on this planet all alone. He's gotten rid of all of the bio life forms, he's gotten rid of all of the fauna. And finally, meat is back on the menu. And he's so excited. Like, he's so excited. You know, he's able to finally like use uh all of his creations for once. But it's kind of like a a vicious cycle because he will use the creations to create these xenomorph life forms, alien life forms, and then the meat's gone again. So I'm kind of happy for him, you know. Like, I don't I don't want him to be there. I don't want it to be on the covenant, but I'm happy for him that he's got a lot of subjects to to play with.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think there's any chance that he updates a song every couple of years? Like, do you think that like at some point David starts broadcasting like Bad Bunny uh because he's gonna be playing at a Super Bowl? And like it attracts like a different generation of Earth emigrants.
SPEAKER_00:So the Take Me Home Country Roads in the novelization, it wasn't David singing it, it was Elizabeth Shaw.
SPEAKER_02:Oh. Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I think it is Shaw in the movie, but you can't, it's very hard to see.
SPEAKER_01:It it is Elizabeth. I think I think it might have been like an old recording that he was just kind of like looping.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it could have been that. And uh he could have been like broadcasting that old recording for whatever reason. Well, I guess we know it's a siren song to draw people there. But in that recording, they were like, why does she sound so sad? You know, like it's not like a happy, take me home country road. She's like lamenting her life choices in that song. And her life choices were to like put David back together and basically commit genocide on this planet. Uh yeah, no, it's it's a crazy, crazy movie. Guys, final thoughts on Alien Covenant. What did we think of the white aliens? The new, almost like faceless creatures.
SPEAKER_01:They were yeah, they were creepy.
SPEAKER_00:They're almost like Stranger Thingsy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:They came from the upside down, man.
SPEAKER_02:They felt like creeped out. Like, I won't lie, like I I don't like horror movies because I just don't get entertained by them. Like, I don't I generally don't feel gripped by horror. The jump scares don't catch me as as much, you know. But these were decidedly creepy. You know, like you guys know how I felt about the engineers, right? But these the the white aliens were they were pretty creepy. Like, I'm not gonna tell you I had nightmares or that they really scared me, but I will say that like I'm glad that Anthony didn't choose to put them as his background this week on the podcast. Because like, you know, there there is some stuff that I just you know I I don't want to look at. And those are their and you know, the way David looks at the alien, like it's like it's the most beautiful thing he's seen. Like Fastbender's acting in that, like whole like wow, how did you do that, man? Because he it looks like he's in he's madly in love.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that whole interaction scene was so crazy. The the the flute playing, I don't know how they did that, but like you know, he's actively interacting with his own counterpart on screen. It's it's a fantastic scene. Yeah, they did a really good job with that. I think lore-wise, this was a fantastic one. They don't really explain how it became Wayland Utani, because in the last movie it was just the Wayland Incorporated, and now it's the Wayland Utani Corporation. Wait, don't we know that? We know that, but we don't know how.
SPEAKER_02:Wait, Anthony, let me just double check with you. Is this because of Predator? That I feel like I know this.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. The AVP movies.
SPEAKER_02:I know that they're not technically part of this, but Anthony, don't isn't there a part of the AVP movies where Whalen and Utani kind of uh kind of merge? Like the the we we meet Utani, essentially. She's like she's like helping search for the like the you was it the Yatusha Tech, the Predator tech? Yaoja.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe yeah, uh was it I don't I hate to say it this way. I think I m that I the that that part must have missed me because I don't I don't remember that.
SPEAKER_00:I think you're correct. I do kind of very vaguely remember that. In the Covenant Origins prequel novel, they they do just mention that recently the merger took place and Utani basically it was a corporate takeover. And as a conciliatory gesture to every Wayland employee, they named the company Wayland Utani instead of Utani Wayland. So it was still Wayland first because of all of Peter Wayland's innovations in tech and stuff. So that's that's how they explain the merger in that prequel novel.
SPEAKER_02:Alright, sorry for making the podcast even longer, guys.
SPEAKER_00:No, I mean that's look, if you guys are listening and you don't want to read a whole prequel novel, I'm very happy to exp explain a little bit of what happens in it. And it's it's lore, you know, it's it's cool stuff. But anyway, I think this podcast has gone on long enough. Any final thoughts on Covenants? Anthony.
SPEAKER_01:You know, for a movie that was called Alien Covenant, uh, I was pretty upset that I did not see Master Chief. There was no elites or grunts or hunters or anything in it, no Marines. I'm like, dude, what is what is this? No, no, I I I agree that this was pretty good lore-wise. You know, it it's a fun movie, and yeah, I think yeah, the most compelling part of the movie was the whole David dynamic. He just made it even creepier in this film. So he was creepy in Prometheus, he just got even creepier in this one. So yeah, it was good.
SPEAKER_00:Good stuff. Rich.
SPEAKER_02:You guys know. I mean, I wish that this podcast didn't exist so that you could go watch Alien Prometheus and then be furious and then watch Covenant and feel the joy that I felt. Like, I it's it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but this is such a watch. Like, if you've been with us on this journey, you're doing yourself a major disservice to not go watch Covenant.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. It's it doesn't crack my top five MCU films, but it it might make six or seven. Umes! 41! We're almost done. Um, all right, guys, thank you so much for listening to us here for our 136th episode of Project Ecology. Next time we cover the final, or at least the most recent, alien film, Alien Romulus, um by Fade Alvarez. This is gonna be a fun one. And a personal favorite of mine that our two co-hosts have not seen. So this is gonna be fun. And after that, we cover the first season of Alien Earth. And yeah, after that, nobody knows. Might be the end of the podcast, might be the beginning. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, we're just gonna hop into a time machine and just go back.
SPEAKER_00:Bor Boris. Yep. Oh, nice reference. Guys, uh, if you want to check out any of our socials, be sure to click down into our show notes down below, and uh you'll find links to all of our places online. But yeah, thanks guys. Have a good one.
SPEAKER_01:Peace.
SPEAKER_00:And meets back on the menu, boys.
