In 2012, Ridley Scott returned the world of Xenomorphs, Facehuggers, and Chestbursters for the first time since his iconic 1979 horror film, Alien. The catch? There were no Xenomorphs, Facehuggers, or Chestbursters. Set decades before the events of his cinema classic, Prometheus set the groundwork for the characters and creatures of Alien, but it was a whole new beast entirely. If Alien was an intimate, blue collar creature feature with shades of erotic paranoia, Prometheus was an epic scope space opera told through the lens of a creation myth. Essentially, but for the world they share, the films couldn't be more different.

As a result, the film was divisive amongst audiences, especially hardcore fans of the franchise who were excited to see the true creator take the reigns once more and drive the legacy of the Alien series back to its roots. But Scott is far from done with the Alien saga. The director has a new trilogy planned for the series that will end at the beginning, as they say, with the events of the final film leading into the start of Alien.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

First up is Alien: Covenant. Set ten years after the events of Prometheus, Covenant follows a team of terraformers who pick up a distress call (sounding familiar already, right?) that leads them to a stunning planet that seems like a gift-wrapped paradise. This is an Alien movie, so of course, it's anything but. The planet is a living death trap with all manner of destruction hiding just around every dark corner, and an ideal setting for Scott to get back to the DNA of the original film.

Last summer, I had the incredible experience of visiting the Alien: Covenant set in Sydney, Australia to speak with the cast and crew of Scott's return to the Alien mythology. The general consensus is it will also be a return to the Alien style... which is to say, horrific as hell. And that is a very intentional shift. A shift that's not only reflected in the style and substance of the film, but down to it's very title. It's not called Prometheus 2, after all. Producer Mark Huffam, who said the "audience has been listened to," explained that there's a reason for that.

I think the title is very much saying, yes, you are going to go back to the root of how the Alien franchise started, and I think it’s much like the other thing. It’s bringing the best of Prometheus, and the best of Alien, and combining them to hopefully get something even better.

By and large, the consensus on set was that the criticisms and disappointments about Prometheus were not only heard but heeded as Scott and his creative team designed Covenant. So what does that mean? Well, for one thing, we're going to see a whole lot of familiar creatures, and some new ones too. Special effects supervisor Neil Corbould told us:

He did listen to the criticism, if you like, of [Prometheus] and people wanted more aliens. The other thing as well is that certain studios want to make a certain movie, and sometimes your hands are tied for horror. If you're making it for a PG-13 or 15, your hands are tied to give proper horrors. But when the gloves are off and it's 18 or R-rated, then you can make the movie exactly what you want -- with more aliens. He listened to the audience, that they want more aliens -- they're gonna get a lot more aliens. More than they probably anticipated.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

It also means the film is going to be bloody as hell. Huffam joked, "We're ordering the blood by the 40-gallon drums rather than the 5-gallon drums." Corbould, who was tasked with actually creating the blood for the film -- human, alien and synthetic -- said they had made over 1000 liters of the red stuff up to the point that we were there (day 60 out of 75). It's definitely going to be scary. I think it's going to be a lot gorier than everyone's probably expecting," said Corbould. "After Prometheus, everyone said they wanted more aliens, they wanted more horror, which, you know, he's certainly taken that on board and I think you're going to get that."

However, if you talk to Scott himself, the director has a funny way of defining his horror classic. "I never think of it as a horror film," he told us,"It just scared the shit out of people." For him, the interest to go back came from the realization that a "special kind of creature" like the Xenomorph hasn't run its course yet.

It shouldn't have really ended, so we've come back with a very simple idea. Who made them? No one ever asked that question. [Alien] was just about there it is; it exists. And this is what it is. Seven guys and gals in a steel hull. Frankly, the very old idea of The Old Dark House. Who's gonna die next? The fundamental basis of Alien was a pretty old B-movie, but because of the cast and talent involved it came out an A+ movie. So we've reinvented the idea of Alien, I think, which is that Covenant gets us a step closer to who and why was this thing designed to make human beings. And if you think it's them [the Engineers], you're dead wrong.

Ultimately, the film will act not only a narrative bridge between Prometheus and Alien but a stylistic one as well -- and we learned there is a definite link between the style and the story. Covenant is starting from a more natural place and leading into the biomechanical Giger aesthetic. It's designed as a middle ground of story and style that definitively points toward the revered original film, and it was made with the audience in mind.

Peruse the links to the rest of my set visit coverage below. Alien: Covenant opens in theaters on May 19th.

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