Maybe Alien: Covenant wasn't quite the Alien movie all the fans have been dying for.
But it came pretty close!
It had lots of aliens, right?
As a bridge between Prometheus and the greater Alien universe, Covenant bore a heavy burden
for fans of the franchise, and it took that burden seriously.
Love it or hate it, we got an official backstory for the xenomorphs and the promise of more
mythology to come.
What we also got was a ton of Easter eggs pointing back to earlier Alien films.
Here's a look, but be careful — some of these eggs could have some pretty nasty contents
lurking inside.
Like spoilers!
The bird
Die-hard fans were probably looking for this lil' guy the whole movie, and they weren't
disappointed.
This little drinking bird thing has been in a few of the Alien movies.
The first time you see it is the opening shot of Alien, which has two of them alone on the
Nostromo's eating table.
It shows up a few times throughout the movie, particularly the scene where Kane takes an
alien to the chest.
The same bird shows up in Aliens and then again in the game Alien: Isolation.
And now it's back again in Alien: Covenant.
Why?
Who knows!
But at this point, that bird has been in the franchise longer than Sigourney Weaver.
The hidden trailer
Even before Covenant hit theaters, the marketing team was already throwing out some Easter
eggs.
One of those landed in the form of a brand new teaser that featured this hashtag.
Plug that into Instagram, and you would have found an Instagram account with the same name
and only one post: a hidden trailer for Alien: Covenant set to the tune of John Denver's
"Take Me Home, Country Roads" which Elizabeth Shaw was singing in her transmission in the
movie.
That's also the hashtag spelled backwards: "take me home."
Terrible food
About a million people tuned into the extended pre-release clip "Last Supper" on YouTube.
In hindsight, releasing that scene was a beautiful marketing move, since it's not even in the
movie.
It's like an extra five minutes of movie for all of us who've been carefully waiting for
each new Covenant teaser.
And while that's kind of an Easter egg in itself, we like to dig deeper.
The entire scene is set up almost exactly like the scene in Alien right before the first
chestburster pops out of Kane.
Even the angle of the shot is almost identical.
That's certainly not a coincidence, since these are both Ridley Scott films.
Then Upworth, played by Callie Hernandez, starts choking in the last supper clip, and
Danny McBride's Tennessee makes this joke:
"Food's not that bad."
...which is almost exactly what Parker says to Kane when he starts choking in the original
movie.
"What's the matter?
The food ain't that bad, baby."
If there's one thing we've learned by now, it's that when it comes to space, you should
probably pack your own lunch.
"Bring some water!"
"Water, my ass!
Bring this man some Pepto Bismol!"
David and Walter
Michael Fassbender plays two parts in Alien: Covenant: a reprisal of his David 8 role from
Prometheus, and Walter, an updated version of David that launched with the crew of the
Covenant.
But for the longest time, the androids in the Alien franchise seemed to be following
a Sesame Street naming pattern.
Ash, Bishop, Call, David — they all went in alphabetical order.
Until...Walter.
Not Eduardo, like we all expected, but Walter.
Well, one fan theory behind that name choice is as simple as it is logical: both of those
names are callbacks to David Giler and Walter Hill, two producers who've been a part of
Alien since the very first film.
Is it true?
It'd be an awesome tribute if it was.
After all, these were the guys who rewrote Dan O'Bannon's original script and basically
made the original sci-fi horror classic we know and love.
MU/TH/UR's Day
Ah, Mother, that disembodied voice that controlled everything on the ship in Alien.
Sometimes we dream about her counting down the Nostromo's destruction.
"In T minus 5 minutes."
"You bitch!"
While Mother bit the big one when the Nostromo exploded, she's definitely back in prequel
form.
"Mother, how long have we been traveling?"
"Approximately 24 days."
Is it the same operating system that shows up later — in film continuity — in Alien?
Alien: Covenant takes place about 20 years before Alien.
If so, Mother can't be very smart, because she should have totally seen the events of
Alien coming after everything that happened in Covenant.
Beerfest
Fun fact: astronauts love getting drunk.
"It begins!
"Gimme that!
Stop it!"
In Alien, the crew kicks back with cans of Aspen beer, a brew generously provided by
the company that wants to slay them all: Weyland-Yutani.
In Alien: Covenant, that beer is apparently already part of the rations, because the crew
of the Covenant drinks the exact same beer.
That's a cool, refreshing, frost-brewed throwback to the film that launched the franchise.
Paradise found
Back when names were still being tossed around for Prometheus 2, one of the working titles
was Paradise Lost, a reference to John Milton's 17th-century poem about Satan's temptation
of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Alien: Covenant's name obviously changed in the interim, but one of the lines in the movie
still alludes to Milton's poem.
When David is fighting Walter, David asks, "Would you rather serve in heaven or reign
in hell?"
In the context of the movie, he's basically saying, "Quit being a sucky robot and slay
everything with me."
But the line itself refers back to Book 1 of Milton's poem, when Lucifer says "Better
to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven" right after he gets tossed out of God's clubhouse.
Writing on the wall
Let's talk facehuggers.
Prometheus had none, but we all knew going into Alien: Covenant that those little bastards
would be back in action, since Billy Crudup's character Christopher took one to the face
in the trailer.
But the question during the movie wasn't if they'd show up, but when.
And if you were paying attention, that moment was basically spelled out right on the wall
of David's little Alien chop-shop.
Right before David leads Christopher down into the room where all the eggs are waiting,
they walk through a doorway with a hand-drawn diagram of a facehugger stuck to the wall
right beside it.
It was easy to miss — there were diagrams plastered all over the walls — but if you
noticed it, it was pretty much a neon sign foreshadowing Christopher's impending chest-bursty
ending.
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