When Ridley Scott first announced Prometheus, a prequel to his genre-defining Alien, fans’ hearts were bursting out their chests in anticipation.
We were promised a film about a group of explorers searching for the origins of human life, but instead got a plot-hole-riddled B-movie. While enough has already been said about how a spaceship could cross the universe, but its crew can still manage to get lost inside a (mapped) cave network, Prometheus had enough visual flair to paper over its cracks.
And at least the whole mess ended with the joyous sight of Michael Fassbender’s head getting zipped into a duffle bag.
Five years on and Alien: Covenant is fast arriving, with the British director back on board and several trailers suggesting a terrifying thriller. In space, no-one can hear you scream, but in your local multiplex, expect a chorus of them.
The first trailer for Covenant showed a group of loved-up explorers getting ready to settle on a new planet, only to meet their neighbours from hell in the shape of the murderous xenomorphs. What was expected as a sequel to Prometheus, however, left some fans confused, as there were no signs of Fassbender’s android David or Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw, the only survivor of that film.
In honour of Alien Day, an international promotion of the long-running franchise, Scott has finally bridged the gap between Prometheus and Covenant, with a new short that explains how David winds up with the new crew of the new film, and just where in the universe Elizabeth Shaw has wound up.
“After we made contact with the Engineers, the Prometheus was destroyed. All hands were lost, but I escaped with Elizabeth in one of their ships,” Fassbender’s David says. “I was badly injured in our mission. She put me back together.”
Watch the short film in full below. Alien: Covenant will be released worldwide on May 19th.
