The film brutally kills off Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) off-screen, revealing her corpse as a lab experiment. If you didn't watch the online viral marketing videos ( The Crossing ), you would have no idea why the Covenant crew is doomed the moment they answer David’s signal. Netflix didn’t buy those shorts. They just bought the movie.
Covenant is the frantic course correction to 2012’s Prometheus . Audiences complained that Prometheus asked too many questions about the origins of humanity and the "Engineers" without delivering enough traditional Alien scares. So, Scott overcorrected. Covenant gives you the classic monster mayhem—the infamous "backburster" scene is a gore masterpiece—but it also forces you to sit through a brooding meditation on nihilism, creation, and AI. alien covenant netflix
This leaves viewers frustrated. The Engineers—the god-like aliens from Prometheus —are wiped out in a five-second montage of David dropping black goo bombs. The film punishes you for caring about the lore. It says, "You wanted the monster? Here is the monster. Now shut up." Yes, but with a caveat. Alien: Covenant is a gorgeous disaster. It is rated R for a reason; the violence is visceral and unflinching, a stark contrast to the sanitized jump scares of modern streaming horror. The production design is immaculate—the Covenant ship feels like a brutalist cathedral in space. The film brutally kills off Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi
For the uninitiated, scrolling through Netflix’s sci-fi section and landing on Alien: Covenant (2017) might look like a win. You have the legendary Ridley Scott returning to the franchise he started with the 1979 masterpiece. You have Michael Fassbender playing two creepy androids. You have chestbursters, facehuggers, and that iconic H.R. Giger biomechanical dread. They just bought the movie
