Following a long break, the Alien franchise is currently in the midst of a resurgence. Ridley Scott came back to tell the prequel stories to his first film, but Prometheus was met with mixed reception thanks to its continued efforts to distance itself from the previous films, but also closely tie them together. Alien: Covenant is a different story entirely. The film already established that connection by putting “Alien” in the title, and the film’s star - Katherine Waterston - has continued to draw comparisons to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. In fact, some reports are claiming she could have major ties to Ripley after all.

Even if this turns out to be true, Alien: Covenant should not be a success or a failure based on Waterston’s potential connections to the lore. However, it has been made clear that Scott is taking the franchise back to the basics after the first trailer showed the violence and scares that made the franchise famous. Now, a new photo from the film brings Waterston’s Daniels into the heat of combat against the famed creatures.

USA Today has released the newest still from the highly anticipated sequel/prequel. Similar to previous images, Daniels is once again in the thick of things and not taking a backseat to fending off “Facehuggers” or “Chestbursters.” In fact, Waterston admits that while she is involved in killing them in the film, in real life she can barely keep her eyes open when they are on screen:

“I’m very squeamish. I’ve seen these movies many times, but I feel like I’ve barely seen any of the alien scenes because my eyes are usually covered.”

Fans continue to draw comparisons between Daniels and Ripley, and Waterston took the opportunity to admit that there are some similarities between the characters - but failed to mention any possible deeper connections.

This is not the first time that Waterston has talked about how the previous films have influenced her work in Covenant after previously discussing how she hopes this movie makes audiences connect to the characters before everything bad happens. Establishing a connection with the audience will go a long way in determining how impactful the Covenant crew’s eventual encounter with the aliens will be. If audiences do connect to Daniels and her fellow crew members, the strong likelihood that not all of them will make it out of the film alive will hopefully mean that much more when they do eventually meet their ends. Even so, this photo makes it clear that if they go down, Daniels and the rest of the crew won’t go down without a fight.

“You don’t really know what you’re made of until you’re tested. They are both able to somehow think clearly in really shocking, unimaginable scenarios. It’s fun to play someone who can thrive in that chaos.”

Source: USA Today

  • alien covenant Release Date: 2017-05-19