VOTD: 'Alien: Covenant' Creates A Lot Of Problematic Questions And Plot Holes
We're one month into blockbuster summer, and right now the most divisive film seems to be Alien: Covenant. Some fans of the franchise that started with Ridley Scott's original sci-fi thriller back in 1979 have been happy to see the franchise evolve in recent years to combine the usual blood, gore and suspense with more philosophical and intellectually stimulating questions about the creation of life. Others just don't find themselves interested in the story that Ridley Scott is now trying to tell all these years later.
No matter which side you find yourself on, you might be interested in this video put together by Red Letter Media which asks more than a few important questions about how Alien: Covenant impacts the rest of the franchise. Furthermore, they also point out a lot of unresolved problems and unanswered questions that make the movie feel even more sloppy than it did initially.
Watch and listen to Red Letter Media's Alien Covenant questions after the jump, but beware of massive spoilers.
The style of this video is particularly weird as Jay and Mike sit in a rundown home looking like some kind of kidnappers from the 1990s asking questions in the most monotonous way possible. It's like they've been brainwashed. Or maybe their mind has just been obliterated by Alien: Covenant.
Anyway, the meat of the video are all the questions posed, and while some of them involve the stupid decision that the crew makes in exploring the planet, others seem more key to the mythology of the franchise. For example, we learn that David creates the xenomorphs in this movie, giving them the origin that no one asked for. That in itself opens up a whole slew of questions and creates some enormous problems with continuity, including turning Alien vs Predator into a non-canon movie (which isn't that big of a deal, to be honest).
Even if we give Ridley Scott the benefit of the doubt because we know there's still more story to tell, the only way to fix some of these problems is with time travel. That sounds like a joke, but it's true. Since we're talking about space travel in the distant future, it's not out of the realm of possibility for black holes to create inconsistencies in the Alien timeline, but for now, it's an absolute clusterfuck thanks to Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.