by Dai » Mon Sep 11, 2017 4:44 pm
Presumably , which implied that there would be more than two xenomorphs in the movie.
On an unrelated note, a little thing caught my attention within the first few minutes of Alien: Covenant that tipped me off that Scott's approach to this franchise has changed significantly since 1979. The Covenant score makes heavy use of Jerry Goldsmith's main theme from Alien, which played over the end credits of the first movie, but not the opening title sequence. What's interesting is that Goldsmith's score originally did use that theme over the title, but Scott rejected it because its romantic space opera melody didn't fit the feeling of dread he was trying to create, so Goldsmith had to compose a replacement: the eerie cue that was used in the theatrical cut of Alien. From this we can infer that Scott takes a hands-on approach to the scores of his movies, which becomes important in a moment. Fast forward to 2017 and a slightly modified version of Goldsmith's original romantic space opera melody plays over the title card for Alien: Covenant. Then consider
(This appears to be an official upload of the soundtrack by the record label)
It's an initially counter-intuitive choice for such a violent moment, but does make an odd kind of sense. It's a gentle, sorrowful cue that seems to lament the inevitability of the xenomorph's genesis, but would sound just as at home in a scene of a woman dying while giving birth to her own beloved child. Furthermore, while this music plays, Scott forces the now familiar horror of a chestburster scene out of frame. He's romanticised the alien.