20th Century Fox has released a bounty of Alien: Covenant footage, nearly five full minutes of the crew of the colony ship Covenant hanging around and drinking, celebrating their impending hypersleep and journey to a colony planet.
Featured are James Franco as the ship’s captain, along with Danny McBride’s character, who appears to be a pilot or navigator of some kind. Katherine Waterston is also present as Daniels, a “terraforming expert” who bears suspicious similarity in terms of haircut and dress to Sigourney Weaver’s iconic Ellen Ripley.
In fact, the entire clip is awash in Alien references, none of them particularly subtle. From bits of dialog repeated from the 1979 original, to the fact that one crew member suffers a coughing attack during a communal meal, it’s clear that the film is trying to ape every bit of the Alien mythology. Whether this actually works—or is what audiences even want to see—remains to be seen.
Still, the film promises to give us some more Michael Fassbender, possibly as two different android versions of himself, so it can’t be all bad, right?
Alien: Covenant is scheduled for a May 19, 2017 release.