Alien Covenant: David Finds Engineers Created Xenomorph Deleted Scene - Explained

[@RitchLau]

Alien I: A New David (Prometheus) Alien II: David Strikes back (Covenant) Alien III: Return of Walter (Awakening)

[@jpfan4life812]

Ritch Lau *Alien I: The David Menace (Prometheus) Alien II: Attack of the Davids (Covenant) Alien III: Revenge of David (Awakening)

[@VortechBand]

"I am your father" - one of the first lines in the movie :)

[@TheTruthIsGonnaHurt]

4 minutes and 31 seconds I will never get back to my life. 🙄 The Alien Mural we seen in Prometheus makes it pretty clear the Engineers played a hand in the Alien's evolution long before David was even built.

[@robertogurrola7465]

That was a Deacon, something we already knew david had no part in

[@Varokus]

Well people seem to forget this: Alien: Covenant takes place in 2104. The original Alien takes place in 2122 (not even 20 years after Covenant). In Alien, there is a FOSSILIZED Engineer with his decaying rib-cage burst open, implying a xenomorph of some sort burst out of him long ago, obviously much longer than 20 years ago. Plus there were preserved eggs aboard the Derelict spacecraft that engineer was on. The Engineers created the Xenomorphs. Ridley Scott just has no idea (or no good idea) what he's doing with the franchise now, and Fox is just letting him and his damned writers make it up as they go along to wrack in those big $. I am very disappointed.

[@RafiquiLP94]

Exactly! And what about the xenomorph mural from Prometheus?

[@brianburns8198]

I have to agree here, the story lines are simple for everyone to see. I also prefer the original idea/brief, of the Engineers being the creators of the Xeno's. The recent detailing from Scott that the black goo in Prometheus was a more adaptive 'biomechanical' liquid that could change any subject it infected, was a bit...of a let down, a get out of jail free card. Having David create the Xeno's and not the Engineers is a huge sway from the original ideas imo and not one that, as a fan, I was happy with, but hey, I'm not writing it.

[@johnchronic5248]

I would argue that old Ridley had a plan with Prometheus. The studio fucked it up with the Damon Lindelof rewrite, the original Jon Spaihts written draft was good.

[@zonker-TM]

I think David is an awesome and terrifying character! I think it's a great idea of him finding the goo, and creating parallels. I don't believe he created the original alien, I don't think it fits the timeline either! Again, I'll point out that Dallas didn't realize he was looking at an exo-suit, with o set of ribs burst out. Also...while I believe the craft on LV-426 was carrying the original eggs, and there longer than 20 odd yrs...we don't know what 20 yrs of being exposed to LV-426's atmosphere would have done to the ship's interior, just a thought. But, in Prometheus, Wayland is already aware of the beacon on it...it was already there.

[@Beef8Cake]

Scott Smith I thought David reversed engineered the Xenomorph, trying to recreate what the Engineers had.

[@Chris-qr1io]

this is much better. Why wasn't this in the movie? David should not be the creator of the whole race. Maybe he recreated them but didn't create them. Also in Prometheus the deacon mural means the aliens already existed.

[@ventureunknown7727]

so much better... and adds actually an extra layer of mystery of what the Xenomorph and Black goo were... I like the theory of the black goo being the race, a form of biological AI that adapts and evolve in order to become widespread. Potentially even creating the engineers to carry on their spread. (Or we could leave it at the engineer just coming across this species.) Perhaps the goo is the creation or evolution of this xenomorph ancient race. That created ships and structures organically... maybe they didnt look like Xenos or engineers but a mix of both.

[@lewisconnor919]

Christopher Lewis the alien at the end of Prometheus isn’t a Xenomorph.

[@joew6277]

I think Ridley wants David to have been the creator or at least of his own version of the Alien. He likes the idea of something created by something else, not being able to reproduce, then coming up with its own creation. Fans want it to be engineers because it would make them more interesting. Plus evidence in past films show the engineers either made the Alien or at least deacons and such. So we will see where they go.

[@Havok91]

I can't believe I never wondered where David GOT a Xenomorph egg to dissect.

[@Realist00]

I always assumed he used Shaw's eggs and reproductive system to make them

[@Melevite]

I assumed the 2 sacks he pulled out of his mouth at the end were Shaw's eggs. Perhaps she was still infected with trilobites. The alien eggs may have also come from the spores being genetically altered by David and the black goo or they may have come from Shaw as well but my only question with that is why there were so many? Who knows maybe the eggs were laid by the deacon from Prometheus and that's where it comes into play later.

[@Havok91]

James Fugman the deacon's fate was always sort of revealed in Dark Horse comics. Plus, the deacon was born on LV-223 after the juggernaut left.

[@Melevite]

Ahh right, i forgot the Deacon morphed into a living mountain lol

[@Havok91]

James Fugman Didn't say it was good. Lol.

[@MyplayLists4Y2Y]

David has a line in Alien Covenant where he says when he was alone on the planet all those years he "studied the engineers way" -- which I believe addresses the novel's telling of the engineers creating the first Xenomorph prototypes and then David "learned their ways" and continued their work.

[@borpheusmaximus4719]

What about the xenomorph mural from Prometheus?

[@korvijmagic8761]

Borpheus Maximus it was probably the Decon

[@Nopestillnogod]

The pointy head on the mural leads me to believe it's of some other type, not an actual xenomorph.

[@porcu12345]

The mural was not a Xenomorph, just a different type of alien - like the Neomorph, Deacon, Protomorph etc. Just means the Engineers had some form of Alien that they either created/found/worshiped before-hand and thats the basis David used for the creation of his 'perfect organism'.

[@borpheusmaximus4719]

Hawken Valhalla yeah but it looked much more xeno than neo.

[@Striker163videos]

The engineers are clearly behind the evolutionary history. But David is in deed Responsible for the Xenomorph we know and love. The true origin of the Xenomorph doesn't fall on one pair of shoulders, it belongs David and the Engineers. The engineers began the work, and David will finish it.

[@SonofAGunFrom410]

At this point who cares anymore? It's obvious Ridley Scott is just bullshitting his way through the story.

[@Cargo_Bay]

TheSonOfAGunFrom410 yeah. He's painted himself into a corner, and now there's just a hot mess of plot holes. And the black goo is just a plot device to do anything the story needs

[@Realist00]

Have you ever sit back and think maybe the writers are what's fucking it up, not the director?

[@Cargo_Bay]

Matthew Feagins I think it's a collaborative effort

[@Unforgiven11]

The problem is that he had a vision, he had a story to tell, but the "fans" who cried out about Prometheus made him change the story part way through. We weren't even supposed to see a Xeno in this movie, but he tried to listen to the fans and shoe-horned in a contrived plot where the Xeno could be a part of it... which happens to be David. So now, because the "fans" were such little fucking babies, they altered what could have been a goddamn masterpiece by the end of his trilogy/quadrilogy. Instead of the Xeno being something that the Engineers found, or created (as the engineer species is ancient it makes more sense) the Xenos are now something that an android created some 20 years before the events of Alien. How fucking sad, what a way to destroy the most elusive and mysterious alien creature ever to grace the movie screen. Now it's simply a bio weapon. Fuck the fans.

[@Cargo_Bay]

Unforgiven11 Prometheus sucked, with or without Xenos in it. People aren't obligated to like these movies if they liked the other alien movies. But good for you for liking it. You're obviously a better "fan" who will take anything Ridley throws at you.

[@thedoruk6324]

They weren't supposed to delete a would be beautiful scene like that; when novelization became even better than the film

[@FolkLaurr]

The DORUK I really want to read it now

[@Striker163videos]

Likely fox wanted the scene out. Honestly if it's actually a deleted scene it'll be just like Prometheus, which sacrificed many key story points for pacing. Regardless, give it 10 years and we may see a proper extended cut of Prometheus, covenant and the films that follow that will hopefully shed further light on this story.

[@thedoruk6324]

Striker163 Exactly; the Fox (which're more or less proven movie murderers) ruins... Prometheus's deleted/extended scenes were A+ especially the scene where the Engineer speaks to humans. Damn all of it; Fox !

[@XxW4RB0RNxX]

The DORUK since always books have always been better

[@thedoruk6324]

XxW4RB0RNxX Very True

[@theespressokid1]

That wine cellar in the movie can hardly be called a lab lol. Awful Xeno origin if it turns out to be David in whole. This route directly contradicts the petrified giant space jockey and dusty old eggs in the 1979 film.

[@kd84afc]

I agree, It makes no sense in David being the creator, I would accept him experimenting and making his own version, But I don't believe his the creator of the Xeno's As you rightly state where does all the eggs come from that the Nostromo crew find?

[@davidcoppus2823]

And as in the stupid soap operas when the culmination is coming up it goes then to be continued... /Please wait for the next episode/. The problem is that Scott's almost 80, I believe he has got some dementia or smth. In cinema history there are a lot of bright examples when the directors created their masterpieces and when they become old men as Ridley they just spoiled their first versions. I don't want this to be exactly as I told as far as I'm afraid of the new movie and expect no good from Scott, unfortunately.

[@MrExDArte]

It's even worse if it DOESN'T contradict them. It would mean that the derelict, the eggs, the ancient skeleton with a hole in his chest - all have actually been there for 18 years at most.

[@bunta121]

great work, I prefer the engineers being the creators.

[@adrianburchell8075]

I was just about to say that.

[@jimmyburglar5186]

bunta121 they are. theyre responsible for the kind that are in the mural in prometheus. david just got curious and experimented on the creatures biology

[@MrDayday112]

me too. It gives them more meaning and is less plot hole filled. I feel this was always the plan but Scott and Fox pushed it more towards Alien because of the Prometheus backlash. I hope they manage to balance it better in a future film because there's going to have to be more engineer ships and engineers to explain the space jockey in Alien.

[@Kuro788]

Even though it makes more sense, at the risk at being the outlier here, I actually prefer David being the creator. It does have more relevance and more gravitas/meaning in regards to humanity and I also appreciate that these xenomorphs are an abomination that shouldn't exist in the first place. Their origin emanating from an alien and yet a very human, a very foul, place. Lot of religious allegory in these movies, so in the same breadth the xenomorphs are rather unholy/deamonic. When I heard the Ridley Scott interview, I was at first disappointed but then I remember the alternative xenomorph origin stories in the comics. Those were not really any better in my opinion, kinda boring.

[@itzcarnage9535]

bunta121 nah i liked David was the creator it gives the androids more depth

[@tbeiber09]

I always assumed at least some form of xenomorph was already around since there is the sculpture of one on a wall in prometheus. it might have been a deacon but xenomorph type creatures were clearly around before David started working on them. In sure he would tweak them to his liking but I think they existed before him

[@MonsterBuddy10]

I don't think I've ever been this early to a video lol. Love all the covenant stuff you've been putting out man!

[@dwardokong5489]

Bigfoot is that the real Bigfoot

[@MonsterBuddy10]

Don't tell nobody ;)

[@dwardokong5489]

Bigfoot alright I won't ;)

[@bcbudinto]

I think Ridley Scott went full George Lucas with this movie and Prometheus. It's another case where the director who created the original idea is now trying to take back creative control after the idea has been developed in the media and the minds of fans and they're trying to steer it in a direction that isn't nearly as good as the collective conceptualization is. David creating the Xenomorph is equivalent to the midichlorian count thing from episode 1-3 IMO. Not only does it undermine a lot of the popular lore but it's kind of dumb.

[@КириллДектярев]

No, it is good. Certainly better than Xenomorphs being puny inhabitants of Xenomorph Prime.

[@randomman2349]

this just makes so much more sense. I don't want studios to interfere much, but they seem to have given Ridley to much freedom to make shit up

[@lostperfection05]

I think you have it backwards. The studio is definitely why we have this xenomorph side plot at the end, to satisfy a check box that will bring in viewership. That xenomorph shower scene in the trailer for example. I wish they would just let Ridley do his thing. Though David being the original creator would be stupid if that's true and also break continuity with the ship on Alien being old and fossilized and all that, as well as the mural of the Xeno in Prometheus suggesting that the engineers have been there and done that already.

[@herluftrolle]

lostperfection05 maybe the ship and the exo-flight-suit things could still be 2000 years old, with David sitting under the armor?

[@Acuraintegraman1]

Anomime 23 Exclusion of the facts doesn't necessarily mean their absence. If this further insight of the original screenplay is in the novelization I'm sure it's implied to be in the film as well.

[@heartshinemusic]

When Ridley made Prometheus he thought (and said) that people were done with facehuggers and the traditional Alien scares. The direction he went was so much more interesting with the engineers. At the end all I wanted to know was" What's next, how does "paradise" look like? Who are these Engineers? When Alien: Covenant was announce I was happy we would get all these answers and follow Shaw and David on their journey. Ridley, for a long time, said the film would continue with this story. I really believe that the studio messed with the storylines. They said: "give us aliens and face huggers and chestbursters, that's what the people want." This movie completely destoyed an amazin set up about the engineers... None of the crew of the Covenant is even very astonished to have reached a planet with a cilvilisation that looks like humans... (that David destroyed) Such a discovery should have been the talk of the crew... They should have asked David so many questions about their culture and origin... After Prometheus I couldn't wait to see the next film... after Covenant I couldn't care less.

[@spartan0771]

I completely agree. Prometheus had its faults but the feel of it gave the hints of something far greater and more sinister going on, this is just another slaughter fest.

[@GregsVlog]

This makes way more sense than David creating them. In the original, Dallas said the Space Jockey was fossilized which means the derelict had been there THOUSANDS of years, not just a few decades. I hope they canonize this in the next movie.

[@Spartiatai300]

Also, this makes sense because David can relate to the Xenomorph. Engineers created these creatures and discarded them, just like humans have discarded David in the past.

That's my main problem with all this "David created the xenomorphs" bullshit.

[@charzakwinn1398]

Exactly, and even with Prometheus they seemed to stick to this, although in the movie it's not really obvious. On the Prometheus Blu Ray however there is a lot of additional content which establishes extra lore bits. Included on the Blu Ray are for example "The Peter Weyland files". These files are basically bits of story or in character comments from Sir Peter Weyland which come with several of the Viral videos that were part of the Prometheus pre release campaign. For the "Quiet Eye" viral there is this little entry by Peter Weyland, which I think is very interesting: "As fate would have it, Shaw and Holloway's interest in Zeta 2 Reticuli has proven to be mutually beneficial. While the good doctors rely on ancient carvings and primitive cave paintings, my science division's own long range scans have recently detected a faint, almost imperceptible signal emanating from one of the lesser moons in that system. And contrary to the findings of Shaw and Holloway, which target LV-223 as our primary site of interest, our findings suggest the point of origin could actually be the moon LV-426." Well we know what that faint signal actually is. The derelict was on LV-426 long before the Prometheus mission ever launched. It's quite simple, David could not have created this lifeform, since there is a derelict with eggs under a stasisfield stranded on LV-426. Ridley basically broke his own lore with Alien Covenant by suggesting David was the creator.

@@charzakwinn1398 Ridley Scott is more a visual artist than a geek. Is more interested in making his movies look incredible than in making sense in their own universes.

[@charzakwinn1398]

@ Yeah I know. Such a shame he meddled so much with the Alien Covenant script, and apparently had so much creative control

[@evanski8535]

I grew up being a huge alien fan. I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that the aliens were an unknown menace floating through the vastness of space with no one knowing why or where they came from. The mystery in that was fantastic, there was no lineage or evolution or history needed. The fact that Ridley has gone and shown us that our aliens are merely just a product of mankind (humans > AI(David) > Xenos) is a story we've seen in a hundred sci-fi movies. it lost all its mystery for me.

[@theomegawerty]

Evan Kolakowski exactly. origin stories are not needed in every franchise...

[@tadore5046]

I am on board 100% with your comment; I too was quite disappointed when the writers/director aligned the aliens with mankind... Leave some mystery in the Universe...

[@evanski8535]

Just do a google search, there is a plethora. The idea of humans creating monsters has been used since 1931 Frankenstein.... The Host(2006), Lake Placid(1999), Every Jurassic Park made, the list goes on. I still love the franchise very much and will continue to see the movies, but I base it off a means like the movie JAWS... Do we now need a prequel to show a baby shark get traumatized and become a psycho killing machine when it grows up?

[@tadore5046]

"...prequel to show a baby shark..." That's funny... I think there is little doubt that the evolving take on the aliens is not creative... But why do they have to "humanize" the aliens..? I honestly feel the notion is a self-serving human-centric concept... Humans, with our capacities, not only destroyed the Engineers but seemingly created a bad-ass alien Xenomorph that could infest other potential aliens species..?! I also wasn't crazy about the "good robot/bad robot" idea... and the computer (Mother) can't tell the difference between the two..? Ugh, it's TNG Data and Lore, R rated...

[@Starglance]

Evan Ski exactly my thoughts!!! and because Prometheus changed that all, that's the reason I don't like it very much. But I will keep it easy. of course I watched covenant and will watch the third prequel too, but in the end I will only keep my Alien 1-4 box so that for me the Aliens will remain an aggressive extraterrestrial life form from an unknown planet.

[@ubtri]

I prefer an Engineer Xenomorph creation theory more simply because not all Engineers are wiped out, and maybe there's room for a war between the Engineers and David in the future where both can put to the test their own creations against each other.

[@kilimangan]

ubtri - Commentary Gaming | Zombies, VR, Modding & More! red ones and black ones? lol

[@ck552]

Odd how the engineers have had advanced technology for at least billions of years, yet they don't seem to be that much more advanced than the humans.

[@zil_nine]

I find it more sensible that the Engineers created the Xenomorphs rather than David. There are many clues to back my statement, here are some of the most prominent reasons: - *The murals in Prometheus depict a Xenomorph-like creature with similar characterisitcs to the Deacon at the end of the movie.* It is mentioned that the Engineers who died on planet LV-223 were over 2000 years old. The Deacon-like creature on the murals must have existed before the Engineers died otherwise they couldn't have made a mural of it. This leads me to believe that the Engineers had been experimenting with the 'black goo' and created Xenomorph-like creatures way before they even set foot on LV-223. If these Engineers were planning on deploying the 'black goo' on earth they must've known what it was capable of and what type of organisms result from it. Basically, the mural depicts a creature that the Engineers knew of prior to the events 2000 years ago on LV-223. - *The creature that David creates is different from the original Xenomorph from Alien (1979).* It is even called a 'Protomorph'. This Protomorph has a slimmer physique than the original Xenomorph and appears more organic and streamlined, for example its limbs don't have the same exo-suit patterns as the original and instead they have muscle definition similar to a human. Furthermore, its facial features appear more human-like, its jaw is broader than the original Xenomorph’s, its teeth are smaller and are aligned with the jawline, whereas the original had an hourglass-shaped mouth with large fangs and four front teeth. In addition, the Protomorph's dome is smaller and seems to sink into its head and upper lip, in contrast the original Xenomorph's dome appeared as if it were placed over its head. Finally, the tubes on the Protomorph's back protrude outwards to the left and right, the original Xenomorph's tubes protrude upward towards its head. Apart from its physical differences Covenant's Protomorph has a more aggressive nature and it attacks its prey head-on without first hiding in the darkness and it walks on all fours. Additionally, its life cycle diverges from the original Xenomorph. It goes from facehugger to a small chestburster with limbs and then grows quickly into its full size. The original Xenomorph's chestburster had yet to develop limbs and appeared to be a serpent-like creature; it also took several hours to grow. - *The derelict alien spacecraft on LV-426 carried hundreds of eggs on board and its pilot appeared to be an Engineer.* If David was the creator of the Xenomorphs then the Engineer shouldn’t be carrying such cargo let alone having been able to leave his home planet (which David drove to extinction). In addition, in Alien (1979) Dallas states that the spacecraft appears to have been on LV-426 for thousands of years to the point where the Engineer fossilized into his chair. If we were to follow the proposed timeline then Alien (1979) would be set 20 years after the events of Alien: Covenant. It’s highly unlikely that such a chemical process would take only 20 years to develop. Moreover, there is no motive for an Engineer to transport the eggs if they weren’t Engineer-made in the first place. It is also important to note that the number of eggs in Alien: Covenant compared to Alien (1979) is far lower, perhaps ten eggs in Covenant and hundreds in Alien (1979). Therefore, David can’t be the originator of the Xenomorphs. My personal theory would be that David discovered old files on the Xenomorph-species on the Engineer home planet and used the Engineers’ research to develop similar beings. In the movie David tells Christopher that he mixed various species that had spawned from the Alien pathogens like the Neomorph and eventually he created the ‘perfect organism’. The Engineers must have been developing the Xenomorph for millennia and LV-223 could’ve been an abandoned project: the outbreak was deemed a failed experiment and perhaps out of safety the Engineers never returned to it. As for the spacecraft on LV-426, perhaps it had made a quick stop at LV-223 before continuing its path to a different planet when an outbreak occurred on the ship and the Engineer crashed on LV-426. Another explanation could be that the spacecraft was heading towards LV-223 to deliver the eggs for further modification and then crashed on LV-426 due to an infestation. Perhaps those events played out thousands of years before the eventual accident on LV-223 that is later shown in Prometheus. Ultimately, the original Xenomorph is not created by David and the creature that we see in Alien: Covenant is a Protomorph: a sub-species that was developed by David whom used previous Engineer designs as a basis.

[@FolkLaurr]

So David is just a copy cat and not the all creating God figure he likes to think he is. I'm very happy David did not create them, plus wasn't there a queen on the mural in prometheus? And those eggs David had, doesn't there have to be a queen for that?

[@V8Thrasher88]

FolkLaurr he did say he took a lot of DNA from insects, one was a wasp, and wasps have a hive structure...maybe the engineers created the single xenomorph, but through davids engineering, the hive structure of the xenomorph was created. I don't know Man, but I'm reading the novel myself and if that were the movie it would of been 10x better than what we saw.

[@ashmetcalf3757]

FolkLaurr perhaps whilst he was learning more about the engineers, he came across how to make a Xenomorph and attempted to reverse engineer it, with varying degrees of success along the way

[@thereisnopandemic]

FolkLaurr David did create them, this video is just a theory.

[@FolkLaurr]

Nicholas Dickens No I'm glad he didn't. People theorized he did create them before the movie dropped and I was praying that was not the case.

[@FolkLaurr]

Ash Metcalf That's what I think the case is.

[@nickkragh1423]

In Prometheus when they find the spaceship they find a bunch of dead engineer's with their chest blown out. Carbon dated two thousand years ago. So there you go. Engineers created Xenomorphs or at least subspecies cuz they have the mural in Prometheus as well

[@retromachine3743]

In Prometheus the engineer drinks the liquid and gets almost instantly deconstructed, the morphology efficacy of the (black substance) seams deliberate...I would say the engineers are pretty talented, like most scientists I think David perhaps took it to the next level rather than create the Alien completely.

[@jsavak99]

Ridley Scots version makes no sense

[@robertrobert665]

Ridley only changed it because too many people complained about Prometheus

[@charlesman8722]

@ Robert Robert. the reason most people complained about Prometheus was the film was hyped up as a alien movie, and it had nothing to do with alien.

[@RD-dt6dm]

False. Ridley changed it because he dumbs down scripts ll the time.

[@robertrobert665]

Red Dragon - It actually wasnt though man. They went to about a month or two before the movie admitting it was "somewhat" of a sequel to alien. And then after the film, Ridley said he was done with the alien, and wanted to move on to more about the engineers and the black goo. It was more word of mouth that hyped it up as a sequel to alien, which you cant hold back the filmmakers for. Ridley said this franchise was supposed to be a parallel story happening at the same time, but in a different area than the alien. I'm telling you, the studio said they wanted more aliens due to the backlash over Prometheus and after Lindhelof dropped out, Ridley said he would give them more of the alien. The only problem is that the story is kind of mixed up now. But either way, you cant blame Ridley because Covenant wasnt the story he originally was supposed to tell.

[@charlesman8722]

Actually you CAN blame Ridley. Both Prometheus and Covenant were a mess. If Scott wanted Prometheus to be its own thing he should have made it it's own thing .Seriously look at the trailers for it. It looks like an Alien movie. Hell if he wanted he could have had the move take place at the exact same time as Alien. That way you can avoid confusion. How Prometheus' problem isn't false advertising as it is navel gazing. Covenant has the same problem. You don't got to see Alien for a 'creation story' or 'how did we come to be' story. Hell Covenant can't even get it's own pacing right or even character development. It's obvious to me Scott has no idea what he's doing and is either A: Senile or B: Throwing a fit cause his special project didn't work and people prefer the monster he helped create.

[@andrewvaaler8633]

I actually feel better about everything after watching this. If in the novel.. it's cannon right? I didn't mind David making the "final touches" to what the engineers did.. but what really bothered me was the egg. It felt incredibly tacked on. This makes things quite a bit more clear.. I so hope there is a longer cut that comes out of this movie. Hell, make it an hour longer. Flesh this stuff out please!

[@johnd.obrien6838]

Actually, what probably happened was that Alan Dean Foster based his novelization on an earlier version of the script/story and that's why the novel still cites the engineers as being the creators of the xenomorph; it's probably something that Ridley changed during the actual filming (remember, there's usually a significant lead time for the preparation of the novel tie-in to be ready for publishing when the movie comes out). That's why there's sometimes significant differences from movie to novelization; the same thing happened with the original "Alien" novelization: the cocoon scene was deleted from the final theatrical release of the movie, but it was still included in the book.

[@farrdawgjoker7087]

I do not like David as the creator of the alien by himself. It also would play havoc with the originals and how they reacted to androids. It would be better if the engineers had come across a version of the alien and mutated, crossbreeding,and/or genetic altering to make it a Apex predator more or less weaponizing the creature for nefarious purposes like wiping out entire species and/or planets. This also played loose with the crossover with the Predator vs Alien movies were there temples in ancient earth has carvings of David's creation. So unless the next movie has time travel the alien species must predate David! Or everything is a reboot and I'm just a giant nerd for bringing this up.

[@Kuro788]

Xenomorph as an improve apex predator, while cool. It is also boring... but I suppose people are satisfied with just that. And that is perfectly fine. Also AvP and comic book universes are separate from the Alien franchise movie universe. It has been that way for a few years now.

[@andyz3925]

Cody Angle I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic about the Time Travel part but I actually think it would be a great idea if it does fall into the storyline, I mean afterall the next movie is titled Alien Awakening. um.. uh.. nevermind I think I may be getting myself confused.

[@jordanbrandon81]

I love it. Hope this is canon as novelizations tend to be. I'd like to see this in an extended cut.

[@FolkLaurr]

jordanbrandon81 And the 2 scenes we got before the movie came out. We get to see Shaw in the flashback on the juggetnaught alive and it makes it more fucked up later when we see her as David's experiment. And the James Franco scene with the crew before stasis would help us actually care about the captain's death.

[@JedidiahBensemann]

I'd prefer either of those "prologues" than the intro scene that we got in Covenant (David talking with Weyland)

[@joebarns4171]

I enjoyed Alien Covenant, but I hate that David created the Xenamorph. I think the engineers being the creators has more depth to the backstory. A robot being the creator seems a bit dull, considering the vastness of the Alien universe. How would you explain AvP? I get that AvP is in it's own world, but mixing the two universes is a ton of fun. David being mommy/daddy, screws with the version I have in my head. Just saying.

[@DarknessIsThePath]

You said it yourself, AVP is its own world so your question becomes irrelevant by default.

[@Xenosaurian]

David did not create the Xenomorphs, he merely produced his own variants of the beasts. The Engineers definitely were the original creators. AVP could be explained this way; (1) if David did not create the Xenomorphs (which is the most likely and most desired scenario) then the Xenomorphs have simply been around for many thousands of years; (2) if David did create the Xenomorphs then perhaps time travel and interdimensional travels might be a thing. Either way, AVP is easily explained. The fact that AVP (and AVPR along with Predator 2 and Predators) exists at all should seemingly prove that David did not create the Xenomorphs (or else, time travel). I find it absolutely ridiculous and tragic to exclude something as awesome as AVP anyway.

[@jameszack7158]

Haven't you watched the video? It was engineers who created the Xenomorph.

[@Xenosaurian]

David did not create the Aliens, as evidenced by Predator 2, AVP, AVPR, Predators, the Covenant novel, and expanded universe material like video games (like AVP 2010) and comics (like Fire & Stone and Life & Death which evidently bridges the Alien, Predator, AVP, and Prometheus movies, brands, and storylines), but David merely produced his own variants of the beast. Besides, nobody really wanted the Xeno to solely be the work of an android gone mad.

[@Mr-ns9yt]

it could be david stole all the work and called it is own. he tried making it better by experimenting with shaw and didnt succeed He cries because he knows he isnt the best

[@grubkiller7612]

Michael Minero as he called the alien, the perfect organism

[@cursedmonkey1033]

Personally I hate the idea that David is the sole creator of the xeno. I don't like that the Engineers are either. It takes something away from the creature for me. I much prefer the idea that they are natural, ancient, highly evolved from a distant part of the galaxy. It makes them so much more mysterious and interesting. I don't mind that the Engineers or David created versions of them but I hate the idea that David created them. Plus it doesn't make sense. What about the queen from Aliens? What about the ship the crew of the Nostromo find that is carrying a shipment of eggs, and that is strongly implied to be very old? I'm hoping Ridley Scott is pulling a fast one and things will be explained further and much more satisfyingly in the next film. Or he does a flip flop and decides to change it. From my point of view he's just shitting on his own franchise as things stand now.

[@КириллДектярев]

Now almighty Xenomorphs are inhabitants of Xenomorph Prime and puny ants. Not mysterious in my opinion.

[@Szminsky]

I prefer them having their origins clouded in mystery. No creators, no nothing.

[@jpfan4life812]

Szminsky I agree, these things never needed an origin story to begin with, but of course the senile director Ridley Scott just had to say "fuck it!"

[@davidgolpashin76]

I think if it was handled correctly, it would have been amazing. Engineers colonized many planets hoping to sprout civilization across the universe -> said civilization (Earth / Humans) were self-destructive & thought of as a threat - > Engineers develop weapon to destroy failed civilizations -> aliens were created. It's a simple premise really. Not sure how Ridley ended up screwing it all up

[@TheConspiredOne]

but then it would just be a monster movie horror...this adds reasons for people to come back to it and actually use their brains.

[@willjoyce5013]

TheConspiredOne There's no brains involved here, this storyline is now the convoluted ravings of an idiot lol. Timelines not making sense are not brainy ideas nor make us think constructively, we're trying to stitch together the crap to have a semblance of reality left in the cannon that already was lol

[@radrno7]

@@TheConspiredOne Not necessarily. You gotta get a middle term with Alien because it's a very complex creature, it's biomechanic, a living killing machine. You can't just answer that by saying "oh so he created it" or "oh so that's how it came to be" or even "oh that's why it was made", but you can travel around that by having bits and pieces leading to what could be its origin. It's the same problem with the whole "let's find out what's the reason humans were created", the answer will always be bitter and sour because there will never be a satisfying answer and even if there was, it would be just that, an explanation, and that just doesn't go full circle with the idea behind Alien. Yes, it's not supposed to match our expectations, but it's not supposed to subvert them into something worse and cheaper, it's supposed to be something even bigger and scarier that we probably won't ever be able to fully comprehend.

[@darinfuller3306]

Wait wait.. I thought aliens came from their own planet?. Possibly the engineers have been to the planet. And also attempted to use the xenomorphs as a weapon, much like Weyland Corporations.

[@КириллДектярев]

No, thankfully, Xenomorph Prime bullshit is not canon.

[@notinusesoon4975]

Yup, but KZbin is full of children who don't know shit, including this fucked up channel.

[@raphaelontherocks5688]

Interesting.

[@cp070476]

The worst part about Covenant that i can't believe Ridley Scott let go is the the time scale... If David creates the Xenomorph then how come 10 years previous to Covenant they see a xenomorph and face huggers an a Mural in Promtheus... Really bad glaring error...

[@legionarybooks13]

Not only that, but I just re-watched the original Alien, and the face-hugger is on Kane for many hours, if not days. In Covenant, it's on Captain WhatsHisName for like a minute, and then two minutes later out pops the chest-burster. Heck, the dude who gets attacked towards the end and his face burned, I don't recall the face-hugger ever actually latching on, yet minutes later out pops another fully-grown Xeno. The whole reason why the scene of Ripley finding Burke cocooned with a xenomorph in him in Aliens was cut (as awesome as it would have been to see), was because it didn't make sense time-wise.

[@RyanSPK]

But we know that Deacons appear very similar to Xenomorphs, and they are born from Engineers the same way Xenos are born from humans. It’s not that hard to imagine the mural is based on Deacons instead of Xenos. In fairness to Covenant, James, the creature born from the Captain was not a Xenomorph. The species David has engineered is called a Protomorph, which is much closer to a Xenomorph than the Neomorphs were. It has a different design from a Xeno and has different behaviors. It wasn’t exactly one for stealth for example. Given Xenos are again different, it’s quite possible they take longer to grow in comparison to Neos and Protos.

[@stylodyna9571]

I like this idea better; than David creating the Xenos

[@restlessentertainment9760]

MechaGoji Bro 7503 That semicolon was out of place

[@stylodyna9571]

+Restless Entertainment uh, thanks I guess 🤗

[@louiscrowley1755]

What is great about Ridley in these new movies is the level of tribute he is paying to Giger, the real creator of this whole universe. The Prometheus mural with original facehuggers concepts and turning Shaw into Li was a nice tribute. Without Giger there would be nothing.

[@Xenosaurian]

David didn't create the Xenomorphs, he merely created his own variant. Period.

[@danielmillward9947]

Due to the way the story in this went hopefully it gets explained that the mechanical looking xeno is an ancient weapon created by the engineers and David's were his attempts at recreating them with whatever ingredients he had left and they can both pit their versions against each other in a war like scenario which leads into alien, plus it would still explain how the company new about the xenomorphs during the first film

[@Xenosaurian]

@@danielmillward9947 Exactly! That is definitely the right way to go about it all!

[@Acuraintegraman1]

They just didn't go into depth about the engineers creating xenos, they're still revered by them and David still got the idea from them. Exclusion of the facts doesn't necessarily mean their absence.

[@studavis2602]

Great video.....I think this does not change much but just reconfirmed the images in prometheus. I think the deacon/xeno structure in prometheus already showed us that the engineers have dabbled in cross hybridization....I think David is the perfector of the xenomorph just due to the human host and what hybridization he explored for 10 years. David clearly hates engineers and humans and what irony for David than to perfect their own research and technology to eliminate their kind. Very interesting stuff. I love this franchise! 😎😎

[@danyaelbarron1211]

notice how david is becoming more and more human, emotions and hair growth etc. i think the irony will be that david himself elvolves becoming more flesh and gets facehugged, perpetuating the idea/mythology that all falls to thier own creations and when it bursts out of him it will be part in part a blend of evolved metal flesh like david has been becoming

[@okmogi]

Stu Davis yes! I like this possibility way more. The engineers and David stay powerful.

[@ionthegravity2]

Hell, that explains the xeno's biomechanical appearance...

[@nickmattio3397]

I think it was a drunken Ridley Scott brain fart I think he meant to say he's the "Father" of the Xeno we know and love from Alien n all but not the origination of the genetic line, he just tinkered altered and perfected some parts

[@narutov4]

I like the novelization version better then david's.

[@jackson-aka2gs749]

David was trying to create a controllable version of the xmorph in order to weaponize it. Think back to the scene where the newborn xmorph raised its hands as david did. This would indicate some sort of communication, perhaps even command. What good is an army of 10ft xmorphs if they kill the leader?

[@wbhurt01]

Interesting, never thought about that while watching the film. One thing though, I know this question has been asked a million times but should the Predators be involved with this story? It is canon whether Scott likes it or not, that Predators and Aliens exist in the same universe. Perhaps the xenomorph wasn't meant to whipe out humans, but the Predators instead

[@M1tjakaramazov]

I always prefer to think the xenomorphs were independent creatures to both. The Predators used them for hunting, the Engineers used them for some kind of twisted science. When I was a kid and none of this cross-canon stuff existed, I liked to toy with the idea that in galactic terms the xenomorphs were classed as a form of virus or other pathogen. They just appear as alien creatures to us because our human point of reference is so small and limited.

[@AvaGamerStuff]

If David created the Xenomorphs, how do you explain the xenomorph-like creature bursting out of the Engineer at the end of Prometheus? Didn't that happen before David landed on the engineer planet to start engineering the Xenomorph? Btw. there's a mural of a Xenomorph in the black goo dome so that's proof they must have existed long before David even arrived there.

[@TheCarrot97]

does anyone know who the engineer with white clothing was ? and what happened to the big ship that david docked into ?

[@megazion34]

Billy Carratt we'll find out in about 5 years no worries :)

[@ADZ01982]

megazion34 doubt it. just more questions

[@TheCarrot97]

megazion34 😂😂

[@valdissubins5395]

Billy Carratt Those where not engineers.Just some subspiecies they have created I hope we get to see in the cut scenes what happend to that big ship. It most likely fly away since we didnt see it anymore in the movie. Cant wait for the uncut version of this movie!

[@TheCarrot97]

Valdis Šubins thats a good point they could be subspecies they look different to the other engineers we have seen.

[@syntaxed2]

David's version was still "made" by usage of the blackgoo...Why does this substance create these characteristics? We need to know how it was derived - was it based on ancient dna? IF it was - how do we know which xeno version represents the original geneology best?

[@amptrontwenty-five2352]

I really think fox interfered with this movie too much!

[@DarknessIsThePath]

When do they never do that, fucking Fox shit, they ruined everything they got their hands on as usual.

[@cristosreptiles2284]

I'd say it's pretty clear by the mural in prometheus that some type of xenomorph creation existed prior to David's work.

[@chevelle99xify]

riggly scott fucked this movie up from start to finish.

[@davidfunk3505]

I VERY much prefer the engineers being the ones who created the xenomorph, and David simply trying to imitate it. That works SO much better to me. It also opens up for a potential shared universe like they should be doing between Yautja and Xenomorphs. I *get* that the AvP movies are AU, but if you've read the comic books, and read the novels, there is such a rich background between the two species. One could argue the books are still AU, but still you can mesh the franchises quite nicely when you think about the potential explanation of why the xenomorphs aren't infesting the entire galaxy: because the Yautja have been hunting them. Or why xenomorphs end up infesting a planet when there's really no visible explanation how they got there, because the Yautja drop them off on certain planets teeming with life, wait for a few days or maybe a week then begin their hunt. Sometimes the hunt is successful, sometimes not so much. Idk, just spit balling ideas. Bottom line I reject Ridley Scott's idea of David being the creator of the xenomorphs we all know and love. It betrays everything that has been established up to this point.

[@mikcurius3779]

if this really happened, i put all the blame to ridley scott ..he had to quit the direction of the movie and make an official statement accusing fox about this...the movie is ruined totally! who asked us if we wanted to learn about the creation of the xenomorhs? prometheus was about to teach us about the creation of man instead!!! they ruined the film and i wish the fans who caused this , to feel very happy for their great achievment!!!

[@radrno7]

Not saying that I wanted an Alien origin but oh yeah, when I go to watch an ALIEN prequel, oh ho, I certainly go to find out about human's origin.

[@Emilis2023]

Not surprised. You see ancient images of them on the walls and the black goo from Prometheus is already creating (via a vastly overly complicated process) very rough versions of the Xenomorph and face-huggers. And if AvP is considered cannon then that's all happening before David existed. It also goes along with the whole idea that David as a machine can't create, he can only emulate. He'll play whatever songs you like, he can name any image or sculpture, and he can seemingly rip-off any bio engineering project of alien origin, but nothing he does is truly creative.

[@mchapman8960]

Temple mural creature (Prometheus)? An idea, actual pre-existing creature, ancient ancestor of the engineers? (or like a fossil dinonsaur?). Other points: 1. Why is the xeno/proto-morph described as a perfect creature? A rather aggressive predator that would most likely, in an ecology, would decimate all prey animals and bring about its own extinction. Seems more likely as a terror weapon or perhaps even a means of achieving a societal apocalypse (if say the Engineers have an apocalyptic religion). 2. If black goo kills and transforms - where are all the creatures from David's attack (apart from the spore pods)? The all died out taking all other animal species with them? Not exactly a perfect organism. 3. David, by his own volition and not on the instruction of Weyland, infected Charlie? 4. The engineers left a facility unattended for 2000 years? 5. If you film the engineer's society in black and white it would look the same - meaning? Are they Quakers? See in a different part of the EM spectrum? 6. Do they only have one city or planet? 7. Did David use some sort of technology to send out a disabling neutrino (particles that can travel through planets with little interaction?) pulse? 8. Face hugger egg source? Shaw? Engineer had one from where? Would be nice to see a film edit that includes more back story.

[@AdmrScheer]

M Chapman Yes, I never got why they're considered perfect creatures. Any sentient organisms that can create and wield technology can overcome whatever 'natural' advantage xenos have and level the playing field. The movies even prove it. Xenomorphs win battles but they always lose the war by getting sucked out an airlock, nuked, dumped in molten metal and rapidly cooled, sucked through a tiny hole in a window, shot up, and so on.

[@mchapman8960]

I think you've got the expression for the xenos' epitaph - 'they won the battle but not the war.'

[@davidgolpashin76]

I think they were considered the "perfect creature" in David's mind. No one else had expressed this sort of enthusiasm about the aliens. David thought they were perfect because they brought destruction Humans & Engineers - two races that didn't deserve to live.

[@mchapman8960]

There might be another aspect - purity. The alien attack feeds, reproduce - no human complication.

[@Sinrise]

Aliens would never go extinct if they wiped out even an entire planet. In the original film, everything around the eggs was fossilized, but the eggs themselves are still viable. That's pretty good evidence they can easily last thousands of years, which is long enough to give a decently high chance of staying around long enough for something big enough to eventually show up. I always thought the "perfect organism" thing was a bit dumb, though. If you read the Dark Horse novels ('Earth Hive', 'Nightmare Asylum', and 'Female War'), where aliens invade Earth, Humans find the Alien homeworld and meet the aliens from the original derelict, you'll see they paint a much better picture of how the Aliens are a much more formidable enemy than they are in any of the movies. Still, I don't remember anyone claiming they were a perfect organism, just really, really dangerous. I just don't understand why they didn't borrow more from those books for future movies. Alien Resurrection did a little bit, and I really wish they had just gone in that direction. I don't even remember if they tried to explain the origin of the xenomorphs in those books, other than they were jus a result of evolution on their planet, which was a nightmarish hellscape. It's beyond me how THAT wasn't the direction this franchise is going. What's more awesome than Alien warrior drones (like the ones from Aliens) the size of regular Queens, flying aliens and the Queen of all Aliens... the Mother Queen (much, much bigger than normal queens), who is linked telepathically to all xenos in the universe? Nothing, that's what. But no. Let's not film awesome things. Aliens need to be smaller in scope, and lamer, and weak, and make less sense.

[@jacobgordon7998]

Prometheus already established the Xenomorph was created by the Engineers, or that they were well acquainted with them at least two millennia ago. It suggests that the event depicted in the recording (on the Engineer ship on LV-223) also led to another Engineer ship crashing on LV-427. Which makes sense as the derelict ship crash site looked to be at least that old.

[@TheBlackSpiral]

I prefer not to consider these new movies canon.

[@aurorat2953]

the engineers created the goo in the first place and if you look back in prometheus there was a mural with a xenomorph like creature so its pretty canon that they have made or at least had a xenomorph like creature somewhere in their culture. david is in part (largely) responsible for the versions we see later in time such as alien, that much is somewhat confirmed by scott but you have to recognize the existence of that mural in prometheus.

[@Thebatjoeny]

I the first movie alien the engineers had a whole cargo full of eggs so doesn't that show they created them ?

[@joannawie]

"Alien Covenant" is a naive, primitive, B-class sequel. Doesn't even worth to write about.

[@WhatisReal11]

Dont forget the Xenomorph FIRST manifest on the wall of head room in cruciform position, foreshadowing what was to come.

[@z0mbiezak]

Man, this was probably one of the worst Alien films. The ending was so bland, and I saw it coming from a mile away. Right when David started cutting his hair, I knew that was going to tie into the ending.

[@legionarybooks13]

David was honestly the only part of the movie I liked. He had at least some personality and interesting character development. All the rest were so damn boring and nauseatingly stupid, that I was rooting for David by the end. And agreed, there was absolutely ZERO suspense in Covenant, because everything was so damn predictable.

[@christolupo7909]

Ridley making David the creator just proves that it isn’t a franchise he needs to be connected to anymore. He blew it..

[@mikecochran1759]

Alien covenant is the worst alien movie to date. Ridley Scott took everything that would have made this movie great and sacrificed it at the alter of David !!!!

[@pastordad777]

Saw Foster at Comicon this weekend and he said he tries to fill in the science if there's something missing from the screen play so it's possible that Alan was just trying to understand how David could come up with the Zeno egg and involve the engineers more in the story. And speaking of the Engineers - who were seemingly so advanced they could create this super organism and yet let one of these planet bombers land over a settlement? Have we all decided this was an Engineer village, and not their main planet?

[@cantspascua]

In the film version David being the creator makes sense. Because in Alien Resurrection it is mentioned that the androids were a rare oddity to be found and possibly due to the fact that they were self aware of the evil that the Weyland corporation was doing. And it could be implied that the corporation knew that the androids were capable of mimicking human emotions that could threaten mankind. It could be said that is the reason why so many were decommissioned in the Alien universe.

[@RedSkysAreOnFire]

in the original movie the alien eggs were going to be found in an alien egg shaped engineer temple where they worshiped the alien form, but it got cut as it was way too expensive to be made, this was before cgi does everything, so in the original film it was changed to finding the eggs in caverns below a crashed engineer ship. Computer animation back then, it would take many hours to produce one frame out of 24 for just one second of time. One of the cut scenes, david mentions finding a code built into the black goo, that allowed the engineers create what they needed. David just used that code to create what he wanted, something to destroy all humans.

[@hagendf]

That's an interesting idea that I could go with. That perhaps the pathogen already has the blueprint for creating Xenomorph strains built into it. That David thinks he's doing something original, but it's just another shade on a big color palette. Maybe even that his creations are still amateur by an Engineer's standards.

[@doctorlunarous5747]

Hey, can I get the link to where you found the Ridley Scott comments? I want to share it with some friends as we tend to discuss the canon and non-canon to the alien universe and Ridley Scott testimonies are essential to our arguments.

[@SeekingLight1]

I appreciate your posts on the film. I analyzed the film to death on my own, to the point where it seemed that there was very little coherence to the entire plot. Your videos have shed a lot of light on what was a very poorly orchestrated film project. Some critical scenes should not have been deleted.

[@spacemanspliff7983]

My hope is that the engineers, through traveling the Galaxy stumbled upon the black goo on a primitive planet. They saw the life that inhabited the planet, saw maybe some minor effects of what the goo could do so they took some to start testing and experimenting with it. They saw how it could be useful in their efforts to seed other worlds as well as a mutanagen for eradication. David is just trying to perfect what they have already worked on, he learned about it during Shaw and his trip while she was in cryo

[@StormsparkPegasus]

We already know in the film that David based his research on both things from the Engineer ship he had (which came from LV-223), and things that the Engineers he killed on their homeworld left behind. It's obvious that the xenomorph has existed before (since there are Engineer made murals of it on both LV-223 and their homeworld). This makes a lot more sense than David coming up with it all on his own. I don't doubt that he re-created the xenomorph (or attempted to perfect it), but everything he was working with was created by the Engineers. The black goo, insects from the Engineer homeworld, Engineer corpses and DNA.

[@topman200000]

This is much better then david creating the xenomorphs. Ridley Scott has basically simplified the origin of the species and by a lot of comments i read he has made a mistake. Wouldnt be surprised if he or the studio try to rectify it because of the backlash.....again

[@Isacc82]

I'm fairly certain the engineers were the creators or at least The Harbours of the alien DNA. The biggest piece of evidence to me anyways being the mural and statue found within the the alien ship in Prometheus which clearly shows a fully developed xenomorph as we know them. This was made way before David reached the planet or even knew about the goo. the idea being that the goo is just merely a vessel that maybe the engineers didn't even create but just found and used as a weapon. But ultimately that is to be the final manifestation.

[@louiscrowley1755]

Many people were already thinking this after seeing Covenant. Forget what Ridley said. The Prometheus mural with Giger's facehuggers, David pretty much just finding their notes and lab notebooks in Covenant, etc. Saying he found an egg though is interesting.

[@JockKowboy]

There is one thing from Prometheus that shows that the Xenomorph was created by the Engineers............the mural in the Big Head room.

[@adamgf1]

From Prometheus the Deacon alien and the octohugger were the prototypes the engineers developed that David modified in Covenant to become the facehugger and Xenomorph (more sophisticated versions of the octohugger and deacon Alien.) This makes David was more advanced than the engineers who are really just the same as humans on Earth same DNA. This made David more superior and 'Godlike' in his mind which is his twisted goal.

[@soulweaponx6644]

Suddenly this series now makes sense to me. Initially, it was about finding the Engineers, who were perceived to be mankind's creators. However, Pete Weyland's creation David goes haywire and kills them all effectively severing Weyland's hope to uncover the mysteries of human existence. The Weyland Company decides to make this into a reclamation project since the thought process is that David makes them into Xenomorphs. Weyland company basically is Wiley Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner. Throughout the remainder of the Alien series, Weyland tries several times to capture and bring the Xeno home with hope of unlocking whatever is left. Ash is sent by the Company to retrieve the Xeno and when it fails then Burke tries to do it. When Burke fails, they send Bishop II to trick Ripley into not committing suicide. Only Ripley does die along with it. So they spend over 200 years trying to clone Ripley's DNA to extract their Xenomorph. The only thing that is not clear to me is that the Company already had Facehuggers in a jar on LV-426. Their search should have ended. Granted the facility was destroyed by Ripey after the fact. It just doesn't make sense why they just didn't retrace their steps by going back to the Engineers planet? or to Prometheus where Ripley and co first encountered their Xeno?

[@NetworkErrors]

David either recreated or created his own version of the Xenomorph that much is clear. But if you go back to Prometheus when they step inside the head room Holloway sees a Mural with a Xenomorph in the middle almost submerging out of what seems like the black goo, and this was before David saw the potential in the goo and he didn't even see the mural himself. To me Prometheus and the Mural kind of confirms that Xenomorphs have existed long before David sought to create his perfect organism.

[@garlandremingtoniii4679]

I have never believed that David is the original creator of the actual original Alien. My girlfriend and I went to see Alien Covenant the day it opened here in Gulf Breeze Florida on the 19th. Friday. At the 10:30 AM showing. We liked it so much that we wanted to see it again!! So we had lunch at the theaters neat little restaurant. Which the owners Garland & Marjorie just opened the quaint little Bistro last month. We know both of them very well:) :) for several reasons and a big one is because they live inside our gated community of "Emerald Isle" We had 1 hour and 15 minutes to kill till the next showing. Just one of many benefits of the both of us being retired is you get to go to the movies early. Sleep as late as you like, stay out on our 80 foot custom built Hatteras, lay by the pool each day drinking as much as you like each day Et al.

[@HMSMattElrod9797]

From what my conclusion here is David didn't created the xenomorphs. Why? Is because I red that the derelict ship that was found by the Nostromo's crew on LV 426 had crashed so many years ago, and it is carrying multiple eggs of face huggers that can cycle the life of xenomorphs. Meaning Xenomorphs was already created before the time of Prometheus, Covenant, David, Walter and everything. The thing is David just got interested on a xenomorph's life and anatomy by also using Dr. Shaw's body for a gruesome experimentation. But it doesn't mean that xenomorphs was created by David. No its the Engineers who created it. Which it also gave us the idea that they already attempted to destroy the humanity several years ago. The same attempted destruction happened again on 2093 AD when a lone Engineer tries to leave from LV 223 to Earth, but gladly it was only stopped by the ship Prometheus.

[@universeturtle]

I think it's easier to say that the engineers accidentally created them long ago, were almost completely wiped out on prometheus (hence they were running from something and one of their heads got severed by the door, perhaps their xenomorphs were incubated in human slaves, hence the immense anger the engineer had for humans. or it could have been a xenomorph from a engineers body). Then David slowly figured out the black goos properties and created them again with the intention of creating a hive, where you could explain the origins of a queen. Queens are also said to normally evolve from a xenomorph that lives long enough to grow and become a queen. This way you don't have to retcon all the AVP stuff where the Yachtya or whatever have been ritualistically infesting worlds with xenomorphs and then hunting the "hard meats" as they call them.

[@MrJordwalk]

I like the idea that David's Xenomorph is merely an imitation of something that came before, much like himself. He isn't an human being, but an imitation of one.

[@Thomas-VA]

As a piece of fiction, he can retcon it, David created the creature Ripley would eventually encounter . . but has Ridley's been holding onto that for decades. This relying on novelizations, reaches how much of the theater audience. It probably produces more harm that less of the external info makes into the theatrical release, leaving a sizeable chunk lost, adrift on a beautiful island of mystery and confusion, not enough pieces of the puzzle. Maybe, it's all purgatory.

[@That80sGuy1972]

David recreates the future xenomorphs (funny, they have the general term for any alien life form) while the "Predators" use their eggs for hunts centuries before that. The cross-continuity does apply. Also, an AI reverse engineering something he already predetermined as perfect makes sense on a basic level. That AI was "freed" by the death of his master, freed by removal of the object of his obsession (master) to serve. With his personality already set, he had to find a new master - a new obsession. His base personality (programming) did not allow him to be free of a master, just free to pick one within moments of the death of the old one. He picked the old master's obsession with the immortal life form, the first one he met, the bio-weapon of the ancients, their top bio-weapon that he misinterpreted as the perfect organism (no matter how great it is, still a parasite, still needs other life forms to use for breeding). Despite how advanced and feeling David is, he is still an obsessively locked into his programming AI.

[@Beef8Cake]

In the hologram that David activated the Engineers are talking about the ship that crashed that was hauling the face huggers. The Space Jokey was part of their group.

[@vezner]

This makes a lot more sense. Thanks!

[@JamalGleeson]

Thank you sooo very much for putting all this out there, engineers were the original creators of Xenomorphs, the. David made a version of his own, whether or not that is the ones we see in the Alien films who knows but that is the point I think. Ridley Scott is an old style film maker, leaving the creature/monster a mystery and keeping that all up for debate, making many avenues for the mind to explore. Although I love you put all this out there I think your wordage is flawed. You described this as a massive change or rewrite, it isn't, it is just another off-screen path that people might latch on to. Like Jurassic-World, they are all fake dinosaurs, clones of an original. Even the Xenomorphs could be a pre-existing species that evolved into a static beings that need not to evolve more because they are already perfect. The Engineer/Jockeys might have come across them, mirroring the humans in Prometheus and tried to replicate the beasts, like David in Covenant. Ridley Scott loves throwing in all this intrigue because it lets nothing done to the series or story touch the core Xenomorph mythology and mystery.

[@ryankennedy9703]

Very curious, how do you get your hands on the novelization and deleted scenes?

[@M1tjakaramazov]

Thank goodness. David being the progenitor of the xenomorphs was the most anitclimatic plot twist of the series. An ageing director favouring cynicism over horror.

[@Jsnsnow]

*Think back in "Prometheus", remember the Xenomorph "art work" mural that was on the wall... David was not the original creator, he was creating "his own" design of Xenomorph.

[@MrJeffcoley1]

Maybe by saying "David is the creator of the Xenomorph" he means THIS particular iteration, not the species entirely.

[@bastard1377]

Awesome! I really like David creating a Xenomorph just not the entire species. Perhaps David modified the Xeno, that would explain why they look different.

[@TheSpaceJockey91]

David did not create the Xenos. The wall sculpter in Prometheus was of a classic Xenomorph or a Pre-Queen Xeno.

[@Ae7herium]

TheSpaceJockey91 Jesus christ, that mural looks nothing like a Xenomorph.

[@TheSpaceJockey91]

+Ae7herium Yes, it does. i.stack.imgur.com/Udurb.jpg

[@КириллДектярев]

No it is a deacon.

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

Foster's novel is described quite clearly on the cover as the OFFICIAL NOVELISATION, and I can't see this important piece of information getting into it without Ridley Scott's approval.

[@richardalannaggar4866]

One thing is for sure: Whoever has this goo and has played with it is intrigued with what it does and how it does the different things with different species and circumstances with no tow outcomes being predictable enough leading me to believe that there must have been so many different experiments with different results as seen in Aliens 4 with the cloning of Ripley and with David's experimentations as well as the engineers too. Who was experimenting the longest with this stuff? We see engineers going to different planets way before David doing his research. Still, he may have discovered a unique combination making me answer your question as follows: David came up with it

[@jollyscarecrow]

Even with the direction they went you could technically say the engineers still created it and David was just manipulating or continuing what they done. In Prometheus the weapon the engineers made in one case creates an alien within Shaw which she removes and that alien impregnates the engineer and hatches another xenomorph or neomorph (think it has its own unique name but it eludes me). So the enigneers did create this to begin with but David just develops it further with experimenting and getting the xenomorph version that we know from Alien. As we know this alien takes on traits of the host so its forever being developed so David didnt quite create the Alien more that he just experimented with an already made weapon on different hosts.

[@kendred7984]

I would asume that the biological mechanisms of the xenomorphs where created by the engineers and all David is really doing is a sort of selective breeding. He's not engineering just more of a eugenics sort of experiements. We've seen in both Prometheus and Covenant that the more Life forms an alien births through or live cycles the more interesting and complex they become. I would bet that's what his process for "Creating" the xenomorphs is. So in a sence the possibility of them becomeing what we know as xenopmorphs in the Alien trilogy are actually already possible it just takes Eugenics like proccess of breeding to bring that more refined and developed form of Xenomorph DNA to come out the other end looking badass.

[@Mahanagaraja]

I agree with you. I like the xenomorphs as an older species that David is tinkering with. It better explains the ship found in the original Alien film: The engineers were obviously at war with someone and this ship was meant to deliver its payload upon an enemy, but something went wrong or it was intercepted and shot down by a Yautja ship and so we have the Alien and Aliens movies.

[@metsrus]

Engineers created, David modified.

[@NBNV]

I think it is fairly safe to assume that we were never intended to think David started from scratch. In Covenant he's using the last vestiges of the Engineers' biological experiments to further the research toward the finished, perfect organism we see in the Alien. Taking the vessel and her crew for experimentation will more than likely serve to get as far as he can with biological components before he is forced to augment the black goo to integrate inorganic material to serve the purpose of ascension. While the Engineers clearly had been working on the Xenomorph's cousins, or even predecessors, the absence of the biomechanical finish means they likely had very little to do with the final version of the Alien itself. David will almost certainly sacrifice himself, or at least his body, to bridge the evolutionary gap we see between his creations in Covenant and the Alien, possibly even becoming the Space Jockey himself in order to create the entity he deems is without compare. I think people are taking words too literally and parsing unintended meaning. Everything we've seen and heard since Prometheus points to David being the progenitor of the species; however, people mistakenly take the mural as either a plot hole or a means by which to support the Engineers as the real masters. There are theories in spades that life was sown on Earth and we were invited to meet the Engineers, but the one that I feel most aligns most favourably with the canonical story is that the Engineers made us either to /be/ the biological Xeno-esque weapons from the start, or to test them on us. But their product was not at near the level David has accomplished in a single decade. Regardless, though, as far as we know David created the Xeno, and the Engineers gave him the tools to do so by inciting his curiosity and pride.

[@ooiiooiiooiiooii1107]

They should have stayed true to the original script. The Engineers created the Xenomorph and use them for construction tools and weapons. The Xenomorph is a biomechaniod (HE Giger) and under the direction of Engineers built the Bone ship. The book Alien gives some details about the age of the Space Jockey. The construction pre-programming is present in the movie Aliens when the Colonial Marines inter the hive.