Meet Walter in Alien Covenant as new footage teases plot details

Ridley Scott has released an awful lot of footage of Alien: Covenant over the past few weeks. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing, as the more footage you see before the movie releases the more likely you are to be underwhelmed aby the result – but it also gives an indication of the confidence Scott has in his vision and that it will cater to the high expectations of fans of the series. And if that is the case, then he must really feel confident as over the weekend, two clips from the film have dropped along with some hints on the narrative of the film.

So it goes without saying, that with any reveal of actual film footage that a spoiler alert is appropriate – so consider yourself alerted and continue reading at your own risk.

First up, we have a new video introducing us to the new character Walter. Although Walter is a new character, he is essentially a recreation of David, played by Michael Fassbender. We have previously reported that Fassbender will be playing more than one role in the film and the character of Walter is it. At least that we know of:

What this new footage has done for us though is give us new perspective on the thread that holds this film, which serves as both a prequel and sequel, to the rest of the series. And while many have been talking up Katherine Waterson as the next Ridley in the series, it would appear that is not the case as these scenes focus on Michael Fassbender’s synthetic character are not coincidental.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, it was revealed that Fassbender has a bigger role to play in the whole thing and is actually going to be the driving force that joins the movies together.  Katherine Waterson shot down the notion of her being the main character:

It’s the A.I. that’s the real connective tissue of this franchise. People keep saying I’m the Ripley. I’m not. It’s Fassbender.

There was also some additional footage shown (revealed by Screen Rant) at the film and music festival SXSW, that unfortunately has not been released for wider viewing, but reportedly teases the return of Guy Pearce’s character (this time as his younger self, – so we will be seeing Pearce without prosthetics this time), as the man who created David (Fassbender’s synthetic name from Prometheus). It’s not believed that Pearce will play a major role in the film, but as the creator of the synthetic characters played by Fassbender, it just adds more weight to the theory that the films are revolving around Fassbender.

Hopefully this is not all a big spoiler that will lead to one of Fassbender’s character’s being the only survivor of the Alien discovery and have everyone else been killed.  Though, I would say that any Alien movie with a fierce Xenomorph that kills everybody is hardly a disappointing ending. I guess, we’ll have to try not a spoil too much of the movie and wait and see what Scott has in store for us. Which is apparently quite a complex story with the potential to keep us thinking, as Scott himself revealed:

[It will] really get people going because it’s f*cking smart for a change.

Last Updated: March 14, 2017