THE SCREENING ROOM
“ I GOT YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” screams one of several interchangeable live-bait humans in Alien: Covenant, after dispatching one of those toothy, drooling, beanbag-headed extraterrestrials that—nearly 40 years into one of sci-i’s most endlessly renewable franchises—don’t look so alien to us anymore.
On the other hand, at least the line indicates that we’re not in the granite-textured solemnity of Ridley Scott’s 2012 prequel, Prometheus, anymore. The echo to Sigourney Weaver’s battle cry of “Get away from her, you bitch” clariies that film’s hitherto cryptic connection to the events of Alien and delivers a reference that admits allegiance to the pulpy, 1979 original.