Ridley confirms Engineers did not create Humanity

I think it is a great point, but right now I don't think RS/FOX is interested in exploring this angle....or the angle of the true origins of the Alien pathogen. I personally think it would be fascinating, but I think RS wants to continue to explore his Blade Runner AI fetish. 

I think we will get a decent movie(s), but I fully expect to see more David mad-scientist robot mechanations with crazed experiments through protomorphs and Xenos. We might also get a few surprises tossed in there as well about corporate intrigue involving Weyland and Yutani Corporations.

I like it!!

It would be interesting if the Weyland and Yutani Dynasties were part of a cabal that secretly ruled humanity and worshiped an Alien God like Cthulhu (the Ultramorph) and had been passed down generations an ancient genetic code that would inevitably lead - through David - to the Return of the True Messiah of sorts.

@IndyFront: Well Weyland the Smith created weapons capable of taking on the gods, so will David become Giger's Baphomet?

Hmmm interesting.

If that is the case then the Engineers tried to eradicate humanity out of jealousy/fear/uncertainty because they found out that mother nature created a lifeform which could compete with their creations (planet 4?, or maybe on other worlds).

Then, why show an engineer creating life on Earth, or an (Earth-like planet in Prometheus)?  I wish that Sir Ridley would get some good ideas, a solid script and stop trying to retcon his movies.  I think that his approach will probably turn out to be a negative for the series.

@Ripley's Ghost: I am convinced the Engineer 'creating life' at the start of Prometheus was not on Earth, but the planet we saw in Covenant.

The Sacrificial Engineer at the start of Prometheus was said to be in 79 AD. 

I got the information from an Alien timeline. 

If this is the case it means that they were seeding planets up until 2000 years ago at least. Which also ties in with the outbreak on LV 223.

As for the Engineers creating humans. Well i assume that with the DNA match it is a safe bet to assume that we were created as in the intro to Prometheus only 100s of thousands of years before.

Just because an Engineer drinks the goo and breaks down to seed a planet it doesnt have to mean they are our creators.

Perhaps RS was alluding to this. Maybe the process was engineered by higher beings and The Engineers (Sacrificial) were a creation of these higher beings. Simply to seed planets.  

They have their creations do the work and give the ultimate sacrifice when the time is right for a planet to be seeded.

The Engineers are just another link.

I think this this is just a miss-quoute..

We need to remember RS does get mixed up a bit... and also consider this comment in regards to the Movie and RS comments after the movie... where RS confirms David creates the Xenomorph.

So i will attempt to address the comment in the OT

"We’ve reinvented the idea of Alien"

ALIEN the movie? or the Xenomorph?

"which is that Covenant gets us a step closer to who and why was this thing designed to make human beings"

Covenant is a Alien Prequel, it takes us a step closer to Alien, and so AC does not show this THING is designed to make Humans that makes no sense.... if its not Engineers, then AC gives no clues to this THING to make Humans.

"And if you think it’s them,” Scott said, gesturing to the monolithic figures of the Engineers surrounding us, “you’re dead wrong".

The Figures look like LV-223 Engineers/Elders and yes we assumed they created Mankind but we also assumed they made the Xenomorph.

Here is what i think RS had meant...

"We’ve reinvented the idea of Alien, which is that Covenant gets us a step closer to who and why was this thing designed to KILL human beings. And if you think it’s them,” Scott said, gesturing to the monolithic figures of the Engineers surrounding us, “you’re dead wrong."

By replacing the Made with KILL... we can see this comment adds up with Prometheus and Alien Covenant.

This modification by myself.... then makes his comment add up to what he said prior to AC release..  Where he said the movie will show us "Why and Who would make such a Terrible Thing, it Felt like a Weapon and Bio-Mechanical and AC will begin to Answer those things".

What did AC seem to answer?   David 8 has a hatred to Humanity be it the Engineers and Mankind.  He had been experimenting with the Black Goo and is shown to have Created the Xenomorph Organism.

This Curve-Ball.... David created the Eggs is something that would be a complete Surprise to people back 5 years ago or even prior to Alien.

Alien = Space Jockey maybe created the Xenomorph?

Prometheus attempted to answer this is in part the Xenomorph is connected to the experiments/Black Goo the Space Jockey Race had created.

At the time prior to Prometheus being worked on, and even upon release of Prometheus... and even going into a Sequel.. 

The Eggs are created by David 8 is a bit of a Surprise... which proves any thoughts we could come up with prior to Prometheus and after... are DEAD WRONG!

If we consider all of this then, i think RS in that interview is referring to the Xenomorph. In that if we think the Engineers Created the Xenomorph we are Dead Wrong...

Guys, it was made very clear that The Engineers were seeding life (originally one was supposed to be Jesus LOL) and that Humans/Earth were one of them.  It's not a grey area.  Sir Ridley is either doing his retcon thing, or as DigDave says, it's a misquote.

BD - It seemed really strange after Prometheus that David created the Xeno + Eggs.

Because after Prometheus I thought there was a chance that the SJ mystery was maybe solved:

LV 223 is the bio-weapons testing place and we know there was an outbreak just before take off.  With LV 426 being the next moon it could be that the Engineer crashed on LV 426 during chest burst.

However this cant be true as we now have David 8 as the Xeno creator and even though there is evidence that Engineers too had eggs (Novel) - the ones they have/had will not have the Xeno as the end product. 

It may be the same process but not the bio-mech Xeno end product as it is Davids design and even at time of Covenant was not a 1979 Xeno.

This also means there is no fossilisation at all in the SJ. The SJ will of been there under 20yrs.

That part is known really from Prometheus when it turned out it was the look of a  suit and not fossilisation

It just seems strange that after potentially answering the SJ question in Prometheus - which we thought had a lack of answers - to then make another film which now throws that soloution to the SJ out of the window ans we are no further forward after 2 films.

I can only assume they decided that the answer to the SJ was more important than any other answers that were needed and FOX maybe answered it twice. After knocking the first theory down....

@BigDave. Your theory makes sense. With David's creation (or recreation) of the Xeno, AC threw the huge nasty conundrum-spit ball dancing up to the plate towards us.  The Engineers seeding worlds was kind of established from Prometheus.

Hopefully it doesn't distract from telling the story of the Engineers (at least in part) and their involvement with the Black goo.

There is so much possibilities if they go that direction, as I think a whole movie with David concocting Xeno monsters via the crew/cargo of the Covenant is not what we really want to see.

Hopefully that is the case, I don’t want a David centered movie and I don’t want an engineer centered movie. They human characters must come first. If they will give the Engineers a bigger role than in AC but then they must keep the Engineers closer to the Xeno otherwise it would be lame. Keep the Engineer culture like a roman empire that conquers new worlds.

@sherris. It would seem so.

When you wrote "...LV 223 is the bio-weapons testing place and we know there was an outbreak just before take off.  With LV 426 being the next moon it could be that the Engineer crashed on LV 426 during chest burst...."

This would have seemed like a logical course of action for the movie to flow into Alien, but having David create the egg causes a time gapping issue as well as a convoluted storyline to get a chest-bursted Space jockey/Alien in a Juggernaut full of eggs on LV426.

Another question I have with the Space Jockey is despite it appearing to have its chest burst, was it really face hugged, since we saw its elephantine mask was in place in the pilot chair in the Derelict?

Yet if it was chestburst, this would suggest it was face hugged during flight and then crashed on LV-426!?

It is a tough one. 

Would an Android be able to become a host? If so they might not need to be face hugged or can function for longer before their demise?

Otherwise a human or Engineer would have to be quick after being face hugged - then getting to a ship, setting a course  and taking off seems a little stretch considering Orams decline and short life after waking from a fave hugger.

ALSO:

We can no longer say that the SJ is an Engineer with any certainty. It was looking that way after Prometheus but now A:C arrives and we have David as the Xeno creator.

So if David created the 1979 Xeno - then the eggs on the derelict cant be from the Engineers, even though in the A:C novel they did have Eggs. Their end product cant be a 1979 Xeno because David is in the process of re-engineering the Xenomorph.

If the eggs were from Engineer testing then the chest-burster in Alien would not be the classic Xeno. It would be the Engineers version and not the bio-mech classic.

@Sherris: Kethol, who has kindly laid out a whole heap of RS quotes here, included one about Ash "wasn't human, he'd have been no use as a host" and "why does human DNA play such an important role for the alien?".

So I'm not convinced the Space Jockey, to RS at least, is David like everyone seems to be theorising now.

"Nathan Adler - I am convinced the Engineer 'creating life' at the start of Prometheus was not on Earth, but the planet we saw in Covenant."

Wasn't it always the case that it wasn't Earth? I'm not sure it was Planet 4 either, but it could be interesting it it was... Maybe seeding is how they 'colonise' worlds? Spread their genome in a habitable atmosphere and leave it to grow naturally for that world?

Ridley indicated it could have been any planet. The scene just showed how the Engineers seeded life on planets, not a specific one.

"… the sequence at the beginning of the film (Prometheus), that is fundamentally creation. It’s a donation, in the sense that the weight and the construction of the DNA of those aliens is way beyond what we can possibly imagine...it doesn’t have to be (Earth). That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the planting that life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself." - Ridley Scott

@sherris

"This also means there is no fossilisation at all in the SJ. The SJ will of been there under 20yrs.

That part is known really from Prometheus when it turned out it was the look of a  suit and not fossilisation"

Yeah that makes sense now with Prometheus' & A:C's showcase of the Engineers space/bio suits.

But we will see.

The Engineers did not create humans because they themselves are human.

In Prometheus' opening scene we do see them seed life on a desolate world, but it ain't human life they are seeding - answer to what kind of life they are seeding is in the movie.

@ BigDave - it ain't no misquote. Ridley is actually giving fans one hell of a big clue here, a big piece of the jigsaw. Same with Lindelof's recent statement that "paradise" is not the Engineer Homeworld.

@Gavin: Thanks for the vote of confidence:)