Although director Ridley Scott had previously announced that Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) would not be returning for his Prometheus sequel, Alien: Covenant, that no longer seems to be the case.
Details are obviously being kept under wraps but Deadline reports that Rapace is currently on the Alien: Covenant set in Australia and is scheduled to “shoot weeks worth of scenes.” At this juncture, I doubt that this means Rapace will be starring in the film in any leading capacity, but at least this means we’ll be getting a proper follow up to her story in some fashion. Seeing as how Elizabeth and David are the only surviving members of the Prometheus expedition, it would have felt odd not seeing what happened to Dr. Shaw and her quest to find our creators.
This development either means one of two things: either Rapace was always going to be involved with the movie but the production wanted to keep her presence a mystery for plot reasons, or she really was out of the picture and some last minute negotiations took place to get her back. The idea that there was a script that didn’t involve Shaw on some level would be a little baffling, even if it was a simple reference to her character. Rapace definitely brought her all to the character, and other than salary reasons, I can’t see why the movie ever planned to forge ahead without her.
Maybe we’ll learn the details of this after the film has released, but it’s fairly inconsequential at this point. I’m just happy to hear that Alien: Covenant will be including Shaw since she was one of the few characters from Prometheus that I liked. The conflict between her faith and her scientific reasoning was a focal point of the first film, and I hope Alien: Covenant will continue to grapple with such large concepts.
I only hope they’ll be better executed and more forthcoming with their mysteries this time around.
Alien: Covenant bursts out of Ridley Scott’s chest on August 4, 2017. Try not to touch any black goo until then.
