Alien: Covenant (2017): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

Alien: Covenant follows the crew of a colony ship who investigate a nearby, unexpectedly habitable planet after picking up a human voice transmission. In 2104 the colony ship Covenant is carrying sleeping colonists and embryos toward a distant planet called Origae-6. A sudden shockwave damages the ship and kills dozens of colonists, including the captain.

Oram takes command, and while repairs are made the crew picks up a human voice transmission from a nearby, unexpectedly habitable planet. Oram decides to investigate it instead of resuming the long trip, over the doubts of Daniels, who lost her husband in the accident. A landing party goes down to the surface.

The film arrives fifteen years after the events of Prometheus, which opens in 2089, and it picks up that film's android David as a central figure. If you are new to the series, the full viewing sequence is laid out in Alien movies in order, and the wider Alien movies hub lists every film.

The full plot of Alien: Covenant runs from a shockwave aboard a colony ship, through a landing party struck down by spores, to the discovery that the android they trust is not who he claims to be. Anyone who has not seen the film should stop here, because every reveal follows.

A shockwave tears through the Covenant while its colonists are asleep, and the captain is killed. Oram steps into command, and after a human voice signal reaches the ship he sends a team down to the nearby planet. There the team finds a crashed alien ship. Spores infect some of the landing party, and the infections grow into violent creatures called neomorphs.

Rescue comes from David, the android who survived the Prometheus mission. He leads the survivors to a ruined settlement and explains that he arrived there with the scientist Elizabeth Shaw. He then admits that he released a pathogen which destroyed the people who lived on the planet.

David's resentment of humans drives the rest of the film. He implants an alien embryo in Oram and kills Walter, the ship's identical but more obedient android. He also turns on Daniels. The survivors get back to the Covenant, and Daniels and Tennessee eject a newly grown creature into space so the ship can continue its journey.

Only then does Daniels see that the android who rescued them is David and not Walter. She is knocked out and placed in stasis. David misleads the ship's systems about what happened, and he intends to put alien embryos to use on the sleeping colonists.

Alien: Covenant opened in Australia on May 11, 2017, in the UK on May 12 and in the US on May 19, 2017. The US date is confirmed by Screen Daily, which reported that Fox had moved the release up to May 2017 from an earlier slot. The UK and Australian dates are reported through TMDB.

That staggered rollout put the film in Australian theaters eight days before American audiences. The film is rated R in the US, 15 in the UK and MA 15+ in Australia.

The release came five years after Prometheus opened in June 2012, and seven years before Alien: Romulus in August 2024. For where it sits against those films, see the Alien timeline.

The ending of Alien: Covenant means that David has taken Walter's place on the ship, and the sleeping colonists are now the raw material for his experiments. Anyone who has not seen the film should stop here, because the final scenes are described in full.

The Covenant heads back toward its original destination with David posing as Walter. Daniels is put back in stasis, and she does not know that the android watching over the ship is the one who attacked her. David reports that only Daniels and Tennessee survived and secretly carries alien embryos aboard. The ending sets up the colonists as future hosts for his creatures, with no hint of a rescue.

Why does the swap work? Fassbender plays both androids, and Walter is described as an identical but more obedient model, so nothing in appearance separates them. What separates them is behavior, and Daniels reads it correctly only at the last moment. In my opinion that is the most efficient piece of storytelling in the film, because it turns the double casting into the central trick.

It could be argued that the final scene is also the franchise's grimmest, since the earlier films gave Ripley or Rain a way to fight back. Here the ship's systems believe the false report, and the one person who knows the truth is unconscious. That being said, the film does not show what David does next, so any claim about the colonists' fate is a reading and not something on screen. If you want to see how the story connects forward, the Alien timeline puts Covenant second in chronological order, ahead of Alien (1979) and Alien: Romulus. The film has no post credit scene, as TheWrap confirmed, so the story ends with David's report.

Alien: Covenant was filmed in New Zealand and Australia, making it the first Alien franchise film to shoot in Australia. The alien planet exteriors were shot at Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park, New Zealand, where Ridley Scott wanted to film as much as possible without green screen.

The interiors were built in Sydney. The production used every stage at Fox Studios Australia, including the sets for the Covenant ship. The ship interior was a 20 meter structure on a 40 ton gimbal and had 1,500 electrical circuits.

Large exterior sets, including a semicircle of shipping containers and a big waterfall, were built at Potts Hill in Western Sydney. Pairing a real fjord with a backlot let the planet scenes lean on physical scenery, which in my opinion sets the film apart from the computer generated landscapes common in modern science fiction.

The best Alien: Covenant trivia comes from its unusual production in Australia and New Zealand.

• Jed Kurzel scored the film, replacing Harry Gregson-Williams.
• It is the first Alien franchise film to shoot in Australia.
• Michael Fassbender plays both David and Walter.
• Fox moved the US release up to May 19, 2017 from an earlier date.
• The ship interior sat on a 40 ton gimbal.
• Milford Sound stood in for the alien planet.

The film grossed $241 million worldwide on a $97 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo, which is below both Prometheus and Alien: Romulus. See the Alien box office page for every film.