Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a special Alien Day event in London, organised by 20th Century Fox and primarily geared towards building anticipation for Alien: Covenant. Along with AVPGalaxy forum member Xenomorphine, we were treated to a number of exclusive experiences, following which we were whisked to a screening of Prometheus and an exclusive, 10-minute sneak peak of Alien: Covenant.
Events began with a look around the main floor of the YouTube centre, adjacent to St. Pancras International train station, where the event was held. The main attractions here were a deep space EVA suit from Covenant and a series of fan-made artworks based around the Alien films. The EVA suit in particular impressed me with the level of detail put into it, from the various labels and mechanisms scattered across the exterior to the working LCD screens and readouts on the inside of the helmet. While we were looking around, we were provided with food and drink — some of which was Alien-themed, such as little cheesy nibbles in the shape of a Xenomorph Egg, complete with a tiny herb garnish Facehugger emerging from the top, a cute touch.
Among the other activities on the main floor were temporary tattoos, a nail boutique painting nails with various Alien designs, and cocktail mixing — I must admit, the Alien link became pretty tenous here, but I'm never one to turn my nose up a free drinks. The area was also decorated with a plethora of foam rubber Facehuggers, which soon found themselves in the hands of the various fans there to be used for photo opportunities.
The first major event of the night was a talk with Conor O'Sullivan, the creatures design supervisor on Alien: Covenant, who brought along several screen-used creature props from the film, including a full-size Xenomorph head and the Neomorph "backburster" puppet. A little later, we were treated to a chat with some of the cast members from Covenant, including Danny McBride, Katherine Waterston, Demián Bichir and Jussie Smollett, who appeared from Los Angeles via a video link.
The final big event of the night (and the one I was most looking forward to) was a chance to see several more props used in the filming of Covenant, on display in a heavily-guarded room in the building's basement. These included Xenomorph Eggs, a Facehugger (which was actually used in the movie, worn by cast members who are being impregnated), two cryotubes from the Covenant, and a pair of pressure suits. Much like the EVA suit upstairs, the pressure suits were bestowed with an impressive level of detail.
Finally, in the evening, we were bussed to Covent Garden for a screening of Prometheus, which was followed by two exclusive Covenant sneak peeks. The first of these was a prologue piece set between Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, featuring Michael Fassbender as David and Noomi Rapace as Shaw. This has since been released online by Fox as Alien: Covenant - Prologue: The Crossing. The second piece was 10 minutes of footage from Alien: Covenant, starting with the Covenant's arrival at the planet and the launch of the vessel's dropship, and then continuing with a later sequence that included the birth of the back- and throatbursters, as well as the explosive destruction of the dropship. Although it gave away little regarding the film as a whole, I was quite impressed with what I saw, especially enjoying the realistic way in which the crew broke down into chaos as things started going horribly wrong.
All in all, it was an enjoyable afternoon in London. We each left with a goodie bag containing some Covenant merchandise, including a notebook, cap, backpack and a rather fancy Facehugger bottle-opener. I also managed to... "acquire" one of the decorative Facehuggers from the event, a nice poseable puppet with a wire frame than can be bent to hold the creature in different positions. I had a great time, my thanks to Fox for inviting me!