Alien: Covenant - 18 WTF Moments

Alien: Covenant is the movie every card-carrying Alien fan wanted to be great...but most of them knew deep down it probably wouldn't be the convincing apology for Prometheus that Ridley Scott repeatedly promised.

That said, it certainly didn't want for weirdness, serving up some of the gnarliest gore and most mind-melting (if not entirely coherent) reveals to the Alien universe to date.

Indeed, it wouldn't be an Alien movie without a huge dose of the bizarre, because why should a franchise centered on aliens hatching out of human beings' chests be anything less than a carnival of the grotesque? If these movies weren't offputting on a deep, primal level, what would be the point?

Still, many believe that Covenant is only half-unsettling for the right reasons. If nothing else, it has certainly gotten fans talking, and Scott has at least made another tantalising provocation rather than a merely bland follow-up to his divisive 2012 sci-fi prequel.

18. Changing Course...Because Reasons

So, things get off to a baffling start when Captain Oram (Billy Crudup) decides to change course from the Covenant's original destination, Origae-6, to the uncharted Engineer homeworld mere moments after intercepting Elizabeth Shaw's (Noomi Rapace) transmission. But what about the presumably hundreds if not thousands of man hours poured into preparing the original expedition?

Despite the protestations of Daniels (Katherine Waterston), the Covenant's terraforming expert, the newly-minted Captain lays down the law because "muh faith", flushing all that original, no doubt meticulous prep down the toilet in the process. It doesn't exactly set things off on the right foot.