Prequel Buzz: Get the Latest Details on 'Rogue One' and 'Alien: Covenant'

So many classic films have new prequels on the way, and we’ve got updates on two that are almost here:

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

With less than two months from release, details on the next Star Wars movie, a prequel spinoff about the origins of the Death Star and its downfall, are becoming clearer every day. The latest involve the relationship between the villainous Imperial Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) and scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), who is the father of the movie’s rebellious heroine, Jyn (Felicity Jones). USA Today published an excerpt of a new book that depicts them as very different men united in friendship and in the creation of the superweapon. Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo also shared some real-world comparisons in an intro the excerpt: 

Krennic is a mastermind but Galen is the genius, and the former needs the secrets that are in the latter’s mind in order to fulfill this dream project, Hidalgo says. “We jokingly refer to it as like Mozart and Salieri or even Jobs and Wozniak. It’s these opposites that come together.”

Their character dynamic reminds Hidalgo of The Social Network, with “all the twists and turns that those kinds of relationships can take in the development of something as big as, in this case, the Death Star and not Facebook.”

Alien: Covenant 

Ridley Scott’s continuation of the Alien back story begun with Prometheus, this movie arrives next summer and is currently in post-production. The update with this one comes initially via Michael Fassbender, who is reprising his role as the android David. In an interview with BBC Radio 2, he accidentally referred to the creature from the 1979 original as a “Neomorph,” a term later confirmed (by way of io9) to be what the new versions of the creatures were called on the set of Covenant. The site Alien vs. Predator Galaxy specifically describes Neomorphs (as opposed to the originals’ Xenomorphs) here: 

These Aliens are the result of the local ecosystem being mutated by the accelerant/black goo. Over time, pods started to grow on the trees and the ground, and release a spore when disturbed.

These spores infect several members of the Covenant crew by entering the body through the ear and nostrils. The spores cause the growth of the Neomorphs inside the infected hosts – something that is reminiscent of William Gibson’s first draft of Alien 3. One of the Neomorphs bursts from the back of one of the infected crew, a backburster. The other crewmember’s Neomorph erupts through their throat.

The births are preceded by the eruption of two small dorsal spikes. These spikes and a pointed skull are also used to break out of an embryonic sack (similar to the Deacon in Prometheus). 

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