Alien Covenant, it’s fair to say, is not one of the most beloved additions to the Alien timeline, with Ridley Scott’s science fiction movie attracting decidedly mixed reviews when it debuted in 2017.
Audiences and critics disliked the over-complicated plotting and the way its ambition to match the best alien movies exceeded its ability to actually pull off that feat. But some people had more specific reasons to hate the horror movie, including the folks living next door to Michael Fassbender.
Among the many bizarre swings Scott took in his sequel to Prometheus was the decision to give Fassbender a dual role. As well as the android David, who survived the events of Prometheus, the actor also plays a second, newer model called Walter. That’s right, it’s a double robot movie.
David is ultimately revealed as the big movie villain of the story and his actions have huge impact on the franchise as a whole, but mainly people wanted to talk about the scene in which David teaches Walter to play the flute and drops an outrageous innuendo about “fingering”.
“It was interesting to shoot and pretty fun to do if you enjoy the technical side of things which I do,” Fassbender said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
The actor’s neighbours in Australia were less enamoured with the sequence, given they found themselves on the receiving end of his musical education.
Fassbender added: “I was practising playing the flute in the place I was renting in Sydney, and I could hear the neighbour complaining through the wall, saying things like: ‘Ugh this fucking reminds me of how annoying it was when so and so tried to learn the accordion’. I thought ‘oh shit’ and stuck a piece of cellophane in the air pipe.”