Corvinus85 Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 @Howdyphillip Spoiler As I watched that the overly cliched shower sex scene I thought that was filmed sometime early in the process, and then Scott spent the rest of the production figuring out where to put that in. Also, while I agree that McBride did a good job, Spoiler his character was quite literally in a support role. The guy who just pushes buttons. Even in the climactic scene, all he did was pull levers and activate stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel4s-JonSnow Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 Short review: it sucks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel4s-JonSnow Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 Longer review: If this was unconnected to the first 2 Alien movies i might have been able to enjoy this on some level. Scott has gone 'the full Lucas' now as far as I'm concerned. His prequels have tried their hardest to spoil his work by over explaining elements that we didn't need to know, and replaced mystery with dull cliche. There is an interesting tale Scott is telling about AI and creator / creation, but it feels like he's been forced to crowbar it into an identikit Alien template. So many elements just feel like rehashes from other movies and at one point I got so frustrated at the pointlessness of the whole 'small group of people get infected and slowly killed off while a Ripley character survives till the end' that I almost walked out. Visually its occasionally pretty but the aesthetic feels like a computer game and doesn't hold a candle to the first two movies. That years later, Scott hasn't figured out that a man in a suit with good set and lighting design looks far better than a glossy computer created alien, and that imagination is far scarier than anything he could put on screen, well its disappointing. Everything looks worse than his work from 30 years previous. Even worse I was giving Prometheus a chance, i thought it was ok, but on the proviso that the ending led onto a grander more interesting story which would excuse the blandness. Unfortunately it led onto a worse movie that did an 'Alien 3' by glossing over what had come before, killing people off and feeling completely unconnected. On the whole the movie doesn't seem to justify its existence , its devoid of actual characters except David, it's plot is just a rehash of everything we've seen before and it features some of the most forgettable actions scene in the entire franchise. Scott needs to stop. I'm starting to think that movies on the whole are doomed to be bland pointless exercises in avoiding risk, this movie just strengthens that fear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 @Channel4s-JonSnow I think it is actually worse. There is some good in the beginning with the colonization thing and the actual explanation we get how the people end where they end up. But once they decide to go to the planet they just all behave like stupid Alien movie characters, taking no precautions, behaving like morons, etc. The idea that people that are actually trying colonize space would not take proper precautions when they land on a completely foreign planet is ridiculous (that was a problem in Prometheus, too, but not as glaring as in that one, because Prometheus actually had an interesting premise). And once we get to the David story the entire cheap horror movie cliché of people going for a walk on their own is just so completely unbelievable you can barely watch the thing. They are on a planet full of monsters but they don't stick together? They don't try to defend themselves and protect each other from what's out there? And they buy the story of the weird robot just because ... why exactly? They don't ask who those human-like aliens were, nor what the hell the purpose of the original expedition was? And in the end they actually continue their stupid journey to that colony planet instead of, well, return back to earth to report what's out there? As to the main story of the movie: Spoiler The clichéd 'evil robot destroys his (the creator of his) creator' story also doesn't really work. I mean, there are perhaps some hints in the first story that David might have some issues with his dad. But the question of the original movie was who the Engineers were, what that black goo was, and what their plans for earth and humanity was. David and Shaw were actually interested in getting an answer to that question. David has no reason to kill all the Engineers and then experiment on Shaw to create a bunch of murderous aliens. What's the point of that? From a thematic point of view it is more likely that he would have tried to gain the favor/understanding of the creators of his creator, to make himself more perfect and broaden his understanding of reality and himself. Perhaps there could be potential in a story where David would eventually turn against the Engineers if they rejected or mistreated him, or if they had subjected Shaw to the kind of tests he apparently subjected her to (for essentially no good reason), but not just out of the blue. The main theme of the movie is basically an easy and childish way to get out of an actually interesting story. The Engineers were the interesting part, not the aliens. In that sense it is much worse than Alien 3. It would have been interesting to see Ripley, Hicks, and Newt as a family, but their private life isn't as interesting as deep question about the origin of (human) life on earth and the plans its creators originally had for it. Quite honestly, don't pay any money for this shitty movie. Don't even watch it for free. Just do something more interesting with your life and forget that it even exists. It is that bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel4s-JonSnow Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 @Lord Varys Completely agree with your point on the Engineers. That was the one reason for Prometheus existing, and Covenant. Prometheus introduced the idea that they will be expanding on that idea and discussing the meaning of our creation. Instead both movies have now completely glossed over that issue (in the most insulting way in Covenant) and instead, as you say replaces it with the dull robot pinocchio story that I've seen a hundred times ( battlestar galactica) What really annoyed me about this however, and it reflect badly on Prometheus too is that there now appears to be an Alien movie template that involves all the same elements: small crew making stupid decisons despite being trained not to make them, some form of face hugger incident, a chest burster incident, followed by 'Ripley' being chased around by a xenomorph, finally using a big machine to kill it in some way.. all the while some evil corporation is viewing the alien as a way to further their own goals. There are so many interesting stories to tell in that universe, why they feel that Alien movies now have to mean this series of events each time is what annoys me the most. They had the potential to break the mould with the Engineers but Scott has ballsed it up completely again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 I personally enjoyed the film quite a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leofric Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 On it's own, this movie is entertaining, but when you start thinking about in connection to the other Alien movies I don't like how it compresses everything. Spoiler Basically if you look at the timeline laid out from Prometheus to Alien, it's only 30 years or so. Prometheus destroyed in 2094 and Nostromo destroyed in 2122 From the beginning of Prometheus and even the beginning of Alien, you get the impression that the Engineers were around in the distant past , possibly seeded life on Earth and then disappeared. In Prometheus they talk about the Engineers visiting ancient civilizations, but obviously not visiting recently. The lab they find looks like it was destroyed hundreds if not thousands of years ago, and the only Engineer they find alive was in suspended animation all that time. Now in Covenant we find out the Engineers were alive and well until David showed up. Our creators weren't long gone, they were right next door. Then we find out that the form of Xenomorph we know with the facehugger life cycle from Alien was developed by David, less than 20 years before the crew of Nostromo found it in the wrecked ship. That means an Engineer survived David's genocide and will show up in the next movie to collect Alien eggs or pick up a Queen from David's experiments with the colonists on the Covenant, but fail to contain the Alien and crash. So the wreck the Nostromo finds has not been sitting there for a long long time, it was there less than 10 years, taking into account the Covenant still has 7 years to go to reach its destination. (This also puts confirms that Ridley Scott hates the Aliens vs Predator movies as it would now be impossible for the facehuggers to have been in a 10,000 year old temple on Earth and used as Predator hunting ritual.) This is a similar issue I had with the Star Wars Prequels, The original trilogy gave the impression that Empire had been around awhile and people were looking back with nostalgia on the Republic. Then the prequels come and tell us the Empire was barely 20 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel4s-JonSnow Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 Very good points actually, it reminded me that I was always under the impression the aliens had been used as a weapon on many worlds, or had even evolved to become a perfect killing machine on their own; and our contact with them was because of how extensively they had spread. These prequels have pretty much killed any interesting mythology around the xenomorphs. Its best to forget they exist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mother of The Others Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 I'm used to what you're describing. my favorite time travel saga at first kept things wide open and you were enthralled by how vast the unknown was, all the possibilities..... then when they filled in the specific details they sewed things up too tightly so that no room was left for any of those possibilities, now there was only the story they were currently telling, which seemed to diminish the world and its timeline in stature. It was like........oh, okay....so that's it? Huh. It was more satisfying when left untold and free, a living unknown now killed by specifics that didn't live up to the grandness they'd previously ascribed to the unknown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 Im undeterred by the bad reviews and looking forward to viewing this over the Memorial break. I'm keeping an open mind going in. Eta- I liked Prometheus as well as the earlier Alien(s) movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DraculaAD1972 Posted May 23, 2017 Share Posted May 23, 2017 I've seen Alien Covenant 3 times and will go a 4th time this weekend. It's fabulous. Just forget the original Alien and Aliens. This is something completely different, which is why so many fans of the original films hate Alien Covenant. Alien and Aliens were sci-fi thrillers, whereas this is sci-fi horror, in the vein of The Island of Doctor Moreau or any number of classic Hammer horror films. I actually hated Alien Covenant when I watched it the first time. A second viewing changed my mind when I realised the kind of film this is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manhole Eunuchsbane Posted May 23, 2017 Share Posted May 23, 2017 5 minutes ago, DraculaAD1972 said: I've seen Alien Covenant 3 times and will go a 4th time this weekend. It's fabulous. Just forget the original Alien and Aliens. This is something completely different, which is why so many fans of the original films hate Alien Covenant. Alien and Aliens were sci-fi thrillers, whereas this is sci-fi horror, in the vein of The Island of Doctor Moreau or any number of classic Hammer horror films. I actually hated Alien Covenant when I watched it the first time. A second viewing changed my mind when I realised the kind of film this is. The first Alien film is a straight up Horror movie. Only the setting is sci-fi. IMHO, it is Top Ten all-time in the Horror genre. Aliens is an Action movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DraculaAD1972 Posted May 23, 2017 Share Posted May 23, 2017 22 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said: The first Alien film is a straight up Horror movie. Only the setting is sci-fi. IMHO, it is Top Ten all-time in the Horror genre. Aliens is an Action movie. I'm not sure Aliens is simply an action film, Action is the genre that is defined by films like Die Hard or First Blood. Aliens has equal parts Action Horror and Sci-Fi. I would probably place both Alien and Aliens in my top ten Sci-Fi list, and of course you're right that Alien not Aliens would be in any serious top ten Horror list. But when I describe them as sci-fi thrillers I'm referring to the emphasis on serious plot and characters as we have with Alien and Aliens. Alien Covenant is a different beast, plot and character are largely jettisoned out of the airlock, in favour of horror set pieces and visionary lunacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 I saw the film today, despite not being very convinced that it was going to be any good. I would say that I've definitely seen worse Alien films, and there are some good bits in it, but the whole thing feels like a bit of a mess. The bits with the xenomorphs in it felt a bit perfunctory, we've now seen them so many times in some many different films that they've lost their impact, which is a fairly fundamental problem for an Alien film. The series has built up a lot of cliches by now that all seem to be present, including characters being stupidly reckless on an alien planet, homicidal androids betraying the humans and only a couple of members of the crew being competent. Ridley Scott can always be relied on to produce a film that looks good, the planet has a stark beauty to it at times, and the ruins of the Engineers' city are impressive, but the story isn't really there to compliment the visuals. It has some potentially interesting ideas, but I don't think it develops them in a particularly interesting way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted May 29, 2017 Share Posted May 29, 2017 Personally I think all the movie's other faults are overshadowed by the "twist" ending which is just so incredibly predictable that the real twist would have been not doing it. I mean seriously They cut away from the Fassbender on Fassbender action right at the climax and expected us to believe that David died off screen for some reason other than "BUT WHAT IF IT TURNS OUT HE DIDN'T DUN DUN DUN." Fuck you, movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted May 29, 2017 Share Posted May 29, 2017 14 minutes ago, RumHam said: Personally I think all the movie's other faults are overshadowed by the "twist" ending which is just so incredibly predictable that the real twist would have been not doing it. I mean seriously Reveal hidden contents They cut away from the Fassbender on Fassbender action right at the climax and expected us to believe that David died off screen for some reason other than "BUT WHAT IF IT TURNS OUT HE DIDN'T DUN DUN DUN." Fuck you, movie. I agree. Spoiler When he was helping Daniels and Tennesse to fight the creature, my thoughts were that he was simply observing the creature in a hunter-prey scenario, but was willing to let it die, because he could make more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted May 29, 2017 Share Posted May 29, 2017 The movie has moments of sheer brilliance that are shadowed by some bizarre missteps. The birth of the first xeno is amazing, Fassbender and Fassbender talking over the flute, some of the very interesting hints about David's actual creative abilities, and several of the visuals are brilliant. Then you have the completely unnecessary xeno reprise that just eats time that could have been used to explore some of the characterizations. As far as I can figure, that entire ship-based sequence is Scott saying "you wanted some aliens? Have some goddamn fucking aliens" in response to some criticisms (bad ones) about Prometheus. Its the only way I can explain it, and its not a satisfying answer. A mixed bag overall, but one I still greatly enjoyed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PetyrPunkinhead Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 Speaking of faults in Alien Covenant... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel4s-JonSnow Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 22 minutes ago, PetyrPunkinhead said: Speaking of faults in Alien Covenant... Haha, yes I saw this, it absolutely spot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PetyrPunkinhead Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 I love that he worked in Data and his "daughter" from ST:TNG in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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