Jump to content

Alien: Covenant


AncalagonTheBlack

Recommended Posts

I saw the movie on Saturday and enjoyed it. I am a casual "Alien" fan and I think that allows me more freedom than others who are more invested in it.

Spoiler

Can someone explain why David didn't have a hole in the underside of his chin when he was back on board the ship? She stabbed her nail up his chin while fighting, I thought as for shadowing so when you saw it on him in the ship you would be like, oh no it's him! But then it strangely is gone, yet he has scratches on his face?

Other than the normal acting stupid and wandering off alone it was an enjoyable enough movie. Worth my $5 and couple hours, have seen far worse movies than this!

On 5/23/2017 at 6:16 PM, 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.

 

I have a question for you, you say you hated it...then why did you pay to go back and see it again? I have only paid to see a couple movies in the theater more than once, and I loved them the first time. Why on earth pay to see something you hate twice?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem is if you are in anyway familiar with the first two masterpieces in the series then this movie does its absolute best to try and destroy all that.

Its hard to forget this is Ridley Scott making this movie and that makes it almost worse. Alien Resurrection is the worst of the lot outside the predator ones, but it almost feels completely unrelated in some ways and so I don't care. This however is just an insult and it's kind of sad.

The above video only made me more aware of the movies stupidity 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a stupid question.  At the end of Prometheus David was nothing but a head.  How the heck is he a walking talking Android in this film.  Further, the Prometheus was destroyed (along with any spare android bodies), once again, how the heck is he a walking talking Android in this film? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have a stupid question.  At the end of Prometheus David was nothing but a head.  How the heck is he a walking talking Android in this film.  Further, the Prometheus was destroyed (along with any spare android bodies), once again, how the heck is he a walking talking Android in this film? 

Shaw goes back for his body at the end of Prometheus. I think they show her hoisting it onto the alien ship with some kinda pulley setup. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have a stupid question.  At the end of Prometheus David was nothing but a head.  How the heck is he a walking talking Android in this film.  Further, the Prometheus was destroyed (along with any spare android bodies), once again, how the heck is he a walking talking Android in this film? 

He met up with Darth Maul who did him a solid

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

The problem is if you are in anyway familiar with the first two masterpieces in the series then this movie does its absolute best to try and destroy all that.

Its hard to forget this is Ridley Scott making this movie and that makes it almost worse. Alien Resurrection is the worst of the lot outside the predator ones, but it almost feels completely unrelated in some ways and so I don't care. This however is just an insult and it's kind of sad.

The above video only made me more aware of the movies stupidity 

I, too, am completely unable to evaluate different films on their own merits and to let the first two movies stand on their own.  If you don't like this movie, you're totally free to ignore it, friend.  It doesn't have any bearing on Alien or Aliens if you don't want it to, because "canon" is all in your head.  There are plenty of people who think Aliens did its best to destroy Alien, too, what with the xenomorph being portrayed as essentially giant space bugs instead of some weird psychosexual body horror delivery system.  

I'm very familiar with both Alien and Aliens, and yet, I don't think this movie "destroyed" anything at all.  Would you like to elaborate?

4 hours ago, RumHam said:

Shaw goes back for his body at the end of Prometheus. I think they show her hoisting it onto the alien ship with some kinda pulley setup. 

And "The Crossing" (a short trailer film which is almost entirely clips from the movie, mostly the flashback) features a very brief scene of Shaw basically gluing his head back on. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sure I mentioned it earlier in the thread but part of the magic of the Xenomorph was this mystery of its origin, of what else was out there. Your imagination filled in the blanks. 

That the Xenomorph exists because of some human made robot who went a bit nuts is a horrible turn of events ( and doesn't even make any sense if you watch Prometheus) 

I mean there are lots of other problems but that was sticks in my gut. It's like the midicloreans in Stars wars prequels destroying the magic of the force in one line.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

I, too, am completely unable to evaluate different films on their own merits and to let the first two movies stand on their own.  If you don't like this movie, you're totally free to ignore it, friend.  It doesn't have any bearing on Alien or Aliens if you don't want it to, because "canon" is all in your head.  There are plenty of people who think Aliens did its best to destroy Alien, too, what with the xenomorph being portrayed as essentially giant space bugs instead of some weird psychosexual body horror delivery system.  

I'm very familiar with both Alien and Aliens, and yet, I don't think this movie "destroyed" anything at all.  Would you like to elaborate?

And "The Crossing" (a short trailer film which is almost entirely clips from the movie, mostly the flashback) features a very brief scene of Shaw basically gluing his head back on.

That bit isn't in the actual movie? That kind of sucks. I'm a believer in a theatrical release being complete, not having to scour the internet and watch it in dribs and drabs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Sure I mentioned it earlier in the thread but part of the magic of the Xenomorph was this mystery of its origin, of what else was out there. Your imagination filled in the blanks. 

That the Xenomorph exists because of some human made robot who went a bit nuts is a horrible turn of events ( and doesn't even make any sense if you watch Prometheus) 

I mean there are lots of other problems but that was sticks in my gut. It's like the midicloreans in Stars wars prequels destroying the magic of the force in one line.

Or you're looking at the surface level.  You've been married to this idea of the xenomorph as some Lovecraftian danger in the darkness, which I get (but The Thing does it better).  On the other hand, like I said, there's some neat stuff about creation in Covenant.  David's song that he plays?  That's Prometheus' theme. What David is touting as his own creation isn't.  He's explicitly shown to be wrong about some basic facts, and even without his influence, the black goo produced very, very xeno-like beings.  He isn't creating anything, he's as best modifying and appropriating something created by someone else.  When you say it doesn't make sense if you watch Prometheus, you're missing that that may be the point.  David claims he's the creator of the xenomorph, and the synth given the power to create.  But why should we believe him?  He also claims that Byron wrote Ozymandias.  (Yes, I'm aware that I'm about to sound like I'm going to start putting strings up all over my room). Ozymandias was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. His wife wrote Frankenstein, which was published with the subtitle "or: the Modern Prometheus".  David is pretty clearly the Prometheus figure in that he raids the home of the gods and steals their godstuff (fire/goo), but he doesn't fully understand it and he can't create it.  And this plays in with the Engineers as well.  Shaw tells us they're gods and our creators.  They seem that way in Prometheus, I suppose, but their appearance in Covenant seems to undermine that. What if they're the same as David, tinkering without understanding creation?

And given the themes of creation, I could see it being a lot more interesting that the closest thing to a manifesto David has is that he deserves to supplant his creators, because he is better than them.  His "perfect creation" attempts to attack him, while his imperfect ones don't.  David turns on humanity while Walter (the explicitly intellectually neutered one) does not.  The xenomorph might end up being David's true creation (instead of simply him tinkering with a magic beyond his ken), but either way, it could be interesting.  A horror/being so perfect that Ash ends up reverently in love with its sheer idea is created by the offspring of our own attempts to create life?  That is cool.  Hell, the fact that that Ash's reaction to the xenomorph is religious awe is really interesting too.  Why do our own creations have such an aesthetic appreciation for the xenomorph's "purity"?  And this is just looking forward, from humanity to synthetic to xenomorph (and yes, the very, very biomech appearance of Giger's work isn't escaping me here).  When this series of movies is more complete, what about looking back?  If the Engineers are truly our creators, what does our offspring say about them?  How does this movie then change the end scene of Prometheus?  

And again, hardcore Alien fans will tell you that the mystery of the xenomorph is ruined by the appearance of the queen, which significantly alters a lot of the strangeness of the Space Jockey's cargo.   Now your imagination isn't there to fill in the blanks, they're just a race of space bugs that ended up on a Space Jockey ship and chestbursted the Jockey, as xenomorphs who end up on a ship are wont to do.  But the scene in the directors cut of Alien where Brett is possibly being turned into an egg?  That is freaky, Aliens' space bugs aren't. Note, I actually do really like Aliens a lot I just think the idea that they're some wonderful thematically linked duology while the recent movies are some kind of scum is really missing a lot of nuance.

There's a lot to digest in Prometheus and Covenant, and like I said, some missteps that I simply don't understand, but I think writing it off as an immediate damage to your impression of the xenomorph is a little shortsighted.  I definitely don't have the answers and I am still 100% thinking about it, but it actually has given me a lot to think about. 

 

As for Star Wars and midichlorians:  eh, I suppose?  I don't think it destroys the "magic" of the Force at all.  Its a dumb line and makes Yoda pretty fucking stupid (which he regularly is throughout the prequels) but if you'd prefer, you could just watch the original trilogy and not worry about it.  Why are you holding the movies as if there's some objective truth about what "happened"?  They're fiction. 

16 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

That bit isn't in the actual movie? That kind of sucks. I'm a believer in a theatrical release being complete, not having to scour the internet and watch it in dribs and drabs

I agree, especially since every other scene and bit of dialogue from that trailer ends up in the film, just slightly differently cut together. Still, even without it, Shaw goes back for his body at the end of Prometheus.  If you've got an android head, an android body, a ton of time and some tools, I suppose you can repair one, since they're apparently at least partially self-repairing.  The pieces are there, just less explicit.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

Minor thing, but I wonder if Ash was a David model android. In the sense that Fassbender was a round-about recast of Ian Holm.

He isn't. The crew of the Covenant knows Walter is a synthetic while nobody knew Ash was until he attacks Ripley.  The David model was stated to disturb people and didn't sell well, which means that there was some kind of broader social awareness of synthetics.  This is borne out by Bishop's role on the Sulaco, too.  The general populace can recognize synthetics, but they don't recognize Ash as one, which means he's either a custom job or from a stealth line.  How linked the personality and physical models are is something I don't know, though.  He could be a David profile stuffed in a custom chassis, I suppose, if that's possible.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

He isn't. The crew of the Covenant knows Walter is a synthetic while nobody knew Ash was until he attacks Ripley.  The David model was stated to disturb people and didn't sell well, which means that there was some kind of broader social awareness of synthetics.  This is borne out by Bishop's role on the Sulaco, too.  The general populace can recognize synthetics, but they don't recognize Ash as one, which means he's either a custom job or from a stealth line.  How linked the personality and physical models are is something I don't know, though.  He could be a David profile stuffed in a custom chassis, I suppose, if that's possible.  

Nobody ever attempts to hide the fact that David and Walter are androids from their respective crews. So I'm not sure how that suggest anything about how hard it was to tell if they were human. The Lance Hendrikson Model in Alien 3 does remark to Ripley at one point that Ash was one of the older models that were somehow iffy. I forget the exact wording.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Nobody ever attempts to hide the fact that David and Walter are androids from their respective crews. So I'm not sure how that suggest anything about how hard it was to tell if they were human. The Lance Hendrikson Model in Alien 3 does remark to Ripley at one point that Ash was one of the older models that were somehow iffy. I forget the exact wording.

He calls them "twitchy" when Ripley first meets him.  What I meant is that androids existing and walking around is a well-accepted fact.  You'd see them being sold, with certain lines being marketed for certain tasks.  Its not that people would have ways of telling synths from people, its that you'd be able to recognize a lot of synths because they'd all look the same. I know it isn't in the movie, but check out this tie-in website:  https://www.meetwalter.com/ Walter exists as a product line, with multiple identical-appearing models but slight personality changes.  Bishop likewise.  Ash isn't that.  David might have been an earlier enough model that that wasn't the case either.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MerenthaClone thanks, thats a good well thought out post on the themes inside of Covenant. I appreciate that there is at the heart of the story some interesting potential to think about. 

However, my issue is that the mere idea that the aliens are not this ancient horror, this terrifying almost force of nature, but are actually man made (robot made) is highly underwhelming. In the original movie they find what appears to be an ancient spaceship and the eggs seem to have been waiting there forever. Now it appears they have been there maybe 20 years at most ( this might even be impossible but it will take another movie to work out how they got there) 

The mystery of the Engineers was ruined at the same time. You have this ancient race who may well have created us, who we could view as some sort of God in some sense. Seeing that ship in the original Alien movie was incredible, the wonder of what this enormous being was, it was so enthralling.

But nah, now David just turns up and kills them all in one fell swoop.. seemingly to just push the plot in a certain direction. So yeah, they are gone now, hope you liked them. 

So while I appreciated the themes of creation in the movie ( and the David elements were at times the best bit)  they are unfortunately wrapped up in a number of poor decisions and retconning that for me try very hard to sabotage 2 of the best sci fi movies ever made. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fair enough, but I think Scott left enough leeway for you to keep seeing it as you did originally, too.  The xeno-like mural in Prometheus certainly implies some degree of xenomorph has been around for a long, long time and that the Engineers had some sort of religious appreciation for them.  They could still be that ancient horror, just one that looked very slightly different because they're so highly mutable.    

As for the Engineers, maybe, but I think there's a lot more to their story still.  Their attitude toward David's approaching ship doesn't square with them being gods.  And we know at least one Space Jockey should still be around:  the one that ends up on LV-426.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

Fair enough, but I think Scott left enough leeway for you to keep seeing it as you did originally, too.  The xeno-like mural in Prometheus certainly implies some degree of xenomorph has been around for a long, long time and that the Engineers had some sort of religious appreciation for them.  They could still be that ancient horror, just one that looked very slightly different because they're so highly mutable.    

As for the Engineers, maybe, but I think there's a lot more to their story still.  Their attitude toward David's approaching ship doesn't square with them being gods.  And we know at least one Space Jockey should still be around:  the one that ends up on LV-426.

The mural at the moment I'm taking to be a brainless mistake that Scott has made, it doesn't make sense right now that Davids perfect creation already existed and the Engineers were terrified of it and borderline worshipped it. If that was true it makes Covenant basically pointless.

There are so many contradictions and problems here that it is going to take one hell of a movie to fix them. I assumed Covenant would fix many of Prometheus' failings, but instead it just handwaved at them and decided to double down on stuff that might sell to movie audiences better. I'm not sure there is a lot of story left to tell if David can just wipe out an entire planets population like that. My initial assumption was that these guys travelled the universe and were wide spread, but it feels like this was their homeworld, and they were awaiting the return of those who had travelled. If thats true then you might as well forget anything interesting to do with the Engineers, their planet is like something out of Star Trek TOS and despite them appearing to super advanced they instead live like cavemen. None of it adds up and I'm not hoping there will be any answers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, now I just don't understand.  "None of it adds up at this exact moment partially through a planned series of movies, so I give up, the guy who gave us Alien must be doing a stupid."   

At least let him finish before you decide that his incomplete story has holes in it, especially when you mostly seem to be upset that what he is telling doesn't line up with what you imagined the story would be.  And if stories only went exactly where we imagined they would, well, Ned would have been pardoned and ended up at the Wall with Jon to fight off the Others.  And that'd be boring.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...