Anyone else watched Alien: Covenant? (Spoiler)

[Scarim Coral]

So I came back from watching it hours ago and since we no longer have a review page, I figure I will discuss it on here.

Overall I found it to be alright, probably better than Prometheus. It's your usual Alien film (alien hunt them and female lead etc). Granted this is coming from a guy who had low expectation from it and not seen too many trailers of it other than those promo short films pior to the start of it all. In saying so I actually quite looking forward to the third film now given to what happened in Covenant.

Spoiler: Stuff in the movie

Holy shit! David is bloody salvage in this film!!! Not only he wipe out the Prometheus alien race (will comment those below) but he's a mad scientist/ god complex to say the least. I feel extremely sad for Shaw fate (I hope her death was quick and painless).
I don't get the deal with the next commander in charge? Supposely he is a man of faith among atheist(?) and yet he didn't want them to have a proper farewell to the lost of life. I get time was at the essence but a simple "ok we will make our toast in 10 mins" would had solved it.
I think the biggest plothole is the Engineer alien race in terms of like how those two Prometheus characters were running away from the ship path when they could had run sideway to get out of the crushing path! Ok it's hard to judge a race fully assuming just cos they made a spaceship, they would be a sophisticated race. I just find it hard to believed that they were literally gather into one town/ city when David release the spores. Seriously there were no others outside of the city or were smart enough to had a forcefield or something? I guess the whole ship on the maroom planet must of been top secret stuff.
Also those new proto aliens (on wiki it is called Neomorph) were kinda neat, I thought it would had resemble more of the one seen at the end of Prometheus (Draco/ Protomorph) but yet again the one we seen are from human and the other was the Engineer.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I thought it was alright too. I'm not sure how I feel about its relationship with Prometheus though. It feels both a sequel and a remake. Group of scientists checking out a strange new planet, fucking up with the wildlife, getting infected and fucking up the rest of the crew? Isn't that Prometheus beat by beat? You even have David going through the same backstabbing motions, and one stock heroine instead of another.

Spoiler: About Shaw

I wasn't attached to her so her death was meaningless to me, though the darkness of the reveal itself impressed me.

In retrospect I liked Noomi Rapace more than Katherine Waterston, who's either in tears or on the verge of tears throughout the whole movie.

 

[Parasondox]

Just saw it and liked it a lot better than Prometheus. All i can say is, DAVID IS A FUCKED UP A.I.!!!

 

[Parasondox]

I thought it was alright too. I'm not sure how I feel about its relationship with Prometheus though. It feels both a sequel and a remake. Group of scientists checking out a strange new planet, fucking up with the wildlife, getting infected and fucking up the rest of the crew? Isn't that Prometheus beat by beat? You even have David going through the same backstabbing motions, and one stock heroine instead of another.

Spoiler: About Shaw

I wasn't attached to her so her death was meaningless to me, though the darkness of the reveal itself impressed me.

In retrospect I liked Noomi Rapace more than Katherine Waterston, who's either in tears or on the verge of tears throughout the whole movie.

Covenant was about the crew looking for a new home with 20,000 on board. Prometheus was a bunch of scientists looking for God... or creator's or whatever. Also, that scene with David sharing what he did on that planet was DARK!!

 

[Hawki]

I saw it yesterday. Loved it. Might be my best film of the year. Right now, it's my #3 Aliens film - it might switch with Alien 3, but it isn't on the level of Alien or Aliens. Partly because it's piggy-backing off both of them. Yes, people have pointed out that it's a mix of Prometheus and the original Alien, but I also feel it's kind of a middleground between Alien and Aliens - what we might have got if Scott had directed Aliens instead of Cameron.

So, general thoughts:

Spoiler

-Starting the film with the image of an eye...yes Mr Scott, I have seen Blade Runner, thanks for asking.

-Again, Fassbender delivers. There's a noticable difference between Walter and David, not just in terms of characterization, but how they speak, and how they move - same actor, but through Fassbender's acting and/or camera work, he has a 'heavier' feel to him than David. A more reliable, but less advanced android. So, great work there.

-Love the ship design/solar sails. It feels simultaniously advanced and retro - advanced by our standards, but we can tell that in 20 years (filmwise), the Nostromo won't need them.

-Crew is fine. I think it makes me appreciate Alien's crew more (less is more, become more attached to each character), whereas Covenant has to spread itself out over more characters. But, they're likable enough, with flaws, quirks, etc. Each death hits home, as characters die in horrible ways. It's notable that Daniels doesn't really become the main character until about a third of the way through. She's no Ripley, but she's fine.

(Speaking of horrible ways, the shower scene and the xenomorph peering through the glass...Requiem, anyone? If so, take notes - this is how you make deaths impactful, not gratuitous).

-This is where the Aliens similarities come in, namely the guns, how they pack some punch, but are limited against the xenomorphs/neomorphs. In a way, this kind of retroactively adds to Aliens, showing how powerful pulse rifles and smart guns are compared to the guns here. We encounter two xenomorphs in the film, and neither are actually killed by firearms, and while bullets do hit them and cause them to bleed, they shrug them off when they do.

-I know that they confirm that the planet is free of toxins, but I still have to point out, if you were wearing space-suits, no-one would be infected. Just saying, I'm being reminded of Prometheus here...

-The Engineer city...are they actually Engineers? I ask because they look pretty primitive for Engineers that 2000 years ago, had FTL spaceships. Also, the calcified corpses (Pompei, anyone?) seem to be human sized. The implication I got was that these are humans that worship the Engineers (the pedastal at the center of their city), and that the Engineers have created humans on at least one other world. Apparently these humans are 'good' in that the Engineers never sought to wipe them out.

-Come to think of it, it isn't just Prometheus we're riffing off, it's the original Alien - spaceship picks up signal, touches down, shit happens. We go into Aliens territory for a bit (the crew are armed, guns fire), then go to Prometheus territory (the ruined city), then a combination of Alien and Aliens at the end (lone xenomorph, terraformer = power loader, etc.)

-David is...interesting, in this. I could see some people being put off by him, that what he's doing could be seen as evil for evil's sake. I will say that his claim of the payload accidentally releasing was never one I bought, but nonetheless, I can buy David's actions in this, in that Shaw repaired him, and I think there's a line that implies that he's 'glitching.' (e.g. getting Shelly wrong, claiming it's Byron). In a sense, he's becoming more human, and indulging the darker aspects of humanity. We can see that with:

a) Creation for creation's sake (creation of the xenomorphs)

b) Developing a taste for music (a positive human trait)

c) Developing more 'raw' emotions for his creators - I can buy this, the understanding that an advanced lifeform develops antipathy for the less advanced lifeforms that create it. Humans repel Engineers from Earth, create a machine who seeks to destroy its own creators, creates the 'perfect organism' in which to do that, etc.

d) His clumsy attempts at romance with Walter and Daniels (him kissing Daniels...Ash attacking Ripley, anyone?) Like he understands love as a concept, but has no understanding how it actually works. Does he genuinely 'love' Shaw? Yeah, probably, the whole killing her thing aside, but it shows how twisted he is.

So, I can buy David's actions. He could come off as doing these things because "I'm evil now!", but honestly, it felt like a natural progression his character could take.

-The upright neomorph...let it not be said that the Aliens series can't be creative with its monster designs.

-I have to point out that if David wants to wipe out humanity, the black goo still seems a bit more efficient than standard xenomorphs. Also, if David is the xenomorphs' creator, how'd they get on the Derelict in the original Alien? That was an Engineer piloting the craft after all it seems.

-The HR Geiger sketches and Shaw's body...yeesh.

-The bait and switch with Walter and David at the end worked...sort of. Given that David apparently dies off-screen, my first thought upon seeing 'Walter' walk out was "yeah, this is David." I kept thinking that right up to when "Walter" helps Daniels and Tee with the xenomorph on the Covenant, at which point I thought "okay, guess this is Walter." I kept thinking that right up to the log cabin line. So, the fakeout didn't get me, but the fakeout within the fakeout did. And what sells it is Daniels's terror as cryo takes her, and David revealing himself as the smug, sadistic bastard he is. And remains so as we hear Vagner and see the facehugger embryos enter storage.

-And the film kind of ends on a 'to be continued,' as we have one final Alien/Aliens/Alien 3 callback (I also assume that I guess "Mother" is a standard designation for WY AIs at this point), but I'm fine with it. The film's enjoyable enough nonetheless.

I will say that the film doesn't answer nearly as many questions as Prometheus raises - I think it's fair to say that at this point, the Engineers created humanity for the sake of creation itself. Same reason humanity creates androids, same reason David creates the xenomorphs - "idle hands are the devil's playthings," as he says. It explains the origins of the xenomorphs (and retcons old EU lore, but fine, whatever), but not how they ended up on the Derelict. I think we really need one more Alien film to fully bridge the Prometheus-Covenant-Alien gap. But, film is solid, enjoyable, and IMO, a worthy addition to the franchise.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Haven't seen it yet, but for the folks who have seen it - are the characters just as braindead and annoying as the ones from Prometheus?

Cause the "scientists" in Prometheus are phenomenally retarded.

 

[Hawki]

Haven't seen it yet, but for the folks who have seen it - are the characters just as braindead and annoying as the ones from Prometheus?

Cause the "scientists" in Prometheus are phenomenally retarded.

Short answer is no.

They do do silly things, but certain events at the start of the film place them under great emotional stress, and while the scientists in Prometheus were meant to be the cream of the crop, the ones here, while professional, are more averages joes. So, they do make mistakes, and do panic, but it feels believable within the context of the film.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I thought it was alright too. I'm not sure how I feel about its relationship with Prometheus though. It feels both a sequel and a remake. Group of scientists checking out a strange new planet, fucking up with the wildlife, getting infected and fucking up the rest of the crew? Isn't that Prometheus beat by beat? You even have David going through the same backstabbing motions, and one stock heroine instead of another.

Spoiler: About Shaw

I wasn't attached to her so her death was meaningless to me, though the darkness of the reveal itself impressed me.

In retrospect I liked Noomi Rapace more than Katherine Waterston, who's either in tears or on the verge of tears throughout the whole movie.

Covenant was about the crew looking for a new home with 20,000 on board. Prometheus was a bunch of scientists looking for God... or creator's or whatever.

Regardless of what they meant to do, both stories have the same structure and share the same beats. Crew of pros wakes up from hypersleep, lands on a strange new planet, start fucking around with the local fauna/flora, some of them get infected and this leads to the deaths of everybody else.

Also, that scene with David sharing what he did on that planet was DARK!!

Yup.

 

[Pinkamena]

I quite liked it. But I am still unsure about why David did as he did. What was his reason for wiping out the creators? Why did he create the aliens? Why is he so intent on stopping the spread of humanity? I feel that his reasons are not well explained.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Spoilers ahead:

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Just saw it, and Michael Fassbender pretty much steals the show. Surprisingly, Danny McBride was the next best thing about the movie, I always find him annoying but I really liked him here. Shaw's fate was also interesting. I actually felt bad for what happened to her, but the other deaths felt meaningless*.

It's not scary, it's not thrilling. It's really good when they're exploring the planet, it gets better when they're in Engineer city, but then when they're leaving, it just kind of... meh. The obvious Walter/David twist didn't work, the final battle was boring, they were 20 steps ahead of the xenomorph the whole time, I never felt the characters were in any real danger, the female lead doesn't have any charisma so I didn't care if she died or not.

*So many death scenes were given away in the trailers, teasers, previews. James Franco's death was the most shocking, since I thought he would actually be in the movie, so you got me there, marketing.

5/10 I was rooting for the monster. Walking back home at night after the movie in my city is scarier than this shit.

 

[Fox12]

I thought it was alright too. I'm not sure how I feel about its relationship with Prometheus though. It feels both a sequel and a remake. Group of scientists checking out a strange new planet, fucking up with the wildlife, getting infected and fucking up the rest of the crew? Isn't that Prometheus beat by beat? You even have David going through the same backstabbing motions, and one stock heroine instead of another.

Spoiler: About Shaw

I wasn't attached to her so her death was meaningless to me, though the darkness of the reveal itself impressed me.

In retrospect I liked Noomi Rapace more than Katherine Waterston, who's either in tears or on the verge of tears throughout the whole movie.

Covenant was about the crew looking for a new home with 20,000 on board. Prometheus was a bunch of scientists looking for God... or creator's or whatever.

Regardless of what they meant to do, both stories have the same structure and share the same beats. Crew of pros wakes up from hypersleep, lands on a strange new planet, start fucking around with the local fauna/flora, some of them get infected and this leads to the deaths of everybody else.

Also, that scene with David sharing what he did on that planet was DARK!!

Yup.

Is it ever explained in any satisfying way why david did what he did, or what his motivations were? Or what the deal was with the creators?

Or is this another pretentious Ridley Scott Wank fest where the character motivations and themes are never properly explored?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I thought it was alright too. I'm not sure how I feel about its relationship with Prometheus though. It feels both a sequel and a remake. Group of scientists checking out a strange new planet, fucking up with the wildlife, getting infected and fucking up the rest of the crew? Isn't that Prometheus beat by beat? You even have David going through the same backstabbing motions, and one stock heroine instead of another.

Spoiler: About Shaw

I wasn't attached to her so her death was meaningless to me, though the darkness of the reveal itself impressed me.

In retrospect I liked Noomi Rapace more than Katherine Waterston, who's either in tears or on the verge of tears throughout the whole movie.

Covenant was about the crew looking for a new home with 20,000 on board. Prometheus was a bunch of scientists looking for God... or creator's or whatever.

Regardless of what they meant to do, both stories have the same structure and share the same beats. Crew of pros wakes up from hypersleep, lands on a strange new planet, start fucking around with the local fauna/flora, some of them get infected and this leads to the deaths of everybody else.

Also, that scene with David sharing what he did on that planet was DARK!!

Yup.

Is it ever explained in any satisfying way why david did what he did, or what his motivations were? Or what the deal was with the creators?

Or is this another pretentious Ridley Scott Wank fest where the character motivations and themes are never properly explored?

Not in the movie it's not explained.
I don't really owe the movie an explanation, but I have one anyway.
It may be an android thing in the Alien universe. They "admire purity", as Ash puts it in the first movie. Then there's Bishop in Aliens studying the facehuggers in awe (while you still think he'll pull an Ash and betray Ripley). David seems to act on a combination of that synthetic awe as well as a megalomaniac sense of playing god. My guess is that his ultimate goal is to create "the perfect organism" (again, Ash's words describing the alien) and that he will accomplish that by splicing his critters over and over again with the colonists he's kidnapped by the end of Covenant.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

It was my first "horror" movie in the theatres, and man was it boring.

I felt like if you didn't watch Prometheus, you can't care about David at all. Good acting all around, but I didn't give half a shit about anyone. David is weird for the sake of being weird, Walter is dead I guess, I don't remember anyone's name, and Daniels is a bore.

That ending was real shit too. No satisfaction at all.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Here's a riddle for anybody who wants to try and crack it: why did everybody leave without their helmets? I know oxygen levels are measured as being okay but... why leave your spaceship to explore a strange new planet without your helmet?

Spoiler: Answer

Because then the movie wouldn't exist. Kane and the dumbass from Prometheus gets their helmets penetrated by acid-blooded aliens. However, this time around the source of infection is a mild cloud of dusty pathogen which wouldn't
be able to penetrate such helmets. Solution: everybody forgets their helmets.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Cause the "scientists" in Prometheus are phenomenally retarded.

And yet simultaneously hyper-brilliant.

"I'm an archaeologist. Of course I'm able to perform this autopsy on an alien life form.."