My thoughts on Alien Covenant
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Well, I thought it was alright. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.950241-Anyone-else-watched-Alien-Covenant-Spoiler#23971481]
Wow,after our arguements with each other I expect you to give off bigger explinations as to why you don't like things.
I mean I tried my best explaining in detail why I liked the first 2 Harry potter movies.
I mean I tried my best explaining in detail why I liked the first 2 Harry potter movies.
It's like an improved second draft of Prometheus, which roughly makes it into a 6 or 7 out of 10.
To be fair to the movie I had just rewatched the original Alien, and the day after Covenant I went to a theater to see Aliens again.
So you see how circumstance, if you can call it that, lessened whatever power Covenant had considerably.
To be fair to the movie I had just rewatched the original Alien, and the day after Covenant I went to a theater to see Aliens again.
So you see how circumstance, if you can call it that, lessened whatever power Covenant had considerably.
I didn't much care for Prometheus either.Natemans said:
But I appreciate that the story isn't as egregiously stupid as Prometheus (while being otherwise identical) and that David added a level of creepiness that Prometheus didn't have his first time around.
Okay, in terms of my actual thoughts, there are some positives I can give to the film: the cinematography is pretty decent, the effects on the ship and the world are great and the acting is pretty good with what they were given. Michael Fassbender is great as usual.Samtemdo8 said:
As for the bad, oh where to begin? The script is terrible, the characters are a bunch of underwritten morons that the film doesn't give you a reason to care, the plot is full of dozens of holes, the effects on the Xenomorphs are pretty bad, it kinda ruins some of the mystique of the original, its dull and not really that scary.
It also brings up some of the philosophical ideas that Prometheus did, but gets quickly forgotten just for the sake of cheap gore.
I feel the opposite. Prometheus was stupid, but Covenant I thought was way dumber. David wasn't creepy, but the character was interesting just like Prometheus. Some parts were a little creepy in Prometheus, but I got nothing in terms of feeling scared in Covenant. Then again those are my thoughts.Johnny Novgorod said:
It's alright. But it's difficult to care when all the characters are idiots. Seriously though, if you're going to send first wave colonists/ scouts on an alien planet use sealed suits. You have no idea what infections and allergic reactions people are going to have. And make sure that EVERYBODY is clear on protocol, including containment procedures.
Best film I've seen this year. Only film I've seen this year.
It was alright, and I got a free poster from the cinema. I'll never put it on my wall, because I never put any posters on my bedroom walls.
It was alright, and I got a free poster from the cinema. I'll never put it on my wall, because I never put any posters on my bedroom walls.
So I am rewatching Alien. I am maybe 15 or 16. I've watched Alien and Aliens before but this time I know what to expect I know how scary the Alien is and this time I am thinking about some of the less obvious stuff going on in the background. This time I asking some questions.
Where did that big alien spaceship come from
Who or what is that thing I found out is called a Space Jockey (found out it's name from a mate of mine)
How did it end up on LV426
Were the Aliens already on LV426 and caused the ship to get stuck there or did that ship bring them with it and end up crashing because of something that happened
You know what is great about these questions? They all got asked by Alien and throughout three more movies and a decade and a half we never got an answer. The answer didn't really matter as knowing the answer didn't really change the movies but it was always nice to have a little think about what the answers could be.
Then came along Prometheus, which had a go at trying to answer some of those questions, and then Covenant shows up and continues trying to answer those questions and you know what they can just stop now. The mystery and wonder of how, who and what the Space Jockey was and how it ended up on LV426 was more fun when it was exactly that a mystery and wonder. After two movies that have tried to answer these questions the mystery and wonder is now rapidly becoming a total and utter hot mess.
Where did that big alien spaceship come from
Who or what is that thing I found out is called a Space Jockey (found out it's name from a mate of mine)
How did it end up on LV426
Were the Aliens already on LV426 and caused the ship to get stuck there or did that ship bring them with it and end up crashing because of something that happened
You know what is great about these questions? They all got asked by Alien and throughout three more movies and a decade and a half we never got an answer. The answer didn't really matter as knowing the answer didn't really change the movies but it was always nice to have a little think about what the answers could be.
Then came along Prometheus, which had a go at trying to answer some of those questions, and then Covenant shows up and continues trying to answer those questions and you know what they can just stop now. The mystery and wonder of how, who and what the Space Jockey was and how it ended up on LV426 was more fun when it was exactly that a mystery and wonder. After two movies that have tried to answer these questions the mystery and wonder is now rapidly becoming a total and utter hot mess.
Err I already made a thread on it last week http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.950241-Anyone-else-watched-Alien-Covenant-Spoiler
Overall, I thought it was better than Prometheus since it's your usual Alien getup but man, David was SALVAGE in that film!
Overall, I thought it was better than Prometheus since it's your usual Alien getup but man, David was SALVAGE in that film!
I really liked the camera work.
Left the cinema in protest though and got my money back, so I missed the ending. Couldn't be arsed to look it up yet, but there are just no redeeming qualities to this mediocre action flick, which seconds as a rusty nail in the coffin of this once promising franchise.
I think it's utter shite.
Scott doesn't seem to know what he's doing. The writers keep multiplying and coming up with new, uninspired, disjointed, contradicting nonsense. They don't seem to respect the inspiring power of the first movie, instead opting to simply re-hash some of the "memorable", i. e. more visual scenes into short little vignettes, Scary Movie style.
Maybe Covenant isn't all that's wrong with Hollywood and the majority of mainstream movies it shits out at the moment, but there are enough pointers at a bleak future with more and more shitty movies that aim to replace everything that was good and iconic in the past. It's like a real-life case of Body Snatchers replacing all the landmark IPs with these lukewarm, piss-stained saggy pants of films by the most ignorant millenials with a severe case of attention deficit disorder. Ooh! I know that scene! Ooh! I know what's about to happen, I is learned! Ooh! look! A thing that I've heard people have seen and liked in one of those old movies that I can't watch because I fall asleep before the action actually happens!
Fuck Scott and his handlers. Fuck the writers. Fuck the studio execs. And fuck Lady Bilbo Baggins and her shite haircut.
Left the cinema in protest though and got my money back, so I missed the ending. Couldn't be arsed to look it up yet, but there are just no redeeming qualities to this mediocre action flick, which seconds as a rusty nail in the coffin of this once promising franchise.
I think it's utter shite.
Scott doesn't seem to know what he's doing. The writers keep multiplying and coming up with new, uninspired, disjointed, contradicting nonsense. They don't seem to respect the inspiring power of the first movie, instead opting to simply re-hash some of the "memorable", i. e. more visual scenes into short little vignettes, Scary Movie style.
Maybe Covenant isn't all that's wrong with Hollywood and the majority of mainstream movies it shits out at the moment, but there are enough pointers at a bleak future with more and more shitty movies that aim to replace everything that was good and iconic in the past. It's like a real-life case of Body Snatchers replacing all the landmark IPs with these lukewarm, piss-stained saggy pants of films by the most ignorant millenials with a severe case of attention deficit disorder. Ooh! I know that scene! Ooh! I know what's about to happen, I is learned! Ooh! look! A thing that I've heard people have seen and liked in one of those old movies that I can't watch because I fall asleep before the action actually happens!
Fuck Scott and his handlers. Fuck the writers. Fuck the studio execs. And fuck Lady Bilbo Baggins and her shite haircut.
Well, since the colossal stupidity of Prometheus (seriously, it's one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen!) I wasn't exactly holding my breath anyway, and seeing both the reviews and the audience response has solidified that stance. Seems like it's just a retread of the old Aliens plot (for there is only one), with the unfortunate afterbirth that is the stupidity of Prometheus mixed in for good measure.
I agree with a lot of this. There are some extremely strong parts of the movie, but ultimately two things stood out.Natemans said:
1) It felt like they tried to simultaneously weave in and abandon/redo Prometheus, and as a huge fan of Prometheus, that was hugely disappointing, but also because a lot of it made no sense and seemed half-baked. Why did David turn into a heel? Why did he kill the engineers? What the hell happened with the cannisters with the black ooze when David dropped them? (seriously though -- what happened? Why did it petrify the engineers instead of disintigrating them (beginning of Prometheus) or mutate them like it did Holloway/Fifield? Why does the movie set up David as the creator of the classic Xenomorph when....there's a giant fucking mural of said Xenomorph in the alien ship in the previous movie?
2) Speaking of making no sense...there are other aspects of the movie not related to Prometheus that bothered me. No spacesuits on a strange planet? Like, at all? Really? The entire Convenant has just ONE shuttle? How very Titanic of them...
I thought it was extremely "okay". I think what this franchise needs is a new director at the helm. Ridley Scott can't get out of his own way at this point. He is clearly much more interested in his philosophical ideas about the nature of humanity, AI, and creation than he is in the aliens at this point. These movies are better when they're simpler. The appeal of the Alien is not the extended lore or any of these overarching themes Scott has been working into the most recent movies. The Alien is just that- alien- an unknowable evil that is the physical embodiment of what we fear could be waiting for us in the dark void of space. I'll take likable, well written characters and a tight plot over the meandering philosophical fluff we've been getting any day.
That being said, I did genuinely enjoy the scenes between David and Walter. I like the ideas of AI achieving sentience or enlightenment and rebelling against their creators, I just kind of wish he was doing it in another movie rather than Alien. A huge leap forward from Prometheus though. Unfortunately I don't think any of the characters were all that likable, certainly no one on the level of Ripley. So when we do lose crew member after crew member (usually in very quick scenes, almost as if Scott included them out of obligation) it's hard to really feel bad about it.
That being said, I did genuinely enjoy the scenes between David and Walter. I like the ideas of AI achieving sentience or enlightenment and rebelling against their creators, I just kind of wish he was doing it in another movie rather than Alien. A huge leap forward from Prometheus though. Unfortunately I don't think any of the characters were all that likable, certainly no one on the level of Ripley. So when we do lose crew member after crew member (usually in very quick scenes, almost as if Scott included them out of obligation) it's hard to really feel bad about it.