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Reviews are coming in on Rotten Tomatoes. Generally good: bloody and very Alien rehash. Fassbender evidently again steals the show (who didn't see that coming). Fassbender and Ripley 2.0... Also a new type of alien as well as Grandpa baddy.
One thing I don't like but has been discussed in the trailers or public already:
Spoiler:
So they are on their way, and hear a message about another world. Its not logical that they would stop on their trip to investigate a different world than their target colony, especially as they appear "all alone in the night." Wouldn't they just call the message in and keep going?
Don't know, I am still leaning on not seeing or renting. Prometheus burned me that bad, but who knows.
Would be an awesome moment if: one of the neomorphs is attacking a humie, and out of the shadows the REAL Alien does the old mouth drill through the neo morph's head OG style.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/05/09 12:04:12
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
I advise people not to watch the HBO first look video, quite a big spoiler at the end. It was supposed to just be a behind the scenes video...well it isn't
Just saw it. I liked it a lot. It's more of a Prometheus sequel than an Alien prequel. It actually answers some questions but leaves you with just as many.
Surprisingly Danny Mcbride was fine. Actually I'd say one of the better performances in the film.
-Loki- wrote: Surprisingly Danny Mcbride was fine. Actually I'd say one of the better performances in the film.
Thats actually been a consistent thing I've been seeing in most reviews/previews. Good to hear, I'm a fan of him.
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
More enjoyable and slightly more coherent than Prometheus - but that wasnt very hard.
Its basically Prometheus 2 with a bit of Alien/Aliens thrown in the last 20 minutes.
Its watchable but wont be making my top 50 nor likely top 100.
Pity the twist was so so so obvious
Dman137 wrote:
goobs is all you guys will ever be
By 1-irt: Still as long as Hissy keeps showing up this is one of the most entertaining threads ever.
-Loki- wrote: Surprisingly Danny Mcbride was fine. Actually I'd say one of the better performances in the film.
Thats actually been a consistent thing I've been seeing in most reviews/previews. Good to hear, I'm a fan of him.
I'm glad to hear this. I complained earlier in the thread that I was upset Danny McBride in the movie, but I do like him - I just think the character he typically plays is likely to be a bad fit.
I am definitely going to see this, obviously, but I had really low expectations.
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
Thing is, its not really an Alien movie bar the last 20 mins or so.
Sure it has homages such as the updated theme tune, dunking bird and opening credits (and of course the big black drooling guy) but after that its more a continuation of Prometheus.....
Dman137 wrote:
goobs is all you guys will ever be
By 1-irt: Still as long as Hissy keeps showing up this is one of the most entertaining threads ever.
It must be a subjective thing I guess.. Number of reviewers are saying they enjoying it because it is more Aliens than Prometheus (at least in terms of there being less philosophy, more scares and body horror)
The thing is, all the philosophy stuff could make a very interesting sci fi movie (and has done, I'm sure). I just don't know how well it works being shoehorned into a slasher movie like Alien.
The life cycle of the Alien was always ridiculous and impossible, but Alien and Aliens at least tried to keep the silliness offscreen.
Frazzled,
Spoiler:
The planet that they discover along the way is apparently a much better place to land a colony than their original target; it's weeks away not years, and it's completely Earthlike, as opposed to needing terraforming like their original target. The actual plan is to fly by and check it out, which on the face of it doesn't seem like such a bad idea, assuming the ship has the spare resources to make the detour.
The characters then go on to do much more stupid things than that, though.
Pacific wrote: It must be a subjective thing I guess.. Number of reviewers are saying they enjoying it because it is more Aliens than Prometheus (at least in terms of there being less philosophy, more scares and body horror)
It's really not. The first two thirds are far more Prometheus than Alien. It's the final third of the film where it shifts gears to being more like the first Alien film.
Feels like what he wanted to do with a Prometheus sequel, but caved to fan pressure to make another Alien film (or, what it feels like to me, a fear of another film maker making a better Alien film) so he put that in the back end of it.
It was good, but it was definitely more Prometheus than Alien.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/14 05:06:23
Importantly, it's not trying to reinvent the wheel, and there's a definite feel that they weren't trying to 'One-up' the previous films in terms. So whilst of course that means we've seen it all before, as a prequel I think that's actually important.
Fassbender is superb throughout. The rest of the cast are competent, but I found the leading lady a bit flat at times.
The plot makes sense, and there's none of Prometheus' 'smart people doing stupid things'.
Main drawback is that the pacing didn't quite work for me. The plot is definitely all there - no instances of assumed or offscreen knowledge. Just slightly wonky editing - though that might resolve with a second watching?
Definitely worth watching, though I'm not sure the Big Screen is a must.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
The plot of this film doesn't seem to gel for me with the setup of Alien. Normally I try not to worry about continuity and canon, but seeing as explaining the backstory to Alien is one of the major points of Prometheus and this film, it bugs me.
(I still don't understand why the setup of Alien needed explaining, but so be it).
whembly wrote: I think I'm in the minority here... I loved Prometheus.
I think people were hoping for more Xenomorphs and more about that ancient race... rather than some 'umies stupidly mucking around things they have no idea about.
The "extraction procedure" in Noomi scene was wicked.
Aliens 2 was my fav, followed by 3 and 1.
I really enjoyed Prometheus as well. I never got all the hate over it. I still think the first Alien was the best of them all. The worst one so far was the Joss Whedon one (4?) but I even liked that one at least a little bit.
Legit terrific movie. I had fairly low expectations and this kinda blew me away - it was so good it made me retroactively like Prometheus more. Danny McBride turned out to be a great fit, and Katherine Waterston was a worthy heir to Ripley.
Only downside is there was a plot point you could see coming from a mile away, but it still was delightful.
I'd go 9.45 out of 11.76 stars
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/19 18:21:56
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
Going to chime in here. Saw it last night - it was everything I wanted. I loved Prometheus because of the mystery and the cinematography. I loved this because it gave answers (really cool answers) to the some mystery of Prometheus - while still being an alien movie. A little predictable would be my only complaint (it is a sequel to a prequel of a quadrilogy though...how could it not be)?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, Covenant, Alien Resurrection, Alien 3. I'd rate them in that order - with alien 3 being a pretty good movie - probably alien 3 is only last place because it has the least interesting setting.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/19 18:57:29
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
The sets and costumes were lovely. The actors did admirable jobs. There were some terrifying moments. The film was beautifully shot.
But beyond not wanting the nice people to get hurt (which was all too clearly their only reason for existing) I didn't care about anything that happened. As irritating as Prometheus was, it inspired a sense of intellectual curiosity and at times proceeded with intellectual sincerity. Dr. Shaw was especially credible and sympathetic. This is probably why the absurdly stupid moments grate so much. Make no mistake, however, the crew of Covenant are effectively as stupid as their predecessors in just the same way. I suppose Sir Ridley is himself too smart to have made this same mistake twice; therefore the recklessness and fatal sentimentality of his (human) characters must be his own criticism of our species.
Along those lines, what the feth is David's problem? Again: I have to assume the increasing murkiness of the robot's motives must be intentional. Sir Ridley practically hangs up a poster with huge letters spelling out THE ROBOT IS SCARIER THAN THE ALIEN. And I guess his basis for that claim is that the robot looks like us on the outside. Flashback to the pain, pity, contempt, and rage in the face of the Engineer as David explains Wayland has come for more life. David looks at his creators the way our creators look upon us. And yet ... I don't think he is justified. In Covenant, Walter calls into question David's judgment of himself. This was the thread, had Sir Ridley pursued it as his main theme, that could have lent Covenant some badly needed thematic depth.
My biggest gripe is how it feths with the timeline.
Spoiler:
Covenant is 10 years before Alien. In Alien they find an Engineer ship with 'thousands' of eggs and an Engineer in the jockey seat that a Xenomorph had burst out from. We can make an assumption this was the Queen that laid the eggs in the ship.
They make a big deal out of David making a xenomorph from the black goo, and while it has its differences (physical differences, birth differences and growth rate) it, the facehuggers and egg sacs are far too similar to be handwaived away to the classic xenomorph.
Given the distances involved, and how long it takes to get places, I'm not seeing how David could 'perfect' his perfect organism, get it onto an Engineer ship (with actual engineers on board), and that Engineer ship make it to LV 426 in time to be found in Alien. On top of that, the space jockey was incredibly aged,
So unless they go with 'Xenomorphs were always around, David just made his own', then the other option is they just don't give a feth about the timeline and are just going to keep making films that fit nowhere in it but influence it. Which is the most likely.
Overall it was a good movie, but that bit grates on me.
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Having slept on it, I have some questions for other people who saw the movie. Spoilers obviously.
Spoiler:
What happened between The Crossing:
And when David was discovered? It looked like you briefly saw a vivisected Shaw, was that right? If so how did things transition between those 2 events?
I'm not a subtle person, so is there some larger symbolism I am missing here? Is Shaw supposed to be an echo of some larger figure?
I'm still not clear on why, exactly, David did.... most of the things he did, really.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/20 02:34:30
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
Ouze wrote: Having slept on it, I have some questions for other people who saw the movie. Spoilers obviously.
Spoiler:
What happened between The Crossing:
And when David was discovered? It looked like you briefly saw a vivisected Shaw, was that right? If so how did things transition between those 2 events?
I'm not a subtle person, so is there some larger symbolism I am missing here? Is Shaw supposed to be an echo of some larger figure?
I'm still not clear on why, exactly, David did.... most of the things he did, really.
If you can be bothered to hear what I have to think (spoilers in the spoiler, obviously):
Spoiler:
Seems pretty God-complex/egomania to me. David is extremely resentful of having been made by humans, whom he views as inferior to him yet they dare laud his creation as one of their great accomplishments. Just as the humans look down on synthetics, David wasn't pleased how the Engineers looked down upon humans with an air of pretentiousness. Thus, he ironically quotes Ozymandias, ironically because the pedestal on the statue states "Look upon my works and despair," yet the Engineers and humans are the Pharaoh who constructed the statue, and they look upon David's own creations and despa-- die, rather than vice versa He seemed pretty pleased to be the master of his own creations, being very friendly with the giant Neomorph and newborn Xenomorph. Although committing genocide and planning another because David thought he was on the wrong side of the creator/created spectrum doesn't really make too much sense to me. Fantastically portrayed by Fassbender, but the character himself I find pretty deplorable.
I'll share more on how much I actually do/don't like the film when I'm not exhausted later.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/20 05:27:43
There are some fairly important points on which the film is silent and I think we can only assume that this was intentional.
Spoiler:
The question of how Shaw died is one of these deliberate ambiguities precisely because it is central to how one judges David. If you conclude that David killed her, apparently because he required her tissues to pursue his own experiments, then you are forced to conclude that he is at best amoral and at worst, by human standards, psychotic if not practically malevolent - traded care and compassion for murder, which in turn breeds the abomination of the xenomorph.
But what if she died in an accident (perhaps her stasis chamber failed) and David, having finally found a meaningful personal connection, becomes embittered by the frailty of life - such a contrast to his own hateful immortality -and lashes out against the Engineers who are ultimately the authors of his orrow, having created something so beautiful but that is doomed to die. From there, in years of maddening isolation, he becomes obsessed with creating a deathless beauty - his perfect organism. But of course, the result is the same: he has actually only sired an abomination. I was honestly surprised that we did not have a scene of the xenomorph turning on him. Maybe next time? That would be a fitting end to his pretensions.
Similarly, the motives of the Engineers are once again left unexplained - again, so that we are left to draw our own conclusions. Both of these films turn around the theme of creatures judging their creators. I think these points are left unclarified so that the audience is drawn into the same questions as the characters. Although people readily deride the films for this, they are ultimately posed as questions rather than answers. The viewers just want the answers and get a bit irritated that the movies ask them to work out the possibilities for themselves. But isn't that exactly what Shaw and David have to do, too?
This brings up a bit of a problem with Covenant - unlike Prometheus, where we had a sympathetic and thoughtful protagonist in Shaw, Covenant wants us to look at these questions from David's point of view and yet doesn't give us much reason to do so given that
Spoiler:
he is the antagonist
while Daniels seems ancillary - she's just someone who stumbled into this mess and just wants to get out of it rather than
Spoiler:
dealing with the big questions like Shaw and David, about how we measure up to our creators and our creations.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/20 06:56:50
The movie ended very differently than I thought it would.
Spoiler:
Seeing that they had a crashed alien ship and xenomorph eggs, I thought this was the planet from the first alien movie. Once their colony ship crashed it would go nuclear and leave the wasteland they find in the first movie.
They have quite a few pieces that have to fall into place if they want to tie into the original movies.
Ask yourself: have you rated a gallery image today?
I enjoyed the first 70-75% of it quite a bit but the last part felt a bit lazy and tacked on.
Spoiler:
I was certain from the moment David cut his hair to look like Walter that it was going to do exactly what it did even though I hoped they wouldn't.
In the end, even with it's massive flaws, I think I like Prometheus better because it was a more original look at the universe and had a more sincere perspective. I'm not mad I saw it but the last 20 or so minutes kind of ruined it for me.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
The last third or so felt like studio meddling. Like it was meant to be a movie called Covenant, following up Prometheus.
Spoiler:
The first half was really similar to Prometheus. Then Davids experimenting on Elizabeth and the Engineers aliens just came out of nowhere when he took the captain into the basement to see the eggs. Right there, it felt like the studio said 'make it more like Alien to make fans happy and get them into seats' and he threw that in. Then it was basically the last quarter of the film being a compressed version of Alien. Then they threw Alien into the title.
I enjoyed the film, but now that I've had more time to digest it, the last third or so really did feel like studio meddling than what Ridley Scott originally intended. Maybe it's the only way the studio would throw money at the project rather than Niell Blomkamps? He seemed pretty bitter about Blomkamps project and he's now saying it's effectively cancelled.
It seems like he's got a bit of a George Lucas syndrome towards the Alien franchise lately.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/05/21 06:21:52
