Prometheus Sequel (ALIEN: Covenant)

[YoNoSe]

I cringed everytime they cut to the characters in space.

Then I cringed everytime they cut to the characters on the planet.

You've gone full meh-lennial.

Movie section = "The Enchanted Village"

 

[RIDDICK]

I thought it was an ok slasher film with an awesome villain...
At least that's what I'd say if it wasn't another nostalgic franchise rape.

Human characters are dull and stupid as ****!
I was laughin' my ass off most of the film.

David is the best slasher villain ever.
He's weird and creepy yet glamorous and charming.

The monsters were awful in pretty much every way possible.
The action around them was mediocre.

__

All in all, a disasterous "prequel" to ALIEN but very entertainingly bad slasher feature.


P.S. Can't believe it's been 5 years since the first post of this thread...

 

[Wor-Gar]

Cameron's film didn't undermine the original but rather elevated the material even further and made Weaver/Ellen Ripley and the Xenos icons.

What we need is someone with an inspired concept to do what Cameron did. Ridley just doesn't have it in him anymore. But Blomkamp might.

I find Blomkamp tedious.

And as good as Cameron's take was -- one of the best sequels ever made, of course -- it doesn't negate my point that he had to sacrifice the mystery of the alien by simplifying it into a "space bug" horde. It advanced the alien so that it became digestible for comic books -- is that really "elevating" the material?

 

[DiFabio]

I find Blomkamp tedious.

And as good as Cameron's take was -- one of the best sequels ever made, of course -- it doesn't negate my point that he had to sacrifice the mystery of the alien by simplifying it into a "space bug" horde. It advanced the alien so that it became digestible for comic books -- is that really "elevating" the material?

Let's not kid ourselves, it's not like the original Alien ("Big Chap"), was actually some kind of sophisticated, highly intelligent, creature. It didn't go around the ship having eloquent conversations about the philosophies of life with the Nostromo crew. No, it ****ing raped and killed them. It was an animal that scurried around from vent to vent. It came from a colony of eggs, it was animal, not unlike a bug.

The only difference between it and the ones in Aliens is that, instead of following several Aliens that formed from several hosts, we only got to follow one. That first one will always have an element of mystique to it due to it's presentation and screentime alone. But what if multiple Nostromo crew members were impregnated? Then you'd have something similar to what we see in Aliens. It's as simple as that.

 

[Rorywan]

I find Blomkamp tedious.

And as good as Cameron's take was -- one of the best sequels ever made, of course -- it doesn't negate my point that he had to sacrifice the mystery of the alien by simplifying it into a "space bug" horde. It advanced the alien so that it became digestible for comic books -- is that really "elevating" the material?

This.. all of it.. it's true.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Let's not kid ourselves, it's not like the original Alien ("Big Chap"), was actually some kind of sophisticated, highly intelligent, creature. It didn't go around the ship having eloquent conversations about the philosophies of life with the Nostromo crew. No, it ****ing raped and killed them. It was an animal that scurried around from vent to vent. It came from a colony of eggs, it was animal, not unlike a bug.

I preferred the proposed life-cycle of the perfect organism from 1979. The bug horde with a Queen is less interesting to me and much too terrestrial, that's all I'm saying.

The Alien doesn't need a monocle and a British accent to be 'sophisticated'. It just has to be "alien"... and the original creature was more alien to me than Cameron's hive successors.

 

[Chakor]

I thought it was an ok slasher film with an awesome villain...
At least that's what I'd say if it wasn't another nostalgic franchise rape.

All in all, a disasterous "prequel" to ALIEN but very entertainingly bad slasher feature.

Paging crows, paging crows... Someone other than myself knows that this is a slasher flick.

 

[DiFabio]

The Alien doesn't need a monocle and a British accent to be 'sophisticated'.

Yes he does!

 

[Wor-Gar]

Yes he does!

Like the Peanut guy on Planters Peanuts.

Suits the name Big 'Chap'.

 

[tchalikias]

The more I think about it, apart from the AvP atrocities, while the Alien was turned into a 'space bug' -inevitably- across 4 movies, it still retained, even in the much maligned Resurrection, a part of its mystique - the scientists in that film were in awe of it, didn't know anything substantial about it, much like the paleontologists in Jurassic Park. And dare I say it, Resurrection for all its flaws tried stuff, and was more interesting throughout, even if by 'objective' standards A:C is the 'better' film. Ah, I'm getting old

 

[tchalikias]

In the end, it comes down to this:

 

[Caped Baldy]

So which came first: the Alien Queen or the egg?

 

[FACEBOX]

I took last Monday off work and snuck into a film critics only morning screening of A:C. I had resisted the hype so far, but as I entered the theater I couldn't help but feel super fanboy-ish. That feeling did not last through to the end of the film... Sigh. Here my couple of cents.

To start, one my main issues with the film is this - during the first 20 minutes of Alien, we are introduced to an entire fictional universe through a few sets, costumes, blinking lights, corridors etc. - and it feels alive, lived in, it feels real, even though some of the technology depicted was dated even at the time of filming.

In Covenant, right from the very first shof of the ship, I was aware I was watching a movie - and not in a good way. The set design of film is a step in the wrong direction IMHO, sort of like a meld of Prometheus & Alien elements, that seems a little jarring at times.

The pacing is all over the place - there are exposition parts that could be shorter, and action set pieces that seemed to last seconds and I couldn't tell exactly what was happening - overall, I think the film would benefit from a longer running time, giving each element of the film its due.

The effects were also all over the place - some things were done extremely well, while others reminded me of movies 10+ years older - for example, there's a scene early on involving the ship that reminded me of the effects of 1998's Star Trek Insurrection.

As Mark Kermode said, somewhere along the line in this franchise, the people inhabiting this universe stopped talking like regular people in extraordinary situations. Even on the much maligned Alien: Resurrection, the dialogue felt more natural, most of the time - probably because the film did not wish to make some sort of grand, 'high brow' statement, as Scott is obviously trying to make both here and in Prometheus.

And we finally arrive at my biggest problem - which originates with Prometheus. Now a lot of people have complained about this, and I was willing to give the creators the benefit of the doubt, that they wished to and had found a way to dig themselves out of the Prometheus hole, but I'm afraid most people talking of 'George Lucas/midichlorian' syndrome were correct.

The original Alien was scary because it was a black box - we didn't know where it came from, or how it came to be, we didn't know the full extent of its intelligence, or its motives, beyond self propagation - in a sense, it was random, like a natural disaster, a virus or an earthquake. It just happened - and the human characters were there at the wrong place and at the wrong time, having to deal with this unstoppable force of nature as best as they could.

I believe that the entire concept behind these newer films, starting with Prometheus, while introducing a few interesting ideas, ultimately detracts from the menace and mystery of the 'perfect organism' - it demystifies the Alien. In an entire galaxy full of possibilities, most of which would be incomprehensible to a mere human,once again, a terrible and unknowable threat like the xenomorph is inextricably linked with the existence of human beings.

But for me, the xenomorph has always been there, wether humans existed or not. It doesn't care about us. We're not its creators, nor do we play a role in its evolution, much like an ant doesn't determine the course of an avalanche... It's been there long before humans first climbed down from the trees and it'll probably outlive us as a race. It was just... there, on LV-426, and perhaps other parts of the galaxy, and by accident was discovered by the crew of the Nostromo... And this is why it's so effective - why a guy in a suit could produce nightmares. So in my opinion this retconning of the Alien universe ultimately unravels some of the most basic foundations upon which this franchise has been built.

And don't get me started on the tired/overdone 'rogue AI discovering consciousness' trope that Scott is so keen on 'exploring' in these movies... It's like a poor man's version of Westworld (which wasn't even hard scifi, just more intelligent in dealing with the subject). Even Scott himself dealt with the subject more delicately and interestingly in Blade Runner. Take the entire opening scene, which felt like a deleted scene from Prometheus - 'hey people, check this out, this is our villain now, so here's a little scene demonstrating his quest to create etc.'. The film would be much better had it started off in space, like previous Alien films.

In the end, all of these criticisms would be moot, if the end result made me simply not care about them. But it didn't.

I always believed there are two kinds of movies - there's the kind of movie where, despite a ton of issues, there's someone somewhere on the planet that thinks its the greatest achievement in cinematic history, even if by objective standards this isnt' true. Let's skip the Alien films in this example, let's take Star Trek... The Wrath of Khan - a great film, indeed. Is it the best film of all time? I think not. But do I get why it could be the best film of all time for some folks? Yes I do.

And then there's the second kind of film, which may not be 'bad', it may even be quite good - but you just know, as the credits roll, that the film you just saw will never be someone's favorite film of all time. Not even for its creators (Ridley et. al.). Covenant is sadly the second kind of film, and that's what disappoints me the most. I can't see anyone in 10 years worshipping this film like people do with Alien, or even Alien 3. Not even quoting certain lines, like fans do with the much maligned A:R.

I hope I'm proven wrong, and that repeat viewings will make me appreciate it more. It's not a bad film, but it's not a very good one either - and it somehow feels a bit 'by the numbers', like there was not a lot of enthusiasm behind it, a sort of 'film by committee' mentality, which worries me regarding potential sequels. We'll see...

I agree with most of what's been said above.

Edit: just brought up this idea with the misses and even she stated that everything doesn't need an explanation or an answer.
Better would it have been to make the Alien even more mysterious and a bigger threat. So much so that even (she calls them the elephant people) Engineers couldn't tame them with their superior technology. Giving the audience the opportunity to discuss a deeper mystery and tapping into our deepest fear; "that which we do not understand".

 

[GasparZizou]

Cameron's film didn't undermine the original

He did.

But rather elevated the material even further

He didn't

Let's not kid ourselves, it's not like the original Alien ("Big Chap"), was actually some kind of sophisticated, highly intelligent, creature. It didn't go around the ship having eloquent conversations about the philosophies of life with the Nostromo crew. No, it ****ing raped and killed them. It was an animal that scurried around from vent to vent. It came from a colony of eggs, it was animal, not unlike a bug.

The only difference between it and the ones in Aliens is that, instead of following several Aliens that formed from several hosts, we only got to follow one. That first one will always have an element of mystique to it due to it's presentation and screentime alone. But what if multiple Nostromo crew members were impregnated? Then you'd have something similar to what we see in Aliens. It's as simple as that.

Jesus.

 

[jye4ever]

I preferred the proposed life-cycle of the perfect organism from 1979. The bug horde with a Queen is less interesting to me and much too terrestrial, that's all I'm saying.

The Alien doesn't need a monocle and a British accent to be 'sophisticated'. It just has to be "alien"... and the original creature was more alien to me than Cameron's hive successors.

At first I was like damn DiFabio just schooled the perfect forumism Big Wor-Gar.

But now after reading your response i'm like damn DiFabio just got Wor-Gormorphed.

 

[GasparZizou]

DiFabio's trademark "everything is crap" doesn't work on the first Alien, it really is the perfect organism.

 

[jye4ever]

I didn't read DiFabio's post as Alien sucks, I just read it as a reminder to Wor-Gor that his perfect organism is just a damn bug so get off your high Chap horse lol

 

[DiFabio]

I didn't read DiFabio's post as Alien sucks, I just read it as a reminder to Wor-Gor that his perfect organism is just a damn bug so get off your high Chap horse lol

This. What Jye and DiFabio said.

DiFabio's trademark "everything is crap" doesn't work on the first Alien, it really is the perfect organism.

I can't believe you like Alien **** more than Robocop. You were mi amigo until all this.

It's because these aliens are like your anime/hentai **** isn't it, u sicko.

 

[jye4ever]

 

[DiFabio]

View attachment 342846

Try again.