1. I can't believe that we got yet another "crew in cryosleep wakes up early, intercepts a transmission, gets impregnated and brings an alien back on the ship, said alien gets blown out the airlock." I mean
what, they seriously did that again?
2. However...I was *completely* blind-sided by the false ending. In fact this might be the first time a false ending caught me off guard since The Lost World. I literally thought it was over when they crushed the first stowaway Xenomorph and flew back to the ship. Yes they
completely cheated (a facehugger impregnates a guy who stays conscious??) but right now I don't care because I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I did guess the twist that David sawed his own hand off but I assumed that the film would leave his identity ambiguous.
3. This movie might have the absolute dumbest space farers in the history of science-fiction. And Billy Crudup? THE most incompetently stupid captain in the history of film, period. I almost expected David to say "Are you ****ing serious??? I literally told you that 'it's perfectly safe' when you entered my lair and then you witnessed me cozying up with an alien that just ripped the head off your crew member and then when I tell you that the eggs are 'perfectly safe' five minutes later you believed me??? I just did that as a joke not to actually kill you but oh well." I mean he literally could have.
4. But the movie had scenes that were genuinely intense. That first "back bursting" scene really seemed to capture the horror and chaos of what witnessing something like that would be like. People panicking and slipping on blood is always an unsettling site to behold. And just watching someone in that panicky state of choosing their own life over a friend like a drowning victim or something. I just really liked the vibe of that whole sequence.
5. I still lol'd when Danny McBride asked "are we doing full quarantine?" Oh NOW you guys suddenly have safety protocols.
6. I chuckled at the "Uncle Bob-ness" of Good David vs. Bad David but the payoff (at the end) was worth it.
7. I was braced for an odd "flute scene" and thought it was weird but then I realized that it was a nice moment that let the film breathe a little bit, a rare commodity in these tentpole pictures these days. Plus the oddness of Fassbender kissing himself was something genuinely unique, also a rare commodity in this era of "retread the past."
8. Having Shaw dismissed off camera felt like Hicks and Newt being erased from Alien 3 or Saruman getting kicked out of theatrical ROTK. I understand why they did it but it always feels a bit cheap and wrong.
9. Hearing ALIEN's old school 1979 score mixed with Prometheus was kind of weird, as was David playing the actual theme on his flute.
10. As much as I loved the surprise showdown at the end it did seem a bit rushed. For a film that actually crossed the line into "bad taste" a couple of times (which actually worked to keep me a bit on my toes) I was surprised at the restraint in the shower scene. After the decades of fans speculating "What did the alien do to Lambert, why did she appear to be hanging with no pants??" I literally thought "Well here you go Ridley, you've got the Xenomorph standing face to face with a completely naked girl, I guess we'll find out," and then...apparently he just killed her quickly like everyone else. Okay I guess that ends that particular mystery with a whimper.
11. I actually liked that we didn't see too much of "Engineer society." Not that it matters anymore because who cares at this point but we did finally see the Space Jockey homeworld (or at least "a" homeworld) and they wisely used it as a backdrop location and didn't waste time exploring even more things that shouldn't be explained.
12. I thought that Danny McBride was one of the dumbest casting decisions imaginable for an ALIEN film and might have liked his character the most.
13. For the most part I loved all the visuals, especially the aliens themselves. I really liked seeing the main Xenomorphs occassionally standing and walking upright.
14. The big action sequence of Daniels being tethered to the dropship ramp as McBride flew all over the place trying to shake the Xenomorph was so ridiculous yet at the same time pretty fun and cool in a totally contrived movie kind of way.
I'm sure I can think of other things that were stupid as well as other things that I liked. A strange mixed bag to be sure and if I still cared about Alien as a franchise then I'm sure I'd say "this isn't canon!" but eh, I don't care and at the end of the day I left the theater entertained. Probably my favorite film of the year so far (again, a very low bar to achieve) and the one I'll most likely revisit the soonest.
