One of the things I admire about the Alien score is how it evolves. The themes lifted here were only used up through the discovery of the alien ship, but they used them throughout Covenant. So yeah, I think you are correct.
Alien: Covenant |SPOILER THREAD| With more Christian subtext than BvS
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One of the things I admire about the Alien score is how it evolves. The themes lifted here were only used up through the discovery of the alien ship, but they used them throughout Covenant. So yeah, I think you are correct.
Yeah, neither version of Alien vision makes sense nor are they that interesting, but at least Alien 3 was a little nuanced with the whole macabre, warpy perspective. The one in this movie though was like a medicore VR demo.
So it felt like :b I'll forgive them.
Like many have said here this should've just been called Prometheus 2 or Covenant. The Alien stuff was crammed in to pull the audience in.
David was great just like he was in Prometheus.
ronaldthump
Member
the use of the alien vision is jarring and pointless in covenant as its only used in pointless scenes (in the corridors) and not again so its not like they very any real value to the plot. It's weird why they even bothered really. It's quite funny Ridley scott would reference Aliens 3 so closely and have a sequence where doors open and shut, with zero overall sense of meaning or tension.
Went in expecting something decent like Prometheus but I thought this was so much better. There may be some merit in worrying about it being called an "Alien" film as that is corollary to the much more interesting robotics and philosophical themes of Covenant, but as a fan of the first two I was really pleased with the xenomorphs. Themes, acting (Fassbender obv), and especially set design and prop work were phenomenal. I hope the films continue in this vein instead of just being a straight monster hiding film.
ronaldthump
Member
I wished they showed more of how the woman died in the shower. At least have a bit where she struggles to get away from the Alien. Her death was off screen. It was so vivid and terrifying in Alien when the woman was looking in some dark room and the alien finds her and the actress is flipping the fuck out and acting like she's about to loose it.
tattooed_dwarf
Member
So people laughed at "fingering" when they talk about playing instrument? Ok..
Btw, didn't David have blond hair in Prometheus and in flashback? But brown after haircut and in beginning with Weyland. Maybe androids can change their haircolor as they please or something.
Btw, didn't David have blond hair in Prometheus and in flashback? But brown after haircut and in beginning with Weyland. Maybe androids can change their haircolor as they please or something.
Rktk
Member
It ticks boxes, you could call it one but most people would not. The final girl trope finds its way into other genres and the way the Alien kills it's prey is unlike most slasher films. It's also an alien, an alien without a backstory rather than a psychopath.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
In Covenant, all the cast did a great job at acting imo.
He dies his hair, to look like Lawrence of Arabia. He has brown hair otherwise.
Haven't watched the movie yet, but my hype is already 100% gone after reading reviews and talking to people who have seen the movie.
Honest question, what is this obsession Hollywood has with charaterization and emotions in Sci-Fi? I think one of the most brilliant ideas of 2001 Space Odyssee was how HAL showed more emotions than the main protagonist Bowman who was solely charaterized through his actions.
The way humanity as a whole and humans as individuals are portrayed in modern Sci-Fi and the whole "love conquers all"-BS as seen in Interstellar slowly makes me hate the genre.
I hope someone will grow some balls to make a bold/intelligent Sci-Fi movie again.
Honest question, what is this obsession Hollywood has with charaterization and emotions in Sci-Fi? I think one of the most brilliant ideas of 2001 Space Odyssee was how HAL showed more emotions than the main protagonist Bowman who was solely charaterized through his actions.
The way humanity as a whole and humans as individuals are portrayed in modern Sci-Fi and the whole "love conquers all"-BS as seen in Interstellar slowly makes me hate the genre.
I hope someone will grow some balls to make a bold/intelligent Sci-Fi movie again.
He's a fan of Lawrence of Arabia and the first movie introduces him dyeing his hair blonde.
shacklesmcgee
Member
I went in with extremely low expectations, having hated Prometheus, but it's an ok movie. The first half is 100x better than the second half though. A whole bunch of scenes that were meant to be serious, the audience just laughed. Ridley Scott is very ehhhh nowadays, if you ask me. Alot of stupid things too:
Why would Billy Crudup follow David down and touch the obviously bad eggs when David just admitted he's experimenting on things?
Why did they show me the nail necklace, when it's just stabbed into David then taken out?
Why is there a superhero fight between David and Walter, when they don't feel pain and the punches do nothing?
Who thought that alien vision was a good idea?
Why would Billy Crudup follow David down and touch the obviously bad eggs when David just admitted he's experimenting on things?
Why did they show me the nail necklace, when it's just stabbed into David then taken out?
Why is there a superhero fight between David and Walter, when they don't feel pain and the punches do nothing?
Who thought that alien vision was a good idea?
Good point, I wish I could pet a Xenomorph
To be fair, this was already case with Alien 3.
It certainly doesn't work when you just rehash the same scenarios we've seen a thousand times. Everything about the xenomorphs in Covenant is reheated stuff from the old films, only done worse. They don't feel like they belong in this movie, they were only included to justify making this Prometheus sequel. Even Alien Resurrection tried to do some new things with them.
Nope, never once felt scared and I have a rather weak stomach when it comes to horror and gore.
The only part that made me queasy was the woman's floating head.
Brian_FETO
Banned
I think the "horror" of the film is more dread than anything else
Everything is fairly telegraphed, you know what's coming, but you don't always know when
Which I think works with a prequel, since we know where it eventually leads
Xeno is an iconic character at this point so it's kind of hard to have it be terrifying on its own (especially when you have so many tropes/rules of how it attacks). I guess the only way to do that is to really double down on brutality/revulsion in scenes (but the intent of this movie isn't to make a "scary Alien movie" I don't think, it's more expanding on the lore)
The only time the film really approached that for me was the spores taking over the dudes, particularly the first guy
Personally, no, but it has more to do with how the Xeno/Neomorph is applied. There's not a lot of surprises here, which would be fine if the tension was adequately set- to me they went for a more fast and brutal method to shock and scare, and it didn't work to me.
The Xeno can still be perfectly scary, when utilized correctly, which this movie didn't do imo. The last time it was scary outside of maybe some of the comics, was Isolation. The movies after Aliens failed pretty bad at application.
Additionally, this film and Prometheus being stuck on creating lore and backstory for a creature that already had enough is ruining the mystique of it. It would be like a Friday the 13th movie showing Jason purchasing his hockey mask and machete, or Jigsaw buying screws and metal parts to make traps. The more is revelead, the less frightening and more mundane such things become; something a lot of horror/sci-fi films fall into.
Saw this last Friday, thought it was okay.
The biggest problem was that I didn't care about any of the characters, they were just a random group of people you never got to know.
Also, apparently all of them were married but to whom you never knew until they died. They all just felt like a jumbled mess. Daniels barely had anything to her compared to Shaw.
Fassbender was good but it felt like he got a bit too much focus put on him this time. He wasn't the only good part about Prometheus, Noomi Rapace was good too, but nope we just threw her out.
It's like Scott basically said I love Fassbender so much lets make double the Fass this time!
Though I did enjoy the tense scenes between the two Fassbenders, yes, the flute scene too, I felt it was very tense as you were sitting there expecting him to strike Walter at any moment during it.
Personally I really enjoyed Prometheus and was much more interested in the questions from that movie and hoped we'd get to see the proposed sequel Paradise, which would've explored that further.
I guess I wasn't the main target group for this movie, which was obviously alien fans who just wanted to see the alien pick off folks one by one. I've literally seen that exact comment online. I enjoy the alien movies, but I felt Prometheus just was so much more interesting in the questions it raised. The origin of humanity and where our creators came from, why they turned on us. It just felt like grandiose sci-fi. It really shouldn't have been tied to the Alien universe.
About the David hair color thing, I also noticed that.
It appears to be a retcon as even in the Introducing the David 8 - The Next Generation Weyland Robot video from the online viral marketing of Prometheus he has blond hair. Though not as blond as when he dyes it.
I guess you could argue that he always dyed his hair even before we see him do it in the movie.
But still feels like a bit of a retcon to me.
The biggest problem was that I didn't care about any of the characters, they were just a random group of people you never got to know.
Also, apparently all of them were married but to whom you never knew until they died. They all just felt like a jumbled mess. Daniels barely had anything to her compared to Shaw.
Fassbender was good but it felt like he got a bit too much focus put on him this time. He wasn't the only good part about Prometheus, Noomi Rapace was good too, but nope we just threw her out.
It's like Scott basically said I love Fassbender so much lets make double the Fass this time!
Though I did enjoy the tense scenes between the two Fassbenders, yes, the flute scene too, I felt it was very tense as you were sitting there expecting him to strike Walter at any moment during it.
Personally I really enjoyed Prometheus and was much more interested in the questions from that movie and hoped we'd get to see the proposed sequel Paradise, which would've explored that further.
I guess I wasn't the main target group for this movie, which was obviously alien fans who just wanted to see the alien pick off folks one by one. I've literally seen that exact comment online. I enjoy the alien movies, but I felt Prometheus just was so much more interesting in the questions it raised. The origin of humanity and where our creators came from, why they turned on us. It just felt like grandiose sci-fi. It really shouldn't have been tied to the Alien universe.
About the David hair color thing, I also noticed that.
It appears to be a retcon as even in the Introducing the David 8 - The Next Generation Weyland Robot video from the online viral marketing of Prometheus he has blond hair. Though not as blond as when he dyes it.
I guess you could argue that he always dyed his hair even before we see him do it in the movie.
But still feels like a bit of a retcon to me.
Warm Machine
Member
The first hour of the movie is so good. I loved everything that happens up until we meet David.
I'm pretty sure I would have loved the last 15 minutes if it was extended to add more tension.
I wasn't a big fan of the cargo lift sequence.
I wish that the David sequence was a lot more matter of fact instead of him keeping things hidden. Had him say that he had to kill them all because they threatened Earth.
I'm pretty sure I would have loved the last 15 minutes if it was extended to add more tension.
I wasn't a big fan of the cargo lift sequence.
I wish that the David sequence was a lot more matter of fact instead of him keeping things hidden. Had him say that he had to kill them all because they threatened Earth.
ronaldthump
Member
it could have.
neomorphs (dunno how some of you are getting these names - normal movie goers aka me have no idea) - the little white back hatchers and the extremely violent nature of it; were scary to me. It was also scary when it was grown.
Xenomorph doing cartoon salute + overly quick cargolander scene + bad covenant scenes (and odd cgi motion) = really kills their ability to scare. Bathroom scene could have been more; except they gave it away in the trailers and then the alien didn't do much killing after.
It's a badly put together 3rd act that ruined the impact of the xenomorph
but they cut to it so many times that I felt it was somewhat comical. First time I was like oh god. then again, I was like. um. okay?
ffejeromdiks
Banned
I feel like this one might have had a pay off in the final scene where Daniels asks David if he'll help build the cabin, but was taken out or retooled. Definitely weird though, I thought it must have been Chekov's nail by the way they focused on it early on.
HammerFace
Banned
I was actually awake for that whole bit! It was during the action scenes believe it or not that I fell asleep.
family_guy
Member
The tension is from being in utter disbelief at the stupidity of the people in the movie.
tattooed_dwarf
Member
Damn, I forgot this completely, now I have to watch Prometheus again.
Warm Machine
Member
It is effectively a complete remake of the Parker/Lambert scene. They more or less die off screen and are found by Ripley.
Because movies aren't real life? They're aiming for verisimilitude in specific ways, and most films take place in a reality created by editing and framing that is distinct from our own.
Take, for example, a film that reveals early on that Person A is a bad guy. Suddenly, if the film is constructed poorly, audiences spend their time annoyed that the protagonists don't realized Person A is a bad guy, because we as audience members are aware of something everyone else can't. Likewise, it might have been totally reasonable for Blondie to run the wrong way from the giant rolling ship in Prometheusmaybe in that helmet and at that scale, she couldn't tell it was rolling on that axis. But audience members are treated to wide shots that show us clearly what is happening... and so she looks like a dumbass in a way we wouldn't if you inserted us into the movie.
Likewise, every zombie movie ever has people who act contrary to what people in real life would act like in a zombie apocalypses, because we've seen zombie movies and know what happens whereas the characters generally haven't (I believe The Walking Dead explicitly takes place in a world where Romero didn't introduce the modern concept of zombies.)
My point is, I don't think the defense of "this is what dumb people would do in real life" is ever an effective defense of a movie. Real people also wouldn't be as attractive as they are in movies, real people wouldn't be able to conveniently park right across from or in front of the location they're going into, real people would be taking pee breaks a lot more frequently, et al. But these are concessions to the altered reality film inhabits.
Not to mention, which is scarier of the two:
a) Alien eats people because they're idiots
b) Alien eats people because it's so dangerous even smart people can get eaten
Original Alien is also scary as hell because how it drags out the tension with lulls. Covenant has no tension because the quiet scenes could be from another movie entirely. The flute scene, that I thought was great thanks to Fassbender, is a good example. It's like Scott can't decide what sort of movie he's doing, the weak-ass 2001 wannabe or an Alien film.
a) Alien eats people because they're idiots
b) Alien eats people because it's so dangerous even smart people can get eaten
Original Alien is also scary as hell because how it drags out the tension with lulls. Covenant has no tension because the quiet scenes could be from another movie entirely. The flute scene, that I thought was great thanks to Fassbender, is a good example. It's like Scott can't decide what sort of movie he's doing, the weak-ass 2001 wannabe or an Alien film.
Dash_Riprock
Member
You forgot:
C.) Alien is NOT a mindless murder machine that kills and eats you on site. It snatches you up and we have no idea WHAT it will do to you. It might kill you, it might do things far worse to you (Lambert, Dallas in the deleted scene).
Turning the Alien in a mindless monster that just wants to eat you is one of the things I hate most about Alien 3.
Also, if and when Monacle comes back I hope he'll be less condescending and more tolerate of people disagreeing with him. This is not a thread to blindly praise a film.
Who the FUCK even suggested that?
Bobby Roberts
Banned
You do.
Considering how often Ridley hacked it out of the film in 1979, it's kinda...
...shitty is the word, I guess. It's shitty.
How dare you
Elfotografoalocado
Banned
This movie is expremely intelligent in that sense and actually explores similar ideas, if you don't mind very broad strokes of the story
people in this movie are very much David's pawns for his own 19th Century-like experiments and for his racist (In the 19th Century sense of the word) and egomaniacal views. That's also why his relation with Walter is almost homoerotic. David and Walter are the main characters of this film.
Attack of the Clones exist so I'm not sure about that.=pOh please the Star Wars prequels are much better than this so far
I'm starting to think that I have this strange hate-love attitude with Covenant.
I love the David bits but I hate that they are in this movie. They'd fit fine in a movie about androids but it eats the whole Alien thing.
It might as well be called David: Covenant, because Aliens are just incidental visitors and pawns of a greater evil in this movie.
I love the David bits but I hate that they are in this movie. They'd fit fine in a movie about androids but it eats the whole Alien thing.
It might as well be called David: Covenant, because Aliens are just incidental visitors and pawns of a greater evil in this movie.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I will not be drawn into this sick fantasy world of yours. I refuse.
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
Erm....well that's certainly an interesting opinion.
evilromero
Member
It really should've been called David: Covenant lol. With this arc Scott is suggesting how the aliens were David's attempt to outdo the engineers while at the same time eradicating humans, though his motivation is faulty. Eradicating humans is one thing, but he's also eradicating all life in the process.
Still, a great movie villain that is well written and captivating to watch. He's like an intergalactic Hannibal.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Yeah it's pretty outlandish, right
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Welcome to the last 25 years.
There are people who have been alive who have never not known that any other existence was possible. This was the world they were born into.
Ha, ha, no, Resurrection is awful!!!
Resurrection was more fun than this movie
Thornton Reed
Member
All this talk of alien 3 is making me want to re watch it because I don't remember it being that bad. Also I had no idea David fincher directed it until 3 minutes ago
Get the hell outta here. It's a car crash of a film
Get the hell outta here. It's a car crash of a film
"directed"
SuperStiltzkin
Member
The only thing I remember about Alien 3 is Terminator 2.