It's stupider as well and gets worse as it progresses.
Alien: Covenant |SPOILER THREAD| With more Christian subtext than BvS
- Thread starter Toa TAK
- Start date
evilromero
Member
Also, a few simple edits could've completely changed the scariness of the xenomorph introduction.
First, they shouldn't have shown the chestburter actually ripping out of the captain's chest. Instead, they should've only shown David's reaction while we only hear the terrible sound of crunching bone and shrieks. Leave that horrific birth to our imaginations.
Second, instead of showing the couple taking a shower, the Ripley character should've just discovered them already dead from the xeno attack. I'd say they should have also done this for the scene where the xeno killed that soldier helping his friend in David's room. Show less of the xeno attacks and instead have our main character discover the horrible aftermath of the attacks, building the terror and danger of a creature we haven't seen yet.
First, they shouldn't have shown the chestburter actually ripping out of the captain's chest. Instead, they should've only shown David's reaction while we only hear the terrible sound of crunching bone and shrieks. Leave that horrific birth to our imaginations.
Second, instead of showing the couple taking a shower, the Ripley character should've just discovered them already dead from the xeno attack. I'd say they should have also done this for the scene where the xeno killed that soldier helping his friend in David's room. Show less of the xeno attacks and instead have our main character discover the horrible aftermath of the attacks, building the terror and danger of a creature we haven't seen yet.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one getting flashes to it.
BattleMonkey
Member
I didn't like Alien 3, but I think it was a competent enough movie. Resurrection was just pure trash.
And one good death scene involving a chestburster.
Fun does not always equal better movie. That said i found covenant really dull. It took forever to get going. And when it finally got going, it was so predictable. I also take sigourney weaver's character any day over katherine waterstone.
Thornton Reed
Member
She didn't even resemble ripley in that movie
Conkersbadfurday
Member
So I'm one of the people here that goes on firm record in thinking that Prometheus was a wonderful, wonderful film.
This was not. This was so, so not. Fuck now I know what it feels like
When it was working it was okay, but mostly it was boring with just shit characters. We now have three Alien movies--of five--where people stumble upon an Engineer ship and wonder what it is. THREE! THREE TIMES THIS HAS HAPPENED.
Fuck.
This was not. This was so, so not. Fuck now I know what it feels like
When it was working it was okay, but mostly it was boring with just shit characters. We now have three Alien movies--of five--where people stumble upon an Engineer ship and wonder what it is. THREE! THREE TIMES THIS HAS HAPPENED.
Fuck.
We don't know about the fast travel capabilities of the alien ship. For all we know the journey could have been completed within a day. Ether that or the ship had the ability to grow/produce food and water
Dash_Riprock
Member
The ship had sleep pods. The Last Engineer was in one, remember? Shaw probably just used those.
MickeyPhree
Member
After sleeping on it, I still think it's awful.
My list in order of best to worst.
Aliens
Alien
Prometheus
Alien3 assembly cut
Alien covenant
Alien Resurrection
My list in order of best to worst.
Aliens
Alien
Prometheus
Alien3 assembly cut
Alien covenant
Alien Resurrection
Me too, but Prometheus also sucks. All these movies suck.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Ship also warped into the atmosphere
They dont suck. Not just as good as alien 1 and 2.
Dash_Riprock
Member
You're right...Then why did need sleep pods?
Gah, so many design choices in these two films make NO fucking sense when you think about them.
Spike Spiegel
Member
Alien: Covenant Prologue: The Crossing
Dr. Shaw slept through the journey, and David never woke her until he was ready to experiment on her.
We don't know that part, it's never explained exactly how she died. She could very well have lived on the planet for quite some time.
So did the film touch on the exact how she died? Yeah it seems like David used her body to further his experiments but in the prologue vid linked above it appeared David did appreciate her kindness that he never had before so him simply killing her seems to be something he wouldn't do unless he absolutely needed too.
Ha, I posted that after the last post.
Ha, I posted that after the last post.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
I'm getting tired of that murderous robot. And this movie cemented my distaste for prequels.
Dash_Riprock
Member
Polished turd is still turd.
Agreed !
Even with my complaints, I'd probably put this on the level of Alien 3. Alien 3 had Ripley, though, so I'll give that the nod. Still nothing that even approaches the quality of Alien or Aliens.
Fassbender is great, and Daniels and Tennessee were likable enough. The rest of the movie though...bleh.
Fassbender is great, and Daniels and Tennessee were likable enough. The rest of the movie though...bleh.
Fried Food
Banned
better than prometheus. I really wish these prequel movies had cut back on the action and doubled, tripled down on the philosophical stuff. Man that'd be great.
Michael F. Assbender
Banned
Does this movie explain any of the weird stuff about human origins and Engineers that Prometheus left us hanging with?
brandonh83
Banned
Yep, it's mostly why I was excited but then the trailers started getting me worried with how much action and how much they just blatantly show the creatures.
Movie was pretty bad but it was better than Prometheus. So there's that.
I can't stand the score and having David being the architect of the xenomorph makes sense but comes across as incredibly lame. The David stuff is 90% of what Ridley's most interested so I wish he would have just been able to make some android movies and get it out of his system. He tries to tie engineers, humans, androids, and xenomorphs together and it just doesn't feel right.
And that fucking bed bugs line is some Freddy Krueger shit.
I can't stand the score and having David being the architect of the xenomorph makes sense but comes across as incredibly lame. The David stuff is 90% of what Ridley's most interested so I wish he would have just been able to make some android movies and get it out of his system. He tries to tie engineers, humans, androids, and xenomorphs together and it just doesn't feel right.
And that fucking bed bugs line is some Freddy Krueger shit.
I thought prometheus was better. More focus on the engineers.
I thought the bed bugs line was suitably perverse
Dash_Riprock
Member
Nope. Aside from the black goo the first film might as well have never happened.
It was cliche as fuck. People in my theater groaned.
TheTurboFD
Member
I enjoyed it, granted I have low expectations from these movies (I enjoyed Prometheus as well). But it left way more questions in my head than it answered.
-How did David get eggs
-The white alien seemed way more superior than the Xeno so how is Xeno superior?
-How the hell did David get the face huggers into that amber like stuff to shove in his mouth?
-Were there never any animals on the planet? Have they never come in contact with the black stuff? Would think there would be more monsters on the planet
-wtf even happened to shaw? Did she die and then he experimented or did she die because of him?
-How did David get eggs
-The white alien seemed way more superior than the Xeno so how is Xeno superior?
-How the hell did David get the face huggers into that amber like stuff to shove in his mouth?
-Were there never any animals on the planet? Have they never come in contact with the black stuff? Would think there would be more monsters on the planet
-wtf even happened to shaw? Did she die and then he experimented or did she die because of him?
I'd be down with this
If they'd do a better job with it. In Prometheus it's sorta scattershot, lots of interesting ideas and conflicting opinions between characters, but between everything else it doesn't nail it.
For Covenant, just narrowing it down to David feels a bit shortchanged considering how much bigger Prometheus was. Having Walter to bounce off of wasn't as interesting as Shaw or even Holloway.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
A little OT, but I've heard the same thing and then I read the comics and they used the word "zombie" in it.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
I agree completely with this. He had no control over the tone of Prometheus and, likewise, doesn't here either.
SMG
Member
"Hay everyone look how well I do the whole actor playing against themselves bit... look, be impressed... LOVE ME!"
One thing that stood out is that the actress playing Shaw isn't in the film, sort of.
We see a photograph, that might be reused from the predecessor, we see David's doodles, a hologram and a model of her cadaver. So is there some odd pay/contract/royalties thing going on?
Michael F. Assbender
Banned
Fried Food
Banned
we arent meant to believe that the david/walter look alike released the toxin on the alien civilization are we?
SMG
Member
Lore did it.
This bothered me a lot. He had not been on the ship, but knew exactly what kind of incubation state to put the face huggers into so they were compatible with the ship's. Would have made more sense had he smuggled a vial of his hybrid goo/spores on board.
I haven't really commented on the story, because I find that I can roll with whatever story so long as it's well told. I don't care for where this film is taking the series, but if Scott could tell it in a compelling way and with characters I cared about, I'd roll with it.
When the opening sequence showed 15 crew aboard, I was dismayed. That's too many to get to know them, leaving most to be fodder. Prometheus made that mistake as well. Alien had a cast of seven, and didn't kill anyone until the midpoint in the film, so we got to know them and their relationships. Aliens had the big cast (17 IIRC) but they were more strongly drawn characters, and it culled the group down to a manageable size quickly. Covenant whittled the pack down slowly, but half the time people died, they did so with my wondering, who was that exactly? Only 2-3 characters got enough screen time to really become characters.
Right off the bat, I had a hard time relating to what was happening in the story. The story needs the crew to wake up and intercept the transmission from the Engineer planet. The simple way to do that is to have the ship - or notDavid - intercept it, and wake them up. It would be an echo of Alien, which the film was doing throughout. But instead of this weird alien signal, we get the same scene as we got - it's human music. A perfectly fine play off expectations and of the first film.
Instead it over complicates things and there's this giant weird pulse that I don't understand, that knocks the solar sails down, which wreaks part of the ship? And so they have to do lots of repairs, and then McBride's character is the only one to pick up on the signal (not the ship for some reason I didn't understand) and THEN they decode the message. This wasted a lot of screen time, and they failed to use it to establish the characters. It was just confusing, wasted time. Just wake'em up to the signal. That would give the later part of the film more breathing room.
There's also a lot of dumb pseudo-science and problems boiled down to percentages. This ship is at 85% integrity. There's 85% tension on the chains holding the construction equipment (though with the chains sagging, I'm not sure how that works). Some how pulling a solar sail straight gets all the lights back on instantly. In Alien, an event we understand (the ship landed in such a way that the landing claw bent and was damaged, destabilizing the ship) causes damage we also understand (pipes rupture, "we're blind on B and C decks", etc.). Here they are have 85% integrity or something due to..something? An EV pulse or something? I'm really not sure.
Then we get a false conflict. The debate between the captain and Daniels is whether to make this new world where the colony sets down. It should have just been whether they take the detour to check it out and find the signal. No rational person would leap to debating whether they would settle down there, yet. The compromise should have been that they'd check out the planet, but not commit to any more unless it's perfect. Save that debate for later. The whole conflict is wasted screen time and the debate is not one reasonable people would have. From the get-go we're getting one manufactured crisis after another.
This kind of irrationality continues throughout the film. The captain has David at gun point, and a character he went looking for is found dead with an alien there. David defends the alien. At that point the captain should have gotten on the radio and gotten the rest of the crew together. Or told them that he found the missing crew member. Or that David is acting strangely. Or to just come meet them right there. Instead he tells no one, and follows David around, and obeys David's suggestion to stick his face in a giant, open-top alien egg.
I can't get behind a story like this, where every conflict and crisis is so plainly manufactured and out of step with what semi-rational people would do. I think the actual story they're telling is dumb, but it's an interesting kind of dumb. It's just told very, very badly.
Just saw the movie... i "enjoyed" it only because i shut down my brain after the first 20 minutes were it was pretty establish that the reasoning of this movie went AWOL.
Nevertheless i have a question just for continuity's sake. So my question is, basis the events in covenant, how did the Alien spaceship in the original Alien movie had the eggs/facebuggers inside it? Werent the eggs David's creation? If so, how did they appear in the alien ship of the original movie?
Nevertheless i have a question just for continuity's sake. So my question is, basis the events in covenant, how did the Alien spaceship in the original Alien movie had the eggs/facebuggers inside it? Werent the eggs David's creation? If so, how did they appear in the alien ship of the original movie?
We don't know, as this film didn't connect up to Alien. My hypothesis is, all those eggs in the cargo hold of the ship in Alien are what David turns the 2,000 passengers of the Covenant into. Where that ship and the pilot of it come into play hasn't been established. Just that David made the original alien eggs, and the original alien as we see it in the first film. How we get from here to there is something Ridley Scott is probably trying to figure out.
Dash_Riprock
Member
Bobby was right, the "Pilot" in Alien is David, somehow transferring himself into an Engineer body. I bet Scot will think he's so clever thinking up that ending.
Ah. I was about to ask, because my memory is fuzzy - but based on what we know, the Convenant ship isn't where the colony in Aliens come from? I was assuming David flies the Covenant to the planet, let's the folks colonize it some, and then fucks shit up; but I couldn't remember if the planet in Aliens had the same name as the original planet the Covenant was traveling to.