Agreed! As I've stated, the action scenes outside of the first one that lead up to the ship exploding ( very good scene) all seemed show horned in and had zero tension. I feel Ridley wanted to expand on all the questions of creation and playing god but had to throw some alien scenes in there to get this project greenlit. David's dialogue from the very beginning with Waylan to the end we're strongest parts of the film
Alien: Covenant |SPOILER THREAD| With more Christian subtext than BvS
- Thread starter Toa TAK
- Start date
Agreed! As I've stated, the action scenes outside of the first one that lead up to the ship exploding ( very good scene) all seemed show horned in and had zero tension. I feel Ridley wanted to expand on all the questions of creation and playing god but had to throw some alien scenes in there to get this project greenlit. David's dialogue from the very beginning with Waylan to the end we're strongest parts of the film
Saw it this evening and I thought it was ok when I left the theatre, but the more I think about the film, the more issues I have. Just some random impressions
- Best part for me was the soundtrack. Recurring main theme was pretty great and I'm even fine with reusing the Alien OST. Still works.
- Most characters outside of David/Walter are wallpaper. It's way worse than Prometheus even. We don't get enough setup scenes early on with them, we don't know any relations/tensions between couples or what makes them tick. I can't think of any interesting character outside of David.
- I was watching Angry Joe's review and was reminded they put out a lot of scenes on youtube. Some looked like they should've been in the movie proper. I wonder if there's a vid that pastes all the different scenes together. There was definitely a scene with Elizabeth alive in there, should've at least had that in the final cut, because...
- ... if you liked where Prometheus left off and were excited for the possibilites... you get the middle finger. Shaw gets the Hicks-treatment and David just destroys all life on the planet. The engineers and the interesting aspects of Prometheus are all dumped here.
- In exchange, we just get a retread of older Alien movies, and not a good one at that. They could've found a different tone for these prequels and I was expecting that after Prometheus' ending, but that got axed for something extremely formulaic.
- That's especially noticeable in the finale, which is like a speedrun of the original Alien. It's like Daniels had the 'Alien removal procedure' memorized. It's uncanny how quickly they were able to get rid of it and how fast she was with coming up with the plan. That entire sequence felt rushed as hell.
- Katherine Waterston's performance was not convincing, to say the least. At least Elizabeth Shaw was an interesting character and different enough from Ripley. I couldn't even give you a decent summary of Daniels as a character.
- David ending up as the maker, makes the origin of the most iconic sf creature feel so... mundane. It drives home the idea that going for the origins of the xenomorph maybe wasn't the best idea. The mystery behind the creature is what makes it intimidating, that's gone now.
- The setup for the next movie couldn't be less interesting. So now we're going for a retread of Aliens, with a colony that gets overrun? Now I do hope that Scott does a 180° and goes for something else in the next movie.
I liked Prometheus way more than this, because at least there we had some mystery going in with the engineers. Covenant scratched all that and was basically 'just another' Alien movie.
Yep, that's why the ending of Prometheus at least held some promise. But we got Covenant instead.
- Best part for me was the soundtrack. Recurring main theme was pretty great and I'm even fine with reusing the Alien OST. Still works.
- Most characters outside of David/Walter are wallpaper. It's way worse than Prometheus even. We don't get enough setup scenes early on with them, we don't know any relations/tensions between couples or what makes them tick. I can't think of any interesting character outside of David.
- I was watching Angry Joe's review and was reminded they put out a lot of scenes on youtube. Some looked like they should've been in the movie proper. I wonder if there's a vid that pastes all the different scenes together. There was definitely a scene with Elizabeth alive in there, should've at least had that in the final cut, because...
- ... if you liked where Prometheus left off and were excited for the possibilites... you get the middle finger. Shaw gets the Hicks-treatment and David just destroys all life on the planet. The engineers and the interesting aspects of Prometheus are all dumped here.
- In exchange, we just get a retread of older Alien movies, and not a good one at that. They could've found a different tone for these prequels and I was expecting that after Prometheus' ending, but that got axed for something extremely formulaic.
- That's especially noticeable in the finale, which is like a speedrun of the original Alien. It's like Daniels had the 'Alien removal procedure' memorized. It's uncanny how quickly they were able to get rid of it and how fast she was with coming up with the plan. That entire sequence felt rushed as hell.
- Katherine Waterston's performance was not convincing, to say the least. At least Elizabeth Shaw was an interesting character and different enough from Ripley. I couldn't even give you a decent summary of Daniels as a character.
- David ending up as the maker, makes the origin of the most iconic sf creature feel so... mundane. It drives home the idea that going for the origins of the xenomorph maybe wasn't the best idea. The mystery behind the creature is what makes it intimidating, that's gone now.
- The setup for the next movie couldn't be less interesting. So now we're going for a retread of Aliens, with a colony that gets overrun? Now I do hope that Scott does a 180° and goes for something else in the next movie.
I liked Prometheus way more than this, because at least there we had some mystery going in with the engineers. Covenant scratched all that and was basically 'just another' Alien movie.
Yep, that's why the ending of Prometheus at least held some promise. But we got Covenant instead.
Warm Machine
Member
That isn't fair. He worked his ass off on that and the workprint is closest to his vision. Not his fault the studio cut the crap out of it.
Dash_Riprock
Member
We've already had one guy banned because he couldn't accept the fact that people didn't like this movie and have different opinions from him.
Just an FYI.
At this point the biggest twist would be if the female turned out to NOT be the final survivor.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Also, Toa did end up liking the film, I believe.
Wait, it's pulp sci-fi now that it has a divided response? I thought Scott only made ambitious intelligent sci-fi, not that schlocky stuff.
Generously speaking, Prometheus was divisive, I don't see anything in the Alien franchise directly or inderictly from this point forward being anything but divisive as well. Nothing bad about being up front about those expectations.
CartridgeBlower
Member
Ridley, is that you?
I'm getting the impression that they were in a sort of no-win situation in terms of audience opinion. The people that wanted more Prometheus ended up with an Alien movie, and the people that wanted an Alien movie ended up with more Prometheus.
Flawed movie? Sure. Worst in the series? Not by a long shot.
Flawed movie? Sure. Worst in the series? Not by a long shot.
CartridgeBlower
Member
I kept thinking this as I was watching the film -- this is a movie for nobody. There is no real audience this film satisfies, instead it kinda pisses off two audiences.
The entire construction of this Alien prequel idea has been rooted in quicksand from the start.
IlGialloMondadori
Member
Very flawed, messy film that happens to be gorgeous.
I like all the Frankenstein and AI and faith business, but telling the origin story of the Alien was an awful idea. The coolness of Alien is the mystery, the unknown, the feeling of the vastness and strangeness of space - coming across this mystery, and then finding it to be a nightmare. Connecting the dots in this way is just super bland and boring and destroys the magic.
I like all the Frankenstein and AI and faith business, but telling the origin story of the Alien was an awful idea. The coolness of Alien is the mystery, the unknown, the feeling of the vastness and strangeness of space - coming across this mystery, and then finding it to be a nightmare. Connecting the dots in this way is just super bland and boring and destroys the magic.
disappeared
Banned
This sums up my thoughts pretty much perfect.
I'm so glad I wasn't the only person who was weirded out by the Roy Batty quote.
Thanks, man. It's pretty scattershot, but I did what I could in the little time I tried to churn this thing out.
If you want to know how I felt about this movie as soon as I got out of it, try here.
Besides that? The OP? It's way too easy to poke fun at Scott's attempts to make the Alien series into something bigger, philosophically speaking since Prometheus. His constant references to religion and that he isn't too into it himself is fascinating to me, personally, since it's clearly at odds in a lot of his work. Exodus, being a recent example of trying to do that story, but strangely "toning it down" or just doing a piss poor job with his take on the characters (bruh, 10 Commandments and Prince of Egypt eat this for breakfast). If he wants to examine it, do another Kingdom of Heaven, but here in Alien? I appreciate the attempt, but it keeps falling flat.
Eh, while I'm here, Vox has an article on the film's Biblical allegories.
IlGialloMondadori
Member
It's a huge fuck you to kill Shaw and all of the fucking Engineers before the film begins. It's completely ridiculous. Prometheus was about Shaw's quest and the mystery of the engineers. So, let's just kill Shaw and all the engineers and make a movie about Frankenstein's monster making his own monsters.
What a joke.
What a joke.
Warm Machine
Member
It isn't a bad idea. The Alien itself didn't need an origin. Even the concept of biological goop from Prometheus was fine. The issue lies in execution of the ideas. Ridley is a top tier director, that isn't even to be disputed and trying to take down a 3 time academy award nominated director is being internet petty and simply not understanding the craft of filmmaking. His problem simply stems from his inability to craft his own stories with a writing team. When he finds good material or has it handed to him he usually does it better than anyone. This isn't a new problem, this happened on Legend as well.
I could write a better Alien script than Prometheus or Covenant and something approximating Aliens but it doesn't matter unless someone who matters reads it.
BattleMonkey
Member
Any word on how this is performing? Was kinda shocked that 8pm showing last night I was in had only 12 people including us. Is this not looking too hot?
We are doomed to mediocrity if this keeps up. They need to kinda focus.
We are doomed to mediocrity if this keeps up. They need to kinda focus.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
Fuckin' this.
God I'm gonna be mad about this for awhile because I'm a disgusting machild, but fuck! I'm so mad
bonesmccoy
Banned
No idea how solid their reporting is, but Box Office Mojo said it enjoyed a 'strong' Friday opening. Seems to be tracking about the same as Mad Max, better than Prometheus, which seems OK for an R-rated, sci-fi horror film.
As for David and the face-huggers, I think Scott has said in an interview that yea, David was the guy who designed the xeno that the Nostromo encountered in Alien. But it's left a least a little bit open in the film. David is claiming these are his 'best' creations, but we have no idea if he crafted them from scratch or just tweaked something that already existed. The face-huggers in Alien Covenant are far more dangerous, and the xeno-baby gestates much faster and looks different than what we see in Alien.
There's also the fact that David is insane, and we don't know how he managed to crash his and Shaw's ship, or if he traveled to any other Engineer colonies.
As for David and the face-huggers, I think Scott has said in an interview that yea, David was the guy who designed the xeno that the Nostromo encountered in Alien. But it's left a least a little bit open in the film. David is claiming these are his 'best' creations, but we have no idea if he crafted them from scratch or just tweaked something that already existed. The face-huggers in Alien Covenant are far more dangerous, and the xeno-baby gestates much faster and looks different than what we see in Alien.
There's also the fact that David is insane, and we don't know how he managed to crash his and Shaw's ship, or if he traveled to any other Engineer colonies.
Yeah that's kinda what I was getting at. Fincher still da bomb.
So David actually did drop that huge swarm of shit on the people? I thought that was a dream sequence type thing. I'm confused.
Metalingus5150
Member
I hope the prequel novel later this year explains some stuff.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Yeeeeah, that uh... wasn't good. And I enjoyed Prometheus.
Random thoughts coming right off of seeing the movie (though I bet all have been posted):
- The movie was just all over the place. Sometimes it wanted to be a gory slasher, sometimes it wanted to be a jump scare flick, sometimes it wanted to be Aliens-like action flick, and never really succeeded at any of it, let alone tying it together cohesively.
- Speaking of which, lol, that stupid-ass shower scene. NOTHING about that scene works, it's just laughably dumb. I have no idea what Scott and co. were going for with that scene, but whatever it was, they failed miserably. Unless it was "shitty homage to shitty 80s trope that died for a reason."
- The movie never really ramps up the tension after the first few encounters, so it all keeps pretty flat throughout. In fact, the encounters get less tense/interesting over time. Especially since...
- Final showdowns were totally anticlimactic. The Xenomorphs were defeated far too easily, and the final sequence was basically just a bland rehash of the prior mixed with a poor-man's version of Aliens's iconic closer. Actually, both felt like bad attempts at evoking Cameron's far superior finale.
- Killing Shaw between movies was cheap as fuck.
- What the ever-loving fuck is with that MASSIVE plot-hole/inconsistency with David in the end? Daniels's necklace nail (or nailcklace) was seemingly set up to be quite important. We see her make the necklace in the beginning, then when she fights David she jams it in his jaw, and then it remains in his jaw for the next few minutes on screen before pulling it out. It seemed like the wound was supposed to be the giveaway for who David really was in the end - only Daniels would have known the source of the wound, only Daniels interacted with him in a significant way after that point, and just like the lake story tied together Daniels, her lost husband, and David, so too did the nail. So when David came out as Walter, I kept looking for the wound as I thought it was supposed to be the obvious giveaway, and when they finally show an angle with the under-side of his jaw, the wound is entirely gone somehow. So it felt like it was all deliberately written, but at some point they rewrote the reveal to go in a different way, and forgot to take out the setup for the original reveal. It all felt really weird.
Also, this whole movie just muddies the Alien mythos to ridiculous levels, which is saying a lot. Going from "David basically created all of this" to the engineer ship loaded with apparently David's creations in Alien makes no sense, and I don't expect Prometheus 3 to pull it together satisfyingly. Plus, while it was more or less set up in Prometheus, it's kind of lame that Weyland basically indirectly created Xenomorphs. And then I guess... just randomly found them again later by fluke? Nah.
One positive note: I did appreciate the not-so-subtle foreshadowing revealing Walter to be David, when the wind blows David's hood up in a manner reminiscent of how we first see him. Again, it's blatant as hell, but it was fun.
Random thoughts coming right off of seeing the movie (though I bet all have been posted):
- The movie was just all over the place. Sometimes it wanted to be a gory slasher, sometimes it wanted to be a jump scare flick, sometimes it wanted to be Aliens-like action flick, and never really succeeded at any of it, let alone tying it together cohesively.
- Speaking of which, lol, that stupid-ass shower scene. NOTHING about that scene works, it's just laughably dumb. I have no idea what Scott and co. were going for with that scene, but whatever it was, they failed miserably. Unless it was "shitty homage to shitty 80s trope that died for a reason."
- The movie never really ramps up the tension after the first few encounters, so it all keeps pretty flat throughout. In fact, the encounters get less tense/interesting over time. Especially since...
- Final showdowns were totally anticlimactic. The Xenomorphs were defeated far too easily, and the final sequence was basically just a bland rehash of the prior mixed with a poor-man's version of Aliens's iconic closer. Actually, both felt like bad attempts at evoking Cameron's far superior finale.
- Killing Shaw between movies was cheap as fuck.
- What the ever-loving fuck is with that MASSIVE plot-hole/inconsistency with David in the end? Daniels's necklace nail (or nailcklace) was seemingly set up to be quite important. We see her make the necklace in the beginning, then when she fights David she jams it in his jaw, and then it remains in his jaw for the next few minutes on screen before pulling it out. It seemed like the wound was supposed to be the giveaway for who David really was in the end - only Daniels would have known the source of the wound, only Daniels interacted with him in a significant way after that point, and just like the lake story tied together Daniels, her lost husband, and David, so too did the nail. So when David came out as Walter, I kept looking for the wound as I thought it was supposed to be the obvious giveaway, and when they finally show an angle with the under-side of his jaw, the wound is entirely gone somehow. So it felt like it was all deliberately written, but at some point they rewrote the reveal to go in a different way, and forgot to take out the setup for the original reveal. It all felt really weird.
Also, this whole movie just muddies the Alien mythos to ridiculous levels, which is saying a lot. Going from "David basically created all of this" to the engineer ship loaded with apparently David's creations in Alien makes no sense, and I don't expect Prometheus 3 to pull it together satisfyingly. Plus, while it was more or less set up in Prometheus, it's kind of lame that Weyland basically indirectly created Xenomorphs. And then I guess... just randomly found them again later by fluke? Nah.
One positive note: I did appreciate the not-so-subtle foreshadowing revealing Walter to be David, when the wind blows David's hood up in a manner reminiscent of how we first see him. Again, it's blatant as hell, but it was fun.
cheezcake
Member
Yes he did, you could still see their fucked up remains when they entered the area.
CartridgeBlower
Member
It's going to do 38-40 million this weekend, which is 22% worse than Prometheus.
BattleMonkey
Member
Fuckin' this.
God I'm gonna be mad about this for awhile because I'm a disgusting machild, but fuck! I'm so mad
I really doubt David killed ALL the engineers. An advanced race like that and they all live in a single little courtyard/building? They apparently had weapon sites on another planet in Prometheus, would have to believe they have other cities/homes on other planets. Plus still need the ship and engineer from Alien 1 to appear.
Yeah, those were hard to miss but I figured they were all fossilized or something. Then again, it was 10 years later. Ah well
bonesmccoy
Banned
Huh, I must have misread the BOM post then. Or maybe they were talking WW total?
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
At this rate the engineer from Alien 1 will be revealed to have been a mutated grown David in a space suit.
ResidentWeevil13
Member
wow...this movies...was not good. Marginally better than Prometheus, maybe. I'm not even sure.
Also, David's actions are still as baffling as they were in Prometheus. If your plan is to get back on the main ship so you can experiment on the colonists and stop them from colonizing, why the heck would you be antagonistic to the humans that are from that ship? Why would you make it so much harder for you and the others to get off the planet by creating a god damn alien?
For me this stinker ranks somewhere around Alien: Resurrection and Prometheus.
Also, David's actions are still as baffling as they were in Prometheus. If your plan is to get back on the main ship so you can experiment on the colonists and stop them from colonizing, why the heck would you be antagonistic to the humans that are from that ship? Why would you make it so much harder for you and the others to get off the planet by creating a god damn alien?
For me this stinker ranks somewhere around Alien: Resurrection and Prometheus.
bonesmccoy
Banned
David's a mad scientist.
Key part -> Mad
Key part -> Mad
Just popping in to quietly add another positive opinion. I thoroughly enjoyed this - far more than Prometheus, and I'll probably name it my third favourite film in the franchise (no prizes for guessing what the first two are).
Rumours are that the next film will be set between Prometheus and this, following Shaw and David. I can't see how that wouldn't be redundant as hell, so I hope that isn't the case.
Rumours are that the next film will be set between Prometheus and this, following Shaw and David. I can't see how that wouldn't be redundant as hell, so I hope that isn't the case.
The scene with David interacting with the neomorph immediately after it killed someone, and then acting genuinely surprised when Oren killed it, should tell you David wasn't exactly thinking rationally. They even had a scene with Walter pointing out that David was malfunctioning.
He's already been Weyland once before, it would be awfully weird for him to do it again.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
AVP. The gift that keeps on giving. Dammit.
ResidentWeevil13
Member
Yeah I guess you have a point. Here's to David, who keeps bumbling through success after success...
SuperStiltzkin
Member
It's easy to win 1 v 6 when no one is using team speak or coordinating at all. They're all sprinting around the map by themselves hoping to get the game winning kill.
Astral Dog
Member
ilove faux Christianism this probably has lots if it
NealMcCauley
Member
As soon as Walter corrected him I thought about David's "Two years, four months, 18 days, 36 hours, 15 minutes" line from Prometheus. To Covenant's credit, that oddity is solved.
It's actually pretty hilarious. The one good part in prometheus apart from visuals was the idea of 'questions that need answering' but David killed both the searcher and the people who could've given any answers off screen. Ridley really shat on his own movie.
Jigolo
Member
From my understanding so far, Weyland should have no knowledge of Xenomorphs, right? None of the prequels have relayed any information to Weyland. Ash being a last minute addition to Nostromo in the original by the corporation has yet to be explained... At least that's what running through my head right now.
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
I liked it.
Thought Fassbender did a great job, and Katherine as well.
Loved the Neomorphs and Xenomorphs.
Just had fun, I never really thought the mystery of the Xenomorph mattered in Alien or Aliens. Never though about it, and didn't effect my viewings of said movies. So I'm fine with the origin story of Xenomorphs.
Thought Fassbender did a great job, and Katherine as well.
Loved the Neomorphs and Xenomorphs.
Just had fun, I never really thought the mystery of the Xenomorph mattered in Alien or Aliens. Never though about it, and didn't effect my viewings of said movies. So I'm fine with the origin story of Xenomorphs.
RadicalVelocity
Member
I agree with much of this. Throwing away Shaw, the mystery of the engineers for what we got.... what a shame. It's so disappointing that we got Covenant instead of Prometheus 2.
And since it was so obvious that it was David and not Walter getting on the cargo lander at the end, it made me hope we'd see them subvert the trope by having him make a surprise airlock exit. I actually couldn't remember how many times Daniels was saved by Walter, so I thought her question then was a test and she realized.
Too optimistic, I was.
Really wish Scott stuck with making this loosely set in the Alien universe. Everything about Prometheus was gold up until the forced alien creation scene. They even had to get Alien in the title of this one even though it's more Prometheus than alien but still highly flawed in the fact that it can't take a definitive stance on what kind of movie it wants to be.
Like someone suggested earlier, if this bombs I hope Scott is able to make a few more with a smaller budget, maybe just mostly take place on the shop or within a building on some other Engineer planet, and then David and the engineers and discuss creation and maybe we can finally get an answer as to why the engineers wanted to exterminate mankind
Like someone suggested earlier, if this bombs I hope Scott is able to make a few more with a smaller budget, maybe just mostly take place on the shop or within a building on some other Engineer planet, and then David and the engineers and discuss creation and maybe we can finally get an answer as to why the engineers wanted to exterminate mankind
The mystery of the engineers were more interesting then the aliens. Why did they kill it off?