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[Toa TAK]

As long as David gets his teeth kicked in I'm happy.

I wasn't too hot in the idea of doing a prequel to begin with, and since Covenant seems content on moving past the Engineers and Shaw, I can deal if it means we get to see David get taken down.

All with more shoehorned Biblical allegories, of course.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Well, at least I still got Alien: Isolation.

And that game had those fuckers crawling around in a vaccuum stalking your space-suited ass in slow-motion.

Loved that.

 

[Toa TAK]

And that game had those fuckers crawling around in a vaccuum stalking your space-suited ass in slow-motion.

Loved that.

Don't forget all that debris. Full on Gravity vibes (since it came out around that time, I think?)

 

[Bobby Roberts]

The pacing of the game had already been fucked to death by that point, but I really enjoyed that specific mission. You could not run, you were forced to trudge out there, all this shit whipping by, that sound design in your headphones, those goddamn THINGS out there with you...

 

[ResidentWeevil13]

So what? Does he have to be a halfway decent person?

That's like Donald Trump level of narcissism and vindictiveness. A dude died and you are upset because some of the crew want to pay their respects instead of obeying your every order.

It would be fine I guess if his character was actually a piece of shit, but in every other part of the movie he seems like an alright guy. It's inconsistent characterization and bad writing. Sorry.

 

[MMarston]

And that game had those fuckers crawling around in a vaccuum stalking your space-suited ass in slow-motion.

Loved that.

That last bit in the ending of that game where

Spoiler

they're surrounding you by the dozens in the middle of fucking space right before blowing up the station

is actually one of my top Alien moments ever.

 

[Toa TAK]

That's not even the best part.

It's before and after the space walk where you have to out maneuver three of them at once.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I feel conflicted about that other thread about being conflicted about this movie. Which conflicted thread do I post my conflictions in? That one that is entirely about spoiler-filled discussion of the movie, or this one that is entirely about spoiler-filled discussion of the movie.

That's not even the best part.

It's before and after the space walk where you have to out maneuver three of them at once.

I did appreciate how long it took before facehuggers got introduced. I'd basically forgot about those things. And then the game sends one skittering at you at like, lightspeed.

Scared the FUCK out of me.

 

[MMarston]

I feel conflicted about that other thread about being conflicted about this movie. Which conflicted thread do I post my conflictions in? That one that is entirely about spoiler-filled discussion of the movie, or this one that is entirely about spoiler-filled discussion of the movie.

OT GAF is slippin'




We only have those "this really should've just been brought up in the OT" threads during Star Wars or Marvel movies.

 

[Z3M0G]

Totally missed the Last Supper prologue before seeing it last night.

https://youtu.be/EkXgRlRao5I

Hopefully directors cut will have this all in.

Btw, opening weekend and theater was half full...

Bomb?

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

The inciting incident, a completely random solar flare, as a story-telling technique is incredibly lame and sets up the theme of the movie: "bad stuff happening for no reason."

I thought they would've revisited this and had the neutron flare be triggered by David somehow *insert MacGuffin device here*. Who knows, perhaps it's on a cutting room floor.

 

[Toa TAK]

I feel conflicted about that other thread about being conflicted about this movie. Which conflicted thread do I post my conflictions in? That one that is entirely about spoiler-filled discussion of the movie, or this one that is entirely about spoiler-filled discussion of the movie.

The one with Renaissance photoshop.

I did appreciate how long it took before facehuggers got introduced. I'd basically forgot about those things. And then the game sends one skittering at you at like, lightspeed.

Scared the FUCK out of me.

When it comes to enemy types, I think the only thing that felt cheap were the buffed droids. More health just meant putting more ammo into those guys.

 

[GravityInsanity]

What "Makes Prometheus the best movie ever made" drug are you all in this thread smoking and can I please have some? Or am I wrong in that it is not smoked?

After watching Covenant and seeing this thread's reactions that Prometheus was "so much better and deeper" and that "Shaw was one of the greatest protagonists ever" in this thread I went back and watched Prometheus and my god are you folks out of your Got. Damn. Minds.

Lol who's even making these claims? I did not say Prometheus was the best movie ever. I actually liked the movie despite many issues with it. It also had "WAAAY" better characters compared to Covenant.

I also didn't say Shaw was the "greatest protagonists ever." Don't know where did that come from but she is one badass character for how she survived Prometheus.

I'll take this badass over Daniels who's always crying when she see a dead body.

Overall, I just prefer Prometheus over Covenant. It's an opinion, nothing more.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Bomb?

It'll be considered a disappointment, but unless 2nd weekend falls right off a cliff (65-70% weekend-to-weekend drop) it won't bomb. It'll probably end up in the 80-90mil range, domestic, on a budget of 97. Not great. Maybe enough for a mid-budget sequel to finish off the prequel trilogy (like I was speculating on the last page) but I highly doubt Scott's gonna be allowed to pursue his 2-3 more prequel idea.

 

[Sub_Level]

Shaw did not cry and despair as much as Daniels because Shaw was a psychopath.

Not an evil psychopath. But one nontheless.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

We only have those "this really should've just been brought up in the OT" threads during Star Wars or Marvel movies.

Yeah, it's really weird for one of those obvious "I just wanted to start a thread for me and me alone" type threads to show up for, of all the movies, this one. The $36mil OW-earning 6th sequel in the not-so-prestigious Alien series.

I'll take this badass over Daniels who's always crying when she see a dead body.

Not only did Shaw cry a lot in the film, but I don't see why crying is being used as some sort of negative character trait? So what if the scientist cried at unknown horrors killing her boyfriend and impregnating her with a squid monster. What's wrong with Daniels shedding a tear for watching her fucking husband burn to a crisp directly in front of her?

c'mon

Ripley cried multiple times in all the Alien movies she was in, too.

So what

 

[Ushojax]

Shaw did not cry and despair as much as Daniels because Shaw was a psychopath.

Not an evil psychopath. But one nontheless.

Shaw was a delusional, incompetent moron. Rapace's English accent was also laughable. Compared to the authentic grit and guile of Ripley, she was very limp.

 

[Fried Food]

Totally missed the Last Supper prologue before seeing it last night.

https://youtu.be/EkXgRlRao5I

Hopefully directors cut will have this all in.

Btw, opening weekend and theater was half full...

Bomb?

wait, so we are supposed to think that David dropped the toxin on the engineer peoples? I watched that other prologue bit.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

wait, so we are supposed to think that David dropped the toxin on the engineer peoples?

The film shows you that he did.

 

[Fried Food]

The film shows you that he did.

At the time I thought that was just some weird way of showing what he thought of the ozymandius bit. I was in the bathroom when that scene began so I must have missed something.

 

[Timeaisis]

Whoa, we're shitting in Daniels now? So she cried a couple times? She also willingly jumped out of a flying cargo ship to shoot at a giant alien with a machine gun while dangling from a wire. Come on.

Who cares if someone cries, it was here charcter. When shit hit the fan, she made things happen.

 

[MMarston]

Totally missed the Last Supper prologue before seeing it last night.

https://youtu.be/EkXgRlRao5I

Hopefully directors cut will have this all in.

Btw, opening weekend and theater was half full...

Bomb?

Don't think it's gonna bomb -- just underperform.



Also, my screening on Friday at 4:10 only had like 25 people in the entire theater.



To my dismay, it also included a bunch of heckling high schoolers and the lack of a bigger crowd really gave them incentive to babble way more often than they already should.


They really went savage on the fingering scene too. As much as I think that scene was kinda asking for it, I just hate that shit period.

 

[Fried Food]

Whoa, we're shitting in Daniels now? So she cried a couple times? She also willingly jumped out of a flying cargo ship to shoot at a giant alien with a machine gun while dangling from a wire. Come on.

yeah Daniels is great. And I love that she is a character who is referred to by a name that could be a first name, but has an 's' at the end. Like in the riddick game when the prison warden is called "johns" lol

 

[GravityInsanity]

Whoa, we're shitting in Daniels now? So she cried a couple times? She also willingly jumped out of a flying cargo ship to shoot at a giant alien with a machine gun while dangling from a wire. Come on.

If it makes you feel any better, she was my favorite character in Covenant. Could've been Fassbender, but he really made me hate David so much.

 

[jack_package_200]

I don't see how characters crying is a negative against the film. People lost loved ones and were witnessing horrors they could never have possibly imagined. Thats a pretty reasonable reaction.

Thats not even nitpicking. Thats just bullshit.

 

[LifEndz]

Just saw it last night and man,...what a bummer. Really wanted to like it, but the movie took a turn for the worse once they arrived on the planet. One movie trope I wish would go away is when knowledgeable and trained adults behave just so damn recklessly. It's an alien fucking planet that mysteriously showed up on their map and yet people are splitting up, going off on their own, putting their goddamn face mere feet from an alien pod that just opened...wtf? And that twist at the end where David was impersonating Walter was incredibly predictable. And wtf with David trying to get it on with Walter and that female protag. Just...a bummer of a movie.

 

[Majmun]

Daniels has such an annoying face.

Ripley and (to a much lesser degree) Shawn have this badass vibe going on.

Daniels is not cool

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I liked it enough, but I can't get behind changing how quickly the Alien grows.

The first one was understandable, it wasn't an Alien as we've known it, but the one that comes out of Billy Crudup had no reason to be 'born' already formed and grow almost ten times in size in the space of ten minutes.

As for the crew and their questionable decisions/actions, I saw them as idiot pioneers more than competent characters, helped to increase my enjoyment of the movie.

 

[GravityInsanity]

I find it absolutely hilarious that people think Daniels crying a lot was a negative to me. Where did I say it was a negative? I just compared her to Shaw. That's not a negative. I didn't like any character in Covenant except Daniels lol.

 

[Toa TAK]

I thought Daniels was owning it as she was kicking ass throughout that third act.

Daniels is cool.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I find it absolutely hilarious that people think Daniels crying a lot was a negative to me.

"absolutely hilarious" huh?

You directly compared Daniels to Shaw and suggested you'd take the "badass" (shaw) over Daniels who "cries everytime she sees a dead body."

There's really not much room for interpretation there.

 

[LilWayneSuckz]

I thought Daniels was owning it as she was kicking ass throughout that third act.

Daniels is cool.

For some reason the "kicking ass" scenes with Daniels IMO felt shoehorned in because Ellen Ripley.

I have no problem with her crying, since she's a human being and put in a horrible situation, but the writers really didn't establish Daniels as a badass, but (at least for the first part of the movie..her thought process at the very end of the movie is questionable), established her as the rational scientist on the ship.

 

[Timeaisis]

Well, she doesn't really become a badass until it's necessary. That's what makes her a cool.

I mean, same thing happens when Ripley in Alien 1.

 

[Tony Redgrave]

I kinda liked Daniels but I think she went from emotional and vulnerable to full blow one-liner sprouting action hero in no time.

She wasn't just disposable meat for the machine like 90% of the cast but she wasn't a character to sing praise for, the Ripley callbacks didn't help either.

In the end this is David's movie through and through.

 

[Toa TAK]

For some reason the "kicking ass" scenes with Daniels IMO felt shoehorned in because Ellen Ripley.

I have no problem with her crying, since she's a human being and put in a horrible situation, but the writers really didn't establish Daniels as a badass, but (at least for the first part of the movie), established her as the rational scientist on the ship.

I gotta head out but I'm gonna try to put this the best I can:

I think the issue with Daniels, for me, was that she goes from 0 to 100. She's great at the beginning and great at the end, but I feel like there's something missing from her at point A to point B. She wasn't as fleshed out or developed as well as they could've for her and that seriously hurts the movie, in my opinion.

 

[Majmun]

Btw, what's the deal with James Franco's role in tjis? Why would they hire a famous actor for such a tiny role?

Did I miss anything?

 

[LilWayneSuckz]

Well, she doesn't really become a badass until it's necessary. That's what makes her a cool.

I mean, same thing happens when Ripley in Alien 1.

This is why it should be hard to really criticize Daniels' badass-ery but I can forgive Alien's third act, I cannot forgive Covenant's.

I gotta head out but I'm gonna try to put this the best I can:

I think the issue with Daniels, for me, was that she goes from 0 to 100. She's great at the beginning and great at the end, but I feel like there's something missing from her at point A to point B. She wasn't as fleshed out or developed as well as they could've for her and that seriously hurts the movie, in my opinion.

I feel James Cameron did a better job of making Ripley a badass from the start of Aliens to the end of Aliens. Ridley Scott doesn't know how to bring that out of his actors (at least today), and all the work falls on the actress, even though they aren't writing or directing the character.

 

[MMarston]

Btw, what's the deal with James Franco's role in tjis? Why would they hire a famous actor for such a tiny role?

Did I miss anything?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXgRlRao5I&feature=youtu.be

 

[Warm Machine]

Btw, what's the deal with James Franco's role in tjis? Why would they hire a famous actor for such a tiny role?

Did I miss anything?

You think he will be important and then he is killed right away. It's there to shock you. If he can die, no one is safe.

 

[Tony Redgrave]

Btw, what's the deal with James Franco's role in tjis? Why would they hire a famous actor for such a tiny role?

Did I miss anything?

Maybe they were looking for a recognizable face and McBride got him onboard?

They're friends I think?

 

[sirap]

Daniels is a badly written character. She spends the first two thirds of the movie looking lost and worried like Jaden Smith (with barely any dialog) and then magically transforms into Hobbit-era Legolas, flailing around a speeding Lander like some superhero.

"Help a girl out" destroyed any hope I had for Daniels, or at very least the writers behind her character. Like others have mentioned, she's missing some much needed character growth that should've happened during the middle act. Alas, Ridley chose to make this movie about David instead.

 

[GravityInsanity]

"absolutely hilarious" huh?

You directly compared Daniels to Shaw and suggested you'd take the "badass" (shaw) over Daniels who "cries everytime she sees a dead body."

There's really not much room for interpretation there.

Because I view Shaw as a better character than Daniels and would take her over Daniels is a negative? So me preferring one character over the other because they cry a lot is a negative?

Ok, let me put it this way. I prefer Ripley over Shaw because Shaw is a psychopath, but she was still one of my favorite characters in Prometheus. Is that a negative?

 

[Bobby Roberts]

So me preferring one character over the over because they cry a lot is a negative?

Yeah, because it's a really shallow reason to dislike a character (especially since there are a lot of other reasons to not connect with her other than "she cries in the movie.")

"This character cries, not like this other badass"

That was your point of comparison

Now how the hell is Shaw a "psychopath"

(you're really going places here)

 

[SuperStiltzkin]

At the time I thought that was just some weird way of showing what he thought of the ozymandius bit. I was in the bathroom when that scene began so I must have missed something.

The cut to the flashback is a bit jarring. David doesn't explain anything through narration that leads into it. It just cuts to it. There is no "we had arrived to the planet and so and so and so and so." I might be misremembering though.

 

[GravityInsanity]

Yeah, because it's a really shallow reason to dislike a character (especially since there are a lot of other reasons to not connect with her other than "she cries in the movie.")

"This character cries, not like this other badass"

That was your point of comparison

Now how the hell is Shaw a "psychopath"

(you're really going places here)

What? I do not dislike Daniels. I simply just don't prefer her crying all the time, but I can respect that whenever she see's a dead body. It's her character and she's different from Shaw. Is this not to hard to understand?

You know what, I'm not even going to bother. My favorite character in Covenant and one little comparison I make equals a negative towards her which will lead to silly arguments after arguments after arguments which will make no progress whatsoever.

 

[Sunster]

The absolute worst space crew I've ever seen on film. Were they even scientists or did the mission organizers put out a craigslist ad? No helmets on alien world that we know nothing about and yet abandoned our current mission to investigate. the year 2104. but we put humanities only hope in adventure gear from 1920 except with solar panel on hat brim. go fucking pros. guns from 2017. nothing to protect them from outside air and nothing to protect the ecosystem from whatever they are carrying inside them... the way they handled that quarantine..... my god, they would have been trained for years and years over countless procedures before being selected for a mission like this. The complete disregard of even basic human logic was a plot hole so large you could fly the prometheus through it.

 

[kylecoley182]

So David is Jesus

 

[ronaldthump]

Alien Covenant Red Letter Media. The review I've been waiting for!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klsy8PiscEw

 

[Tookay]

You think he will be important and then he is killed right away. It's there to shock you. If he can die, no one is safe.

But you barely even know who he is before they kill him so it didn't work, at least not for me.

 

[kaching]

Well, I kinda referred to that in the post you're responding to when talking to Cameron's skill as a director in that film (I don't think "thematic approach" is really the right term for it), but I'm not sure how your argument really applies. You're asking why people aren't wearing full space suits on to alien planets. I pointed out a movie IN the Aliens universe where it's not even a question as to putting on one even when preparing to enter a hostile alien stronghold where the mostly unknown organisms have killed everything.

You didnt' think to ever ask why they weren't wearing full space suits in that movie. Same fictional universe, though.

I'm not sure if thematic approach was the best term for what I meant either: mostly I was just trying to refer to the much more blatant emphasis on blockbuster-style action which tends to dull the expectation for more plausible scene setup in the first place. Even then, Aliens takes place on a planet that's been terraformed expressly for human habitation, where humans were already living without the need for protective gear, which then comes under threat from the xenomorph for which all the data they had at the time indicated attacked purely through direct physical contact. Into this scenario you throw a squad of gung-ho space marines who think they're invincible and were barely listening to any of Ripley's advice to begin with. I can much more readily handwave "no helmets" in that case than I can for mankind's first expeditions to exoplanets decades before that where they only have orbital scans and little else.

That exact thing happened in this movie, and explained why nobody was wearing space suits pretty clearly.

Their orbital scans pretty clearly revealed nothing more than basic atmosphere, weather patterns and terrain. They couldn't even pinpoint the exact location of the ghost signal, the fact that there was no macroscopic animal life on the planet, nevermind microscopic pathogens, or a massive alien city mere kilometers from their landing site. So, no, it doesn't explain pretty clearly why no one wore suits.

Star Trek logic works for Star Trek (generally) because it's based on a much more advanced spacefaring human civilization that has explored hundreds of planets, colonized dozens and has become linked in with the knowledge of a number of other spacefaring civilizations in the process. The Alien prequels where mankind is making their first tentative steps beyond our Solar System don't have anything like the safety net of plausible deniability that those circumstances provide.