I give Romulus a 8. I usually see 20-40 movies a year in theaters. I’ll watch even more movies when people learn to deal with others’ opposing opinions in ways other than for example suggesting they don’t even really know the medium they’re talking about. It doesn’t do your opinion any favors if you have to resort to such tactics.
Sometimes bad films can be fun and entertaining, and sometimes great films can be dull and boring. Not everyone shares the same expectations when it comes to films.
Alien: Covenant might actually be a better Alien film through and through.I admire all the people brave enough to watch this thing after covenant
That Ron Perlman got cast to be the heavy in ANOTHER band of thugs (Blade 2) after A:R is a testament to his acting prowess
Though there were a few good bits in A:R, it was largely a misfire for me. But I've seen every alien film, of any type, in theater since Aliens (and saw Alien as a way too young kid on vhs, maybe even betamax) so I'm about as die hard a fan as it gets. If Disney fucks this franchise enough to lose me as a fan...the series is dead dead dead.
The hook is STRONG. Just like Predator, Robocop, Terminator, Highlander, and a few others, the base premise is just dynamite. But the more folks try to flesh it out, branch out, or do anything other than re-iterate on that base premise, we get into trouble. Some things really can't be in an "extended universe" because they are just ideas framed by the context of the times they were created in. The audiences for this stuff is also kinda fixed in time and you see the IP flailing when trying to win new folks.
I don't think there is any reason to think of David as the father of the Xenomorphs, Prometheus doesn't suggest this in any way. Like you said, there is the mural that depicts the Deacon. If anything, Prometheus suggests that the Engineers who bioengineered the microorganism that David uses were trying to recreate it. It is even through the facehugger that Shaw cuts out of herself that it seeds an Engineer to create the Deacon we see in the end.
Transformers RotF is an 8/10 film.
Transformers RotF is an 8/10 film.
I'm just kidding, of course, but that film got ripped to shreds by critics and fans. It's a bad film, but I remember really enjoying it, that I'd score it high if it was fresh in my memory.
Thats an interesting thought if you run it back.
Right, the extended universe thing is like... There's no point. The first Alien is literally "what if some really creepy and dangerous monster got on a ship." The second one is like, "what if there were more of them lmao". Knowing the lore or extended universe doesn't make these movies any better. They can exist in a vacuum. We don't need this stuff. We don't need things to tie together. Especially when the stuff that is trying to tie it together sucks.
I'll have to rewatch Covenant, I'm not trying to suggest Covenant was a good film, but more-so it did things I'd expect from an Alien film as opposed to Romulus. I feel like it at least attempts to handle is characters so far as developing them with more care. None of the cast members in Romulus are memorable imo. When you develop your characters well, you can also build suspense around them a lot easier. I couldn't give a shit if all of them got their faces munched off in the first half hour, because I didn't like any of them. I think the film did a few things well, it was shot well, production was really tight, Xenomorph looked sick, environments designed well... characters and dialogue sucked, pacing was kind of good but could have been better. It wasn't dark or scary. They opted for more gore as opposed to fear and tension. I thought it was fun, but very disappointing.It’s in the feel of the films. Prometheus and Covenant had a lot of discussions about creations, being a god, giving birth and how an android can’t do that, etc. When we see in Covenant the shot of David towering over the new alien lifeform that was just born, I felt the idea was pretty clear what they were going for. It cheapens the mysterious feel of the Xenomorphs’ past. As interesting as David is, I don’t like the Xenomorphs from all the prior movies being ultimately linked to “android develops a god complex and made them”.
Romulus had two good leads even if the supporting cast was eh. The issue with Covenant is Walter and David are interesting but they’re not the leads. Instead, we have the main female lead whose only characterization is her mourning her dead husband who we don’t know (as said way earlier, this is why Covenant should have kept those deleted scenes in the film) and the male lead is a Captain whose sole character trait is supposedly being disrespected by his crew for being religious (which is brought up once only by him, and never mentioned again). We also have a TON of other characters, even with the deleted scenes it would have been difficult to make out many of them. Romulus played it smart, for as unremarkable as the other four are, I at least remember who they are and what their relationships/roles are. In Covenant, someone is screaming about their husband dying, and I’m like, “hang on, they were married? Also, who are you?” It felt Covenant just went for a big cast just to get more deaths, but I don’t care about the deaths I can’t even remember the person who died.
Covenant is also FAR weaker in the suspense category. The lead of Romulus didn’t feel OP, the gun itself saved her in that one scene, and she gets knocked around quite a lot in the final act. Covenant only has “suspense” because the RPG players for the Covenant campaign looked at their prior characters in their Prometheus campaign, and said, “hmm, I know plenty of us played with a low Intelligence stat then, but we if we lowered our INT even more?”
(sets Int to 6)
……
(sets Int to 4)
(sets Int to 0)
I can’t take the suspense seriously if the only reason it’s happening is because the characters are less functional than a kindergarten class.
-decides to go to an unknown planet rather than their safe destination because they fear repeating an event which has incredibly low odds
-walk onto planet with basically no protection, no one really discusses possible diseases, deadly life forms they could encounter, etc.
-the whole “I’m locking you in the room with that creature even though I clearly had time to let you out safely! Wait, hang on, once you’re already dead, THEN I will open the door holding a gun only I won’t look at where I’m walking and thus slip on some blood and misfire which will blow up the ship!” Seriously, that sequence needed Looney Tunes-style music to it
-as I said earlier how Pitch Meeting described it:
Producer: So now that he knows he’s a threat, the Captain shoots David?
Writer: No, instead David just walks away telling the Captain to follow and the Captain follows.
Producer: What?
Writer: And then David says, “Captain, put your face in this pulsing alien egg. I assure you it’s safe.”
Producer: I mean, there’s no way he’s going to do that, right?
Writer: And then he does it!
Producer: Okay!
Also, I love how they point out not only is it unbelievable David could return to the ship disguised as Walter in time given everything he would need to do before he got there including the fight itself, but the cut on his cheek during the fight wasn’t witnessed by anyone else. So it only exists to “trick” the audience even though in-universe David has no reason to make it part of his disguise (and more stupid as the movie could have just not had the cut occur).
Honestly, while not worse, Covenant film feels dumber than Resurrection. Resurrection at least is clearly trying to be campy most of the time, while Covenant is clearly trying to be entirely serious yet its characters behave as cartoony morons.
Saw it yesterday. Great movie.
Best Alien since 2, by far. I've recently watched 2 and honestly, I would put Romulus above it (try removing the rose tinted glasses)
Horror movies from the 80's are meant to be enjoyed despite the cheese, but they all have aged like milk (except Alien and Chainsaw Massacre)
I loved how they've developed the world of Alien here. The crew was too young, imo, but eh, for me it worked. The Andy actor was excellent.
To me the movie was tense the whole way through. About the "no sound" part being stupid:
yeah, I'm sure that you would ignore your sister when she would be about to get killed.
And the main girl could have been the PERFECT Ellie, goddamn Druckman
Yeah, dont get me wrong, Aliens is fun, like Resident Evil 4 is fun. But horror they are not, and this is why I'm very "eh" about it.
Consider yourself lucky.
BlackCoffee
Check out Night Swim... it's crappy all around.
Everyone has movies that they wish that they could purge from their memory banks.
This is probably one of them.
It's up there with 2 girls 1 cup.
While it doesn't look bad the alien franchise doesn't deserve any benefit of doubt.I admire all the people brave enough to watch this thing after covenant
Is this a mind trap? Am I going to regret this for the rest of my life?
I thought Prey was good. You didn't enjoy that? The director has been greenlit another stab at the franchise with Predator: Badlands.I've been praying for a 4 out of 5 star predator flick for the longest.
I watched that and id rather watch it again than paying to watch Romulus. If it's ever free on streaming I'll watch it maybe
David's version of the deacon has the black "armor" (as worded by Ridley Scott) and the acid blood. He shepherded it's evolution after dropping the black goo on the engineers or whatever you do to get a deacon. The movie should have focused more on the weird experiments instead of an alien on a spaceship.
They just announced that predator badlands just started filming. Here's another chance!I've been praying for a 4 out of 5 star predator flick for the longest.
That was the point of ANOES though, if you could bring Freddy into the "real" world then you COULD kill him. Myers presumably as well if anyone could actually shoot straight. Even Jason up till 4 was just a mortal man.
Im not arguying if thats the point or not, just that its stupid, 'cause it makes the xenomorph feel like a smaller threat.
