Alien: Covenant - 2017 - Ridley Scott

[Boothjan]

Just watched this. I wasn't supposed to laugh throughout the film, was I?

 

What a shambolic mess of a film that was.

[Spacehost]

I kinda wish there was a version of this movie from David’s perspective. Completely cut the intro spaceship stuff, just have him doing badness to classical flute music like an evil Wall-E for 20 minuets until the crew lands, explains why they’re there in all of five seconds, and then resume the Alien bloodbath. You could have loads of Frankenstein shit with him doing bad things to the crew and so on like he did with Shaw.

 

I mean, the only good thread in the story running through Prometheus and Covenant is the Creator vs Created stuff to do with David, right?

[Spacehost]

On 9/20/2017 at 10:22, Triple A said:

Kinda wish I had read the novelisation of this instead. I'm picking up that the novelisation addresses some of the issues with the movie, i.e.;

  Hide contents

Q: Why did they take off their helmets?
A: In the novelisation they do extensive testing and find zero pathogens on the planet. When they land, they stay helmeted up until Walter does an extensive set of scans locally. Then later in the book David explains that the Engineer WMD is designed to be dormant - even if scanned directly it can evade most advanced methods of detection.

Surely they’d realise they were on a Death World where everything larger than a microbe was dead? Are there even insects to pollinate their crops with? There’s no ecosystem. It’s fucked as a colonisable planet unless they brought a million bees, and that just leaves them making a Death World into Bee Death World. And why was David planting wheat out in the middle of nowhere? Was it for those sweet sweet wheat-related movie credits?

[JohnC]

Apparently the next one will focus more on AI than Aliens. He talks about it in the Empire podcast.

[Pob]

I’m glad he chose the alien franchise to continue his interest in AI rather than Blade Runner. 

[Broker]

Shame they haven’t cancelled it completely.

[Paulando]

I was hoping for a Jonesy the cat origin story.

[George Clooney]

I saw this the other night.  I actually think they started it well.  The leadup to the very first alien scene I thought was interesting enough, and the encounter itself was easily the best part of the film.  It actually had a genuine sense of terror to it, thanks to the actors really selling being fucking terrified.  It was let down a bit though by a couple of moments that were borderline slapstick and I could imagine people laughing at, and that they'd pretty much shown all of that scene in the promo stuff.

 

It kind of loses its way after that.  It's actually a lot less interesting when it starts explaining things to you, and there is pretty much no terror or suspense for the rest of the film.  The final scene lacks pretty much any tension or anything to make it interesting.  Its not even bad, its just boring.  At least there was some potential in the "what ifs" from Prometheus, this does nothing with them, and is utterly disappointing in the answers it gives, and any scene that should be exciting in some way is somehow just dull.  The last scene in particular is particularly bland, and the big "reveal" is utterly telegraphed - something Ridley apparently intended because you suspecting it could be the case "adds drama", but it doesnt.  Its just dull.

 

I dunno, I know Scott really wants to tell the story of how the Alien came to be, but he's George Lucasing his own creation - it was better when we didnt know the origin, and he's over-doing the details which arent actually very interesting in the first place, or at least, arent being told in an interesting way.

[sjeh]

Saw this at the weekend. Thought it was terrible.

What has happened to Ridley Scott? Loved Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, etc - had high hopes for this...but it was just bad.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, George Clooney said:

I dunno, I know Scott really wants to tell the story of how the Alien came to be, but he's George Lucasing his own creation - it was better when we didnt know the origin, and he's over-doing the details which arent actually very interesting in the first place, or at least, arent being told in an interesting way.

 

Seems that in Prometheus he thought it was a giant facehugger.

 

In Covenant it was tiny spores.

 

Next up, an entire planet.

[JoeK]

It keeps on boiling down to just being careful what you wish for. 

 

The best part of Alien for me was the derelict ship and what lay inside. What the fuck was going on there. Who was the space jockey...who clearly in no way shape or form was ever meant to be in a fucking space suit ever...what’s with all the eggs? Where did the warning eminate from?

 

Of course I wanted to know the answer. 

 

But I never wanted to ever get the answer!

 

And now what’s happened is we have some of the most pretentious bollocks ever committed to film, and I think Scott is a crazy fucking lunatic that I’m now convinced wants to fuck up his legacy.

 

Clearly he must be fuming that Bladerunner 2049 seems to have turned out alright.

 

 

[Hanzo the Razor]

Tried to watch this again the other night after being bored rigid by it at the flicks.  I lasted half an hour before turning it off.  It's just so fucking dull.  I must have dosed through the first half hour at the cinema because after the opening scene with David I remembered very little of it.

 

Please for the love of god take these films away from Ridley Scott!

[Alan Stock]

It's a real shame how they turned out. I found the first Covenant entertaining and with an interesting underlying plot to unravel, but the whole Alien concept got kind of ruined and like JoeK says - they should have left the giant aliens a mystery. The second I found entertaining too but it was basically another rehash without the interesting plot stuff.

 

On reflection, aside from visually, these movies are so forgettable. For me the only redeeming factor is David, who is a great character, what a shame they kind of spoiled his arc in the second film. He could be so much more interesting if they weren't obsessed with this stupid Alien origin story.

 

I watched Neil Blomkamp's Oat's studio short films recently (which are amazing, check the others out). This one in particular captured a lot of what made the original Aliens films good and scary - for the last one in the trilogy they should go back to the roots, have it all kicking off in a complex and try to introduce better plot elements with David.

 

 

[Smitty]

This film is fucking bizarre. What a shambles.

[Smitty]

On 05/09/2017 at 09:28, JoeK said:

It's painful isn't it? I don't mind product placement in films particularly, but I don't like seeing this obvious rubbish in sci-fi...it's just lazy, lazy shit.

 

I find it very odd that the best 'Alien' movie since Aliens is actually Alien Isolation (which I still cannot play much beyond the first few hours, as I find it far too nerve wracking), much in the same way that I think the best Star Wars film there's been since the original three is actually Knights of the Old Republic.

 

 

 

Go back to it, man. It's good. Worth your time and worth breaking through your fear barrier. I had my own to deal with it and felt good to push it back.

[JoeK]

6 minutes ago, Smitty said:

 

Go back to it, man. It's good. Worth your time and worth breaking through your fear barrier. I had my own to deal with it and felt good to push it back.

 

I tried to the other day! It now crashes every 5 minutes  . Tired everything to get the fucker to work, and it refuses.

 

It's an absolute arse.

[Smitty]

30 minutes ago, JoeK said:

 

I tried to the other day! It now crashes every 5 minutes  . Tired everything to get the fucker to work, and it refuses.

 

It's an absolute arse.

 

Format?

[JoeK]

7 minutes ago, Smitty said:

 

Format?

 

PC. 

[Smitty]

Just now, JoeK said:

 

PC. 

 

Right. You've tried everything. Hmm. All other games are fine? 

 

I dunno, reinstall Windows? Post on the Steam thread for the game, ask for help? 

 

It's very good and pretty unique. It's the best Alien 'thing' since the Aliens. Good luck man.

[JoeK]

11 minutes ago, Smitty said:

 

Right. You've tried everything. Hmm. All other games are fine? 

 

I dunno, reinstall Windows? Post on the Steam thread for the game, ask for help? 

 

It's very good and pretty unique. It's the best Alien 'thing' since the Aliens. Good luck man.

 

I'm sure one day I'll turn on the thing and it'll be fine...you know what PCs are like! But I'll get it played through eventually!

[super_quincy]

On 10/10/2017 at 17:39, Pob said:

I’m glad he chose the alien franchise to continue his interest in AI rather than Blade Runner. 

 

Hey it’ll transpire that replicants are all Aliens after all (in blade runner : renaissance/rebirth/do androids dream of electric boogaloo)

[NecroMorrius]

Isolation is good but way too long. 

[Alex W.]

[stefcha]

I find the hate for Prometheus to be a bit overblown so I was sort of looking forward to this in a teeth clenched I'm-going-in kind of way. However, this was a silly film full of silly people doing silly things, so much so it made the questionable actions of any character in Prometheus seem clever and thought out. How this lot were even nominally in charge of colonising a planet I have absolutely no idea whatsoever, they were just a shower of largely unlikable thickos. It's got a lot of competition as others have noted, but for me the daftest bit

 

Spoiler

 

was when Oram, incredibly suspicious of David with good reason, follows him for an explanation. Into an alien egg room! Good job David says it's perfectly safe then, phew. Good idea to have a look at one as suggested as well I reckon, hmm it opens up does it. That's fine, it's perfectly safe! I'll lean waaaaay over, after all David said it's safe and he's a sound guy. Oh it's moving, still, perfectly sa-fuck he was lying! Who knew!

 

 

However, once almost everyone was dead and it got a bit Alien-y it was alright but trying to shoehorn in some sort of Alien origin tale really was disappointingly done overall, it's all so forced. On the plus side it's given me an idea for an intimate Valentine's evening roleplay with the wife, assuming I can find my daughter's Peppa Pig toy recorder. 

[linkster]

Got to say when she slips in the blood and shoots the ceiling i couldn’t restrain a hoot of laughter. Maybe the whole thing was an elaborate joke, like Ridley’s version of The Happening. Certainly the ending in the hangar was like a lost scene from Home Alone when Kevin fights off the burglars.

[Doomguy]

Picked this up on blu ray. 

 

...

 

Visuals aside (which are stunning) it shits on the aliens franchise. A human shouldn't be the main bad guy in a film called ALIEN.

 

The film should be titled; murder robot kills people with a virus. 

 

The other more overhanging issue is

it ruins Alien and Aliens completely because david created the alien... so...  they're not really alien are they?

. This ruins everything. The mythos of discovering an alien ship, the space jockey, the reasons behind the engineers carrying a payload of eggs (explain that one away Ridley Scott). 

 

Why not just stick with the eggs being a biological weapon and the space jockeys being at war with another alien civilisation and/or each other?

 

 

[choddo]

Watched this again last night on the off chance I’d missed something profound.

 

Nope.

 

It did look fantastic in 4k on Sky though. Somehow that just makes it worse.

 

 

It’s also the first one, ignoring the utter treachery at the start of Alien 3, where the plucky humans don’t triumph over overwhelming odds which leaves me feeling vexed

[Vorgot]

I watched it for the first time on NowTV, and whilst I went in with low expectations, they were met. The fascination with the David character baffles me, apart from trying to force a Blade Runner connection at us with Walter, and it just seems to be a ridiculous attempt to get from Prometheus to Alien. We've got 2 more slices of this crap to watch.

 

Yes, it looked stunning, and the actress playing Daniels was very good, but all the best bits were lifted from Alien and Aliens. Interplay between the crew, plucky human v Alien fight. There is just no need for this film to exist. 

 

Why does everything have to have a backstory? Alien was great partly because of the mystery of the huge dead dude. Star Wars wrecked the Emperor character by showing us his complete backstory, same with Vader. Leave us to wonder about some stuff. 

[Indy @ S.E.]

Caught it recently on sky again and there’s one bit that I still don’t fully understand about the ending:

 

Spoiler

How does the surviving crew member know that it’s not Walter but is David instead?

 

[c-cat114]

Well there's two answers if I remember corectly. however one's right and the dumb one is the one in the film. 

 

Spoiler

Daniels asks David if he'll help build the cabin and when he doesn't respond she realises he's not Walter. Gasp. Like EVERY audience member didnt see that SHOCKING twist when he cut his hair. 

 

The correct answer should be that, from her lower vantage point, she should have been able to see the cut she made with the nail. Which, if I remember correctly, she can't because the film is bone headedly stupid. 

 

That said I was in two minds as to whether David and Walter had completely swapped bodies. But regardless. Thats giving the script too much credit.  

 

Sigh. At least it wasn't as bad as Promo. So maybe the third film will be slightly less terrible again.