*** Alien: Covenant ***

Earlier in the thread I rated this film 5.5/10

I've just seen aliens and alien 3 over two successive nights.

Aliens - 8.5/10

Alien 3 - 3/10

Alien 3 was just a depressing, unwelcome epilogue to aliens. Totally devoid of fun, scares, tension... just meandering and boring. And that was the 'superior' extended edition!!
 
Aliens is probably one of the best made movies of all time. Sets, music, acting, script, direction - the lot basically. I don't think there's a line in that movie that isn't quotable.
We're in the pipe, five by five.
 
Washout said:
Aliens is probably one of the best made movies of all time. Sets, music, acting, script, direction - the lot basically. I don't think there's a line in that movie that isn't quotable.
We're in the pipe, five by five.
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I generally agree. Visually it's very impressive - whilst the CGI in alien 3 was very dated.

My only minor quibble is that Burke is a bit limp but that's looking for things to critise. It is really, really good - probably better than the first in terms of raw entertainment.

The original film, you can split it into two parts. Pre and post chest burst scene. I'd say the first part is better. Then it almost becomes a 'slasher' film. From memory I'd give it 8/10 but I'll have to rewatch soon :)
 
Ridley really has crawled up his own backside with this one...

If you have to release preview film shorts that flesh out your otherwise-forgettable characters and help explain who they are, because the actual film can't achieve this on its own, your film has failed.
If you also have to explain your film in interviews afterward, your film has failed.

If your once awesome Alien now just looks and moves like an obvious bloke in a suit, your film has failed.
The Neomorph and backburster things were OK I s'pose, but that little chestburster pretending to be Jesus just looked (and moved) like some awful NecroMuppet!!

If the best thing anyone can say about your film after watching it is that is has good looking special effects, you have mere made another Transformers sequel.

On paper, Covenant actually sounds rather good... but as a film it failed to deliver on all counts, with the exceptions of having nice visuals and at least being better than Prometheus.
 
Nitefly said:
Earlier in the thread I rated this film 5.5/10

I've just seen aliens and alien 3 over two successive nights.

Aliens - 8.5/10

Alien 3 - 3/10

Alien 3 was just a depressing, unwelcome epilogue to aliens. Totally devoid of fun, scares, tension... just meandering and boring. And that was the 'superior' extended edition!!
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Get Resurrection done. That thing is a goddamn blast if you take it as a B movie knock off.
 
Evangelion said:
Surely you're not referring to the Assembly Cut of Alien 3? That's the best version, it fixes everything! I loved it.
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I am actually - I was bored to tears having watched Aliens the day before. Both the pacing and story (as a 'standalone piece') were poor and it seriously undermined itself with how it followed up Aliens (for the first ~45 minutes nothing happens save for confirming that the likeable characters from Aliens are dead... and a sad explanation of the then-bleak circumstances).

The only intriguing supporting character (Charles Dance) left the story way too early and the remainders were bumbling idiots. There was absolutely no tension in the whole thing... nothing intriguing either. No real plot advancement for the story. Even the climaxing 'lure' ending was really padded out.

Frankly, I almost didn't finish it. Really poor!
 
I have to say I love the first two alien films and rate them of two of my all time favorites.

Unfortunately the series took a huge dip from then on. I'd rate them as follows:

Alien - 8.5
Aliens - 8.6
Alien 3 - 6.0
Alien Resurrection - 6.0
Prometheus - 6.8
Alien Covenant - ?

As a fan of the first two, is it worth me seeing the new one?
 
Nitefly said:
I am actually - I was bored to tears having watched Aliens the day before. Both the pacing and story (as a 'standalone piece') were poor and it seriously undermined itself with how it followed up Aliens (for the first ~45 minutes nothing happens save for confirming that the likeable characters from Aliens are dead... and a sad explanation of the then-bleak circumstances).

The only intriguing supporting character (Charles Dance) left the story way too early and the remainders were bumbling idiots. There was absolutely no tension in the whole thing... nothing intriguing either. No real plot advancement for the story. Even the climaxing 'lure' ending was really padded out.

Frankly, I almost didn't finish it. Really poor!
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Alien 3 is a philosophical tragedy, not a regular Alien horror/scifi movie. It's meant to be slow, dark, and depressing!

I rate Alien 3: Assembly Cut at 23.31 on the Haglee Scale, which works out as 7/10 on IMDB.
 
IvanDobskey said:
I have to say I love the first two alien films and rate them of two of my all time favorites.

Unfortunately the series took a huge dip from then on. I'd rate them as follows:

Alien - 8.5
Aliens - 8.6
Alien 3 - 6.0
Alien Resurrection - 6.0
Prometheus - 6.8
Alien Covenant - ?

As a fan of the first two, is it worth me seeing the new one?
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If you're a fan of the first two then you probably won't like Covenant. One of my friends that I went to see it with liked Prometheus and he came away loving Covenant. It's not as bad as Prometheus imo but it still has the pretentious dialogue and ideas of it. My main gripe has to be that the first two Alien films were horror films set in space, whereas Prometheus and Covenant are almost pure sci-fi that happen to feature monsters. I was hoping Covenant would have some of the atmosphere of the first two films, but it was completely without tension imo.
 
Evangelion said:
Alien 3 is a philosophical tragedy, not a regular Alien horror/scifi movie. It's meant to be slow, dark, and depressing!

I rate Alien 3: Assembly Cut at 23.31 on the Haglee Scale, which works out as 7/10 on IMDB.
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Hmm I don't mind depressing films if they are engaging but it's tough to be drawn into a 'philosophical tragedy' that is, ultimately, dull due the lack of likeable characters and wafer thin plot (let alone lack of 'fun'). How it was padded to 2 hours 30 I'll never know.

If I was to ignore how it followed up the plot of Aliens in entirety I might increase my score up to a 4... but ultimately it's 3, sorry :p

For reference, I'd give Prometheus a 5.5/10 (same as covenant).

Seems this series has far more misses than hits now....
 
IvanDobskey said:
I have to say I love the first two alien films and rate them of two of my all time favorites.

Unfortunately the series took a huge dip from then on. I'd rate them as follows:

Alien - 8.5
Aliens - 8.6
Alien 3 - 6.0
Alien Resurrection - 6.0
Prometheus - 6.8
Alien Covenant - ?

As a fan of the first two, is it worth me seeing the new one?
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It's worth a punt - without spoiling anything it does improve quite a bit towards the end so bear with it and you might enjoy it.
 
Nitefly said:
it does improve quite a bit towards the end
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Really?
Where? :p

Nitefly said:
Hmm I don't mind depressing films if they are engaging but it's tough to be drawn into a 'philosophical tragedy' that is, ultimately, dull due the lack of likeable characters and wafer thin plot (let alone lack of 'fun').
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It's hard to make such scummy characters likeable anyway, though. I think it's meant to be more about what they represent generally, rather than who they are and whether you like them or not... and they're clearly disposable to some extent, ya know, being in an Alien film and all...!!

I've met Charles de Lauzirika a couple times and understood what/why he did this version... can even appreciate it to some extent... but it's mostly a film-maker/cinematography appreciation thing and I don't think anyone could have produced something decent from the continual rehash of different versions (many of them also being metaphors for various things) that ultimately resulted in the particularly messy, time-contrained, rushed rehash of what was once a great-sounding script, that now occupied the Alien-Cubed space in our Quadrilogy box-sets... :(

Nitefly said:
If I was to ignore how it followed up the plot of Aliens in entirety
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Careful, now... That's the sort of thinking that got Neill Blomkamp in trouble!! :D

Nitefly said:
For reference, I'd give Prometheus a 5.5/10 (same as covenant)
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Really?
I don't think anything was as bad as Prometheus... except maybe The Phantom Menace.
 
ttaskmaster said:
Really?
I don't think anything was as bad as Prometheus... except maybe The Phantom Menace.
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Prometheus was interesting in its own right but frustrating in that it asked more questions than it's actually answered. The scene with the lead getting into the tub to remove the alien was far better than anything in covenant.

Covenant I thought was fairly naff and, for the first third, a complete retread on Prometheus. The development of David as a character was very enjoyable but otherwise it was a bit of a meh-fest.

Both films are somewhat marred by characters doing ridiculous things.
 
People talking about how did David create the egg and how far fetched it is. I just put it down to the question what came first the chicken or the egg? In this case, the egg surely! The egg being just a vessel.
 
I enjoyed covenant up until they go back to the
tomb with david. After that its all a bit thrown together and the final scene i thought was pants. Another flush the alien out the hatch ending :o
 
Well, it appears that Alien: Covenant hasn't done too well at the Box Office according to the following figures: -

Here's a look at the top performing markets and how this opening compares to Prometheus:

South Korea - $7.2m (+52.58% vs. Prometheus Opening)
United Kingdom - $6.4m (-39.85% vs. Prometheus Opening)
France - $4.53m (-38.41% vs. Prometheus Opening)
Australia - $3.09m (-79.40% vs. Prometheus Opening)
Mexico - $2.46m (-24.90% vs. Prometheus Opening)
Spain - $1.9m (-71.63% vs. Prometheus Opening)
Hong Kong - $1.76m (+17.24% vs. Prometheus Opening)
Brazil - $1.63m (-52.47% vs. Prometheus Opening)
Italy - $1.29m (-66.68% vs. Prometheus Opening)
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Source: - http://www.alien-covenant.com/topic/44850

Make of this what you will. It could be that the advertising of Covenant was as full on as Prometheus, which having mentioned it, might be true. I don't think I've seen a single advert/trailer for Covenant, but then I don't watch a lot of TV.

Not sure if the Thursday night/Friday morning viewing I went to was typical for numbers, I doubt it, as there was probably only 30 or so in the whole cinema.
 
Well ...

I seem to be the minority here. But I absolutely loved Prometheus.

Id probably give it a 9/10 - to me it had everything I could want in a sci-fi movie. Mystery, fear, tension, wonder and I really enjoyed the whole plot. Sure somethings could have been different but on a whole. Thought it was great and Ive watched it many times. Ive also watched all the alien movies in the past 6 months. Of course aliens is the best along with the 1st one and the others are ...ok

So now on to Covenant - Ever since I saw prometheus I had been looking forward to the next one. Was really hoping for a E. Shaw adventure with david in space. Anyways ...

I didnt feel that 'tension in this one' a few scenes were a bit tense but nothing like prometheus. Id probably give the movie a 6.5 and thats just because I like sci fi movies etc ...
I dont want to ruin it for people but its ... a decent movie but I wouldnt get your hopes up.
But again I really really enjoyed prometheus. Covenant felt more like a side film to me.

Funny my wife liked it better then I did and I had to semi 'drag' her to go see it.
 
redline said:
Don't know!.. maybe more than one opened?

At this point, having a few hours to digest it, I'm thinking Prometheus is a far better film.... it opened-up some interesting things, that have been squandered by this... I liked the science/creation stuff it introduced with the Engineers, but this film has wiped them out, to be replaced by a one robot, self styled god, that could be good, but isn't.
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Pretty much exactly the way I feel.
 
nicktay2605 said:
It's not as bad as Prometheus imo but it still has the pretentious dialogue and ideas of it. My main gripe has to be that the first two Alien films were horror films set in space, whereas Prometheus and Covenant are almost pure sci-fi that happen to feature monsters. I was hoping Covenant would have some of the atmosphere of the first two films, but it was completely without tension imo.
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I agreee. Saw it last night and whilst some bits were OK, the stupidity of some of the story ruined it.
 
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