*** Alien: Covenant ***

My question:

Was it just coincedence that they were so close to the planet David was on? Space is a big place, seems a bit convenient that they were passing so close. Or was this a familiar system and not such a coincedence really?
 
Right having seen all the films over the last few days here's my ratings - some minor tweaks to my thoughts earlier in the thread. If anyone cares :p

Alien - 8
Aliens - 8.5
Alien 3 - 3
Alien Resurrection - 5.5
Prometheus - 6
Alien Covenant - 5.5

Resurrection is quite fun but falls shy of being anything better than what it is - a B movie. I always think that ripley baby looks weird / off too. It was interesting watching the special features as 3 things were clear - the studio had a clear direction of what it wanted it to be (I.e action / mass appeal), the individuals involved wanted it to be less serious and the script for the ending had to be changed several times due to costs.
 
banja said:
My question:

Was it just coincedence that they were so close to the planet David was on? Space is a big place, seems a bit convenient that they were passing so close. Or was this a familiar system and not such a coincedence really?
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one of the many things that just makes me want to shout at the screen... a loose end that could have so easily been avoided... they could have detected the transmission from earth... it could have said "safe planet come here"... that cuts out several stupid events / coincidences...
 
edscdk said:
one of the many things that just makes me want to shout at the screen... a loose end that could have so easily been avoided... they could have detected the transmission from earth... it could have said "safe planet come here"... that cuts out several stupid events / coincidences...
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Don't really think that's that big an issue...
Earth could be sending out dozens, if not hundreds of colony ships. May just have been a matter of time before someone picked it up. Or could be the accident that woke the crew early wasn't an accident.
 
To my mind there is a difference between:

a) a 'plot hole' - a contradiction that doesn't make sense; and

b) gaps in explanation - something which could be explained but isn't.

To be Prometheus and Covenant have lots of b) but not much a).

Perhaps it is b) that is actually a 'plot hole' but that's have I've always thought of it.
 
banja said:
My question:
Click to expand...
As I understand it,
they picked up a transmission which they then traced to the planet. Possibly not a coincidence, either, if David set that as a deliberate trap...

edscdk said:
they could have detected the transmission from earth...
Click to expand...
I get the impression it wasn't that strong a transmission.

Nitefly said:
To be Prometheus and Covenant have lots of b) but not much a).
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Covenant, certainly... Prometheus has a lot of b) too, but it does have a fair amount of a) - A couple of things are just too far fetched, however good your imagination. People just don't behave like that, unless they have a mental disorder that causes them to utterly switch in a single moment.
 
ttaskmaster said:
As I understand it,
they picked up a transmission which they then traced to the planet. Possibly not a coincidence, either, if David set that as a deliberate trap...
Click to expand...

Yeah I get they picked up the transmission, but was that a known area / system, or just a wild coincedence that in the vastness of space they happened to be right next to the planet David and Elizabeth reached after the end of Prometheus?
 
Watched it on Monday (very empty cinema has to be said) and overall I was left disappointing.

I generally think Prometheus is slightly better, and that purely because I believe the story was a risk, but very intriguing. But for me, Ridley got scared off following on due to the backlash that it wasn't an "Alien" film, so he pretty much binned most things from Prometheus and created a general sci-fi film.

Some of the silly things from AC for me

Going off course with 2000 colonist's just because of the faint transmission, seems silly to me. would have preferred that being their original destination maybe?
Not wearing suits on the planet to start with.
Splitting up on the planet as soon as arrived.
While the medi bay scene was very well done, stupid silly women going back in the room after seeing what just happened...
Why did David commit genocide?
Where did David get all the creatures for test subjects?
How did David know bright light scared them off?
More splitting up once in the "safe" place with David (IE going to wash themselves...)
Stupid captain sticking head in Egg!
How did the Eggs get there?
How did a facehugger get made?
Baby Xeno Jesus birth scene with David was terrible!
How did Daniels not notice Walter was David? his hand was chopped off cleanly not acid burnt. And why didn't she just suspect he could have been moment they got to the ship, just incase
Half of your crew are dead from multiple different Aliens and first thing is, lets have sex in the shower......not even slightly upset by it?

Anyway, these were my main gripes with the film. I'm generally concerned the direction the film is going now. I had hope that this film would fill in the gaps from Prometheus (and the silly stuff) and would expand on the engineers/universe, but it just doesn't. It has just as many holes in it still, with so much stupid i face palmed!

5.5/10 from me, Prometheus was a 6.5/10
 
I felt like I wasted two hours watching this. I like it when stories develop, but at the end of this movie, we're pretty much exactly where we left off. David off developing aliens.

I wanted to learn more about the Engineers but we got absolutely nothing on that. Was just two hours of gore and jumpscare attempts.
 
Very disappointed, I was hoping for something that built on what was laid down in Prometheus, but the closest we got was ~2mins telling us what David did when they arrived and his later experiments. What Scott filled the other ~117mins with was nothing new and a very dubious plot, with some shockingly bad alien costumes that would not look out of place in 1970s Doctor Who!
 
Some answers to the spoilery points...
maun said:
Some of the silly things from AC for me

Going off course with 2000 colonist's just because of the faint transmission, seems silly to me. would have preferred that being their original destination maybe?
Dunno, signal from a world far better suited to colonisation than where you were headed would at the very least be worth checking out.

Not wearing suits on the planet to start with.
Agreed, not even a throwaway line to say bio filter reading negative or some such.

Splitting up on the planet as soon as arrived.
Might be a cliché in a horror movie but she was left with a guard, didn't seem to be any danger her looking at mud near the drop ship.

While the medi bay scene was very well done, stupid silly women going back in the room after seeing what just happened...
I thought that wasn't too bad, she didn't want to go in when she thought it was germs but as soon as she saw the alien split her friend in two and get stabby with another she went and grabbed a shotty.
Thought the slow build up in tension was actually well done for this scene and the back splitting was fairly gross. These days with shows like Walking Dead we're de-sensitized to gore.

Why did David commit genocide?
Good question - hope the Engineers are going to be explored at some point and that was just one planet or theirs. They're the real mystery people wanted to know about after Alien. I had hoped that they were only proto engineer species worshipping the bigger ones as the bodies didn't seem that big? Interviews with Ridley poo pooed that I think?

Where did David get all the creatures for test subjects?
Bits of living tissue extracted from shaw? That'd be pretty dark if he slowly dissected her keeping her alive.

How did David know bright light scared them off?
He lived with them around for a while so gather he knows them inside out - probably literally if he's opened a few up.

More splitting up once in the "safe" place with David (IE going to wash themselves...)
Guess it seemed safe enough, maybe they're so used to androids being 100% loyal to humans that one of them lying is just not a possibility.

Stupid captain sticking head in Egg!
yeah, pretty dumb!

How did the Eggs get there?
How did a facehugger get made?
Bigger versions of the other spore releasing eggs - unexplained I guess.
Facehugger a bit like the big one from shaw in Prometheus - maybe again used bits of her?

Baby Xeno Jesus birth scene with David was terrible!
Was pretty odd!

How did Daniels not notice Walter was David? his hand was chopped off cleanly not acid burnt. And why didn't she just suspect he could have been moment they got to the ship, just incase
It was pretty obvious to us but not to them, he wasn't going around showing the stump (think the alien bit it off though, not acid?). Would like to see Walter again actually. Fassbender really was excellent.

Half of your crew are dead from multiple different Aliens and first thing is, lets have sex in the shower......not even slightly upset by it?
Dunno, they survived, still together and didn't see the things first hand so missed out on the carnage. They've also probably got access to bigger bunks now there's more room on the ship. Party time.

Anyway, these were my main gripes with the film. I'm generally concerned the direction the film is going now. I had hope that this film would fill in the gaps from Prometheus (and the silly stuff) and would expand on the engineers/universe, but it just doesn't. It has just as many holes in it still, with so much stupid i face palmed!

5.5/10 from me, Prometheus was a 6.5/10
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I'd have the scores the other way around. The character stupidity in Prometheus was inexcusable, in this one most of it was a little more rational (except for the 'follow me geez, promise nothing bad will happen' bit). I'd be emptying the clip.

I liked the
fact it was a human creation, David that engineered the xenomorph
but really would have liked to have explored the engineers more - that was the promise at the end of Prometheus, to go and get some answers.
Hopefully they're not all gone with the genocide, that'd just be a massive lost opportunity.
If they're planning 2,3 or 4 more movies then I doubt that'll be the last we see of them. It's certainly not to late for them to turn this new series of movies around from average (Prometheus), to above average (A:C) to good with the follow ups. Potential is still there.

I still would have liked for him to slowly pull his still attached hand out of his sleeve and slowly wave to her as she's being put to sleep.

Edit again:
Also really liked the relationship with David and his creator and the father son dynamic. Reminding David he's nothing more than a slave at the end in an act of pure spite.
 
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Admittedly I've yet to see this but is the planet that they arrived at definitely the Engineer's homeworld? The "Engineers" you do see seem to be living in caves in basic clothing so could this instead be another planet that they have seeded? Or are we just looking at some kind of caste system maybe with "higher" and "lower" Engineers?
 
SirJinks said:
Admittedly I've yet to see this but is the planet that they arrived at definitely the Engineer's homeworld? The "Engineers" you do see seem to be living in caves in basic clothing so could this instead be another planet that they have seeded? Or are we just looking at some kind of caste system maybe with "higher" and "lower" Engineers?
Click to expand...

its not relevant question... don't even think about it... there is no continuous carefully thought out story... the only way you will enjoy the film is ignore the stupidity and lack of story and just think sci-fi ALIENS GORE... people say the SFX were crappy but I never noticed... maybe I was too focused trying not to scream at the morons on the big screen
 
One of the reasons Alien worked well was because we didn't get to see the Alien completely until the end, and so it built up the tension/atmosphere. Same is partly true for Aliens and Alien 3 - for the most part we didn't get to see them completely or they were shown in low lighting/dark areas. The lack of, and cost, of special effects such as CGI made the directors focus on utilising camera angles etc to get the scares across. Alien was also great in that it showed humanity's tech in the future not being all shiny and 'futuristic' like Star Trek and so felt a bit more realistic and Alien Isolation captured that perfectly. These days however, it's all about showing what CGI can do - Prometheus and Covenant are perfect examples of films which look [mostly] good but lack essence - comparable to how CGI/effects were used heavily in Star Wars Eps 1-3 but which lack what made Eps 4-6 special.

I don't think Alien would have been such a great horror film if it had the Alien jumping all over the place etc.
 
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