*** Alien: Covenant ***

[No1newts]

Saw it last night, went in with zero expectations and thought it was brilliant. Perfect balance between action and filling the story plot holes, the David character was extremely creepy and interesting and overall it just worked great for me.

I think a lot of the complaints about doing dumb **** to help people is explainable to an extent by the character relationships. With them all being partners and stuck in space for years you would put a lot on the line to save your wife/partner even if it is illogical.

Great film and looking forward to the next one now.

 

[Invertigo]

I'm a big fan of the Alien series in general, but this felt like a real let down of a film.

Yes it helps fill in a few plot holes, and Fassbender played his roles incredibly well, but it really wasn't anything special beyond this.

I didn't get any sense of the horror of the original, like it seemed to be going for, and some moments just seemed nonsensical

 

[No1newts]

Have any of them had horror since
1? Even 2 whilst brilliant was more if an action film.

I did feel this created some genuinely tense moments with the aliens and i think that's the best you'll really get sadly. Pure psychological horror films are few and far between now and they still want to make money off it, so whilst purists might enjoy that I don't think it would be a critical success so there's no chance of seeing it.

 

[Mark1989]

After sleeping on it there is one part that just annoys me as I doesn't add up

Spoiler: Chest scenes

why in this when the alien comes out had it got it's tail and all limbs there and ready just smaller? In alien one it comes out and kinda slithers away insanely quick. In this they come out ready to fight like a full alien

 

[Gerard]

After sleeping on it there is one part that just annoys me as I doesn't add up

Spoiler: Chest scenes

why in this when the alien comes out had it got it's tail and all limbs there and ready just smaller? In alien one it comes out and kinda slithers away insanely quick. In this they come out ready to fight like a full alien

Probably more down to the available technology at the time, puppets vs cg.

 

[ianh]

Probably more down to the available technology at the time, puppets vs cg.

Or Ridley doesn't give a crap about canon anymore and someone told him to make something no-one seen yet i.e.

Spoiler

Chestbursting has been done to death, what else can we do? I know, lets make it come out the back instead, YAYAYAYAYAY High Fives all round scriptwriters!!!!

 

[McBain]

Watched it tonight, thought it was bad.... really, really bad.

Even the CGI was gash, certain bits were actually lol'worthy.

Just a bad film, it's about time they knocked the franchise on the head, it's been all downhill from Aliens and don't even get me started on Resurrection.

 

[HamZilla]

Spoiler

The demise of Elisabeth Shaw me feel the same sense of betrayal as Alien 3 did with Newt and Hicks. Daniels as a lead character didn't have enough screen time or significant scenes to demonstrate her role as the "heroine£ she was intended to portray. Making the increasingly unhinged David the "engineer" of the Alien destroys the mythology.of the original franchise.

 

[Kainz]

Saw it this morning after repeated cancellations at my local Vue due to lack of ticket sales. I thought I'd be the only one at a 10:45am showing but 6 others turned up

I am still taking it all in but I thought both Prometheus and Covenant focus way too much on David. I understand that he is a core character but blimey give some of the other characters a look in! I felt hardly any connection to any of the characters in this. Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy the film but at almost every death I felt nothing. I enjoyed the backstory from David though.

Spoiler

Also the shower scene wtf. It seemed very out of place and forced.

A lot of it was quite predictable I must admit and I saw a lot of it coming a mile off. I had no idea more films are planned though as I had thought (before going to see this) that Covenant was the last film. 6/10 from me.

 

[checjb]

After sleeping on it there is one part that just annoys me as I doesn't add up

Spoiler: Chest scenes

why in this when the alien comes out had it got it's tail and all limbs there and ready just smaller? In alien one it comes out and kinda slithers away insanely quick. In this they come out ready to fight like a full alien

As well as the obvious (puppets v CGI, desire for a new spectacle, etc) it is also worth pointing out that none of the lifeforms shown in Covenant are exactly the same as the xenomorph in , Alien. These are like ancestral versions. Hence the small facehugger embryos, fully formed juvenile from David's egg, etc. Don't get me wrong, I don't really like the angle but that's my read on things.
If Ridley is truly going along the path of "David created the xenomorphs" then I think that really cheapens the whole franchise. If he's trying to re-create an existing lifeform that the Engineers created/encountered/destroyed then that would be far better. Otherwise, it suddenly just seems like a hundred other movies where the monster is just a product of humans/the army/David and so on. It just steals the mystery from the first film completely.

 

[MooMoo444]

Saw it this morning after repeated cancellations at my local Vue due to lack of ticket sales. I thought I'd be the only one at a 10:45am showing but 6 others turned up

I am still taking it all in but I thought both Prometheus and Covenant focus way too much on David. I understand that he is a core character but blimey give some of the other characters a look in! I felt hardly any connection to any of the characters in this. Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy the film but at almost every death I felt nothing. I enjoyed the backstory from David though.

Spoiler

Also the shower scene wtf. It seemed very out of place and forced.

A lot of it was quite predictable I must admit and I saw a lot of it coming a mile off. I had no idea more films are planned though as I had thought (before going to see this) that Covenant was the last film. 6/10 from me.

Genuinely didn't know showings got cancelled for low ticket sales. I've been to loads of movies where it's been like four in the room.

 

[Kainz]

Genuinely didn't know showings got cancelled for low ticket sales. I've been to loads of movies where it's been like four in the room.

Indeed, I was surprised too. I'd initially booked a ticket for 13:15 and was emailed stating that the time had been dropped due to lack of ticket sales and if I wanted to attend a later time. Obviously I asked for a refund.

 

[Curunen]

I enjoyed Covanent more than Prometheus.

Spoiler

My biggest complaint with Covanent is definitely the lack of protective suits when first walking out on to an alien planet... That has got to be the single most stupid thing in the film - sure the atmosphere might be breathable but they cannot have identified every possible source of danger from flora, pathogens and so on. Being a colonisation mission surely they should all be following the motto of "prevention is better than a cure" and wear a damn sealed environmental suit.

The Captain making the decision to go to the planet, that's totally fine and believable given 1. Nobody wanted to get back into those sleep pods after the accident, 2. It was a seven year trip compared to a couple of weeks and 3. The nearby planet looked better than the original one they intended to colonise.

And actually the rest of the film was pretty good, even with some questionable decisions - ie the Captain going down into the creepy egg chamber and following David's instructions after seeing him "talk" to the creature that mauled one of his crew... That was totally dumb. Even if not knowing what those eggs are, every creature you've seen so far has been a hostile monster so why the hell would you trust a lying synthetic and even go near it in the first place. And then David's scene holding his hands out to greet the baby alien... that was pretty cheesy.

And true, Daniels could have done with a little more screen time in my opinion - otherwise it was pretty much a David/Walter film with the rest of the cast as supporting actors.

And finally it seriously cannot be the case that this is the home planet and only planet where the Engineers live (I'm assuming there may be more cities on this planet though the black goo would have wiped out all animal life anyway). I find it pretty hard to believe that David has wiped them all out. Otherwise it trivialises the whole concept of the Engineers if one rogue creation of your unintended creations uses your own weapon/tool of creation against you and you have no way to protect yourself from it. That is pretty stupid.

Anyway, decent film overall and Fassbender carries the whole thing with outstanding performances.

 

[silversurfer]

I thought I had walked into "morons in space"... seriously... MORONS IN SPACE

Not everything has to be believable but that film had so many cringe worthy parts to it i nearly died...

it was so bad I want to scream

Its not bad just really irritating 7/10 imo. Daniels was able to foresee unknown potential problems with diverting to a new unresearched planet on a whim and so on, capable of resourcefulness but we are forced to suppose the character is not able to surmise the robot could be either. Even after that alien in the showers, etc
There is surely some test which she only inadvertently realises in the closing moments. That whole who is who is immediately a negative from the moment David starts cutting his hair. Its the opposite of character driven, they could written it so that she both realises but is unable to address or stop David immediately. That would match the original film's struggle between the apex predator psyche vs Ripley. The film ended half way through in that respect

They are making a 3rd episode to this, thats how it felt with disposable characters the entire way bar Michael Fassbender

 

[VincentHanna]

They are making a 3rd episode to this, thats how it felt with disposable characters the entire way bar Michael Fassbender

Box office takings were lower than Prometheus.

I wonder if the studio will actually bother now.

 

[point decay]

I wouldn't be surprised if Covenant was Ridley Scott's last outing directing an Alien movie. I'd personally like to see more from the franchise but I think it needs some new ideas, and certainly ones that don't revolve around a rogue android or the Engineers.

 

[Malevolence]

Time to let Neill Blomkamp take the reigns.

 

[SixTwoSix]

Time to let Neill Blomkamp take the reigns.

A big no...if it was straight after District 9 i'd be on the hype train. However he's made 1 good film in 3 and his short films are testament to how he is visually great but can't hold attention for more than 20 minutes.

That's not to say I don't want this moved away from Scott, he's just got lost.

 

[aardvark]

they should let it die - sure the alien is cool but its not enough to carry a whole franchise.
We've had 2 great and different films and a lot of average/crap ones, just let it go.

 

[silversurfer]

Box office takings were lower than Prometheus.

I wonder if the studio will actually bother now.

Its a predictable profit for them and a lot of other films are a shot in the dark. Seems they did double their money this time. Finance comes in and is very happy to back a sequel over an unknown project, the money men will say yes so its down to Ridley to sign off and its a go.

He always does a good film, Im not sure Ridley always heads a good story though or its a bit ruined. We should have been meeting the engineers this time but apparently they ran out of ideas for that, it could have been epic.

Actually that wasnt the engineers, the world was far too basic it seems or maybe thats the films fault. It was an alternate world that knew of the engineers but werent that elite, I think. Its getting a bit old, this ambush the clueless plebs. They had better bring back Walter, Daniels doesnt die or something unpredictable like that and it'll be hard to write but would be worth a watch. The ship can always wander into a meteor storm or some wild card

they should let it die - sure the alien is cool but its not enough to carry a whole franchise.
We've had 2 great and different films and a lot of average/crap ones, just let it go.

This pic sums it, the entire scale of this unbelievable story got downsized and more digestible. Geiger is dead, they could not dream as big as the strange things coming out of that guys head. Nobody can live upto that despite all the tech we got now, we are now further away from this imagined future then 1979.

I preferred Prometheus to Covenant, sacrilege I know but I liked the ending even that twist that the protagonist would head into the belly of the beast not back down. I dont mind if they make more if they dont keep repeating the robot is bad thing.
Aliens had the robot saving them, Walter was far too placid in this one. His disappearance off screen better have been a double twist