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Alien: Covenant |SPOILER THREAD| With more Christian subtext than BvS

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
Maybe I'm misremembering but all I recall was that that Mother did some preliminary reconnaissance on the planet and it was deemed earthlike and habitable but that doesn't preclude the possibility that they could have expose themselves to indigenous pathogens.

I'm fine with that suspension of belief. They analysis the planet, it was determined safe, etc. They don't want to go back to sleep for 7 more years, Omega whatever was still just a guess if it was habitable, and then this showed up. It was like a godsend to them.

This was very Alien. The discussion on protocol with Kane's containment, checking out the site, etc. Human decisions, a bit dumb ones looking back. But Kane had a bugger on his face and then they just let him walk around after it magically drops off?
 

Hystzen

Member
Whats worse about the Captain Oram situation is we seen tons times he a man of faith he straight up calls David the Devil yet casually does what David says. When David is monologing about created his aliens it should have shown another crew memeber trying find dead lady and stumbles apon the egg cellar. Have the Captain run find rest his crew to get the fuck out of the temple. Instead he just casually does what a satan robot tells him to do
 
Saw it last night -- trying to find the right words for it -- weightless? a definite lack of tension through the movie -- it was more like "this week on Alien the Series" than anything else, have to admit it makes Prometheus look better because at least Prometheus had some majesty in between the stupidity -- Covenant was just kind of there
 

zoukka

Member
"Weightless" is a good adjective here. The way they handled the engineer genocide was way too light and casual. That shit is everything that Alien should not be. There was nothing subtle or mysterious about the way Covenant handled the lore...
 
Something that didn't really occur to me until now, but the film is a lot less violent and bloody than I thought based on those earlier reports. I was expecting a few more scenes like the ultra-schlocky, AvP R esque shower sequence.

I'm kind of grateful it wasn't though. There was, no shit, a kid that looked no older than 5 sitting next to me in the theater.
 
Something that didn't really occur to me until now, but the film is a lot less violent and bloody than I thought based on those earlier reports. I was expecting a few more scenes like the ultra-schlocky, AvP R esque shower sequence.

I'm kind of grateful it wasn't though. There was, no shit, a kid that looked no older than 5 sitting next to me in the theater.

i thought it was pretty gruesome to be honest
 

s_mirage

Member
I thought the film hinted Oram's "faith" was a cover for his incompetence.

That's the way I saw it too. He wasn't kept out of the captain's chair because of his faith, but because he was a martinet who was unsuited for command (and perhaps by being a bit of an idiot too). His reaction to the crew daring to have a drink for their fallen comrade demonstrates this.
 

Hystzen

Member
That's the way I saw it too. He wasn't kept out of the captain's chair because of his faith, but because he was a martinet who was unsuited for command (and perhaps by being a bit of an idiot too). His reaction to the crew daring to have a drink for their fallen comrade demonstrates this.

He was only pissy at the drink as fact they ignored his command and he felt didn't have respect of crew. He was correct though instead of mourning they had to fix the ship incase another flare happened.
 
i thought it was pretty gruesome to be honest
It was but, but this article gave me some very different expectations

Prepare yourself for a bloodbath. When asked about Ridley's love for practical effects, Huffam said, ”We're ordering the blood in the 40-gallon drums rather than the 5-gallon drums." O'Sullivan said, ”I think I've used more blood on this than I did on Saving Private Ryan."

I was honestly expecting a non-stop gore show at the end. :lol
 

Mr. Sam

Member
Isolation works because it's a great tribute, aesthetically and tonally, to the first Alien. That just wouldn't make sense to adapt to the screen. It'd be like a (pretty sparse) fan film.
 

s_mirage

Member
He was only pissy at the drink as fact they ignored his command and he felt didn't have respect of crew. He was correct though instead of mourning they had to fix the ship incase another flare happened.

There are ways to go about things, ways to get people on side, and he didn't go about it in a way that was at all accommodating of the crew's condition at that point. Barking orders from your new position of power at people who are suffering from shock and/or grief, then whining that the crew don't respect you when they harmlessly rebel, are not signs of good leadership.
 
Saw it last night. Still don't know how I feel. It had some awesome shots at least. The one thing I don't get is if David created the current Xenomoprhs we know and engineered the facehugger and eggs, how does that explain or tie in the first film where they find an Engineers spaceship with a cargo hold full of those same eggs? We know the Engineers didn't make them, and they were wiped out, soo....yeah. Am I missing something?

Also I really did prefer thinking that the Aliens were a product of nature on some mysterious planet, as opposed to being some manufactured bio-weapon. But it is kind of worse knowing even more that a Synthetic from Earth is responsible.
 
Saw it last night. Still don't know how I feel. It had some awesome shots at least. The one thing I don't get is if David created the current Xenomoprhs we know and engineered the facehugger and eggs, how does that explain or tie in the first film where they find an Engineers spaceship with a cargo hold full of those same eggs? We know the Engineers didn't make them, and they were wiped out, soo....yeah. Am I missing something?

Next movie, probably.

Still have Walter on the engineer planet with the Derelict to account for, too.

Mad scientist on the Covenant

2000 colonists...
 
Next movie, probably.

Still have Walter on the engineer planet with the Derelict to account for, too.

Mad scientist on the Covenant

2000 colonists...
Walter's dead. His head was separated from his body and dashed to pieces on the stone GoT -style.

David saw him die and come back to life once, he's not going to make the same mistake again. He's of above-average intelligence for a character in an Alien film.

So, average.
 

Pics_nao

Member
Saw the movie last night.

Loved it but why would they go to an alien planet with no containment suits? The fuck is wrong with people? Did they not have a medic with them to tell them to not do something stupid like that?

Great movie tho
 

ezekial45

Banned
Saw it last night, but wanted to sit on it first before sharing my thoughts. I really enjoyed this, but it did come off feeling a little cold and not really consequential. I really hate that feeling, especially for an Alien movie, but I still had a lot of fun with this movie.

I guess one that really bothered me about the whole story was that it felt really similar to the stories you'd read from the Dark Horse Comics series or something. I kept thinking of Fire And Stone, if anyone's read that. What I mean is that it didn't really feel like a story that unique as a movie, as opposed to something that could've been told in comics or other media. If that makes sense. Again, going back to feeling a little cold and inconsequential. Not hating on the DH comics, Defiance is really excellent, but I was hoping for something more movie-like.

One more, I still really enjoyed the movie, WAY more than Prometheus, but I couldn't help but feel that it didn't hit the highs it could have.

Also, Danny McBride was fucking great in this movie. Way more than I thought he would. He hit drama pretty well too. Next to David and Walter, he was my favorite character in the movie.
 

JB1981

Member
One thing I will say in this movie's favor is that the opening scene with Weyland and David was ace. Felt like something Kubrick would direct.
 

SMG

Member
Whats worse about the Captain Oram situation is we seen tons times he a man of faith he straight up calls David the Devil yet casually does what David says. When David is monologing about created his aliens it should have shown another crew memeber trying find dead lady and stumbles apon the egg cellar. Have the Captain run find rest his crew to get the fuck out of the temple. Instead he just casually does what a satan robot tells him to do

Or a smaller change would be have the oping egg be behind the captain, David natters on and just as the captain is about to wise up the facehugger swings around from behind.
Seeing it happen slowly out of focus in the background would have been far better than the shot for shot remake of the Kane scene.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Heading to see it in 2 hours
 
Next movie, probably.

Still have Walter on the engineer planet with the Derelict to account for, too.

Mad scientist on the Covenant

2000 colonists...

In the first Alien it was plainly an Engineer piloting the craft that they found, and there was evidence a Xenomorph erupted through his chest and killed him, probably causing the crash. AND yeah, pretty sure Walter is toast as David was reaching for that knife. But even if he was still alive, that still doesn't change the fact it was an Engineer piloting the craft.
 
In the first Alien it was plainly an Engineer piloting the craft that they found, and there was evidence a Xenomorph erupted through his chest and killed him, probably causing the crash. AND yeah, pretty sure Walter is toast as David was reaching for that knife. But even if he was still alive, that still doesn't change the fact it was an Engineer piloting the craft.

David's mad scientist ass is going to figure out a way to engineer/experiment himself into a giant-size biomechanoid body after Walter catches up to the Covenant (which is now filled with eggs and whatever weird experiments he has going on) with the Juggernaut.

Has David created a queen by now? (because it's not beyond Ridley to retcon Aliens out of existence at this point) How many of those colonists are incubation farms for whatever weird bullshit he's come up with in his pursuit of "perfection?" Is anyone still alive on the Covenant? Is Walter malfunctioning? This will be the majority of the film, set almost entirely on the two spaceships.

We will end with David's full Frankenstein'd form piloting the juggernaut towards Earth with his horrible cargo, before his mission is sabotaged by one of our heroes (Shaw? Walter) who manages to get the ship crashed on LV-426, sends a warning beacon, facehugs David, and kills themselves and whatever popped out of David so that the ship is now exactly where we need it to be for the beginning of Alien.

Done.
 
Or a smaller change would be have the oping egg be behind the captain, David natters on and just as the captain is about to wise up the facehugger swings around from behind.
Seeing it happen slowly out of focus in the background would have been far better than the shot for shot remake of the Kane scene.

Agreed.

The single most frustrating aspects of both Covenant and Prometheus is I feel like they could be truly great movies if they had a decent editor go over and clean up the script.

Instead Prometheus is little more than a fantastic tonal experience and Covenant is frantic thrill ride.
 
David's mad scientist ass is going to figure out a way to engineer/experiment himself into a giant-size biomechanoid body after Walter catches up to the Covenant (which is now filled with eggs and whatever weird experiments he has going on) with the Juggernaut.

Has David created a queen by now? (because it's not beyond Ridley to retcon Aliens out of existence at this point) How many of those colonists are incubation farms for whatever weird bullshit he's come up with in his pursuit of "perfection?" Is anyone still alive on the Covenant? Is Walter malfunctioning? This will be the majority of the film, set almost entirely on the two spaceships.

We will end with David's full Frankenstein'd form piloting the juggernaut towards Earth with his horrible cargo, before his mission is sabotaged by one of our heroes (Shaw? Walter) who manages to get the ship crashed on LV-426, sends a warning beacon, facehugs David, and kills themselves and whatever popped out of David so that the ship is now exactly where we need it to be for the beginning of Alien.

Done.
You're missing some way of turning Ripley into a woman literally destined to defeat the Xenomorphs.
 

Flipyap

Member
Isolation story isn't anything special. Its strength was being a game.
Adapting its "story" beat-by-beat would make no sense and I don't think that's what they're suggesting, since it's hardly there to begin with, but the general premise is solid and Working Joes are the best new addition to the series since the first movie (though I guess them being scarier than the alien might be a bit of an issue). The Seegson Corporation in general is more fun and fitting than what Weylan(d)-Yutani turned into. I'd watch it.
 
Characters are believably dumb in Covenant cause they're not supposed to be scientists right? They're just crew who are supposed to get the ship from A to B. Except for the wheat scientist. Believe him, he knows wheat.
 

kiguel182

Member
This whole exercise in retconing hurts my head. Prometheus had a simple idea at first on how to set up Alien, then it got changed and now most of it doesn't matter and it's David doing experiments that will somehow end with a crashed ship. It's a weird way to write a story.

And yeah, David will be the space jokey and all the set up that Prometheus did will be in service of David. What a mess.
 
Whats worse about the Captain Oram situation is we seen tons times he a man of faith he straight up calls David the Devil yet casually does what David says. When David is monologing about created his aliens it should have shown another crew memeber trying find dead lady and stumbles apon the egg cellar. Have the Captain run find rest his crew to get the fuck out of the temple. Instead he just casually does what a satan robot tells him to do

Nah. He literally tells David to explain what's going on and what he's hiding, OR ELSE he will shoot him.

David quickly answers "Ok, I'll show you."
 
I wonder if Ridley will cast Martin Freeman as Ash in the next movie, or just cake up Fassbender in some make-up and have him play Ash.

David will then, of course, seduce Ash and kiss him.
 

ezekial45

Banned
I always felt that there was an element of stupidity throughout the series. More so out of sheer panic and the fact that these characters, despite their qualifications, are in over their heads.

- Kain approaching the eggs, and Dallas bringing back Kain back to the shit. Disregarding quarantine.
- Gorman disarming the marines and sending them into the hive on their rescue mission. Also, Burk trying to sabotage the mission in order to bring back samples to the company.
- The prisoners generally fucking up and 85 giving in to WY's orders to land on Fury 161.
- Prometheus, which mostly goes without saying.

In this one, I felt like there wasn't too much out of the ordinary. Tennessee's order to lower ship initially bugged me, as he was risking the entire colony, but it ended up working to get a signal through regardless. For me, complaining too much about how stupid the characters are in this series sorta goes against one of the main motivators for the plot of all of them.
 

SMG

Member
Nah. He literally tells David to explain what's going on and what he's hiding, OR ELSE he will shoot him.

David quickly answers "Ok, I'll show you."

That is fine to intro the information dump. But the Captain had seen the alien threat at this point, Kane getting his face all up in the egg is excused by where it come in the film.
 

Experien

Member
It makes plenty of sense as per the logic of most sci-fi films and even the Alien movies, really.

They scout the planet from the ship, deem it fine to walk around on, and they walk around on it.

They put suits on in Alien because the atmosphere demands it
They DON'T put suits on in Aliens because the atmosphere doesn't - even though they KNOW there's an alien infestation on the ground.
They put on suits in Prometheus because they're not sure (they then take them off because they're stupid)
They don't put on suits in Covenant because the readings say its' a better planet than the planet they were going to LIVE ON.

Alien isn't really "hard sci-fi" and never has been.

it's Star Trek rules for planetary exploring, basically.

But yeah, a lot of the panicked/dumb decision making in the first half at least makes sense from a character perspective. I think it's a valid criticism that Danny McBride doesn't seem to freak out at seeing an Alien, or that Daniels gets super gung ho after watching one almost kill her and that's basically the extent of her reaction. I think those are good points to be made against the film.

However a lot of the "dumb" decisions being made by the crew in that first half are being made by people who are REACTING CORRECTLY to what the fuck it is they're seeing for the first time in their lives, so their bad decisionmaking fits in the situations they've been placed in.

I am sorry but if I was a soldier and/or had a gun and then saw a creature just jump out from my friend/buddies body, I would shoot the creature on spot. Especially if my ticket off the planet just blew up, it wouldn't have time to stand up completely.
 

Mr. Sam

Member
Plus one was wearing a helmet and the other wasn't...

This is what many people forget about Alien - Kane's wearing the space equivalent of a diving suit with thick glass on the front of his helmet. Even if there's something in one of those eggs, why would anyone expect it to be able to break clean through his suit?
 

Astral

Member
So is the next movie really a prequel to this? It'd be really lame if so. We already know what happens and have a good idea of how it happens too.
 
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