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Alien: Covenant (2017)

Alien: Covenant (2017)  

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  1. 1. Grade it



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20 hours ago, The Panda of the Caribbean said:

 

Yeah, I wasn't buying how any of the characters reacted to David.  The dude's telling you about how he's been experimenting and creating these aliens and you just listen to him (as well as stick your face in the Alien egg, like really?  Nobody is that stupid or gullible).

 

I know it's rather typical for characters to make idiotic decisions in horror films, but that doesn't make it any less cringe worthy.

 

I didn't like this movie for reasons I stated a few pages back, but I find this kind of criticism is baffling.  He did the exact same thing that Kane did in the consensus masterpiece known as Alien.  And lets not act like the space trucker leaning over a giant ominous alien egg after it opened when he touched it is "normal" or what most people in that situation would've done.  In horror movies theres pretty much always a few characters that do shit like this, its part of the genre.

 

Whats cringy or embarrassing is Batman and Superman becoming best friends after they find out their moms have the same name, not a character in a horror movie doing something "questionable" that gets them killed.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Captain Craig said:

Grade: B-

 

My grade is on my first viewing and honestly, several days after absorbing it I may downgrade it upon a second viewing.

 

I totally agree with those making comparisons to TFA. Scott very clearly is doing an homage to his own film, the pacing, sets, character template etc.

Now, that doesn't equate to a bad thing. I felt TFA did it very effectively. 

 

I agree with many points of criticism I've seen in the 3+ pages ahead of me.

I could see the ending coming from mid-way 2nd act once David was shown. I had ZERO tension/drama as "Walter" closed the cryopod on Daniels. 

 

This is the ultimate what came first situation. Why if the spores are capable of infecting a host are the facehuggers and egg pods even needed? I know why, they are check boxes in the lore and Scott/Fox expects that WE expect to see them. Also, regarding the spores, didn't Prometheus tell us the Engineers used the same spore to create humanity? Are we essentially cousins to the Xenomorph? Why do we need a queen to lay egg pods at all? I suppose we could say the spores are planet locked and the egg is a way to get the species more mobile, that's my best internal explanation. 

 

So David has spent 10yrs "perfecting" the xenomorph and cross breeding it...in the 22nd century. The Alien as we know it doesn't exist until now. That totally invalidates Predator 2(Alien skull on Predator ship in 20th century) and the lore established in AvP where it's stated the Aliens and Predators have been at odds for centuries. This is what actually annoys me the most is that no one took a look at the screenplay and brought this up as it relates to the larger picture.

At this point I will not be shocked to learn that the Predator alien species is just another aberrational evolution of the Engineers spores.

 

I'm pretty sure AvP and its sequel are considered non-canon anyway.

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9 hours ago, Ozymandias said:

 

I didn't like this movie for reasons I stated a few pages back, but I find this kind of criticism is baffling.  He did the exact same thing that Kane did in the consensus masterpiece known as Alien.  And lets not act like the space trucker leaning over a giant ominous alien egg after it opened when he touched it is "normal" or what most people in that situation would've done.  In horror movies theres pretty much always a few characters that do shit like this, its part of the genre.

 

Whats cringy or embarrassing is Batman and Superman becoming best friends after they find out their moms have the same name, not a character in a horror movie doing something "questionable" that gets them killed.

 

 

It's stupid because he listens to the advice of the android who he just moments ago learned was lying to them the whole time and had created the Neomorphs, which had just killed his wife a few hours earlier. Not to mention he only sticks his head in there because unlike Kane who didn't know what they were, he did it because David told him too.

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19 minutes ago, Mulder said:

It's stupid because he listens to the advice of the android who he just moments ago learned was lying to them the whole time and had created the Neomorphs, which had just killed his wife a few hours earlier. Not to mention he only sticks his head in there because unlike Kane who didn't know what they were, he did it because David told him too.

 

I don't disagree that the guy wasn't very smart.  My point is that neither was Kane and that the internet mob would be calling that character incredibly stupid if the movie came out today.  Kane touched a giant alien egg inside a creepy alien space ship and after that caused the egg to open up, he stuck his head directly over it and began reaching into it before the hugger jumped out onto his face.  That would be more than enough for the beirdos to get all worked up.

 

 

Edited by Ozymandias
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Just now, Ozymandias said:

 

I don't disagree that the guy wasn't very smart.  My point is that neither was Kane and that the internet mob would be calling that character incredibly stupid if the movie came out today.  Kane touched a giant alien egg inside a creepy alien space ship and after that caused the egg to open up, he stuck his head directly over it and began reaching into it before the hugger jumped out.

 

 

Kane was also more a space trucker with no idea what any of that stuff was. Oram knew exactly what it was and still listened to David.

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10 hours ago, Ozymandias said:

 

I didn't like this movie for reasons I stated a few pages back, but I find this kind of criticism is baffling.  He did the exact same thing that Kane did in the consensus masterpiece known as Alien.  And lets not act like the space trucker leaning over a giant ominous alien egg after it opened when he touched it is "normal" or what most people in that situation would've done.  In horror movies theres pretty much always a few characters that do shit like this, its part of the genre.

 

Whats cringy or embarrassing is Batman and Superman becoming best friends after they find out their moms have the same name, not a character in a horror movie doing something "questionable" that gets them killed.

 

 

 

I mentioned it didn't really detract, because I'm used to characters doing stupid things in horror movies.  However, it doesn't change the fact that I cringe whenever they happen.

 

Especially given in the Covenant scenario, he's following the direction of a robot who just revealed himself as trying to create evil human eating aliens.

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15 hours ago, 4815162342 said:

 

I'm pretty sure AvP and its sequel are considered non-canon anyway.

It's got Weyland in it and all the trappings that tie it into the saga. I'm pretty sure it is canon. 

 

But let's table that and say for sake of argument you're right. That still doesn't solve the Alien skull found in the Predator ship in the 20th century for Predator 2.

Unless you're just going to tell me the Predator films aren't canon to the larger saga either, cause you're "pretty sure".

Edited by Captain Craig
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You can argue that the Predator 2 bit was just an Easter Egg shout-out.

 

Just like in E.T. when E.T sees the Yoda costume and gets excited saying "home," and Lucas dropped a couple ET aliens into the Senate in TPM.

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Fair enough.

 

That gets us back to what is or isn't part of canon according to Fox and is that different than what Scott sees as canon...or fandom for that matter.

AvP has it's nods to the larger Alien saga. I see it as part of the mythos and that's where Covenant loses me it the whole David has bio-engineered the xenomorph himself from raw material of the Engineers. 

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5 hours ago, Captain Craig said:

Fair enough.

 

That gets us back to what is or isn't part of canon according to Fox and is that different than what Scott sees as canon...or fandom for that matter.

AvP has it's nods to the larger Alien saga. I see it as part of the mythos and that's where Covenant loses me it the whole David has bio-engineered the xenomorph himself from raw material of the Engineers. 

 

Oh that gives me problems too, since it will take a lot of stretching to make this new origin fit with the premise of Alien and a Space Jockey ship on LV-426 with a metric fuckton of eggs.

 

 

I always viewed AvP in the same light as Freddy v. Jason. A non-canon crossover.

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On 5/22/2017 at 0:13 PM, Dan9 said:

How to not enjoy this movie: watch Aliens for the very first time the night before. 

 

What a contrast in effective action set-pieces, tension, excitement, character, plot etc... Fassbender was good tho. 


Good thing I watched Prometheus the night before then lol (probably saw them 12 hours between each other).

Aliens was the night before that. Those first two movies like the first POTC are never going to be topped.

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On 5/26/2017 at 1:09 AM, Mulder said:

It's stupid because he listens to the advice of the android who he just moments ago learned was lying to them the whole time and had created the Neomorphs, which had just killed his wife a few hours earlier. Not to mention he only sticks his head in there because unlike Kane who didn't know what they were, he did it because David told him too.


I agree that it's still stupid but right after he asks David "You're going to tell me what's going on" you see Davids face switch and go into AI mode. His whole tone of voice changes and he becomes robotic. He might have thought he was still programmed to tell the truth.

And he had no idea that one of those things killed his wife. He wasn't aboard the ship at the time. They just saw it blow up.

The movie spent a lot of time stating how different the models of androids were. He hadn't met one like David before and thought they were still programmed to follow orders. Yes I agree he should have been more cautious but it seemed like he let his guard down after he switched into AI mode. And he has no idea what's in those eggs like we do and something bad can come from them.

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On 5/26/2017 at 1:32 AM, Mulder said:

Kane was also more a space trucker with no idea what any of that stuff was. Oram knew exactly what it was and still listened to David.


From what I remember of this, no he didn't. Only Daniels got to see Davids experiments. 


I remember David leading Chris (Oram) right through that room to where the eggs were. Maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly though.

Yes the eggs looked really ominous but Chris had no indication that something would jump out of them because he hasn't seen a creature like this before (like we have seeing all these movies). It's like a human seeing a zombie for the first time in a universe where zombie movies or the whole concept doesn't exist (The Walking Dead). Yeah some of these characters are stupid but you have to give them some leeway. 
 

He had no idea what was coming.

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Just now, somebody85 said:


From what I remember of this, no he didn't. Only Daniels got to see Davids experiments. 


I remember David leading Chris (Oram) right through that room to where the eggs were. Maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly though.

Yes the eggs looked really ominous but Chris had no indication that something would jump out of them because he hasn't seen a creature like this before (like we have seeing all these movies). It's like a human seeing a zombie for the first time in a universe where zombie movies or the whole concept doesn't exist (The Walking Dead). Yeah some of these characters are stupid but you have to give them some leeway. 
 

He had no idea what was coming.

David literally told him that he made the Neomorphs. He trusted David waaaaay too much after David had already lied to him and the others. Hell he calls David "the devil".

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Just now, Mulder said:

David literally told him that he made the Neomorphs. He trusted David waaaaay too much after David had already lied to him and the others. Hell he calls David "the devil".


Okay yeah I don't remember that (so this movies rating will probably drop for me when I rewatch it). I just remember David trying to protect the neomorph from being shot and Chris threatening to kill him if he didn't tell him what was going on.

There was still no indication of what could come out of that egg. Even if Chris believed that the nenomorph babies were in there, he had no idea something would jump out and grab his face. Humans are curious...I've seen stupid people do far worse. Look at people who try to get their golf balls back from alligators on golf courses and end up getting bit.

I agree that he trusted him way too much but the scene almost played out like fan service....like "ohhhh we know what's coming from this". I think it could have been done way more believably but I believe he could do it because the character wasn't written to be that smart. He didn't even want to be in charge after James Franco burned alive.

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7 minutes ago, somebody85 said:


Okay yeah I don't remember that (so this movies rating will probably drop for me when I rewatch it). I just remember David trying to protect the neomorph from being shot and Chris threatening to kill him if he didn't tell him what was going on.

There was still no indication of what could come out of that egg. Even if Chris believed that the nenomorph babies were in there, he had no idea something would jump out and grab his face. Humans are curious...I've seen stupid people do far worse. Look at people who try to get their golf balls back from alligators on golf courses and end up getting bit.

I agree that he trusted him way too much but the scene almost played out like fan service....like "ohhhh we know what's coming from this". I think it could have been done way more believably but I believe he could do it because the character wasn't written to be that smart. He didn't even want to be in charge after James Franco burned alive.

Iirc he was more upset because he wasn't put in charge in the first place. Oram's meant to be a smart but faithful man and yet he just looks like a moron. 

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1 minute ago, Mulder said:

Iirc he was more upset because he wasn't put in charge in the first place. Oram's meant to be a smart but faithful man and yet he just looks like a moron. 


I thought he didn't want to be in charge? It seemed like he didn't think he could do it because of his faith (which was never brought up again - Thanks Ridley) and his wife convinced him that he could do it. From there on out, the character acts dumb. Daniels and Tennessee seemed to have the clearest heads.

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