Alien Covenant

[PinFever]

Ehh . same old same old . Wait for the video !   Nothing  special to report here / seems another quick cash grab that explains just a little more than we already knew . would go into it more but don't want to spoil anything but not sure what that could be / Hey / don't touch that or you could be getting pregnant with the alien doing it's own C section  . man or woman  / duhh

[mcluvin]

Ehh . same old same old . Wait for the video !   Nothing  special to report here / seems another quick cash grab that explains just a little more than we already knew . would go into it more but don't want to spoil anything but not sure what that could be / Hey / don't touch that or you could be getting pregnant with the alien doing it's own C section  . man or woman  / duhh

Really?  Damn!  I didn't hate Prometheus, but was hoping this one was going to be legit.

[PinFever]

It's legit , great graffix / Aliens/ Along the same story line / . It is aliens ..     Hint^their will be More aliens

[number six]

For reference here's a recap of what I thought of the previous movies in the franchise:

Alien - Absolute classic
Aliens - It shifts genres but manages to still be a classic. In terms of studio sequels (ie the original director/writer were not involved) this is probably the best ever.
Alien^3 - Taken on its own it's okay but in relation to the series its probably the worst sequel/followup ever.
Alien Resurrection - Mostly harmless schlock
Prometheus - Some aspects are apparently intentionally confusing but a visually stunning space adventure

First, I just watched Prometheus again to refresh myself. If you recall the ending has Shaw and David setting out to find the Engineer home world to find out why there were trying to black goo earth. This sounded like a good movie which is odd that Covenant completely abandons that setup. While I've heard that this is perhaps a trilogy Ridley Scott is working out the in-congruence between these two films shows there isn't a singular vision in place.. or at least not one he's completely had from the start.

So what do we get instead? Well it's more or less the Alien formula again. A group of space farers (in this case colonists) have a mishap during their mission, end up on a planet that's not what it appears.. makes some poor decisions and runs afoul of Aliens. Sorry if any of this was a spoiler.

The first half is actually fairly good. I always enjoy the space stuff in these films and this is no slouch. The covenant is cool and all the special effects and gadgetry are neat. The visuals are also as expected very well done and the first bits of the dilemma portion are suitably tense and well directed.

Unfortunately we hit some speed bumps in the second half. At this point the film shifts directly into cliche city and loses any sort of mystery. It's basically a run of the mill alien style romp with the running and screaming and such. I'll go into spoilers next post so if you haven't seen the film you may wish to eject here.. or not. Honestly the biggest problem is once certain sequences start you will know how they are going to ultimately play out and you won't be wrong. I spent the last 15 minutes of the film HOPING a certain plot twist wouldn't occur because it was sooo obvious but alas.

This sounds dire and while disappointing given how good Prometheus was I didn't hate the film. It's still better than Alien^3 or Resurrection (big feat right?) but given the setup from the last film I think I was expecting more. While the sequences are well executed there's really no imagination or innovation in anything here.. it's just running through the Alien formula again without really adding anything new.. in fact in many ways it's a step back given the tired plot devices employed.

Worth seeing? If you are a fan of the series you can give it a go. It's not awful by any stretch.. it's Ridley Scott after all.. but it's a step down from Prometheus for sure. If you didn't care much for that film you may be even less enthused here but it depends on what you are looking for. Ultimately it felt like going to a 5-Star Steak House and getting a good steak instead of a great one. Sure it's still better than most places you could have gone but not without still being a little disappointing.

[number six]

Here be spoilers

[spoiler]

- Man Shaw got the Newt treatment in this one, eh?

- The CGI aliens are fucking terrible. I don't think any of them were passable. The CGI in Prometheus is better.. what the hell happened? Then again Prometheus had the shitty Guy Pierce makeup so I guess you gotta have something substandard.

- Hey remember that death ship we lost 2,000 years ago? Well its mysteriously back and ready to dock.. get the kids lets welcome it home!

- Was that world supposed to be the Engineer home world? If so they have a ridiculously small population unless there were other cities we just didn't see.

- Sooo.. one android leaves the ship and a completely different model comes back on the ship and nothing on the ship notices. Yeah, yeah there was a line about 'mother' being offline but still.. their ship has less security than a windows network.

- Everyone seems to take finding an alien civilization in stride.. yeah nothing major just aliens.. you know.. biggest discovery in human history..

- Nobody suspects the evil robot! Even after he reveals his nefarious plans.. sure i'll stick my face in this egg, no problem! even by franchise standards this was dumb.

- I guess that nail in Davids chin healed super quick

- The star of Alien is of course the Alien. One of the key aspects of the Alien is it's lifecycle and how sinister and original it was for a movie monster. I didn't really like that they fucked with that here.. ie from Facehugger -> Full sized alien in a few hours? Stick to the rules man.. you made the first one.. come on!

- The David turn at the end is of course terrible but it could have worked if they had done a double-bluff. Ie have the crew issue some sort of test to verify its Warren or Wilson or whatever the good Michael Fassbender was then swerve it at the end to reveal David outsmarted the test somehow.. I mean do something.. you'd have to be about 6 to not catch the switcheroo especially when they didn't show the resolution of their fight.

- I guess the whole point was to get David and assload of humans to experiment on. Where are they going with that? Are they going to drop this entire angle in the next film and do something completely different?

[/spoiler]

[RussG]

I saw it last night and boy was I disappointed.

I thought it was an extremely lazy effort, and a major step down from Prometheus.  An insult to where they were going with that story actually, so why even bother?

In fact I thought this movie was so bad and such a disappointment in all respects that I am now incredibly fearful of the upcoming Blade Runner movie and how Ridley is going to screw that up.

So far other than Guardians have not been too impressed with movies this year.

[PinFever]

exactly / right / wtf       seeing Pirates Thursday night.. hope for the best 

I saw it last night and boy was I disappointed.

I thought it was an extremely lazy effort, and a major step down from Prometheus.  An insult to where they were going with that story actually, so why even bother?

In fact I thought this movie was so bad and such a disappointment in all respects that I am now incredibly fearful of the upcoming Blade Runner movie and how Ridley is going to screw that up.

So far other than Guardians have not been too impressed with movies this year.

[number six]

I saw it last night and boy was I disappointed.

I thought it was an extremely lazy effort, and a major step down from Prometheus.  An insult to where they were going with that story actually, so why even bother?

A lot of it seems like a reaction to some of the negative feedback from Prometheus. While I think a lot of us enjoyed it, many people complained that it didn't have the usual Alien trappings with people running around and getting eaten by xenomorphs and such. Well they made damn sure that wasn't the case in Covenant and I don't think it made for a better movie. It's OK for what it is but I definitely would have rather seen a true sequel to Prometheus instead.

Funny thing is Covenant is doing significantly less box office than Prometheus anyway.. so much for trying to go more commercial.

In fact I thought this movie was so bad and such a disappointment in all respects that I am now incredibly fearful of the upcoming Blade Runner movie and how Ridley is going to screw that up.

Ridley Scott is only producing Blade Runner 204938 which actually might be a worse situation since you can't count on it at least being a Ridley Scott movie even if the script sucks. The trailer looks like action schlock.. I  have serious doubts..

[number six]

exactly / right / wtf       seeing Pirates Thursday night.. hope for the best

To date there's only been one good Pirates movie right?

The 2nd film was almost unwatchable and boring. The 3rd was a bit better but still nowhere near what I'd call good.

I didn't bother with the last one.

[PinFever]

indeed/ I know, why go to The Movie when I been already been let down after so many failed sequels . Well I hate waiting for DVD and or a good RIP of it torrent wise .. Hope for the best .

I didn't bother with the last one.

and that was a good saving of the money for sure . was not worth buying that DVD either

To date there's only been one good Pirates movie right?

The 2nd film was almost unwatchable and boring. The 3rd was a bit better but still nowhere near what I'd call good.

I didn't bother with the last one.

[ibis]

Finally saw the film and as stated in the past Im a professed massive fan of the franchise.  What I think everyone was hoping was, we can see Elizabeth and David get to the planet of engineers. Instead we got what happened years later after David took out his frustrations against his father, which he stated he "pitied" upon death.

Six may be onto something about the whining fan base about Prometheus, hence the direction of this film. Personally I thought Prometheus was awesome and loved the change of vision.  I enjoyed this too  as it uncovered what really happened to Elizabeth(brutal) and the engineers, but would have liked it more if it stayed the course more directly from Promethious.

[SpineyNorman]

Only got 3/4 thru it...New York Guido (that must have been theater hopping since he and his kid came in 30 minutes into the movie) decided he needed to blind me with his phone...I commented on it and he put it away...for 2 minutes, then on again. Informed him I didn't pay money to watch him play with his phone. He decided if front of his kid to challenge me to a fight, bowed up loud..."lets go out in the fuckin parking lot if you don't like it and I'll  kick your fuckin ass"... took a half assed swing at me when I invited him to try, then sat back down and held his phone up so everyone could see it. So after a couple of minutes of that I went out and got myself a refund.

Sadly that little incident was better then the hour or so I saw of "smart people" doing amazingly stupid crap.

[number six]

Only got 3/4 thru it...New York Guido (that must have been theater hopping since he and his kid came in 30 minutes into the movie) decided he needed to blind me with his phone...I commented on it and he put it away...for 2 minutes, then on again. Informed him I didn't pay money to watch him play with his phone. He decided if front of his kid to challenge me to a fight, bowed up loud..."lets go out in the fuckin parking lot if you don't like it and I'll  kick your fuckin ass"... took a half assed swing at me when I invited him to try, then sat back down and held his phone up so everyone could see it. So after a couple of minutes of that I went out and got myself a refund.

Sadly that little incident was better then the hour or so I saw of "smart people" doing amazingly stupid crap.

Dammit, that does sound better than the movie!

People today.. it's amazing.

[RussG]

Only got 3/4 thru it...New York Guido (that must have been theater hopping since he and his kid came in 30 minutes into the movie) decided he needed to blind me with his phone...I commented on it and he put it away...for 2 minutes, then on again. Informed him I didn't pay money to watch him play with his phone. He decided if front of his kid to challenge me to a fight, bowed up loud..."lets go out in the fuckin parking lot if you don't like it and I'll  kick your fuckin ass"... took a half assed swing at me when I invited him to try, then sat back down and held his phone up so everyone could see it. So after a couple of minutes of that I went out and got myself a refund.

Sadly that little incident was better then the hour or so I saw of "smart people" doing amazingly stupid crap.

Why I've given up hope, especially with the anger and entitled "me first, damn everyone else" mentality all over.

That mother f'er ruined a perfectly "bad" movie for you and got away with it.  Had no shame either.  Typical.

[ratsflif]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmwyWerz5KI