Ridley Scott's "Alien: Covenant" (Oct 6, 2017) - Part 4

[David H.]

I’m not even arguing that it’s a good Alien movie, just that it follows through on what it promises more than Prometheus and, yeah, talk about a low bar.

Regarding Katherine Waterston’s character, uh, is anyone really under the impression that Covenant doesn’t belong to David and Walter? Watching Prometheus is watching, for 2 hours, Ridley Scott realizing that he doesn’t actually give a **** about the humans in these movies anymore. The difference being that it hinders the former and is instead (and intentionally, I think) played almost for laughs in Covenant. I’m kind of onboard with that.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Prometheus May have been a lot of promises, but they were places you wanted to see in a sequel, Shaw going to the Engineers home world to find answers is much more interesting than some other dumb group finding the planet 10 years later and all the Engineers were dead.

The Deacon from the end of Prometheus is also a much better monster than anything in Covenant. Not to mention how Covenant totally messes up the lore of the franchise.

 

[BH/HHH]

Prometheus May have been a lot of promises, but they were places you wanted to see in a sequel, Shaw going to the Engineers home world to find answers is much more interesting than some other dumb group finding the planet 10 years later and all the Engineers were dead.

The Deacon from the end of Prometheus is also a much better monster than anything in Covenant. Not to mention how Covenant totally messes up the lore of the franchise.

I will never understand why he didn’t bring badly Shaw. Her and David were the most interesting things about Prometheus and even though Prometheus was garbage at least it had me interested in where they were going next.

 

[:eek:]

Alien: Awakening Details Revealed for Ridley Scott's Scuttled Sequel

 

[Silvermoth]

What a shame. But I guess there’s only so many times you can show a chest bursting scene.

Also, random quote from Ridley. “We need to move away from the alien stuff”. Does he know what the franchise is called?

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

At least he planned on bringing back the Engineers, but it's too little, too late now, Covenant did the damage and the franchise is done.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Honestly, I think Prometheus and Covenant were of similar quality. Prometheus may have raised more interesting questions, but the movie itself was not more interesting.

 

[Teelie]

I think both Prometheus and Convenant could have worked had Scott toned down the andriod obsession and done more with the Engineers and xenomorph origins. Instead he squandered it all on David and made it into a Bladerunner sibling.

 

[BH/HHH]

I really think the original premise of Prometheus as a one film prequel to Alien was such a better idea. I’ve read parts of the Engineers script and while it’s not flawless it doesn’t have a lot of the s*** that ended up in the final film.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Honestly, I think Prometheus and Covenant were of similar quality. Prometheus may have raised more interesting questions, but the movie itself was not more interesting.

Personally I really enjoyed Prometheus, but hated Covenant

 

[TheVileOne]

The way the franchise was heading, David was going to be the space jockey.

A movie about Shaw going to the Engineer home world was never going to work functionally as a plot anyway.

Quite frankly, I hate the Engineers and their vague relation to the xenomorphs. It's disappointing, and none of it makes any sense.

What was intriguing about the derelict in the original was that it looked alien in every sense of the word. It didn't look like it belonged to humanoid, bipedal creatures. They looked like creatures that were perhaps techno-organic or possibly even beyond human ideas or comprehension.

Making them Proto-Humans or the engineers of the human race was asinine.

 

[Mandon Knight]

I really think the original premise of Prometheus as a one film prequel to Alien was such a better idea. I’ve read parts of the Engineers script and while it’s not flawless it doesn’t have a lot of the s*** that ended up in the final film.

I think a lot of what Scott wanted to include was 'excised' prior to production because he wasn't allowed to include by the producers because it was deemed to controversial for the American audience and so huge chunks of heritage, origin and the religious connotations were 'simplified' and so that I think began the road we went down in creating the 'dumb-ash' crew we got in the end.

Not seen Covenant yet, trying to 'brave' it.

 

[Teelie]

I'm not sure how watering down or cutting large chunks of the story somehow justifies the stupidity of many of the crew. There were things that made no sense regardless of their past. Unless that past included a history of traumatic brain injuries.

 

[Mandon Knight]

I'm not sure how watering down or cutting large chunks of the story somehow justifies the stupidity of many of the crew. There were things that made no sense regardless of their past. Unless that past included a history of traumatic brain injuries.

Just saying that Scott leaving it in the hands of the writers he did lead us from where presumably he wanted to be to the point we arrived at, just a horrid state. So clearly either Scott did not convey his ideas, concepts and wishes from WHAT he was allowed to 'go with' or he kept too long a leash on the writers and they were allowed to give us what they did.

 

[CB Fan]

Covenant was just such a disappointment. I watched it recently and man it was just so basic.

 

[TheVileOne]

I'm not sure how watering down or cutting large chunks of the story somehow justifies the stupidity of many of the crew. There were things that made no sense regardless of their past. Unless that past included a history of traumatic brain injuries.

The writing on Covenant was even more problematic than Prometheus IMO.

Prometheus did have things about I thought were well done.

I just think we would've been better off if there was no connection or relation to the Alien series at all. Just a completely new sci-fi series.

The problem is that fans wanted answers after Prometheus. Ridley Scott waited five years and instead did a half-baked rehash of Alien and Aliens because he thought audiences wanted the xenomorphs back or some such nonsense. Scott pretty much abandoned everything that was set up by Prometheus.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The way the franchise was heading, David was going to be the space jockey.

A movie about Shaw going to the Engineer home world was never going to work functionally as a plot anyway.

Quite frankly, I hate the Engineers and their vague relation to the xenomorphs. It's disappointing, and none of it makes any sense.

What was intriguing about the derelict in the original was that it looked alien in every sense of the word. It didn't look like it belonged to humanoid, bipedal creatures. They looked like creatures that were perhaps techno-organic or possibly even beyond human ideas or comprehension.

Making them Proto-Humans or the engineers of the human race was asinine.

It totally could have. Something more Twilight Zone then basic Alien, which I thought was the idea of the new series of movies. To not simply be generic Alien movies.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The writing on Covenant was even more problematic than Prometheus IMO.

Prometheus did have things about I thought were well done.

I just think we would've been better off if there was no connection or relation to the Alien series at all. Just a completely new sci-fi series.

The problem is that fans wanted answers after Prometheus. Ridley Scott waited five years and instead did a half-baked rehash of Alien and Aliens because he thought audiences wanted the xenomorphs back or some such nonsense. Scott pretty much abandoned everything that was set up by Prometheus.

I say Prometheus is clearly better then Covenant to me. The issue is, they both kind of suck to the point that the difference doesn't matter to me in the end. Especially after Covenant proved Prometheus a big nothing. That is the most telling thing to me about this series so far. How much Covenant hurt Prometheus in my eyes. It sounds crazy, but after all this, I guess Resurrection is the best sequel? It's the only one I kind of like at this point.

 

[TheVileOne]

If he really wanted that, he should've made something totally disconnected and unencumbered by the Alien connections.

Scott basically wanted a History Channel Ancient Astronauts movie series. That's what he should've done from word go and abandoned anything close to the Alien series other than maybe the sentient androids, which are not exclusive to the franchise.

 

[TheVileOne]

I say Prometheus is clearly better then Covenant to me. The issue is, they both kind of suck to the point that the difference doesn't matter to me in the end. Especially after Covenant proved Prometheus a big nothing. That is the most telling thing to me about this series so far. How much Covenant hurt Prometheus in my eyes. It sounds crazy, but after all this, I guess Resurrection is the best sequel? It's the only one I kind of like at this point.

Hey, I like Resurrection too and never understood all the crap it gets. I mean it's no Alien or Aliens don't get me wrong, but I find it infinitely superior to Alien 3 and definitely Covenant for sure.

Also, I thought what they did with the xenomorphs in the film at least made sense and wasn't a huge stretch. Like it was definitely a twist, but it's one I can buy that through the cloning process the alien queen took on some more human-like reproductive traits.

 

[Silvermoth]

I prefer covenant. To me it did for gays what the original alien did for feminism. Basically it’s about a gay guy who gets sick of being told what to do so he adopts what he thinks is a cute little kitten but to everyone else is a rabid monster of death and people are always like “oi do something about your psycho cat” and he’s like “don’t hurt my baby!”

 

[Prettyricky]

David as a character and his journey is interesting but not for a alien prequel trilogy. After covenant somehow all this is suppose to get is to the original alien. I always liked the idea that the xenomorphs were just parasites out in space and didnt need much explanation beyond that

 

[TheVileOne]

I prefer covenant. To me it did for gays what the original alien did for feminism. Basically it’s about a gay guy who gets sick of being told what to do so he adopts what he thinks is a cute little kitten but to everyone else is a rabid monster of death and people are always like “oi do something about your psycho cat” and he’s like “don’t hurt my baby!”

I mean the David/Walter scenes seemed suggestive, but I never thought of it that way...

 

[Marvolo]

Personally I really enjoyed Prometheus, but hated Covenant

I liked Prometheus a lot more. I didnt even hate Covenant. It was just very very meh. It felt so small scale and light on plot.

I like the android stuff because in their own way theyre just as creepy as the xenomorph. I think it was a good idea for this franchise to evolve beyond the xenomorph. The existence of the Xenomorph indicates that the Alien universe has intelligent alien life. They could have taken this franchise to other strange worlds, encountered all new aliens, and threats. There was no reason to only focus on the xenomorph.

My idea is Alien 3 should have been the last appearance of the xenomorph in this franchise. The xenomorph was tied into Ripley's character arc and her arc should have ended with Alien 3. Then have Alien 4 be the start of a whole new main character and crew that encounters a new Alien life form or civilization and gory slaughter begins anew.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Covenant was just such a disappointment. I watched it recently and man it was just so basic.

Agreed so much, I disliked it a lot on first viewing, but I have done with plenty of movies I ended up loving/liking, so tried Covenant again about a little while later, hated it even more.