Alien: Covenant - Trailer

[Brian]

The thing about Franco is that even when he's playing a serious role, say for example in 11.22.63, he can do a fine job but never quite overcomes the whole creepy Franco-ness of just being James Franco.

[tgb]

So did I miss somewhere that this is a Judd Apatow movie?

I mean, it says directed by Ridley Scott but how can I take an Alien movie seriously when the cast members include James Franco and Danny McBride?

I, for one, am looking forward to the Alien movie starring James Franciscus and Danny DeVito.

[malchior]

I'm psyched - I liked Prometheus even if it didn't live up to its potential.

The thing about Franco is that even when he's playing a serious role, say for example in 11.22.63, he can do a fine job but never quite overcomes the whole creepy Franco-ness of just being James Franco.

If they are smart - they'll just lean into the creepiness.

[tru1cy]

Prologue - Final Meal

[Holman]

Prologue - Final Meal

Well I think I'll enjoy the movie because now I want to see all of those people dead.

[tgb]

I have to admit - I was faked out.

[Paingod]

Trailer #2
Lots of new scenes, monster reveals.

Not overly excited about "full CGI Alien" action. I enjoyed the more practical effects Aliens.

[Holman]

Everything we know from the Alien: Covenant trailers.

A lot of speculation, but some of it is informed enough to feel potentially spoilery.

[Paingod]

That's why Trailers need to STFU and just tease us. So many give us 80% of the story, a lot of the best visuals, and then the movie itself seems less interesting when we get there because we've seen the best bits and know the story.

[JSHAW]

Do you want to meet Walter?

https://www.meetwalter.com

[Paingod]

Do you want to meet Walter?

https://www.meetwalter.com

Basically an AMD commercial. Sad!

[Paingod]

They've released a 'Prologue' that fills in some of the blanks from the end of Prometheus.

[Holman]

So According to the somewhat spoilerific io9 review, Alien: Covenant...
[-spoilered for those who don't want even the tilt of a review-]

Spoiler:

"May Be the Biggest Disappointment of the Summer."

A few notes from the review itself:

Spoiler:

Everything that follows pads the mythology about the title xenomorph, driven primarily by an oddly unmotivated and slightly confusing plot involving Michael Fassbender’s android character from the first film, David, and a second android on the Covenant, named Walter. Fassbender is great in both roles, but the character’s stories demystify everything that made those aliens so terrifying in the first place. So Alien: Covenant gets rid of everything good about Prometheus and takes all the mystery of Alien away. It basically makes both films worse.

The finale is definitely the coolest thing in the movie but feels relatively standard when compared to the typical big, Hollywood blockbuster. It also doesn’t help that you’ve spent the entire movie waiting for these big action scenes so shoving so many into a short period of time removes much of the tension. There’s just nothing that memorable in the movie. The gore and creature work make for some fun or gross moments, but nothing in the film stands out as something worth of the name “Alien.”

Which is what you should be able to expect from a Ridley Scott Alien movie, right? Something epic, scary and visceral. Alien: Covenant is none of those things. It’s just there. You almost wish it was terrible because then at least it would have taken some risks. Instead, you’re left with an instantly forgettable piece of entertainment with boring characters, obvious mysteries, and none of the horror that made the Alien franchise so great.

[tgb]

Maybe I'll just stick with the original.

One of the best of the medium-budgeted science fiction flicks of the 1950s, It! The Terror from Beyond Space is set in "the future" (1973, to be exact). A rescue ship travels out to Mars to retrieve the only survivor of a space probe that has experienced some sort of cataclysm. That survivor, Col Ed Carruthers (Marshall Thompson) is accused of murdering his fellow crewmen. But Ed claims that the killer was a Martian monster, and hopes to prove his assertions by signing up for a second journey to the Red Planet. Before long, the crew members of this second expedition are being systematically killed off, and it looks as though Ed is up to his old tricks. As it turns out, however, Ed was telling the truth: there is a monster on board, the savage descendant of the once-mighty Martian civilization, who snuck on board when an irresponsible crew member left the door open. The monster stays alive by absorbing the vital body fluids of its victims-and there seems to be no way to stop this parasitic creature! If the plot of It! The Terror from Beyond Space seems vaguely familiar, it is because it was one of the primary inspirations for the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien.

[Reemul]

I saw this last night with my Dad and Brother. We all thought it was a poor movie. the Alien(S) were atmospheric and as usual work well the settings were good but

Spoiler:

the Engineers world didn't look hi tech or good enough especially as it was only 10 years on from their destruction and it was a bit meh really

I thought at times the space ship looked poor in space more like a model than a real ship. Nothing made me jump or squeal or even really grimace.

How many times can you

Spoiler:

kick an alien out in space

Also the characters were hopeless, it was like it was written by a 15 year old school kid. So many stupid decisions made by the crew, they were hopeless and pathetic.

Spoiler:

Married Couples on the ship that split up leading them to make irrational decision because my wife/husband/partner is on a planet and I am not. Spending 3 years in space and approach a planet and decide to go through an electric storm instead of waiting a day or 2 until it goes away, landing on an unknown planet and not wearing helmets and getting infeceted. Picking people up from a planet infested with Aliens and taking them back to a colony ship. Letting a synthetic on a ship knowing he looks exactly like the bad synthetic without any sort of checks, that bit was bloody obvious and stupid, everyone splitting up, no one working as a team, they all acted like amateurs not professional space people, the captain dying in the cryo chamber and the number 2 worrying everyone hates him because he is religious rather than useless and this from the start of the film. Heck I could go on and on the list is endless

All in all a really disappointing film.

[rshetts2]

All in all a really disappointing film.

So in other words it's a true sequel to Prometheus.

[DD*]

All in all a really disappointing film.

So in other words it's a true sequel to Prometheus.

[Brian]

Well, Angry Joe didn't like it. (Mostly) Spoiler free review here. If you want spoilers you can get them here.

I haven't watched the spoiler review yet. I have tickets for a Sunday matinee so won't watch the spoiler discussion until then but from his regular review it sounds like they did exactly what I was afraid they were going to do.

Oh well, I guess the best I can hope for is not to hate it too much.

Edit: Good Bad Flicks didn't like it either.

[YellowKing]

I just got back and will be the voice of dissent. I agree with the current RT score of 73%. Yes, it had its flaws, but I still enjoyed it a great deal.

I think the problem with any ALIENS film is that the franchise is all over the map. The first movie was almost a pure horror film. The second movie was almost a pure action film. The third and fourth movies were mostly failed attempts to blend the two. Then Ridley Scott returns with Prometheus and tries to really give it some gravitas and mythology. The issue is that there are a lot of people who prefer the scary ones, a lot who prefer the action ones, and a few nerds that really enjoy Scott's mythology vision.

ALIEN: COVENANT is an attempt to satisfy all three crowds, and as we all know that's a really tough hill to climb. As such, it at times feels like a bunch of separate Alien films cut together, taking a bit from each style. If you enjoy all those styles on their own merits, you'll probably like this one. But if your allegiance lies to one or the other, I can see where you may be disappointed.

Personally I think we have enough dumb action/horror movies in the world, and it would be too easy to just make another slasher movie on a ship clone. Kudos to Ridley Scott for sticking to his guns on adding some depth to the series while still trying to add some crowd-pleasing moments for those who found Prometheus too dull.

As for the cast, Michael Fassbender is brilliant as usual. I absolutely loved Katherine Waterston, who could have been just another Ripley clone but added some vulnerability to the role. Danny McBride was a misstep, and I hate to say that as I'm a huge fan. He pretty much plays it totally straight, and while I can't fault an actor for wanting to stretch out from dumb comedy roles, I kept waiting for quips that never came. The rest of the cast was mostly forgettable, which is a shame. I'd have loved to seen a "Last Supper" sequence like the extended prologue trailer we got just to endear me a bit more to the other crew members, but that never materialized.

If ALIEN and ALIENS are the top dogs, this one lands squarely in the middle of the pack. And I don't think that's a bad thing. It would take a miracle to equal either of those first two films, and I'll take Ridley Scott's take on an Alien film any day over some other random director.

[Kraken]

If ALIEN and ALIENS are the top dogs, this one lands squarely in the middle of the pack. And I don't think that's a bad thing. It would take a miracle to equal either of those first two films, and I'll take Ridley Scott's take on an Alien film any day over some other random director.

The Globe's critic said it's the third-best in the series. His three-star review was more positive than I would have expected from him, so it's on my netflix list already.

[tgb]

I'm hoping the next one will be a romcom.

[Brian]

Well, I didn't hate it but it's certainly not going to rank among my favorites.

At least it wasn't as aggressively stupid as Prometheus was. It still had people doing stupid things in the name of plot and some of the story elements were frustrating but at least it mostly made sense. Also, even worse than AvP and AvP: Requiem it had:

Spoiler:

them going from Facehugger to chestburster to full grown alien in the span of about twenty minutes (and that's being generous).

I needn't have worried about James Franco and Danny McBride though. Franco for reasons that will be immediately clear to anybody that sees it and McBride because I apparently like him much more in a dramatic role than I do in pretty much all of his comedic roles. Who knew?

Not sure where I'd place it rank-wise in the anthology. I didn't like it as much as the first half of Resurrection but it was far, far better than the second half of Resurrection. So, I guess I would rank my enjoyment thusly:

Alien/Aliens (Sorry, this one is a tie in my book)
Alien 3
First half of Resurrection
Covenant
AvP: Requiem
Second half of Resurrection
AvP
Having my genitals set on fire and the fire stomped out by a biker gang
Prometheus

[Jiffy]

I'm really undecided how I feel about it. I felt it was worth seeing, but don't feel like seeing it again anytime soon.

The good:

Fassbender is awesome, as usual.
The effects were generally good.
I know some have hated on the cast, but I didn't mind the cast of this one.

The okay:

Spoiler:

While some comments I read lamented the crew being as stupid as the crew in Prometheus, I'm not sure if these folks were *that* stupid. I found them a bit more believable

The bad:

Spoiler:

Throwing out everything that was established in Prometheus, pretty much. I know a lot hate on Prometheus, and I found it disappointing. But at least it opened the door to lots of potentially interesting directions. Finding the engineers, finding the connection between the black goo and the xenomorph, finding out more on the original plan to eradicate earth...and finally, establishing the connection found in the original Alien, that being the Space Jockey with the burst out chest and a cargo hold full of eggs.
Prometheus also left us expecting to see a continuation of Shaw's and David's adventures...and nothing. Maniac android strikes and everything goes haywire, which has been established since the original Alien.

Unfortunately, the direction instead seems to be that it's all the meddling of an insane android. David makes for an excellent villain, but at the same time, what's his end game? The xenomorph, as a 'superior' species, can't get anywhere on it's own, and David is stuck on a planet that he obliterated life on. Speaking of which, was that it for the Engineers? A single tiny colony? Or is there still a lot more out there. And if David supposedly created the xenomorph, why was so much detail linking to an established xenomorph species in Prometheus (i.e. the mural and such), and how does a space jockey get a cargo hold of eggs, and a chestburster...things seem to be falling apart logic wise.

Brian's note about the 'growth' rate is also bang on - it's *really* noticeable how fast things go down.

Again, the movie, much like Prometheus, doesn't feel like it has a firm direction - is it a sci-fi horror, or is it sci-fi action? Something in between? The two best films in the series focused on one and absolutely excelled. Both Prometheus and Covenant seem to try and straddle both, and both suffer for the mish-mash. This is especially jarring during the action scenes, where supposed scientist/techs suddenly become action stars in their abilities. Alien/Aliens established the credibility of the crew in both much more effectively, and in doing so established why one was a thriller/horror and the other an action movie.

And really, another airlock?

[em2nought]

Jeff has won me over. In the real world, short-sighted greed has never motivated people or faceless organizations to do carelessly stupid things that lead to unfortunate consequences, so why would it be plausible in a work of fiction?

Give me an example of a similar project that has been so costly in terms of equipment and life and utterly unsuccessful at any level? This isn't even a caricature of a bad project being taken too far. It's more like a criminally colossal failure that, after all of the principles have been imprisoned for egregious mismanagement, the project doubles-down with a new set of even more criminally incompetent boobs. And then that group is imprisoned and someone else still thinks it's a good idea and they criminally fail yet again. And again!

The war on drugs.

[Brian]

Jiffy, about your comment regarding Prometheus establishing the connection found in the original Alien, that being the Space Jockey with the burst out chest and a cargo hold full of eggs.

That's not entirely correct. The derelict ship found by the crew of the Nostromo and subsequently by the colonists was located on planet LV-426 where the events in Prometheus, including the crashed engineer ship, took place on LV-223. The planet in Covenant is another, completely different world.

There still remains no explanation for how the ship on LV-426 came to be there.

[Kurth]

Jeff has won me over. In the real world, short-sighted greed has never motivated people or faceless organizations to do carelessly stupid things that lead to unfortunate consequences, so why would it be plausible in a work of fiction?

Give me an example of a similar project that has been so costly in terms of equipment and life and utterly unsuccessful at any level? This isn't even a caricature of a bad project being taken too far. It's more like a criminally colossal failure that, after all of the principles have been imprisoned for egregious mismanagement, the project doubles-down with a new set of even more criminally incompetent boobs. And then that group is imprisoned and someone else still thinks it's a good idea and they criminally fail yet again. And again!

The war on drugs.

Hey, easy there . . . I love The War on Drugs!


upload image net

[hepcat]

I saw it yesterday and it reinforced my belief that Ridley Scott is one of the most overrated directors currently working. It also reminded me of why I believe they should either let this franchise die, or learn from their mistakes in Prometheus and go balls out, hardcore science fiction instead of remaking the same, tired alien film over and over again.

The good

Spoiler:

The promise of a story about David confronting the engineers.

Fassbender's differing accents for David and Walter.

The bad

Spoiler:

Avoiding the story about David confronting the engineers (beyond a brief flashback).

David going from a self sacrificing hero in Prometheus to a Bond villain without any solid reasons shown. Well, beyond a brief intro that establishes his recognition that everyone has been created by those they soon supplant. At least that was my takeaway after the intro.

The slow descent into the same, tired alien fight. We've seen this over and over again. Just stop it.

A surprise twist that Hellen Keller would've guessed.

I would have preferred that instead of being discouraged by the bad reviews for Prometheus, that Scott had learned from his mistakes (turning the ending into Halloween X) and had focused on the universe he'd helped create. It's a rich world and he just keeps going back to the same old well of monster movie. Cameron knew this and took it in a different direction.

[McNutt]

I'm way late to this. After watching this movie, I kept thinking "what in the hell is so hard about making a good Alien movie? I hated Prometheus with all of my loverboy soul, yet I thought that the writers would take some of the potential of that movie and expand upon it. Instead, we get the crazy android who plays Dr. Moreau. How about you explain why there is an alien race hell bent on making all these great planets uninhabitable? Actually, don't do that. Let's pretend nothing in Prometheus is canon.

I don't even want to talk about the stupidity of the new captain getting a gun to confront the alien who is on the underside of the ship. Just launch!

And that "surprise" ending. . . I felt so bad for everyone involved that they thought it would surprise anyone.

And Danny McBride was actually my favorite thing about the movie. I liked his character and I liked him in that role.

[Combustible Lemur]

There's a youtube somewhere that picks apart the engineers, and explains/ surmises that despite being long lived they stopped evolving/procreating and at some point after that a mutant was born their Jesus. That's why they seed the planets. They took the mutant DNA and spread it across the cosmos looking for a new mix of their DNA to jumpstart their civilization. At some point after that the engineer we called Jesus got murdered, and the original engineers decided to abandon their project and turn one of their labs into a weapons facility creating the hyper evolving black goo, inadvertently releasing it and killing everone. And weyland leaves earth and tadaa, alien movies

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[McNutt]

I still don't understand the goo. It's a planet-killing weapon and from Prometheus I thought the plan was to use that weapon to kill all of these habitable planets. In Covenant the ship drops the liquid on creatures that look exactly like the Engineers. Why?

I have no idea why the Engineers left maps on Earth that showed us how to get to their weapon staging planet.
I have no idea why the Engineers want to destroy all of these prime planets.
Was the point of the weapon to kill these planets or were they developing it for use in a war? If for a war, a war with whom?

There are questions that I would like to see answered as there might just be a cool story around it. But I'll be damned if I'm going to keep watching crappy Alien movies while they slowly give more clues.

[Paingod]

I still don't understand the goo. It's a planet-killing weapon and from Prometheus I thought the plan was to use that weapon to kill all of these habitable planets. In Covenant the ship drops the liquid on creatures that look exactly like the Engineers. Why?

I have no idea why the Engineers left maps on Earth that showed us how to get to their weapon staging planet.
I have no idea why the Engineers want to destroy all of these prime planets.
Was the point of the weapon to kill these planets or were they developing it for use in a war? If for a war, a war with whom?

There are questions that I would like to see answered as there might just be a cool story around it. But I'll be damned if I'm going to keep watching crappy Alien movies while they slowly give more clues.

1. I can't answer. I haven't actually seen Covenant.
2. I assumed that people were copying in rudimentary form the navigation charts the engineers were looking at, not specifically a map being left behind but more ancient peoples recording what they saw.
3. If there was a war brewing, maybe it was a salted earth campaign to deprive future enemies. Wouldn't rule out religious mania, either. Also possible that they felt the people they fostered were getting to far advanced and needed to be wiped out. Alternate option is that the planets were breeding grounds and the goo creates weapons that can be harvested. It's a mess with no explanation.
4. We may never know who they were at war with, maybe a civil war. It's probably hard to get a multitude of planets all on the same page.

Not helpful. Like the movies.

I prefer to watch Alien and Aliens and call it a night. I own Alien3 and Resurrection, but don't watch them unless I'm feeling the mood for a series. Mostly I put in Aliens. Mostly.

[McNutt]

[*]I assumed that people were copying in rudimentary form the navigation charts the engineers were looking at, not specifically a map being left behind but more ancient peoples recording what they saw.

This is my biggest complaint about the prequels. We have maps on earth that are thousands of years old. However the planet the maps point to is of no significance except that it was used to store a very powerful and unstable weapon. What was the importance of this planet when the maps were drawn? I can't wrap my head around this.

[*]Also possible that they felt the people they fostered were getting too far advanced and needed to be wiped out.

I thought about that too after Prometheus. However, in a Covenant flashback scene they destroyed a civilization that didn't look very advanced. No evidence of electricity or tall buildings. This species did not look like they'd be a threat to anybody. I mean they could have used a little color, sure. But they weren't a threat. Plus, weren't the ships that the Prometheus found really old? Like they had been there for a thousand years? That just makes the Engineers' plan even more bizarre because it indicates that they intended to destroy these worlds 1,000 years ago. Who would look at Earth in the middle ages and think humanity is too powerful?

[McNutt]

[*]I assumed that people were copying in rudimentary form the navigation charts the engineers were looking at, not specifically a map being left behind but more ancient peoples recording what they saw.

This is my biggest complaint about the prequels. We have maps on earth that are thousands of years old. However the planet the maps point to is of no significance except that it was used to store a very powerful and unstable weapon. What was the importance of this planet when the maps were drawn? I can't wrap my head around this.

[*]Also possible that they felt the people they fostered were getting too far advanced and needed to be wiped out.

I thought about that too after Prometheus. However, in a Covenant flashback scene they destroyed a civilization that didn't look very advanced. No evidence of electricity or tall buildings. This species did not look like they'd be a threat to anybody. I mean they could have used a little color, sure. But they weren't a threat. Plus, weren't the ships that the Prometheus found really old? Like they had been there for a thousand years? That just makes the Engineers' plan even more bizarre because it indicates that they intended to destroy these worlds 1,000 years ago. Who would look at Earth in the middle ages and think humanity is too powerful?


Mostly.