Alien Covenant (beware spoilers lurking in the shadows)

I saw it last night, mostly disappointing.

David(the android from prometheus) was really the only interesting character but many of the things he did seemed absurd flip flopping between helping and hindering the crew. The movie would have been significantly more interesting had they just rescued him and brought him back the the ship and slowly revealed his intentions as all the shit hit the fan on the ship.

I like the idea that the main character of a movie is the evil the villain and that he's had 10 years to study/experiment/evolve the species, but it presented too many unanswered questions and was unsatisfying: How did he control their population? How is is possible that he survived 10 years unscathed? What laid those eggs?

I really didn't like the take on the xenomorphs, they should be ambush hunters not frontal assault bullet sponges, and it seemed wrong that the would go from infection to fully grown killing machine in a matter of hours (or minutes in one case)...

James Franco was in movie for all of 10 seconds?

Fassbender fingering and kissing Fassbender?

I was fairly neutral on Prometheus it had some interesting ideas peppered with a lot of dumb bullshit but I was happy to get more aliens at that point, Covenant was significantly worse and possibly a new low bar for the franchise.

Awful awful movie. 100x worse than prometheus, and that's really saying something.

I saw it yesterday too, thought it was mediocre. I wish we got more info on the engineers and basically answer any of the questions i would have from Prometheus, didn't even get much of that. The crew was more focused on staying alive rather than being in awe at the destroyed engineer city around them but that's understandable, but still bums me out.

I liked it a lot, much better than Prometheus.

Zero interest in seeing it. Ridley Scott hasn't made a good movie since the kingdom of heaven directors cut.

That includes The Martian, it was a shell of what the book was.

I thought it was ok but i didnt think it was great. I did like it more than Prometheous. I saw it with my friend and he walked out halfway through to hang out with his girlfriend instead lol.

I know others have probably had this moment already, but for me this was the first time I said "But I've already seen this film several times." I saw prometheus and thought it was okay, but after seeing the marketing for covenant I just don't see what new entries into this series have to offer anymore. It seems like there's a through line narrative with the whole Fassbender stuff, but I kinda don't care to be honest.

While I agree with your first thought there, let's not get too hasty on including The Martian with the Ridley hate here. I don't know how involved he (really) was in that film, but I feel pretty happy with how it turned out. The fact of the matter is the writing was pretty much done. Andy Weir (The author) even said he wrote it to be easily adapted to the big screen. Despite a few scenes from the book being cut, that film is one of the most faithful adaptations I've ever seen.

It wasn't a complete movie. Instead of doing one thing well, it did two things poorly. Luckily, I was able to demand my money back after seeing it.

I kinda liked it, but was really put off by how obvious the final "twist" was.

I've been watching the alien making of documentaries from the alien anthology Blu Ray, and Ridley Scott really has nothing to do with the stories of his films. He said himself that he loathes giving actors direction and let's them work it out themselves with the script they were given. So when he's paired with a fantastic script it's going to be a tour de force, when not... Well, at least it looks really fucking good.

It was kind of funny because the DP of alien had an interview in the doc and was like "yeah, I was basically a second cameraman for Ridley"

Also, those making of docs are pretty amazing. I highly recommend them, especially alien 3 because it doesn't hold back from the hell of making that movie.

Boy did I hate this. As a movie, whatever. It's fine. As an ALIEN movie, dabbling in the mythology? This is almost worse than Alien vs Predator the movie.

I get the impression that a lot stuff got cut out of the film. I didn't t think James Franco's character would get killed off so quickly. There are some observations I want to bring up.

• Did the derelict ship crashed land on the planet first or did it dock in the engineer city?
• The expedition crew on the planet is confused about quarantine protocols.
• Dr. Shaw was mutated to an alien queen to birth the facehuger pods.
• The shower scene venture into slasher film territory. Parts of that scene being used in the trailers diminish it's impact in the film.
• Borrows ideas from Aliens and Alien 3. Using the heavy machinery to fight off the creature. Using the corridors of the ship to funnel the creature out.
• The twist towards the end is obvious.
• The expedition teams enters an undiscovered planet without space suits.
• The remaining expedition team members don't seem fascinated or curious about encountering a dead city.
• Is David a natural blonde or did he bleach his hair? It's funny that a marooned android has long hair but a clean shaven face.
• Wouldn't Daniels noticed a scar below a certain characters neck?

I thought the movie was okay. There were strong performances from Michael Fassbender and Danny McBride. I would like Noomi Rapace to have continue the series. I'm not sure what to make of Katherine Waterston. I think she is a good actress. The thing is that I feel that she needs to be her own character and not a carbon-copy of Ripley. The film should be re-titled Prometheus 2: David's World.

I liked it quite a bit, but still came away disappointed. Mainly because this is a sequel to Prometheus more than it is an Alien movie. The Xenomorphs are kind of barely in it, and the crew contending with them is not at all a focal point of the film. Calling "Alien" is purely a marketing thing. That said, as someone who liked Prometheus a lot, I think this movie was even better, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. I liked the David/Walter dynamic quite a bit, the acting was excellent, especially from Fassbender and Crudup, and man, the movie looked fucking GORGEOUS. I don't feel the need to have every single thing answered for me, so I'm really into the somewhat ambiguous timeline of events and how it all pieces together.

And for everyone who thinks the twist at the end was obvious, yeah, that's kind of the point. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the characters in the story do not. I thought that was handled really well. When David is actively helping them trap and kill the Xeno, it definitely plants a seed of doubt in your mind, even though you know it has to be David and not Walter. Then the other shoe drops and he fucks them over good. David is pure fucking evil and it's awesome.

Didn't see it. I might not even watch it on Blu-ray. I wanted a continuation of Prometheus. I wanted to follow Elizabeth Shaw and David's head to the engineer's home world. As I expected, it seems to be tropy horror, a retread of previous films.

Someone just sent me Angry Joe's response. I don't even subscribe to Angry Joe anymore, because I stopped caring about his opinions and style, but from what I saw of the movie, I believe him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAQGAOPu1k0

I seriously do not understand the "acting was excellent" comments. Did we watch the same movie? Everyone was painfully flat and boring. Billy Crudup was borderline embarrassing. Fassbender's fake American accent sounded so forced and terrible. None of the emotional moments we're earned or impactful in any way.

Except it's not that at all. In fact, the horror aspects make up maybe a third of the film. The movie absolutely does continue from Prometheus, though not in the way you were hoping. Whether or not you like that continuation is up to you. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for either but I still thought it was very interesting in the end.

Yah you probably shouldn't base your opinion for this movie you haven't seen on "Angry Joe's" golden thoughts. Of course it's very possible that you would really dislike it regardless, seeing what your tone is going into it, and you probably would be justified in thinking so because Covenant while interesting is still not the Alien movie fans have been craving all these years - but at least your distaste would be from first hand experience. Angry Joe is not worth the time it would take someone to glance at his video thumbnail by accident, much less actually watching the whole video. I would gladly watch Covenant several times in a row than watch anything that guy has put out.

That said, if you wanted a continuation of Prometheus then this is definitely it. As Onekillwonder mentions, it's probably not the continuation most of us imagined it would be, but it has enough original ideas mixed in with hokey horror tropes and a dash of the classic Alien formula that it's a perfectly passable, O-K, movie. I think I enjoyed Prometheus a little more because it was paced better, but Covenant has much more "Alien" in it which I did appreciate to a degree. Was it great? Nope. Was it at least good? Ehh.. Ridley Scott was a director who in the past could do no wrong in my eyes, but it really does look like he lost that magic touch, at least when it comes to the Alien franchise anyway.

I think it's really telling that from all the trailers my biggest interest was to see how Danny McBride will do in a serious role. He does fine for the most part, but there is one scene where I thought he did and outstanding job of projecting realistic, very human, grief - like you could just feel the gut punch.. kudos Danny McBride. Fassbender is as good as in Prometheus and the rest of the cast is somewhat forgettable. The Ripley stand-in actress is probably my favorite from the entire crew.

Yeah, that's why I'm probably not gonna watch it at all. It's like making Luke a background character in the second Star Wars movie, or just killing him off screen. Or like starting The Two Towers with Sam and Frodo no longer journeying towards Mordor. Disappointing. I think they should have shown the alien world as far back as Alien 3. The prison planet was boring.

MAN this movie had some fantastic things in it but was SO bogged down by the tension-less xenomorph scenes and quite literally non existent characters aside from Fassbender.

The first horrific scene was fucking superb and had me on the edge of my seat. Tense as hell. All the stuff with the Fassbender android? fantastic. The ideas and themes that came with that? fantastic. The look of the movie? fantastic.

The crew members and xenomorph horror scenes? Fucking horrible. So middle of the road for me...overall I'm disappointed but I'm more....frustrated. I could feel a great movie trying to get out but being suppressed by the people who complained about Prometheus being too weird. Folks, this is what happens when you complain about things for being different. You get the dumber version.

I must say I was happy with how much of a Prometheus sequel this was....just wish they had gone all the way with it.

@ezekiel It's muuuuuch more of a Prometheus sequel than you think. But like what everyone else is saying, It also wants to be dumb and give people xenomorphs because that's what people recognize. None of it is scary though aside from the first scene of bloody, gory panic involving an alien. THAT scene is great.

Not reading any of that. Just coming on to say I'm super excited to see this film! I want to go see it tomorrow. I'll come back on to discuss it when I see it. This and Twin Peaks on tonight, super exciting.

A couple things I really liked:

• Quarantine Scene
• The general cinematography
• Michael Fassbender
• Danny McBride is surprisingly endearing.

A LOT of things I disliked:

• Character motivations apart from David felt tacked on for most of the characters.
• Really bummed they killed Shaw off-screen.
• Narrative feels like two films grafted together awkwardly--awkward Prometheus creationist musings and old-school Alien horror. Neither gets fair due.
• Like Prometheus, narrative logic and basic scientific logic don't survive for long. Helmets, people. Helmets.
• I still don't understand why we needed this movie. Explaining the origin of the Xenomorph demystifies its horror, and the links between Prometheus and Alien are getting more and more convoluted/contradictory as we go.

I appreciated that Prometheus was so willing to stay as removed from Alien as it was, even if some of the logic weaving that film's events together wasn't always clear. Alien: Covenant seems like a simultaneous retread of Prometheus AND Alien, AND it wants to be a sequel to Prometheus, AND it wants to be a prequel to Alien. Really, it should've picked one of these goals and gone all-in toward it.

Ridley Scott can still present horror and uncanny vistas like few other filmmakers. I'd still go see a third Ridley Scott Alien prequel if it means I can gorge for two hours on his cinematography.

I don't know, I just liked it. There's something about that Alien universe that's very appealing to me. The very recognizable 'old' tech combined with futuristic stuff (I love the holographic projections etc) and ofcourse the 'alien tech'. And seeing a whole ship full of confident humans getting shred to pieces by weird alien monsters never gets tired.

I can fully understand people disliking it, though, because it's all very predictable. :)

I think I hate the concept of prequels in general. Why do we need an explanation of the existence of the Xenomorph? Especially that anyone with half brain figured out as soon as they saw two Michael Fassbenders. Also not a fan of Alien 3ing (i.e killing off a character with off screen like Newt and Hicks) Noomi Rapace's character from Prometheus. I guess she did serve some purpose but it would have been nice if they could have had her for a scene or two. Prequel shit aside I thought it was an okay sci-fi horror movie about a group of colonist running into some aliens. It was kinda weird seeing Danny McBride play a serious character especially since I was a huge fan of Eastbound and Down but he was pretty good in the movie as Tennessee.

@inevpatoria: Helmets with reinforced visors or maybe like Dead Space helmets would really alleviate 95% of problems people have in these Alien movies. That and of course not taking a sunday stroll through alien planets and sniffing all the fauna along the way. Seriously I mean when it started raining I was thinking "what if this was acid rain, you idiots, what if.. oh forget it.." Definitely not Prometheus bad, but still very much "don't go in there!" classic horror-trope bad.

Honestly, I thought the film was better written than Prometheus and the characters weren't as stupid, but all that aside, Prometheus was a better film to me and harbored way more excitement from me. I know it seems an awkward thing to say perhaps, but I always liked the Alien franchise's horror aspect more as a take on sci-fi, than watching the films as a horror. They're just really good sci-fi's to me with a horror take. This film went way, way too far into the horror/slasher direction and didn't give room for much else, where it wanted to show you how many ways an alien creature could kill humans. They don't answer any questions brought up from Prometheus really other than where the facehuggers, the eventual typical xenomorph and the eggs come from. Oh and the unfortunate, depressing demise of Shaw.

There was nothing interesting to say about the engineer's or even the world they went to in this; it was just concerned with evil David killing humans. Maybe that's what some fans want, but it was disappointing to me. I also hope the pre-sequel (or whatever you call it) that takes place in between this and Prometheus isn't just that but is also a sequel to Covenant. I don't always need a happy ending, but I didn't like this ending. It was super obvious that that was David, and they let us hang there as we watch his plan laid out. It's an interesting twist on the normality of the Alien endings though. I just wanted David to get killed, so that sucked. I see bartok mention how they treated Shaw like Newt and Hicks, and yeah, that's a really good analogy. That was just a part of what makes it all kind of depressing. Eh... I guess it has me curious to see what's next in the story. It was good, but it just went a bit much in the slasher direction.

I felt that it didn't give enough time to let us experience the atmosphere and setting either. The biggest issue for me is perhaps its strength to some, which is that they just put too much priority into the violent ways humans should die. I think it's kind of goofy that one of the biggest complaints about Alien 3 is that they killed off Newt and Hicks shown in the beginning of that film, and yet at the end of this, any potential for likability for the characters that survive in this is already diminished since we kind of know their fate, and so there's no real reason to have hope for their extended survival. I didn't need more creator talk, but I wanted a little more than we got. Prior to this, there were interesting theories about what goes on in this film and what the world was and who the engineers really are for example, and yet none of that was present.

Edit - Oh, what the heck. I guess Awakening does take place after Covenant, and Ridley Scott simply said the names wrong? I don't understand.

@ltsmash: If Alien 5 ever does come out (and the probability of that seems dim now), then Resurrection and three would be de-canonized from what I understand. Also, Covenant is supposed to be the last in the timeline for the Prometheus trilogy. The next one is actually supposed to take place before Covenant, unless you don't mean dark middle chapter so literally.

Watched the movie yesterday and hated it, so this was very cathartic.

I actually enjoyed it. It's not a perfect movie or anything, but as someone who really enjoyed Prometheus, I was pretty happy here by the end. Sure, there are holes in this movie, specifically David killing (seemingly) the entire Engineer race, but if that's true then how did they survive and still explore other planets without knowing that their race on their homeworld was destroyed? I am a bit bummed about what they did with Elizabeth Shaw, as I wanted to see that character again. But turning David into the main bad guy here was a fantastic decision. I'm not sure if I'm 100% on board with him being the so-called "creator" of the xenomorph race, but I'm also not put off by it. I enjoyed that while they kind of just danced around the idea of him being a bad guy in the original, here he has become a full blown villain.

I look forward to whatever comes next.

I saw it the other day. My biggest gripe about it was that it couldn't decide if it was a horror movie or an action movie. If it picked one over the other it would have been more focused and could have been a slightly better movie.

@monkeyman04: The movie kind of felt like a slasher to me (it even has a pointless shower sex scene) none of the characters were developed enough to care about and were pretty much just fodder to keep the killing pace up. As an Alien movie, it aint great. As a slasher movie, it's alright.

The movie was utter dogshit from start to finish. The only good thing I have to say about it is that in a small number of scenes, the cinematography and the visuals were well done. Besides that, I have nothing good to say about this trainwreck.

Character motivations, general intelligence of the crew, pacing problems, and a serious issue with timing / tone just made it borderline unwatchable. More detail in the spoilers below.

Seems like I'm in the minority for this but I loved it. Re-watching things is always helpful because that allows time to question things a bit more, but for the first viewing I thought it was great.
I wanted more Prometheus, and I wanted more Aliens, and I was given both. It was fun, the aliens killed people, the synths gained consciousness, all good.

Like here's the thing, what do people expect from this series? If you count AVP there has been EIGHT movies in the Alien franchise. AVP, AVP 2, Prometheus, Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection and now Alien Covenant.

Here is a little test, point to the good ones. No one is pointing to AVP, no one is pointing to AVP 2, some people would point to Prometheus, but it's a mixed bag generally landing on the dislike for it. Alien and Aliens? Big old check mark for those two, Alien 3, refer to Prometheus. Alien Resurrection? Hah, not bloody likely. Now Alien Covenant seems to be on the low side of things as well.
So of EIGHT films, TWO are unanimously good. What are you people expecting?
I know exactly what I wanted, I knew almost exactly how it was going to end (survivor wise, tough chick plus maybe one dude is a solid Alien end point) I want some sort of lore expansion, then people dying for a while. I got it, and it was still literally better than most of the Alien franchise regardless.

I'm not saying anyone's opinion on it are wrong or invalid, it's just a movie after all, but maybe it's wise to check expectations for this series.

@zolroyce: I'd like some semblance of intelligence from the characters. The original Alien had this. The crew were nowhere near as dumb the ones in Prometheus or Covenant. Heck, Ripley was the smartest one and even she barely made it out alive. As a result, that movie created tension like no other.

I'd also like some resolution to the philosophical aspects of the story. "Who created us and why?" - this is never answered in a satisfying manner. To be fair, should I be looking for an answer to something like this in an Alien movie? Fuck no. But the onus is on them. They brought up this whole discussion and their attempt at an answer just falls flat.

As far as a good monster movie? Make me care for your characters. Besides the fact that they're dumb as bricks, they just had 0 personality. So when they're offed one after the other, I don't care because they're both incapable and boring.

This last reason is part of why Predator is a classic. The characters were (mostly) very well capable and had interesting personalities (love or hate them; you at least had an opinion.) I cared when they died because it sucked to lose an interesting character and it had the added benefit of raising the tension. You realize that the Predator is formidable based on how it was able to kill these tough dudes with relative ease.

Neither Prometheus nor Covenant had any of the above going for it. I have no idea how the latter got a 71% of Rotten Tomatoes. All I know is that this series either needs to die or shouldn't be directed by Ridley Scott anymore, cause I'm not gonna sit through his nonsense again.

Yeah, about that....Ridley backtracked on his comments about "Awakening" in an IGN interview earlier this month referring to it as Blomkamp's film....which doesn't make sense as he originally said the order was "Prometheus, Awakening, Covenant" but Awakening was never ahead of Covenant production-wise and was never actually a serious thing according to him when he revealed the project was dead.

He also flip-flopped on how many films was in the pipeline, saying he'll do "one, maybe two more" instead of the four teased a few months back.

Unless Covenant opens big in China, we may not get any as it's not doing so well thus far at the box office, and given the story they've set up for a sequel, I don't know how they'd be able to pull it off on an even smaller budget unless they go running back to Blomkamp as he's proved with District 9, he can do wonders with $30 million.