Covenant

by "HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
Published 08/25/2017 at 14:43

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STARS: 1

Finally got to see Alien Covenant for the first time yesterday and here are my impressions

First off, I liked it. It has a lot of what I like about the franchise going for it, mainly that it feels like the world it takes place in is believable and complete. Lots of attention to detail.

The story was pretty much ALIEN all over though

PLOT SPOILERS

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

mysterious transmission answered

mysterious planet/ship that leads to infection

most people die

Evil robot

strong female lead kicks ass

everything is fine back on the ship.....NOPE

“blow it out the airlock”

depressing conclusion.

Thats not to say that it’s bad because of it, a little predictable but not like A new hope 2.0 {aka the force awakens} levels of repeatability.

Great cast, Micheal Fastbender is magic sauce and Katherine Waterson brought the feels.

The question with an Alien movie for me has always been “how many times could I rewatch this and it would still be good, or even get better”

Alien - A billion

Aliens - a lot

Aliens 3 - ...Maybe in a few more years.

Aliens Resurrection - no.

Prometheus - about 5, I’ve seen it much more than that but it just doesn’t seem to get better.

Alien Covenant - sure, we’ll see how it ages.

Any AvP - HELL NAY!

The prometheus series seems bent on asking deep questions and thats nice and all but if feels to try a little too hard sometimes, on the other side of the coin you can tell that fox demanded it be more like Aliens, what with the monster tearin’ up the place more and more shootin and that felt a little half hearted...Like Scott did it because he was asked to. In that respect it doesn’t feel as whole as it could feel, but it certainly kept the action moving better than Prometheus so thats nice. I guess the nice was to put it would be that it felt familiar but new, thoughtful but with plenty of dumb action and it tells the complex story that we wanted from Matrix Revolutions without sucking like Matrix Revolutions.

I liked it, will watch again.

Replies (18)

"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
08/25/2017 at 14:54, STARS: 0

The question for this and any remake/reimagining of any classic is, “did this film need to be made?”

A lot of things go into answering that for me, like for instance, did it bring anything new?, or did it do the job better? For me, a remake needs to be better than the classic, or there was no point.

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 14:56, STARS: 1

Its not a remake or reboot though. Its a different story in the same universe.

"Blind Willy" (blindlemonchitlin)
08/25/2017 at 15:00, STARS: 0

I think it’s a bridge to a final concluding film that I hope will blow me away. As it is, I enjoyed it also. It made Prometheus a little better for me too.

"Azrek" (azrek)
08/25/2017 at 15:01, STARS: 1

Good review. I am on the opposite end of this. I hated it and Promethous.

When I see a SCI-FI preview and I see they are hundreds of years in the future, but are still using technology from today (M16s, shotguns, and so on) I consider the SCI-FI to be ‘lazy sci-fi’ and thus it has a strike against it.

Let’s take for example...Pulse Rifles from Aliens. Who doesn’t think that gun is still awesome? 10mm tip caseless, standard light armor piercing explosive rounds? Yes, 30 years later in movie making we are still using mock-up with M16s that have bits I carried on my rifle overseas a decade ago.

The story was a mess and never built up terror or horror that we came to expect. Folks were infected and aliens were popping out within a few minutes instead of hours like in Alien. It was rushed to get to plot points or 1v1 discussions on morality or purpose. It felt like the end of Matrix 2. I was disappointed with that as well.

Engineers were here…then they weren’t. Aliens were on the planet and had killed everything, but had nothing else to feed on. Meh…it was a race to kill characters off. Nothing more. Nothing was accomplished.

Lazy as F…that is how I saw the last 2 movies. I don’t recommend them to anyone and I delete them from memory like I did Alien 4.

"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
08/25/2017 at 15:02, STARS: 0

Oh, okay then. That works.

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 15:03, STARS: 1

it certainly redeemed prometheus a little. As for the final film blowing me away? Im not holding my breath as its supposed to have a “king” alien. meh. The thing this film does do is setup a very interesting question about how David’s eggs get on the derelict.

"R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet" (r-saldana)
08/25/2017 at 15:05, STARS: 1

I’m gonna check back on this thread after I watch it this weekend. Did not read post but will after I watch the movie this weekend.

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 15:06, STARS: 0

I see that point too. For me though it doesn’t feel like Matrix where all the mystery is removed and replaced with colonel sanders, it felt like there is a lot of depth to the universe to be explored still

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 15:09, STARS: 0

sounds good. Hope you like it. Kept me entertained.

"Azrek" (azrek)
08/25/2017 at 15:10, STARS: 0

To me all the mystery has been removed. We know the Engineer’s home world now and how Xenomorphs were created...Mystery from Alien and Aliens is solved. I liked the idea there was a huge universe and planets with hostile life. Life that would wipe us out if they got here.
Where was the Company? The Company was the best part of Aliens. They were humans, but vile corrupt bastards willing to cut throats to get a weapon.

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 15:34, STARS: 0

Ah but the space jockey wasn’t an engineer

"Azrek" (azrek)
08/25/2017 at 15:37, STARS: 0

Nope...

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/The_Pilot

"BobintheMtns" (bobinthemtns)
08/25/2017 at 16:54, STARS: 0

God I hated this movie so much....... And watching it I was like, “ this isn’t bad, what was everyone talking about saying it sucked? it’s alright ” until the last 30 minutes.....

Holy fuck.... the ending sucked balls.

So the friendly relationship between David and the chick in prometheus was a ruse so he could just dissect her?? What the fuck is that shit??? Alien movies are cool because they always feature a strong female lead... But I guess we can just dues ex machina that chick and slice and dice her....

And then when the dumbass cap’t shot the xenomorph over david’s shoulder and David freaks on him... it’s OBVIOUS that there’s a connection, but David’s all “follow me down this dark stairway away from everyone else, I’ll explain” NO DUMBASS THAT’S WHEN YOU SHOOT THE CREEPY FUCKING ANDROID TOO!!

And then back on the ship they don’t verify that it’s their android and not david??????? For fucking real???!! How hard is this? “ COMPUTER, SCAN THE FUCKING BUILD DATE OF THE ANDROID, WHAT IS IT???? ”

But nah, let’s just not even think about that the IDENTICAL android who’s evil could of pulled a switcheroo... Let’s just let him tuck us in to our sleep pods...

And yeah, the mocked up m16's rather than pulse rifles (the coolest sci-fi guns EVAR!!)

Fuck this movie with a sideways pineapple.... And I actually liked prometheus.....

As some movie reviewer put it, “Congratuations! There’s now more shitty aliens movies than good ones.........”

Sorry for the rant, saw it like two weeks ago and haven’t been able to vent over it yet..............................................................

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 16:57, STARS: 0

“Alien movies are cool because they always feature a strong female lead... But I guess we can just dues ex machina that chick and slice and dice her....”

Hello Aliens 3....

Which is something I hate about that movie. I hated the ending here as well, but I respect that its not a happy ending for the sake of happy endings.

I guess for me there are only a few good aliens movies, and while Alien and Aliens is still the top of the heap, these fill in the massive quality gulf between them and the rest of the turds. I like the storyline they are following but its kinda clear that the studio won some arguments on this film and I don’t think its better for it. As for the guns...who cares, its not like makes or breaks the movie for me. I mean, it was a time of early colonization and the pulse rifles were from another time when colonial marines were necessary. Lets not forget these movies are set about 100 years apart.

"BobintheMtns" (bobinthemtns)
08/25/2017 at 17:03, STARS: 0

I don’t need a happy ending.. especially if we’re dealing with xenomorphs..

But it was like the old horror films in it’s stupidity.. “Hey, someone’s killing our camp mates, but I’m gonna go for a walk by myself alone tonight”

It’s hard for me take a movie/characters seriously when it’s that stupid...

At least in aliens 3, Ripley sacrificed herself to keep the xenomorph from Weyland-yatuma corp... Here... fuck.. I don’t know what their point was.. Let’s just use heroine from prometheus as a bait fish.. and we’ll make this lead woman too stupid to even consider that this might be evil David..... just ugh...

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/25/2017 at 17:17, STARS: 1

There is always the “why they so stupid!” in these types of films but remember, YOU and I know things the characters don’t, we yell at them for doing dumb things but its like the b-movie slasher trope...we know the teen going into the cabin to check on he friend is toast, but she doesn’t.

"StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8" (stndibnz1)
08/26/2017 at 11:21, STARS: 0

I’ll watch it. I finally watched Promethius last month expecting the worst, and actually liked it! It was enjoyable, which is all I can really ask for. Though, I really need to go back and watch the first two Alien movies again.

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
08/26/2017 at 14:02, STARS: 1

That’s what it boils down to for me... Did I enjoy it? Good movie. No? Bad