# New Alien movie: yea or nay?



## Robyo (Apr 28, 2017)

I think it's called Alien: Covenant or something. The first two films of the franchise are the best. It took a dive after that. AVP? Please. (I did enjoy the Predator and Predators films however).

With Ridley Scott at the helm of Prometheus, I was so looking forward to it. And so disappointed. Great design, sure. Some good acting... but script was terrible. Motivations, dialogue, plot mostly (the Engineers prelude was ok) just subpar.

All that being said, I'll probably go see the newest one. The trailer doesn't look terrible.


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## Morrus (Apr 28, 2017)

Very hopeful. It looks great. But Prometheus looked great at this point, too, so I should probably lower my hopes. I expect we'll see it opening night.


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## ccs (Apr 28, 2017)

Solidly neutral.
I'll probably wait & see it when it hits our local $ theatre.  I wasnt impressed by Promethiuos so I'm not expecting too much out of this one.


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## cmad1977 (Apr 28, 2017)

Firmly 'meh'. 


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## Deset Gled (Apr 28, 2017)

I'm excited (but also haven't seen the trailer, nor do I care to).

To put this in perspective: I am a huge fan of the original Alien and Aliens (and H.R. Giger in general).  I can find some entertainment in 3, AvP, and AvPR even though I don't think they're in the same league as the first two.  And I legitimately enjoyed Prometheus and found it got better on subsequent viewings (as opposed to say, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them or Star Wars I to III, prequels that gets worse with each viewing).


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## Morrus (Apr 28, 2017)

Rewatching Prometheus right now. Not as bad as I remember. They're no more dumb than Hudson was.


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## Robyo (Apr 29, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Rewatching Prometheus right now. Not as bad as I remember. They're no more dumb than Hudson was.




Aw man! Hudson was my favorite. So many good one-liners.


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## Morrus (Apr 29, 2017)

Robyo said:


> Aw man! Hudson was my favorite. So many good one-liners.




Me too! He was still pretty dumb though. 

Secure that ****, Hudson!


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## Robyo (May 21, 2017)

Okay, just watched it and must say Alien Covenant is awesome. Much better than Prometheus. There are still a few duh moments (don't go into that obviously dangerous alien spaceship!), but it kept my attention and the characters were tolerable. The story was pretty good too.


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## Morrus (May 21, 2017)

I saw it last week. Loved it! It's not perfect but it's miles ahead of Prometheus, Alien 3, or Resurrection. 


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## Olgar Shiverstone (May 22, 2017)

Hmm ... might have to give it a watch.  I had given it a pass based on the reviews.


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## Hand of Evil (May 22, 2017)

Nay - predictable and nothing new


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## HobbitFan (May 22, 2017)

Say it last night.  Pretty mediocre.  Not as monumentally stupid as Prometheus was buts its pretty boring.  Not good as either a follow-up to Prometheus or as a stand alone Aliens movie.


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## was (May 22, 2017)

..Having seen all of the others, I think I'll wait and rent it.


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## atomicsorcery (May 22, 2017)

I am interested more in how the early trailers had it start as a colonization movie as i find that kind of thing fascinating.


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## wicked cool (May 22, 2017)

I liked it a lot. It was an improvement over all but the first 2. There are parts where it reminded me of the old black and white movies, star trek, dr  who where the hero goes to the castle... 

My big problem with the movie and the previous 1 is how dumb everyone is. the acting is fine its just not believable

Fassbender gets an A+. Got a terminator vibe from him at 1 point. Special effects a+


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## RangerWickett (May 22, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Rewatching Prometheus right now. Not as bad as I remember. They're no more dumb than Hudson was.




There's a fan edit that spliced in the deleted scenes and cut out some of the egregious moments (e.g., the Engineer ship gets knocked out of the sky, falls to the ground, and then we just cut to Shaw trapped). It really helped to add in the axe-fight against the Engineer at the end. The movie was so close to being great; they just mucked some things up in editing.



Morrus said:


> I saw it last week. Loved it! It's not perfect but it's miles ahead of Prometheus, Alien 3, or Resurrection.




I liked it, but again I feel like some different editing decisions would have made it tighter. From the moment they land on the planet until the 'alien smashes its face into the window' that they showed in the trailer, it was great, but before and after that it lacked something.

[sblock]I don't see the benefit of having the planet they land on not be their original target. I know there's a tradition of 'interrupt our mission when we receive a mysterious signal,' but I think they could have just started with them waking up and having a small disaster because of a stellar outburst (which could also explain the storm over the planet). As they mourn they pick up the signal from Shaw, so you save a few minutes on the 'repair the sail' scene. 

Then at the end, the fight versus the Xenomorph wasn't nearly as interesting as the one when they were escaping the planet. Again, it seemed too much like trying to recapture the same formula of Alien and Aliens with the 'surprise, it followed you' twist, which at this point is a cliche, not a twist. Either cut that, or find a way to make it more intense. Maybe have David actively cooperating with the Xenomorph, instead of maintaining his ruse. After all, if he kills the surviving humans he's got thousands of colonists to experiment on.

Even the android-swap twist was too obvious a twist. I really wanted a scene of them quizzing their android buddy 'Walter' as soon as they're not in mortal peril, _just_ to be sure. You could have had a scene earlier where Walter and David discussed the 'cabin by the lake' bit, so that the humans can be intelligent and wary but the villain can still trick them.[/sblock]

So yeah, great middle and climax, unnecessary early bits and weak ending.


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## Morrus (May 22, 2017)

Can't easily selectively quote text on a phone but it would be too much coincidence for the Engineer home world that David and Shaw went to to be the exact same place those folks decided to colonise.

The end twist was extremely obvious, yeah. Was the wrong hand missing?


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## Legatus Legionis (May 23, 2017)

.


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## Robyo (May 23, 2017)

Yeah, it feels like the story line is coalescing into an epic (evil) android trilogy.


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## Jester David (May 23, 2017)

Saw it. I quite liked it. 

It's not great. A firm bronze medal in the Aliens franchise. (Haven't seen the re-edited version of _Alien 3_ yet.) It's much shallower than _Prometheus_ and lacks the questioning and philosophy that drives that movie. There's far less going on in terms of both theme and subtext. 
And the narrative of the movie really overlaps with _Alien_. It doesn't bring much that's new to the table. There's little that we haven't seen before, apart from the "mould bubbles" (which actually surprised me; I was expected death by fungal eruption and not what actually happened).

But much of it worked. It was scary in tense in the right places, and I was uncertain who was going to die and how much damage there would be. While stupid decisions were made, they felt more believable than the ones from _Prometheus_, where people did stupid things for no good reason at all. Here, they were far less trained people doing stupid things for panicky human reasons like love or misplaced trust. And it was just enjoyable to watch in places. 
It followed up nicely from _Prometheus_ without being shackled to that movie.

I really hope it does well enough to warrant another sequel. Because damn do I want to know where it goes next.


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## RangerWickett (May 23, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Can't easily selectively quote text on a phone but it would be too much coincidence for the Engineer home world that David and Shaw went to to be the exact same place those folks decided to colonise.
> 
> The end twist was extremely obvious, yeah. Was the wrong hand missing?




I didn't think it was the engineer homeworld, just a colony of theirs. But, shrug, by my understanding of interstellar colonization, I don't know why they wouldn't have gone to earth again.


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## Jester David (May 23, 2017)

Spoilers!

[sblock]


Morrus said:


> The end twist was extremely obvious, yeah. Was the wrong hand missing?



No. It was the... right hand. 

I guessed the twist, but then began to doubt myself after the final bit in the ship. A friend said it best: he expected the switch or an impregnation, but not both. He's just so helpful at the end you begin to question...[/sblock]

[sblock]


RangerWickett said:


> I don't see the benefit of having the planet they land on not be their original target.



I like it for the choice it adds. The captain makes a bad call and people die as a result. Everything happens because someone doesn't stick to the plan. 

But I imagine it's mostly so there can be another planet as a destination for a potential sequel. 
[/sblock]


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## Morrus (May 23, 2017)

RangerWickett said:


> I didn't think it was the engineer homeworld, just a colony of theirs.




I thought at the end of Prometheus that's where they said they were going.


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## Ryujin (May 23, 2017)

Morrus said:


> I thought at the end of Prometheus that's where they said they were going.




Yes, Shaw said that she was going to seek them out to find the answer to "why."

It's good to see these mostly positive reviews. "Prometheus" had seriously disappointed me and made me leery of seeing another movie in this franchise again. From reports that i have seen the original script for "Prometheus", which can be found online, looked like a much better movie than the one which was actually made.


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## Janx (May 23, 2017)

I was under the mistaken impression this film was by the guy who did District 9.  Instead, it's round 2 of Prometheus and Ridley's evil android from Blade Runner.

it was a puzzling cascade of "no kids, you don't just change flight plans in the middle of the ride, you don't just go down to the planet right away without doing some scans, you don't leave the ship with one person who has work to do, you don't let people walk around without scanning for dangerous life/bacteria, you don't keep talking to the android who seems to be friends with the monster who ate your crewman."

I've largely forgotten large chunks of Prometheus, but if I recall, it had the same problem of characters doing really stupid things. that NASA or Army guys would have had protocols for.


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## Ilalanga (May 23, 2017)

I'm tired of the films about aliens, it just seems that they are all the same and nothing special


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## Morrus (May 23, 2017)

Janx said:


> I was under the mistaken impression this film was by the guy who did District 9.  Instead, it's round 2 of Prometheus and Ridley's evil android from Blade Runner.
> 
> it was a puzzling cascade of "no kids, you don't just change flight plans in the middle of the ride, you don't just go down to the planet right away without doing some scans, you don't leave the ship with one person who has work to do, you don't let people walk around without scanning for dangerous life/bacteria, you don't keep talking to the android who seems to be friends with the monster who ate your crewman."
> 
> I've largely forgotten large chunks of Prometheus, but if I recall, it had the same problem of characters doing really stupid things. that NASA or Army guys would have had protocols for.




Don't ever watch Star Trek, whatever you do!


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## Robyo (May 24, 2017)

Ilalanga said:


> I'm tired of the films about aliens, it just seems that they are all the same and nothing special




Well it IS in the title of the film. There is an attempt to build upon the mythos of the xenos. They show a little more about the mysterious creator race.

There is some good reponses. I agree that protocols should have been more strict. I am tired of horror movies where the protagonists make dumb decisions.

*Spoiler Alert Question: So are they trying to say the classic black xenomorph form is actually a genetic experiment of an android? That is a switch... I figured they were engineered by the Space Jockeys.


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## Morrus (May 24, 2017)

Robyo said:


> So are they trying to say the classic black xenomorph form is actually a genetic experiment of an android?




I think they're doing a little more than just trying to say it!


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## Robyo (May 24, 2017)

Morrus said:


> I think they're doing a little more than just trying to say it!




They don't really explain where the eggs came from. There is no queen, but maybe they were in stasis somewhere on the ship. In the first movie, the derelict ship was full of eggs, so they obviously had that bio-technology. Perhaps they get it from David somehow? Weird.


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## Morrus (May 24, 2017)

Robyo said:


> They don't really explain where the eggs came from. There is no queen, but maybe they were in stasis somewhere on the ship. In the first movie, the derelict ship was full of eggs, so they obviously had that bio-technology. Perhaps they get it from David somehow? Weird.




Yeah, the next question is how does the space jockey get to the planet with all the eggs in Alien? I guess that's what the next film is about.


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## Morrus (May 24, 2017)

Just listened to an interview with Ridley Scott. Couple of things I didn't come away from the film with, but maybe I would on another viewing. 

1) The goo kills the town square full of Engineers instantly. It's basically a plague and kills all animal life on the planet, including all of the Engineers not right there. That's why there's no animal life when they arrive. 

2) It's an anti-religious message. The acting captain, who talks about his faith a lot, is the one who makes most of the stupid decisions. His second in command is much more competent and objects to his decisions. 

3) He believes David because until that point he still instinctively trusts  synthetics. 

4) I don't think he's seen Alien 3 and Resurrection from what he was saying, and isn't too keen on the lore that Cameron added. I suspect we won't see another Queen.


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## Jester David (May 24, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Just listened to an interview with Ridley Scott. Couple of things I didn't come away from the film with, but maybe I would on another viewing.
> 
> 1) The goo kills the town square full of Engineers instantly. It's basically a plague and kills all animal life on the planet, including all of the Engineers not right there. That's why there's no animal life when they arrive.
> 
> ...



3) That's how I read that scene. He's being stupid, but he was outright told it was safe by a being he thinks is programmed to serve and saved his life once already...


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## wicked cool (May 24, 2017)

I hope they don't scrap the Queen/hive setting

Was Scott told to concentrate on the alien aspect and scrap the space jockey portion but has forgotten about alien 1 or should we assume that somehow it all ties together


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## Morrus (May 24, 2017)

wicked cool said:


> I hope they don't scrap the Queen/hive setting
> 
> Was Scott told to concentrate on the alien aspect and scrap the space jockey portion but has forgotten about alien 1 or should we assume that somehow it all ties together




I don't know what Scott was told, if anything.


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## Eltab (May 28, 2017)

Ilalanga said:


> I'm tired of the films about aliens, it just seems that they are all the same and nothing special



Before making any more _Alien_ films, the folks in charge should read Stewart Cowley's books (especially _Spacewrecks_ but also _Spaceships: 2000-2100_ and _Great Space Battles_) to add something a bit different.


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## 76512390ag12 (May 28, 2017)

Meh. Left half way through

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