Alien Covenant / Prometheus / Aliens / AvP / Discussion Thread

General Discussion
1681

(To be fair, from just what I’ve seen of the trailers, they seem have entirely too few people to populate a healthy colony long-term anyway even if everyone were 100% heterosexual-to-the-bone and even they had actually scouted out the damn place to make sure it was truly safe. They needed more genetic diversity and, apparently from everyone’s reviews, far fewer idiots.)

Also, to be fair to locoghoul, what counts or doesn’t count as “science fiction” is hella nebulous, though I would say that Dredd definitely counts not just because of the future it takes place in, but because of the fictional technology that gets used, which gets significant focus when it comes to enforcing the law. For an almost counterexample of this, I would say that if it wasn’t for the animal-metamorphosis process that the title alludes to being presented as at least vaguely scientific, then despite also taking place in some type of dystopian future or at least alternate modern-day, then The Lobster wouldn’t count as “science fiction”; it’s still rather debatable if it does, honestly, though that’s an entirely different thread:

I honestly figured you would were implying 2011-2013 given Prometheus came out in the middle of 2012, but that’s why I asked, so thanks.

In continuing with this, it would seem that 2011 was an even weaker year for non-franchise (sci-fi) movies, but I Am Number Four was surprisingly decent even if the protagonist acted like a reckless idiot half of the time and I have at least heard good things about Super 8, Attack the Block, Limitless, Another Earth, and, of all things, Reel Steel and In Time. Oh, right. I also saw The Darkest Hour eventually, which was surprisingly decent, and I’d even go as far as to say that the 2011 version of The Thing was better than Prometheus even if I still think it was almost equally as unnecessary and could have been (far) better than it was, especially in the realm of those horrible CGI effects.

As for 2010, that was better for sci-fi movies, though I have yet to see Inception still, which is the most mainstream one for that year. In fact, the only sci-fi movie I have seen from that year was Tron: Legacy apparently, though I’ve heard good things about Repo Men and Monsters too at least.

But, yeah, there’s at least 20-ish better, relatively mainstream sci-fi movies within that the time you were apparently referring to and that’s without digging all that deeply while also ignoring all franchise movies (save for the aforementioned Tron and The Thing).

If only. This year has just horribly sucked and I haven’t wanted to take it out anyone on top of wanting to avoid the doubtless still hyper-partisan bullshit that I already have to still see everyday any time I turn on the TV, so I haven’t been on forums in general this year.

I only came back as it was because I felt guilty about dumping mod duties solely in Pertho’s lap, especially since he has a kid nowadays and I am currently still not doing shit. Shrug.

1682
Spoiler

They had like 2,000 frozen embryos on the Covenant.

Spoiler

And they did scout their destination planet out, and ran hundreds of simulation tests on it. They never made it there because an electromagnetic pulse wave damaged the ship and brought them out of cryo prematurely. Upon repair they received a transmission from another habitable planet and decided to check it out.

1683

Real Steel was a fun movie. My favorite Hugh Jackman performance outside of the X-men movies.

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Ah. I see. Good to know. Thanks. At least they thought about those aspects, though 2,000 still seems a bit low. I can’t remember whether that would be “enough” or not; I’d have to go check.

Regardless, if that’s indeed the case, then it wouldn’t really matter if, going the exact opposite way, that all of people selected were 100% homosexual-to-the-bone provided they’re expertises were actually necessary so long as they could still bring those embryos to terms and, I guess, got screened for being good at parenting or whatever. Shrug. It’s hard to tell without having seen the movie itself, which I don’t plan on doing any time soon.

Too bad that doesn’t seem to excuse most of the other stupid stuff in the movie that people have talked about in here.

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I liked the movie.

runs away from thread

1686

Already comparing Ridley with Lucas and his prequel series. Great way to poop all over the classic saga you helped to found in the first place.

1687

Just add Xenomorps to the list of other terrible “origins” througout movie history we didn’t need.

Highlander immortals? Yeah…they’re all just aliens from the planet Zeist.

The Force in Star Wars? Just midichlorians in your blood. You can even “transplant” the force into others actually, with blood transfusions. AKA: Grevious and Syfodious.

Xenomorphs as we know them in Aliens…

[details=Spoiler]The eventual result of experiments from the black goo. David single-handedly created the facehugger/xenomorph that we know today. Forget the whole alien mural on the walls of the ship in Prometheus. That shit got hand-waved away, along with the oh-so convenient extermination of the space jockey race. So Ridely Scott didn’t have to answer any of Prometheus’s questions.

DAVID CREATED THE GODDAMN XENOMORPHS. [/details]

1688

I was never the biggest fan of the Alien franchise, I liked it but was never into it until Prometheus. Not because Prometheus was great cause I dont think it was, but it seemed like it was building some crazy ass lore to the xenos and now there’s a whole engineer aspect and some philosophical questions are being raised and that shit is dope.

Then I saw this movie Saturday and I’m right back to where i was before Prometheus. This story is just going to be retconned whenever Scott feels like it.

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Such is my disappointment I can’t be arsed to even review the movie.

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(I swear to Satan if I make one more typo, even by omission, this week that I don’t immediately notice while proofreading, then I am going to break someone something.)

The more it has gotten mentioned in here, the more I have tried to think of a prequel movie that hasn’t sucked or, worse yet, rent asunder the very canon it was supposedly created to “explain” (in its search for more money). Highlander, Star Wars, Terminator, and now Alien (again) have all had notoriously bad prequel movies that fall victim to both of those things.

Bizarrely, I think that as much of a fuck-up as FOX tends to be, the X-Men prequels with Fassbender and McAvoy have largely avoided this, even if Apocalypse apparently sucked. First Class was relatively passable and Days of Future Past was outright good, even for all its issues and even before it effectively destroyed the abominations of X3 and solo prequel Origins. After the X-Men films, the only other prequel that I can think of that was actually decent was the 2011 version of The Thing, which as I already stated I still think was overall unnecessary; at least it didn’t contradict anything though, which is a sad thing to have to be relieved about when it comes to prequels.

Even worse, if you count both of the Alien vs. Predator movies as part of this, then the Alien franchise is actually the worst about this now since it’s already had four crappy prequels and is looking to churn out a fifth one. That’s super sad.

Oh, I don’t doubt that. The premise just seemed, and honestly still does seem to me, to be relatively hokey, so I didn’t think it would do well and still don’t really have any personal interest in seeing it presently. That said, I can still believe it’s more than watchable though, especially since as much as I hate Wolverine as a character, I have never thought that Hugh Jackman himself was a bad actor despite having seen literally none of his other films, even The Prestige; this as opposed to, say, always thinking that Halle Barry was terribly overrated as an actress, with the X-Men movies she was in only furthering that point of view, though I digress.

The only reason that I mentioned Real Steel in the same incredulous breath as In Time was because Justin Timberlake has seemed to defy the “curse” that most singers seem to be afflicted with when trying to break into acting or that most actors face when trying to break into singing. All of the movies that he’s been in have seemingly been at least decent on top of the fact that he seems to be an at least decent actor in and of himself, which is extra weird given how much guff I’m sure the majority of (male) people around our age gave him during his boy band days.

1691

Let’s not forget Ridley said in a pre-Covenant interview the Engineers tried to destroy Humanity because they had sent Jesus to try to make humans thrive as spiritual beings and they were enraged because we killed him.

Sounds way too similar to the whole “immaculate birth” thing with the Midichlorians on Star Wars.

Remember Rise of Endymion when they explained Jesus had evolved to become a cybernetic being who could access to the Void that Binds and so he was able to teleport and time travel?

I guess when they start putting Jesus references into your sci-fi saga it’s the moment when you know they’ll end up completely jumping the shark.

1692

Come on Furious tell us what you thought, lol. Did you prefer it to Prometheus? Has Ridley completely fucked up the Alien franchise or is it salvageable? At least give it a mark out of 10.

I’m still wondering why the space Jockey ship was found crashed even-though we saw it land on the docking bay with no issues.

By the way, the next Alien film is a prequel to Prometheus, lol.

1693

at least that should guarantee Engineers, amirite?

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lets hope its the ripley, newt, and hicks movie that got sideline for covenant.
lets also hope sigourney weaver still doesnt have a problem with guns.

1696

How could it be that movie if its a prequel to Prometheus?

1697

Obviously time travel. I mean, it worked out for the Terminator franchise as a whole. [/this is sarcasm]

That said, a prequel to Prometheus sounds like literally the worst possible option of options that they would actually consider. What the actual fuck? Who do they think would actually want to see that, especially at this point?

1698

No, I preferred Prometheus, as others have said they set out to do something special ask big questions about man’s origins. Then they started shoehorning Alien into it. I just wish Prometheus had more of the polish Covenant had. This movie is a great example of a studio ignoring the great story and turning it into a numbers movie. It should have just been about Walter and David, a futuristic Cain and Abel story, then introduce a couple of humans at the end not knowing what the fuck is going on.

Alien franchise won’t die because of this movie.

D for disappointing (It would probably get a B- had I not seen Prometheus).

Space Jockey ship crashed because David was drunk at the wheel.

Did anyone notice… re Airborn parasite

Spoiler

How it sparkled when smoke was blown into it, how the soldier reacted when it entered his nose, all seemed very similar to the scene in Prometheus when David finds the door. When he touches it he finds some goo, when he looks at it closely it sparkles just the same way and then when he sniffs it he jerks back like he has smelt something toxic.

I wonder if this is where he became corrupted

1699

Oh and another thing, I’m all for making references to the classics but FFS this was some lazy writing, so many scenes just re-written or just cliched bullshit. They were hell bent on making this a prequel, it’s hilarious looking back at the announcements of Prometheus and reading how adamant Ridley Scott was on this new franchise not being a prequel. The movie stinks of movie interference!
Anyway, as soon as I heard a piece of music from the Alien movie I thought Oh No… it was so out of place, so in your face, it was jarring and immediately took me out.

Credit where credit is due, kung fu androids is a scary but awesome thing to see. Someone needs to dub that scene with Bruce Lee sound affects :rofl:


Like some said, these folks wouldn’t pass the test for space exploration. Freaking out on seeing alien life and people dying violently makes sense but going off mission because faith reasons instead of sending a message back to Earth and not wearing hazard suits are glaring fails in logic that the writers could have got right this time round.

1700

They did an atmospheric analysis of the new planet and determined that it’s air composition was even more Earth-like and breathable than their target destination. I remember in Prometheus they were able to tell exactly how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere of LV-223 before they landed, so it didn’t seem all that farfetched for the colonists in Covenant to decide the air was perfectly breathable. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought they did a good job explaining that in the movie.