Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
I don't think any director can save the franchise. Prometheus and Covenant screwed the pooch.
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Ulysses 31
Member
From what I've heard, Dark Horse comics has some awesome Aliens stories that could be adapted to the big screen but Hollywood seems to ignore that source.
A good writer and Ridley Scott directing could revitalize the franchise.
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SirKicksalot
Member
Just bring back David.
Putonahappyface
Gold Member
I love that they're prioritising practical effects.
That really did bug me. They could have EASILY just made a prosthetic face, cut it up, smear it in clotted milk blood, and wing it in a dark room. Hell, even if the eyes and mouth didn't work so well, who cares? It's an android! For as much brightly light screen time as that face got, the CG was TERRRRIBLE. I wonder if they did make a mask and the studio made them CG it, or even add Ash in over whatever face they had before.
I wonder how much they had to pull back. I thought we would get MUCH more graphic chestbursters, acid deaths, and especially the birthing scene. That kind of body horror is where they can spice up the somewhat well treaded Alien plot beats, really lean into how fucked up it is to have a little snake rip its way out of you and the fact that your heart and lungs are presumably still kinda intact and you may live for a bit with a shattered sternum.
I'm also very unclear as to the characters backgrounds. Are these all kids that grew up on that planet? If so, why the broad range of accents? And even if it's semi-retarded, shouldn't an android be pretty valuable? The idea that some garbage truck level space ship is, with some cryo pod upgrades, all they need for a NINE YEAR trip across....light years? is silly as well. What kind of "looks like they are drifting, but they are really going fast!" propulsion are these ships using? Ripleys escape pod drifts for 57 years and goes through core systems? Were they almost home when they 'found' LV421? How was it only a 3 week hop to get her back from Earth in Aliens? Clearly they have some sort of FTL travel in the Aliens universe, but for some kids to have a ship ALSO capable of doing it, seems silly. They could have left at ANY TIME, just pick a place a little closer and crowd the ship for a few weeks, they had ample cargo room for air and food. Won't even get into the MASSIVE SPACE STATION apparently drifting unnoticed above the planet, may have missed some throwaway lines about it. I figured it was all a set-up and some Weyland-Yutani competitor (like the guy they show watching them leave) fed them the broadcast in the hopes of getting some good salvage, but nope.
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
Not the solution per se. There were two Davids in Covenant and that did not save the film.
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Melon Husk
Member
RT audience score even higher than reviewer score, amazing!
Ulysses 31
Member
The whole created going against their creator angle from Prometheus and Covenant was not really Alien material IMO.
Werewolf Jones
Member
Keep Ridley Scott and his gay robot the fuck away from Alien. If I wanna see gay robots I'll watch Star Wars.
Nemesisuuu
Member
Did not want to mention bad deep fake in previous post, but now that more people have seen it - it was hilariously bad tbh, I couldn't help but laugh. First thing it reminded me of was:
Only difference that this was bad on purpose.
Only difference that this was bad on purpose.
SirKicksalot
Member
It felt like butter... Scraped over too much bread...Did not want to mention bad deep fake in previous post, but now that more people have seen it - it was hilariously bad tbh, I couldn't help but laugh. First thing it reminded me of was:
Only difference that this was bad on purpose.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Yea the set design in Romulus was Blade Runner 2049-tier, maybe even better. You felt like you were truly back in that Alien 1/2/3 world. (Not that 3 was a particularly great film, but it clearly retained that world’s aesthetic to a tee.)
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
I can't decide between these two as my top picks for an Alien movie:
Dennis Villeneuve
Matt Reeves
Other predictable list of contenders:
Cary Fukunaga
Alfonso Cuaron (I think he would match the Alien vibe really well)
Wes Ball (I really liked his work in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes)
arkhamguy123
Member
You can skip this one/wait for steaming.
Hell wasn’t this supposed to be a Prey/straight to streaming movie before Covid fell off and theaters were viable again? Basically man, for all its splendid cinematography and hype, it’s just a b movie. Almost like a parody of a “typical Hollywood horror action movie” in some spots
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
Solid picks my friend.
Villeneuve always said that he hates dialogue so this is actually up his alley.
I'd give Reeves a fat check as well. Do your own thing buddy.
arkhamguy123
Member
I was so hyped. Maybe too hyped. Wanted to love this but just kinda… “liked” it alright I guess.
Good news first, the acting, cinematography, and set design are all god tier. The suspension building in the first half is too. The effects are generally completely seamless and the controversial last 15-20 minutes *I* thought was actually super creepy and effective. It did something I was yearning for for the past hour prior and did something new and contributed to the alien verse
The bad news, this is meretricious. It’s a husk on the inside. It hit me in the last 3rd kind of like “wait… is this just a brilliantly shot glorified early 2000s teen slasher movie?” And it was. Is Ridley Scott truly the only person who can shoot the alien effectively? It was waaaay more scary and brutal in the infamous alien covenant than any moment in there. The aliens here are generic horror movie fodder compared to Ridley Scott’s 2017 effort when he was in his 80s. It’s a teletubby in an alien suit by comparison. Go watch alien covenant clips on YouTube after watching this and tell me you’re satisfied with the PG-13 nurtured alien and kills in here.
Speaking of kills, not a whole lot of them. 1 is even kinda off screen. The very compact crew means pretty light amount of deaths and very tame ones at that. And you don’t even really get to connect with them either even though there’s so few. You get the cons of having too few and strangely the screenplay cons of having too many where you don’t care for or know any of them.
The first half was doing so good. So so soooo good. This is when Fede was invoking “Alien” and when he takes his gloves off and starts invoking “Aliens” the movie gets really boring. He said he wanted to fuse the action movie sensibilities of Cameron and the horror sensibilities of Scott. And he’s much better at the latter. As evidenced by Don’t Breathe. The former is when this movie is at its absolute worst. The cute main girl and the black Android might as well be Batman and Superman at a certain point in the 2nd half cause they just start to feel invincible despite the movie trying to fake out “oh they’re totallyyyy gonna die guys”. They even cop out with that at the very end with the black guy but I won’t spoil
Last thoughts, the call backs and references were cringe and stopped the movie. And the spoken dialogue writing is on a caliber that an early 2000s video game would be embarrassed to have. I know Prometheus and covenant were polarizing but goddammit at least they tried to be cerebral and transcend the tired ass “dumb crew trapped in ship. Alien hunting them one by one. Badass leading lady lives and saves the day narrowly”. It’s just so… dull now. Prometheus and Covenant were a refreshing lemon cucumber glass of water on a hot day compared to this dry content here
Good news first, the acting, cinematography, and set design are all god tier. The suspension building in the first half is too. The effects are generally completely seamless and the controversial last 15-20 minutes *I* thought was actually super creepy and effective. It did something I was yearning for for the past hour prior and did something new and contributed to the alien verse
The bad news, this is meretricious. It’s a husk on the inside. It hit me in the last 3rd kind of like “wait… is this just a brilliantly shot glorified early 2000s teen slasher movie?” And it was. Is Ridley Scott truly the only person who can shoot the alien effectively? It was waaaay more scary and brutal in the infamous alien covenant than any moment in there. The aliens here are generic horror movie fodder compared to Ridley Scott’s 2017 effort when he was in his 80s. It’s a teletubby in an alien suit by comparison. Go watch alien covenant clips on YouTube after watching this and tell me you’re satisfied with the PG-13 nurtured alien and kills in here.
Speaking of kills, not a whole lot of them. 1 is even kinda off screen. The very compact crew means pretty light amount of deaths and very tame ones at that. And you don’t even really get to connect with them either even though there’s so few. You get the cons of having too few and strangely the screenplay cons of having too many where you don’t care for or know any of them.
The first half was doing so good. So so soooo good. This is when Fede was invoking “Alien” and when he takes his gloves off and starts invoking “Aliens” the movie gets really boring. He said he wanted to fuse the action movie sensibilities of Cameron and the horror sensibilities of Scott. And he’s much better at the latter. As evidenced by Don’t Breathe. The former is when this movie is at its absolute worst. The cute main girl and the black Android might as well be Batman and Superman at a certain point in the 2nd half cause they just start to feel invincible despite the movie trying to fake out “oh they’re totallyyyy gonna die guys”. They even cop out with that at the very end with the black guy but I won’t spoil
Last thoughts, the call backs and references were cringe and stopped the movie. And the spoken dialogue writing is on a caliber that an early 2000s video game would be embarrassed to have. I know Prometheus and covenant were polarizing but goddammit at least they tried to be cerebral and transcend the tired ass “dumb crew trapped in ship. Alien hunting them one by one. Badass leading lady lives and saves the day narrowly”. It’s just so… dull now. Prometheus and Covenant were a refreshing lemon cucumber glass of water on a hot day compared to this dry content here
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Neff
Member
Imagine being a movie director and not realising that Cameron already did this perfectly.
Werewolf Jones
Member
This movie has enough merits to stand on its own but it chooses to be a Greatest Hits of the Alien franchise. It's baffling. It bridges Prometheus and Alien together but it could do with removing all the stupid shit.
I'd give it like... a 6/10? I liked it but the movie does itself a disservice using scenes and shots from older movies.
I'd give it like... a 6/10? I liked it but the movie does itself a disservice using scenes and shots from older movies.
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
I prefer cucumber mint water
Trilobit
Member
Great review! I think I'll wait for this to hit streaming so I won't be as disappointed watching it a lazy Sunday afternoon. I love Alien, but I honestly don't care much about Aliens. It's a good action movie, but I think the xenomorphs are the best when they aren't cannon fodder.
Also thanks for teaching me a new word, meretricious. Never heard it before, but now I know.
SirKicksalot
Member
The aliens in Covenant are mean death machines. The aliens in Romulus are me struggling to leave the bed for a piss in the middle of the night. They're mostly... posing for the camera wtf
Big Baller
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Meh, its alright. Nothing special. That final boss tho wtf
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
I just felt my dick shrink.
Werewolf Jones
Member
In my showing people waited for a post credits scene btw. Marvel has done damage beyond repair to cinema.
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
You prefer lemon cucumber water?
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
I don't know. Water mixed with anything is a bit strange to me. I suppose I need to try out some new shit and expand my water horizons.
Werewolf Jones
Member
You gonna dig him up then or?
arkhamguy123
Member
The final thing was so unsettling and startling it gave me 1% of the dread I felt with the actual alien when Ridley Scott himself is behind the camera
The slaveish devotion to practical effects I fear ended up hurting the alien itself. Great for close up shots. Not so great when, like you said it’s supposed to be “oh shit get outta there!!!” Threatening and the alien is basically as threatening as my puppy coming to lick me after her nap
JonSnowball
Member
and somehow it's the best Alien film in the last 30 years. Towards the end when it became obvious why Ridley Scott endorsed it I wasn't fond of, and the CG work on _that_ character. It was a retread with some fun scenes.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
You’re absolutely right. Its fast food. But like its chik fil a fast food, well presented and polished. Frankly the second half of the original 1979 film is also a slasher movie to be honest.
There was an audible gasp in the audience when I saw it in IMAX. So creepy. Its also surprising this is more of a sequel to Prometheus than the actual Alien Covenant was lol. That being said it is a retread of Resurrection which is not a sentence I thought I would ever say. Fede Alvarez is so derivative.
Eh, I prefer Prometheus since it’s something different, despite its problems. This is just a generic soft reboot of the first two. It’s okay but not interesting.
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
With what he did with Evil Dead how did people think this would be good?
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I thought both this and Evil Dead 2013 were good lol. Certainly at least serviceable.
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
This shit was AWESOME
2nd best in the franchise for me after the original
Fede is a monster
2nd best in the franchise for me after the original
Fede is a monster
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SirKicksalot
Member
...why is the blue laser in this movie?
Goddamn it's been two days and I'm still getting more and more angry over this film. Is this what Covenant haters felt? How awful.
Goddamn it's been two days and I'm still getting more and more angry over this film. Is this what Covenant haters felt? How awful.
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
That pregnancy scene was fucking awesome
That anti-gravity scene was fucking awesome.
That thing was fucking nasty, reminded me of the Regenerative monsters in RE4 design wise. And...Forcefully sucking that girls breasts, literally sucking her dry - NASTY work.
loved it. pure sci-fi action horror.
That anti-gravity scene was fucking awesome.
That thing was fucking nasty, reminded me of the Regenerative monsters in RE4 design wise. And...Forcefully sucking that girls breasts, literally sucking her dry - NASTY work.
loved it. pure sci-fi action horror.
Robot Carnival
Member
just came back from watching this. I'm happy with the end result and would give it a 7.5/10. overall I like it.
as some had mentioned in the thread already, a little too much callbacks making it a little too... "fan-service"cy. I feel overall these callbacks work in the big picture of the story, but I also feel they're not needed and the movie would work just fine without them too. the horror in this is also pretty good. I jumped a few times and did feel the tention in certain scenes. and I do like how they basically upgraded the original pulse rifle by giving it the smartgun's tracking function too. that's pretty cool.
as some had mentioned in the thread already, a little too much callbacks making it a little too... "fan-service"cy. I feel overall these callbacks work in the big picture of the story, but I also feel they're not needed and the movie would work just fine without them too. the horror in this is also pretty good. I jumped a few times and did feel the tention in certain scenes. and I do like how they basically upgraded the original pulse rifle by giving it the smartgun's tracking function too. that's pretty cool.
FunkMiller
Member
Seen quite a few comparisons with The Force Awakens on this. Repeating what a much better movie did, with a load of pointless memberberries.
Fuck you Disney. Cant believe so many people let this creatively bankrupt, cynical stuff pass. You get the Hollywood you deserve, folks.
Fuck you Disney. Cant believe so many people let this creatively bankrupt, cynical stuff pass. You get the Hollywood you deserve, folks.
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EruditeHobo
Member
I liked it a lot more than you... but skimming through your post, some of our takeaways are very similar.
I'm a huge Alien fan. Alien is my favorite movie ever, the impending release of Alien3 reached a cult-like level of zealous anticipation in my household, as my dad was a huge fan and introduced the first 2 movies to me on VHS when I was an incredibly young kid (probably 7-8 years old). I was there opening weekend for every single Alien movie since 3, even the ones that I think suck. So I was hyped for this too. But I was not expecting this, this felt like the new Star Wars movies and the new Ghostbusters movies -- just cloying fanservice for no good reason at all.
Before I went tonight, I read a thing that triggered my spidey-sense, a critic compared it to Rogue One... and I was like, that's my worst case scenario. The Alien series delves into weird, uncomfortable shit. Even when the allegory or subtext doesn't quite work, like in Resurrection, and even when the movies aren't very good... like Resurrection... that shit's all still there! That discomfort, that coldness, and as you say the high minded nature of some of the ideas being explored, that "cerebral" quality you mentioned. I think it's all necessary on some level. So for this to be turned into a theme park ride... that really misses the mark for me.
This aforementioned critic summarized it perfectly, IMO: "[this is] the first mainline ALIEN movie to not truly be about anything except other ALIEN movies, and I really wished it was more."
I felt the same way, it even dawned on me like it did you after that very strong start. This eventually has the vibe of a huge, very fun ALIEN theme park ride or something. The visuals and thrills and booming soundtrack are fantastic. But between the ears, I feel quite let down... there's nothing to chew on here. Nothing to think about. No subtextual element to feel all that bad about! Nothing even that weird (until the end)!!!
How is this an Alien movie?!
This is another point where you are spot on... it's fucking CRAZY that we've had guys like Cameron and Fincher and now Alvarez make these movies, incredible filmmakers and in terms of the latter two brilliant visual stylists and designers... yet somehow only Ridley Scott seems to understand the look of the xenomorph, and how to photograph them, and even what makes them dangerous! Why is he the only guy that can make these truly awe-inspiring and intimidating?
He's also the only one that seems to respect their biology & lifecycle, and give them the weight they really deserve... but to be totally fair, even he let that slip when he did Covenant, which is kind of his version of the greatest hits of the series... but still manages to not skimp on the weirdness and cerebral shit!
Anyways... I liked the movie. I did not love it. I started to really love the ending, I liked that it really went there... and just as you said, that IS the one moment that feels really worthy of the Alien sage. But it wasn't enough.
This gave me a very similar feeling as the one I had walking out of Force Awakens... I knew I enjoyed myself, and I knew it had GREAT moments and visuals. But the more I thought about it, the more disappointed I knew I was deep down inside. So I'm curious how I feel about this one in a few years. But for now, I think of this as both a pretty good movie and a fairly bad Alien movie.
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EruditeHobo
Member
I agree with this too!
Didn't need all the callbacks. Just Fede designing great set pieces and visuals, with some good horror... that would have been more than enough! That's what I expected. Not what we got though.
Revolutionary
Member
At the risk of sounding obvious, I believe the implication was that they're building up a hive. The xenomorphs don't know the ship is going down, they just know they have plenty of facehuggers on hand and a few live bodies to start up the process. If your question was actually meant to be "what is emitting the blue laser?", we don't even know the answer to that question in the original Alien. It's either a function of the derelict ship or a function of the hive itself, and this movie leans towards the latter explanation which makes more sense given how long the derelict has been there (the engineer is fossilized).
There is PLENTY to nitpick about this film but there's enough established lore to extrapolate why the blue mist is there IMO
On that note, I gotta give them some credit for not going down the "there's secretly a queen on the ship" route like Isolation (spoiler for a 10 year old game btw). One of the few Alien cliches that they avoided lol
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At least this film cements the idea that you DON'T need Ripley, that you can just dress some girl like her, down to the shoes and alas, not quite as revealing tshirt and panties, and carry on.
I applaud the directors restraint in not tying EVERY alien film into this one, he easily could had a scene of a guy being shipped off to the penal colony, a buncha colonial marines marching around, some sort of Predator reference. So at least he reigned it in a little. In fact, other than the "you bitch" line, the rest are just kinda natural space horror stuff (crawling in ducts, acid through the floor, ejecting into space).
The blue laser was a bit weird, this film felt like it was chopped from a lot of other scripts (the shock prod alien for example) so I wonder if they had an explanation for it at some point. I've always assumed it was a way to keep eggs from detecting motion and hatch prematurely, so it was part of the Navigator ship, rather than some by product of xeno 'biology'.
They do gotta start building in growth time though. We've gotten chest burster growth going from days down to just minutes and xeno maturation taking days down to practically minutes as well, even seconds for the black goo stuff. Too fast IMHO.
I applaud the directors restraint in not tying EVERY alien film into this one, he easily could had a scene of a guy being shipped off to the penal colony, a buncha colonial marines marching around, some sort of Predator reference. So at least he reigned it in a little. In fact, other than the "you bitch" line, the rest are just kinda natural space horror stuff (crawling in ducts, acid through the floor, ejecting into space).
The blue laser was a bit weird, this film felt like it was chopped from a lot of other scripts (the shock prod alien for example) so I wonder if they had an explanation for it at some point. I've always assumed it was a way to keep eggs from detecting motion and hatch prematurely, so it was part of the Navigator ship, rather than some by product of xeno 'biology'.
They do gotta start building in growth time though. We've gotten chest burster growth going from days down to just minutes and xeno maturation taking days down to practically minutes as well, even seconds for the black goo stuff. Too fast IMHO.
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
I can't find my post but even before it released. I said the trailer looked like it was getting the Disney TFA soft reboot treatment.
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Chiggs
Gold Member
I remember hating both those films with a burning passion.
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
This sounds great on paper.
SirKicksalot
Member
If it's a function of the hive they might as well build eXistenZ weapons in the next movie.