Alien: Covenant (Prometheus 2: Paradise)

[MattEffect]

I loved it. It's a flawed but interesting origin story. The film (and movies in general these days) re-used themes that made its franchise predecessors successful, right away I thought of Force Awakens and in general "remake" culture. I loved how it ends! One can only hope that a rag-tag group of space marines and at least one asshole bureaucrat will be dispatched to a Origae-6.

[Kokolums]

The first 2 films had well-written, interesting characters. You cared if they lived or died. This film lacks such characters. This film was also predictable. The franchise really never recovered from the mistakes of Alien 3, when they killed off Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop. had those 4 been kept alive, they had enough interesting characters to really make this an amazing movie series.

[Vathoren]

I for one really enjoyed the film, especially Fassbender's work. Should you get the chance to rewatch it, just take note of how his body language and posture changes as he becomes more deranged and megalomaniacal.

In regards to the way the film contributed to the lore of the franchise (I'm a massive Alien dork btw), I actually think it's made things a lot more interesting, and I think we're going to see a lot more from the engineers in the sequel. I know, I know, but hear me out:

- We're probably going to find out that David's work is not unique at all, especially given the contents of the ship on LV-426 and it's age. It may be that there is some difference between human and Engineer DNA, minor but critical, that "perfects" the xenomorph as a weapon. David's knowledge and ability is based on the entirety of human knowledge and science (and his own learning), which compared to the Engineer's presumably millenia old scientific understanding and advancements is laughable.

- This would draw a maddening parallel between David and humanity. David was created to serve humans, humans were created to refine Xenomorphs which in turn are farmed to serve the Engineer's inscrutable purposes. It is likely that the cache of black goo in Prometheus wasn't heading to Earth because the Engineers "hated humanity" or saw them as a mistake to be corrected, they simply wanted to harvest Earth for whatever ends they have planned with the Xenomorphs. As an inter-stellar, ancient race of unknown expanse and power, they most likely regard us very little indeed.

- I would question whether the locale we saw in Covenant was indeed the homeworld of the Engineers. I know David believes it to be so, from what he gleans in Prometheus, but as a home planet of super advanced space faring species, it seems comically under-developed. We see only a few square kilometres around one city which appears to be very low-tech and have none of the architectural aesthetic found in the ships (aside from the giant heads). If a ship was to enter the orbit around Earth today that the Covenant did around the Engineer's planet, you'd see masses of lights from cities all over. I also think it's highly unlikely that David managed to murder everything on the planet without some form of resistance from the Engineers.

Just speculating a bit, but I think we'll see much more of the Engineers in the next film(s) and they will be *pissed*.

[Zarc]

Am I the only one who thinks Ridley Scott is to the Alien franchise now as George Lucas was to the Star Wars franchise in the 2000's? An old man who has overstayed his welcome in the franchise he once created by messing up the core lore that the franchise is built upon, like Lucas did with midichlorians and what have you.

Once the mythology of a franchise has been established, and thereby set in the minds of the audience, you just can't go back and fill in the blanks because then you mess up whatever the fans have filled into those blanks, and it risks ruining the franchise for them. Just tell more stories within the established mythology centered around new interesting characters, intrigues and adventures. This Engineers and origin story of humanity linked to the Alien species just makes the whole franchise fall apart in my mind, making me lose interest in the franchise.

What's funny is that I enjoyed the Alien vs. Predator movies, and I felt they didn't mess with the mythology of either franchise, and Ridley Scott hated them and I guess he kind of doesn't consider them canon. Guess I'll just have to not consider these movies canon and hope one day the franchise can move on and forget about these movies, or at least key aspects of them. Like how I choose to just ignore the whole midichlorians and "chosen one prophecy" crap of the Star Wars prequels and imagine that one day they will be released in version where those parts are cut out while also hoping they are never mentioned again in any movies going forward. :P

[rogueMatthias]

I for one really enjoyed the film, especially Fassbender's work. Should you get the chance to rewatch it, just take note of how his body language and posture changes as he becomes more deranged and megalomaniacal.

It's called "the evil voice"...

[Kokolums]

If I wrote this film, I'd change it as follows:

The ending is the fatal flew in the narrative. The two left are Daniels (the female lead) and David (with Tennessee already in cryosleep). The final scene between David and Daniels doesn't work because the audience expects David may have masqueraded as Walter, so there's no tension. It just makes Daniels look like a moron for not making sure. And because she looks like a moron, its easy for the audience to just not care if she gets bested by David. The ending has to be re-written to make Daniels not look like an idiot. In the final moments, re-write it so Daniels realizes it is David before she goes into the sleep pod. This puts Daniels in a terrible situation because she cannot overpower David. Daniels tries to make up an excuse to David that she cannot go into the sleep pod and needs to go back to her room to do something. But write it so that she's a terrible liar. David immediately suspects she's figured him out. But David doesn't take any immediate action and stays calm because he knows she can't beat her. She hustles back to her room to try to figure out what to do. But David just follows her back there. Their eyes meet - and Daniels knows David knows she's figured him out. So he just comes out with it. David tells her point-blank that he is David, he has won, the colonists are as good as dead, she needs to go into the sleep pod to be food, and there is nothing she can do about it. What does Daniels do? Does she fight? Struggle? Kill herself? There's a huge moment of tension. And then we end scene and go back to the sleep pod. Daniels accepts her fate and enters the sleep pod with David calmly observing. Daniels is quaking and sobbing. But as she lies in the pod, she pulls out some device that she picked up in her room that, unknown to David, overrides the sleep pod. The device when plugged in to the inside the pod is set to wake her up early. And we end the film there, not knowing if David uses her for food before the pod wakes her, or what else she has planned once she wakes up.

That's about all I got.

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I for one really enjoyed the film, especially Fassbender's work. Should you get the chance to rewatch it, just take note of how his body language and posture changes as he becomes more deranged and megalomaniacal.

In regards to the way the film contributed to the lore of the franchise (I'm a massive Alien dork btw), I actually think it's made things a lot more interesting, and I think we're going to see a lot more from the engineers in the sequel. I know, I know, but hear me out:

Its the engineers that really are the heart of this story in these prequels.

The engineers created earthlings. These earthlings built their own spaceships and tried to find their creators, and succeeded in the first film. In the interaction between them, the engineer they met was arrogant and looked down upon Weyland. Why do you want more life? Who do you think you are? I'm going to kill you and your planet! He declared war. Unfortunately, Weyland built a highly intelligent crazy robot that, upon the death of his creator, redesigned the engineers technology to built a horrific nano cloud virus, flew to their home world, and executed their entire race on that planet. The arrogance of that one engineer cost them everything. It would be interesting to see how any engineers who escaped that fate react to this destruction. In the end, its kinda their fault. Be nice to people you don't know.

[RampageBW1]

Its the engineers that really are the heart of this story in these prequels.

The engineers created earthlings. These earthlings built their own spaceships and tried to find their creators, and succeeded in the first film. In the interaction between them, the engineer they met was arrogant and looked down upon Weyland. Why do you want more life? Who do you think you are? I'm going to kill you and your planet! He declared war. Unfortunately, Weyland built a highly intelligent crazy robot that, upon the death of his creator, redesigned the engineers technology to built a horrific nano cloud virus, flew to their home world, and executed their entire race on that planet. The arrogance of that one engineer cost them everything. It would be interesting to see how any engineers who escaped that fate react to this destruction. In the end, its kinda their fault. Be nice to people you don't know.

To be frank, we do not really know what David said to the Engineer that was on the ship in Prometheus. For all we know David could have said that Weyland's message was "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." And I believe David stated later during Prometheus that he intended for the Engineer to kill Weyland anyway. David didn't really like humanity, or most sentient life.

And it was pretty Arrogant of Mr Weyland to want an extended life beyond what would be normal for a human. It takes a special kind of narcissism to think one's own life is better than all others.

[Kokolums]

To be frank, we do not really know what David said to the Engineer that was on the ship in Prometheus. For all we know David could have said that Weyland's message was "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." And I believe David stated later during Prometheus that he intended for the Engineer to kill Weyland anyway. David didn't really like humanity, or most sentient life.

And it was pretty Arrogant of Mr Weyland to want an extended life beyond what would be normal for a human. It takes a special kind of narcissism to think one's own life is better than all others.

Weyland is dead. There's no plot in worrying about him. The engineers might still be around though.

[Relapses]

Caught an early screening last Thursday and enjoyed myself. I'll be going to see it again with some friends in a few days. It's not a perfect film by any means, though I'll easily echo what many others have said and mention that this film is carried almost single-handedly by Fassbender. My biggest gripe is that it's neither a direct Prometheus sequel nor a fully fledged Alien movie. It's a combination of the two and excels at neither. The last twenty minutes of the film feel tacked on and... ordinary. The way Shaw is written off is borderline insulting to anybody who really liked Prometheus. That said, it's a beautiful film and I still firmly believe Scott is one of the best Sci-Fi directors of our time. I feel like studio influence may have had a big part of things which were ultimately cut from the film which is very disheartening. (The "Last Supper" promo, for example, should have been included with the film.) Overall, a slightly better film than Prometheus and not nearly as disappointing as it could have been. I hope this film does well so we can see how this film connects into the existing Alien mythos.

I'd give it an 8/10.

[BloodyAngel12]

To be frank, we do not really know what David said to the Engineer that was on the ship in Prometheus. For all we know David could have said that Weyland's message was "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." And I believe David stated later during Prometheus that he intended for the Engineer to kill Weyland anyway. David didn't really like humanity, or most sentient life.

And it was pretty Arrogant of Mr Weyland to want an extended life beyond what would be normal for a human. It takes a special kind of narcissism to think one's own life is better than all others.

David told the truth to the Engineer

The line that David speaks to the Engineer (which is from a longer sequence that didn’t make the final edit) is as follows:
/ida hmanəm aɪ kja namṛtuh zdɛ:taha/…/ghʷɪvah-pjorn-ɪttham sas da:tṛ kredah/
A serviceable translation into English is:
‘This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life’.

[Deleted]

Absolutely one of the greatest scifi/action/horror -movies for years! Must get the Directors Cut if such one is coming out.

9/10

[ItachiZaku]

ou can literally see it grow from chihuauasized to labradorsized to humansized in one scene.

You can do a step farther and say from spore to full human sized assassin in... oh... an hour. What the actual fuck.

[judgementofantonidas]

Dear god...

So Prometheus is part 1 in a trilogy, covenant is...uh...3rd...yeah..and next year he wants to start working on part...2..the movie in the middle..

I am glad I did not pay to go watch it. I got feedback from a guild member who did, and instead of having anything to do with providing more information on the engineers it just turned into mad robot breeds xenomorphs. Very dissapointed. When promethius was made the people who made it were quoted as saying promethius two would have nothing to do with xenomorphs.

[Eazy]

Whatever you say about the movie, but David/Walter role was played extraodrinary by Fassbender.

[ItachiZaku]

R.I.P B Pax, it's never game over, mannnnnnnnnnnn

[Deleted]

I can't seem to find any screening with 3D, uh...was it even done in 3D? Shame if it wasn't...

Prometheus was filmed with a 3D camera which made it look great at times..


Can't find any torrent..the theory seems to be movie is filmed too dark to capture on some shitty camera?..

[PACOX]

I know why I hate this movie now.

Pretty much everything up until David took them was fine with me. I can even excuse them no wearing mask. A careless movie by a group of professionals but the planet was supposed to ultra-habitable...diseases though...moving on. I though the two guys getting sick was done well. You could feel the urgency and suspense as the crew realized their worse case scenarios were becoming real. Really liked the sequence on the shuttle, the writing in the movie might have off but they acted their asses off. The following scene was dope too where the captain just [I]couldn't even[/I] anymore, not being to let accept that their crew mate was gone in a crisis situation, even Deus Ex Machina David (very appropriate term ) but I though he was Shaw at first.

After that the movie took a noise dive. Its like the writers had no idea how to meld the beginning and the end of the movie. Sad because there were so many routes that they could have taken, and like the expedition crew, they chose the worst one. You had the creepy as scene where David and Walter talked about blowing and fingering stuff (I think they were trying to hit HR Giger level of freaky sexuality but it just came off as cringe material), you had Tennessee being beyond reckless with the ship but turns out the ships hull didn't even get a ding in the "risky" manuver, you had the captain witness David being cool with a neomorph right next to the head of his eaten crew mate - he points a gun a David - but instead of taking David into custody he lets David lead him into a room of eggs? Oh and this, after encountering nothing but monsters on the planet he sticks his head over on of the eggs AS David is telling him WHAT THE FUCKING EGGS ARE FOR!

That was the last over the top dumb death, though. The rest of the movie would have decent enough had it been another franchise. My biggest issues though were how did David change so fast? The way his hand was severed and his hair shouldn't have been easily replicated in the span of a few minutes. The xenomorphs seem a lot dumber than their future cousins despite being the same species, maybe 1st gen defects (I'm not convinced that David actually created the xenomorphs. More-so I refuse to accept it. Perhaps he just replicated an old weapon of the black goo. Otherwise Alien makes no sense at all). The future xenomorphs would have laid low on the shuttle and then fucked up the ships internal systems before [s]David[/s] "Walter" could even track them. A future xenomorph would have molted into a queen and facehugged all the cryopods before they even knew the one guy died. Oh and how was the little rescue barge so resilient? That thing crashed all over the place before Daniels killed the xenomorph. I though there was done with for sure.
The ending made sense but they should have let the audience know David was David before that. Revealing it to Daniels and the audience at the same time felt cheesy. Revealing to her before she went to sleep worked though just to show how much of a dick David was.

To fix the middle act, I would have done away with David killing the Engineers (if they were Engineers, there are theories out there. One being Engineers are specifically the ones who used the black goo, not the entire species). That scene just confused people and shit on lore for no reason. I would have introduced the xenomorph earlier, had to kill some neomorphs to show dominance, then have it prey on a few of the crew. Walter was useless, just get rid of him. David replicated, revived the xenomorphs, not birthed them. Have the xenomorphs sneak onto the rescue barge. You then keep the same ending more or less. End it with a queen having taken over the entire ship.

Over the weekend the movie was a 4/10 for me, I'll give it a 6/10 now. The beginning and end were sufficient enough for me. I'm more mad they the charge people the price of a movie ticket to see these lukewarm blockbusters. Wouldn't be so pissed about it if it had just come out on DVD or some streaming platform instead.

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You can do a step farther and say from spore to full human sized assassin in... oh... an hour. What the actual fuck.

Its supposed to be the bioweapon in its purest form so I just suspended belief for that one. But what got me was how they completly shit on the concept of the facehugger when it came to the second xenomorph. The hugger was on the mans face for like half a minute, not long enough for it to completly latch on and get a hold of him. Show how in the hell did it get an egg into him that fast if it didn't even have a grip on him yet. Old lore is that once those things get a firm hold you're done because they knock out and kill you if someone tries to remove them. After that it takes a little while for them to impregnate the host. If a facehugger can impregnate you on contact then there really isn't much need all the facehugging and shit. Just do a drive-by egg insertion.

[Deleted]

I thought the first act of the film was solid, really nailed the asthetic of the classic Alien films, when they got down to the planet and started wandering around without helmets or even skin protection, I started to get a big drawn out of the film, and then after the first alien pops up and the shenanigans start to go down, it gets really predictable and really dumb.

The most interesting parts of the film, that being the Engineers and what David has been up since landing on the planet, are glossed over pretty quickly, much to the films detriment I find.

I think between this and Prometheus, there is a great Sci Fi story to be told, it just has nothing to do with the titular Alien.

[Deleted]

Art book (spoilers) have yet to see movie so haven't checked this video out, but will soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOcD9cyRxE

sound is supposed to be bad according to comment section? I would then recommend turn sound off n listen to something creepy Aliens music score like


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Ok, this was really bad...so predictable n dumb..I hope it flops so Ridley won't make another one..

[Milchshake]

I was trying to psych myself up to go out and see this. So I tried to rewatch Prometheus.... had to quit right after they brought the head back to the ship. The cascade of characters making bad decisions for no reason was just too much to take.
That sentiment combined with reviews citing the same problems in Covenant have luckily killed my interest in seeing this in theaters. Or any future films by Ridley. I tired blaming his last few movies on bad writing, its really its him.