Comments (Page 568)

G. H. (Gman) Rotten Tomatoes was too forgiving with Alien Covenant. Critics for most part scrapped all type of criticism about the bad editing, bad dialogue, half baked cgi, etc. 

broomanicus You have a point. Apologists come with the fairy tale that there was a planned arc for this, but that is not true. Prometheus ended with a promise and that promise was broken. It was a coward move to eliminate a character just because maybe it was not as strong as Sigourney Weaver. It was just a marketing bet that turned sour.

Very true, David being an unnatural being seems to possess unnatural emotional capacities. He can love and adore and despise and hate all at the same time. David is basically rapant emotions without a grounded attachment to reality or other beings of his caliber. For lack of a better word, he's purely insane.

In some sense I share daliens' frustration, but for different reasons.

In terms of criticism/reviews the existence of Rotten Tomatoes depresses me as it shows just how far American film criticism has sunk. Everyone assumes critics are here to tell us if a movie is good or bad, but the real reason they came around was to make audiences think. Just because they framed that objective with an opinion doesn't mean they didn't have a duty to open audience eyes to greater details. (Why was it made like it was? What does it mean? What's the context? If the reviewer thinks it's bad, why and what can be learned from it? If the reviewer thinks it's good, why and what can be learned from?)

I don't mind bad reviews of movies I like as long as the review is framed in a fresh way that makes me think about things I hadn't thought of before. But it's understandable most turn their nose up at critics telling them what's good/bad, because the majority of modern critics think that's the extent of their job as well--The quantifying on Rotten Tomatoes has made that an expectation. I love the reviews that don't give a final score, forcing Rotten Tomatoes to make up a score for them--Something they've received flack for. But to be fair, final scores don't really mean anything. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, "they shouldn't be looking at our scores, they should be reading our words." And their right. It's why I often don't rate or rank movies myself.

But part of it is also because some professional critics think that they're in direct competition with social media. 140 character reviews from your best friend can sometimes be seen as more trustworthy than an overview from a guy you don't know. American film criticism is in need of a great change, but with the death of people like Roger Ebert we're left with no one to lead the charge to change how we look at film. Thus, because professional critics are becoming more and more thoughtless we get more and more thoughtless user/fan reviews.

By all means, write a bad review of Alien: Covenant or Shin Godzilla, but give me more to chew on than a bash-fest. The same can be said for good reviews--I'm glad if you liked it, but why? And to what end?

Food for thought: Maybe sometimes movies aren't good or bad. Maybe they just need a little more attention. Not always, but more often than we think.

Visit the embedded mural link as well. Very interesting:

Im a fan of alien 1 and 2. I thought Prometheus was good and set up a follow up well. Covenant however did not deliver. I liked the actors and effects as expected. The story was not what was promised by Prometheus. When you break a contact with your audience you lose your reputation.

 It such a shame Covenant reminds me of Alien 3 the way Cpl. Dwayne Hicks was already dead. Before the film started Yes alien series survived that.

For me Covenant like Alien 3, it an act of betrayal with your audience. It just saddens me beyond words.

That's intriguing and insightful :D I knew he loved Shaw but he's a soul less robot. His development for love was never gonna be healthy.

Lawrence of Arabia - :D - Look at the face of the facehugger. A facehugger can be cute, too. :)

I love the little bits insights we get into the Engineer culture. The sacrifice could be both the way they create life on planetoids and their ceremony to conceive a Deacon as Steven Messing describes it.

IRaptus - I hope your last line describes the future of the Alien Universe making every fan happy. :)

fascinating! The pieces are slowing revealing themselves keeping us on our toes!!

Awakening is looking like it will be an epic showdown

ScorpioStar - You will like this movie: Headhunters (2011) Original title: Hodejegerne.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1614989/

The actor who plays the main character in it, Aksel Hennie, appears in Scott's The Martian as well.

ScorpioStar - I wasn't so excited :D, but it should be admitted that in Prometheus... she is pretty.

Have you seen the whole Lisbeth trilogy? My favourite is the second movie, The Girl Who Played with Fire, awesome film.

The lessons are learnt by them, we hope. :)

@Ati,

And when I heard she'd be working with Sir Ridley in "PROMETHEUS", I was like, "Yesssssssssss!" :)

@Ati

:D

ScorpioStar - Yes, in the first adaptation of the novel Noomi Rapace is the girl. :) Swedish story in Sweden with Swedish actors. :)

But I like the Fincher movie much better.

@IRaptus,

Mad Max 4EVER :)

@Ati,

Amazing that you mentioned Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I saw it some time after I saw the original piece by Niels Arden Oplev - and Lisbeth Salander was... Noomi Rapace!

Amazing insights, thanks, guys! :)

Well, to start off I agree hardcore with iRaptus in that Covenant will be looked at in a better light when Ridley finishes what he started. 

What do I think an Alien movie should be? It should be a... Movie! Not exactly sure how to put this other than: Franchises, sagas, series, etc., are all doomed to fan expectations, staleness, and a profit-making mentality. We always want more from this franchise because we love it! We all probably have a different (some more similar to others than not, of course) vision/desire for any Alien movie. Ridley Scott certainly had (and has) a different vision for the franchise. 

While I don't know if the Beast will ever truly be cooked (even if it does happen, it just needs time to air out such as any film saga), I think that Prometheus may have been exactly where the franchise should have gone. At least the idea was right. Something truly DIFFERENT tham what has come before (in that saga.) Now, it was very reminiscent of Alien in many aspects, but it doesn't feel very Alien and that's actually good, I think. 

There may be nothing I enjoy more than the atmosphere and design of Alien. Literally. STILL, if the franchise is always doomed to chasing that feeling, then it will never provide us with a truly new movie. A3, Ressurection, and Covenant have suffered from chasing that Alien feel. Ressurection less so, but still. I have at least a slight love for all of the films, but if we want something that is going to be truly great, it has to be different. Between Alien and Star Wars, both are struggling to find the balance between old and new, bold and safe, and both have recently fallen towards safe. 

I think that the Alien saga needs to break it's mold. Have a TV show (Netflix being the ideal platform) about Wey-Yu, have a movie that is full on horror (like the ghost and demon movies that scare the daylights out of us. Pure terror), take another shot at hardcore scifi (Prometheus went that route), make an action/adventure film, go for a phsycological thriller, have a god damn comedy in there. The only thing to do here would be to make sure a top-notch continuity/story developing team is in place to make sure the franchise doesn't just feel like a bunch of random shit. 

I think franchises, especially my favorite one in Alien, need to keep taking chances. To be fair though, I don't/will try not to crap on anyone who doesn't want something like that. Whether you like the idea of a movie that feels JUST like Alien (or very similar), want no more movies, want Alien 5, want more Prometheus, or WHATEVER line of thought there could be, there is room for us all to exist. The unfortunate thing is that no matter what Alien movie comes out in our lifetimes, it will piss off a large number of us. 

I just want a movie that I enjoy. I have gotten that with all of them so far though..

Ingeniero - I'm glad you find the thread info exciting. :)

Ingeniero

- 'And the string of image analysis and collections from Ati.'

I'm happy you find them useful.

Ati if they could do an Alien film similar to Sunshine, that would perfection for me lol :-)

IRaptus - True lines.

bloody hell how could I forget The Man and The Legend....

Joss Whedon!

IRaptus - I love Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) with Rooney Mara. Brilliant movie!

Ah, Sunshine is good, yes.

ScorpioStar - 'I ask, and I mean it: why was that?'

That is the question. :D

Agreed on Sir Ridley and David Fincher!

Danny Boyle's Sunshine is one my favourites too as are George Miller's Mad Max films

ScorpioStar - 'I am a Sir Ridley person, although I love David Fincher as well'

As I stated in the previous topic started by you, we visit the same club. :)

IRaptus - 'Definitely compensating for something ;-)'

Ha! Perhaps his face. :D

I really enjoyed Covenant, especially the addition of the Neomorphs as a sort of chaos-sowing meso-predator to the stalking beast Protomorph. I liked David as an antagonist but felt they needed to add some of the parts from the Advent clip to really show how apathetic and indifferent he was. Advent was really a chilling clip! 

But IMO Fox tried to appease as many of the divided fan base expectations as possible - but with a 2 hour screen time that probably required at least another hour. To have really pulled it off there needed to be another half hour dedicated to the engineers/Shaw story, and another half hour on the Protomorph hunt at the end. That end sequence was so cut down and rushed it lost all suspense.

Also, If you have seen some of the animated gifs getting around on here of the chestburster, bloodburster, and the adult Protomorph there is SO much detail in the cgi creatures - but they go by in a flash on screen without giving you a chance to truly appreciate how amazing they look.

Covenant was a quality film, great atmosphere, top class soundtrack, stunning visuals, some interesting new additions and I like the direction it is headed and cant wait for Awakening!

I still maintain we will look back at Covenant after these prequels are done and then truly appreciate it for what it set up.

It is a bridging film in a trilogy that sets up the final chapter.

Lawrence of Arabia and ScorpioStar - The third member of the club is here! :)

Xenotaris nice collection of pictures!

The reason I ask about the dimensions is because I am working on an Alien fanfic that heavily features an abandoned Conestoga ship so I would like reliable/canonable specs on the ship to work with.

ScorpioStar I like to be surprised, entertained, have my imagination stimulated. I would have appreciated a follow up to Prometheus, more about Elizabeth Shaw and her quest for answers, body horror, metaphysical dread. Visually, I would have liked more Giger and less victorian drawings, more sophistication in the Alien design, more weirdness. I would have appreciated it a movie that expands the known universe, not one that made it smaller like Covenant.

IRaptus

Thank you for the awesome gif :D Didn't realize how much gore the chestburster was covered in, truly horrific. I also dug the transparent look the little Xeno had, could that harken back to Giger's original look for the titular beast?

@joylitt

So you'd rather have what, exactly?

ScorpioStar I know what I did not want, and that is David taking over the movie. I also did not appreciate the dumb and disposable characters and all the cgi. And the unscary, easy to kill xenomorph. Next to Covenant, Prometheus is a total masterpiece.

@Lawrence of Arabia

Same tune here :)