Comments (Page 567)

Ingeniero - Beautiful and disgusting... Hatton writes that it was 'too much'. Probably it was too much for Fox. But I think several fans would have been happy to see something like this.

red0guy@gmail.com - 'The hatred is not bigger to AC then to Prometheus.'

The hatred against Prometheus was huge. :) So I agree with you. :D

redguy, id say more people appreciate Prometheus and the path it was going down to AC.

im betting while weyland was alive, he was the only one that david served. he was the only one who could give david an order which he would follow as he was created to serve weyland. weyland would have given him orders to gather intel and tech for him during the Prometheus mission and report only to him so the company im betting, have no authority over david. now weyland is dead, no one has authority over him. the olive branch message suggests NO contact has been made between david and the company since he left lv223 at the very least. if he had been in contact with them and they had come to an arrangement then why send the olive branch message which is clearly sent after david leaves planet 4? plus, if the covenant could hardly communicate with the surface of the planet while in orbit, how could the company be in contact with david? when their light years away? the olive branch message itself isn't really that clear on its purpose either. david tells them what he has been working on, how he has progressed and what he intends to do next yet he makes no demands as to what he wants from the company. he even states that his creations will rule which makes the whole message kinda pointless. to me its more a warning of whats to come rather than any kind of attempt at reconciling which again adds strength to the argument no one controls david and he is acting alone. thats only the way I see it

Michelle - 

Thanks as usual for your bigger picture input.

I was simply looking for and struggling to find, an accompanying piece of footage which i believed to be very important as a fan who takes things a little further.

At first i thought it was a money thing. Someone wanted Advent exclusive to help sales and ask for more money.

However when you think of this and how I THOUGHT the inclusion of Advent was critical to keep fans in the loop.

Perhaps it is just something thrown together (yes it was) with the only reason to people please the fans with SOME footage they could cut into the piece using some mythos.

When in actual fact if you are lucky to find it on a released copy. Especially considering the high end is missing it. It does now make me think that it is just another trick to keep us distracted.

i think you are correct Michelle and i am so glad you took the time to post that as i think it is a very important angle.

Many Thanks & to u all ;) 

10 million is not bad.  20th Century will get 3.3 million from that.  But if it doesn't help the movie break even; then it is not a good result.

There was so much material on a follow-up to a new Alien movie could be.  You have Isolation and the Neill Blomkamp idea revamping Alien3.  To be honest, Alien 3 is better than Covenant.

I get that the company were aware of the transmission from lv426 and given that the expedition never returned, it would be safe for the company to assume that the 2 were connected. and yes id agree david would have been on a priority mission to gather tech for the company.but I still don't see how the company would possibly be aware of what david is doing while he is on planet 4. from what I can tell between the end of Prometheus and the olive branch message, there has been no contact and the company may well be none the wiser to davids whereabouts. since weyland is dead david, I believe, is free from any previous priorities regarding the company

@Ati - Great post!  It is good to have Matthatt0n affirm what we thought was going on with David!  I hope to hear 'The real story' about the bombing of the Engineers from someone other than David, soon!

@Ingeniero - YES!  David was Weyland's tool to uncover the mysteries of creation!!  It was David's pre-programmed mission in life & his 'duty' to his Creator, or Peter Weyland.

It didn't suck, it just wasn't a masterpiece. 

A:C is a typical very beautiful Ridley Scott film, this one with good acting and buildup but with lackluster later acts. It had its moments but I'm not a big fan of the David the creator storyline (so far at least) 

@ Ati - I again watched Alien-Director's Cut on Cinemax last night & as Ash spoke from his detached head, he seemed to do so from a position of prior knowledge regarding the Xenomorph.  I think he was completely sure of all he was told about the abilities of the Xenomorph, & was even more impressed by it, having seen it in real life situations?

@Joylitt +1 about focusing on some real Alien drama equal or surpassing the original.  @Lawrence of Arabia, the movie has barely broke even when you include marketing costs.  For domestic grosses, the studio gets half; for international grosses, the studio gets 1/3.  If you look at the numbers and look at the 97 million initial budget, the studio has nearly received 90 million for its movie release.  Nevertheless, it will garner a product with Blu-ray sales, streaming and on-demand.  But I doubt 20th Century Fox wants to risk that amount on another sequel.

@I Moon Girl - I wonder if David meant 'I have your ship', to be in relation to having a Juggernaught?  That may be of high importance to Weyland-Yutani, too?

David 8 was on a priority mission to acquire Engineer technology ali81 beginning with the preparations for the Prometheus mission.

Corporate knew of the Acheron system for decades. This may not be the system where Paradise is but Weyland-Yutani Corporation knew of the Engineers' system in regards to LV-223 and LV-426.

David 8 opened his eyes (above) to the landscape shown in the opening of Prometheus. The planet shown has been debated and I believe that the below image is of the planet Paradise.

David 8 was groomed his whole synthetic life to find the answers in regards to creation (by acquisition of alien technology) and operated under many Special Orders from Weyland-Yutani Corporation. And it looks like David 8 wasn't the only synthetic on LV-223 with the Prometheus crew (below).

"From the observations of David 8 and [redacted] we know that the Accelerant is self-activating and that it manipulates the genetic structure of the living beings with which it comes into contact."

Weyland-Yutani Report, page 55.

In 2094, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw transmits [classified].

Weyland-Yutani Report, page 8.

Covenant Mission

I believe Dr. Shaw transmitted where she was going and corporate sent the resources (Covenant mission) strait to David 8 in order to capitalize on the Engineer technology acquisition confirmed by David 8 and Dr. Shaw. The image below from Phobos tends toward this.

Excellent post!  Matthatt0n is very vocal via social media and very kind to always answer fan questions.  We need a book of just his sketches for the film!!

I like how he thoughtfully points out some of the flaws in addition to the good stuff, unlike the Cinema Sins version. The guys voice gets annoying though.

I wonder if it will be about 10 pages long?

how would WY be able to monitor David's activities on planet 4?

Ati

The hatred is not bigger to AC then to Prometheus.

David: Their files once told of an ancient ceremony, such cruelty, once thrived, long since frozen over, given passage to timidity, the cost of progress must be absolute, but not for the weak.

What if he means the same rituals David was using to create the biomechanical Xenomorph (thanks Ingeniero).

http://www.alien-covenant.com/topic/46481

The progress can be the creation of biomechanical engineers as we saw in Prometheus,  they are different from the sacrificial ones who are similar to the Paradise population. Their timidity seen as a weakness. Getting to blend the the biomechanical features might have been a cruel process for the chosen ones, something similar to the way of getting elongated skulls at the children in Ancient Egypt and pre Columbian civilization from central America. 

@Ati,

I liked the whole trilogy, no preferences :), and I liked Fincher's version as well.

Yes, I saw Headhunters! I actually see many movies from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, those guys have great movies and I don't mind the subtitles, actually I love to hear them speaking their own language. And, apparently, Sir Ridley keeps an eye on them as well :)

sherris I got my steelbook yesterday and the case is cool, love its vintage metallic look. I think the extras you asked for are not there (not listed) but I cannot confirm yet as I need to buy a new BR player first.

I had to choose between bluray and steelbook and I chose the steelbook. I am happy I did it.

As Michelle Johnston said "neither of those elements are part of the story or considered an important contribution IF Fox make the next film."

I think it was an experiment to see if the movie can make more money in the most adverse conditions, than it was spent for its production :)

It seems it did.

joylitt thanks for clarifications. Yes, the David/Walter interaction has some memorable lines. I still didn't get why was Vickers in Prometheus. So if in Covenant a guy from the security team is there just for a kill scene is not that bad. At least he exits fast from the arena, unlike Vickers who had as well a ridiculous death in my opinion. And we are not sure wether she was an android or not. But even without characters to care for, I like Prometheus. 

I am glad you came to terms with Covenant, I knew you will.

Regarding the campaign in favor of Blomkamp, as long as there are polls on the internet, on influential sites, which movie to be next, Alien 5 or Alien Awakening I bet the blomkamps don't stop with voting only and they have a campaign that aims to reduce the earnings for Alien Covenant. I don't mean that Covenant doesn't do better because of that but it is a factor that negatively affected the box office. I know people who did not see Covenant because they read the hateful reviews.

It is so easy to inflame the trolls and make them campaign against something these days...

However I know you are not a troll and you care for the future of the franchise and your negative comments only woke up the Covenant fans to stand against the wave of hate. At least on this forum.

Thank you.

G. H. (Gman) Capt. Branson's death scene is pretty odd. It's like the scene was dubbed and is out of sync (Daniels crying). It feels rushed, confusing and is practically a repetition of Charlie's death in Prometheus.

daliens I will clarify just because you asked. I expressed my thoughts before, and I also said I came to terms with what Alien Covenant is. Regarding the dialogue, I feel the only part of the script the writers put some effort is on the David/Walter interaction. And I disagree this is a better script than that of Prometheus. I have read both scripts and I can assure you Lindeloff's work is much more engaging and it has much more detail and descriptions that allow you to visualize the action much better. Logan's scenes are very nondescript and that can be a huge burden for the production, which has to add notes and to improvise. Many characters are not even in the script, and that is why they barely have a line. There are characters like the guy killed on the wheat field that no one even talk about. I don't think there is any campaign in favor of Blomkamp. His only really good movie is District 9 and Chappie is a disaster.

I Moon Girl nice! I have the kindle version pre-ordered so I can read it straight away. If i ordered a physical copy to Australia the next film would probably be out by the time it got here lol.

G. H. (Gman)

I think most people read the fast-food version of a review. And by writing a bad review many don't bother to detail, it's enough to say "waste off time and money", "boring", "bad", etc. And with so many of these reviews in the context of a cancelled project by Blomkamp I suspect somebody is trying to influence the decision making at Fox. There are also trolls, of course, as some really enjoy trolling.

I might be wrong, I am aware of that, but in these times of fake news / reviews it is healthier to be a little paranoid.

I am open to negative reviews and debates, but not with trolls or hit-and-runs.

I did not do much research but I am not sure if any other film recently has received so many hateful reviews (by hateful I mean expressing utter negativity, intense dislike of everything the movie is, something they don't feel the need to explain as it comes more from the guts, than from the brain).

I repeat, I never said it's the perfect movie but it's a movie I love. 

I also believe that if it did not do it better financially speaking it's because the hateful reviews did their job very well. Many viewers unfortunately take into account the rating of the movie before buying the tickets.

All this marketing around Alien Covenant really looks like an experimental study for me. I am very curious of what's next.

The World of KJ has finally translated the weekend actuals from Kogyotsushin. While the actuals show it made more money, I was sadly way, way off in terms of attendance.

Alien: Covenant opened to #2 with $3.1M. It fell to Dunkirk, which is in its second weekend. Alien: Covenant had an attendance of 138,297 across 694 screens. That places it under Wonder Woman, Ghost in a Shell and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but above Logan's opening.

Alien: Covenant is expected to finish its Japanese run with about $10M. That would estimate and attendance around 440,000. (Give or take, depending on the discount days.) To put that in perspective, anything lower than an attendance of 2-2.5 million is usually considered a flop.

joylitt can you detail on what do you mean by this?

The bad dialogue is all over the place, ranging from flat to pretentious to cringe worthy.

I think Covenant had by far the best dialogue of all the Alien movies.

Prometheus was a far lesser movie as dialogue, characters, but it had the Engineers and great visuals, had a happy ending, it was in many way an easier film to digest for the larger audience.

Covenant was very dark, almost unbearable sometimes and the ending left no door open for hope, David in control of so many helpless good souls, Daniels going into cryosleep with the thought that David is going to do to her what he did to Shaw... Can you feel that desperation? 

In my opinion Covenant is a better movie than Prometheus.

The World of KJ has finally translated the weekend actuals from Kogyotsushin. While the actuals show it made more money, I was sadly way, way off in terms of attendance.

Alien: Covenant opened to #2 with $3.1M. It fell to Dunkirk, which is in its second weekend. Alien: Covenant had an attendance of 138,297 across 694 screens. That places it under Wonder Woman, Ghost in a Shell and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but above Logan's opening.

Alien: Covenant is expected to finish its Japanese run with about $10M. That would estimate and attendance around 440,000. (Give or take, depending on the discount days.) To put that in perspective, anything lower than an attendance of 2-2.5 million is usually considered a flop.

"editing is off there too."

But how? Saying it's "off" doesn't tell me anything.

"Regarding the reviews, probably you just read the excerpts posted by Rotten Tomatoes"

That's exactly one of the issues though. If most people just read the essential fast-food version of a review, then film criticism takes a hit. It's no longer about in-depth analysis. It's about getting a strong zinger in with a score next to it.

You're right some critics do a very good job of going in depth with a film. But they are few and far between, because that's no longer the objective for many. Most publications have forced a low word count on film critics and mandated dry, sterile reviews that mimic others. (Some are even bought off by studios. It's one of the reasons I stopped writing for certain film magazines and websites.) Even though you may not "know" why a film is the way it is, that shouldn't stop more thought provoking exploration in to it. Especially if it's a film or franchise you're passionate about.

IRaptus said, "lets hope this give us some answers in a week's time!!! :-)"

Oh yea!  I got mine on pre-order!  Should we have another website countdown like we did with the movie Alien: Covenant?  THAT IS how excited I am to get some more.

lets hope this give us some answers in a week's time!!! :-)

G. H. (Gman) Well I was not making a review but the bad editing negative effect on the movie is obvious: that third act is totally anti climatic. And the problems start pretty early in the film, most precisely with the sleep pod accident; editing is off there too. The bad dialogue is all over the place, ranging from flat to pretentious to cringe worthy. Regarding the reviews, probably you just read the excerpts posted by Rotten Tomatoes, but you can choose to hit the "full review" link. Some critics do a very good job actually, and they conduct in depth analyses of the film. I don't think you know why a film is the way it is. It Took Ridley Scott 5 years to admit that maybe he made a mistake with Prometheus. Maybe in another 5 years he will admit that making David the center of the story was a mistake or that the damn flute scene was a mistake. Anything is possible.

For me to accept this, I do wonder, then, what meaning does the transmission David sent to WY saying, "I have your ship," and so on in the Advent video.  I interpreted that whole transmission as David showing WY what he has been working on and that he now has the Covenant ship.  I didn't interpret that as anything less David notifying WY for the first time.

I do think David did some hacking and altered the course of the Covenant to pass near enough to Planet 4 so they would pick up the Shaw transmission.  If that's not the case, than I do think it only makes sense that the Covenant was led to pass by Planet 4 on purpose.

I don't understand how anybody sees that WY sent the ship to David?

I guess I should ask some questions....

Where is that transmission scene or heard in the film or is it in one of those internet videos released by Fox?  I'd like to experience that transmission again and give it more thought. 

On another note, I can't find the Advent internet video...I guess it's in that video?

joylitt,
Okay, but whether or not RT was forgiving is not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that RT is too busy quantifying reviews that say nothing different (good or bad) from one another and have issues justifying themselves beyond a score sheet.

Your post alone is guilty of the same stuff. Why is the editing bad? Why does it affect the film? What about the dialogue makes it bad? Is it possible it was intended to be written a specific way? And if so why? Does the weak CG ruin the film, etc. Or better yet, instead of listing the pros and cons (which way too many reviews do) what about the central themes either ruined or made the movie? What bigger concepts does the movie walk away with?

Anyone can list good or bad attributes about a film--The audience doesn't need to be told what good or bad CG  or acting is. Most can tell--So diving in to those topics usually makes for mundane reads. I don't blame many reviewers sidestepping those issues to talk about something else. What audiences usually don't understand is why a film is the way it is--That makes for a more interesting read.

Ripley- But only God can make a tree.

I was never picky about directors as long as the movie was good. If I disliked a movie, I might look at who directed it but that is about it. 

It didn't suck. I thought it was pretty good. But it, like most theatrical cuts, would have been better without time limits. In the future, maybe they can show everything while cutting down on the end credits- just scrunch them down in the corner while the movie plays. any TV shows do this these days. Who really cares who the fourth key grip was anyway?