MY TAKE...

Finally saw it… OK, here we go… I’m not going to try and spoil it for anyone… Off the top, I must say the trailers spoiled most of what was probably supposed to be a surprise and/or more shocking/intriguing. Way too much was shown. Don’t understand the whole secrecy thing, when you’re already giving away some your best tricks before the show. And reading what was on this site… Well… I know, it’s my fault… But then again, with its opening in Europe first; spoiling it, was a given… Anyway, an “A+” goes to the cinematography. Fantastic. Oscars? Maybe. Beautifully filmed, with beautiful scenery. Directing, “A”. Ridley Scott knows what he’s doing. He can take the worst script or story and turn it into gold. Or at least silver, or bronze. Not to say this was a bad story, but… We’ll get to that later… Acting, “B- to C+”. They did what they could, with what they had. Fassbender and Rapace were the stars. No doubt. The problem here, was that the movie was too short as well. Each character had their respective place, but the storyline panned out like there was an hour still missing. I understand where it was going, it just went too quickly. And this brings me to storywritting. “C-“. I guess it’s true, when they say, “this is what happens when its written by 5 people, at different times.” It’s was obvious, with about 20 minutes left, this thing had sequel/s written all over it. This is OK. I can’t really blame it all on Lindeloff. Who knows, where his input was really apparent. It would be hard to discredit his efforts, if we really don’t know where he had an impact. However, I’m not too keen on his idea that the forthcoming sequels will venture further away from the original Alien story. I hoping, when the sequel is written, it’s done by no more than 2 WELL KNOWN HORROR/SCI-FI individuals. And the story has to take a darker turn. This one was tragic. But I think it failed to answer Scott’s original questions about the Space Jockey, etc. Maybe that’s the long-term plans, with the sequel/s. A lot of people complained about the “unanswered” stuff, and the inexcusable circumstances of the story, but in defense of that, there was a lot of “reading between the lines” in this movie. Sometimes, scene to scene. Another side effect of it being rushed. For instance *SPOILER*----- The scene where David communicates with one of the Engineers, and the Engineer spontaneously goes nuts. Well, who knows what David really told him. Or was the Engineer reacting to the punch to the stomach of Shaw. Or was he reacting to what David probably told him about Weyland, and the true reason for the journey. I guess I’d be pissed to. To find out, that your creation, after millions of years of evolution, has turned into nothing more where, the most powerful, greedy, and backsliding individual in history, has made the trip, to come ask you for more life, so he can be more God-like? Are you kidding me? I’d kill the bastard to. Including those who came with him. Cause if I don’t kill them, they’ll steal it anyway. You see, all that has to be processed and/or assumed in the timeframe of about 10 seconds, while watching it. Again, movie was too short. The sequel had to be almost genius, at this point, in regards to the actual story. Has to be darker. More gory. With more biomechanical erotica stuff. But still be void of the traditional facehugger or xenomorph. There needs to be more eerie feeling towards the story. This one had its moments. But if Alien is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty of scary one’s since… Then this one wasn’t as scary as some of the other one’s I’ve seen prior. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be that way though. This one had more of the feel of strict sci-fi. Instead of sci-fi/horror. It didn’t “scare the shit out of me” the way Alien did. And the last 8 minutes wasn’t the tie-in, into Alien. The whole movie, was, and wasn’t, a tie-in into Alien. That’s all up to personal interpretation. But speaking of “eerie”. This brings me to music…………………. Epic fail. “D-“, and I’m being generous. Look, Jerry Goldsmith isn’t coming through that door. A third of the horror in Alien, literally came from the soundtrack. In their next attempt, there HAS TO BE CHANGE. Personally, they would’ve done better actually using Goldsmith’s original soundtrack, for the entire movie. Would’ve proved more successful. Would love to see a music editor actually pull that off. Would add a whole new dimension. Next time, go get Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, or Vangelis, or Jonny Greenwood, or Elliot Goldenthal. Something like this. Or hell, go with Goldsmith’s score. In summary, “B-“. Not a masterpiece. Not epic. But different, and somewhat unexpected. And the fact that this is not the end. 2 or 3 more is exactly right. But Scott is 74. They need to hurry, if he’s to stay at the helm of this thing. With Blade Runner 2 coming out in 2014, it looks like a sequel most likely wouldn’t roll out until 2016. Say what you want about the movie, but in all honesty, we’ll be glued to this thing for a while. At least until we find out why there was a derelict spacecraft on LV426, with a Jockey’s chest blown out, and an apparent attempt to “keep down the infestation” with a “blue mist”, within the cargo bay. Or were the eggs apart of the mission the Jockey was doing (shipping them, for whatever…)? And one got lose. These Engineers don’t seem to be the best containment guys in the galaxy, when it comes to biological weapons anyway. As a sidenote, I went to the movie with a friend of mine, who is a great fan of the Alien universe, but barely saw any of the trailers, and never saw or read anything about spoliers/pics/scripts, whatever. And he was totally freaked out by it. So yea, it was good…