Curly Curmudgeon
MemberOvomorphJun-12-2017 10:01 AMI have been a long time fan of sci-fi and have enjoyed the Alien franchise for the most part.
I am thrilled that Ridley Scott has revisited his old themes from Alien and Blade Runner and is taking them over again and doing a great job in what I have interpreted as the central point of them; artificial intelligence (AI).
So I will not make this a long diatribe of my opinions and neither will I critique every detail regarding plot(s) of the either franchise or any other sci-fi movies (or non sci-fi) movies Mr. Scott has directed or produced but just a simple "nod" of acceptance and to enjoy his view of things while I observe.
With that said, my take on the current Alien movie (and most of the previous one's from the franchise) is that the central theme has always been AI and the AI creations from Weyland Industries and the "what if?" scenario's contained in the central plot. Technology is not perfect and neither are humans and we humans are supposed to learn from our mistakes, however, with the advent of AI and how "technology" is supposed to be faster and better than a human and with AI, that computers and androids (i.e. robots, synthetics, drones, etc) will become conscious and self-aware and correct their own mistakes based on human values and protect humans at all costs.
Those of us who enjoy the genre of science fiction have seen many other movies or have read books or short stories on the recurring theme of AI breakdown. I see this also in Mr. Scott's "Blade Runner" franchise.
Having the experience of growing up with computer scientists and then eventually becoming one myself, this human fascination of "AI breakdown" is older than when the first computer was created (reference to the movie Metropolis) and was brought into existence from the forefathers of computer science (Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, John von Neumann just to name a few).
Mr. Scott does a wonderful job using the "AI breakdown" premise to be intertwined with the surface plot (i.e. deadly alien life forms, future corporate espionage) and taps into that old, sub-conscious fear of the dependence of technology to protect us even up to the point of when we humans think we have perfected AI consciousness in the future.
In the movie, Walter uses the "backdoor" key to check David by making sure that he still retains the code of the author/poet Shelley of the poet "Ozymandias" and that it is not Byron (a nod to the great comic book movie "The Watchmen").
This leads to my question regarding a very intelligent actor who appeared in the film as "Branson"; the original Captain of the ship Covenant. However this actor is not credited with a cameo in Alien Covenant but is very capable in handling a script for any type of character. This actor is Dr. James Franco.
Dr. James Franco holds dual Masters and Doctorates from prestigious universities, and true to form, he is very humble about his achievements. He is only seen in Alien Covenant for a brief time before his character is engulfed in flame and tragically dies while in "hypersleep". He is also the husband to the main female protagonist "Daniels" and she reflects on their time together when she reviews a video that he sent her while rock climbing.
I have my own opinions of why Dr. Franco chose this role with Mr. Scotts blessing but my question is what was the significance of his sacrifice (the death of the original captain) to the story line if the fate of the crew was still going to end up the way they did? And what was so appealing to Dr. Franco that made him take on such a role?
Thank you in kind if I do hear anything back but for also creating a forum and allowing me the chance to post something out there to these two great professionals.
