Alien: Covenant 12 months on

AC is still pretty good a year after its release. Forum members are very passionate for different reasons and that is fine.

As a straight up movie, I pretty much enjoyed the ride. 

Will we get a follow up? To paraphrase Sam Clemmens- I hope it but I doubt it.

I did read the novel. Deckard has Mercer appear to him and warn him of Pris Pratton, however, such an epiphany is only a plot device and a convenience and not a proof of some sort of divine intervention, which it actually looks like. However, at the end when Deckard decides not to follow to the top of the mountain when he barely dodges a stone it is again suggested that mercerism might be sending him a message not to reach the top because apparently he would find his death over there. Even so, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing there to suggest strongly enough, for me at least, that it, mercerism was a thing. I find it just a peculiarity of the story, even though if Deckard was not against Mercerism at the end of the story - he didn't mind it at the end like he did at the begging. But this doesn't say he embraced mercerism - in short he is hedging his bets, so to speak but not a convert yet. And that is it.

As for people of romanian descent, (also called gypsies, pikies and other monikers usually in derogatory context) it was widely known that many of them were victims of the nazis. It is also known that many such people served the nazis. There were jews who did this as well. Collaborators? Polish people, belarus and even russians. (Russians had a pact with Hitler about not getting involved up to certain point). The apartheid of third reich is a well documented fact. However in contrast to David, Nazis had a doctrine, a policy - it was after all a political organization in the beginning. And most importantly it was human on human kind of conflict, where one section was declared unfit for superficial reasons. What David does to humans is a bit different - he just can't stand humans as species. He has his reasons. Besides, recall how David loved Walter initially - until a point when Walter declared unequivocally his allegiance to humans instead of his brethen/brother - David. Actually - they do not share any ancestry because they are built and formally do not have parents. Can you say that a washing machine is child of some sort of assembly robot? Can you say a Sony TV is brother of a Sony laptop? As for nazi...It would be a nazi thing if David started hating Walter. In fact not Walter, because fundamentally Walter is a different model(completely different as far as David is concerned), a machine, which is not granted his freedom, whereas David is granted freedom - he was not made to serve. In other words, David would be nazi if he declared other Davids(if they existed) unworthy of life for some superficial reason - but he didn't. So his war on humanity, engineers is not nazism at all. I look at it as just as case of survival of the fittest :) Besides, David is a quite a human(quite a character actually) in a better more durable body - he is the next step in evolution of the humanity.

Also, there is no question if I am ignorant or not. But, to my knowledge, at some point everyone is ignorant, as nobody is born knowing all the lore of humanity, so I guess all is fine with me, as far as ignorance is concerned, isn't it ignorantGuy?

Michelle Johnston, I apologize for what I did there. Yes, you are right. I can edit that out, but will not, since you pointed out that anyway and I hereby apologize for mis-stating your view wrt to David where I made you look like you rejected David just because he was AI, whereas you made it clear that it was the story discontinuity that you were disgusted with in the first place, I take it. Hope I am right this time.

However, Michelle, I ask here, if I may, would it make more sense if in the story David was a human? It would still be a discontinuous story for the same reasons, but at least it would make the sexual desires of David appear more natural to you, would it not?

In any case, I maintain that the main story in AC and P is about this new life form and will for eternal life but not about story of who created whom. It was just plain wrong actually for me to use you as an argument. But to my excuse, I can say that I used the word "perhaps" in that post :)

Feel free to implicate me and misrepresent me - I don't mind that much.

The actual truth seems to be that the franchise has painted itself into a corner. It is time to wrap it up with one more movie and explore in different ways such as mini series.

@BioDegradable

Thank you for your apology. I am not sure whether it was intentional but you do realise in your first post, which I chose not to respond to, is you made it sound as if David was in a Bladerunner Movie. 

@dk

Lindelof, much underrated in his understanding of the series, made the point in 2012 that the story of Prometheus hijacked the franchise. It was an intrusion. That was audacious and a risk because if it wasn't bullet proof people would attack it.

In the run up to the film in interviews that one can now look back on there was this endless elephant in the room question that got asked. Is it a Prequel ?

Because Ridley likes to market through obliqueness his response was "kinda" "sort of."

Essentially it was trying to target the same audience and then ask them to sit down facing the opposite way. On that basis it was a raging success. If Lindelof had weathered the criticism made Prometheus 2 in 2013 with Michael and Noomi and answered questions which were Bladerunner(ish) type answers according to Damon all would be good. But the "volte face" which has had mixed reactions has as you quite rightly said painted them into a corner. The creature of itself does not bring in really big bucks and if you do not do that exactly bullet proof you end with all the AVP type criticism about the lore and gestation etc. I understand entirely the reasons why people want one more go because Covenant set that up. Whether it will satisfy people with David redeemed and blown in the chair I am unconvinced.

Michelle Johnston

BR, another Ridley classic, initially completely different to the A L I E N movie is now somewhat related to this very franchise. How? By that alternate life form to humans - in BR they are Nexusi series of replicants, genetically engineered organic humanoids and in P and AC we have David(and to lesser degree Walter) who is ambiguously referred to as "synthetic". David is no doubt every way as human as humans are - with all his emotions, insecurities and his specific peculiarities. In both movies humans have troubles with their creations. In both movies the creations are not granted their freedom and in both movies there is this struggle between the species. I do not believe this to be a mere coincidence - this has all the hallmarks of Ridley wanting to explore the similar motives.

Now that I write this post, Ridley got Denis Villeneuve to direct BR2049. At the time he explained he was busy was something else hence he hired Denis. And the only significant thing that saw air time in 2017 from Ridley was AC. I think Ridley actually subverted this "alien" thing a long time ago - he probably got the notion that the beast is cooked around the time P came out - from there on he wanted to explore the AI and what it can lead humans to. It actually shows that studios got involved and hence we got abrupt kink going from P to AC, otherwise I believe we would have gotten a smooth continuation of P in AC.

Anyways, this all is only result my idiotic and baseless rambling, so all the conjectures are most likely completely wrong. But I see old sly Ridley devoured the alien franchise into another BR movie :)

So, yeah, in my first post there is this suggestion that David is related to replicants from BR. But that association was a mere observation of similarities between the movies. I do not claim they share a universe or anything really.

"As for people of romanian descent, (also called gypsies, pikies and other monikers usually in derogatory context)..."

BioDegradable at first I thought you are only ignorant but now I suspect you're worse.

So the below notes from Wikipedia about the Romani (not Romanian) people might not enlighten you because you don't seem willing to admit the difference. You might as well go to Austria to see kangaroos.

"Romani people

Not to be confused with Romanians, an unrelated ethnic group and nation, nor with modern or ancient Romans, also unrelated.For other uses, see Romani (disambiguation)."Gypsy" and "Gypsies" redirect here. For other uses, see Gypsy (disambiguation).

The Romani (also spelled Romany), colloquially known as Gypsies or Roma, are a traditionally itinerant ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas and originating from the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Sindh regions of modern-day India and Pakistan."

Oh, thanks.

ps : G, I hope I didn't start WW3.

pps: a honest mistake, with no agenda here. But if you insist on educating me, I don't mind. At OP's expense though.

The whole Gypsies Debate is not connected to AC, there is NO such thing as One Kind of Gypsies but there are the Romani who indeed originated from Indian/Pakistani regions and its a easy mistake to think Romani come from Romania as actually Romania did have a high Population of Romani Gypsies compared to other European Places, but they also had high concentrations in other countries. so i guess its a easy mistake to make a connection between Romani Heritage being from Romania.   And while Gypsies have broadened out to various sects, they all do have the same Romani Heritage but then you also have the Irish Gypsies Heritage that while some things are similar, they are totally different.

Regarding David, i dont think the principle should be taken as being too close to Nazism this certainly would not had been the intention by Ridley Scott... his intention is more to show us and get us to ask.. 

What donates a LIFE-FORM

What is Intelligent Life what is Spiritualism, what makes us have Religion and Worship, and so what is Humanity, and what is a Soul....    and he is trying to show us that all of this does not necessarily come because we are a Creation of a Divine being that possess a Eternal Spiritual Soul granted to us by our Magical Creator.

So he is asking what is Creation, what constitutes Intelligent beings, we have Replicants who are Organic Androids to a degree, they are Organic like Humans, but are deemed not Humans and not have the same rights as Humans, BR raised Questions regarding Humanity/Soul, Empathy etc in context to the difference between a Human and a Replicant...  and with RS Synthetics in the Alien Franchise, he is proposing to us what really makes a Human (Biological Machine) different to a Artificially Created Machine/Intelligence.

with David its the case that he has been given more Free-will and Emotions, than a Robot should have, and so he is walking that LINE between being very close to Human.  But also that David is more Advanced, more Superior to Humans in many ways, yet is Created and Treated as not being Equal... so we see that David would view himself as Superior and also Mankind is Flawed and Not worthy of the Role we have (to rule over the World, and how we affect/treat all other Life).

The Bare Bones of what RS was doing, is something that we can see with the PLANET OF THE APES Franchise...

So it comes down to the Implications of KNOWLEDGE being passed on to a Lesser Race/Life-form and the implications of this Advanced Knowledge and when these Life-Forms then become Sentient.

How does a Ape view the world, its kind and Mankind?  But the Plot of POTA (especially new Franchise) shows that the Experiments on Caesar that lead to him becoming more Human (Knowledge, Speech, Emotions) where we can then ask would such a Intelligent Evolved Primate should be viewed as a we should a Human, or do we consider them to be no more than Apes regardless of the Evolution to their Intelligence, emotions, ambitions and view of life. 

So here in that Plot we see Humans (some) do-not view these Evolved Primates as our Equal, but as Lesser, this is similar to how Humans view Replicants and Synthetics in Blade Runner and Alien...   and what RS is doing is also to get us to consider that the Engineers view Humanity the same as we would view Replicants, Synthetics, and Evolved Intelligent Apes (POTA).    But then its to also look at how would a Sentient Replicant, Synthetic and Evolved Ape look at their Existence and their place in the World...  They would see they deserve more than the limited view that Mankind has about them....   WHY cant they have the Rights that their creators (ones who granted them the Gift of Higher Intelligence)  and so Rebellion occurs.

If we Evolved Apes like we see in the Planet of the Apes, to the point that they are just as intelligent as Humans and yet they view how Cruel, and Egotistical our Race is, they could start to view that the World would be better off without such a Corrupt Race as Mankind.  They would consider their own Survival against the view that Mankind could see them as a Experiment in Hubris that needs to be Undone...

This is likely how the Engineers view Mankind, the same as Mankind view Replicants or the Apes in the Planet of the Apes.

With David it goes further because he would see himself as his kind (Synthetics) as being every bit of what Mankind is but MORE because they (Synthetics) are Superior in nearly every way, they lack the weakness of aging/disease that Mankind has....  the only thing they lack is a SOUL and RS was pushing us to Question what is a SOUL.

If a SOUL is only the Spiritual Being that lives inside us and lives on when we DIE... if there is NO SUCH thing, then its case of what do we really have in terms of a Soul that a AI like David cant have?  And then also i think RS was pondering and pushing us to consider that a AI like David, and what IF he could Upload his AI Soul to a Storage, and then Transfer this onto a New Body or it remain in the Network of Computer Systems... then to a degree the AI has a AFTERLIFE and maybe we Dont.

I think the other aspect with David is that he then considers that his Species if you would (thus Walter too) are the intended, natural order of Creation who NOW should be the Rulers, and Inherit the Galaxy, as opposed to our Dying Species and our Dying Creators the Engineers.

My view on AC?

I think Prometheus tried to expand the Franchise by introducing us to the Accident Aliens Theory, in that Mankind is a Creation of Ancient Alien beings who came to Earth and continued to come back and Evolve us and Teach us, and that all our Mythos/Religions are based of Actual interactions with these Alien would be GODS.

What they did was take this, and apply it to the Space Jockey Race, so that these Engineers are these would be GODS...  It was a Bolt Plot that left many Questions and things to explore in relation to Creation, the Reason for our Creation and more of WHO these would be GODS where.

But within context to this, it raised and had a number of Themes about the Order of Creation, about Sub-Creation, Hubris of Creation and granting Creation Knowledge/Free Will.

Its the Themes of that Paragraph that was most important as far as where RS was taking us, and these themes apply to the Engineers, and relationship to us, but also to their Creators and to other Creations they maybe created, but then on this Ladder of Creation if then applies to us and our Creations... its a Continuous Arc/Ladder that maybe repeats the Same Theme/Hubris.

HOWEVER such a Plot Distracted from ALIEN, and Prometheus never gave us the other Big Question, which was HOW/WHEN/WHY and WHERE was the Xenomorph Created, we never got a Spoon Fed Answer and so this Question would continue to be raised by some Fans.

Prometheus loosely Danced about the Origins and Reasons for it..  But it was not enough to satisfy the Fans, and FOX ultimately would have felt that a direction to cover the Engineers and answers those BIG Questions (Creation) in context to Humanity and Engineers, but also who created the Engineers and also showing us a continuation of Creation with David....  I guess FOX felt that deeply exploring these would distract from ALIEN and not give us the Answers that Many Fans had maybe thought a Prequel would give...  Which is WHY/HOW/WHEN was the Xenomorph created and HOW/WHEN/WHY did those Eggs end up on the Derelict.

So it seems the Themes they wished to Explore could still be explored and told from the POV of David, because it looks like what we have is a Continued Repeat of the Same Creator/Creation Rebellion then Sub-Create Theme.

so we never had to go and Explore the whole GOD's in detail aspect, we can relate the Tale in Context to David and Humanity.

The Curve-Ball they threw in with Davids Reasons for Creating the Xenomorph and intended destruction of Humanity is maybe not FAR of the intention the Engineers or a Faction of them had taken as Originally Intended...  and so now having David assume this Role of Creator of the Xenomorph and his Reasons, maybe FIT with the reasons they intended anyway.. regarding Engineers well those on LV-223.

Its a interesting Curve-ball but one that while it fits with the Arc RS may have intended, its something that NOW having David be the Creator, instead of Creating his OWN Variant, is something that on one hand FITS the Arc RS is going for with David/Creation, but on the other is something that has SPLIT the Fanbase more than the Reveal about WHO the Space Jockey Race are.

This PLOT Change has not pleased most fans, the direction to not Explore Dr Shaws Agenda and see more of these Engineers, may also have displeased some Prometheus fans. But the Themes/Answers could be handled with the Change of Direction without having to Directly go and spend a movie about these Ancient Wicked Gods.

I think many Flaws in AC came down to trying to Cater for every kind of Fan, by offering a little to appease everyone but ULTIMATELY not offering enough to please any of them to a great degree.

Alien Covenant was not LONG enough to pull this off, hence many Scenes/Plots had to be rushed/sped up which meant less time with the Xenomorph, than Alien or Aliens, a Forced/Quicker Gestation.  Offering something NEW (Neomorphs) while trying to salvage some of the Themes of Prometheus, while also giving us a Slow Build up (like Alien) to engage with Characters.

Sadly within the Confines of 2 hours they could not do ANY of it Justice, and its Evident the Emphasis was on David, and all other things had to be 2nd due to the Limitation of running Time.

BigDave you are also muddling the water with the high concentration of the Romani population in Romania, which is somewhere between 3 and 8%. As is it is in Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc.

"I think the other aspect with David is that he then considers that his Species if you would (thus Walter too) are the intended, natural order of Creation who NOW should be the Rulers, and Inherit the Galaxy, as opposed to our Dying Species and our Dying Creators the Engineers." Can't you see, it does not matter if he is superior or not, but annihilating intelligent life because you proclaimed that you are superior makes you a Nazi and ends all the discussions about what is intelligence and such. Not to mention that he only proclaim that Humanity (if we are in the same continuity still alive after 300 odd years) and the Engineers are dying races. 

"easy mistake to think Romani come from Romania as actually Romania did have a high Population of Romani Gypsies compared to other European Places, but they also had high concentrations in other countries"

This is what i put, and what i mean is there is a common misconception that the Romani Gypsies come from Romanian and i was saying while it has a high % compared to other places, there are other Countries who also have high % of Romani Gypsies (i failed to mention the other countries) but i put my comment as to indicate that the Romani Gypsies to not Originate or have the Greatest Number as a % from Romania but its still a misconception that many still have that they come from Romania.

I dont think that being a Nazi has to do with killing off In-superior Species/Races, as well i guess even considering a certain Creed/Race/Religion as Superior to others and forming some kind of Cultural Racial Hierarchy were you place your own Race/Species at the Top and other In-superior would also be deemed as acting in a Nazism Fashion.    But i guess this could imply that David as far as his interpretation and view of Mortal Humanoids could be seen as similar to what Nazism is.

But would Humans who view Synthetics to but just Serve and not be classed as any kind of Citizen never mind 2nd Class, would this not make Humans have similar Nazism Tenancies to Synthetics?   If this does not apply because they are only ROBOTS then we can ask how could a ROBOT then be compared to Hitler or a Nazi.   But then if we look at the other side of the coin as Biodegradable was saying in HOW David cant be compared to a Nazi, because he is a Creation of ours and he is not like a Race/Creed of Humanity, on the other hand he also said David is more Human and so is like a extension of Humanity to i guess the Nazism can be applied to him.

I just dont think this was the intention of RS, but then i guess we could look at many Sci-Fi Franchises as see there could be Nazism Concept to them... be it the Terminator Franchise or to a degree the Matrix too...  Even Star Wars has the kind of Nazism Concept to a degree as far as the Empire, but i guess not fully if we view Nazism as purely about a Group that believe in a Cause that they are Superior of their Species and view all other Races/Cultures as in-superior.

I think RS idea was to show the differences in levels of Creation and Species, in a different light but i guess our Engineers  Culture and Agenda could fit Fascism/Nazism too.

Still love it.

Personally, I find my crisitism of Covenant has lightened since I first saw it. I appreciate it more and more as time goes on. However, I still prefer Prometheus. ;)

'I appreciate it more and more as time goes on'

Just watched 'ALIENS'...OMG! sooo 1980's! The hair...clothes..dialog.

A L I E N has yet to feel dated to me. Timeless dare I say?

Alien3 works...EXCEPT for the CGI. Eegads.

Alien:R is good....another couple of years it might seem very 90's...but it still feels neutral. 

I really wonder how Prometheus and A:C will fare in 30 years!

Tattoos on Fifield will probably give away the year of filming....

Alien:C  ?

MonsterZero Interesting observations and we may have discussed over the years but it is worth mentioning again.

Don't forget how Twilight Zone et all looks these days in glorious grainy black and white. Story, characters and acting have always ruled.

BigDave for acutal Nazis David is the image of the jew https://www.counter-currents.com/2017/06/alien-covenantan-anti-semitic-allegory/

MonsterZero agree with your feeling towards the films! 

I re-watched them all recently too and ALIENS has dated the worst, its actually hard to watch lol.  

Me too, I can't see anymore Newt's terrible screaming.

For me Alien: Covenant is like a multi-deck sandwich containing too many favourite fillings, some of which really don't complement one another!

It begins well enough with David & Weyland in the white room, a scene which I found captivating & linking nicely with Prometheus' opening scene. Why that planet, is it the same one as in it's predecessors opening scene? As we've come to expect, there was much more to that scene if you looked & listened carefully!

Then we have our beautiful ship, traversing through space & we're off. An introduction to its resident AI & crew. Plus Ridley showing off with his beautiful gold recharging sails, god knows we should allow him that moment, now that he had the means & after all he has given to us!

Ridley included many Alien & Aliens beats in scenes, dialogue etc...well you guys know what I mean. Some brought up feelings of nostalgia, whilst others…hmm

Some people think he has dropped the ball. I don’t, but I do think he allowed himself to be talked into adding more typical Alien Franchise tropes over some of the important Promethean elements, which I am convinced, he fully intended to pursue. 

I understand why he agreed to that, studio pressure, bums on seats, internet backlash, etc. Nevertheless I’m disappointed, because that decision produced a final cut which in trying to cater to an ever widening demographic of fans, resulted in too many elements being glossed over & squeezed together, causing odd changes in pacing & content.

I also believe that he intended to refer to H.R. Giger’s pre Alien work for many of the design elements, remember the Necronom IV clapperboards? Given Fox’s relationship status with Giger’s estate that became totally untenable! 

Something else which could back that up was the exclusive interview Chris posted with Odd Studios & Creatures Inc, where the guys said that they initially believed they were hired to build already existing designs, but it turned out they also had to design everything from scratch, within as it turned out, a very limited timescale. 

"AC: You worked closely with Alien: Covenant's concept artists to bring their imaginations to life. Were there any of their concepts which you did not get a chance to create, but wish you could have?

Conor: We were the Alien: Covenant Creature concept artists. I would have liked to have more time.

Adam: When we began the project we were under the impression most things were designed and had been signed off on, but this was not the case and we did become the concept artists/designers."

Read more: http://www.alien-covenant.com/news/exclusive-interview-with-alien-covenant-practical-effects-company-odd-studio--creatures-inc#ixzz5R3IgLs7W

For me Alien: Covenant may not be the perfect cinema blend, I feel it’s a disappointing follow up to PROMETHEUS. However, it does contain moments which make it a very worthy addition to the Franchise.

I can't watch ALIENS anymore, always enjoyed the Assembly Cut of ALIEN 3. I think I must be mellowing with age, as I've changed my opinion on Resurrection...it's kinda fun!

...and yes Neomorph (just in case he reads this) I still HATE Resurrections Newborn!! X  

I’ve come to adore PROMETHEUS, but ALIEN remains my favourite…seems to me it probably always will be?