Alien: Covenant *Spoilers from post 747*

Tefral

Sad Professor wrote: »

No. It’s about a different crew/ship who discover what happened to David and Shaw.

Ok... so has that story been completely sidestepped?

Tony EH

Tefral wrote: »

Can someone tell me this. Does this movie pick up from where David and Shaw take off LV-223 to go to the Engineers Planet?

I'm thinking that this film will have pretty much nothing whatsoever to do with 'Prometheus'.

Which is, simultaneously, a good and a bad thing.

Sad Professor

Tefral wrote: »

Ok... so has that story been completely sidestepped?

I wouldn't say completely but they do seem to have abandoned Shaw as a protagonist.

Ben Gadot

Tony EH wrote: »

I'm thinking that this film will have pretty much nothing whatsoever to do with 'Prometheus'.

Which is, simultaneously, a good and a bad thing.

Shaw and David wouldn't even enter the equation if that was case, they could get away with having Fassbender playing a different android but there'd be no need to bring Noomi back if there wasn't any plot advancement from Prometheus. There's surely a link.

judeboy101

Ben Gadot wrote: »

Shaw and David wouldn't even enter the equation if that was case, they could get away with having Fassbender playing a different android but there'd be no need to bring Noomi back if there wasn't any plot advancement from Prometheus. There's surely a link.

Captain dies in cryo, they arrive at planet david brought Shaw to, no sign of Shaw (either dead or some mcguffin to lead to another sequel) hilarity ensues.

buried

Judging from that promo I'm going to stay away from this. When I heard the line - "the food ain't that bad", I literally wanted to punch my laptop screen.

Tony EH

buried wrote: »

Judging from that promo I'm going to stay away from this. When I heard the line - "the food ain't that bad", I literally wanted to punch my laptop screen.

Yeh my eyes are still rolling at that. When yer wan started coughing like Kane in 'Alien', I was thinking in my head oh don't, just don't. :rolleyes: Yet, there are lots of people on the Youtube thread clapping themselves on the back for making the connection. I spose they're the people that kind of thing is aimed at.

In any case, none of this footage will be in the final film. It's just promotional guff.

Either way though, I don't really have any hopes that this will be any better than the dreck that was 'Prometheus', tbh. Scott seems determined to destroy his past glories, like Lucas. It seems great directors/visionaries have a sell by date, after which they tend to loose sight of what made their stuff great to begin with.

Jan_de_Bakker

judeboy101 wrote: »

Captain dies in cryo, they arrive at planet david brought Shaw to, no sign of Shaw (either dead or some mcguffin to lead to another sequel) hilarity ensues.

I think the captain appears in the first trailer tho ?

buried wrote: »

Judging from that promo I'm going to stay away from this. When I heard the line - "the food ain't that bad", I literally wanted to punch my laptop screen.

Yeah, I mean I'll still watch it (I never learn) but that was really ****e - cringeworthy, glad it won't be in the film.

El Duda

Scott is a genius!

This has clearly been released to throw everyone off and lower expectations.

Jan_de_Bakker

El Duda wrote: »

Scott is a genius!

This has clearly been released to throw everyone off and lower expectations.

I thought the same ............. then I saw Prometheus

WHIP IT!

I don't think blatantly repeating parts of the script counts as a "nod" to Alien... that prologue was hugely underwhelming bordering on sh*te!

pixelburp

Tony EH wrote: »

Yeh my eyes are still rolling at that. When yer wan started coughing like Kane in 'Alien', I was thinking in my head oh don't, just don't. :rolleyes: Yet, there are lots of people on the Youtube thread clapping themselves on the back for making the connection. I spose they're the people that kind of thing is aimed at.

It's on the nose, but is it really that offensively terrible? In the great pantheon of callbacks to previous films, it was hardly the worst, and if not part of the final movie becomes even more throwaway and redundant to criticism.

El Duda wrote: »

Scott is a genius!

This has clearly been released to throw everyone off and lower expectations.

Sarcasm? I mean enthusiasm's great n' all, but come on now; a genius plan to fail? Scott hasn't hit a high note since 2000 & Gladiator, and even were this some cunning ruse to lower expectations, it's a pretty sh*tty parenting technique to plan for your son to underwhelm with a prologue.

Tony EH

pixelburp wrote: »

It's on the nose, but is it really that offensively terrible? In the great pantheon of callbacks to previous films, it was hardly the worst, and if not part of the final movie becomes even more throwaway and redundant to criticism.

It's just so obvious though. Indicative of the "I KNOW THAT!!!!" that so much modern cinema employs.

True, it's not in the film and nobody will care eventually, but still.

buried

pixelburp wrote: »

It's on the nose, but is it really that offensively terrible? In the great pantheon of callbacks to previous films, it was hardly the worst, and if not part of the final movie becomes even more throwaway and redundant to criticism.

I think it will be riddled with these lame things. They ruin the escapism of what you're trying to watch. You can absolutely bet your gaff that one of these characters will suddenly channel the future spirit of Hudson when the $hit hits the fan crying out "GAME OVER MAN GAME OVER".

pixelburp

buried wrote: »

I think it will be riddled with these lame things. They ruin the escapism of what you're trying to watch. You can absolutely bet your gaff that one of these characters will suddenly channel the future spirit of Hudson when the $hit hits the fan crying out "GAME OVER MAN GAME OVER".

I'll take that bet. I mean it's all speculation at the moment, but IIRC Prometheus wasn't drowned in callbacks to the Alien franchise. And even then, a 'callback' is a fairly broad term anyway: sure your suggest of the Hudson quote is a fairly unambiguous example that'd be pretty clunky, but on the other hand, a passing visual cue might fly over the head of most in the audience bar the hardcore fans, so it's all relative.

El Duda

pixelburp wrote: »

Tony EH wrote: »

Yeh my eyes are still rolling at that. When yer wan started coughing like Kane in 'Alien', I was thinking in my head oh don't, just don't. :rolleyes: Yet, there are lots of people on the Youtube thread clapping themselves on the back for making the connection. I spose they're the people that kind of thing is aimed at.

It's on the nose, but is it really that offensively terrible? In the great pantheon of callbacks to previous films, it was hardly the worst, and if not part of the final movie becomes even more throwaway and redundant to criticism.

El Duda wrote: »

Scott is a genius!

This has clearly been released to throw everyone off and lower expectations.

Sarcasm? I mean enthusiasm's great n' all, but come on now; a genius plan to fail? Scott hasn't hit a high note since 2000 & Gladiator, and even were this some cunning ruse to lower expectations, it's a pretty sh*tty parenting technique to plan for your son to underwhelm with a prologue.

Yeah I was being sarcastic. This is my post from another forum yesterday...

This whole Alien Covenant prologue thing is intriguing to me. Prologue's like this are released as a screen test right? They changed Bane's voice because that one didn't test well. This hasn't been well received at all so far.

With the release date so close it seems a strange time to release it. Re-shoots could be needed.

Tony EH

I don't think this is the reason for this prologue. It's just a small one shot to get the juices flowing as it were.

Before 'Prometheus', they shot a little promo of Weyland giving a TED talk. This snippet simply functions along the same lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQpGwnN3dfc

Sad Professor

Re-editing or re-shooting a film on the basis of internet outrage never results in a better film. Bane’s voice sounded fine in the original TDKR prologue, where as in the re-mixed version he sounds totally different to the rest of the film. Ditto the various disjointed changes Peter Jackson made to LOTR over AICN fanboys threatening to burn themselves alive over Arwen, Sauron, etc.

Sad Professor

And re: annoying callbacks, while I don’t think this “prologue” promo is necessarily reflective of the film, John Logan did write the screenplay and he peppers all his sequels with as many nods and winks as he can squeeze in. See Skyfall, Spectre, Star Trek Nemesis. Hopefully there was uncredited re-write by someone else because Logan is a pretty terrible writer on his own.

gman2k

https://lighthousecinema.ie/events/alien-day-double-bill

judeboy101

I wonder will we see an Easter egg nod to weyland-Tyrell in blade runner 2 or covenant?

klose

https://twitter.com/alienanthology/status/836576719838425089

Another trailer dropping tomorrow, probably spoiling parts of the film as is tradition with trailers these days.

Ben Gadot

The Prometheus trailers initially were pretty great in terms of building suspence without giving it all away so I'd have hope.

I'd recommend as a general rule avoiding the final trailer on films like this as that's when they usually lose the run of themselves. I recall in the final Prometheus trailer they blew it by fairly making it obvious what happens to Shaw.

klose

Trailer has leaked for now....

https://youtu.be/EqhtJho7s9w

Slydice

Official trailer released:

This one has my hype level rising!

RockSalto

Cool trailer. Looking forward to this. Then again, I was one of the eleven that enjoyed Prometheus.

Liam McPoyle

johnnythunders wrote: »

Cool trailer. Looking forward to this. Then again, I was one of the eleven that enjoyed Prometheus.

I like Prometheus.

Sure its not as good as Alien or Aliens but its better than the other entries in the franchise.

I think maybe a lot of people were expecting it to be an actual Alien movie but I liked the direction it took and it opened up huge potential for the franchise.

Looking forward to Covenant. Trailer looks promising anyway.

Bacchus

That looks great. Love the setup with the couples, that will be sure to add a nice bit of conflict and dramatic effect. You really get a sense that this is going to start out as a tense isolation movie and build to a frantic killing frenzy. The aliens look great from the trailer too.

klose

Looks good to me anyways and I'm pretty hyped, also looks likes we will see more of the engineers which will be interesting. Strange to see the xeno outside in daylight in the last scene of the trailer considering we are so used to see them sticking to the shadows of tightly cramped spaceships/stations.

ILikeBoats

Is this R rated?

Sad Professor

ILikeBoats wrote: »

Is this R rated?

Yes and unlike Prometheus, they were aiming for R.

Arghus

The thing that sent a shiver up my spine the most was the dodgy CGI on the xenomorph itself...Please don't make a balls of this.

fluke

Am I wrong in thinking that Ridley Scott wasn't crazy about Aliens as it had hundreds of the xemomorphs as opposed to one? Or at least he felt the tension from his 1979 feature was undermined, as a result of Aliens making the creatures seem more dispensable.

Seems like he's sort of doing a something similar to Cameron's Aliens here.

That being said, I am engaged with this more than that prologue. If they manage to tie this in to Prometheus and the originals, while maintaining credibility, I will be very happy.

Frank Bullitt

Ah go on then, ill get excited for it.

RockSalto

fluke wrote: »

Am I wrong in thinking that Ridley Scott wasn't crazy about Aliens as it had hundreds of the xemomorphs as opposed to one? Or at least he felt the tension was undermined from his 1979 feature, as Aliens made the creatures seem more dispensable.

Seems like he's sort of doing a something similar to Cameron's Aliens here.

That being said, I am engaged with this more than that prologue. If they manage to tie this in to Prometheus and the originals, while maintaining credibility, I will be very happy.

I'm not sure if he thought that, but it would be incredibly difficult to recreate that kind of tension after we've been introduced to the xenomorph. The mystery is no longer there, for the audience.

I'd imagine that's why Cameron took the direction he did. There was still somewhat of the unknown from the characters perspective, but us viewers knew what was coming to a degree so there was a slight spin on the original, making it more of an action movie.

Loooks bad, as in cgi looks bad
I really hope it tries to do somehong new and fresh like Prometheus, even if it fails
When I see the classic alien now I loose all sense of excitement for this movie

Agricola

Im not sure what I want from an Alien film anymore, but seeing the umpteenth spaceman gormlessly looking at an egg which is about to hatch a facehugger, is not it.

Im beginning to think these films are just about recreating the old films for a new generation and have very little of offer to older viewers, bar the CGI fest, if that's does it for you.

Ben Gadot

The trailer does feel like a sequel in spirit to Prometheus between the focus on foreign vegetation and the wide eyed optimism of the expedition.

The dumb spaceman tropes in the trailer are frustrating but isn't it the deal in this franchise that the crews are consistently kept in the dark about what they might be facing? For all they know it could be just a big frog about to jump out of those eggs as my ma would say. :pac:

Agricola

Ben Gadot wrote: »

The trailer does feel like a sequel in spirit to Prometheus between the focus on foreign vegetation and the wide eyed optimism of the expedition.

The dumb spaceman tropes in the trailer are frustrating but isn't it the deal in this franchise that the crews are consistently kept in the dark about what they might be facing? For all they know it could be just a big frog about to jump out of those eggs as my ma would say. :pac:

Maybe all that stuff would be more tolerable if these crews behaved like actual scientists / astronauts / marines. I've thankfully forgotten most of Prometheus, but what I do remember is the characters doing the most stupid things imaginable. It's like the filmakers don't even want to pretend that these people are highly trained professionals. It's more interesting (and leads to more action) if they are feckless idiots who endanger their own lives all the time.

Sad Professor

It's obvious they are holding back on stuff (notice how little Fassbender features) in order to play up the Alien connections and the R-rated horror. The opposite in many ways of how they marketed Prometheus.

Frank Bullitt

Doesn't look to bad.

Visually I think this movie will look great, the landscapes etc generally looked great with Prometheus. Weather the story is any use...

Tony EH

Agricola wrote: »

Im not sure what I want from an Alien film anymore...

I'm pretty sure I don't ever want an 'Alien Resurrection' or a 'Prometheus' again.

Agricola wrote: »

Im beginning to think these films are just about recreating the old films for a new generation

Yeh that's pretty much it.

At this stage it's about keeping old franchises alive. Scott did it before with 'Blade Runner' and all that gibberish with the Deckard replicant crap and he's trying it on with this 'Prometheus' rabbit hole.

He hasn't made a great film since 'Black hawk Down' (although 'The Martian' was enjoyable enough) and I certainly don't think this will be it.

Either way, he's already sullied his Alien past with this prequel nonsense, that doesn't even look like they're taking place in the same universe and are retconning really unnecessary angles into the story.

AMKC

I like that trailer. Don,t think it looks too bad. Will definitely go see this.

Mackman

Trailer looks great, I'm excited anyway

Although as a side note, when the **** will this shaky-cam crap end?? Every goddamn movie has people talking and a cameraman with parkinsons filming it. It instantly annoyed me at the beginning of the trailer. Such a cop-out.

Sin City

Looking forward to this movie. Even if it’s not a direct follow up to Prometheus.
Would like to see the origins of the Xenomorph as depicted in the murals in the cargo hold of the Derelict.

So far the trailers look great

Jan_de_Bakker

I wouldn't be too put off by the bad CGI in this trailer, this will be cleaned up for the final release.

Alonso77

Looks promising, hopefully there will be some kind of follow up from Prometheus storyline included involving the engineers planet etc.

Bacchus

Agricola wrote: »

Im not sure what I want from an Alien film anymore, but seeing the umpteenth spaceman gormlessly looking at an egg which is about to hatch a facehugger, is not it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that has only ever happened in the original Alien so... not the umpteenth time?

Aliens - the facehugger/egg attack at the start is offscreen
Alien 3 - no eggs
Alien Resurrection - the eggs were being purposefully used on humans
Prometheus - no eggs

The AvP movies don't count.

check_six

Bacchus wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but that has only ever happened in the original Alien so... not the umpteenth time?

Aliens - the facehugger/egg attack at the start is offscreen
Alien 3 - no eggs
Alien Resurrection - the eggs were being purposefully used on humans
Prometheus - no eggs

The AvP movies don't count.

Bear in mind that the original Nostromo crew from Alien were more or less truck drivers in space. They had a science officer with them in the form of Ash, but he wasn't exactly working in their best interests! I'd allow for Kane being more curious than cautious when encountering the alien eggs. The scientist lads from Prometheus have no excuse. They have traveled specifically to investigate a planet, so you'd think they'd be more careful when encountering weird beasties and substances. We'll have to wait and see how Covenant stacks up.

Sad Professor

In defence of the Prometheus crew, they didn't know what the mission was until they arrived. And I'm not sure Weyland needed them for much.