Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, (and likely others)

[X-SOLDIER]

So, I rewatched it, and have a few follow-up comments that I needed to share.

Spoiler

The intentionally / unintentionally homoerotic Fassbender scene is still just as just gobsmackingly gay as it was before, and it's not just 12 year old brain at work. How even was that dialogue EVER meant to avoid ridiculous unintentional snickering?

On to serious matters.

As soon as David takes Walter's place there are some GREAT minor details.
• He hides his injured hand under his clothes until the end, where you can see the clear cut.
• His facial injury is similar, but larger than Walter's.
• When in the scene when they defeat the Xenomorph, it looks like Walter breathing a sigh of relief, but if you pay very close attention, he's not looking at the monitor above with Daniels and Tennessee, he's looking at the below monitor where the Xenomorph was and his sigh is one of saddened disappointment.

There are lots of little cues that you can misinterpret as one emotion instead of the other that are REALLY well planned and executed.

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[Dark and Divine]

I already spoiled myself to the point of headbite death () but, if anything, i'm even more stoked to watch so many great moments/scenes myself.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I am glad to hear this!! It'll be good to hear more people's thoughts. ^^;

Also, this film had a couple moments that reminded me of good times from playing AvP (the amazing 1999 game).

Spoiler

• Shooting at Facehuggers is utterly panicky, terrifying, and insanely difficult.
• While folks may have mixed opinions on the couple very short PoV shots from the Xenomorph, as soon as it starts moving down the corridor, I had mini-flashbacks of playing hours as a Xenomorph. Also, it's interesting to contrast to the BAR In Utero PoV of the Neomorph. (Mildly related, that awesome jumping at you down a hallway clip doesn't seem to be in the film).

Unrelated to that, this is EASILY my third favourite Alien film (even though that's in the awkward position of not really always feeling like a high bar to pass). That being said, I think that having the first two films really gives this a lot to rebuild without rebooting.

Spoiler

• I think if it weren't for that awkward ass dialogue, there wouldn't be anything I disliked about this film.
• The scenes in space are REALLY stunning and manage to give that empty vertigo feeling even without being in 3D.
• I feel nervous for the characters even having already seen it before that makes me really happy.
• The Neomorphs and Xenomorphs take a solid bit of punishment to kill. They crawl through engine fire, and explosions and take multiple bullet shots before they go down, which puts them in a position of feeling MUCH scarier than they did in Alien (where they were unarmed) or Aliens (where they feel a little bit more like ants, and less like singularly-capable murder machines).
• The Neomorphs and Xenomorphs have AWESOME movement. The Neomorphs are very similar to the Alien³ Runners, but have their own utterly terrifying mix of complete calm to ravenous brutality. The Xenomorphs crawl and use their tails to help descend, but also occasionally have a very creepy human-like walk. Additionally, their more elongated hands and limbs and thinner tails make them FEEL more dangerous and less bug-like. As much as I love the designs in Resurrection for them, this one is easily the best for the creatures, with the ONLY exception being that the snake-like Chestburster isn't present, and it's one of my favourite designs in the original film.
• Even scenes that homage those first two films still feel strong and purposeful (the Captain's death as a big example).

Lastly,

If the sequel to this manages to keep the sheer terrifying power of the Xenomorphs that this film did, but give us Ridley Scott's version of an Aliens-like hive, and the feel of an homage to the originals like this did, I feel like it could very easily be my favourite film in the series (especially if it raises the bar by as much as this did from Prometheus).

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[X-SOLDIER]

Minor spoilers, but this has names & technical terms for all the things: https://twitter.com/RegalMovies/status/865552664305651712

(On mobile, so I cba to embed the image)





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[Shademp]

 

[Dark and Divine]

Ok, I've seen and i liked it a lot.

It does feel like a proper bridge between Prometheus and the "normal" Alien movies. The soundtrack was awesome and i loved the little homages to Prometheus' and 1979 Alien's OSTs.

Fassbender was awesome as David/Walter. It was mesmerizing how different the two androids felt like, even in their way of speech. I also liked Daniels a lot. The rest of the cast good too, without being extraordinary.

If I had to criticize something, it would be the initial pacing of the movie. We went from

Spoiler

landing on the planet to neomorphs pwnage real fast

. But it could be just me wanting a bit more mistery than anything else.

Now, for something more plot-related:

Spoiler

First, the way David talked about Shaw makes me feel like there's a lot more to her death than we know. Also, the scene with the Xenomorph birth made me think that David sees the creature more than his mere creation. He sees it more like a son. From him and Shaw. What led me to believe this was the way the scene was made and how the music was calm and beautiful instead of terrifying. Also, showing Shaw's corpse right after this also helped that impression.

Also loved the scene between David and the Neomorph and how desperate and angry he was when Oram shot it. Btw, the design of the adult Neomorph was downright terrifying, mainly because how empty its face was. The baby neomorphs were terrifyingly adorable.

Nothing to say about the Xenomorphs. Awesome as ever

Lastly, i got the feeling that this movie is just the first act of a greater story and i can't wait to see the next prequels/sequels/whatever.

But i'm very curious about an extended cut of this movie because, according to what i've heard about the novelization, there are a few differences, mainly the fact that

Spoiler: spoiler inside spoiler

the Engineers had already created the xenomorphs and David only perfected them or something like that.

I'm curiousto see if there was any deleted scene that confirmed this or not.

Overall, a time well spent and i'm already eager to see Alien: Awakening.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I especially like your angle on the progeny thing, and given how David was shown in Prometheus, I can definitely see where that's coming from. Also, the first cut of the film. Was about 2hrs 23mins, so there may be some good deleted scene stuff that wasn't repurposed for the little introductory film bits like Last Supper: http://www.avpgalaxy.net/2017/05/28...t-test-screenings-20-minutes-footage-removed/





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[X-SOLDIER]

Lots of concept art of art in the film (also some Power of the Dark Crystal stuff, too) https://www.instagram.com/matthatt0n/





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[Ite]

So, would it be possible to jump right from Aliens to this movie? My fiancé just watched the first two, but I'm not keen on rewatching the next three increasingly convoluted entries.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

By "this movie" do you mean "Prometheus" or "Alien: Covenant"?

 

[Ite]

Sorry, I meant Alien: Covenant. I find the whole origin myth of Prometheus really distracting and the stupidity of the scientists in that movie ("Pet the snake!") a huge turn-off, so I was hoping to go from Aliens or Alien3 right into Covenant... is that possible?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

So it happens chronologically before Alien/Aliens, and you do lose some little bits of backstory / development because it is literally a sequel to Prometheus, but I don't ​think that it'd be all that confusing so long as you're generally aware of those things.





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[Ite]

Ah I see! Thanks

 

[Dark and Divine]

So, the movie has been released on Blu-Ray and there's this particular interesting feature:

Spoiler

 

[Octo]

The vid isnt working for me? :/

 

[Dark and Divine]

There seems to be some problem with it. D:

Here, have the direct link to it.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo~
Just the tease I was hoping for.





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[Cthulhu]

Took the liberty to fixx that youtube embed, had an &t left over in it.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

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[Strangelove]

i watched covenant and i have to say i liked it more than prometheus (which i didn't outright hate but i got the bluray set of it and the four original alien films and there are just all these parts that annoy me like why are you doing this, you're the dumbest smart people i have even seen, and how does the guy who makes the map get lost in the place he mapped). there were some moments where i wasn't feeling it, but there were bits i liked as well and i did enjoy the new monster designs and i thought the location was pretty cool

Spoiler: i will probably go back and read through older posts in this thread at some people but my own spoilery ranting

when david hatched the xenomorph from oran and it was just standing there like a little baby alien and mimicking him, that was kind of cute to watch the little murder machine being all tiny

also were some of david's drawings in his lab just giger illustrations?

some of the stuff i was disappointed about was that it basically just took the ending of prometheus, shaw going to find the engineers' world and kind of. shat on that whole idea in a very unsatisfying way. the scene were david drops all the black ooze on the engineers city was dramatic and all, but i just didn't feel there was enough of shaw to make it feel full. then she's killed offscreen and what was the payoff for that. did whatever david's experiment on her was make those eggs in the basement he uses to infect oran?

his genocidal turn doesn't really feel like it connects smoothly with the end of prometheus for me. he seemed really mellow there, and then here he is killing off planets and plotting to infect the universe? maybe something happened in those 10? years between prometheus and covenant, but you really didn't show a lot of that so you know. you get a bit of antagonism towards humans in prometheus but he really went nuclear-ghandi in covenant. i like david as a character but maybe i just need a bit more time to process this jump

i'm also not sure that the online prologues were really that important. the one with the crew before hypersleep gives you a bit of crew bonding (and more james franco if you needed that) and i guess at least sets up that basically everyone on this crew is married to each other (though why you left the gay couple in the online clip when in the main film it's barely mentioned outside of lope's bit of dialogue when his husband dies which i couldn't even hear i had to turn on the subtitles it was that quiet, yet the straight couples get to make frequent references to their spouses, i am an angry gay about that). the one with david and shaw was better but i still feel like both of these could have just gone in the film with a bit of editing. idk it was a nice idea and all but man, idk. i stopped the film about 40 minutes in to watch them because of reading that you should watch them before the film but i don't know. maybe that was 'watch' in the sense of 'tide you over until you see it' and not it being important info. i suppose tennessee's explained a bit why he broke regulations and shit

also shower sex scene which at least was when they thought they were safe i guess but still. maybe the impressed from the trailer has jaded my view on it.

also hearing fassbender's american accent is weird, but maybe that's just being british and hearing actors from the uk doing american accents because i get the same weird feeling every time hugh laurie does one.

and i can't help but feel a bit forlorn about explaining away the origins of xenomorphs and not just leaving them as unexplained terrifying creatures from outer space

 

[X-SOLDIER]

@Hito: I think if you rewatch Prometheus, you'll find some

Spoiler

definite telegraphing of David's descent into this sort of experimentation. He reacts VERY specifically whenever someone treats him as sub-human. He experiments on people after they make shitty comments about him being a robot, and that's the last thing Shaw says to him in the film, so he's definitely primed to go down that road.

I do think that there is a mystery that's lost in explaining the Xenomorph, but I've embraced that ever since Prometheus.

More cool VFX things: http://io9.gizmodo.com/get-a-look-at-the-special-effects-work-that-went-into-a-1797868147




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[Flare]

An artist I watch sculpted these

https://hontor.deviantart.com/art/Brothers-Alien-Covenant-712547712

 

[trash panda]

They're so cioooot. <3 <3 <3

that reminds me...someone posted something on facebook yesterday about Fox being acquired by Disney and how such a deal would essentially make xenomorphs into Disney princesses because their mother is a "queen". I WANT A LINE OF XENOMORPH PRINCESS TOYS!!!!!!!