What do you mean crap characters? There was Christian man, soldier guy, wheat expert man, sad Ripley girl, cowboy hat guy, pilot woman, black guy? I pretty sure there was a black guy, but I don't think he spoke much. Sulky woman who kind of looks like the girl from Hell boy and floating head in a puddle girl. I'll never forget them.
RIP to "floating head in a puddle girl". I was hoping she was the one in the shower scene I heard about since she obviously was rocking some big tits, but noooooo. She got decapitated by that asshole neomorph.
The Neomorph ws in love, He said: I wanna eat you, but she got all pissed saying: no i am taken, so He thought: If i cant have you, than no one will...
You totally nailed it. Yes, the spores were more scary than the actual creature and that's the problem. The getting off the ship too without suits bothered me to no end.
ya the black goo was already the perfect weapon as it did not need any further genetic modification from an android to get an alien it just gets in a person and creates a fucking alien out of thin air. more motivated aliens too because they just rip out wherever they can at the time,, one through the back and one just climbing out through the throat. this movie made aliens we know seem worse than what came before.
"The getting off the ship too without suits bothered me to no end." And that is why these latest offshoots of Alien francheses or any modern sci fi movie in general is such a painful bullshit mess to observe: It is *insulting* to any intelligent audience.
They no longer go for story or character development but base everything on dull action (without the suspense of the earlier films) just so people can be entertained. I want to think a little or at least get invested in something. If I want to go on a stupid theme park ride, I'd go to Universal Studios or something like that.
mujin70 my first impression of the spores, this thing has a life of its own? It knows who, how, when, and where to infect. Doesn't make sense! Also How did these spores happen? Where were all the infected life forms? Its like what happened and what's going on!
Exactly what was the point of the wasps?????? The original Alien was an idea the script writers had based on a wasp then in prometheus humans have squid babies that face fuck engineers and incubates aliens and 2000 year old engineer bodies have been incubated with chest bursters "oh for fucks sake"
Can't believe you didn't mention the terrible ending, the old switcheroo between David and Walter it was so fucking obvious, if I was Daniels and I even had a slightest fucking suspicion Walter was in fact David I would have never got into the Stasis pod! I hated that part and like she only figured it out after it's too late, so fucking lame.
Walter is Data, and David is Lore. Remember when they found Lore on that planet where everybody and everything was dead? Remember how Lore was communicating with an evil alien entity that was wiping out life on entire worlds? Remember how Lore tried to kill Data, and how Lore switched places with Data? Remember how Lore was found out because he didn't respond the way he was supposed to? Wait, are you telling me I'm describing events in ALIEN: Covenant? No, I'm describing and episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation from season one called "Datalore." I know this because it I just watched it on Netflix two weeks ago, and it almost ruined this movie for me.
Actually, I really like it. It adds an interesting component to when the androids in the later films all express their admiration of the alien. Also, as its chasing down and killing people, its interesting to think that the thing (alien) that the thing we created (android) is what will destroy us. I like the added philosophical concepts it raises.
No. 11: When Walter revealed himself as David. Telegraphed from the cut when they were fighting each other. No one in the audience was fooled. Embarrassing.
Haha that was massively entertaining and I couldn't agree more with your points. But what about... 1.Shaw? Deado? Lab experiment? 2. Engineers being daft? With all their technology, they didn't have alerts/pre warnings with potentially hostile approaching ships? Even we have that now. Nevermind the future. 3. David made the xeno/ aliens? Lmao. 4. Mini face hugger eggs? Purrrleeeese. Lol. Epic fail from Ridley tbh. Prometheus while flawed at least had vision, ambition and lofty aspirations.
your correct, there is no suspense no lead up, things just happen. and the last 20mins when they find David, slow down to a snail's pace, they don't even explore the city much, no one says fuck this is an alien city...
Hubert Van Calenbergh Noomi was the best thing in Prometheus. 😍 She was relatable, likable and convincing. She was "new Ripley" but at the same time she had her own personality and she wasn't a superwoman. Miss you Noomi. 😢
1:24 _"In this movie, you just don't care about any of them. Ironically, the most likeable, interesting, well-rounded character is Fassbender's character who's a fucking robot...."_ So, it's like Star Wars Rogue One? Considering most of the main characters end up dead in that movie, the only character I felt bad for when they bought it was K-2SO the droid.
Yes, those plane were retrofitted to do so and even they do not always make it. The drop ship could make it through the hurricane with difficulty, the Covenant would take even more damage. Their are only 10 (out of the thousands of) types of retrofitted airplanes that are capable of it.
Here's the thing, a space ship has to be hardened against radiation, micro meteoroids, stresses against gravity, and oh yeah, passing through an atmosphere to be able to land. There is NO reason this ship should have been susceptible to that storm unless it was just built poorly. And given how stupid these scientist and soldiers are maybe their engineers are that incompetent.
Well, it might not have been built to fly through plasma storms. It's not a normal on earth storm we're talking about here. And even if it's built to be capable of it... it's still an unnecessary risk when you can wait it out or go around it.
My hypothesis is that i felt that Ridley Scott didn't really get and or understood what made the first film so great. Remember, the first Alien film was almost a straight rip off of a really old film also. It was almost recreate frame by frame with Alien.
Thanks for this, you've covered a lot of the problems here. I LOLed at number 1 - Danny McBride's wife dies, and you can't even remember who she was. That sums up this film. The Covenant crew are a bunch of interchangeable, moody-looking women and dumb-acting men. Nothing stands out about any of them. Unfortunately for Fassbender, as talented as he is, this film features some embarrassing moments for him. Most notably the kung-fu fight, which was the moment I knew the film was unredeemable. That nonsense doesn't belong in an Alien film. Can you imagine Ian Holm (Ash) in a martial arts battle with another android? Ludicrous.
Tennessee's (Danny McBride) wife is the white girl who stays with the lander, panics when the neomorph emerges and then blows up the lander when trying to kill the white neomorph.
THEremiXFACTOR yeah they cut out the scene called last supper and put it on UA-cam instead of the fucking movie that fleshed out the characters. big mistake. it also had James Franco actually properly in movie. also the other scene with David and shaw travelling to the engineer world.
GAME OVER "WE HAVE EVERY PIXEL COVERED" the James Franco thing is weird. Maybe they thought it would be a cool surprise cameo or something. But the whole opening with Daniels felt clumsy. It is kinda like in Prometheus where you don't see Guy Pearce but he was in the viral thing
Michael Kibbie exactly, it was pretty obvious if you pay attention while watching the movie. It's like when Shakespeare started using abstraction and context in his plays instead of writing simplistic stories with direct obvious props. I guess the people who love the original Alien series aren't intelligent enough to follow the plot of a movie unless it is directly thrown in their face. THEremiXFACTOR why do we need to develop a deep relationship with every character in a movie. The story of Prometheus and Covenant is about David (which shocker is what everyone is saying is the best part of the movie because HE IS THE CORE CONCEPT OF THESE MOVIES). David needed human hosts to further his development of the xenomorph. That's all the other characters are, pawns, we don't need to care about them.
+Christopher Joseph _I guess the people who love the original Alien series aren't intelligent enough to follow the plot of a movie_ With "Prometheus" and "Covenant"you have to be careful not to fall down a hole trying to follow the "plot". _unless it is directly thrown in their face_ Yeah, imagine that: there're people who demand coherent storytelling, not some random verbal diarrhea and nice landscape shots. _why do we need to develop a deep relationship with every character in a movie_ Relax, you need none of that. Keep staring at your cardboard cutouts. _The story of Prometheus and Covenant is about David_ The "story" of Prometheus and Covenant is about an old fart who's trying to become a televangelist, and other lazy film makers.
Just so i got this straight, an angry existentially bent philosopher-android created the most feared creature in the entire universe.... while living in a cave? Also, the year is 2149 and it looks like the entire crew went to an Army Surplus store to pick out their "space outfits" and ruck sacks. And they're using what appears to be go-pro 4 (black edition) cameras attached to their packs lol
Which is funny when you consider what the lady in Aliens says to Ripley: "your crew encounter something never before encounter on over a hundred charted worlds." So what Prometheus and Covenant went missing and no one bothered to go to follow up? Unlikely. This David is the creator shit is just Scott trying to take IP over the Aliens pieces.
Oh that's easy. After Lost World and a dinosaur went tear assing through a major city there's not bloody way they would have gotten funding to open a monster park where kids would be riding baby Tric's, and driving around open habitats in hamster balls. And the military wants to weaponise raptors. Uh huh because there's a whole room full of dumbasses in DC saying. "Uncontrollable monsters that are as likely to eat our guys as theirs, why the hell not. And of course the Geniva convention would be totally cool with an army that uses creatures that eat people alive as an approved weapon of war. Suuuuure they would. Simply put there isn't a govt on this planet that would okay travel to monster island for civilians. They'd quarantine that place slicker than shit, and never would they have made a dime. Actually... Ingen would still be in court over all the deaths in Jurassic park and lost their license to the Dino DNA so none of that would really matter because the system would keep them tied up in court indefinitely. So, there you go.
At the end when the alien is out of the ship and the two are standing up, they can actually. All the air that was once in the ship got sucked out from it so by the time the alien is gone the air pressure inside the ship is equal to the pressure of space.
The point about the helmet bothered me too. They are a colonizing ship for crying out loud, everyone has to priotized on health and safety. They go out instantly with a camoflougage attire. Compared to Promotheus, which i appreciated more after, those guys made a BIG deal of wearing their masks in and out of their ships. Yes, they discovered the planet being habitual that humans can retire in, but to step foot without any proper attire for protection was STUPID!!! Also the characters were ANNOYING!!! I hated Tennessee!!! The one thing that I did not understand is why they assigned these idiots to carry a colonizing mission. They were the worst kind of characters to handle that big tasks. Furthermore, most of them here are MARRIED!! This is a risk!!!! Emotions can definitely distract the decisions of each indivual putting everyone, and those embryos they are carrying on top of a very thin Ice. Ie, the pilots overridding the ship's protocol to go 80km below the surface or the storm. Compared to Prometheus or even Alien, you get characters who are diverse who are not fuly related with the crew, this puts them in a great position of as astronauts with the right mindset to make good decision given the circumstances. There's conflict but good reason. ie. merdith vickers giving quarantine orders or burning charlie halloway.
I thnk that's the problem when u have a movie with so many characters. Majority of them are disposable and there's not much time for us viewers to connect and understand them more especially for slasher like film. Why Scott did this kinda idiotic formula, we'll never know? ugh!! and yes I'm with you, i can't remember the rest of the characters names on this.
It's a movie idiots! If you watched a 2 hour video of NASA astronauts doing experiments on the International Space Station you would be bored out of your f-ing (low IQ) minds!
+ pallafox Actually, employing idiots for their most important missions seems to be a hallmark of Weyland-Yutani in this time period. The idiots in Covenant are just as dumb as the idiots in Prometheus. Weyland Corp just has very, very poor employment screening.
I really think that the hollowness of this film mirrors the hollowness of the times we are living in. Quality is a thing of the past now and this movie is just one example of the artistic decline we see in all genres. As for this film, it's a mess.
Solar panels on an interstellar ship make no sense at all. Since you need a sun nearby. And while they would be far more efficient in the future, it's unlikely that starlight would ever be enough.
ships designed for space travel are typically really fragile. they aren't designed to fly through storm clouds because there isn't any air in space. And the dropship in aliens was military tech. id imagine those ships are designed to land in combat and take a beating, where the ships in covenat are civilian ships.
yep you're right, they should've used the magnet boots used earlier in the movie - this is the exact device they used with the loader in ALIENS, we see Ripley's ability to use the loader earlier in the movie, and for a logical reasons within her character's story, but it becomes the most vital part of the climatic battle for the perfect relevant tie-in... Using the boots again would have been perfect in a similar way. Honestly, I think script writers have forgotten how to write movies...
With Alien they did a lot of what they called dialog naturalization, which basically meant tinkering with the lines until they sounded right, and overlapping them in a way that was supposed to feel organic and natural. And it worked perfectly in Alien. In fact, if you look at almost every movie of note that came out in the 70s and 80s, they did a lot of this to help with character development and to advance the plot without relying on stupidity. Obviously, no one was tasked with naturalizing the dialog in either Prometheus or Covenant. A more unnatural dialog you're not going to find. And the characters are consequently either underdeveloped or simply enormous blanks. At the end of the movie, I knew the names of two characters, in addition to the two Fassbenders. I knew that Tennessee was an incompetent pilot and that another guy was supposed to be the captain and that he was religious. I knew that Daniels was married to the old captain who died in scene one, but I had absolutely no idea what her function was on the colony ship or in the landing group. And there are about ten-fifteen other characters who are nothing more than dying beards and tits. Oh, who was that who just died? Has she had any lines? I can't remember who that was at all, but now she's a decorative floating head, as floating heads go. Why is the movie full of these non-people? Why, to be eaten by the alien of course! Except that now I don't care if they are because they haven't been developed even slightly.
How come people with English accents can slip into a perfect American accent but when I, as an American try and English accent.. it sounds like an American faking an English accent?
Michael Kibbie I was referring to Massey. He slips into an American accent during the review for a few seconds. But, point taken regarding the speech coaches and acting. Seems like Fassbender could have used a few more lessons..
How come? The ever-presence and penetration of American culture. Brits are exposed to it far more than Americans are to British culture. (There's also an element of arrogance...but I won't go there. LOL) I do have to say that I wish that Benjamin Cumberbatch had kept his accent for 'Doctor Strange'; his accent sounded forced. But there's another sortakinda related thing: Brits lose their accents when singing. (Not 100% of them, but almost. Unless there's a conscious effort to retain their accents, such as Lily Allen.) Personal anecdote: I lived in Britain for the better part of a decade. One evening, the place where I worked had a 'staff talent night'. I remember listening to a Scot sing 'Moon River' and saying out loud 'Hey! You sound like me!' Everyone who sang that evening did so with a North American accent. Very weird.
the actors didn't get sucked out at the end because they were wearing the magnetic boots you talked about earlier! what i don't understand is how the alien managed to jump back into the ship in the vacuum of space! i do agree with a lot you are saying... the movie is lacking. the mystery of the xenomorph is completely gone.
You forgot to add that the Covenant was able to decode the signal from the crashed engineer ship and extrapolate music and some video from it, whereas in Alien, the signal the Nostromo picked up from the derelict ship was undecipherable and very eerie.
People who say that Alien: Covenant sucks because of how stupid the crew and their decisions are, I have to remind you how stupid Dallas was who allowed the alien get inside Nostromo, despite the fact that he is the freaking captain; whose job is the responsibility of the ship, crew and cargo. Now come again and tell me how bad Alien (1979) was.
This movie sucked. Its plot is that of a B movie slasher flick. People doing incredibly stupid things and getting killed by the monster/psychopath. I personally find it difficult to enjoy a film where nearly every character is an idiot. Short list of stupid actions and decisions: * Not using the shuttle airlock upon landing. * Exploring an alien planet without a vacc suit. * Letting a guy puking black goo from his lungs back into the ship without quarantine. * Not vigorously debriefing David as soon as they got to the city. * Allowing a woman to go off by herself (who gets killed). * To be followed by the captain who goes searching for her by himself (and gets killed). * To be followed by yet ANOTHER woman searching for the two missing people by herself. * The captain is ready to put a bullet in David at one point but 5 minutes later puts his face in front of a face-hugger pod simply because David says so. * Not fully debriefing Walter/David before going into cryo-sleep. * Not broadcasting an incident report before going into cryo-sleep. * Not installing a hazard beacon in orbit. * Not waking up some of the settlers to search and decontaminate every inch or the ship.
Good review. But I was kind of hoping you would discuss about the fact Covenant didn't answer any of the questions it laid out in Prometheus. Who are the Engineers? Why they wanted to kill us? Or are they going to answer those questions in a sequel? Also who is the Engineer sitting in the chair in Alien(1979)? Personally I don't believe all Engineers were killed in Covenant since they must have colonies elsewhere cause they are interstellar travellers.
Pekka Rintala yes! This is one of my major complaints of Covenant....I actually kind of liked Prometheus (once I knew what to expect, of course) i liked where they were going with Shaw and to have her killed off by David like that?!?! Also, when he was supposedly so in love with her? Makes NO sense!
I suppose that the most baffling moment in the movie was when Richie Cunningham, Ralph Maulf, and Potsie Weber were deployed with nothing but bull-whips to defeat the aliens, and of course were given the thrashings of their lives. Or was it when The Fonz flew in on a drop ship with a tactical nuclear weapon, with no build-up, and the entire planet broke into a trillion tiny pieces.
I knew I was going to hate this movie when I found out they killed off Noomi Rapace's character even before getting to the Engineers' planet. Her character was one of the best parts of Prometheus.
You know what the most disturbing thing about Alien Covenant is! It suggests that Ridley Scott simply has no idea how bad or disliked Prometheus was (even if you yourself liked it)! AC suggests that Scott is surrounded by a protective machine that goes out of its way to make sure no criticism or negativity about his films EVER reaches him! Thanks to this machine, Ridley probably believes the scene in Prometheus where Milburn decides he wants to hug an Alien Cobra was one of the most brilliant and popular moments ever to be recorded on celluloid - or hard drive - and that the public simply cant get enough of 'intelligent' people in his films! This is the only reason I can think of why AC not only repeated the mistakes of Prometheus (another crew of 'trained' people deciding to walk about an alien planet with no protection) but in some cases magnified them! Ok, maybe that's exaggerated, Scott must be aware of at least some of the criticism surrounding Prometheus but he probably needs to look further beyond the blind praise of the parasites and hangers-on surrounding him!
Re. pt. number 9...Daniels and Tennessee weren't ejected along with the final xenomorph when they ejected it from the Covenant's bay because... They were wearing magnetic boots!
Lol, I loved your review! You are hilarious. Prometheus is my second favorite of the Alien films. I really thought that Alien Covenant was going to blow them all away. Oh well. Maybe we'll get some great deleted scenes from the DVD release. Thanks and Subbed
My issue with them stepping out of their craft and onto the planet's surface is that one of the characters is literally heard saying "the air seems fine". I mean, if that wasn't said I'd be willing to believe or assume that they did some kind of sci-fi scan of the atmosphere.
It's not that impressive because Steven Spielberg did it better in War of the Worlds when they spent the whole van scene going around a speeding vehicle. That was interesting to look at, but this? Brilliant? Please? Oh and the self make out scene, do I have to really point it out? It was put in there to appeal to the people who were going to go around crying into their beer that there weren't any gay characters in the movie. Prove to me that it was anything other than that internet, come on, I dare you.
Today we already know that using weapons with bullets is extremely dangerous on a jet or plane of any kind. Yet somehow in the future, we completely forgot what we know today, and guns with bullets seem to be the only type of weapon they are issued on a interstellar spaceship. I guess the taser technology was forgotten.
Life long alien fan- saw the first one (1979) as a kid, and sadly, I agree. You did a good job quantifying what I could not, when I walked out of the theater feeling let down. So again, good job on your blog here- Hopefully the next one will be better...
The total absence of character development ruined any chance this movie had of working. I couldn't give a flying F#$%^K who got killed and when, because I didn't care. What the hell was Scott thinking????? Didn't they expose this film to test audiences? I say that because EVERY person I know who has seen this movie has the EXACT same critique.
I think some of your points are just nitpicking, and can be counteracted by the points from the films and a bit of reasoning. 7. The reason they played a recorder instead of a more complicated instrument is because it was the only musical instrument David found on that planet. In Prometheus, it was shown that the Engineers used a flute to interface with their ship, so wind instruments would likely be native instruments of their homeworld, which David was stranded on. Remember, he came here using Engineer's ship, so there's no way he could have brought anything like a piano with him. You could argue that he could have made a piano for himself if he wants one, but the point of that scene was David trying to show Walter that he could "create" music, something Walter's programming prevented him to do. And about David kissing thing, if you've watch a teaser for Prometheus introducing David 8, you would know that his model was built to have (or at least show) emotions, hence to tagline "emotional". 8. I believe the Covenant operated on rechargeable battery. So the moment you see it deployed the solar panels, the ship was really low on energy. When the storm hit, the charging cycle was disrupt at the critical period, hence the power failure. so when Tenesse fix the panel everything just lighted up and went to normal, because the main problem was the power shortage, not any structural damages. And since the solar panels need to be deploy, it can be infer that they weren't needed all the time, so passing in the shadow shouldn't be a problem. Flying around the clouds wasn't an option, if you look at the planet, the storm clouds did cover all surface of the planet. And even if the Covenant might be able to pass through the clouds, it was recently hit be the neutrino storm. There might be a damages they couldn't fix. More importantly, there were 2,000 colonists on board other than the crews, would you risk them landing on an unknown planet? 9. The trucks didn't move because they were "sucked out", they were pulled by the gravity of the planet below. If you look at the shot Xenomorph finally went out with the truck, you can clearly see that they were falling to the surface of the planet, not the vastness of space. There was only initial gust when the airlock was first open that sent Daniel tumbling for a bit, but when the air in the room was gone, there couldn't possibly be any wind to disturb her and Tenesse congratulating each other.
One school of thought says stuff on an alien planet would have evolved so differently that it wouldn’t hurt us (trees can’t get bird flu and I can’t get Dutch Elm disease)? However, another theory is EVERYTHING on an alien planet would bring about fatal anaphylactic shock if you swallowed or inhaled it because your body wouldn’t know what it was? The spores also appear to be “orifice-seeking” (not just airborne) and the captain chest-buster was a bit “baby-Groot” like.
I feel like you've missed the point of that recorded scene. David teaches Walter to use a recorder with Ridley Scott aware of it being a kids instrument. David is obsessed with creation and father figures and Gods in that scene he is again attempting to be a creator but a father to Walter as opposed to a God like creator of the xenomorphs. This movie was pretty dookie though.
This is my first video of yours. You've saved me from Covenant (after Prometheus I swore I was done, but the trailer just looked so good), and I'm convinced now your countdown is more entertaining than the movie. Like and subscribe is the least I coul do. (I'll almost definitely still watch this when it comes to Blu Ray.)
Just from the trailers alone I could tell this was a bad movie. I mean c'mon walking on a new planet with camping gear on? Couples cruise ship crew with guns??
I know in advance this movie is bad, but I have to see it anyway, because my best friend wants to. I will do my best to enjoy the sci-fi window dressing and ignore the plot.
that is not the fully developed alien that we all know if you didn't know the real name of it is a Xenomorph and this one is the protomorph and the one with the white skin was the neomorph this is the sequel to Prometheus and then after this they are making a movie called alien Awakening that's all we know I know you think of it as strange that he kiss to self he kissed his self so he can get basically the reason he gets them is to get the stuff that he knows cuz when he gets them he got all the stuff he knows
The horrible irony is that the characters are a reflection of the audience. People often gripe about how little charisma characters have these days, and while I know a lot of that is Hollywood fat trimming and modern screenplay shorthand, I can't help but think a lot of it is just because, where we are today, people are not that relatable anymore.
in reference to the deck of the tilting spacecraft / crane grab.....the lack of build-up or suspense in that sequence is stunning. She nabs this super-agile alien with a the clunky robot-crane on the first try. There are so many things I would in this movie....
also I feel like david technically by the means of the engineer black substance just pushed the progress of what it was made to do by creating the xenomorph that we know. It can be explained that way as Ridley Scott didn't specifically say that the ooze wasn't meant to do that to begin with.
The lack of scientific knowledge that Scott has is superseded by your own. Try looking up how things are really done before dismissing them out of hand.
ok best bits.... the neomorph... tennessee, davids conversation with oram, the editing, the cinematography, the neomorph, the back burst scene and the mouth burst scene, the neomorph, arriving at the "engineer" city, david just being so convinced by himself... so genuinely sinister!! getting rid of james franco immediately., daniels expression at finding david was walter, now... there was other bits i liked.. just these spring to mind first.. have i mentioned the neomorph? :) i LOVED the neomorph now... worst bits...a perfectly hospitable planet.. 7 years closer to earth than the one we are headed to.. just fucking turns up out of nowhere?? LAZY, the protomorphs chest burst scene and it being a standing miniature replica of a grown xeno.. and it copying davids movements (some things are just too corny to ignore), the constant fucking dumb as fuck juvenile mistakes the crew relentlessly made.. they had to be special ed kids when they were young, surely?? during the back burst scene the two crew members BOTH slipping on the blood... what is this?? laurel and hardy or the fucking 3 stooges?? so so so shit and fucking corny. the fact the film looked so dark at times it was near impossible to see what was going on. the total and utter cop out of the fully grown proto running directly into the ships crane jaws like it was heading back to the womb.. are protos as dumb as the ships crew?? the neo/ protos going from freshly burst to fully grown in a matter of minutes.. this was just so fucking lazy. the MASSIVELY predictable outcome of david and walters battle.. if you didnt see that one from a mile off you're as dumb as the crew.. the absolute cop out of what happened to shaw. < unforgivable imo. the second proto being on the ship and then being blasted from the airlock.. really ridley?? THE AIRLOCK AGAIN????? also the animation and movement of the spores into the hosts ear.. again.. so fucking corny. the face hugger impregnating / gestating and bursting and being fully grown in like a fucking 2 minute period. again.. just so fucking lazy. now.. i didnt hat this movie... not by a long stretch. i just wish the groundwork put in in prometheus had not been abandoned. it seriously seemed like this movie was ridley scott getting revenge on the prometheus haters.. hate my movie will you?? well watch me fuck it up even worse now!!! MUHAHAHA.
One of the biggest flaws of contemporary Hollywood Sci-Fi are the failed attemps of characterization. Watch 2001, Bladerunner, Alien. The protagonists in those movies are only characterized through their actions and the plot. No emotional ballast, no backstory bs, no love interest, no partner - Sci-Fi is the main focus of those movies. Hollywood sucks nowadays because it has an obsession with human emotions and pathos mixed with high level of stupidity (I'm looking at you Interstellar)
Good points made here, but in reference to #9, weren't Daniels snd Tennessee wearing the magnetic boots in the final fight sequence? I thought that was the reason they didn't get sucked out with everything else.
That bit with the Mothership going close to the planet ticked me right off. WHY??? Why did they do that? It didn't improve anything. On a ship that size they only have one lander......... what no redundancy? But then they had the crane platform ship.... WHY not use it as a lander?????????
Dude, if she’d been wearing the magnetic boots on the landing platform ship her ankles would have shattered like cream crackers with some of the maneuvers it was doing. Also critics would have said “oh very convenient, she’s wearing the magnetic boots they had at the beginning”. Dude, she didn't have the magnetic boots with her and her ankle would SHATDude, she didn't have the magnetic boots with her and her ankle would SHAT
"WHAT COULD BE BEHIND THE DOOR SCARIER THAN WHAT IS" Sadly Ridley Scott forgot that fact as his previous films were perfectly AMBIGUOUS. How Amazing to know NOTHING about the Space Jockey. Sir Ridley is on a No Mystery Reveal Campaign with his recent allotment. Let us hope Blade Runner 28578 (whatever the title is) does NOT do same.
Ridley doesn't follow the script, that's part of the problem. He is always changing everything and in the end it becomes just a huge mess. If you read the script for Aliens, it's exactly the same as watching the movie.
First the ship was hit with some kind of mega EMP that's why it started to fail. Second the ship couldn't get through the clouds or as you suggest go around them is because the storm is happening all over.....have you ever seen a violent storm on one side of the street and a beautiful calm sunshiny day on the other side?.....I'm pretty sure you haven't .
You are the first person I've seen that really highlighted why those spores are a terrible idea for the alien franchise. We really don't need the facehuggers (and regular Xenomorphs) if we got those spores and spore xenomorphs.
6:42 I remember my days of Commodore 64, 300 baud modem, hard drives making noise, etc. people like Tim Cook and younger generation don’t like computers that make noise, don’t computer with flashy lights. Today movies are for them, they don’t care about movies from past.
You're right in most of your complaints, but I don't think the obviously stupid behavior in the movie is an actual mistake. I think it's absolutely appropriate to Scott's opinion of humanity. His contempt is transparent and offensive, and it's up to us to say no more to Scott. Let another, better director take over the franchise.
Here's a question to ask about the film. WHy did David even bother going to the "other planet" which according to the ship's computer.. was inferior to the one he was leaving? He could have just landed the ship with all the bodies in there since he was running it at that point anyway (talking about ending scenario)
Agreed on all accounts. The characters were so vapid and annoyingly stupid that I was on "Team David" by the end. The fact that there was absolutely no tension made it all very boring. Heck, the original Alien is only an hour and forty-five minutes long, yet we still have plenty of time to get to know and be vested in the characters. Oh, and the xenomorph in that has at most two minutes of screen time, yet the suspense and tension are incredible, that the film still holds up today. I guess Ridley has completely forgotten the art of horror, which he used to be the master of, that "less is more". Everything in Covenant was telegraphed with zero suspense. And since we didn't give a rat's ass about any of the characters (our only emotion being annoyance every time they did something stupid), all the death scenes were very "meh". Also, the whole "using the same actor for two different characters in shot at the same time" isn't exactly new technology. Heck, Disney did it with Haley Mills in 'The Parent Trap' back in 1961.
Maybe it was like The Corleone kiss of death and eventhough he had a different name there could be only one TRUE David, all others were imposters kinda thing
Subscribed... very good the point in wich you talk about patience and timing, but you made me wonder: do nowadays people want to wait? How would they react to the introduction of Alien, in 2017?
10:46 Because those magnetic boots would have made her running around like that on the outside of that small tossing, pitching space-craft near impossible. 18:44 They are wearing their space suits now, they got those magnetic boots on to keep themselves from being sucked out into the vacuum of space. 19:57 Wrong! An artist who is creating any kind of popular art or entertainment must respect his or her audience.
I had to chuckle a bit in the movie when I recognized the scenery as Milford Sound in New Zealand. Alright so I'm not an Alien fan so I had no frickin' idea what was what in anything, but yeah... that was earth on a day with terrible weather basically.
What do you mean crap characters? There was Christian man, soldier guy, wheat expert man, sad Ripley girl, cowboy hat guy, pilot woman, black guy? I pretty sure there was a black guy, but I don't think he spoke much. Sulky woman who kind of looks like the girl from Hell boy and floating head in a puddle girl. I'll never forget them.
Love this comment. Laughed out loud at 'wheat expert man.' Love the profile pic, too.
LOL! Great comment! :-D
"Trust me i know wheat"...
RIP to "floating head in a puddle girl". I was hoping she was the one in the shower scene I heard about since she obviously was rocking some big tits, but noooooo. She got decapitated by that asshole neomorph.
The Neomorph ws in love, He said: I wanna eat you, but she got all pissed saying: no i am taken, so He thought: If i cant have you, than no one will...
You totally nailed it. Yes, the spores were more scary than the actual creature and that's the problem. The getting off the ship too without suits bothered me to no end.
ya the black goo was already the perfect weapon as it did not need any further genetic modification from an android to get an alien it just gets in a person and creates a fucking alien out of thin air. more motivated aliens too because they just rip out wherever they can at the time,, one through the back and one just climbing out through the throat. this movie made aliens we know seem worse than what came before.
"The getting off the ship too without suits bothered me to no end."
And that is why these latest offshoots of Alien francheses or any modern sci fi movie in general is such a painful bullshit mess to observe: It is *insulting* to any intelligent audience.
They no longer go for story or character development but base everything on dull action (without the suspense of the earlier films) just so people can be entertained. I want to think a little or at least get invested in something. If I want to go on a stupid theme park ride, I'd go to Universal Studios or something like that.
mujin70 my first impression of the spores, this thing has a life of its own? It knows who, how, when, and where to infect. Doesn't make sense! Also How did these spores happen? Where were all the infected life forms? Its like what happened and what's going on!
Exactly what was the point of the wasps?????? The original Alien was an idea the script writers had based on a wasp then in prometheus humans have squid babies that face fuck engineers and incubates aliens and 2000 year old engineer bodies have been incubated with chest bursters "oh for fucks sake"
Can't believe you didn't mention the terrible ending, the old switcheroo between David and Walter it was so fucking obvious, if I was Daniels and I even had a slightest fucking suspicion Walter was in fact David I would have never got into the Stasis pod! I hated that part and like she only figured it out after it's too late, so fucking lame.
Cynabal how did the last alien got into the ship?
Cynabal I know! I so agreed
Walter is Data, and David is Lore. Remember when they found Lore on that planet where everybody and everything was dead? Remember how Lore was communicating with an evil alien entity that was wiping out life on entire worlds? Remember how Lore tried to kill Data, and how Lore switched places with Data? Remember how Lore was found out because he didn't respond the way he was supposed to? Wait, are you telling me I'm describing events in ALIEN: Covenant? No, I'm describing and episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation from season one called "Datalore." I know this because it I just watched it on Netflix two weeks ago, and it almost ruined this movie for me.
Damn right. TNG did it, did it better, and did it cheaper three goddamn decades ago.
During Louis the 14th reign? Sorry mate that's 3 decades ago.
LOL
Yup, guess I was so upset by that dumbass movie I made a typo. Fixed it.
I hope you did not mind it however. Well I'm still pissed after a week.
You didn't mention the worst part of the movie... a robot creating the Alien!
That's complete shit!!! Part of the idiot-genius that is Ridley Scott.
Actually, I really like it. It adds an interesting component to when the androids in the later films all express their admiration of the alien. Also, as its chasing down and killing people, its interesting to think that the thing (alien) that the thing we created (android) is what will destroy us. I like the added philosophical concepts it raises.
Riley Jaymes yupp😂
oh no not that, you mean those mechanical looking organisms were made by a robot? heavens no
Now all of the Alien films... were created by David. I guess Predators were created by David too lol
I think Ridley Scott's trying to make as many movies as he can before he kicks the bucket, and as a result they suffer in quality.
No. 11: When Walter revealed himself as David. Telegraphed from the cut when they were fighting each other. No one in the audience was fooled. Embarrassing.
I guessed it would happen the second David showed up, lol.
Haha that was massively entertaining and I couldn't agree more with your points. But what about...
1.Shaw? Deado? Lab experiment?
2. Engineers being daft? With all their technology, they didn't have alerts/pre warnings with potentially hostile approaching ships? Even we have that now. Nevermind the future.
3. David made the xeno/ aliens? Lmao.
4. Mini face hugger eggs? Purrrleeeese.
Lol. Epic fail from Ridley tbh. Prometheus while flawed at least had vision, ambition and lofty aspirations.
your correct, there is no suspense no lead up, things just happen. and the last 20mins when they find David, slow down to a snail's pace, they don't even explore the city much, no one says fuck this is an alien city...
It's like they took every sci fi horror movie cliche and stuffed it into this movie.
Getting off the ship without a suit? Something Star Trek did every episode and no one ever complained.
Unlike Alien, Star Trek wasn't supposed to be 'hard sci-fi'.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction
I for one miss Noomi Rapace terribly. Now THERE's a memorable heroine! Sexy, too.
Hubert Van Calenbergh Noomi was the best thing in Prometheus. 😍 She was relatable, likable and convincing. She was "new Ripley" but at the same time she had her own personality and she wasn't a superwoman. Miss you Noomi. 😢
Slaven Perunski And unfortunately she died..If David killed her ...I hope David gets killed. And Karma bites David in the ass
1:24 _"In this movie, you just don't care about any of them. Ironically, the most likeable, interesting, well-rounded character is Fassbender's character who's a fucking robot...."_
So, it's like Star Wars Rogue One? Considering most of the main characters end up dead in that movie, the only character I felt bad for when they bought it was K-2SO the droid.
I'm convinced that Ridley Scott intentionally made Covenant sooooo bad, so he wouldn't be forced to make anymore of these piles of shit.
Planes can go through a cloud but not a hurricane. The Covenant is designed for space flight not atmospheric flight, two very different things.
Planes can go through hurricanes, its how they get the data. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_hunters
Yes, those plane were retrofitted to do so and even they do not always make it. The drop ship could make it through the hurricane with difficulty, the Covenant would take even more damage. Their are only 10 (out of the thousands of) types of retrofitted airplanes that are capable of it.
Here's the thing, a space ship has to be hardened against radiation, micro meteoroids, stresses against gravity, and oh yeah, passing through an atmosphere to be able to land. There is NO reason this ship should have been susceptible to that storm unless it was just built poorly. And given how stupid these scientist and soldiers are maybe their engineers are that incompetent.
That is nonsense. Did you look at the year where the movie takes place?
Well, it might not have been built to fly through plasma storms. It's not a normal on earth storm we're talking about here. And even if it's built to be capable of it... it's still an unnecessary risk when you can wait it out or go around it.
My hypothesis is that i felt that Ridley Scott didn't really get and or understood what made the first film so great.
Remember, the first Alien film was almost a straight rip off of a really old film also. It was almost recreate frame by frame with Alien.
Thanks for this, you've covered a lot of the problems here.
I LOLed at number 1 - Danny McBride's wife dies, and you can't even remember who she was. That sums up this film.
The Covenant crew are a bunch of interchangeable, moody-looking women and dumb-acting men. Nothing stands out about any of them. Unfortunately for Fassbender, as talented as he is, this film features some embarrassing moments for him. Most notably the kung-fu fight, which was the moment I knew the film was unredeemable. That nonsense doesn't belong in an Alien film. Can you imagine Ian Holm (Ash) in a martial arts battle with another android? Ludicrous.
Tennessee's (Danny McBride) wife is the white girl who stays with the lander, panics when the neomorph emerges and then blows up the lander when trying to kill the white neomorph.
THEremiXFACTOR yeah they cut out the scene called last supper and put it on UA-cam instead of the fucking movie that fleshed out the characters. big mistake. it also had James Franco actually properly in movie. also the other scene with David and shaw travelling to the engineer world.
GAME OVER "WE HAVE EVERY PIXEL COVERED" the James Franco thing is weird. Maybe they thought it would be a cool surprise cameo or something. But the whole opening with Daniels felt clumsy.
It is kinda like in Prometheus where you don't see Guy Pearce but he was in the viral thing
Michael Kibbie exactly, it was pretty obvious if you pay attention while watching the movie. It's like when Shakespeare started using abstraction and context in his plays instead of writing simplistic stories with direct obvious props. I guess the people who love the original Alien series aren't intelligent enough to follow the plot of a movie unless it is directly thrown in their face.
THEremiXFACTOR why do we need to develop a deep relationship with every character in a movie. The story of Prometheus and Covenant is about David (which shocker is what everyone is saying is the best part of the movie because HE IS THE CORE CONCEPT OF THESE MOVIES). David needed human hosts to further his development of the xenomorph. That's all the other characters are, pawns, we don't need to care about them.
+Christopher Joseph _I guess the people who love the original Alien series aren't intelligent enough to follow the plot of a movie_
With "Prometheus" and "Covenant"you have to be careful not to fall down a hole trying to follow the "plot".
_unless it is directly thrown in their face_ Yeah, imagine that: there're people who demand coherent storytelling, not some random verbal diarrhea and nice landscape shots.
_why do we need to develop a deep relationship with every character in a movie_ Relax, you need none of that. Keep staring at your cardboard cutouts.
_The story of Prometheus and Covenant is about David_ The "story" of Prometheus and Covenant is about an old fart who's trying to become a televangelist, and other lazy film makers.
Just so i got this straight, an angry existentially bent philosopher-android created the most feared creature in the entire universe.... while living in a cave?
Also, the year is 2149 and it looks like the entire crew went to an Army Surplus store to pick out their "space outfits" and ruck sacks. And they're using what appears to be go-pro 4 (black edition) cameras attached to their packs lol
Which is funny when you consider what the lady in Aliens says to Ripley: "your crew encounter something never before encounter on over a hundred charted worlds." So what Prometheus and Covenant went missing and no one bothered to go to follow up? Unlikely. This David is the creator shit is just Scott trying to take IP over the Aliens pieces.
Oh that's easy. After Lost World and a dinosaur went tear assing through a major city there's not bloody way they would have gotten funding to open a monster park where kids would be riding baby Tric's, and driving around open habitats in hamster balls. And the military wants to weaponise raptors. Uh huh because there's a whole room full of dumbasses in DC saying. "Uncontrollable monsters that are as likely to eat our guys as theirs, why the hell not. And of course the Geniva convention would be totally cool with an army that uses creatures that eat people alive as an approved weapon of war. Suuuuure they would. Simply put there isn't a govt on this planet that would okay travel to monster island for civilians. They'd quarantine that place slicker than shit, and never would they have made a dime. Actually... Ingen would still be in court over all the deaths in Jurassic park and lost their license to the Dino DNA so none of that would really matter because the system would keep them tied up in court indefinitely. So, there you go.
They're Canadians.
LOL the crane scene. Loved that the Alien tried attacking it, because from its perspective it did look threatening
At the end when the alien is out of the ship and the two are standing up, they can actually. All the air that was once in the ship got sucked out from it so by the time the alien is gone the air pressure inside the ship is equal to the pressure of space.
The point about the helmet bothered me too. They are a colonizing ship for crying out loud, everyone has to priotized on health and safety. They go out instantly with a camoflougage attire. Compared to Promotheus, which i appreciated more after, those guys made a BIG deal of wearing their masks in and out of their ships. Yes, they discovered the planet being habitual that humans can retire in, but to step foot without any proper attire for protection was STUPID!!!
Also the characters were ANNOYING!!! I hated Tennessee!!! The one thing that I did not understand is why they assigned these idiots to carry a colonizing mission. They were the worst kind of characters to handle that big tasks. Furthermore, most of them here are MARRIED!! This is a risk!!!! Emotions can definitely distract the decisions of each indivual putting everyone, and those embryos they are carrying on top of a very thin Ice. Ie, the pilots overridding the ship's protocol to go 80km below the surface or the storm. Compared to Prometheus or even Alien, you get characters who are diverse who are not fuly related with the crew, this puts them in a great position of as astronauts with the right mindset to make good decision given the circumstances. There's conflict but good reason. ie. merdith vickers giving quarantine orders or burning charlie halloway.
I thnk that's the problem when u have a movie with so many characters. Majority of them are disposable and there's not much time for us viewers to connect and understand them more especially for slasher like film. Why Scott did this kinda idiotic formula, we'll never know? ugh!! and yes I'm with you, i can't remember the rest of the characters names on this.
It's a movie idiots! If you watched a 2 hour video of NASA astronauts doing experiments on the International Space Station you would be bored out of your f-ing (low IQ) minds!
+ pallafox
Actually, employing idiots for their most important missions seems to be a hallmark of Weyland-Yutani in this time period. The idiots in Covenant are just as dumb as the idiots in Prometheus. Weyland Corp just has very, very poor employment screening.
Actually I would have to question anyone's IQ who thinks this was a good movie!
The 2000 colonists should have been made up of couples, not the crew.
I really think that the hollowness of this film mirrors the hollowness of the times we are living in. Quality is a thing of the past now and this movie is just one example of the artistic decline we see in all genres. As for this film, it's a mess.
Solar panels on an interstellar ship make no sense at all. Since you need a sun nearby. And while they would be far more efficient in the future, it's unlikely that starlight would ever be enough.
"You blow...I´ll do the fingering" - David.
Alien Covenant in a Nutshell. The movie should´ve been named "Android - The Gaping"...
ships designed for space travel are typically really fragile. they aren't designed to fly through storm clouds because there isn't any air in space. And the dropship in aliens was military tech. id imagine those ships are designed to land in combat and take a beating, where the ships in covenat are civilian ships.
yep you're right, they should've used the magnet boots used earlier in the movie - this is the exact device they used with the loader in ALIENS, we see Ripley's ability to use the loader earlier in the movie, and for a logical reasons within her character's story, but it becomes the most vital part of the climatic battle for the perfect relevant tie-in... Using the boots again would have been perfect in a similar way. Honestly, I think script writers have forgotten how to write movies...
With Alien they did a lot of what they called dialog naturalization, which basically meant tinkering with the lines until they sounded right, and overlapping them in a way that was supposed to feel organic and natural. And it worked perfectly in Alien. In fact, if you look at almost every movie of note that came out in the 70s and 80s, they did a lot of this to help with character development and to advance the plot without relying on stupidity.
Obviously, no one was tasked with naturalizing the dialog in either Prometheus or Covenant. A more unnatural dialog you're not going to find. And the characters are consequently either underdeveloped or simply enormous blanks. At the end of the movie, I knew the names of two characters, in addition to the two Fassbenders. I knew that Tennessee was an incompetent pilot and that another guy was supposed to be the captain and that he was religious. I knew that Daniels was married to the old captain who died in scene one, but I had absolutely no idea what her function was on the colony ship or in the landing group. And there are about ten-fifteen other characters who are nothing more than dying beards and tits. Oh, who was that who just died? Has she had any lines? I can't remember who that was at all, but now she's a decorative floating head, as floating heads go. Why is the movie full of these non-people? Why, to be eaten by the alien of course! Except that now I don't care if they are because they haven't been developed even slightly.
#3 Nailed IT! ...more chuckles here...then in the cinema
How come people with English accents can slip into a perfect American accent but when I, as an American try and English accent.. it sounds like an American faking an English accent?
Haha. Not every English person can do a U.S accent. I just watched too many American films as a kid. Thanks for the comment :)
The English actors who speak with American accents often have speech coaches to teach them.
Michael Kibbie I was referring to Massey.
He slips into an American accent during the review for a few seconds.
But, point taken regarding the speech coaches and acting.
Seems like Fassbender could have used a few more lessons..
How come? The ever-presence and penetration of American culture. Brits are exposed to it far more than Americans are to British culture. (There's also an element of arrogance...but I won't go there. LOL) I do have to say that I wish that Benjamin Cumberbatch had kept his accent for 'Doctor Strange'; his accent sounded forced. But there's another sortakinda related thing: Brits lose their accents when singing. (Not 100% of them, but almost. Unless there's a conscious effort to retain their accents, such as Lily Allen.) Personal anecdote: I lived in Britain for the better part of a decade. One evening, the place where I worked had a 'staff talent night'. I remember listening to a Scot sing 'Moon River' and saying out loud 'Hey! You sound like me!' Everyone who sang that evening did so with a North American accent. Very weird.
Dame happens with portuguese from Portugal and brasilian from Brasil.
the actors didn't get sucked out at the end because they were wearing the magnetic boots you talked about earlier! what i don't understand is how the alien managed to jump back into the ship in the vacuum of space! i do agree with a lot you are saying... the movie is lacking. the mystery of the xenomorph is completely gone.
Things that sucked about Alien Covenant... Everything.... Roll Credits
You forgot to add that the Covenant was able to decode the signal from the crashed engineer ship and extrapolate music and some video from it, whereas in Alien, the signal the Nostromo picked up from the derelict ship was undecipherable and very eerie.
People who say that Alien: Covenant sucks because of how stupid the crew and their decisions are, I have to remind you how stupid Dallas was who allowed the alien get inside Nostromo, despite the fact that he is the freaking captain; whose job is the responsibility of the ship, crew and cargo. Now come again and tell me how bad Alien (1979) was.
Great video buddy!
Why did Walter removed one embryo from the bank at the beginning? (He put it in the biohazard container!) It really bugs me...
I guess it had gone off.
Haha! Yeah, possibly... Good answer!
This movie sucked.
Its plot is that of a B movie slasher flick.
People doing incredibly stupid things and getting killed by the monster/psychopath.
I personally find it difficult to enjoy a film where nearly every character is an idiot.
Short list of stupid actions and decisions:
* Not using the shuttle airlock upon landing.
* Exploring an alien planet without a vacc suit.
* Letting a guy puking black goo from his lungs back into the ship without quarantine.
* Not vigorously debriefing David as soon as they got to the city.
* Allowing a woman to go off by herself (who gets killed).
* To be followed by the captain who goes searching for her by himself (and gets killed).
* To be followed by yet ANOTHER woman searching for the two missing people by herself.
* The captain is ready to put a bullet in David at one point but 5 minutes later puts his
face in front of a face-hugger pod simply because David says so.
* Not fully debriefing Walter/David before going into cryo-sleep.
* Not broadcasting an incident report before going into cryo-sleep.
* Not installing a hazard beacon in orbit.
* Not waking up some of the settlers to search and decontaminate every inch or the ship.
An in depth review WITH spoilers. Enjoy!
Good review. But I was kind of hoping you would discuss about the fact Covenant didn't answer any of the questions it laid out in Prometheus. Who are the Engineers? Why they wanted to kill us? Or are they going to answer those questions in a sequel? Also who is the Engineer sitting in the chair in Alien(1979)? Personally I don't believe all Engineers were killed in Covenant since they must have colonies elsewhere cause they are interstellar travellers.
Pekka Rintala yes! This is one of my major complaints of Covenant....I actually kind of liked Prometheus (once I knew what to expect, of course) i liked where they were going with Shaw and to have her killed off by David like that?!?! Also, when he was supposedly so in love with her? Makes NO sense!
1. Everything.
I suppose that the most baffling moment in the movie was when Richie Cunningham, Ralph Maulf, and Potsie Weber were deployed with nothing but bull-whips to defeat the aliens, and of course were given the thrashings of their lives.
Or was it when The Fonz flew in on a drop ship with a tactical nuclear weapon, with no build-up, and the entire planet broke into a trillion tiny pieces.
I knew I was going to hate this movie when I found out they killed off Noomi Rapace's character even before getting to the Engineers' planet. Her character was one of the best parts of Prometheus.
If the Alien started dancing I would have fell on the flooring laughing... then walked out.
Hey man... major hats off to you for not having Godfather III on the shelf behind you.... good man :)
Haha. Just switched on my computer and saw this. Laughed out loud. Thanks
You know what the most disturbing thing about Alien Covenant is! It suggests that Ridley Scott simply has no idea how bad or disliked Prometheus was (even if you yourself liked it)!
AC suggests that Scott is surrounded by a protective machine that goes out of its way to make sure no criticism or negativity about his films EVER reaches him! Thanks to this machine, Ridley probably believes the scene in Prometheus where Milburn decides he wants to hug an Alien Cobra was one of the most brilliant and popular moments ever to be recorded on celluloid - or hard drive - and that the public simply cant get enough of 'intelligent' people in his films!
This is the only reason I can think of why AC not only repeated the mistakes of Prometheus (another crew of 'trained' people deciding to walk about an alien planet with no protection) but in some cases magnified them!
Ok, maybe that's exaggerated, Scott must be aware of at least some of the criticism surrounding Prometheus but he probably needs to look further beyond the blind praise of the parasites and hangers-on surrounding him!
Re. pt. number 9...Daniels and Tennessee weren't ejected along with the final xenomorph when they ejected it from the Covenant's bay because...
They were wearing magnetic boots!
You've got Millennium on your shelf. That's such a great and underrated series.
Lol, I loved your review! You are hilarious. Prometheus is my second favorite of the Alien films. I really thought that Alien Covenant was going to blow them all away. Oh well. Maybe we'll get some great deleted scenes from the DVD release. Thanks and Subbed
My issue with them stepping out of their craft and onto the planet's surface is that one of the characters is literally heard saying "the air seems fine". I mean, if that wasn't said I'd be willing to believe or assume that they did some kind of sci-fi scan of the atmosphere.
It's not that impressive because Steven Spielberg did it better in War of the Worlds when they spent the whole van scene going around a speeding vehicle. That was interesting to look at, but this? Brilliant? Please? Oh and the self make out scene, do I have to really point it out? It was put in there to appeal to the people who were going to go around crying into their beer that there weren't any gay characters in the movie. Prove to me that it was anything other than that internet, come on, I dare you.
Wait, WHAT?! I didn't know the twins of "The social network" were indeed the same actor!!! o_O You got a new subscriber.
Today we already know that using weapons with bullets is extremely dangerous on a jet or plane of any kind. Yet somehow in the future, we completely forgot what we know today, and guns with bullets seem to be the only type of weapon they are issued on a interstellar spaceship. I guess the taser technology was forgotten.
also the 20 minutes scene of the crew socializing were deleted.
Life long alien fan- saw the first one (1979) as a kid, and sadly, I agree. You did a good job quantifying what I could not, when I walked out of the theater feeling let down. So again, good job on your blog here- Hopefully the next one will be better...
also, why did David wipe out an entire planet full of humanoids if he wanted to experiment with the goo?
The total absence of character development ruined any chance this movie had of working. I couldn't give a flying F#$%^K who got killed and when, because I didn't care. What the hell was Scott thinking????? Didn't they expose this film to test audiences? I say that because EVERY person I know who has seen this movie has the EXACT same critique.
great review and you've earned yourself a sub for that advert 👍
Thanks bro. I made a special video when I hit 100 subs as a thank you. Do check it out, and hope you like :)
I think some of your points are just nitpicking, and can be counteracted by the points from the films and a bit of reasoning.
7.
The reason they played a recorder instead of a more complicated instrument is because it was the only musical instrument David found on that planet. In Prometheus, it was shown that the Engineers used a flute to interface with their ship, so wind instruments would likely be native instruments of their homeworld, which David was stranded on. Remember, he came here using Engineer's ship, so there's no way he could have brought anything like a piano with him.
You could argue that he could have made a piano for himself if he wants one, but the point of that scene was David trying to show Walter that he could "create" music, something Walter's programming prevented him to do.
And about David kissing thing, if you've watch a teaser for Prometheus introducing David 8, you would know that his model was built to have (or at least show) emotions, hence to tagline "emotional".
8.
I believe the Covenant operated on rechargeable battery. So the moment you see it deployed the solar panels, the ship was really low on energy. When the storm hit, the charging cycle was disrupt at the critical period, hence the power failure. so when Tenesse fix the panel everything just lighted up and went to normal, because the main problem was the power shortage, not any structural damages. And since the solar panels need to be deploy, it can be infer that they weren't needed all the time, so passing in the shadow shouldn't be a problem.
Flying around the clouds wasn't an option, if you look at the planet, the storm clouds did cover all surface of the planet. And even if the Covenant might be able to pass through the clouds, it was recently hit be the neutrino storm. There might be a damages they couldn't fix. More importantly, there were 2,000 colonists on board other than the crews, would you risk them landing on an unknown planet?
9.
The trucks didn't move because they were "sucked out", they were pulled by the gravity of the planet below. If you look at the shot Xenomorph finally went out with the truck, you can clearly see that they were falling to the surface of the planet, not the vastness of space. There was only initial gust when the airlock was first open that sent Daniel tumbling for a bit, but when the air in the room was gone, there couldn't possibly be any wind to disturb her and Tenesse congratulating each other.
One school of thought says stuff on an alien planet would have evolved so differently that it wouldn’t hurt us (trees can’t get bird flu and I can’t get Dutch Elm disease)? However, another theory is EVERYTHING on an alien planet would bring about fatal anaphylactic shock if you swallowed or inhaled it because your body wouldn’t know what it was? The spores also appear to be “orifice-seeking” (not just airborne) and the captain chest-buster was a bit “baby-Groot” like.
I feel like you've missed the point of that recorded scene. David teaches Walter to use a recorder with Ridley Scott aware of it being a kids instrument. David is obsessed with creation and father figures and Gods in that scene he is again attempting to be a creator but a father to Walter as opposed to a God like creator of the xenomorphs. This movie was pretty dookie though.
11:53.....very good.... (my kind of guy, my kind of humor! Love it)
👏👏👏 you have another subscriber!
This is my first video of yours. You've saved me from Covenant (after Prometheus I swore I was done, but the trailer just looked so good), and I'm convinced now your countdown is more entertaining than the movie. Like and subscribe is the least I coul do.
(I'll almost definitely still watch this when it comes to Blu Ray.)
worth watching on blu ray, not really in theaters. good call.
Just from the trailers alone I could tell this was a bad movie. I mean c'mon walking on a new planet with camping gear on? Couples cruise ship crew with guns??
Prometheus is a great movie to me. It could be q lot better, yes, it's true, especially if publishing pressures were not so absurd.
I know in advance this movie is bad, but I have to see it anyway, because my best friend wants to. I will do my best to enjoy the sci-fi window dressing and ignore the plot.
I've heard a lot of comments on this movie but yours is the best.
And yet Chris Stuckman has a million more subs than I do >_O, Thanks for the comment, bro. Means a lot.
Great analysis--subscribed! (Also, you do a pretty decent American accent.) :D
that is not the fully developed alien that we all know if you didn't know the real name of it is a Xenomorph and this one is the protomorph and the one with the white skin was the neomorph this is the sequel to Prometheus and then after this they are making a movie called alien Awakening that's all we know I know you think of it as strange that he kiss to self he kissed his self so he can get basically the reason he gets them is to get the stuff that he knows cuz when he gets them he got all the stuff he knows
The horrible irony is that the characters are a reflection of the audience. People often gripe about how little charisma characters have these days, and while I know a lot of that is Hollywood fat trimming and modern screenplay shorthand, I can't help but think a lot of it is just because, where we are today, people are not that relatable anymore.
in reference to the deck of the tilting spacecraft / crane grab.....the lack of build-up or suspense in that sequence is stunning. She nabs this super-agile alien with a the clunky robot-crane on the first try. There are so many things I would in this movie....
I will say this for Covenant, it gave us one of the greatest movie quotes of all time: _"I'll do the fingering."_
after i watched it i was just confused, but now one week later i think i would go and watch it again🤔
Pretty much agree with every single thing you've mentioned. Great video!
Dang, if you thought that those twins were impressive the newer Parent Trap would have blown your mind.
also I feel like david technically by the means of the engineer black substance just pushed the progress of what it was made to do by creating the xenomorph that we know. It can be explained that way as Ridley Scott didn't specifically say that the ooze wasn't meant to do that to begin with.
Excellent points. I couldn't agree more.
Lol funny ad bro, you deserve the sub. Great vid
I SO WANNA SEE UR "IMAGINE THIS" SCENE. REALLY WISH THEY DID IT THAT WAY XD
=)
Finally! I'm not the only one thinks alien covenant was the worst movie ever!
The lack of scientific knowledge that Scott has is superseded by your own. Try looking up how things are really done before dismissing them out of hand.
ok best bits.... the neomorph... tennessee, davids conversation with oram, the editing, the cinematography, the neomorph, the back burst scene and the mouth burst scene, the neomorph, arriving at the "engineer" city, david just being so convinced by himself... so genuinely sinister!! getting rid of james franco immediately., daniels expression at finding david was walter, now... there was other bits i liked.. just these spring to mind first.. have i mentioned the neomorph? :) i LOVED the neomorph
now... worst bits...a perfectly hospitable planet.. 7 years closer to earth than the one we are headed to.. just fucking turns up out of nowhere?? LAZY, the protomorphs chest burst scene and it being a standing miniature replica of a grown xeno.. and it copying davids movements (some things are just too corny to ignore), the constant fucking dumb as fuck juvenile mistakes the crew relentlessly made.. they had to be special ed kids when they were young, surely??
during the back burst scene the two crew members BOTH slipping on the blood... what is this?? laurel and hardy or the fucking 3 stooges?? so so so shit and fucking corny.
the fact the film looked so dark at times it was near impossible to see what was going on. the total and utter cop out of the fully grown proto running directly into the ships crane jaws like it was heading back to the womb.. are protos as dumb as the ships crew??
the neo/ protos going from freshly burst to fully grown in a matter of minutes.. this was just so fucking lazy. the MASSIVELY predictable outcome of david and walters battle.. if you didnt see that one from a mile off you're as dumb as the crew.. the absolute cop out of what happened to shaw. < unforgivable imo. the second proto being on the ship and then being blasted from the airlock.. really ridley?? THE AIRLOCK AGAIN????? also the animation and movement of the spores into the hosts ear.. again.. so fucking corny. the face hugger impregnating / gestating and bursting and being fully grown in like a fucking 2 minute period. again.. just so fucking lazy. now.. i didnt hat this movie... not by a long stretch. i just wish the groundwork put in in prometheus had not been abandoned. it seriously seemed like this movie was ridley scott getting revenge on the prometheus haters.. hate my movie will you?? well watch me fuck it up even worse now!!! MUHAHAHA.
Where should he get an Piano. The flute was used by the engineers to activate the Ship in Prometheus
He's done all sort of other impossible things. He could build a piano.
Enjoyed your review. Btw, most of your DVD collection I have as well 😁 Lol
One of the biggest flaws of contemporary Hollywood Sci-Fi are the failed attemps of characterization. Watch 2001, Bladerunner, Alien. The protagonists in those movies are only characterized through their actions and the plot. No emotional ballast, no backstory bs, no love interest, no partner - Sci-Fi is the main focus of those movies. Hollywood sucks nowadays because it has an obsession with human emotions and pathos mixed with high level of stupidity (I'm looking at you Interstellar)
Good points made here, but in reference to #9, weren't Daniels snd Tennessee wearing the magnetic boots in the final fight sequence? I thought that was the reason they didn't get sucked out with everything else.
That bit with the Mothership going close to the planet ticked me right off. WHY??? Why did they do that? It didn't improve anything. On a ship that size they only have one lander......... what no redundancy? But then they had the crane platform ship.... WHY not use it as a lander?????????
Dude, if she’d been wearing the magnetic boots on the landing platform ship her ankles would have shattered like cream crackers with some of the maneuvers it was doing. Also critics would have said “oh very convenient, she’s wearing the magnetic boots they had at the beginning”.
Dude, she
didn't have the magnetic boots with her and her ankle would SHATDude, she
didn't have the magnetic boots with her and her ankle would SHAT
Very well said sir I LOVED this very articulate analysis....I also personally agree with your various points of view.
Daniel.
"WHAT COULD BE BEHIND THE DOOR SCARIER THAN WHAT IS" Sadly Ridley Scott forgot that fact as his previous films were perfectly AMBIGUOUS. How Amazing to know NOTHING about the Space Jockey. Sir Ridley is on a No Mystery Reveal Campaign with his recent allotment. Let us hope Blade Runner 28578 (whatever the title is) does NOT do same.
Ridley doesn't follow the script, that's part of the problem. He is always changing everything and in the end it becomes just a huge mess. If you read the script for Aliens, it's exactly the same as watching the movie.
You are absolutely right about the sounds.
First the ship was hit with some kind of mega EMP that's why it started to fail. Second the ship couldn't get through the clouds or as you suggest go around them is because the storm is happening all over.....have you ever seen a violent storm on one side of the street and a beautiful calm sunshiny day on the other side?.....I'm pretty sure you haven't .
You are the first person I've seen that really highlighted why those spores are a terrible idea for the alien franchise.
We really don't need the facehuggers (and regular Xenomorphs) if we got those spores and spore xenomorphs.
6:42 I remember my days of Commodore 64, 300 baud modem, hard drives making noise, etc. people like Tim Cook and younger generation don’t like computers that make noise, don’t computer with flashy lights. Today movies are for them, they don’t care about movies from past.
a group of teenagers going to a lake to be killed by a Jason... basic plot in Covenant. With a bit of Bladerunner :)
great stuff man, just one thing, solar panels were meant to charge solar energy. ship was utilizing stored energy
18:13 that big ship is carrying future colonist for a planet they didn’t go to:(
You're right in most of your complaints, but I don't think the obviously stupid behavior in the movie is an actual mistake. I think it's absolutely appropriate to Scott's opinion of humanity. His contempt is transparent and offensive, and it's up to us to say no more to Scott. Let another, better director take over the franchise.
Here's a question to ask about the film.
WHy did David even bother going to the "other planet" which according to the ship's computer.. was inferior to the one he was leaving?
He could have just landed the ship with all the bodies in there since he was running it at that point anyway (talking about ending scenario)
Agreed on all accounts. The characters were so vapid and annoyingly stupid that I was on "Team David" by the end. The fact that there was absolutely no tension made it all very boring. Heck, the original Alien is only an hour and forty-five minutes long, yet we still have plenty of time to get to know and be vested in the characters. Oh, and the xenomorph in that has at most two minutes of screen time, yet the suspense and tension are incredible, that the film still holds up today. I guess Ridley has completely forgotten the art of horror, which he used to be the master of, that "less is more". Everything in Covenant was telegraphed with zero suspense. And since we didn't give a rat's ass about any of the characters (our only emotion being annoyance every time they did something stupid), all the death scenes were very "meh". Also, the whole "using the same actor for two different characters in shot at the same time" isn't exactly new technology. Heck, Disney did it with Haley Mills in 'The Parent Trap' back in 1961.
Maybe it was like The Corleone kiss of death and eventhough he had a different name there could be only one TRUE David, all others were imposters kinda thing
Subscribed... very good the point in wich you talk about patience and timing, but you made me wonder: do nowadays people want to wait? How would they react to the introduction of Alien, in 2017?
10:46 Because those magnetic boots would have made her running around like that on the outside of that small tossing, pitching space-craft near impossible.
18:44 They are wearing their space suits now, they got those magnetic boots on to keep themselves from being sucked out into the vacuum of space.
19:57 Wrong! An artist who is creating any kind of popular art or entertainment must respect his or her audience.
Well thought-out list and impressions.
I had to chuckle a bit in the movie when I recognized the scenery as Milford Sound in New Zealand. Alright so I'm not an Alien fan so I had no frickin' idea what was what in anything, but yeah... that was earth on a day with terrible weather basically.