Alien Covenant - Spoilers

[Udaman]

(Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang)

That's the sound of me banging my head against the wall. Just saw the new Alien. Why, why, why??? I mean what was Ridley Scott thinking? I thought this movie was awful. Truly. As bad as Prometheus and that's saying something. I could go on and on (and I will) but for now will give the Top 10 things I didn't like. Spoilers for sure.

10. The Opening Scene. Other than seeing Guy Pearce - what was the point? Oh, I know - to show us that a recently created robot didn't like being a servant or created. Sigh. This has been done so many ways and times and so much better.

9. The stupid shower scene. Of course they can't hear the alarms and it's all Friday the 13th ish. Ughh.

8. The baby alien being born and raising its arms up to David. Laughably dumb.

7. One of many things that has no answer. How did the ship end up crashed into the trees? Later it shows the ship docked with a bigger ship over the capital area. How did it then crash where it did?

6. So there's no quarantine process? On a strange planet with a clearly sick person about to board? Okey dokey.

5) how did they sick guy on the ship get impregnated with an alien? David didn't have one when he got back on board. He hadn't been infected on the planet unless it happened in the 10 seconds it was on his face. And how did the other guy just cut it off when in alien they couldn't.

4. So David releases the biological weapon on the colony and they all die instantly? But with humans it takes an hour plus?

3. So the Aliens are genetically mutated by David? Really? That's how they came into existence? Not the perfect life form hjust a creation?

2. Walter was really David?????? Wow, I never saw that coming (said no single person who saw the movie). And why would David help them kill the alien at the end. He could have ejected them all into space.

1. No continuation at all to the alien movie. The first one. None. At all. In that movie the pod takes a long time to let go and the person is then fine for a few hours. With these the person is impregnated instantly and has the baby alien in minutes. And how did the big ship get on the planet where it was found in the original movie? And the pods? And what would happen in this movie after they got where they were going? New aliens? More of them? And why? So David could create then?

So disappointing. Guess I'll have to stick to the first two movies. Thankfully they were both outstanding.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I disagree, but allow for the fact that I was super-stoked to see this movie and didn't hate Prometheus.

I thought Fassbender stole this movie in every way. Will post more later.

[JasonEvans]

What the @$&@#$& was James Franco doing in this movie for less than 15 seconds? Huh?!?! Did he stop by the set to say hi to his buddy, Danny McBride and they said, "James, can you stand in front of this green screen for 15 seconds and hold up this GoPro and say this one line pretending like you are mountain climbing? Thanks!"

Apparently, all space travelers in Ridley Scott's universe are utterly unprepared to deal with any kind of outer space infection (even though that would be basic training 101 for a space mission like this). "Hmmm, this person seems infected with something strange, I better get as close to them as possible and bring them onboard the ship right away."

If we are going to have David turn against mankind and Engineers and purely worship the utter destructive power of Xenomorphs, can we at least pretend to explain why he is that way? To some extent, this is the major plot driver in both Prometheus and Covenant and yet we have no understanding WHY HE IS LIKE THIS!!!!

The planet had no animal life on it-- no squirrels, no crickets, nothing making any noise. Are we supposed to think this is because David's experiments have led to everything being wiped out? How did that happen?

Regarding David and the Engineers, did the planet have exactly one city of Engineers and no one anywhere else? What sense does that make? Are we supposed to think the Engineers had no form of defense or warning when a ship approaches?

-Jason "these are just a few off the top of my head... more later" Evans

[Udaman]

OMG...I can't believe I never put the "Franco-McBride" connection together. I bet that's EXACTLY what happened.

Your points all add to my list, making it that much longer.

I'm still just furious over the "pod opens, attacks the captain, then 10 minutes later he's fully impregnated, then a minute after that the alien pops out of his chest, then 2 minutes after that the alien is full size." DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB. Not to mention against everything that happened in every earlier Alien movie. And don't get me started on "why did Fassbender turn evil?" or even, why did they all look like him. The cool thing in the first Alien is that the robot wasn't being evil. It was simply following orders. No ulterior motives...just do what Mu Th Er told it to do. If that meant killing the humans...so be it.

[JasonEvans]

And don't get me started on "why did Fassbender turn evil?" or even, why did they all look like him. The cool thing in the first Alien is that the robot wasn't being evil. It was simply following orders. No ulterior motives...just do what Mu Th Er told it to do. If that meant killing the humans...so be it.

You know, in Prometheus, David's "evil" actions (like infecting Charlie with the alien goo) were somewhat explainable because he was following orders from Weyland about finding the Engineers. Those orders could have been confusing to an android and caused David to do things that might have seemed otherwise evil or inexplicable. But in this movie, he's not following any orders. He's just on his own, AI run amok, trying to destroy entire civilizations for some reason. Huh?!?!

We needed a lot, lot, lot more understanding of what was going on with David.

-Jason "still, I really enjoyed the first half of the movie... right up until they start getting offed by the aliens" Evans

[Olympic Fan]

He's just on his own, AI run amok, trying to destroy entire civilizations for some reason. Huh?!?!

Expect to see more scenes and movies about AI "run amok".

There are plenty of scientists who think that AI is a real danger to humanity -- including such prominent names as Steven Hawkings, Elon Musk and Bill Gates. Musk has contributed $10 million to an organization set up to protect humanity from AI.

So don't be surprised when such scenarios become movie fodder.

[chriso]

Expect to see more scenes and movies about AI "run amok".

There are plenty of scientists who think that AI is a real danger to humanity -- including such prominent names as Steven Hawkings, Elon Musk and Bill Gates. Musk has contributed $10 million to an organization set up to protect humanity from AI.

So don't be surprised when such scenarios become movie fodder.

I liked the Alien/David goes berserk thing but agree it could have been more fleshed out. Director's cut perhaps? I know there is a scene towards the end where David gets the Wagner piece wrong, does this suggest he is malfunctioning? Can robots go crazy in all that isolation? More questions then answers for sure. But I want to see it again and I haven't said that since Aliens. Overall I enjoyed it.

[PackMan97]

I'm still just furious over the "pod opens, attacks the captain, then 10 minutes later he's fully impregnated, then a minute after that the alien pops out of his chest, then 2 minutes after that the alien is full size." DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB.

At some point, you'd think a director/writer would just hire a few fan boys to run ideas past.

It almost reminds me of Lucas and the Star Wars prequel. Folks were afraid to say, "NO, that's a bad idea".

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

David was unimpressed with his creator. He saw his creators seeking their own creators, looking for answers. David himself saw the weakness and lack of answers from humans, and then saw how disappointed humans were in the answers humans found from engineers.

From this, he deduced that the act of creation was where the real meaning of life resided. Therefore he decided to do his own experiments, attempting to create the perfect organism.

It wasn't a question of him becoming evil or going off script. It was his own version of the same "quest for meaning" that humans were embarking on in Prometheus. David cannot become evil - he is an amoral being.

[Mabdul Doobakus]

I enjoyed the movie. I agree with some of the points made and disagree with others. Ridley Scott's choice is to either keep making the same movie, which will upset some people, or try to do something different, which will also upset people. At this point, I enjoy watching these just because he's so good at putting compelling images on screen. The script has holes and inconsistencies with the other movies, which is something that is probably inevitable, given that they're making all of this up on the fly, and the characters do stupid things sometimes. There are very few movies out there where people are always doing the smart thing, though.

If you want nitpick these movies, I've always felt like you could nitpick the entire Xenomorph species. The first two movies make no sense either. What exactly is this species plan? Make a bunch of eggs and then hope some strangers accidentally end up on your planet so you can make more Aliens? This is a very inefficient reproductive strategy. I mean, what do these guys even eat to sustain themselves otherwise? Or take Aliens, the second movie...how many Aliens have to die just so you can cocoon a small handful of people and make like 5 more Aliens? How is this efficient?

And yet, Alien and Aliens are two of my favorite movies, not because things make sense, but because of the atmosphere they create. None of the later movies are as good, obviously, and some of them are awful. But I've enjoyed the last two.

[Olympic Fan]

If you want nitpick these movies, I've always felt like you could nitpick the entire Xenomorph species. The first two movies make no sense either. What exactly is this species plan? Make a bunch of eggs and then hope some strangers accidentally end up on your planet so you can make more Aliens? This is a very inefficient reproductive strategy. I mean, what do these guys even eat to sustain themselves otherwise? Or take Aliens, the second movie...how many Aliens have to die just so you can cocoon a small handful of people and make like 5 more Aliens? How is this efficient?

I don't understand your problem with the first two movies in the series.

The answers to your questions seem simple to me.

The xenomorphs were created as a biological weapon by the engineers. A ship containing a load of xenomorph eggs crash-lands on a remote planet, the one that the Nostradamos stumbles upon. They find the xenomorphs which were not placed there intentionally (note the dead engineer piloting the crashed ship). It was not a reproduction strategy and certainly not by the xenomophs.

As for Aliens, the humans colonize the planet that Nostradamos visited. The colonists try and examine the xenomorph eggs and become infected. It's not like a small handful of people to make five more aliens. The entire colony (except Newt) is infect to make hundreds of Aliens. It's not like this is a strategy -- it's the happenstance of the xenomophs having crashlanded on a remote planet, then following their programmed biological cycle when the arrival of humans gives them a chance.

After watching Prometheus, we learned that the xenomorphs were designed by the engineers as a weapon. We also learned that the engineers created humanity. I always though the big reveal was going to be that humanity was created in search of a better weapon. It's a fact that in every encounter we see between humans and the aliens, the human ultimately prevail.

Which is the better biological weapon?

[BLPOG]

I don't understand your problem with the first two movies in the series.

The answers to your questions seem simple to me.

The xenomorphs were created as a biological weapon by the engineers. A ship containing a load of xenomorph eggs crash-lands on a remote planet, the one that the Nostradamos stumbles upon. They find the xenomorphs which were not placed there intentionally (note the dead engineer piloting the crashed ship). It was not a reproduction strategy and certainly not by the xenomophs.

As for Aliens, the humans colonize the planet that Nostradamos visited. The colonists try and examine the xenomorph eggs and become infected. It's not like a small handful of people to make five more aliens. The entire colony (except Newt) is infect to make hundreds of Aliens. It's not like this is a strategy -- it's the happenstance of the xenomophs having crashlanded on a remote planet, then following their programmed biological cycle when the arrival of humans gives them a chance.

After watching Prometheus, we learned that the xenomorphs were designed by the engineers as a weapon. We also learned that the engineers created humanity. I always though the big reveal was going to be that humanity was created in search of a better weapon. It's a fact that in every encounter we see between humans and the aliens, the human ultimately prevail.

Which is the better biological weapon?

The Nostromo, not Nostradamus.

I like your take and it's a shame we probably ever won't see that twist as the big reveal.

[Mabdul Doobakus]

I don't understand your problem with the first two movies in the series.

The answers to your questions seem simple to me.

The xenomorphs were created as a biological weapon by the engineers. A ship containing a load of xenomorph eggs crash-lands on a remote planet, the one that the Nostradamos stumbles upon. They find the xenomorphs which were not placed there intentionally (note the dead engineer piloting the crashed ship). It was not a reproduction strategy and certainly not by the xenomophs.

As for Aliens, the humans colonize the planet that Nostradamos visited. The colonists try and examine the xenomorph eggs and become infected. It's not like a small handful of people to make five more aliens. The entire colony (except Newt) is infect to make hundreds of Aliens. It's not like this is a strategy -- it's the happenstance of the xenomophs having crashlanded on a remote planet, then following their programmed biological cycle when the arrival of humans gives them a chance.

After watching Prometheus, we learned that the xenomorphs were designed by the engineers as a weapon. We also learned that the engineers created humanity. I always though the big reveal was going to be that humanity was created in search of a better weapon. It's a fact that in every encounter we see between humans and the aliens, the human ultimately prevail.

Which is the better biological weapon?

Well, I guess that mostly makes sense. Their life cycle still wouldn't really work, though. There are insects who do this sort of thing (gestate within another species) but they produce numerous offspring. If these aliens need one sizable animal to produce one offspring, that's a lot of work and a lot of mouths to feed, and they'd better be amazing farmers. I know they have acid for blood, and so their biology may be entirely different, but you still need energy input to survive. Maybe we'll find out that their hearts are actually small nuclear reactors which power them without any need for food. You could also nitpick, I suppose, how all those giant eggs were able to survive the 57 years between Alien and Aliens on a spaceship on a seemingly barren planet with no one to look after them.

That's an interesting point about the humans vs. the Aliens. The humans are pretty hopeless without technology and advanced weaponry, but it would appear this isn't an area where the Aliens excel, at least from what we've seen. It's not clear if they have the intelligence or opposable thumbs to compete in this arena. I never really agreed with Ripley that bringing back just one Alien would be a major threat to humanity. Letting a lion loose in a village is never a good idea, but ultimately we have too much firepower for that to become a global threat. Now, a vial of that magic black tarry stuff, on the other hand...that would be bad.

[davekay1971]

Well, I guess that mostly makes sense. Their life cycle still wouldn't really work, though. There are insects who do this sort of thing (gestate within another species) but they produce numerous offspring. If these aliens need one sizable animal to produce one offspring, that's a lot of work and a lot of mouths to feed, and they'd better be amazing farmers. I know they have acid for blood, and so their biology may be entirely different, but you still need energy input to survive. Maybe we'll find out that their hearts are actually small nuclear reactors which power them without any need for food. You could also nitpick, I suppose, how all those giant eggs were able to survive the 57 years between Alien and Aliens on a spaceship on a seemingly barren planet with no one to look after them.

That's an interesting point about the humans vs. the Aliens. The humans are pretty hopeless without technology and advanced weaponry, but it would appear this isn't an area where the Aliens excel, at least from what we've seen. It's not clear if they have the intelligence or opposable thumbs to compete in this arena. I never really agreed with Ripley that bringing back just one Alien would be a major threat to humanity. Letting a lion loose in a village is never a good idea, but ultimately we have too much firepower for that to become a global threat. Now, a vial of that magic black tarry stuff, on the other hand...that would be bad.

All of this is absolutely true, and just goes to show what happens when one neat little sci-fi/horror concept gets inflated by the original director, who is apparently no longer okay with leaving it as a neat little sci-fi/horror concept, into some creation-myth epic.

Alien was late 70s stalker suspense horror set in space. The mysterious, remorseless, and seemingly unstoppable killer who has the one very simple motive of kill (for whatever reason) was all the rage back then. The movie benefitted from great direction, great acting (for the most part), and a killer creature and set design, plus the (at the time) surprising twist of the less famous female actor being the survivor. But, at it's heart, it was a simple story that was done exceedingly well.

Aliens, which did a beautiful gear shift to action, was still a simple movie. Innocents need rescue. Military guys go to rescue. Realize too late that they're in way over their heads. Hero saves the day. Again, it was exceedingly well done by a great director and great acting.

But the Alien's original design wasn't meant to stand up to scrutiny. The reproductive cycle was stolen from certain insects, but, as pointed out, it doesn't make much sense for a single birth modality. The acid for blood thing just doesn't make any sense (except as a clever device to make the critter harder to kill). The addition of the queen/hive model in Aliens kept up the insect/wasp inspiration theme and worked in that context, but still didn't answer the basic questions of how this species is supposed to thrive when it needs one large victim per live birth. And the xenomorph, as evil as it is, makes no sense as a weapon system, even for The Company to have. It's hard as hell to control. You can't train it. And it's still a sorry second best to a high powered projectile weapon in trained hands...or a nicely target missile system. Kind of like the silly plot of the velociraptors or the indomitus rex being wanted by the military as weapons in Jurassic World. When you already have better, cheaper, easier to control weapons that you can aim and fire, what's the point of going through all sorts of nefarious mechanisms to get the Big Bad Critter Weapon?

There's no point, except to make a fun movie, of course, and that's good enough for 2 hours of a Saturday night at the cinema.

[JasonEvans]

But the Alien's original design wasn't meant to stand up to scrutiny. The reproductive cycle was stolen from certain insects, but, as pointed out, it doesn't make much sense for a single birth modality. The acid for blood thing just doesn't make any sense (except as a clever device to make the critter harder to kill). The addition of the queen/hive model in Aliens kept up the insect/wasp inspiration theme and worked in that context, but still didn't answer the basic questions of how this species is supposed to thrive when it needs one large victim per live birth. And the xenomorph, as evil as it is, makes no sense as a weapon system, even for The Company to have. It's hard as hell to control. You can't train it. And it's still a sorry second best to a high powered projectile weapon in trained hands...or a nicely target missile system. Kind of like the silly plot of the velociraptors or the indomitus rex being wanted by the military as weapons in Jurassic World. When you already have better, cheaper, easier to control weapons that you can aim and fire, what's the point of going through all sorts of nefarious mechanisms to get the Big Bad Critter Weapon?

There's no point, except to make a fun movie, of course, and that's good enough for 2 hours of a Saturday night at the cinema.

Here's a fairly thorough analysis of the life cycle of the various aliens and how all the different versions fit in with each other (and with David's experimentation). It is pretty cool to watch and think about if you are an Alien fan.


-Jason "but, bottom line, I agree with DaveKay that intense scrutiny of all this stuff makes it pretty much unworkable... it is just a movie and trying to apply real-life evolutionary/biological theories to it makes it all fall apart" Evans

[Wander]

I think you guys are being hard on the movie, especially the alien design/life cycle, which does have a specific purpose. The entire purpose of the Alien's design is to invoke rape, with the franchise's twist being that most of the sexual violence happens against dudes. That's not a fan theory - the screenwriters have been quoted explicitly about the subject. This movie followed that theme pretty well.

My biggest complaint is the David/Walter thing at the end was too obvious, but I guess the movie had to set up a sequel (this also answers the OP's last question, as the movie isn't meant to continue directly into the original - yet). I can see why some people think it's too big of a shift in tone to change the main villain from aliens to robots, but it worked for me.

Love Olympic Fan's theory about humanity being created as a superior weapon to the Aliens - hopefully we'll learn a bit more about the engineers later.

[Mabdul Doobakus]

I only brought up my issues with the alien life cycle to argue against too much nitpicking in general. I was actually using it to defend the latter movies.

I also don't think the David/Walter thing was meant to be a twist ending. They alluded to the possibility it could be David almost immediately, calling attention to his arm as they were leaving the planet. They also left the David/Walter fight open ended, with David clearly distracting Walter from administering the final blow. They wanted you to question who it was. Maybe it's worth nitpicking while the female character--who seemed suspicious herself--didn't do more to investigate this, but, really, what difference would it have made. The second she suspected it was David, he probably just would've killed her. Or killed everyone else, and then did whatever he was planning to do with her.

[Doria]

Don't have time for a full review, but in short, I thought it was meh. It was technically a good film, but plotting, characterization, etc., were terrible.

I know the "why in the world would you do that?!" is a horror staple, but it went against the grain of sci-fi. I couldn't take any of the characters as fully competent adults, let alone above average representatives of whatever their fields were supposed to be. Why would you explore an alien planet that you know nothing about, save general particulars, without enclosed suits? Why would you deviate from a plan literally years in the making? Why, in space, do you seemingly have no redundancy whatsoever (e.g., one lander)?

This was easily the least scary Alien movie of all the franchise (I didn't see the AvP sequels), but it felt as though the movie thought it was super scary. I don't think even a jump scare landed for me. In fact, I wouldn't say the movie was even mildly suspenseful! This needn't be a bad thing if it's not intended to be, but the framing of sequences suggests that it was. I... well, almost fell asleep midway through it, while they were exploring the base.

Fassenberg was great. I'm sorry he couldn't play all the characters, most of whom were horribly chosen to be in any chain of command.

I wish Scott had just made a sequel to Prometheus, as that's where I felt his interest really lay. Watching this, I felt like the horror/suspense parts were just sequences he wasn't really enthusiastic about, and it translated to me, the viewer. It all felt very by the numbers, and the xenomorphs were tragically unintimidating. Also, on a petty note, my least favorite Alien movie, 3, did the shower scene better... Oh, well. Hope Blade Runner turns out better, later this year.