SubJeff on 22/5/2017 at 06:58
Okay, this is going to be spoiler city.
You've been warned.
I'm not spoiler tagging the entire post.
Don't go further if you don't want spoilers.
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Okay, let's do this.
The problems with this film run so deep it's unreal. Let's go in chronological order.
Shaw would never repair David; he tried to force her into cryosleep with an alien pregnancy that would have killed her. He tried to kill her. So that's that bs out of the way.
So she lost her mind and fixed him? Okay. Moving on...
The Engineers are technologically advanced enough that they shape civilizations, the universe even. And yet their planet has no planetary defences, they have no air traffic control, they don't detect a Death Goo Ship coming in to land?
Stop.
Let's rewind.
This is a race that has a bio-tool powerful enough to seed life on a distant planet (Earth) that they KNOW is that dangerous that the only facility we know that holds it is IN ANOTHER SYSTEM. There may be other facilities but based on what we know from Prometheus they're staging the production of some of it off-world, on an otherwise seemingly barren planet.
It is just completely beyond the realms of possibility that they wouldn't know where this ship is from, that they wouldn't be able to detect the payload and wouldn't try to contact it only to find its got a human and an android on board. And they'd definitely be able to stop it entering the atmosphere by remote or by using some big laser.
The Tech
The bio-tool looks like it can be adapted based on Prometheus, and this is confirmed in AC. But it doesn't really add up since we see the embryo layer phase in Prometheus and a the Neomorph. This stuff is clearly predisposed to initiating this cycle so what has David really done? Worse - how did he do it? This is high tech stuff and he's living in stone rooms with no lab kit. And how could he create the eggs that the facehuggers come from? If he already has them why is a queen necessary in this lifecycle? Let's not talk about the murals in Prometheus which seem Xenomorph-like.
And what is up with the Neomorphs being bullet sponges? They don't have acid blood either.
The Covenant
These guys don't act sensibly at all. The main crew go down to a planet without checking it out first. Drones? Probes? Just because the air is breathable doesn't mean there aren't infectious agents OH WAIT THERE ARE. The spores are bs too. Where did they come from? Are we supposed to believe David made them? The way they work makes no sense either. At least in Prometheus the proto-facehugger was the result of a conception - there was an embryo involved.
They've just been attacked by some freaky creatures that soak bullets up like an end of level boss but hey I need to go be alone for a bit get out of here with that bs.
The Engineer Village/Town
The crew follow David and no one asks WTF happened in that square. Who these guys are/were? No discussion about that The Prometheus found? They never find out that The Engineers made us!!
And that's it. The Engineers, the super high tech aliens that are our Creators are just a background irrelevance.
Was that their entire population? It must have been because a high tech race like that would surely send messages to and from different planets and no one came to investigate after 10 years? So that was the sum of our creators; a town of Jesus Christ Superstar extras.
You can excuse Prometheus for this because there was obviously some fuck up at the Death Goo Site so it's feasible that a warning has been put out saying DEAD SITE DO NOT APPROACH - WE HAD A DEATH GOO DISASTER. But then AC makes even LESS sense because if that warning went out the “Homeworld” would have got it and the ship Shaw is piloting would have been tagged DANGEROUS.
Finally, The Xenomorphs
In Alien the Alien takes at least a few hours to get full size. In this they burst, go in a vent, and bang. 8 feet tall. Come on.
Kane had a few hours grace before the chest burst too.
This film was a crock.
Pyrian on 24/5/2017 at 17:48
"Neill Blomkamp" - Yeah, I've heard of him - "is Testing Ideas" - Testing? - "for Original Sci-Fi Projects" - I'm listening - "on Steam" - Wait what?
Renault on 24/5/2017 at 18:28
Cool thing is, it's actually all explained if you read the article.
Volitions Advocate on 24/5/2017 at 19:31
K. I really gotta know.
Is the Neill Blomkamp's partial reboot really something everybody wants?
I keep hearing "We missed out on the Blomkamp for THIS?!?"
Is a retcon and reboot what we REALLY want? I'm so sick of hearing about the tropes that prometheus, covenant, and alien 3 went through, without any discussion of the 80s action tropes and perpetual happy ending bullshit that would come out of a new Aliens sequel. "Ripley deserves better than..." UGH SHUT UP!. NO SHE DOESN"T. Life fucking sucks for her and she got dealt a shitty hand, it's reality, it happens to so many people. I can't grasp the idea that James Cameron somehow paid homage to the vision that Ridley had in the beginning, and that David Fincher somehow fucked it all up. I just. don't. see it.
I love Aliens. But it is NOT as fucking great as everybody says it is. You can hate A:CM for being a shit game with bugs and tech problems and shit AI, ridiculous new monsters, and phoned in performances.. But you can't get mad at it for not being true to form from a narrative perspective. It was Aliens through and through. Buddy vietnam war story with a bit of flashy slasher flick stuff. If Blomkamp's vision had come true in 1993, we'd all be bitching about how shallow and empty the IP has become by not trying anymore. Like Micheal Bay directing Starship Troopers or something. ???THIS??? crowd here is upset that RS tried something too big and might have failed on a few points rather than selling out to the lowest common denominator and starting a buddy-cop alien-exterminator series starting everybody's favorite heroine and badass stoic colonial marine?
Why the fuck are we here talking about games like SS2 and Prey and lamenting their shortcomings while loving them for what they are TRYING to do rather than all jumping on the CoD bandwagon?
Covenant was far from perfect, but it's trying to talk about some deep issues. Genesis, Patricide, Creationism, Atheism, Atrificial Intelligence, Human Fallibility ... hell.. even fucking GMO if you want to stretch it a bit.
Ignore for a second that ME: Andromda apparently sucks (I haven't played it). What people are claiming they want when they clamour for a Neill Blomkamp Alien 5, is an ME: Andromeda where Shepard and Liara have little Asari kids running around the Normandy while they go off and explore the new frontier hand in hand with.. UGH I HAVE TO STOP. Shepherd is fucking DEAD and good thing. Ripley Newt and Hicks are dead. (or maybe Hicks isn't, who knows if CM is canon or not) Weyland Yutani is probably run by Androids who dont' give a shit about human life and the Aliens kill everything. Why do we need a happy ending? More awesome one liners we can quote and meme? Is it really worth it? [HISTRIONICS]is it?[/HISTRIONICS]
Angry Joe saying "you done fucked it up" a bunch of times in a row isn't an interesting argument.
Honestly. I WANT an Alien movie done by Neill Blomkamp. I just don't want HIS alien movie. And I find it mind-boggling that Sigourney Weaver is on board with it, when all she wanted to do was get Ripley killed by the end.
K.. I'm done with the heavy mouth breathing and the rocking back and forth with nerdy indignation.
Please resume your regular TTLG style pedantry. It's why we all keep coming back.
SubJeff on 24/5/2017 at 21:18
Love you rant. Don't fully agree (not fully) but love it nonetheless.
I don't want a Blomcramp Alien. D9 was a fluke and he's naff, and I quite liked Alien 3's bleakness.
N'Al on 24/5/2017 at 22:25
To me, I was less excited by Blomkamp's script, more by the fact that it would have been a different director tackling Alien(s) - one that is reasonably capable at directing action science fiction, imo. Yes, there are major issues with all three of his movies to date, but none as severe as the issues in Scott's recent attempts at Alien(s).
At this point, Scott seems to be unable to do anything interesting with the franchise he birthed himself, might as well give it to someone else to have a spin.
Think of it this way; I don't know whether del Toro's versions of The Hobbit would've turned out well, but at least they would've been more interesting than what we got.
henke on 28/5/2017 at 20:12
Just got back from seeing it. Damn, that was good! :D
The part where the infections break out and shit starts hitting the fan was panic-inducing in a way I didn't think an Alien movie would ever manage agian. After that there's a bit of a lull, but when David's experiments start being uncovered it gets very engrossing again. I called the final twist the moment David begain cutting his hair, but then when he actually helped Danny and Tennessee fight off the alien the movie actually had me convinced I was wrong, but then it's confirmed anyway in the most chilling way in that final scene.
Damn. I was not expecting this. I was not expecting it to be this good.
SubJeff on 29/5/2017 at 05:05
Are you serious or trolling?
You actually thought it was good?
I'll give it this - the initial infection sequences were pretty tense. After that explosion it all went wrong though.
henke on 29/5/2017 at 06:03
Yes, I'm serious. 3rd best movie in the series after the first 2.
I read some of your points, and it seems like most of your complaints are about the movie not adhering strictly to established lore. Do you know which Alien movie didn't shy away from changing things from the previous entries? Aliens, and it resulted in one of the best action/sci-fi movies of all time. I don't care if they change things as long as it results in a better movie. And in the case of Prometheus, I've mostly managed to purge that one from my memory anyway, so I wouldn't even notice what they changed.
