UHD Review Alien: Covenant UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

I would say they most certainly are a reboot that also do not yet connect to the original Alien and it is questionable if they ever will.

Ridley is...and this will get me in trouble...an unreliable source.

In your opinion.

*sigh*

 

[Robert Crawford]

In your opinion.

*sigh*

Who's opinion would he be stating?

 

[Tino]

Who's opinion would he be stating?

His....IF it was presented as opinion.

It's a long story Robert but Reggie knows what I'm talking about.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

With the number of times we have gone over the "opinion" thing I am pretty sure everybody is clear that when I write something or when you write something or when Robert writes something each of us is expressing their own thoughts unless we clarify that these are not our thoughts and are the thoughts of somebody else.

OK, I do get it...a lot of the time when I write something here some people feel I tend to express things in a "definitive" manner that is annoying or exasperating. Again, I apologize if this is what I have done as I don't mean to annoy or exasperate.

Why do I feel Prometheus and Covenant are more a "reboot" of the Alien "universe" than anything else...

1. The films do not at all have any connection to the first film nor do they need to as they are telling totally different stories with different casts and characters with no reference to anybody in the original film. There really is no requirement these films connect with the first picture...and so far they don't.

2. In these first two films David the android has surfaced as the main character and central figure that is basically driving what happens and where this tale is going. These first two films really are about David and his journey. Everything revolves around him. All other characters are diminished, including the Xeno, to tell the tale of David. This makes sense if you are attempting to tell a story that spans many decades and Covenant states this right at the top of the film. David knows and says he will outlive Weyland...and quite obviously all the other characters in these films. Hence, these first two films have placed David at the center of this "universe."

3. No attempt was made to retro fit these new films to what we see in Alien. Instead, and people could argue wisely, they reboot the universe to today's standards...both in look and feel and of course how the films are made and edited. I realize some people complain about this but it allows the filmmakers to start over and not have to worry about matching things to Alien. Ridely and his fellow filmmakers want to be free of having to limit themselves to attempting to match things to a film from 1979 so abandoned that to instead reboot...it gives them more freedom for wherever they want to go. I believe they chose to do "prequels" so they did not need to deal with all the baggage of the films that came after Alien. They got a fresh start.

4. Consider how old those of us that saw Alien in the time frame when it came out currently are...I'm 50. I can tell you right now even though Ridley is older than I he is not making these films to appeal to "original fans" as that would be a demographic of at least 45 and over...that is not the sweet spot for movie marketing. Makes more sense for a studio to reboot for the 16-30 crowd and you will still draw us 50-80 year old folks that enjoyed the original film. That's exactly what they did.

I do not say any of this as a knock on the films...in fact I liked and enjoyed Covenant...I say it because this is so far what has happened.

 

[Robert Crawford]

His....IF it was presented as opinion.

It's a long story Robert but Reggie knows what I'm talking about.

I know what you're talking about as I followed your past discussions with Reggie. If I was Reggie, I wouldn't appreciate you trying to tell me how to express my thoughts and opinions. So I don't use "IMO" when expressing any opinion and you take exception to me presenting those opinions like they're facts. If I was Reggie, I'll continue to do so just to bug you and basically tell you, "tough", get over it.

Anyhow, I'll let you and Reggie continue your back and forth. My stated "opinion" on the matter is just my personal thought and shouldn't be taken as an official rebuff to you. All's cool, carry on!

 

[TravisR]

1. The films do not at all have any connection to the first film nor do they need to as they are telling totally different stories with different casts and characters with no reference to anybody in the original film. There really is no requirement these films connect with the first picture...and so far they don't.

Early on in the commentary, I believe that Scott says that they want to make 2 more movies and the second would connect right into Alien. Given the at best OK box office of Covenant, I don't know if that will actually happen.

I have to say that the set design of Alien, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant helps connect those movies in a nice way. Yes, there's holograms and the monitors are better in the current movies but the interiors of the ships all look similar enough to feel like I'm watching a movie that is in the same world as Alien.

 

[Tino]

I know what you're talking about as I followed your past discussions with Reggie. If I was Reggie, I wouldn't appreciate you trying to tell me how to express my thoughts and opinions. So I don't use "IMO" when expressing any opinion and you take exception to me presenting those opinions like they're facts. If I was Reggie, I'll continue to do so just to bug you and basically tell you, "tough", get over it.

Anyhow, I'll let you and Reggie continue your back and forth. My stated "opinion" on the matter is just my personal thought and shouldn't be taken as an official rebuff to you. All's cool, carry on!

I'm pretty sure Reggie knows its all in good humor and no offense is intended.

But like you said. It's also just my personal opinion. Of course People can express themselves any way they like. Carry on indeed.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I take no offense and have no bad feelings toward anybody.

I do laugh every time Tino reminds me I am actually expressing my own opinion as at this stage it has become "Who's on first?" type comedy. What can I say? I was taught not to use "in my opinion" unless I was trying to differentiate when stating somebody else's opinion and my own opinion...not to use it as a way of saying "OK, this is me speaking now." when it is obvious it is me speaking now.

Perhaps I absorbed the lessons of my instructors a bit too well as this is why I typically do not say or write "In my opinion" or any variations of that...unless I am attempting comedy.

To quote one instructor:

Stating or writing "in my opinion" is disrespectful to your audience because it treats them as if they are too stupid to know you are expressing your own thoughts.

Or as Robert says above:

Who's opinion would he be stating?

So, don't take the way I say things as attempting to state "opinions as facts" but rather as an attempt not to be disrespectful to anybody that reads what I wrote.

 

[TJPC]

I take no offense and have no bad feelings toward anybody.

I do laugh every time Tino reminds me I am actually expressing my own opinion as at this stage it has become "Who's on first?" type comedy. What can I say? I was taught not to use "in my opinion" unless I was trying to differentiate when stating somebody else's opinion and my own opinion...not to use it as a way of saying "OK, this is me speaking now." when it is obvious it is me speaking now.

Perhaps I absorbed the lessons of my instructors a bit too well as this is why I typically do not say or write "In my opinion" or any variations of that...unless I am attempting comedy.

To quote one instructor:

Stating or writing "in my opinion" is disrespectful to your audience because it treats them as if they are too stupid to know you are expressing your own thoughts.

Or as Robert says above:



So, don't take the way I say things as attempting to state "opinions as facts" but rather as an attempt not to be disrespectful to anybody that reads what I wrote.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I agree completely.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I would say they most certainly are a reboot that also do not yet connect to the original Alien and it is questionable if they ever will.

Ridley is...and this will get me in trouble...an unreliable source.

Yeah, you're in trouble. Prometheus and Covenant are not reboots. They are leading up to the events in Alien. Look how the last two aliens in Covenant look like the alien in Alien. David took the Engineer pathogen and refined it. All he needed was a human to come up with the final Alien.

Not a reboot.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Yeah, you're in trouble. Prometheus and Covenant are not reboots. They are leading up to the events in Alien. Look how the last two aliens in Covenant look like the alien in Alien. David took the Engineer pathogen and refined it. All he needed was a human to come up with the final Alien. Not a reboot.

So, would you say Shaw is the mommy, David the daddy, and call the Xeno Junior?

 

[Johnny Angell]

So, would you say Shaw is the mommy, David the daddy, and call the Xeno Junior?

In Ridley's commentary on Covenant, he actually makes that reference, minus your junior reference.

 

[WillG]

Yeah, you're in trouble. Prometheus and Covenant are not reboots. They are leading up to the events in Alien. Look how the last two aliens in Covenant look like the alien in Alien. David took the Engineer pathogen and refined it. All he needed was a human to come up with the final Alien.

Not a reboot.

I think @Reggie W sort of has a point here. If Covenant ends up being the last Ridleyverse Alien film then that leaves a hell of a lot that would have to be filled in to get to "Alien" as Ridley insists he's doing. Which does kind of make it a soft reboot if it ends here.

He says he has two more movies planned but I can't imagine there's anyway Fox is going to let him make 2 more at this point. They may let him make one more, but he's going to have to cram 2 movies worth of story into one and do it for cheaper than he did Covenant for.

 

[Tino]

I take no offense and have no bad feelings toward anybody.

I do laugh every time Tino reminds me I am actually expressing my own opinion as at this stage it has become "Who's on first?" type comedy. What can I say? I was taught not to use "in my opinion" unless I was trying to differentiate when stating somebody else's opinion and my own opinion...not to use it as a way of saying "OK, this is me speaking now." when it is obvious it is me speaking now.

Perhaps I absorbed the lessons of my instructors a bit too well as this is why I typically do not say or write "In my opinion" or any variations of that...unless I am attempting comedy.

To quote one instructor:

Stating or writing "in my opinion" is disrespectful to your audience because it treats them as if they are too stupid to know you are expressing your own thoughts.

Or as Robert says above:



So, don't take the way I say things as attempting to state "opinions as facts" but rather as an attempt not to be disrespectful to anybody that reads what I wrote.

I have a question Reggie

On second thought......never mind.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I think @Reggie W sort of has a point here. If Covenant ends up being the last Ridleyverse Alien film then that leaves a hell of a lot that would have to be filled in to get to "Alien" as Ridley insists he's doing. Which does kind of make it a soft reboot if it ends here.

He says he has two more movies planned but I can't imagine there's anyway Fox is going to let him make 2 more at this point. They may let him make one more, but he's going to have to cram 2 movies worth of story into one and do it for cheaper than he did Covenant for.

Who knows what will happen. We leave Covenant with the the Alien of Alien already built. All that has to be accomplished to set the able for Alien is for the Engineers to crash land on LV-426 with a boatload of eggs. One movie could accomplish that.

If there are no more movies, to me, Prometheus and Covenant will still not be reboots, but there will be a missing link in the evolution of the Alien. Perhaps in another 100 years the missing link will be discovered.

 

[sleroi]

Its not a reboot in the strictest sense, in that hes not remaking the first film.

But in a more subtle way hes using modern technology to revisit a universe last seen 20 years ago. And the continuity doesn't match up, so its not quite a direct prequel.

I would call it more of a franchise reboot. He's telling a new story in a known universe.

I guess since the original was "truckers in space," they might not have had the latest newest ships and systems. But the cry chamber in covenant with touch screen window and body suit seems light years ahead of the pods from alien that only required underwear to be worn.

And the aforementioned hologram from a thumb drive.

And the most jarring scene for me was the opening. It was such a sterile environment. Compared to the dirt and grit so evident in the original quadrilogy.

As Reggie mentioned earlier, these films seem more interested in telling David's story than anything else. So I don't see them as tieing in to Alien, though eventually they may.

So I guess I'm not sure what to call Prometheus/Covenant. But reboot works for me.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Its not a reboot in the strictest sense, in that hes not remaking the first film.

But in a more subtle way hes using modern technology to revisit a universe last seen 20 years ago. And the continuity doesn't match up, so its not quite a direct prequel.

I would call it more of a franchise reboot.

So I guess I'm not sure what to call Prometheus/Covenant. But reboot works for me.

I feel that the two new "prequel" films do recycle a lot from the first film in terms of set pieces and story to the extent that they do seem a lot like remakes...or reboots. This would have been item 5 in my post about why these feel like reboots to me but I felt like I had already said that elsewhere.

I do agree that it is basically the "franchise/universe" getting a reboot because they want to make the films more relevant for today's audience.

Yes, Ridley claims that his intent was to "come in the back door" of Alien but I honestly do not see that happening. What these films are doing essentially is establishing David as the key player in the Alien universe. He is now responsible for the whole thing. So, that pretty much diminishes, for example, Ripley because all she is now is another character that fell victim to David's crazed experimenting.

Plus I do believe that Ridley and his teams that make these films mostly are ignoring all of the Alien films that came after Alien...except perhaps for a little occasional inspiration. I don't think they care, for example, that in Aliens the eggs were not some mutant android creation...there was a "mother" alien that laid the eggs and Ripley fought the mother alien...that was sort of a big deal in that film.

So, I don't think there is any "canon" in these films, just individual episodes. Just stuff made up by each team that hopefully makes a fun or exciting picture.

Plus I would ask, how is it important that if Ridley gets to make two more of these that the last film "comes in the backdoor" of Alien? I mean what is there left to discover there? We know that the crew in Alien were just some sort of mining crew. We know the company planned to have them detour to the planet where they encounter the alien spacecraft. We know everybody dies except Ripley who then in the films that follow goes through a series of increasingly ridiculous scenarios.

I mean these "prequel" films are basically just David's story which really does not at all matter to what happens in Alien except now for the fact that David developed the Xeno. So, what do we think the next two films are supposed to explain now?

Just how the engineer ship full of eggs came to crash on the planet where the Nostromo crew encounters it? Do we need two movies for that? Do we need to see that at all?

I mean honestly after seeing Covenant the most interesting character and most interesting arc to follow is David. Mostly just to see what sort of mayhem he comes up with next. I don't really need more backstory that "explains" anything about Alien.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I think @Reggie W sort of has a point here. If Covenant ends up being the last Ridleyverse Alien film then that leaves a hell of a lot that would have to be filled in to get to "Alien" as Ridley insists he's doing. Which does kind of make it a soft reboot if it ends here.

He says he has two more movies planned but I can't imagine there's anyway Fox is going to let him make 2 more at this point. They may let him make one more, but he's going to have to cram 2 movies worth of story into one and do it for cheaper than he did Covenant for.

I do think they could back Ridley making two more films simply because they love sequels and remakes so much. I think they would feel "safer" making two more Alien films than making two new science fiction films that are not from already well known "franchises."

Hey, they are looking at making another Man From UNCLE film even though the first one was not a hit. So, until something changes I think they are full speed ahead on more, more, more of the same from any "brand name" item that audiences have already paid to see.

 

[Brian9229]

This is a pretty nice looking 4K disc. Much better with stripped out hdr though.