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Alien: Covenant (2017) (1 Viewer)

Malcolm R

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And yes, they leave their ship with no special suits or helmets BUT to expedite things it was stated earlier that they "scanned the planet" and found it an even more "perfect" planet for colonization than the one they were headed to. So, yes, again lazy writing but the idea was put out there that it was a "safe" environment for humans. So, this seems less "stupid" characters than it is just sloppy writing/storytelling to quickly get things going.
The atmosphere may have been breathable and conducive to colonization, but there could still be flora, fauna, bacteria, viruses, etc., that would be hazardous to humans without further exploration/research. Suits and helmets would seem like a reasonable precaution for the first visit(s) to an unknown planet.
 

Jeff Cooper

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The atmosphere may have been breathable and conducive to colonization, but there could still be flora, fauna, bacteria, viruses, etc., that would be hazardous to humans without further exploration/research. Suits and helmets would seem like a reasonable precaution for the first visit(s) to an unknown planet.

Obviously none of the crew members knew 'War of the Worlds'. :D

One thing I appreciated a lot more the second time around was David's reactions in the last act when they are hunting the alien around the ship corridors. The first time through I was 95% sure it was David and not Walter but not 100% sure, so him helping the crew out to dispose of the Alien worked as if it was Walter. Watching that sequence again knowing without a doubt that it's David, you can really see how even though he's helping them, there are very subtle facial reactions that he is rooting for the alien and shows genuine disappointment when it loses. That's a great testament to Michael Fassbender that he is able to completely sell it both as David and Walter at the same time there.
 

Johnny Angell

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Obviously none of the crew members knew 'War of the Worlds'. :D

One thing I appreciated a lot more the second time around was David's reactions in the last act when they are hunting the alien around the ship corridors. The first time through I was 95% sure it was David and not Walter but not 100% sure, so him helping the crew out to dispose of the Alien worked as if it was Walter. Watching that sequence again knowing without a doubt that it's David, you can really see how even though he's helping them, there are very subtle facial reactions that he is rooting for the alien and shows genuine disappointment when it loses. That's a great testament to Michael Fassbender that he is able to completely sell it both as David and Walter at the same time there.
I think if David wanted the 2 remaining crew to die from the alien he would have helped them less. I think it's logical he would not want a full grown alien wandering around the Covenant while en route to the other planet. He wanted it dead.

David wanted Daniels in particular, alive. He's got plans for her, similar to what he did to whats-her-face (blanking on the name) from Prometheus.

There is a moment during this sequence in which David smiles and that's when I knew without doubt he was David.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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The atmosphere may have been breathable and conducive to colonization, but there could still be flora, fauna, bacteria, viruses, etc., that would be hazardous to humans without further exploration/research. Suits and helmets would seem like a reasonable precaution for the first visit(s) to an unknown planet.

Sure, that's true, however, I am not bothered by that really because they at least address why they are doing this in the writing. It is stated that they have scanned the planet and found it suitable or rather perfect for human life. Does this mean we have to take a lot of stuff for granted? Sure, the line that they scanned the planet and it is perfect for humans is so they can skip a lot of stuff. That's why it is there. So, they don't have to dress the actors up in space suits only for the moment to come later that there is a place where they can take them off. Yes, I agree it is lazy, it is just a way to move quickly past points that would be a pain in the ass. I am OK with it as long as they make it plausible within the world the story is taking place in. I think putting in the scene where they discuss how perfect the planet is for colonization is enough so we can move past the space suit thing and just have them tromp around.

Is this done as a way to make it easy to create the moment where the guy breaths in the black fungus spores? Sure, and sure again you can call that lazy. It is however better than what Ridley said about the moment where the dimwit pulls his helmet off in Prometheus...that was done partly because the actors don't like wearing the suits and it is better to photograph them without space helmets on. So, we knew in Prometheus the moment did not at all suit the story BUT it was convenient for the filmmakers. Great.

So, I am alright that they at least addressed why they were not wearing spacesuits. Is it realistic? No, but they are not going for realistic in the universe of the Alien films. They are going for plausibility...this is the only requirement I think. It's like in Star Trek they can beam down to countless planets and just stroll around. Realistic? No. Plausible in the Star Trek universe? Sure.

In Prometheus the writing set up situations in one moment and then totally undermined what they set up in the next. It was outrageous. One second they are on a monumentally important mission as scientists to discover alien life that may have played a part in human evolution...the next we have a "scientist" afraid of 2000 year old dead bodies and a geologist that gets lost in a cave that according to the map is a simple descending spiral...and then another supposed "scientist" runs enough electricity through a 2000 year old head for no reason known to mankind or that makes any sense or that adds anything to the story, just so they can have the head explode in a gooey mess. Worst writing in the history of cinema.
 

Richard V

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I wish James Franco and Billy Cruddup had changed roles. I would have been much more into the movie.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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I like Crudup and find him a better actor than Franco...who just is grating I find. The film that Crudup won me over with was Jesus Son which is fantastic and I hope gets a blu-ray release but is probably a bit too unknown. I thought Crudup did a good job with what he was given in Covenant.
 

Colin Jacobson

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I like Crudup and find him a better actor than Franco...who just is grating I find. The film that Crudup won me over with was Jesus Son which is fantastic and I hope gets a blu-ray release but is probably a bit too unknown. I thought Crudup did a good job with what he was given in Covenant.

I think Franco can be wildly inconsistent, but when he's good, he's very good.

He really deserved an Oscar for "127 Hours". He blew me away in that movie.

I think Franco is too smart for his own good and he condescends to his roles more often than I'd like. When he invests, he does well, but I get the feeling he looks down on too many of his movies and mails it in - or semi-self-mocks...
 

TravisR

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I think Franco can be wildly inconsistent, but when he's good, he's very good.

He really deserved an Oscar for "127 Hours". He blew me away in that movie.
I love Franco in part because he's willing to try anything. No role is too small or too weird. It's not a movie for everyone but I think he's absolutely incredible (and seemingly insane) in Spring Breakers. I've only seen the pilot but he's excellent and playing two roles in The Deuce. Also, I think when he gets the right comedic role (Freaks And Geeks, Pineapple Express), he's really funny.
 

Tommy R

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I thought Franco was amazing in 11-22-63. I haven't seen a mailed in performance from him yet. I had no problem with Crudup in Covenant, but I'll second that I would also have preferred Franco in that role.
 

Tino

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I love Franco in part because he's willing to try anything. No role is too small or too weird. It's not a movie for everyone but I think he's absolutely incredible (and seemingly insane) in Spring Breakers. I've only seen the pilot but he's excellent and playing two roles in The Deuce. Also, I think when he gets the right comedic role (Freaks And Geeks, Pineapple Express), he's really funny.
Wait until you see him in The Disaster Artist. Hearing great buzz about that film.

Franco plays a Tommy Wiseau the writer director of the cult classic The Room. The film is about the making of that film.
 

Johnny Angell

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Wait until you see him in The Disaster Artist. Hearing great buzz about that film.

Franco plays a Tommy Wiseau the writer director of the cult classic The Room. The film is about the making of that film.
Is that the one that recently got an oscar for best actress? It's a cult classic already?
 

MarkMel

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Sorry if these may have been answered before in this thread but I just watched Alien: Covenant and I have some questions.

Prometheus and Covenant are prequels to Alien, correct?

David releases, breeds and hybridizes the biological agent. This turns into the creatures that we know as Aliens. But didn't he explain that we (the Earth) designed and send that biological agent into space?

So then for all these years since I saw Alien in a theater as an 11yo at a birthday party, what I thought were aliens were not really alien?
 

Tommy R

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From what I understand, the "aliens" we know, or at least the facehugger eggs, that David breeds is based on the biological stuff that came from the engineers.
 

Josh Steinberg

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But didn't he explain that we (the Earth) designed and send that biological agent into space?

I don't believe so. Rather, I think David explains that the "Engineers" (the race of people whose bodies are found in Prometheus, and who are seen in flashback in Covenant) sent the biological agent into space.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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Prometheus and Covenant are prequels to Alien, correct?

Well, this is what has been stated by the people that made the films...that the events we see in these films take place in the Alien "universe" prior to the events we see in the movie Alien. However, so far nothing connects these films to anybody or anything in Alien from 1979...except that the company that has sent each of the ships into space is Weyland Corporation. At present that is the one item that connects things.

David releases, breeds and hybridizes the biological agent.

Well, he discovers the "black goo" in the film Prometheus and begins experimenting with it by dosing Charlie with a drop of it. I guess you could say that officially begins his work with the black goo. What we also learn in Prometheus is Charlie has sex with Shaw who then ends up pregnant and gives birth to...what appears to be a very big facehugger...which then at the end of Prometheus face hugs the Engineer who then has his chest burst with what looks sort of like a Xeno...however, David never sees this because at that stage he is just a decapitated head on another engineer ship helping Shaw leave the planet apparently to go to the planet that Covenant eventually visits.

In Covenant we learn he continues to experiment with the goo by using Elizabeth Shaw as his lab rat. It appears what he did was experiment with her and parts of her (perhaps her reproductive organs but that is not actually explained) by combining them with the black goo or injecting her with the black goo. Again this is not explained but it appears by his drawings he opened her up and went to town. We see that he has made many drawings of what he has done over the years. He does not explain much though as David is not really into explaining things to people.

He does lead Oram (Billy Crudup) into a room that he says contains some of his "successes" and what is actually in there are eggs that appear to be the same type of eggs we saw in Alien that contain what we call a "facehugger."

So, going by this it appears David is taking credit for creating the eggs that birth the facehuggers by using Shaw's body to do so. Now, how he got from creating the eggs that birth facehuggers to knowing what an egg and a facehugger would do once it encountered a human subject is unclear. See he only had one human subject to experiment on, Shaw, and it seems he killed her to create the eggs somehow.

He also seemed to have slaughtered the entire population of the planet and all of the animal life on it when he bombed it with the cylinders of black goo. So, once he got to creating the eggs/facehuggers there was not a damn thing left alive on the planet to test them out on.

Enter Covenant and its crew.

This turns into the creatures that we know as Aliens. But didn't he explain that we (the Earth) designed and send that biological agent into space?

No, he never explained that nor much of anything else either really. We see what appear to be two types of Xenos in Covenant. The first type created by the Covenant crew members breathing in what seem to be spores from the mutated plant life which results in a Xeno type creature bursting out of their backs.

Then we get the Xeno which looks like the Xeno in the original Alien for the most part which comes from Oram being face hugged by one of the creatures from David's eggs. I guess this means that David created the eggs, the facehuggers, and by way of introducing Oram to the egg...the Xeno that looks like the one in Alien as well.


So then for all these years since I saw Alien in a theater as an 11yo at a birthday party, what I thought were aliens were not really alien?

Well, things point to the Xeno in Alien being some sort of creature that was the result of David experimenting with the black goo he found in Prometheus and combining it somehow with Shaw's body parts to create the eggs and facehuggers. Covenant appears to end with David discovering what will happen when a human subject is exposed to the egg, attacked by the facehugger, impregnated by it so to speak, and violently births a Xeno...and he is now drifting off into space with a space ship full of human subjects to experiment on and he brought with him a couple of "embryos" to begin his new "work" with.

So, yes, in some way it seems not only are the Engineers/Space Jockeys our ancestors but the Xeno is also some sort of biological relative of ours as well. Hey, it's just all one big happy family...Thanksgiving dinners tend to be nasty affairs though.
 

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