Alien: Covenant (2017) (2 Viewers)

[questrider]

Let me know where you got yours and I'll pick one up.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Everyone gets to ride a high horse on the Internet, I guess. I hear you can buy them cheap.

Yeah, true. But they are getting on the high horse months before the starting gate is even on the track.

 

[questrider]

 

[dpippel]

 

[Edwin-S]

Don't bogart that joint, Jack.

This post contains nothing relevant to the actual conversation going on.

 

[dpippel]

New cast photo with a first look at James Franco on-set:

 

[SamT]

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Interesting. Is this a clip that's actually going to be in the movie, or just part of a marketing campaign?

Liked the call back to the original Alien dinner. Didn't like the sappy music that started playing with the speech. Really took me out of it. Editing seemed a bit hurky. Assuming Fassbender is an android again here, interesting to see him give a big smile at the end. The gay couple seemed a bit over the top like it was screaming "HEY LOOK WE'VE GOT A GAY COUPLE HERE!!!". Don't know why they need to do that.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I had the strong impression Fassbender is the android again. That reference to Alien will really unnerve people in the theater who haven't seen this clip. Didn't think the gay couple were any more over the top than a heterosexual couple might have been.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Didn't think the gay couple were any more over the top than a heterosexual couple might have been.

Yeah, I didn't mean the actual couple themselves were over the top, just the way the clip presented that fact. Just felt like it was deliberate pandering rather than just being natural.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Interesting. Is this a clip that's actually going to be in the movie, or just part of a marketing campaign?

Don't think this is in the film. This is a "prologue" so takes place before the events we will see in the film. This appears to be the same way they marketed Prometheus with clips released before the film came out to introduce us to the characters.

 

[WillG]

Yeah, I didn't mean the actual couple themselves were over the top, just the way the clip presented that fact. Just felt like it was deliberate pandering rather than just being natural.

Seems strange that a gay couple would be assigned to a colonization mission though.

One good thing is that right off the bat, the crew seems more real and tight together than what we got in Prometheus. Though I thought the dinner scene callback was a bit too on the nose, especially as McBride says "the food ain't that bad"

 

[dpippel]

I found that clip less than compelling. I saw practically no chemistry between the actors, and they're basically just aping a famous scene from Alien.

 

[questrider]

I know I've already been accused in this thread of being a contrarian out of the gate, but this cast looks too big for anything character driven to develop over two hours.

And I also am not sold on the casting of Danny McBride in this type of genre film since he plays the same belligerent fool character in everything he does. And while I find him sometimes funny in the Rogen and Franco comedies or his two HBO comedy series, I just can't see him bringing anything to these proceedings that he hasn't done before. It looks like he's basically playing a surrogate version of Bill Paxton's character Private Hudson from Aliens.

I guess I am just baffled by the marketing for this film thus far as it's taking a deliberate left turn from ending of Prometheus by leaving Noomi Repace's character Dr. Elizabeth Shaw out of the mix (is she being reduced to what amounts to just a cameo in the film?). And the last time we saw David he was just a disembodied cranium in a duffle bag so who is Fassbender exactly in that clip posted above.

Anyway, don't take my musings too seriously as one did last time. I'm just thinking out loud.

 

[Ushabye]

The extent of Noomi Repace role in this remains to be seen. Michael Fassbinder has dual roles, one being another android, called Walter, whom he his playing in the clip, which I really liked. Sure, not all of the crew will get equal screen time, but I'm far more optimistic that we'll actually care when they all start to get slaughtered. THEIR optimism in this clip is quite something to digest when we know the hell they're destined for.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

OK, what I loved about that prologue...

The opening old school shot of the big ship rolling by the camera in space. Awesome!

What I really did not like about that prologue...

The speech with the music toward the end that looked and felt exactly like some sort of sappy insurance or pharmaceutical commercial. Yuck! (in fact the whole thing seems to transition from beer commercial feeling to insurance commercial feeling)

Overall, glad this is not in the film and hope the film is better than this makes it look like it may be. Sort of indifferent about the clip overall because not much happens in it, it seems the key thing they want to accomplish with it is to remind us a bit of Alien, and none of the characters shown really have a chance to make an impression. They kind of sadly seem sort of like they could be another annoying group you just watch to see how they are killed off. They seem a bit less like "truckers in space" than they seem like camp counselors in space.

My two cents...

P.S. And I don't like the shaky cam.

 

[SamT]

Are we sure this is not in the movie? If it is not, I'm going to watch it. Otherwise I wait.

 

[Tino]

I say it's in the movie.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I say it's in the movie.

From FOX:

The official prologue to Alien: Covenant introduces the crew of the mission as they gather for a final meal before entering cryosleep.

Set aboard the Covenant, a colonization ship on its way to a remote planet to form a new human settlement, the main crew (all couples) and their android, Walter, enjoy their final meal together before cryosleep.

Conceived by Ridley Scott and 3AM, directed by Luke Scott, and produced by RSA Films.

I believe Luke also directed the short films that introduced us to characters in Prometheus. Those were not in the film so pretty certain this is just a promo piece not a part of Ridley's film.

 

[Tino]

Well there you go.