The moral of the story, don't hire Damon Lindelof to introduce a mystery box which neither he nor anyone else would be able to solve in a logical and satisfying manner.
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"Alien: Awakening", "Covenant"'s shelved sequel, and what it would have been.
- Thread starter Deleted member 5853
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Prometheus was ok. However, Covenant was so fucking bad it makes Prometheus look good.
This Awakening sounds even worse. lol
This Awakening sounds even worse. lol
I'm not afraid to admit it. I love David.
The master-villain is an android acting like an English Professor.
The master-villain is an android acting like an English Professor.
Him and George Lucas are great parallels in that regard, aye. The big shot directors that return to their earlier work and excercise a much tighter level of creative control; to the detriment of the product.
I was so angry at the end of Covenant. I can like a nihilistic ending, but that was insulting. The franchise that started the strong female character in sci-fi made the leads of the last two movies into victims of a vivisectionist. Why does Ridley Scott think David is the hero of these movies? And why is everyone else a goddamned idiot?
The Leftovers is a pretty good show though, he can do fine when mystery isn't the entire focus of the narrative.
Yeah I was always into the idea that Xenomorphs take on aspects of its host. So the Queen could be an outcome of whatever they were using to sustain themselves on LV-426 before the humans arrived.
Just a reminder of how ridiculous the life cycle currently is:
Seeing his name attached to Covenant was all I needed to back out on it. I'm sure he's done good work elsewhere but these prequels had too much mystery box and too many professionals making rookie mistakes (going off watching Prometheus and reading on Covenant after release). IIRC Prometheus was actually a bit more rooted in Alien before he got involved, and he chose to make stuff more vague.
They only put a stop to it because Covenanf bombed. Prometheus did well at the BO
Not that it helps, but there's 2 pieces of canon in the blu-ray of Covenant that try to tie make it less disruptive.
First, David says that the creature he is building is based on a creature already known to the engineers. And secondly, David is aiming to build their queen.
Even so, it's still total shit for the crashed ship on LV-426 to be tied to David.
If anyone needs more Alien after watching the first two films, go watch Outland with Sean Connery instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8WBk6nrYC0
The trailer isn't great, and the stories are very different, but they share alot of aesthetics (set builders from Alien also worked on Outland, Jerry Goldsmith score) and tone, especially when it comes to being weary of greedy corporations.
First, David says that the creature he is building is based on a creature already known to the engineers. And secondly, David is aiming to build their queen.
Even so, it's still total shit for the crashed ship on LV-426 to be tied to David.
If anyone needs more Alien after watching the first two films, go watch Outland with Sean Connery instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8WBk6nrYC0
The trailer isn't great, and the stories are very different, but they share alot of aesthetics (set builders from Alien also worked on Outland, Jerry Goldsmith score) and tone, especially when it comes to being weary of greedy corporations.
LOL!
I remember uncontrollably sniggering with friends in the cinema when that line played, yet everyone around us was immune to the innuendo.
John Logan and Ridley Scott are madmen and they needed to be stopped at all costs. Fox has saved humanity by shelving this mess.
I wonder if we'll ever get that Neil Blompkamp version now. I believe there were reports that the only reason it was killed was because of Ridley. We probably won't but it could have been interesting.
Umm, I'm confused, I didn't say otherwise :P
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Mark my words, the movie would've ended with David being the Space Jokey in the first Alien film.
Its just such a bullshit contrivance I'm sure Old Man Scott was building up to it.
Its just such a bullshit contrivance I'm sure Old Man Scott was building up to it.
I wonder how the prometheans would triple in size
Im sure David would have done that as well.
Plot twist, thats actually David in the chair.
I always joked with Bobby that Ridley would somehow top the level of awfulness that Covenant was and the lore by actually making the Jockey be David.
That synopsis is one step closer!
As much as I like David, this sounds even worse than the last 2. I'm kinda glad it's been put on the shelf after Covenant bombed.
Fox really should have let Blomkamp make his direct sequel to Aliens instead. At least we would have had Ripley, Bishop, Hicks and Newt back, kicking ass then.
Fox really should have let Blomkamp make his direct sequel to Aliens instead. At least we would have had Ripley, Bishop, Hicks and Newt back, kicking ass then.
I bet Scott would also have three David-type models on screen so we could have triple fingering.
That's been my expectation since Prometheus, and the alien eggs destined for Earth. The only missing piece of the puzzle was that the space jockey seems to be the victim of a chest burster, so I would assume that a twist in the third of the David trilogy is that his creatures turn on him, as he did on Wayland and humanity.
I thought Ridley just requested that some plot details changed, probably relating to the origin of the Engineers and / or the xenomorph. I suspect the boat has sailed though, with Blompkamp
now on a Robocoop sequel. By the time that wraps up, I'm not sure Weaver and Beihn will have A5 in them.
Man though, Alien 3 was mismanaged to hell by the studio. Alien 4 was a dumpster fire. Prometheus and Covenant went off the rails. All this scramble over what the hell to do with the Alien IP over the last 30 years when all anyone has ever wanted was Aliens 2. Or maybe Alien 2 (though we did finally get that with Alien: Isolation).
Sounds pretty shitty.
Covenant was terrible. They forgot how to make a scary space movie.
"Life" which came out a few months before it was 100 times the Alien that Prometheus or Covenant was.
Prometheus was one of the most disappointing theater experiences I've ever had.
For all of Ridley Scott shitting on Alien vs Predator, Prometheus just ended up being a pretty direct ripoff with higher production value.
I really can't believe they were planning to strip ALL mystery and scale from Alien.
Covenant was terrible. They forgot how to make a scary space movie.
"Life" which came out a few months before it was 100 times the Alien that Prometheus or Covenant was.
Prometheus was one of the most disappointing theater experiences I've ever had.
For all of Ridley Scott shitting on Alien vs Predator, Prometheus just ended up being a pretty direct ripoff with higher production value.
I really can't believe they were planning to strip ALL mystery and scale from Alien.
Yep. The worst part about these movies wasn't that they were shit, it was that they retroactively ruined the engineer/Alien lore.
They promised to show this in the last sequel. That piece of shit Alien Covenant. All my good will towards the franchise is gone.
Nothing was probably lost. Prometheus was mediocre with characters that did fantastically stupid things (so poor writing), and Covenant was boring and uninspired.
The entire franchise went to crap after Aliens, truthfully.
The entire franchise went to crap after Aliens, truthfully.
Pretty amazing that Alien 3 is still the best they've been able to do after Aliens in all these years and has only gained in stature with the Assembly Cut.
Making a spiteful Weyland android the creator of the Alien was a terrible idea, as was making the Space Jockeys 7ft tall albino bodybuilders. It's incredibly reductive and destroys the mystery of the original films.
The boring characters and rehashed scenarios of these prequels are just the brown icing on top of a shitty cake.
That is just so dumb. These two movies are such a waste.
Lindelof is a genius incapable of doing wrong though /era
Tbh neither of these bother me, I still more or less consider the Engineers to be the creator of the Alien, David just took what was there and modified it. I also thought Fassbender sold all of it very well, I was genuinely shocked when I saw what he did to Shaw.
As far as the mystery of the Engineer goes, I really don't see any way they could have explored the Alien origin without ruining the mystery, at least to some extent. IMO the films were relatively restrained when it came to them, they only featured in a handful of scenes and were practical effects. The alternative was a giant CG monster which would have been pretty shit.
These films weren't exactly what I wanted or expected, but I really appreciate what was there. The visuals and the music were first rate, and Fassbender was great. The two female leads did a good job as well.
Sounds good!
I really really hope they finally greenlight the final installment in Scott's Alien prequel trilogy. Covenant was already pretty cool and that ending was godlike.
I really really hope they finally greenlight the final installment in Scott's Alien prequel trilogy. Covenant was already pretty cool and that ending was godlike.
He says a lot of things. They were ready to straight into filming the next one, more or less, but Covenant didn't make as much as they thought it would so it was put on hold. I'm holding out some hope that someone eventually makes it, but I don't expect it to happen at this point.
It's all...so....awful.
Ridley Scott's some kind of savant who doesn't understand his own work. Like he has an incredible eye, he understands mood, tone, pacing...but you better hope he's paired with a screenwriter who knows what they're doing because Ridley Scott sure doesn't grasp what he's filming. He's like the best example against the single-auteur theory in that his work so clearly demonstrates how film is a collaborate process where multiple artists contribute to the final piece, not just the director (see: Scott's take on BR that led to the Final Cut).
Here's some of what Dan O'Bannon, Alien's screenwriter, had to say in various interviews over the years:
And regarding the Space Jockeys....
Like, no shit. That's the point. Watching the first movie, I assumed the Space Jockeys were just some random other unfortunate race that fell victim to the Xenomorph. The alien was just what would result when the forces of evolution by natural selection acted upon life in space. Nature's scary enough on Earth, so what evolution would produce in space....
I know that Ridley Scott had in his mind for a long while that they were bioweapons, but I feel like that's so small. There's an existential fear in the unknown, and reducing the xenomorph to a manmade creation explains it away, it turns it into something that might as well be a killer robot.
It's funny. There was a period in the development of Alien that they considered making the xenomorph a creation of the Company!
But they knew this was a mistake, they knew that had to keep the alien an "Alien". And now, with the twist Ridley Scott made to the lore in Prometheus and Covenant....it isn't as alien, really. I mean, it's a creature from off-world, yes, but it has a very human origin. Go figure.
If all we knew about alien was that it evolved somewhere else, the scariest question in my mind would be....what sort of ecosystem could this thing have come from? If this is what a parasite looks like, what else is from its world...? What could a predator of this thing possibly have been, or what else existed in this food chain...?
They had countless opportunities to use the question "What kind of horrible planet would produce a creature like Alien as just one of its species?" as a foundation for a movie.
Or just make one about some giant pale humans hunting Fassbender, I guess.
This was a nice read. Thank you.
The boat has sailed I guess :(
I didn't know it was controversial to say that he lacks a finishing touch. Admittedly, I bailed out of Lost during the 4th season, so, he may have turned things around in the end.