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Alien: Covenant.

Started by Glebe, December 25, 2016, 06:56:23 AM

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Replies From View

The thing about Salvation is that it stands in the shoes of the prequel everyone thought people wanted but nobody actually did.  The post-apocalyptic future as glimpsed in the first and second films was bound to be a boring world once extended beyond fragments.  Anyone giving it a moment's thought realises this.  It's just mud and trenches and metal skeletons and shit.  People running around and firing guns and hiding.  It might make an okay computer game for people who like that kind of thing, and perhaps it already has.

Salvation could have been the one that showed Kyle Reese going back into the past, and I bet its producers considered this at some point before deciding they'd drag it out into further (since aborted) films.  So Terminator Salvation incorporates an idiotic twist contrived to distract everyone for a while, before becoming the prequel film showing how John Connor got the scar on his face.

Genisys ends up being the film showing Kyle Reese go back, but naturally it features more silly twists because nobody needs the film that closes the loop.  It's almost as if all worthwhile Terminator stories have already been told.

Replies From View

Also, the title 'Terminator Salvation' irks in the same way as 'Alien Resurrection'.  It's impossible not to read them as a smug meta wink about how they're restoring their respective franchises to greatness.


Kelvin

Enjoy
Spoiler alert
terrible dialogue and bad acting
[close]
? Then you'll love this new four minute prologue to Alien Covenant! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXgRlRao5I

Johnny Textface

Quote from: Kelvin on February 23, 2017, 11:21:25 AM
Enjoy
Spoiler alert
terrible dialogue and bad acting
[close]
? Then you'll love this new four minute prologue to Alien Covenant! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXgRlRao5I

Well that was a waste of time. Fuck that soundtrack.

Shaky

Jesus, that was painful to sit through. Not a hugesurprise that the scene is packed with poor writing, acting, direction.... this film is just going to be a shit retread of the first one, isn't it?

Glebe

It's not very encouraging, granted.

TheFalconMalteser

Quote from: Kelvin on February 23, 2017, 11:21:25 AM
Enjoy
Spoiler alert
terrible dialogue and bad acting
[close]
? Then you'll love this new four minute prologue to Alien Covenant! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXgRlRao5I

Christ is that shit all going to be in the film?

Kelvin

Quote from: TheFalconMalteser on February 24, 2017, 12:08:46 AM
Christ is that shit all going to be in the film?

I think it's a specially made sequence for promotional purposes, rather than an excerpt from the film itself. 

Obel

God help me, that video is terrible. I've actually come around to Prometheus recently, but not that I think it's a good film. It's high budget and good looks aside I really think it's amazing how it managed to be completed with that plot, those characters and that diolog. It's a complete mess and I enjoy it in a so-bad-its-good way. I watched it with my housemates last week, a couple of them having not seen it before and we had a great time ripping apart all the bizarre and stupid things in it.

So, in that video when the girl starts choking... did that have anybody going? Also why did everybody react with horror as if an alien was about to burst out of her? Do you think the characters have all seen Alien before? I quite enjoy the idea of an Alien prequel where Alien is a film that exists in that universe.

Operty1

Also, while the woman is choking, one of the characters says - 'The food's not that bad' which is what is said in the original alien before it bursts from John Hurt's chest. Does every sequel/prequel have to have these stupid call backs?

Bazooka

In that clip they have basically just combined the John Hurt chest burst scene from Alien with the table banter scene from Aliens, yet not added the good bits.

Custard

So it's a promotional clip designed solely to get people excited for the forthcoming film, yet it's turning off the few people who were previously interested?

Amazing

Mango Chimes

Good to see Weyland's policy of hiring the shittest possible crews is still in effect. Looking forward to the DRAMA of Inexplicably Angry Man locking a door at an inconvenient moment!

Quote from: Obel on February 24, 2017, 09:07:06 AMAlso why did everybody react with horror as if an alien was about to burst out of her?

I did think an alien thing was going to happen, because outside the context of people expecting an alien thing to happen, it's laughable. There's about twenty people frozen in silence, aghast at someone coughing. The shittest of crews.

Compare with the original where the guys react naturally like he's just coughing, until it's clear he isn't.

Glebe

Quote from: Mango Chimes on February 24, 2017, 10:20:37 AMThere's about twenty people frozen in silence, aghast at someone coughing.

Well, Alien is such as classic they'd surely all be familiar with it - and they're in a similar situation!

Operty1

The first terraformers, breaking new scientific grounds and boundaries... arm wrestling and gambling(?) when the captain goes to bed. Are these the sort of shenanigans Tim Peake was up to when his Commander went to bed on the ISS. How does the gambling even work anyway? Surely currency would have no value to them? Why would the selection process include a couple who seem 'always drunk'?

Shouldn't have released this Ridley. Daft.


Phil_A

It seems like Scott is trying to recreate the loose, semi-improvised feel of the character dynamics in Alien but without really understanding what made that work in the first place.[nb]Dan O'Bannon for one thing.[/nb]

The original cast weren't a group of scientists doing important science stuff, they were basically truckers in space. Trying to impose that dynamic onto a serious expedition crew doesn't make any sense, because why would a bunch of undisciplined slobs be doing serious science work?

mothman

If I heard correctly, one of the characters is called Tennessee. Like there was a Dallas in Alien. Fuck off already![nb]To anyone who says "But that was a city, this is a state" my reply is, yes, it's a state all right.[/nb]

Bazooka

Quote from: mothman on February 24, 2017, 04:57:12 PM
If I heard correctly, one of the characters is called Tennessee. Like there was a Dallas in Alien. Fuck off already![nb]To anyone who says "But that was a city, this is a state" my reply is, yes, it's a state all right.[/nb]

One of the other characters is is called Ropley.

Replies From View

At least the prologue gets that self-referential choking scene out of the way.  It means that we might not have to endure such winking asides in the film itself.

Mango Chimes

Quote from: Replies From View on February 24, 2017, 05:12:09 PMIt means that we might not have to endure such winking asides in the film itself.

He said winking.  In other weird back-referencing, they seem to have cast a lead who looks enough like Noomi Rapace for it to be confusing that she's not playing the same character.  Especially alongside a guy who looks exactly like Michael Fassbender.

Quote from: Operty1 on February 24, 2017, 02:30:53 PM
Shouldn't have released this Ridley. Daft.

Directed by his son. Ridders didn't have the heart to tell the boy that he'd just taken a shit with his trousers on. He should have. There comes a point where you have to stop indulging a child's doodles and say, "Okay, you're a big boy now and you have to actually draw something good if you want my parental love and approval. Because I'm not putting these up on the fridge anymore. This garbage is going straight in the bin, m'laddio. Also, you are grounded for a week."

48 years old, he was.

mobias

Quote from: Kelvin on February 24, 2017, 12:12:32 AM
I think it's a specially made sequence for promotional purposes, rather than an excerpt from the film itself.

Its worth remembering they did the same for Prometheus and the promo clip ended up being more interesting than anything in the finished film.

If Alien Covenant ends being anything other than utterly awful I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Quote from: mobias on February 24, 2017, 06:24:48 PM
Its worth remembering they did the same for Prometheus and the promo clip ended up being more interesting than anything in the finished film.

I think that the Weyland TED talk must have been planned well in advance. It's the only reason I can see for casting Guy Pearce as Weyland, instead of an actual old man.

TheFalconMalteser

Quote from: Obel on February 24, 2017, 09:07:06 AM
God help me, that video is terrible. I've actually come around to Prometheus recently, but not that I think it's a good film. It's high budget and good looks aside I really think it's amazing how it managed to be completed with that plot, those characters and that diolog. It's a complete mess and I enjoy it in a so-bad-its-good way. I watched it with my housemates last week, a couple of them having not seen it before and we had a great time ripping apart all the bizarre and stupid things in it.
Same here, for a "bad" film I must have watched it four times, I've certainly got value from it.  It looks good, it rattles through fairly quickly, it's so stupid there's so much to talk about.

TheFalconMalteser

Quote from: Bazooka on February 24, 2017, 05:07:15 PM
One of the other characters is is called Ropley.

And they're chased around a spaceship by a man called Allan.

thraxx


Well done for picking out so quickly and deftly all the reasons that that was so shit. I'd also like to mention a couple more things.  Namely the fucking pointless amount of exposition about 'bugs'. Everyone who is going to see the film will know about the Alien universe and the small amount of people who have not will have had the film ruined. Imagine if that scene was in the first film when they are about to land on the planetoid. 'oh, I hope this planet isnt full of those aliens I've heard so much about'.

The other thing is the sheer amount of people on the ship there's fucking dozens of cunts. And on this showing, each one will be nothing more than a cut out just waiting to die. One of the strengths of the first two films was the depth of the characters, even the minor ones.

Yes it does not bode well. It's going to be bad bad bad so so bad. Unless there are also character named Porker, Kune and Nowt

mothman

Ridders basically seems to have looked at Prometheus and said, "I know where I went wrong! I didn't have ENOUGH one-dimensional unlikeable characters you struggle to remember even just after you've seen them on-screen, and certainly can't recall even by the various unpleasant and theoretically-memorable ways they subsequently die horribly."

Kelvin

What was the film which signaled Ridley Scott turning to complete shit? Gladiator was the last film I can remember that had memorable characters you gave a shit about. The drop in quality after that is remarkable, really.

Kelvin

Actually, looking at his wiki page, I'd say the last film I liked, despite its flaws, was Hannibal. After that he did Black Hark Down and Kingdom of Heaven, which both signaled a shift towards visually impressive but boring films with terrible characterisation.