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Alien: Covenant.

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

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Glebe

Quote from: Kelvin on February 25, 2017, 09:20:42 PMActually, looking at his wiki page, I'd say the last film I liked, despite its flaws, was Hannibal.

Yeah, that's an enjoyable watch, despite lacking the mysterious, dramatic power (it you will) of Lambs, and having a bit of a duff ending.

Bad Ambassador

The Martian was great, and I'd definitely stick up for the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, which is immeasurably superior to the theatrical version.

Johnny Textface

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on February 25, 2017, 11:56:35 PM
The Martian was great.

Agreed. That's his best directed film, at least in the modern era. Maybe ever.

greenman

Really I think the shift with Scott is between the early days of the Duelists/Alien/Bladerunner were he was obviously driving the whole production artistically even if he wasn't writing and what follows where he's been much more of a gun for hire with very up and down results.

Personally I'd say his best relatively recent film is Matchstick Men.

mothman

I think White Squall is the turning point. Before that you had a reasonably consistent body of work with the occasional downwards blip (Someone To Watch Over Me). After, you get mostly films that could have been directed by anybody (I'd completely forgotten he did Hannibal), often quite competently directed but nothing special, with an occasional high point (Gladiator).

Howj Begg


Obel

I wonder  if this was rushed out after negative reaction to the last supper video..

I'm blatantly going to see this aren't I? I'm part of the problem.

thraxx

Quote from: Howj Begg on March 01, 2017, 03:06:09 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svnAD0TApb8

New trailer. Looks promising imo.

Well that's better. Although it actually looks like a film I'll go and see in this trailer it has a real whiff of just being a retread of the first one, which would be a shame.

Kelvin

That trailer seems to suggest that the last supper scene wasn't specially made, but an actual excerpt from the film, sadly.

I really like the shots of the alien, though. It actually feels like CGI is finally able to handle it better than a costume, and I loved that shot of it
Spoiler alert
jumping down the corridor
[close]
.

spamwangler

has he just filmed a load of random ailens style themes

and will do the final edit to match whichever trailer gets the least laughter and hatred?

kidsick5000

So i guess Noomi is the Ben Gunn of this film

colacentral

I'm sick of Ridley Scott's smug christianity references. They are truly cringeworthy. It's just a monster film mate. His interviews and commentaries are unbearable too. I cannot stand the man.

Steven

Quote from: colacentral on March 01, 2017, 09:50:24 PM
I'm sick of Ridley Scott's smug christianity references. They are truly cringeworthy. It's just a monster film mate. His interviews and commentaries are unbearable too. I cannot stand the man.

In the next one he'll have them all blatantly sitting as composed in Da Vinci's Last Supper. Didn't he want to make one of the Engineers become Jesus in earlier drafts? He'll probably have a Biblical Crucifixtion ending where it bursts out while he's on the cross.

Glebe


Hangthebuggers

In the trailer (the new one) those quasi-xeno aliens smashing into the cockpit with their hardened heads don't seem half as frightening as when they're creeping around darkened tunnels and industrial landscapes. I think the horror of the xenos comes from the fact that they can anywhere, lurking in the shadows and vents. Rather than strolling through a lovely green field.

Replies From View

Quote from: Hangthebuggers on March 04, 2017, 08:39:56 PM
I think the horror of the xenos comes from the fact that they can anywhere, lurking in the shadows and vents. Rather than strolling through a lovely green field.

I reckon their horror comes from their mystery.  They've only been seen in two films so far, lurking in shadows, never in over-detailed CGI form in swimming pools for example, or in ludicrous sequels alongside the Predator.

They've stayed mysterious, and I hope Ridley Scott doesn't ruin this.

mobias

That certainly looks more promising but just remember folks its going to be shit. No doubt about it. 

Why do all modern digital movies always have to have that washed out slightly monotone look about them? They all look the same - drab!

Replies From View

Quote from: mobias on March 04, 2017, 09:35:03 PM
Why do all modern digital movies always have to have that washed out slightly monotone look about them? They all look the same - drab!

Quote from: Replies From View on March 04, 2017, 12:38:45 PM
I like the way they're using excessive teal and orange to bridge from the colour of our world to the monochrome of 1933's Kong film, though.  Very smart thinking of them.

Quote from: Glebe on March 04, 2017, 01:06:10 PM
We're back to that again!

Quote from: Replies From View on March 04, 2017, 04:33:19 PM
Well if it would fuck off from films I wouldn't keep bringing it up.  It can't just be me who finds it renders them unwatchable.

HOORAY IT'S NOT JUST ME.

mothman

As a gentleman, I would never condone suggestions that a lady had a face that one would really like to punch. But were I not a gentleman I would be nominating the lead female actor in this motion picture.

momatt

Quote from: Replies From View on March 04, 2017, 08:47:48 PM
I reckon their horror comes from their mystery.  They've only been seen in two films so far, lurking in shadows, never in over-detailed CGI form in swimming pools for example, or in ludicrous sequels alongside the Predator.

Totally.  They'll never really recapture the feeling of seeing an Alien film for the first time, not knowing what was going to happen and not even really knowing what the fuck the xenomorphs are.

What they should do is make a film that isn't billed as an Alien film at all.  Just make it look like some sort of cool space adventure film, then halfway through have a load of xenomorphs pop up out of nowhere and kill everyone.  That'd be a real surprise for the first load of people to see it, then word would spread probably.
I dunno, I reckon that'd be cool.

Shaky

Saw the trailer for this before Logan and when the title flashed up after a few mins of clear xenomorphic activity, a man in the audience announced to his girlfriend, "That's the new Alien film."

Whatever else Ridley Scott may be going for here, he has evidently nailed that aspect. It is unequivocally the new Alien film.

Replies From View

Quote from: momatt on March 06, 2017, 09:44:32 AM
What they should do is make a film that isn't billed as an Alien film at all.

Could call it, I dunno - Prometheus 2.

Instead of having a scene when you think an alien will burst out of a chest but it's just someone choking, they could have it that you think someone is only choking before an alien bursts out of their chest.

Subvert expectations, that.

Glebe


Some of the noise I've read suggests that you still don't get an idea what the back story of the aliens is. That's fine and all, but given that this seems to resemble an actual film (that I'm cautiously looking forward to), it does make you wonder just what the writers thought they could get away with when making Prometheus.

It was just too cryptic and deliberately half-arsed. All the mural/big concrete head stuff looked really interesting before the release, but when you have a film come out that deliberately asks questions that it has no intention of answering, you'd better hope that the film is good enough to get people talking about it, rather than feeling like they'd been dick-teased by the bloke who managed to stretch a tv show about a plane crash into a billion episodes.

To my mind, it felt like it needed more tension when they go into the mountain, and the film would have benefited from another 30-40 minutes in the middle. At least with Covenant you get the feeling it will be presented in a way such that it's coherent and logically consistent[nb]At least I'm hoping it will be.[/nb]. Just remains to be seen if it's any good.

Glebe

Ridley Scott promises a return to Alien-style horror in Alien: Covenant.

Quote"If you really want a franchise, I can keep cranking it for another six," he says. "I'm not going to close it down again. No way."

So that's Alien movies for the rest of Scott's career, then.

Replies From View

He didn't really close it down before, did he.  He left it open, if anything.

Quote from: drummersaredeaf on March 06, 2017, 01:22:58 PM
It was just too cryptic and deliberately half-arsed. All the mural/big concrete head stuff looked really interesting before the release, but when you have a film come out that deliberately asks questions that it has no intention of answering, you'd better hope that the film is good enough to get people talking about it, rather than feeling like they'd been dick-teased by the bloke who managed to stretch a tv show about a plane crash into a billion episodes.

Or make sure that the follow-up film answers the questions posed by the first.

Alien: Covenant looks okay but the empty, silent planet we see in the trailer suggests that we're not going to be meeting any living Engineers in this film. So there will probably be no advancement to the mystery plot set up by Prometheus, and the most we will get is more scenes of people poking around ruins, asking "I wonder what those Engineers were all about? I suppose we'll just NEVER KNOW, eh viewers?"

For all its flaws, I enjoyed Prometheus and I was more interested in a sequel about the Engineers than one which sidelines that story in favour of xenomorphs picking people off one by one... again.

Operty1

Quote from: Glebe on March 08, 2017, 11:09:38 AM
Ridley Scott promises a return to Alien-style horror in Alien: Covenant.

So that's Alien movies for the rest of Scott's career, then.

He's 79 so i'm not sure how much career is left.

Replies From View

Quote from: Operty1 on March 08, 2017, 05:19:16 PM
He's 79 so i'm not sure how much career is left.

Maybe he means his carers.

I suspect this one is going to fill out a lot of the Lindelof teasing stuff from the first one, though ultimately I expect it will end up making Prometheus entirely redundant if it does so. As you say, if there's no engineers then there's no point, and David being a meddling shithouse in Covenant doesn't need a two hour film to establish that previously. The entire character could be done away with and Covenant would still find a way to exist as an Alien film in its own right.

I didn't hate Prometheus, but it set itself up in such a way as to present questions that at best the viewer is guessing as to their relevance, and I strongly feel it would have benefited from an extra 20+ mins in the middle with those two lads in the pyramid thing.