[Closed] Alien Covenant - Spoilers

From the guy who found Cptn Oram the one who's face got burnt by the facehugger.

Lope ( the guy with the acid burn on his cheek) has one planted in him by David*. You see the remains of him in the medical room on board the Covenant.

* I know, the "much" shortened gestation of the xenomorph was a bit of a daft/weird/lazy re-writing of the original...

* I know, the "much" shortened gestation of the xenomorph was a bit of a daft/weird/lazy re-writing of the original...

It wasn't at the level we seen in the original he needed humans to perfect that, David told us that in the simple dumbed down script.

once again in English, this time?

Should I draw you a picture

nah, s'ok once you rewrote you post, I got what you were trying to say

Yeah once I read my dyslexia mistakes and predictive acting text odd it usually does.

Really? So David smuggled a facehugger on to the ship? I'm going to have to watch it again at some point and look for the tell tale bulge in his pants!

I'm also confused as to how the engineer ship ended up crashed on a hill in a forest after they docked it.

No, Lope was infected by the facehugger.

David faked a crash landing to fit in with his lie.

When was he infected, when it was attached for about four seconds? So robo-fassbender set up an elaborate crash site and then revealed the fact he's mental within about an hour of meeting people. He should be a bond villain or join Wacky Races with that sort of setup

Piss poor writing IMO - thanks for explaining though 🙂

Best parts were when the baby xenomorph burst out and raised it's hand like, surprise! Followed by the 'you've just seen me blowing on the face of the albino monster from Pans Labrynth and also seen my Dr Moreaux crazy lab. Go on, you can trust me, look in the flesh egg'

he was infected when David replaced the dressing on the acid burn. that patch was impregnated with the spores i thought.

When was he infected, when it was attached for about four seconds?

Yup. I'm know yes previously they've stayed on for ages then dropped off but it's never been made clear how long it takes.

then revealed the fact he's mental within about an hour of meeting people. He should be a bond villain or join Wacky Races with that sort of setup

Only to Walter and Oram both of who he planned to use.

The script wasn't fantastic no but it was enjoyable.

he was infected when David replaced the dressing on the acid burn. that patch was impregnated with the spores i thought.

Maybe but that wouldn't have created his xenomorph.

why not? David has already explained about his genetic engineering experiments, maybe he knocked up a new generation of spore quickly in the lab while the covenant was coming to pick them up.

Or maybe Lopes was impregnated.

I thought disposable character number six applied the gauze to that guys face right before the alien dropped on him and killed him? David was fighting Walter or attacking not Ripley at the time.

I've genuinely forgotten all the names already.

Edit - when he applied dressing on the the not spaceship thing that Danny McBride was flying. That's a bit weak as is impregnated in four seconds. Then again it was an eager facehugger

Haha! Were you stuffing your face with popcorn constantly? He had 2 dresses applied, David changed his dressing.

That's a bit weak as is impregnated in four seconds. Then again it was an eager facehugger

Did you want foreplay? Maybe a meal and a movie?

That's the problem with facehuggers today, they never want to get to know the 'real' you.

Haha! Were you stuffing your face with popcorn constantly?

I'd sort of switched off by then to be honest 🙂

Just never clicked that he could have been impregnated that quickly. Plot convenience I suppose. Just can't figure why David went to all that trouble just to help them kill it. Made absolutely no sense to me.

Because he was 'Walter' not David.

But he could have just not bothered with the alien bit and put them straight in to hyper sleep. It was a bit convoluted.

Just out the cinema

Really enjoyed it

Would've preferred an ambivalent "is he/isn't he" ending

But he could have just not bothered with the alien bit and put them straight in to hyper sleep. It was a bit convoluted.

well yes but pretty much how movies and stories work.

Badly written ones, yes 😆

to many sneaky reveals that Walter was David ruined the twist completely. Apart from that, and the constant buggering about with the timeline of the gestation cycle it was a good movie. Crying out for a decent edit though

The plot has certainly made it difficult to reconcile with alien, at some point in the future they need to come across an alien ship with an engineer in it, that also has David made eggs, as is hundreds of years old....

Would've preferred an ambivalent "is he/isn't he" ending

Yes, thinking about it, it could have ended just as not-Ripley's pod closed and she realised. But then everything needs to explicitly explained these days...

I'm fairly ambivalent about the film - enjoyed some parts, thought some were rubbish.

The faceless aliens didn't work for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the fight with the proper-looking alien on the cargo lifter thing. (Funny that I felt the same when it appeared as when the Millenium Falcon appeared in Force Awakens, and also weird that the best looking alien is the one designed 40 years ago, without CGI.)

I hated the stupid Marvel style fighting. Would David/Walter really have resorted to chopsocky faux-karate having spent the rest of the film being 'cultured'?

The Blade Runner style creator/origin of life exposition didn't fit well with the outright action movie bits.

And yes, the stupidity of people in films really bugs me. They're under attack by a lethal alien, so without having found anywhere secure they still wander off to wash on their own, explore, text their mates. ("Being eaten by alien. Scary face. Lolz.")

Alien was great, Aliens was tremendous. After that it all went downhill into sequel saturation. Surprised they haven't done Alien vs Terminator.

text their mates.

I'm not sure they were texting in the shower. 😯

I'm not sure they were texting in the shower.

😆

The only reason for that scene seemed to be to reference the bit in Alien where Veronica Cartwright gets eaten.

The movie was saved by Fassbender again.

The big question is why did they entrust the lives of 2,000 colonists and 1,400 embryos to a crew of such monumental idiots?

The big question is why did they entrust the lives of 2,000 colonists and 1,400 embryos to a crew of such monumental idiots?

I'd guess because the skills and qualifications they put on their CVs weren't 'great at fighting terrifying aliens'. More 'great at digging fields, putting in plumbing and building log cabins. Can use a shotgun to shoot a ravaging pigeon, if absolutely necessary.'

Maybe crispy fried Franco was the sensible one?

Think about the companies you've worked for, and then apply the management teams to the film, because they are the ones who would get the good jobs. Not us lot who know far, far more about the common sense approach to deep space exploration. 😆 (Wasn't this actually covered in Aliens?)

Except that NASA doesn't send management consultants into space, they send highly qualified, competent, level headed people. Shame that all gets forgotten in our fictional future

They are space truckers, not NASA. That was obvious from Alien.

'you've just seen me blowing on the face of the albino monster from Pans Labrynth and also seen my Dr Moreaux crazy lab. Go on, you can trust me, look in the flesh egg'

😆

They are space truckers, not NASA. That was obvious from Alien.

This lot weren't either, they were supposed to be experts, that's why they were taking samples, talking about terraforming etc.

It's hard to suspend disbelief when people do things that go completely against logic and training, and under no pressure.

Drac - Moderator
text their mates.
I'm not sure they were texting in the shower.

That was definitely more a " you blow I'll finger" type scene

So what you're saying is people who take soil samples are experts in all fields including making quick decisions about fighting an unknown enemy.

I've more disbelief in your scenario.

Haha! Yup I'd say so Cheesy

So what you're saying is people who take soil samples are experts in all fields including making quick decisions about fighting an unknown enemy.

I've more disbelief in your scenario.

You said it better than I was trying to. 🙂

I have a feeling that if a nightmare monster with pointy teeth was trying to eat my me and my friends then I'd make quite a lot of bad decisions. (although I probably wouldn't be looking for somewhere to spend some 'me' time!)

So what you're saying is people who take soil samples are experts in all fields including making quick decisions about fighting an unknown enemy.

Nope, I wasn't saying that quite the opposite. The 'space truckers' in alien were believable because of the decisions and conversations that they made during normal interaction, arguing about bonuses, over estimating the time taken to make a repair.

This lot seemed like they didn't know what they were doing from the get go. They acted in daft ways to service a lazy plot

They only got semi competent after their loved ones had been hamburgered

So what you're saying is people who take soil samples are experts in all fields including making quick decisions about fighting an unknown enemy.

I've more disbelief in your scenario.

No, but considering these people had the responsibility 2,0000 lives and the colonisation of a distant planet in their hands you would have thought they would have have picked a crew with some degree of self-efficacy.

This lot seemed like they didn't know what they were doing from the get go. They acted in daft ways to service a lazy plot

Couldn't have put it better. Shabby writing and a poor plot.

Some interesting B roll footage here. The set design looks incredible

No, but considering these people had the responsibility 2,0000 lives and the colonisation of a distant planet in their hands you would have thought they would have have picked a crew with some degree of self-efficacy.

You do know its not real?

Couldn't have put it better. Shabby writing and a poor plot.

It wasn't great but I still found it entertaining.

Agree with most of the criticisms here. To add another, the fact that they just go traipsing off, helmetless, into an alien biosphere, blithely assuming that they won't encounter anything toxic or virulent? I can forgive HG Wells for that, but War of the Worlds was published in 1898.

Also, the alien on the ship (impregnation chicanery aside) set a new record for reaching adulthood.

And another thing!

At points, the action was so frenetic, I missed elements of what was supposed to have happened. What did Daniels use to kill the adult alien on the platform? Y'know, after it obligingly ran into the crane grabber?

Also, did one of the neomorphs get killed during the firefight in the wheat field? If not, the wee soul's still running around down there...

I'm just happy that the GoPro mount won't be replaced by a new version in the near future.

What did Daniels use to kill the adult alien on the platform?

Did she just shoot it? With a gun passed to her by David. The robot who three scenes earlier almost cried when that bloke shot his albino alien, but is fine with the killing of his grand creation. Oh, that's right, we were supposed to think it was Walter 🙄

Yup she shot it.

The albino one was his favourite though.

I initally thought it was the Christain Captain blowing kisses at the albino alien for a few moments...

I did quite enjoy the start of the film, with walter waking up, being told to ambulate, bring tea etc, and then the contrast with the next scene, and the music, was great, and seemed to be promising more intelligence than the rest of the film quite managed to deliver - ie the [i]"traipsing off, helmetless, into an alien biosphere, blithely assuming that they won't encounter anything toxic or virulent?"[/i].

I previously saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2 at the cinema. Covenant was a far better film than that, but it still seemed to be trying too hard to pull too much into the storyline perhaps.

Anyway, enjoyed it despite the flaws. Had lots of dreams the night after watching it, some a bit wierd.

Delving once more into the well of disappointment:

Neomorphs:undeterred by assault rifle fire, but shit-scared of flares.

Neomorphs:undeterred by assault rifle fire, but shit-scared of flares.

It wasn't the flare that made it run away.

It wasn't the flare that made it run away.

Dunno, as an alabaster skinned individual I'd probably run from that much light. Surely they'd run towards David for some sexy, fun time face blowing?

Will Walter finger too?

😆 only if you blow

You do know its not real?

A common argument to explain away a weak plot. A story doesn't have to be real to stand up to scrutiny.

You can pull any film apart by saying "Why didn't they just?"

Yes, I agree. But if it's a glaringly obvious "Why didn't they just?", you'd expect a team of writers to be able to come up with something to explain it away. They're writing the story from scratch after all.

I'm just happy that the GoPro mount won't be replaced by a new version in the near future.

😆

It wasn't the flare that made it run away.

What did make it run away?

David.

How do you tie together a weak plot, piss poor writing and anything and everything thrown in from the previous films? We'll just make the characters really stupid. But we did that with Prometheus? OK, we'll make them really really stupid and fall over a lot.

Don't forget to scream as we can here you on a planet.

[quote=Drac ]David.

If you're saying what I think you're saying, the alien was frightened of David because of his Dr Moreau antics, not the flare gun, or the colonists weapons. David is effectively their "monster"

However, it's a new born alien, so unless it has some genetic memory it's highly unlikely that it's scared of David.

The likely answer is it doesn't like light/ sunshine. Remember in Aliens when Newt says "They come out at night". Suggests they are primarily nocturnal or scared of light???

"They come out at night".

Mostly...

Im so relieved that most of you are recounting the dozens of 'wtaf?' moments that I saw, trying to remember them all has almost become a fun exercise in itself.

Can anyone definitively explain how David came to be surfing away on the curly spaceship, loaded with acid rain, with the entire population of that planet conveniently encapsulated with no means of escape?
What was the timescale involved there also?

The abandoned city - missed by scanners (and by eyesight, seeing as it was just around the corner)?

My current fave story developer:

''im taking the spaceship into the storm to see if I can pick up my wife on the radio''

- ''NO! think of the thousands of folk we are responsible for on this ship, computer also says no! we'll die trying! we HAVE to stay here and wait!''

''I really really want to go down and see if I can reach my wife''

- ''ok then, make sure to head straight into the eye of the storm though''

...

- ''ok then, make sure to head straight into the eye of the storm though'

Which would be the calmest area of the storm...

Can anyone definitively explain how David came to be surfing away on the curly spaceship, loaded with acid rain, with the entire population of that planet conveniently encapsulated with no means of escape?

Explained (ish) in the prologue

Colony ship heading to the arse end of the galaxy only has one shuttle. It'll take a while to get 2000 of them down there. 🙂

Anyhow, moving away from the mediocre plot. There must be tons of footage either filmed specifically for the trailers etc. or there was a hell of an edit going on. Which might explain the rushed feeling to the final third.

This is a film that could have been thirty minutes longer and all the better for it.

Which would be the calmest area of the storm...

''ok then, but head for the worst part of the storm'' is wot I meaned.

What about the weird use of Franco for all of 20 seconds? And WTF is Ridley dong with all the religious references?? The last supper photo?.. so dodgy.

What about the weird use of Franco for all of 20 seconds?

Aye that was weird. Apart from the other prologue, which is again a really short appearance, he seems like too big an actor for such little use.

My bet is on a significantly longer directors cut with the prologue stuff expanded and spliced in

Forgot to mention the cheesy Alien-o-Vision in the last act. That was truly awful, like something from that crap Doom movie.

I've just had to google to see if Damon Lindelof has any involvement with the script, which I find to be a reliable barometer as to the cackness of any given film or TV show.

I'm a huge fan of Alien/Aliens.

I don't know if it's because I set my expectations low after the disappointment that was Prometheus, but I actually really enjoyed this.

Sure you can pick multiple holes in it but I was able to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle without over-analyzing it, something I often struggle to do with most films these days.

I didn't get bored at any point and appreciated the multiple nods back to previous films, maybe I was just in the mood for a bit of an Alien greatest hits.

For the sake of balance, there were a few things I liked about it.

Some decent, likeable performances, particularly Fassbender as David/Walter, Katherine Waterston as Daniels, and Danny McBride as Tennessee (haven’t seen any of his other films).

The “back-burster” scene was pretty good. Some real, visceral panic from the actors.

I know a number of women who’ll probably go to see it purely on the promise of some homoerotic Fassbender on Fassbender action.

Despite Ridley Scott’s oft-expressed (not to mention eyeroll-inducing) creationist views, I didn’t actually mind the religious overtones (I thought those in Prometheus were way more ham-fisted). I appreciate that it (as with Prometheus) couldn’t just be another self-contained sci-fi action horror, but rather had to be [i]about[/i] something. Not sure about the implication that David’s “hobbies” are the ultimate consequence of atheism though…

My favourite moment - the landing craft sequence as it flew through the valleys and onto the water. Also felt very 'Poe Daemeron' though.
I still had hopes at this point of discovering a really interesting/savage/visually amazing landscape that would save the film, instead we got a bunch of inept scientists haplessly wandering off into oblivion.

Danny McBride as Tennessee

Sure you can pick multiple holes in it but I was able to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle without over-analyzing it, something I often struggle to do with most films these days.

Thats exactly what I wanted to do, whilst at the same time experience some of the classic Alien tension and maybe inferred claustrophobia, but I found the flaws so glaringly obvious that after 30mins I was instinctively picking out the holes.

I didn't get bored at any point

Just remembered, after the first couple of soldiers fall ill and the Alien on the loose in the landing craft - that painful exchange of:

''get back to the landing craft immediately, I need help!!''

- ''we're coming, don't worry, just a few hundreds meters strolling to go and we'll be there''

''get back now!! im about to die!!''

- ''nearly there love, just let me finish tying my shoelaces..Jeez''

Queue several similar interchanges. Landing craft then blows up.

*characters sprint to exploded craft*

I can't help but feel it was a missed opportunity, again.

The reason I think Alien/Aliens worked so well is that they were entirely different films with the same monsters. This was just a poor cover version mash-up of those 2 movies.

I would've much preferred to see a movie based on what happens to Shaw & David after the events of Prometheus, as David conducts his experiments on Shaw, looked like that could've been a really intense tight movie.

The last supper photo?

I missed that, what was it?

Just seen it. Was looking forward to it for ages and wanted to like it so much

It was rubbish