I can’t believe the engineers are allegedly this super advanced race.
No defense system in place against their own biological weapons.
Not a bit of technology to be seen in their giant temple.
Dressed like hobos / wizards
Their giant temple / complex thing appeared to have no lighting.

One field of wheat that was either for them or David just loved Shreddies.

I wonder if that was simply a ‘Sowerby Bridge’ planet? Just some backwater hick town in engineer terms. The sequel should be engineers coming to visit space Halifax, seeing what robo-fassbender did and being seriously miffed.

A movie of angry engineers invading whatever planet it was that not Ripley and Kenny Powers were headed for and going apeshit would be a vast improvement. All out war between Humans, Aliens / David and Engineers. At least that could conceivably lead to the Space Jockey crash landing on LV-426.

I went to see it today and enjoyed it. I wasn’t expecting much but i liked it. I can’t help but think the crash, band wallop stuff is essentially there to appease the eye-candy people, the people with attention spans that can be measured by the hadron collider. The real story, the story about David’s “work”, was the real interest, and quite creepy.

The two bad bits that stood out were Tennessee and Alien-cam: It could really have done without either.

In a nutshell, worth going to see?
Like the Alien films but trailer looks like I’ve seen it all before.
Don’t really do cinema very often…last one was Trainspotting 2 which I thought was really good.

No spoilers…good, bad or indifferent?

I’d suggest you go and make your own mind up.

There’s a lot there I can forgive because I love the alien series.

But, covenent has the strong potential to mess up Prometheus even more and retrospectively make alien worse. In Prometheus when they enter the huge head/vases everywhere room there is a mural of a xenomorph on the wall, so how the hell can David have created it afterwards in a cave with his home chemistry set if in some form it already existed?

But, covenent has the strong potential to mess up Prometheus even more and retrospectively make alien worse. In Prometheus when they enter the huge head/vases everywhere room there is a mural of a xenomorph on the wall, so how the hell can David have created it afterwards in a cave with his home chemistry set if in some form it already existed?

As I understand it, that mural represents the result of mixing alien and human DNA (of course, humans share the same DNA as the engineers). Therefore, David wasn’t “inventing” crossing alien with human DNA, he was trying to continue their work and perfect it. David is obviously trying to take it beyond being a human/alien hybrid and turn it into a new species.

No spoilers…good, bad or indifferent?

You’re in the wrong place you want.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/alien-covenant

Sorry, just a further thought: At several points in Covenant did David refer to the weaknesses of humankind and their undeserved god-status (see the opening scene and his conversation with Walter). Therefore, he saw the need to wipe out the engineers as the human progenitors and engineer the xenomorphs himself to remove all the human faults. He believed he was trying to make Shaw better: as he said himself, humans die, he won’t: see the references to Ozymandias (a sonnet about the “ravages of time”) too. That also gave him a god complex.

Sorry, just a further thought: At several points in Covenant did David refer to the weaknesses of humankind and their undeserved god-status (see the opening scene and his conversation with Walter). Therefore, he saw the need to wipe out the engineers as the human progenitors and engineer the xenomorphs himself to remove all the human faults. He believed he was trying to make Shaw better: as he said himself, humans die, he won’t: see the references to Ozymandias (a sonnet about the “ravages of time”) too. That also gave him a god complex.

Yup, that’s David’s deal. So he’d have been much better served by just keeping schtum, awaiting rescue along with the others, then getting down to business once everyone was tucked up in bed aboard the Covenant. But yeah, there wouldn’t have been much of a film without all his Norman Bates shit.

Yeah and the Godfather wouldn’t have been any good without gangsters, and Jaws wouldn’t have been any good without a shark.

. He believed he was trying to make Shaw better: as he said himself, humans die, he won’t: see the references to Ozymandias

I think he was designing the xenomorph to kill humans, a species he clearly holds in scant regard. He attributes Ozymandias wrongly to byron and its Walter who points out its written by shelly (a frankenstein reference of both David and the xenomorph) wrong Shelly though, well done, Ridley..

wrong Shelly though, well done, Ridley..

As in Mary? That’s hilarious

Did he say Mary though? I thought he just said Shelley.

So the first 30 minutes brought us 3 separate “don’t **** my wife” jokes, because, like, all the crew are married, innit?

Then we get about 25 references to the bad captains “faith” (I was singing George Michael in my head for about half the film).

“This is definitely corn…and I know corn.” 😆

The third act takes place almost entirely in the dark which I assume was intended to make it feel all claustrophobic but just made it hard to see.

If you’re on a mission that takes several years just to get there, what on Earth would possess you to attempt to terraform a planet which has Plasma storms (whatever they are they sound awful).

What’s a “Communication Buffer” and how does it make a guy in a spacesuit more likely to receive transmissions in space than a whacking great ship full of scanners?

Did (just miniature adult alien) baby alien wave at Fassbender?

I didn’t like Prometheus, but this somehow shat on the memory of that.

Just being picky for fun now, but James Franco’s early demise made me wonder if the cryotubes had been designed on the same principles as the Ford Pinto.

Did he say Mary though? I thought he just said Shelley.

Yep, he just said Shelley. No reference to Frankenstein at all.

No reference to Frankenstein at all.

for once, not actually spoken by an actor, but clearly inferred. Otherwise the intro with Weyland and David makes no sense* (The choice of Wagner particularly; Entry of the Gods into Valhalla )

* I know, I know…

for once, not actually spoken by an actor, but clearly inferred. Otherwise the intro with Weyland and David makes no sense* (The choice of Wagner particularly; Entry of the Gods into Valhalla )

No it wasn’t. See my post further up. It was a reference to the ravages of time and decay. Ozymandius was Ramesses II, and a reference to the fact that humans can’t be gods unless they make themselves immortal, which was a big thing in Ancient Egypt. Yes, Mary Shelley may have also hit on these themes with Frankenstein, but your references can be equally attributed to Percy Shelley: That essentially the creations of man are always destined to fall into decay and oblivion. The inference being that only gods can create something of lasting worth.

for once, not actually spoken by an actor, but clearly inferred.

Nope. It referred to him destroying everything with his creation.

Seems the script wasn’t dumbed down enough after all.

mikey74, interesting. I inferred Frankenstein due to the name of the novel “Frankenstein; a Modern Prometheus”, and the themes it explores; of creation myths, Rejection, Gods: Victor in Frankenstein is named for “The Victor” in Paradise Lost (again referenced in the name of the planet, and clearly “lost”!) Happiness, and Loss. But yes, I can see how the decay themes of Percy has been incorporated as well.

what a mash-up

It was a reference to the ravages of time and decay.

I’m less convinced that these are the themes that Scott is exploring though

Fin25 nailed it. And yes, that was a big ‘hello mum!’ wave from midget alien.

Can we be movie friends?

@nick

I’m not saying they are the specific themes Scott is exploring, but they are the underlying reasons for David doing what he was doing. The main theme Scott seems to be exploring is that humanity is always doomed to fail and only gods can build something of any longevity and worth.

I agree with you that David sees himself as a “God” but only I think, in comparison to humans, (and it’s a conversation directly lifted from Frankenstein, who has the exact same conversation with Victor when he wants Victor to make him a mate, that David has with Weyland at the beginning of the film)

“If you made me, then who made you…”

And that’s the same theme explored in Prometheus (the search for our Gods/creator)

It still though, doesn’t explain why David, an android, referenced the poem wrong, so that Walter had to correct him! 😆

It still though, doesn’t explain why David, an android, referenced the poem wrong, so that Walter had to correct him!

Bad programming. He’s pretty much broken.

doesn’t explain why David, an android, referenced the poem wrong

Yeah, my take on that was the onset of time/lost in his ‘thoughts’, and his programming had led to glitches in his Matrix.
The moment he realises he was quoting incorrectly, he takes a moment, and there is seemingly a realisation that if he could get something so simple completely wrong – then he is also fallable, like hoomans.

f you’re on a mission that takes several years just to get there, what on Earth would possess you to attempt to terraform a planet which has Plasma storms (whatever they are they sound awful).

Was there mention of plasma storms on the planet they were going to terraform?

Went to see it this afternoon, by far the worst plot of all the Alien films and nothing like the sequel after Prometheus I hoped it would be.

It was all the little things that made Convenant so wrong, such as…
Finding a viable planet to investigate on-route to the planet they had chosen over the 10 years since Shaw disappeared, which was over 7 years travel away, only to divert and find that’s where Shaw and David went!

They land at the planet and no barrier suits, no, lets just open the lander doors and take a chance breathing the atmosphere!

Why did the engineers have no defence in place on the planet’s official landing strip to protect against their own “black oil?”

Where were all the evolving organic lifeforms that should have been created from that mass “black oil” drop and wiping out the engineer population, considering what we saw happen in Prometheus?

Spores from “magic mushrooms” that immediately form a flying species, infect individuals and give rise straight to baby aliens.

Those positively awful aliens that were almost faceless, except you could see the shapes of a human face behind them. Worse than some models used in the original.

The lack of detailed story about what David did with Shaw and then his genetic experimentation.

Walter killed by David, despite being the improved model, who then finds time to quickly amputate his hand and get rescued with Daniels.

The rapid gestation period of the aliens.

The lack of scenes involving the aliens.

No scenes involving the 2000 adults in stasis, the embryos and the aliens (presumably going to be used in next film?).

etc.

Prometheus, IMO, was a far better film… As someone who has loved the Alien films, I can’t believe I waited almost four years since Prometheus came out to see that.

by far the worst plot of all the Alien films

Easy now! Don’t get carried away.

Saw this tonight. Thank christ it was free tickets from Lloyds bank. what a stupid load of crap.
Went from Star Trek to some kind of bizarre comedy with recorders. So many plot holes and the aliens didn’t even look as good as in Aliens. Wasn’t really looking forward to it, but didn’t expect it to be that bad.

Terrible terrible film, dire and boring. Rehash of the the Alien/ Aliens classic scenes with an extended visitation to Spartacus cut bathroom scene between Larry Oliver and Tony Curtis played by Fassbender. So clunky was that dialogue it almost became a carry on film but without the knowing wink to the auidance. Final twist was woeful.

Scenes stolen from Saki Rami and Wes Craven horror days, time to go and do something else Ridley, it did not even look that good, you are turning g into George Lucas.

Oh and David as a maniacal tribute to the Hobbit, what was that about?

Dire dire dire…..

Oh I did not like it.

good article here

http://www.outerplaces.com/science-fiction/item/16094-alien-covenant-different-movie

This is perhaps the biggest problem that faces the Alien franchise at the moment: Ridley Scott really doesn’t want to make an Alien movie at all. He’s very fond of the brand appeal that the name provides, but everything from Prometheus onwards has been a struggle between his own desire to build a sprawling, weirdly religious science fiction universe while contorting his new ideas to take advantage of the xenomorph fun that audiences are actually calling out for.

Finding a viable planet to investigate on-route to the planet they had chosen over the 10 years since Shaw disappeared, which was over 7 years travel away, only to divert and find that’s where Shaw and David went!

Are you saying that you thought it was a coincidence that they arrived in the same place?

I get what you are saying IdleJon, and I don’t doubt the motive behind the radio transmission – my own personal issue is with the capt/crews reckless decision after reckless decision from that point onwards.

Some say plot advancement, others say sh!t plot.

Just watched it. Utter tosh.

But a question: At the start of Prometheus we see an Engineer guy drink virus goo and jump into a lake. Is this the same lake we see on the planet they visit in Covenant? Because it looked like the same lake, which would make no sense at all.

The Prom. “lake” is on Earth, it’s the backstory to how the Engineers seeded human life on Earth.

Looked like the same lake to me.