by TC on 22/05/17, 08:32:17
sigh. another in ridley scott's journey into meh-ville. watched this, went home, watched twin peaks. polar opposites. covenant is what happens when someone wants to visit a world/collect a paycheck and doesn't have anything new to say. twin peaks is what happens when we get actual new content in a familiar world that still has something to say.
there were probably 5-10 minutes total of "saying something" and/or great footage/ideas. the rest was exactly the same movie we've seen before.
it really pisses me off when the entire movie's problem(s) are solved if every one of the main characters isn't a complete fucking moron. you want to go investigate a new world that takes you off-track? fine. computer says air is breathable, fine. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT DOESN'T ALSO CONTAIN PATHOGENS THAT COULD MAKE YOU VERY ILL AND BE FATAL. i mean, even outside of aliens. this crew is obviously very well trained and WY's best - why the FUCK would they walk out of the ship without some kind of mask/suit/anything? then, why the hell would you trust an android saying "there's nothing to fear, trust me" when one minute prior he screamed at you for killing one of the aliens that just slaughtered your crew member, saying "how could you?!? he trusted me!!" i might overlook someone firing live ammo at obviously explosive tanks if it wasn't for all the other very stupid stuff. oh, and going out of your way to show us that the new model android (walter) has self-healing skin only so that five minutes later we can mentally scream at the screen as the human who's clearly been around him and knows him well helps STAPLE UP HIS SLICED SKIN, apparently forgetting that he should be healed is kind of the topper. the parts that contribute to the mythos were extremely interesting. seeing how the xenomorphs as we now know them came to be, connecting those dots all the way forward.... was very interesting. loved it. but, as with prometheus, scott runs far away, and quickly, when he has something interesting to say. wants to skim right over that, then spend more time telling/showing us a story we've already seen several times. baffling. as with prometheus, the potential with this was incredible. for me, i gave prometheus a lot more leeway and found it generally much more interesting. similar to how i viewed the force awakens - ok, we get it, you need to show us there can still be an interesting story done with familiar tropes in a universe we know. got it, established, now move on. nope, not in covenant.
also, the scene depicted on the one-sheet never happens. it's implied in two different ways, but that's it. such a travesty. i mean the fact that this film is what removed bloomkamp's alien film, which actually had new, great ideas, from existence. that will go down as one of the greatest "could have beens" of our time, ruined by the george lucas of the alien franchise.
