Alien: Covenant footage was screened. Results are in...

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Talking loosely about my reaction to the film with Luis this week made me think further into the behaviour of the android characters:

WARNING: spoilers below
Weyland's evil passes onto his, or the company's, evil creations David and later Ash. What's even more compelling is the notion that both Walter and, God forbid, Bishop are themselves corruptible. I cast my mind back to David, mid-fight, asking Walter whether he wanted to be a slave to humans or something more – and it actually does seem that Walter might have been seduced before David incapacitates or destroys him.

Also, I mentioned above about David's 'absence' in the chestburster scene but actually Walter is similarly detached during the second bloodburster birth. He's making assessments, clearly, about the situation and what his role should be. Lance Henriksen's Bishop seems so different to that, like he actually does care, or at least is programmed to have something resembling empathy.



Welcome to the human race...
I know Ridley Scott's talking about making the next one more android-centric but the problem is how far can they can go in that direction without basically ignoring the monster.
I realised that each mission team in an Alien movie has only one android among however many humans so I'd be interested in seeing what would happen if there was a greater ratio of androids to humans in a given mission (like half-and-half or maybe an android majority with a human captain or even all-android). Having some such combination going up against David and his army of aliens sounds like it could be an interesting basis for proceedings.

Talking loosely about my reaction to the film with Luis this week made me think further into the behaviour of the android characters:

WARNING: spoilers below
Weyland's evil passes onto his, or the company's, evil creations David and later Ash. What's even more compelling is the notion that both Walter and, God forbid, Bishop are themselves corruptible. I cast my mind back to David, mid-fight, asking Walter whether he wanted to be a slave to humans or something more – and it actually does seem that Walter might have been seduced before David incapacitates or destroys him.

Also, I mentioned above about David's 'absence' in the chestburster scene but actually Walter is similarly detached during the second bloodburster birth. He's making assessments, clearly, about the situation and what his role should be. Lance Henriksen's Bishop seems so different to that, like he actually does care, or at least is programmed to have something resembling empathy.
WARNING: "the whole franchise, but especially Resurrection" spoilers below
This is a good point that does make me think it's worth considering what Call from Resurrection means for androids. While you can make the case about other "good" androids like Walter and Bishop are following potentially corruptible prime directives or whatever when protecting their human companions, I don't think that's automatically true of Call, a member of a team of self-serving mercenaries who nevertheless goes out of her way to try to save Ripley 8 from the scientists. Factor in that Call also hides her android nature from everyone due to some apparent malfunctions with prior androids resulting in the usual prejudice - since the passage of time suggests that she is even further removed from Ash than Bishop is, one could interpret the referenced android malfunctions as being more to do with rebelling against masters (possibly as a result of increased self-awareness) instead of randomly freaking out (which would obviously be looked down upon in a society that wants androids to be subservient). I just think that idea of an android with a genuinely developed sense of inner goodness - not "duty", as Walter puts it - being considered broken is also an angle I'd like to see explored a bit more instead of being sidelined as much as it is in Resurrection.
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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Let's just have so many androids that we go through the whole alphabet.
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Suspect's Reviews



The Bib-iest of Nickels
I don't recall if I ever shared my final word on what I thought of this film:
- It wasn't good. It made me enjoy Prometheus more by comparison.

I didn't hate Prometheus anyways, and so, maybe this is more accurate, it made me enjoy Alien vs. Predator more by comparison.



WARNING: "the whole franchise, but especially Resurrection" spoilers below
This is a good point that does make me think it's worth considering what Call from Resurrection means for androids. While you can make the case about other "good" androids like Walter and Bishop are following potentially corruptible prime directives or whatever when protecting their human companions, I don't think that's automatically true of Call, a member of a team of self-serving mercenaries who nevertheless goes out of her way to try to save Ripley 8 from the scientists. Factor in that Call also hides her android nature from everyone due to some apparent malfunctions with prior androids resulting in the usual prejudice - since the passage of time suggests that she is even further removed from Ash than Bishop is, one could interpret the referenced android malfunctions as being more to do with rebelling against masters (possibly as a result of increased self-awareness) instead of randomly freaking out (which would obviously be looked down upon in a society that wants androids to be subservient). I just think that idea of an android with a genuinely developed sense of inner goodness - not "duty", as Walter puts it - being considered broken is also an angle I'd like to see explored a bit more instead of being sidelined as much as it is in Resurrection.
And, as a character,

WARNING: spoilers below
Call must have been directly influenced by Ash, given the concealment of her being an android. I don't recall the finer details of Resurrection as much but I suppose it's also possible that Call's need to preserve Ripley 8 is in some way to keep the alien alive; she might also think of Ripley 8 as being – like her – an engineered creature, and worth saving because of it.

I was mulling over Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics and his idea that once he had them, how could they go wrong ? One law conflicting with another etc.

In the Alien universe there are most likely similar laws for the androids but they can probably all be circumvented when the company needs them to be. Makes me remember The Robots of Death in Doctor Who, where there's a society completely dependent and trusting of robots and then certain robots start to go very wrong, resulting in human deaths, psychological breakdowns, the lot. There was also an incredible Who script, unmade for TV, called The Masters of Luxor, which involved a robot-controlled society and went in some very scary directions.



Just listening to parts of the score again.

WARNING: spoilers below
The scene disturbed me greatly anyway, as I've said, but the music for the Chest Burster scene is incredibly astute in that it has an almost – almost – romantic tone in with a melancholia, no doubt to signify David's truly repugnant idea of creation and his reaction to a successful experiment. It's like a warped expression of the joy of birth – the sound of evil, if you like.

When I saw the film I reacted against the use of Jerry Goldsmith's Alien music, feeling that it represented the crew of the Nostromo. Its integration is extremely well done, however, and I think there are many homages to Goldsmith, but I am reminded of how music can date. It makes me think of the seemingly casual way that the 2005 Doctor Who producers expected Murray Gold to simply use the 1963 theme music, apparently without any consideration that it might not sound right for a modern audience. Gold took it upon himself to combat this by filling out the sound with additional orchestral elements. I didn't particularly like most of his versions of the theme but he was right to confront this problem for the good of the show.



Tbh alien covenant score is better than prometheus, and i enjoyed this film a bit more



I was disappointed that Marc Streitenfeld didn't do the sequel but I thought Jed Kurzel's music was very good. The thing I liked with Streitenfeld was that he was being a bit experimental with it (which is what Jerry Goldsmith did with Alien, using a conch shell for a weird sound), designing tracks to be played backwards etc. It was very imposing as well, especially the music for the Engineers.



Tbh i don t know what s next for this franchise , i really like this alien universe , and i want a new film to be more faithful to the franchise and i would like it to have the same feel as alien covenant.



To be honest I thought they were both pretty to look at but rubbish and just like Terminator and Star Wars, they have been ransacked, mullered and sold down the river for a buck because of people talking about franchises as if that is a normal thing.
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I was disappointed that Marc Streitenfeld didn't do the sequel but I thought Jed Kurzel's music was very good. The thing I liked with Streitenfeld was that he was being a bit experimental with it (which is what Jerry Goldsmith did with Alien, using a conch shell for a weird sound), designing tracks to be played backwards etc. It was very imposing as well, especially the music for the Engineers.
I was thinking back to Goldsmith's music today and there's something about it that not only gives the feel of a nightmare but a child's nightmare. Like it's a science fiction version of a dark fairytale.



I've seen very bit of this series but could be interesting.



I was thinking back to Goldsmith's music today and there's something about it that not only gives the feel of a nightmare but a child's nightmare. Like it's a science fiction version of a dark fairytale.
Always reminded me quite a lot of Holst's Neptune and I think besides playing on the idea of the characters(and the alien) waking from sleep also plays into the film not just being grotesque, Giger's designs and LV-426 generally are often strangely beautiful.



for me, i had a superb immersive experience when i played this game:


it really gives me the chills whenever i played this because here, Sega have made a wonderful immersive atmospheric game, you can hear every nick and crooney on board the spaceship while trying to avoid being killed by the Alien, it reminds me a lot of the atmospheric claustophobic feel of the original film.



Anyone knows what s next for this franchise? I ve been wanting and craving watching scifi horror or thrillers films, i just rewatched Outland 1981



Apparently latest reports suggest that Disney wants an Alien film ever 1-2 years



Man the movie is being hammered at imdb user reviews, i wonder why, maybe they expected a claustrophobic film? Different premise i don t know, i enjoyed the film myself , i don t know why it s being hammered by most users...