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Sorry Rambo, I didnt finish my post. I see where the confusion was now considering what thread this is in. Covenant 2017 (I dont know anything about the sequel). My friend was head of the Sculpting Dept and made the Michaelangelo David and the Hall of Heads (I cant remember what she called it). She said Ridley is a very very cool gent! Art Dept and other crew members arent really allowed to approach the big knobs and lead actors but she did anyway and had a great chat about how much they both 'effing hate' CGI.
Alien: Covenant footage was screened. Results are in...
I don't want to go into a lengthy diatribe about Alien: Covenant but, after seeing it recently, I'm convinced that they showed us too much before it was released. We pretty much knew who was going to die and how and what was going to happen from all the promotional material. How much better an experience it would have been if we didn't know – and that's something they managed with Prometheus.
It was quite a strange character he was playing,
but I thought he was good anyway. I would definitely put Oram's
Another thing I wanted to mention was that I thought Jed Kurzel did an excellent job with the music. He kept it really simple but got a lot of menace out of it.
All in all Covenant took me back to seeing Alien 3, which was also a very grim experience at the time.
The thing I'm most baffled by though is: how the hell can Covenant be rated 15?
Some dodgy acting, especially from Crudup. he was basically just an emotionless Dr Manhattan again, only this time unintentionally.
WARNING: spoilers below
who seemed almost incapacitated by faith – it didn't appear to help his insecurity one bit.
but I thought he was good anyway. I would definitely put Oram's
WARNING: spoilers below
death scene on a par with Kane's in Alien. The difference I think is that there are proper close-ups on Billy Crudup's face and even the moment of death is visible. People complain about the CGI and the Protomorph's behaviour but look at what Crudup is doing to make it so convincing – like John Hurt he's not holding anything back and he's really thought about it. He's "[gone] there" as Andy Robinson would say 
. Partly because of this it's a scene that really bothered me afterwards and I've no immediate desire to revisit it.
The other reason for it affecting me so much is that there's no human reaction to the horror. In previous alien birth scenes, including the ones in Covenant, characters react with concern, terror, anguish. But to see David's 'absence' – he's simply holding his breath to assess the success of the experiment – that was a hard watch. To me Covenant's a film about evil. There are some quite obvious allusions to Nazi Germany and walking through David's lair we might just as well be paying a visit to Josef Mengele.
I must confess I actually thought about faith after this (I'm not religious myself) and its positive benefits – it doesn't seem to be any help to Oram here which some might argue is a negative representation. Perhaps they missed a trick there – Oram might have been doomed but he could have messed with David's "perfect composure" a bit before he died; made him doubt his grand plan.
. Partly because of this it's a scene that really bothered me afterwards and I've no immediate desire to revisit it.The other reason for it affecting me so much is that there's no human reaction to the horror. In previous alien birth scenes, including the ones in Covenant, characters react with concern, terror, anguish. But to see David's 'absence' – he's simply holding his breath to assess the success of the experiment – that was a hard watch. To me Covenant's a film about evil. There are some quite obvious allusions to Nazi Germany and walking through David's lair we might just as well be paying a visit to Josef Mengele.
I must confess I actually thought about faith after this (I'm not religious myself) and its positive benefits – it doesn't seem to be any help to Oram here which some might argue is a negative representation. Perhaps they missed a trick there – Oram might have been doomed but he could have messed with David's "perfect composure" a bit before he died; made him doubt his grand plan.
Another thing I wanted to mention was that I thought Jed Kurzel did an excellent job with the music. He kept it really simple but got a lot of menace out of it.
WARNING: spoilers below
However I really disagreed with having Jerry Goldsmith's Alien soundtrack incorporated into the score. It particularly didn't make sense to have the music for the Nostromo crew intruding onto the Covenant.
All in all Covenant took me back to seeing Alien 3, which was also a very grim experience at the time.
The thing I'm most baffled by though is: how the hell can Covenant be rated 15?
Last edited by SeeingisBelieving; 06-02-18 at 02:47 PM.
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For me i enjoyed covenant for the main reason of david s character and micheal fassbender, but shame what could have been if elizabeth shaw was still alive..i still can t even believe they killed her character
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shame what could have been if elizabeth shaw was still alive..i still can t even believe they killed her character
It would be interesting to find out if Noomi Rapace was in on the plan – maybe she decided she didn't want to come back for a full film? I think it's a shame they couldn't have had her for the whole sequel, even if the ultimate fate of Shaw was the same. I must say that the sequel I wanted to see was Prometheus 2 with more about the Engineers (and with Engineers looking like Engineers). I feel like what we got instead was an exercise in damage limitation.
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I reckon that Prometheus faced enough of a backlash on its own that Covenant tried to downplay the connection by seemingly staging a whole new story (especially judging from the promo material). I tend to regard Shaw's death as more tragic (helping David out of a human compassion he ultimately regards as a weakness to be eradicated) than senseless, though.
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I reckon that Prometheus faced enough of a backlash on its own that Covenant tried to downplay the connection by seemingly staging a whole new story (especially judging from the promo material). I tend to regard Shaw's death as more tragic (helping David out of a human compassion he ultimately regards as a weakness to be eradicated) than senseless, though.
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Given the backlash after Alien 3 it is somewhat surprising that they decided to kill off this new heroine. Ripley's death and sacrifice is at least heroic and there's something positive about it. Shaw's just feels as wasteful as Aliens fans might feel about Hicks and Newt.
It would be interesting to find out if Noomi Rapace was in on the plan – maybe she decided she didn't want to come back for a full film? I think it's a shame they couldn't have had her for the whole sequel, even if the ultimate fate of Shaw was the same. I must say that the sequel I wanted to see was Prometheus 2 with more about the Engineers (and with Engineers looking like Engineers). I feel like what we got instead was an exercise in damage limitation.
It would be interesting to find out if Noomi Rapace was in on the plan – maybe she decided she didn't want to come back for a full film? I think it's a shame they couldn't have had her for the whole sequel, even if the ultimate fate of Shaw was the same. I must say that the sequel I wanted to see was Prometheus 2 with more about the Engineers (and with Engineers looking like Engineers). I feel like what we got instead was an exercise in damage limitation.
i do agree, because of the backlash of prometheus, they tried their best to do a damage limitation by trying to make this film independent somehow of prometheus, but it is really a shame to lose elizabeth shaw that quickly, i feel her character died very early, and should have been in covenant.
I'm still wondering why the black goo, which usually triggers a transformation of some kind, only appeared to partially disintegrate the alien citizens and leave their blackened remains. No apparent mutations, they're all still there, Pompeii-like.
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I saw it in theater. Was frustrating at the time because, as posted above, I too was expecting Prometheus II.
But lol. Fassbender fingering Fassbender's flute did take things to another level!
But lol. Fassbender fingering Fassbender's flute did take things to another level!
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I saw it in theater. Was frustrating at the time because, as posted above, I too was expecting Prometheus II.
But lol. Fassbender fingering Fassbender's flute did take things to another level!
But lol. Fassbender fingering Fassbender's flute did take things to another level!
WARNING: spoilers below
And I liked it how he gave some clues that something wasn't right with Walter at the end . What is it he says to Lope? A faintly bitchy-sounding "You're fine". He's a very clever actor. I like him a lot.
. What is it he says to Lope? A faintly bitchy-sounding "You're fine". He's a very clever actor. I like him a lot.
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“Faintly bitchy” is David in a nutshell.
If they do another one (which I doubt) it better just be a Fassbender one-man-show, no pesky human archetypes getting in the way of the fun.
If they do another one (which I doubt) it better just be a Fassbender one-man-show, no pesky human archetypes getting in the way of the fun.
“Faintly bitchy” is David in a nutshell.
.If they do another one (which I doubt) it’d better just be a Fassbender one-man-show, no pesky human archetypes getting in the way of the fun.
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Throughout Prometheus and Covenant you can see that Scott is not at all interested in the xenomorph anymore and is all about that “man as god, robot as Lucifer” stuff that was done better in Ex Machina and kind of in Westworld. I’m surprise he didn’t direct the new Blade Runner instead (though, frankly, I’m glad.)
Throughout Prometheus and Covenant you can see that Scott is not at all interested in the xenomorph anymore and is all about that “man as god, robot as Lucifer” stuff that was done better in Ex Machina and kind of in Westworld. I’m surprise he didn’t direct the new Blade Runner instead (though, frankly. I’m glad.)
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Sharlto Copley vs. the xenomorph is really the last frontier.
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