Swan's 2017 Movie Adventures

Walter turning out to be David isn't really meant to be that much of a surprise in the long run. If the movie had taken the time to show David stealing Walter's clothes or whatever, then that's way too much telegraphing of his betrayal and would . All it takes is the inconclusive cut-away from the end of David and Walter's confrontation to plant the seed of suspicion in the audience's minds, so it becomes a matter when (not if, when) David reveals himself. The whole finale set-piece gives him ample opportunity to double-cross the survivors while the last Xenomorph is on the loose - or even in that part where Daniels is stitching up his face - so we spend much of the last 20 minutes waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fact that Daniels realises right as she's about to be put into cryosleep is a good horror beat regardless of how "predictable" it is. Will she dream? Will she fear what she will wake up to, and that's assuming she'll wake up at all? It's a solid subversion of the endings of the first two films where Ripley gets to go into cryosleep peacefully after the aliens get flushed into space.

Walter turning out to be David isn't really meant to be that much of a surprise in the long run. If the movie had taken the time to show David stealing Walter's clothes or whatever, then that's way too much telegraphing of his betrayal and would . All it takes is the inconclusive cut-away from the end of David and Walter's confrontation to plant the seed of suspicion in the audience's minds, so it becomes a matter when (not if, when) David reveals himself. The whole finale set-piece gives him ample opportunity to double-cross the survivors while the last Xenomorph is on the loose - or even in that part where Daniels is stitching up his face - so we spend much of the last 20 minutes waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fact that Daniels realises right as she's about to be put into cryosleep is a good horror beat regardless of how "predictable" it is. Will she dream? Will she fear what she will wake up to, and that's assuming she'll wake up at all? It's a solid subversion of the endings of the first two films where Ripley gets to go into cryosleep peacefully after the aliens get flushed into space.

If Walter had simply turned out to actually be Walter, instead of it turning out to be David masquerading as Walter, then I would have been more content with that ending. Instead, while Daniels was banging on the glass screaming I could not feel any sympathy since my connection to the movie had been crippled. I think there are a lot of things they could have done differently to improve the ending, but then there are a million things they should have done differently to make it the movie that the trailers made me hope it was going to be. But for the ending they should have at least added another layer to the deception, making the audience feel comfortable that it was Walter, and then crushing us with the sudden realisation that it wasn't Walter. Or, since it was so predictable that it was going to be David, they could have made Daniels more skeptical earlier on, before going into the pod. They also could have done away with the masquerade completely. Since it was obvious they could have shown the audience more that would do away with the pretense.

If Walter had simply turned out to actually be Walter, instead of it turning out to be David masquerading as Walter, then I would have been more content with that ending. Instead, while Daniels was banging on the glass screaming I could not feel any sympathy since my connection to the movie had been crippled. I think there are a lot of things they could have done differently to improve the ending, but then there are a million things they should have done differently to make it the movie that the trailers made me hope it was going to be. But for the ending they should have at least added another layer to the deception, making the audience feel comfortable that it was Walter, and then crushing us with the sudden realisation that it wasn't Walter. Or, since it was so predictable that it was going to be David, they could have made Daniels more skeptical earlier on, before going into the pod. They also could have done away with the masquerade completely. Since it was obvious they could have shown the audience more that would do away with the pretense.

When you say you'd have been fine with it turning out to be Walter - why, exactly? Is that if he was exactly the same as he always was or if he'd somehow been converted to David's side? If the former, then the movie just ends on a flat "happy" ending - if the latter, then it just raises further questions. The tip-off rests in seeing (or not seeing) who wins the fight between David and Walter. The only way to avoid that is to conclusively show Walter completely destroying David - anything less would still cause doubt and make the audience at least a little suspicious of "Walter". Also, what would revealing it earlier have accomplished? Having the survivors fight David like it's the much-maligned third act of Sunshine? At least this reveal happening at the very end spares us having to sit through some drawn-out confrontation that would have to end with David's defeat anyway, which would be boring compared to the implication that he's going to turn all the sleeping colonists into alien hosts.

I don't think this would have been better if it had tried to be what the trailers indicated, which looked like it would be a fairly hollow Alien retread only with 40 years' worth of technical upgrades - hell, we were getting that exact movie for the first 45 minutes and I wasn't too impressed with it. I figure there's no way that any new Alien movie could genuinely overtake the original in terms of being a lean mean horror machine so I appreciate that they just threw in a incredibly bizarre second act with David as a mad robot scientist. I feel like there's a lot of that section that got trimmed down so the audience could get their precious two-hour alien kill-fest. It's all the better for getting weird and dark like it does.

When you say you'd have been fine with it turning out to be Walter - why, exactly? Is that if he was exactly the same as he always was or if he'd somehow been converted to David's side? If the former, then the movie just ends on a flat "happy" ending - if the latter, then it just raises further questions. The tip-off rests in seeing (or not seeing) who wins the fight between David and Walter. The only way to avoid that is to conclusively show Walter completely destroying David - anything less would still cause doubt and make the audience at least a little suspicious of "Walter". Also, what would revealing it earlier have accomplished? Having the survivors fight David like it's the much-maligned third act of Sunshine? At least this reveal happening at the very end spares us having to sit through some drawn-out confrontation that would have to end with David's defeat anyway, which would be boring compared to the implication that he's going to turn all the sleeping colonists into alien hosts.

I don't think this would have been better if it had tried to be what the trailers indicated, which looked like it would be a fairly hollow Alien retread only with 40 years' worth of technical upgrades - hell, we were getting that exact movie for the first 45 minutes and I wasn't too impressed with it. I figure there's no way that any new Alien movie could genuinely overtake the original in terms of being a lean mean horror machine so I appreciate that they just threw in a incredibly bizarre second act with David as a mad robot scientist. I feel like there's a lot of that section that got trimmed down so the audience could get their precious two-hour alien kill-fest. It's all the better for getting weird and dark like it does.

I would have preferred it to have turned out to be Walter because that would have been less predictable. It would have given the ending a very neutral tone, and that would have been more desirable than the cliche. Alternatively, they could have left it ambiguous and at least I would have left the theater wondering and thinking instead of facepalming.

I would have preferred it to have turned out to be Walter because that would have been less predictable. It would have given the ending a very neutral tone, and that would have been more desirable than the cliche. Alternatively, they could have left it ambiguous and at least I would have left the theater wondering and thinking instead of facepalming.

It would have removed the pretense of an obvious twist.

It would have removed the pretense of an obvious twist.

An ending that's neutral or ambiguous doesn't automatically work on its own, much less in this movie. If they'd just gone to sleep without complication, then it'd be even more predictable given that it's already happened twice within the franchise. Is that really that much better because it doesn't involve a last-minute reveal? It also begs the question as to why the David/Walter thing should be made ambiguous - as with the fight scene, how could you pull that off in a way that wouldn't confirm it one way or the other anyway? It's not like it's going to be like Blade Runner raising the question of whether or not Deckard is human or replicant because that reflects what the rest of the movie is going for. That sort of question wouldn't work for Covenant, though. Having the film go for the straightforward downer ending makes sense regardless of how "predictable" it is, and for it to happen right as Daniels is rendered powerless to do anything about it - as opposed to her going to sleep without finding out - is a hell of a way to end it.

An ending that's neutral or ambiguous doesn't automatically work on its own, much less in this movie. If they'd just gone to sleep without complication, then it'd be even more predictable given that it's already happened twice within the franchise. Is that really that much better because it doesn't involve a last-minute reveal? It also begs the question as to why the David/Walter thing should be made ambiguous - as with the fight scene, how could you pull that off in a way that wouldn't confirm it one way or the other anyway? It's not like it's going to be like Blade Runner raising the question of whether or not Deckard is human or replicant because that reflects what the rest of the movie is going for. That sort of question wouldn't work for Covenant, though. Having the film go for the straightforward downer ending makes sense regardless of how "predictable" it is, and for it to happen right as Daniels is rendered powerless to do anything about it - as opposed to her going to sleep without finding out - is a hell of a way to end it.

It would have removed the pretense of an obvious twist.

It would have removed the pretense of an obvious twist.

Maybe thinking of it as a twist is the problem.

Maybe thinking of it as a twist is the problem.

Iroqouis, I know you've seen some great art films. Great movies end without complications all the time. They don't need some last minute reveal. You walk out of the theater after a great movie that ended with a neutral tone and think to yourself, "Man that was a brilliant movie, I loved everything about it." You don't think it was so obvious that it was going to end on a neutral tone with no complications. Any movie can end ambiguously, with a twist, or on a neutral tone. Obviously a lot would have had to have been written differently to change the ending from a twist to a neutral tone, and I'm not complaining that the movie ended with a twist. I'm saying, that particular twist was pathetic and poorly written. It's not about whether it has a twist or not, it's about the execution.

Iroqouis, I know you've seen some great art films. Great movies end without complications all the time. They don't need some last minute reveal. You walk out of the theater after a great movie that ended with a neutral tone and think to yourself, "Man that was a brilliant movie, I loved everything about it." You don't think it was so obvious that it was going to end on a neutral tone with no complications. Any movie can end ambiguously, with a twist, or on a neutral tone. Obviously a lot would have had to have been written differently to change the ending from a twist to a neutral tone, and I'm not complaining that the movie ended with a twist. I'm saying, that particular twist was pathetic and poorly written. It's not about whether it has a twist or not, it's about the execution.

So instead we got a hollow Prometheus retread with 2 years worth of technical upgrades. Mute point. The first 45 minutes were terrible, I agree. I didn't want an Alien retread or a Prometheus retread. But I wanted a horror movie instead of an action thriller, and either way, I at least wanted a well written movie that didn't just copy other movies in the franchise. It was just a mediocre movie overall.

So instead we got a hollow Prometheus retread with 2 years worth of technical upgrades. Mute point. The first 45 minutes were terrible, I agree. I didn't want an Alien retread or a Prometheus retread. But I wanted a horror movie instead of an action thriller, and either way, I at least wanted a well written movie that didn't just copy other movies in the franchise. It was just a mediocre movie overall.

If you know that I've seen great art films, then ask yourself why I'm going to the trouble of defending this one as well. A film's ending should try to function as its concluding statement, summarising what the movie as a whole is trying to say. In this context, I really can't bring myself to care about whether or not this "twist" was obvious from a mile off. It's an amazingly bleak ending that even outdoes the infamous ending of Alien 3, but it's not just an example of vacuous cruelty. This film and Prometheus have set up David as this quasi-sympathetic protagonist/antagonist whose villainy is inspired by the humans who created him (and also the Engineers who created the humans), so seeing him get the chance to continue his work on even more humans and perpetuate a vicious cycle of creation makes sense on a thematic level. Just as the Xenomorph's life cycle is dependent on destroying other life forms, so too is David's own plan to create new life (and the Alien series as a whole has always involved humans who wanted to keep the Xenomorphs alive for their own nefarious purposes, so this involves another angle on that theme). Also, the series has always functioned as a sort of waking nightmare - cryosleep pods are a recurring image throughout the series, book-ending at least three of the films so as to further cement the idea that each film's plot plays out like a really bad dream. Having Daniels realise the truth only when it's too late to do anything drives home the nightmare logic of this film and the series as a whole, which is why it works better than just having them go to sleep without incident.

If you know that I've seen great art films, then ask yourself why I'm going to the trouble of defending this one as well. A film's ending should try to function as its concluding statement, summarising what the movie as a whole is trying to say. In this context, I really can't bring myself to care about whether or not this "twist" was obvious from a mile off. It's an amazingly bleak ending that even outdoes the infamous ending of Alien 3, but it's not just an example of vacuous cruelty. This film and Prometheus have set up David as this quasi-sympathetic protagonist/antagonist whose villainy is inspired by the humans who created him (and also the Engineers who created the humans), so seeing him get the chance to continue his work on even more humans and perpetuate a vicious cycle of creation makes sense on a thematic level. Just as the Xenomorph's life cycle is dependent on destroying other life forms, so too is David's own plan to create new life (and the Alien series as a whole has always involved humans who wanted to keep the Xenomorphs alive for their own nefarious purposes, so this involves another angle on that theme). Also, the series has always functioned as a sort of waking nightmare - cryosleep pods are a recurring image throughout the series, book-ending at least three of the films so as to further cement the idea that each film's plot plays out like a really bad dream. Having Daniels realise the truth only when it's too late to do anything drives home the nightmare logic of this film and the series as a whole, which is why it works better than just having them go to sleep without incident.