Alien: Covenant/Alien Series thoughts.

[frozen_runner]

Now I'm just imagining Blomkamp's Alien 5 and having horrible thoughts about Ridley Scott. Neil B didn't get to make his RoboCop sequel either. Now he just makes puppet shows back in Africa or whatever

Hot take: Blomkamp is a mediocre director and a lousy writer. I would rather have more slop from Scott than sequels by Neil.

The only good Alien movies is the first and the second.

The Assembly Cut of 3 is solid, bro. I'm not saying it's a great ending for Ripley, but "thankfully" she comes back

But as the movies go on, it does become odd to always have a female protagonist. It goes from natural to forced. I was happy with Rain and Andy being kind of the duo protagonists by the end of Romulus. As I said, there's a lot to like about Romulus. It's not awful, so much as it is flawed. IMO.

The truth is Alien does not lend itself to good sequels. Cameron has the uncanny ability to repackage films into similar though great sequels, but everything else that's come out (and I say this as a fan of 3 and an admirer of parts of Prometheus) has been a pale imitation of the first film. It's a franchise that really shouldn't exist as a franchise, similar to Halloween.

 

[Your Starter for 10]

On the other hand, I would like to see him get Yolandi and Ninja in an Alien movie. I can't see how that could possibly go wrong.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

Haven't seen Romulus yet, but my husband did.

He said it was better than he expected, but he prefers Prometheus, and he warned me that the memberberries will probably bother me.

Keep in mind that my husband refuses to hate on an Alien movie. The only one he's said that he's flat-out disliked is AVP:R. I'm much, much more critical of the series post-Aliens.

I might go see it sometime next month, but my expectations are still very managed.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

The truth is Alien does not lend itself to good sequels. Cameron has the uncanny ability to repackage films into similar though great sequels, but everything else that's come out (and I say this as a fan of 3 and an admirer of parts of Prometheus) has been a pale imitation of the first film. It's a franchise that really shouldn't exist as a franchise, similar to Halloween.

In this case, I think it's because Cameron has a different approach to how he makes his movies. Most storytellers tend to choose characters or plot as their main focus and leave setting and theme as incidental elements in service to the other two. James Cameron focuses on his world building first and then writes a plot around the setting. Thus, he ends up writing simple, efficient plots and simple characters, but the world he built around them is super fascinating to examine. In service of this thread, that's why people point to Aliens over Alien and most of the lore comes from his movie, not Alien.

 

[Bonesjones]

Yes, yes, but BonesJones was using it relative to a child, seemingly under the impression that a child could not be "impregnated" because she was a child.

It wasn't really an allegory I was looking for but that fits. I mean children not physically being able to gestate a face hugger egg into a xenomorph. She's not predator or prey, so why would they care about her?

Romulus is just a movie for retards tbh.

It's definitely written by retards.

Also, slenderman. I couldn't hold my laugther, neither some people in the audience.

I made my friends mad when I said "oh no voldemort" when he popped up.

 

[Overly Serious]

In this case, I think it's because Cameron has a different approach to how he makes his movies. Most storytellers tend to choose characters or plot as their main focus and leave setting and theme as incidental elements in service to the other two. James Cameron focuses on his world building first and then writes a plot around the setting. Thus, he ends up writing simple, efficient plots and simple characters, but the world he built around them is super fascinating to examine. In service of this thread, that's why people point to Aliens over Alien and most of the lore comes from his movie, not Alien.

Interesting perspective. I can see that. If there's one thing he got wrong with his world building, however, it's the colonial marines. I believe he even said something along the lines of how he had no familiarity with real world marines or soldiers and it shows. Sure, maybe by 2170 or whenever, that really is the state of the military but they were such a shower of ill-disciplined, slovenly reprobates it stretches belief. I know he wanted to contrast the officiousness of Gorman with the more world-weary grunts like Hicks ("no offence"), but would you really put this lot in charge of a multi-billion dollar starship carrying nukes?

It wasn't really an allegory I was looking for but that fits. I mean children not physically being able to gestate a face hugger egg into a xenomorph. She's not predator or prey, so why would they care about her?

But she is prey. The moment they actually get a chance to snatch her and cocoon her up for impregnation that's exactly what they do.

 

[The Nothingness]

The RT scores for Alien: Romulus contrast to the reviews here revealing that this movie squeezed in memberberries from the past entries tells me that normies did not learn from Jurassic World, The Force Awakens, and Blumhouse Halloween, which also relied on memberberries and "I clapped!" moments.

 

[Spectre Saren]

Prometheus, Covenant and Alien make up a good, if incomplete, series of movies. Just watched Prometheus yesterday and most of the complaints at the crew being "stoopid" is just people waiting for characters to act as if they know they are on a scifi horror. Ie, the style of soy writing that pretty much ruined genre flicks.

So what if the crew take off their helmets? They weren't infected by anything in the air. Holloway was infected by David ON THE PROMETHEUS.

So what if the biologist soybeard gets mangled by the alien snake? How would he know that a creature that looks reasonably nimble is so strong? Even he says its way stronger than he expected.

The geologist gets lost? He left in a panic and Janek (the captain) was too focused on the rest of the crew finding an alien corpse. We only see the structure being almost fully mapped at night, way after everyone else gets back. Why didn't Janek guide the two retards? The signal came in sporadically because of the storm, he says it ffs.

Prometheus biggest complains are CinemaSins dings and, as its the way with those, they are explained during a scene, after or before.

EDIT:
Same thing for Covenant. The crew is a colonist one enroute to a known planet. They are prepared for a planet with worse conditions than the one where they end up going. If they didn't bring space suits with this in mind, well, they didn't bring them. They are a Wayland ship, we all know how corpo dudes love to increase "efficency". The crew gets infected by the goo which didn't show on the scans cause it's signature is tiny, the end. The dude getting close to the spore eggs might be stupid. But really, how the hell would anyone know that those spores are "the bad ones that make you pregnant with satan"? As opposed to just being...spores, that plants eject all the time and that rarely have any adverse reaction on humans.

But muh disease. They were prepared for a worse planet. We can asume their medical technology is way more advanced than ours. Afterall, they are on an extrasolar colonization mission.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Interesting perspective. I can see that. If there's one thing he got wrong with his world building, however, it's the colonial marines. I believe he even said something along the lines of how he had no familiarity with real world marines or soldiers and it shows. Sure, maybe by 2170 or whenever, that really is the state of the military but they were such a shower of ill-disciplined, slovenly reprobates it stretches belief. I know he wanted to contrast the officiousness of Gorman with the more world-weary grunts like Hicks ("no offence"), but would you really put this lot in charge of a multi-billion dollar starship carrying nukes?

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Is that a lore thing or a characterization thing? Cause he does the same thing with the Avatar movies too.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

I actually liked Prometheus when it came out.

As a horror movie, it's good. Some of the scenes still make me cringe when I think about them (in a good way). I still enjoy the horror elements to that film.

As a sci-fi movie itself, though ... The writing is a convoluted mess, which could have been easily remedied with a solid sequel ... But ... You know, Alien: Covenant happened. lol. Alien 3 remains to be my least favorite Alien movie ever, so imagine how pissed off I was when Alien: Covenant revealed that Shaw had been killed off screen.

Without having seen Romulus, I'd say that Prometheus is probably the best Alien movie post-Aliens ... You can make a good argument for Alien: Resurrection if you're being ironic though. lol. Alien: Resurrection is bad, but it's funny bad at least.

 

[Calandrino]

He thinks this is what you deserve since you did not like his fart huffing creationist ancient aliens "masterpiece".

But I did! That's why this feels so uncalled-for.

(Edit. Maybe the more apt comparison would be Rogue One.)

It's like Rogue One if it had Jar Jar and midichlorians and Darth Vader looked at the camera and said, "spinning is a good trick".

But you find out that Ash was feeding it and protecting it from the crew (though it feeding on their space meals was never filmed).

The way Ash is always watching everybody else and the tiny little cue of him staring at Kane right before Kane starts convulsing.

Maybe it's not what was intended, but I took it that Ash didn't know a whole lot more about the xenos than the crew did. If getting Kane mpregged and setting a full-grown xeno loose on the ship was all part of the plan, I don't see how it was supposed to work. And, well, it didn't. If they'd managed to freeze an egg or something and bring it back home, everybody would have been happy.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

Is that a lore thing or a characterization thing? Cause he does the same thing with the Avatar movies too.

Prolly a characterisation. There was an official 'lore book' done for the muhrines and they're a brutal, efficient lot of pipe cleaners with some very cool, but still grounded sci fi gear. Does fuck up the film though since they're supposed to roll out with shit like, self replicating minefields, plasma cannon drones, stealth cloaks and other shit like that. Also supposed to be a 30 man minimum detachment going down to a planet, with the two landers acting as gunship support; carrying enough firepower to flatten a city in a few minutes.

But if they did that, the err, the film would be over in about 30 minutes lol.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I believe he even said something along the lines of how he had no familiarity with real world marines or soldiers and it shows

Cameron watched a few Vietnam and WWII themed movies and patterned nearly everything, including the outfits and gear of the Space Marines, on 1940s and 1960s U.S. soldiers. He changed some stuff like having women right on the front lines. But the aesthetics of their uniforms and armor, right down to the painted on words and bandanas, came from Vietnam era imagery and movies.

An actual futuristic space marine outfit should have a full face helmet and protection. Pulse or laser rifle or plasma weapons and other futuristic weapons. Not guys wearing plastic armor, open helmets, riot shotguns, and assorted centuries old technology. But Cameron thought that "Vietnam in space" was too cool to pass up and it became one of his favorite aspects of making the movie.

People rip on the Covenant scientists for taking risks but the characters in Aliens are walking into an infected hive essentially naked.

 

[Overly Serious]

Cameron watched a few Vietnam and WWII themed movies and patterned nearly everything, including the outfits and gear of the Space Marines, on 1940s and 1960s U.S. soldiers. He changed some stuff like having women right on the front lines. But the aesthetics of their uniforms and armor, right down to the painted on words and bandanas, came from Vietnam era imagery and movies.

An actual futuristic space marine outfit should have a full face helmet and protection. Pulse or laser rifle or plasma weapons and other futuristic weapons. Not guys wearing plastic armor, open helmets, riot shotguns, and assorted centuries old technology. But Cameron thought that "Vietnam in space" was too cool to pass up and it became one of his favorite aspects of making the movie.

People rip on the Covenant scientists for taking risks but the characters in Aliens are walking into an infected hive essentially naked.

You're not wrong, but it's not the point I was intending to make. I am less bothered by the marines not having full face helmets with HUDs, built in laser-targeting or full-body armour or any else, any more than I am bothered that the computers they use make modem dial-up sounds and have 1970's monochrome 8-bit character displays. It's not really plausible but I also just hand-wave it away. I meant the motley disorganisation, disrespect, talking over their CO, etc. I am aware that it is a plot element to a degree and you see Apone trying to lock it down, that it's away of showing Goreman is inexperienced in controlling the men, etc. I also accept that this isn't our current era and it's perhaps the intent that the Colonial Marines have become a bit of a joke, just going on "bug hunts" for panicking colonists, or liberating some Arcturians from their virginity ("Yeah, but the one you had was male"). Stuff like that. But the Vietnam influence you talk about does explain that too. I guess he wants to go for the demoralised, disaffected feel you get from those movies.

So I get all the justifications, it's just something that leaps out to me when I see it - these punks are supposed to be marines? Vasquez (who I originally thought was a man) is probably the most marine-like of the lot.

@Drag-on Knight 91873 You replied to my post asking if this was a lore or a characterisation thing and I'm afraid I don't quite know what you were asking. In exapnded lore outside the movies themselves, the Colonial Marines are more professional and larger in number. There aren't much in the way of serious alien threats - the RPG has a few other dangerous aliens but none of them are really smart, hence the "bug hunt" comment in aliens - it's at best like big game hunting or pest control. Where the Colonial Marines more usually see action is putting down rebellions or civil unrest, or in the low-grade on/off war with the UPP (Union of Progressive Peoples). Which is a rival power to the United Americas. For slightly complicated reasons the Colonial Marines are actually the USCMC or United States Colonial Marine Core, even though the political union is the United Americas, not the United States. Because the United States is still a political entity within the United Americas and the Colonial Marines exist under the United States. There's quite an interesting timeline in the Alien RPG by Free League which is very good for a lore summary.

 

[Adamska]

I also accept that this isn't our current era and it's perhaps the intent that the Colonial Marines have become a bit of a joke, just going on "bug hunts" for panicking colonists, or liberating some Arcturians from their virginity ("Yeah, but the one you had was male"). Stuff like that. But the Vietnam influence you talk about does explain that too. I guess he wants to go for the demoralised, disaffected feel you get from those movies.

The actors also were expected to read Heinlein's Starship Troopers to further get an idea on the sort of things they were expected to do alongside going through an abbreviated basic training course that actually met the sort of stuff the military was expected to do. IMO they nailed the military aspect well, since their antics are pretty accurate to the sort of shit military members go through.

It was Cameron wanting to nail the vietnam aesthetics, which is to its favor. It was also supposed to show that these guys were really seasoned compared to Gorman, since this stuff was pretty standard for vets who saw a lot of combat or deployments. Montgomery's experienced Desert Rats did similar shit. To remind people, Hudson was literally almost done with his deployment before Acheron; he's been at this for years.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

@Drag-on Knight 91873 You replied to my post asking if this was a lore or a characterisation thing and I'm afraid I don't quite know what you were asking.

I meant the motley disorganisation, disrespect, talking over their CO, etc. I am aware that it is a plot element to a degree and you see Apone trying to lock it down, that it's away of showing Goreman is inexperienced in controlling the men, etc. I also accept that this isn't our current era and it's perhaps the intent that the Colonial Marines have become a bit of a joke, just going on "bug hunts" for panicking colonists, or liberating some Arcturians from their virginity ("Yeah, but the one you had was male"). Stuff like that. But the Vietnam influence you talk about does explain that too. I guess he wants to go for the demoralised, disaffected feel you get from those movies.

I would describe this as characterization.

 

[The Nothingness]

Given that Romulus confirmed the alien from the first movie survived, will another installment take place some time after Aliens to reveal the Queen also survived?

 

[Commander X]

What annoys me about the hybrid in Romulus is that it's very Slenderman/creepypasta/etc. like anything else out of online horror stories since the late 00s or so, where the scariest creature many writers can come up with is a skinny humanoid. Maybe it has gray skin. Or white. I just hear the late Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd trying to sell yet another one of these sorts of boring creatures to an audience: "Eet's very skinny! Eesn't that scary, kids?"

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Given that Romulus confirmed the alien from the first movie survived, will another installment take place some time after Aliens to reveal the Queen also survived?

As if a hyper aggressive r selected predator species can't make another queen.

 

[LightDragonman1]

I thought Romulus was decent, probably the third best Alien film (though granted, that's not saying much). It did what it needed to do just fine, though I agree that the overload of call-backs reflects a need to play it safe. And that some of them make me wonder about the continuity (if they could combine the Pulse Rifles with the Smart Gun's tracking system, why weren't they standard issue for the Colonial Marines?).

Also, I do have to wonder why no film has ever tried to do the more action-packed Colonial Marine angle seen in Aliens, given how it has been used in comics and video games since.