Ten Thoughts on Alien: Covenant (2017)

The best thing about the movie, this awesome poster!

1. Remember Alien? That movie is awesome. Aliens? Awesome too! Alien 3? Lots to love, but too much of a downer to be any fun. Alien 4? Besides a weird Sigourney Weaver and one of the best scenes in the series (embryo freak lab), a big tonal mess. Alien Vs Predator? Fun. Alien Vs Predator 2? Never saw it. Who wants to see aliens running around the forrest? That's why we have SyFy Originals.Prometheus? Loved it, haters going to hate but it put the series back on track. Now this. Sigh.

2. Ridley Scott entries in the series should be called "Worst Scientists Caught on Tape". Nothing in this movie would have happened if these highly trained scientists, entrusted with colonizing a planet (presumably because Earth is now a floating turd circling the cosmic drain), had used any common sense at all. So many dumb decisions getting so many people killed, like...

3. SPACESUITS! Where are your SPACESUITS? You don't know what germs you're breathing! NASA goes through all these precautions to sterilize the Mars Rover to help ease cross contamination, and that is to a dead planet! These scientists, explorers, who are as dumb as dirt, will not wear a helmet just to be safe.  Sure, Prometheus, they all took off their helmets, but the guy who started it was a thrill seeking Mountain Dew dude, and he wanted to be the first person to breathe an alien atmosphere. To him it was worth it. None of the characters in this movie are like that. I say they didn't wear them because of the flack the last movie got for taking off the helmets, Ridley said, no spacesuits, we're going to skip all that. The space truckers in Alien knew enough to wear spacesuits. This felt like Star Trek. Beam down and if I get sick, oh well. If I make the population sick, oh well. SPACESUITS! Why did they wear space suits in the space walk scenes? Obviously they don't believe in them. It's total Black Hole science.

Spacesuit Schmacesuit

4. More sticking their faces in gross, unknown, in some cases obviously hostile alien creatures, only to be, surprise! MURDERED! Kane did it in Alien, but Kane was like that, it was stupid but in character. Prometheus, we had the cute little scorpion python monster that was hissing and pissed off that the BIOLOGIST tries to pet. DEAD! And in this one, the super careful by the books leader, who never does anything by the books, puts his face down in the alien egg to see a freaky spider wrapped in a stomach, and he's totally okay with it and just goes bobbing for apples. Other "smart" people are sniffing around these spore balls, while pissing on the untouched alien world, while smoking (not even a e-cigerette, a combustible old style Camel). Of course the spores infect them. Know what would have helped prevent that? SPACESUITS!!!

5. I totally agree with the second in command girl. You are going to scrap the mission to go detouring to this other planet? Risking all those lives and the entire unborn colony. I thought you were by the book!

6. I like how they subverted expectations when they arrive at the planet and it is at first glance a total paradise. These explorers, who have been cooped up on this spaceship for years, are totally unimpressed by it all. They don't seem excited to have discovered the planet, or the possibilities. Has Earth already colonized before and this is old hat. Oh just another new planet, no big deal.

7. I liked the necropolis stuff. That was cool. Liked the ancient culture stuff. The medieval feel of it, with the robot David being a Leonardo Da Vinci type guy. The medieval stuff, what I liked best about Alien 3 is what I liked best about this movie, turning it into a Gothic castle horror movie. But they also ported over the worst thing from Alien 3...

8. Spoilers! The main lady from Prometheus is not in this movie!!! Don't be fooled. She is dead before the movie starts and we only see her body. I liked her! I wanted to see her continued story. Nope, they pull a Newt and unceremoniously dump her.

9. So in 200 years, people are still singing John Denver? What songs from 200 years ago do you hum along to?

10. SPOILERS! David, the robot, designed the bio-mechanical xenomorphs! They are not what you get when an engineer gets a face hugger, they are not organically a part of the alien technology from part one. David has been fiddling around with their DNA while sitting around in the abandoned engineer world and he makes them. Why do they look like that if they are not part of the bio-mechanical universe Giger created. They come out of the humans looking like hairless cats, and David messed around with them and turned them into biomechs. THAT IS SO MUCH HOT GARBAGE!!

EXTRA! There is no build up or suspense in this movie. Things just happen. The solar flare just happens. Discovering the abandoned ship just happens. The fate of the engineers just happens. A xenomorph shows up in the end, no build up. No anticipation. Just goes through the paces. Especially the last 20 minutes where the movie is over but they have to tack on the plot from the first Alien. So many rehashed moments from the earlier films. You can check them off as they happen.

SHOW STOPPER - The blood and guts are good. They guy throwing up the Alien was pretty gross.

Closing Thoughts: Prometheus was not perfect, but it was ambitious, and I loved how it was an indirect member of the series, expanding the universe without giving to much away. The backlash of fanboys who wanted a straight Alien movie castrated this entry into being nothing but fan service. This was a passionless endeavor from Scott who directs with none of the pent up gusto he brought to Prometheus.

And one more: The trailers had Star Wars Episode 8 and Blade Runner 2. I closed my eyes and could feel 79-82 cracking the ice of my frozen old man heart.

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

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