Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on May 23, 2017, 10:35:49 PM
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I am a long-time Alien movie fan. I went to see Alien:Covenant last night, and I was somewhat disappointed. It struck me as a mash-up of the first and second movies: ship responds to distress signal, sends landing party, aliens kill most of the crew on the ground, survivors fight aliens on the ship, the crew jettisons the alien from the ship. The most innovative thing was Michael Fassbinder playing two roles, but many would argue he was the prequel to Ash in the first movie. Daniels is no Ripley.
Ridley Scott thinks he will make two more prequels after Covenant leading up to the events in Alien to tie everything together. Hmm.
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Just received the paperback novelization from Amazon today. Don't know whether to read it first or see the movie first......
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Which is why I don't go to movies anymore. Wife2 used to drag me by the pecker kicking and screaming to the theatre. She apparently loved the chewing gum on the seats, the exorbitant prices for snacks and sodas, the people yakking in the row behind you, the idiotic ring tone on "that dude's" phone in front of you, et cetera ad infinitum.
I prefer to wait a couple of years for stuff to show up on TV, where if something just plain stinks, I can switch channels or read a book. I'm not a captive to the ten bucks I spent for a ticket to watch crap. Oh, twenty, counting Wife2's ticket.
I rarely watch TV "actively" since I'm usually involved in something else until girls, gunshots, gore, or getaways pique my interest on the "toob." Well, I guess that would be "on the LEDs" nowadays.
I was pleasantly surprised when the movie "Chicago" was on and it caught my interest, so I actually sat down and watched it.
For free.
Terry, 230RN
REF (Girls n' guns... Thompsons, to be exact. Well, two out of four ain't bad.):
Probably NSFW on general principles
https://youtu.be/luef1H24hU8
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I enjoyed the original Alien, really like Aliens (who doesn't want their own M41A Pulse Rifle?). I had hope that Covenant would be decent. Bring the series back.
As to movies, I still like going to see a movie. The theater near me has $5 Tuesdays. All movies are $5. They have the lounger type seats, which are great. That said, I bet I only go to the theater 4-5 times a year. Hollywood doesn't put out what I want to go see...
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Mtnbkr and I went to see Prometheus in the theater when it was first out.
Beautifully filmed movie, but part way through I looked over and Mtnbkr is checking his watch...
I was feeling the exact same way, except I don't wear a watch.
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As to movies, I still like going to see a movie. The theater near me has $5 Tuesdays. All movies are $5. They have the lounger type seats, which are great. That said, I bet I only go to the theater 4-5 times a year. Hollywood doesn't put out what I want to go see...
For Covenant, I drove 70 miles round trip specifically to see it at the Cinnebarre theater in Mountlake Terrace. They have food service during the movie and comfortable rocker high-back seats. I had a 22 ounce glass of Georgetown Lucille IPA and the Reservoir Dogs: two all-beef grilled frankfurters with sriracha slaw and bacon jam with home-made BBQ potato chips. I wish wish wish that more theaters offered this amenity and the closest one to me was not 70 miles round trip. I go to the theater less than five times per year, and the majority of the time, I go to the closest decent theater, which is a 45 mile round trip. But they don't have the food service.
PS: this does remind me of another First World problem: why don't more restaurants offer a decent hot dog? Everyone has burgers, for example, but relatively few offer a hot dog.
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I used to go with the ex and friends to one of the "cinema & drafthouse" theaters in DC metro years ago.
Neat place to see a movie and have dinner at the same time.
The one we used to go to was in a historic theater in Bethesda, Maryland. It did well into the 2000s, then got caught up in an area redevelopment that made it virtually impossible to get to. It struggled on for awhile, closed, reopened, closed, and then finally crapped out and reopened as a jazz club.
Very sorry to see it go.
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Alien was amazing of course, and Aliens was a good sequel... different, but you can't beat Alien so it made sense.
Prometheus was beyond bad. Like, really Really bad. Like, how could you even screw up this bad, bad. I want my $10.95 back bad.
I have a theory that all the digital technology actually is making them lazy. They said it wouldn't; they said it would just remove drudgery, but along the way, it removed respect for the medium. It turns out you can't fix everything in post.
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Which is why I don't go to movies anymore. Wife2 used to drag me by the pecker kicking and screaming to the theatre. She apparently loved the chewing gum on the seats, the exorbitant prices for snacks and sodas, the people yakking in the row behind you, the idiotic ring tone on "that dude's" phone in front of you, et cetera ad infinitum.
I prefer to wait a couple of years for stuff to show up on TV, where if something just plain stinks, I can switch channels or read a book. I'm not a captive to the ten bucks I spent for a ticket to watch crap. Oh, twenty, counting Wife2's ticket.
A lot of theaters are well aware that they were getting a reputation for being expensive, uncomfortable and facing ever more competition. The smarter ones started moving in direction of some combination of lower pricing, more comfortable seats, serving alcohol or food, showing older popular movies, themed events, etc.
I'm lucky that a nearby small theater is well priced $8 for 'prime' timeslots, $5 for matinee, serves alcohol (beer, wine) and reasonably priced snacks. It is an absolutely beautiful 1920's red velvet and chrome. Seats aren't ergonomic, because probably close to original so I deal.
There's other options these days. I'm a fan of the classic date of dinner and a movie.
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We saw Alien Covenant the other night and went home unimpressed. We didn't even discuss the movie on the ride home, which is the hallmark of a good movie for us. The solitary comment I can recall from dinner the following evening is that neither of us thought it was scary. On the other hand, I did like Prometheus enough to buy on blu-ray in addition to the rest of our Alien collection. It looks great and sounds good, you just have to ignore all the humans and most of the plot. I also have some appreciation for Charlize Theron in futuristic corporate space uniforms.
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I didn't dislike Prometheus.
I just didn't like it very much.
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Alien - Awesome!
Aliens - Kick ass!
3 - meh.
Resurrection - wtf?
Prometheus - meh.
Covenant - not gonna pay money to see it.
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Alien - Awesome!
Aliens - Kick ass!
3 - meh.
Resurrection - wtf?
Prometheus - meh.
Covenant - not gonna pay money to see it.
About the same here. I liked Resurrection better than 3 because while it was a bit WTF, 3 was incredibly boring to me.
Prometheus was kind of WTF AND boring. Switching about ten minutes of nonsensical script for ten minutes of explanatory script would have made all the difference.
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I enjoyed Resurrection, but it was not a good Aliens movie.
Prometheus is entertaining, but not "movie theater" worthy. Some of the actions taken by the characters were mind boggling (biologists reaching out to touch xenomorphs? Person running from rolling space ship can't turn 90 degrees to get out of path?).
Based on what I've heard about Covenant, I'll wait till it hits Redbox or Netflix.
Chris
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"Some of the actions taken by the characters were mind boggling (biologists reaching out to touch xenomorphs? Person running from rolling space ship can't turn 90 degrees to get out of path?)."
Or, my personal favorite...
We're a ship of scientists, archaeologists, etc... So let's land the ship smack dead in the middle of our targeted exploration area!
Uh oh, captain... I think we broke a bunch of stuff when we landed...
That's OK. I'm sure there's more than enough rich tapestry remaining to get us to the end of this movie and on into the sequel.
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A lot of theaters are well aware that they were getting a reputation for being expensive, uncomfortable and facing ever more competition. The smarter ones started moving in direction of some combination of lower pricing, more comfortable seats, serving alcohol or food, showing older popular movies, themed events, etc.
I didn't know that, RevDisk, so thanks. Other posts alerted me to this fact, too.
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The National Review take on this movie was pretty brutal, bordering on unhinged
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447756/ridley-scott-alien-covenant-inane-obscene (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447756/ridley-scott-alien-covenant-inane-obscene)
I liked most of the other movies in this series, not sure what to make of this though.
He read way more symbolism into it than I had gotten out of the other movies...
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I didn't know that, RevDisk, so thanks. Other posts alerted me to this fact, too.
Unfortunately, it's all hit or miss. So all the theaters in your area could be terrible. There just happens to be a counter movement of theater owners that want to address problems so they don't go out of business. I admit, I'm a sucker for the local theater with very nice reclining seats and good beer on tap.
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PS: this does remind me of another First World problem: why don't more restaurants offer a decent hot dog? Everyone has burgers, for example, but relatively few offer a hot dog.
Lots of Greek owned hole in the wall places around here (Chicagoland) with great hot dogs. They all have Gyros and Vienna Beef Hot Dogs, served with everything to include a dill pickle spear and celery salt. Dammit, now I'm hungry.
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The National Review take on this movie was pretty brutal, bordering on unhinged
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447756/ridley-scott-alien-covenant-inane-obscene (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447756/ridley-scott-alien-covenant-inane-obscene)
I liked most of the other movies in this series, not sure what to make of this though.
He read way more symbolism into it than I had gotten out of the other movies...
He described Alien Resurrection as "exquisite, languorous, and tense."
In other words, he's full of *expletive deleted*it.
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The nat review *expletive deleted*che is just pissed because there are no lesbionic transpecies aliens of color in the movie.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
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Alien Resurrection was complete *expletive deleted*it.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
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Unfortunately, it's all hit or miss. So all the theaters in your area could be terrible. There just happens to be a counter movement of theater owners that want to address problems so they don't go out of business. I admit, I'm a sucker for the local theater with very nice reclining seats and good beer on tap.
We have a quite a few that sell alcohol in San Antonio. One has free movie Thursday in which they show an older film and the tickets are free. I'd say they make a lot of money even then. I know I've spent a minimum of $50 all the times I've went with my wife and that was just on beer (32oz mug is our standard) and food. It generally turns out cheaper to go watch a free movie and buy beer and food than it does to go to a bar and buy beer and food, for us anyways.
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they completely copped out on some of the lore that I had HOPED would be explained by this movie (from the first movie)...
and now it's just another "evil AI does bad things" movie.
I'm done
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How DARE you question the Evil AI?
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Resurrecting this because I watched Alien Covenant over the weekend. It came on HBO and I snagged it.
I was even less impressed with it than I was Prometheus.
So, David actually created the Aliens through bio-engineering? I guess that makes this a prequel to Alien/Aliens?
WTF?
If he created the Aliens, how the hell did he create the "mother egg layer" seen in Aliens?
And, if he wiped out the Engineers planet, where did he find an engineer to infect with one of the Aliens, which is what Ripley's crew found on LV 426?
Whole story line doesn't make much sense.
And, in a lot of ways, I agree, it's simply a freaking rehash of Alien without any real advancement of the plot concept.
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Resurrecting this because I watched Alien Covenant over the weekend. It came on HBO and I snagged it.
I was even less impressed with it than I was Prometheus.
So, David actually created the Aliens through bio-engineering? I guess that makes this a prequel to Alien/Aliens?
WTF?
If he created the Aliens, how the hell did he create the "mother egg layer" seen in Aliens?
And, if he wiped out the Engineers planet, where did he find an engineer to infect with one of the Aliens, which is what Ripley's crew found on LV 426?
Whole story line doesn't make much sense.
And, in a lot of ways, I agree, it's simply a freaking rehash of Alien without any real advancement of the plot concept.
It sort of did kill the Alien franchise, IMHO. The first two are classic ... the rest, not so much... the last two ...dreck. Absolute dreck.
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Covenant had some real problems. But it also gets undeserved hate.
Yes, apparently it's now cannon that David bio engineered some version of what we consider a xenomorph. There's some question still as to whether the one on LV-426 (that the crew of the Nostromo found) was one of his. it *looks* like one, but it's known that the adult xenomorph takes on some characteristics of the creature the face hugger attaches to. There are "doggo" xenomorphs and "person" xenomorphs in cannon. Assuming that the Nostromo found one of David's engineered xeno's however, he has 18 years from the end of Covenant to find, infect, and cause an Engineer to crash on LV-426. It can be reasonably assumed that since the Black Goo modifies the DNA of it's victims that whatever creature back on LV-223 that gave the Black Goo the blueprint for the face hugger lifecycle had some egg layer in it's cycle. Or David grabbed that trait from some creature native to the Covenant planet as he engineered the lifecycle to be robust during a lack of victims.
We now know that what looks like an alien skeleton from Alien, is in fact an Engineer flight suit so there's no need to think the wreck was, as Cpt. Dallas theorized, "thousands of years old".
As far as David's attack on the aliens, they are clearly not Engineers. They aren't albino, have different facial structure, and aren't a technological race. The only real tech on the uncharted planet is the Engineer's docking spire and it stands out starkly against the city it hovers over. It can be safely assumed that David wiped out another race the Engineer's seeded. FWIW, the city's reactions look a lot like an early race that comes out to see one of their "gods" ships come in, then get's plagued by surprise).
It does, as so many sci-fi horror stories do, rely on the idiocy of it's charecters to make the plot happen. It's not anything new or groundbreaking. It also requires a viewer to seek out and watch extra material from it's marketing on the internet to actually figure everything out. I don't like movies with homework. Especially James Franco centric homework.