Alien: Covenant Trailer

[Legato Endless]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VW6sg50Pk

It looks...extremely conservative. As in if you pulled out Fassenbender's scenes you could fool people into thinking this was a remake.

[Palanan]

--Wait, what?

This left me completely confused. I thought this was going to be a continuation of the Prometheus arc, but it doesn't look like Rooney Mara is in it.

If this is supposed to be a standalone story, then I can't help but wonder: what's the point? It really does look like a remake, and I don't need to watch yet another hapless crew being messily taken out one at a time.

It's hard to tell just from this trailer, but this really feels like the Rogue One of the Alien franchise--out of left field and really not necessary. Right now I don't see a reason to even watch the trailer again, much less see this in the theater.

[Legato Endless]

Star Wars was also my first thought, except Force Awakens. What should be a sequel building the franchise in new territory instead opts for a transparent retread of iconic territory.

[Donnadogsoth]

I hate to say it, but this looks like fan fiction.

Do something real! Be philosophical, answer some Big Questions, get talky like British SF used to be, not just slaughter the pretties.


Arrghe!

[Dienekes]

Oh Fassbender, one the best actors around to put in your mediocre scifi franchises.

[BWR]

Hey, remember that awesome SF movie series from your youth?
Remember how the prequel to it was disappointing?
We understand that you didn't like it, and to make sure you know we completely misunderstood the reasons you didn't like the prequel, we will remake the first one.
See? It's exactly like the one you liked, so that means this should be a good movie.

[Donnadogsoth]

Certain current events have convinced me that Black Swans are still possible. Perhaps, like George Miller with Mad Max: Fury Road, Ridley Scott will pull off that 1% chance of making something in the Alienverse worth watching again. Mayhap, he still has something to say...

[Donnadogsoth]

1.No big ideas. The characters will not question anything in their world or immediate environment, they will all be workaday stiffs who have no time for philosophy, religion, or even scientific enthusiasm (as also notably absent in almost everybody iin Prometheus--don't scientists like to talk and discuss things?).

2.No intelligent thought. Related to 1, the characters will not work cleverly to solve their problems, but instead will be put in scenarios wherein they will naturally take the most simplistic solutions (see monster, grab gun, shoot monster). How about a situation where they have to use the massive resources of their ship to build something, to address some kind of biological threat, they have to start farming something, they're worried about the blasted weed that spreads like fire and produces hallucinations when the smoke is inhaled, or intelligent alien ants, or just...just...something.

3.No intelligent dialogue. Everyone is going to talk exactly like every other group of stock-standard sci-fi schlemiels.

4.The blood will be dishonoured. Blood is important in Horror films, it's sacred stuff, not to be splattered here and there with unimportant deaths. Case in point: Alien3. Characters getting slaughtered, blood flying, meaning nothing.

5.No intelligently complex scenery. Remember the first Alien flick, when the chick wanted to get the ship to blow itself up? She had to go through this physical-mechanical rigamarole like you wouldn't believe. Will that sort of complex technology be on display in Alien 9, or will everything be punch punch punch and the rocket takes off! In a word: facile.

6.No gripping dilemmas – heavy moral dilemmas. The series isn't known for this and why stop a good run? You know, lifeboat dilemmas, your brother or your sister, a convict or your loyal dog, that kind of thing.

7.Nothing really alien to our sensibilities. Perhaps that is impossible to us cosmopolitans. But I'd like to see someone try, not by giving us physical forms cranked out of the product engineering wing, but things that have alien meanings even if they are everyday. “They're comin' out of the walls!” Remember that scene?--that was alien. Now everything so quotidian.

8.No scares. Okay, maybe a boo-scare here and there. Maybe.

9.Explosions. Does anybody actually like explosions anymore? Much less hackneyed-beyond-belief yellow-orange gasoline sci-fi explosions that literally explode objects like in a diagram rather than just bursting through the paths of least resistance and looking generally underwhelming like most real explosions do?

10.If I see a robot get its head ripped off again I'm gonna lose it.

Summing up: If the trailer is anything to go by, I forecast another sci-fi exercise in emotionless, asymbolic, apolitical, areligious, aphilosophical, economically cryptic human bodily destruction lacking humour, humanity, and intelligence, presenting to us the same essential thing once described by Roger Ebert as a "well-oiled shock machine."

[Razade]

Couldn't this have gone in the thread that's already up?

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: Indeed. One thread, one topic please.

[Donnadogsoth]

Great Modthulhu: Indeed. One thread, one topic please.

Sorry, too enthusiastic.

[Rodin]

Hey, remember that awesome SF movie series from your youth?
Remember how the prequel to it was disappointing?
We understand that you didn't like it, and to make sure you know we completely misunderstood the reasons you didn't like the prequel, we will remake the first one.
See? It's exactly like the one you liked, so that means this should be a good movie.

I don't have a problem with doing that if it's an attempt to revive a franchise. The big challenge The Force Awakens had was convincing audiences the new Star Wars movies weren't going to suck. It did that, and with faith restored they could move on with Rogue One to do a new style and then with any luck they'll really branch out with Episode VIII and IX.

Of course, having a plot that is at least somewhat different helps. The Covenant trailer looks so paint-by-numbers that it hurts. The guy sticking his face into an unknown life form was stupid when it happened in Alien, and it hasn't gotten any less stupid in the intervening 30 years.

There's also the matter of culture shift. Kicking Star Wars back off again works pretty well because it's a timeless story - young everyperson comes of age and gains the courage to fight evil, power of friendship wins the day, everybody goes home for tea and crumpets. Trying that with other franchises can be much more difficult. Just see Robocop - they tried to remake it by just updating the graphics, but totally failed to notice all the social commentary in the original. The Alien franchise has a similar problem - Creature Features just aren't in vogue because they've been done to death and there's very little room to innovate.

I'm actually curious here - what could be done with the Alien franchise that hasn't already been done? I'd assume we can leave out discovering the Aliens have a culture and opening up a dialogue with them and finding out it was all a huge mistake. If we want to keep the aliens as menacing and mysterious, what else is there to tell? We've had both the slasher film version with the original and the more action-y version with Aliens. What would make a new movie interesting and different?

[BWR]

I don't have a problem with doing that if it's an attempt to revive a franchise. The big challenge The Force Awakens had was convincing audiences the new Star Wars movies weren't going to suck. It did that

We'll have to disagree. TFA did a fine job convincing me that SW should have stayed in Lucas' hands. For all their warts and faults, the PT was at least doing something new. Lucas wasn't content to just remake what he had done before. What the hell is the point of redoing something if you aren't going to at least try to add something new or different, and make it better? Why watch TFA when we already have ANH?
R1 gave us new characters and a different story and still, in some weird way, felt far more SW-y than TFA.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm actually curious here - what could be done with the Alien franchise that hasn't already been done? I'd assume we can leave out discovering the Aliens have a culture and opening up a dialogue with them and finding out it was all a huge mistake. If we want to keep the aliens as menacing and mysterious, what else is there to tell? We've had both the slasher film version with the original and the more action-y version with Aliens. What would make a new movie interesting and different?

What if you filled an entire Alien movie from the POV of the monster? Keep the human cast/protagonists, don't ever try to 'humanize' the Alien or give it internal dialogue, just have the camera exclusively through its eyes as it follows the invaders in its territory, stalks them, and periodically ambushes them before being wounded and driven back into the shadows.

[Jan Mattys]

What if you filled an entire Alien movie from the POV of the monster? Keep the human cast/protagonists, don't ever try to 'humanize' the Alien or give it internal dialogue, just have the camera exclusively through its eyes as it follows the invaders in its territory, stalks them, and periodically ambushes them before being wounded and driven back into the shadows.

Frankly, that would probably be technically impressive but quite boring, in my opinion.
To be honest, I think the "what could be done with the franchise that hasn't been done already" is a legitimate question. Still, it is true that many stories can be told so there's no shortage of unique ways to develop an interesting 2.hours flick.

One of the first posters cited "Rogue One", a movie that I enjoyed immensely. It is simple, it touches all the right spots for a Star Wars fan, doesn't rely on big names (the franchise being bigger than any single contributor, to the point of cgi-ing them if needed), and still it is a very fun ride it its own right. It "milks" the setting without abusing things that have already been done over and over.

Alien hasn't really tried the "develop your own universe" route yet: too many misteries hinted at, too few answers and viewpoints. Might be worth a try.

[Donnadogsoth]

What if you filled an entire Alien movie from the POV of the monster? Keep the human cast/protagonists, don't ever try to 'humanize' the Alien or give it internal dialogue, just have the camera exclusively through its eyes as it follows the invaders in its territory, stalks them, and periodically ambushes them before being wounded and driven back into the shadows.

That sounds like a first-person videogame. Then again people pay to watch other people play videogames, don't they?

[The Glyphstone]

That sounds like a first-person videogame. Then again people pay to watch other people play videogames, don't they?

Well, the FPS segment of the Doom movie was well-received. Then again, being the best part of the Doom movie is not a high bar to cross.

[Dienekes]

What if you filled an entire Alien movie from the POV of the monster? Keep the human cast/protagonists, don't ever try to 'humanize' the Alien or give it internal dialogue, just have the camera exclusively through its eyes as it follows the invaders in its territory, stalks them, and periodically ambushes them before being wounded and driven back into the shadows.

That sounds like it would be an intense 10 minute clip, an interesting 30 minute art flick, and a horribly drudging 90 minute film.

[Donnadogsoth]

...The Covenant trailer looks so paint-by-numbers that it hurts.

You win for best take-down of the trailer.


I'm actually curious here - what could be done with the Alien franchise that hasn't already been done? I'd assume we can leave out discovering the Aliens have a culture and opening up a dialogue with them and finding out it was all a huge mistake. If we want to keep the aliens as menacing and mysterious, what else is there to tell? We've had both the slasher film version with the original and the more action-y version with Aliens. What would make a new movie interesting and different?

Religion. Real religion, as opposed to caricatures of religion, is alien to most audience's sensibilities. Prometheus touched, lightly, on the subject. No one builds giant stone heads in their bioweapons facilities unless they are divorced from modern scientific secularism. So, the name of the film, "Covenant" raises the possibility of seeing directly or (again) indirectly evidence of a race that had a Religion. Finding out more about their covenant, dressed in Gigeresque motif, and flung into the far reaches of space with mysterious fellow-travellers and inimical, vicious, even sadistic life forms who are part of this pattern, sounds worthwhile to me.

Direct compelling new ALIEN film: skill modifier, Very Difficult

[Tyndmyr]

Ugh, no.

People didn't go to see Prometheus because of the religion...and despite it being a heavy element to the film, it wasn't very coherent. The film as a whole gets lots of stunning shots and cool bits, but it doesn't stitch them together in a way that makes sense. I suppose this is the natural result of bringing in the Lost guy to make your movies. I mean, just as in Cowboys and Aliens, his previous bit, the most religious reveal is...probably the worst part there is about the film.

If the sequel is more exploration of NOT the Aliens that the franchise is, yknow, about, or the evil corporation that's somehow entranced with aliens, and instead is more of "these other guys made black goo, which does whatever the plot requires", then pass.

I mean, maybe we could instead explore what earth looks like under the rule of these corporations, and what happens if they DO manage to drag an alien home for once. 'Cmon, tell me you don't want to watch the worlds of Aliens and Bladerunner collide on screen.

[Ceiling_Squid]

I mean, maybe we could instead explore what earth looks like under the rule of these corporations, and what happens if they DO manage to drag an alien home for once. 'Cmon, tell me you don't want to watch the worlds of Aliens and Bladerunner collide on screen.

So...the Alien universe as depicted by Dark Horse comics, back before Alien 3 and beyond were concieved.

That I can get behind. I want corporate espionage, greed, the military industrial complex, the cynical commodification of the xenomorph threat and its byproducts. A heavy injection of old-school cyberpunk. Strange cults centered around the aliens, the hints of a tyrannical Earthgov.

Granted, some of those comics were poorly-written, paint-by-numbers crap, IIRC. But there were a handful of good stories to tell.

[Donnadogsoth]

Ugh, no.

People didn't go to see Prometheus because of the religion...and despite it being a heavy element to the film, it wasn't very coherent. The film as a whole gets lots of stunning shots and cool bits, but it doesn't stitch them together in a way that makes sense. I suppose this is the natural result of bringing in the Lost guy to make your movies. I mean, just as in Cowboys and Aliens, his previous bit, the most religious reveal is...probably the worst part there is about the film.

If the sequel is more exploration of NOT the Aliens that the franchise is, yknow, about, or the evil corporation that's somehow entranced with aliens, and instead is more of "these other guys made black goo, which does whatever the plot requires", then pass.

I mean, maybe we could instead explore what earth looks like under the rule of these corporations, and what happens if they DO manage to drag an alien home for once. 'Cmon, tell me you don't want to watch the worlds of Aliens and Bladerunner collide on screen.

I can't help but think that subsequent films that don't address higher ideas than survival horror and corporate greed are really just more inessential hijinks. It'll be like Aliens minus Ripley and Newt. Aliens invading Earth, while nice in theory, in practice would suffer from the same lack and be an exercise in overkill, quantity replacing quality.

EDIT: And anyway, we've already seen Aliens invade Earth: it's called AVP: Requiem. Minus the Predators and multiply the Alien numbers by 1000? How is that interesting? Sometimes the dragon cannot be caught.

[Tyndmyr]

I can't help but think that subsequent films that don't address higher ideas than survival horror and corporate greed are really just more inessential hijinks. It'll be like Aliens minus Ripley and Newt. Aliens invading Earth, while nice in theory, in practice would suffer from the same lack and be an exercise in overkill, quantity replacing quality.

EDIT: And anyway, we've already seen Aliens invade Earth: it's called AVP: Requiem. Minus the Predators and multiply the Alien numbers by 1000? How is that interesting? Sometimes the dragon cannot be caught.

The Aliens are not the essential focus. The focus is always on the humans, and their reaction to the threat. Alien and Aliens, in particular, definitely played up the looming threat of the corporation not having their best interests in mind. Exploring why that is the case, and just how much power computers and such have over the humans, and their willingness to sacrifice the latter...that's horror. And it's a form that's not already beaten to death in the four existing films that matter.

AvP is garbage.

[Donnadogsoth]

The Aliens are not the essential focus. The focus is always on the humans, and their reaction to the threat. Alien and Aliens, in particular, definitely played up the looming threat of the corporation not having their best interests in mind. Exploring why that is the case, and just how much power computers and such have over the humans, and their willingness to sacrifice the latter...that's horror. And it's a form that's not already beaten to death in the four existing films that matter.

What you're saying might come true, but Alien: Covenant doesn't look like it will be that. I predict it will either have some thematic depth that builds on Prometheus, as I recommend, or it will be forgettable.

[Tyndmyr]

What you're saying might come true, but Alien: Covenant doesn't look like it will be that. I predict it will either have some thematic depth that builds on Prometheus, as I recommend, or it will be forgettable.

The only thing Prometheus gave us that WASN'T forgettable was the "Prometheus school of running away from things".

That remains hilarious whenever it's used to mock anything, but the movie is otherwise not worth bothering with, rewatching, or remembering. The original quadrilogy, particularly the first two, will be long remembered, I imagine, but Prometheus and the AvP tie-ins...probably not so much.