MovieChat Forums > Alien: Covenant (2017) Discussion > Surprisingly I enjoyed this much more th...

Surprisingly I enjoyed this much more than Prometheus (Spoilers)

posted 7 years ago by [deleted]
18 replies | jump to latest

It's far from perfect, probably coming in at around the Alien: Resurrection level of enjoyment but it was vastly superior to Prometheus in its execution and delivery of a story.

Flaws I'd have to point out are that the Engineer world seems like a very friendly place compared to what we saw in Prometheus on that moon base.

As they have a large docking station in the centre of one of their cities they must have more ships out there doing whatever it is they are doing and so expect some sort of revenge from them in the future. How far do they go when they're off world and for how long?

They don't seem to have evolved at all since they birthed life on Earth 4 billion years ago (Or whatever).

James Franco's character seemed utterly pointless. Did he get a cameo because he's a fan of the franchise or what?

If David engineered the pods with Facehuggers in them, how did that ship with them as cargo end up being fossilised on LV 426?

If the Prometheus spent 2 years, 4 months, 18 days getting to its destination and was apparently lost it would take the same to get to their location to verify and same amount to head back to Earth to state that information. That's 7 years and a month in total waiting for an investigatory ship's return and yet this film was set ten years after Prometheus (December 5th 2104 to be precise, as compared to Prometheus' December 25th 2093 - January 1st 2094). David posing as Walter leaves a message at the end of the movie which states that if the message reaches the network is should be heard on Earth in 1.36 years. Supposing the message can somehow travel at the same speed as the ship (Faster that light) that means 8 years and 5 months have passed if an investigative ship was immediately sent out when Prometheus didn't arrive back on Earth on time. This puts the Covenant ship as having set of for 1 year and 7 months prior to the events of the movie. Placing "Paradise" closer to Earth than LV 223. Why didn't they recognise the Juggernaut ship?

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Perhaps they didn't send a rescue/investigation ship out - maybe Old Man Weyland kept the location of LV 223 to himself, Janek and Vickers so that he could patent his findings for himself - but why then would Elizabeth Shaw's name and indeed the name of the Prometheus be know to Walter?

I don't remember Shaw wearing dogtags in Prometheus, just that crucifix her dad gave her.

What happened to Daniels' nail necklace?

What's with all the xenos posing like Jesus across various scenes?

David's worked out flares and sonics use on xenos, has pictures of Shaw on papyrus and xeno like butterflies pinned in boxes, carved a recorder or two and yet only has sheers for a hair cut and buffed copper for a mirror?

Why didn't they send pups down to the planet instead of people?

Helmets and spacesuits would have halted this film in its tracks.

The pilot of the first lander got sprayed with blood from the backbuster xeno, she should have kept herself in quarantine or at least let out the pastor's wife too.

The sex scene in the shower seems like an excessive waste of water for a resource limited ship like the Covenant.

The CGI was guff.

On a happier note though, at least the crew didn't have to get back into their cryposleep tubes and do their job protecting 2000 colonists as that would have been really annoying.

The noise drowning out as the air escaped from the air locker was a nice touch.

It set up itself up for a sequel that I'd be willing to go and see.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Reserved for later inclusions.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Also reserved for further additions.

[–] Gastonian (946) 7 years ago

reserved for further studio plant propaganda.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Juicy!

Tell me, how do you get money from studios for propagandising?

It's just that I'm pretty sure Fox would try and bill me for my 5 year long attack on the piece of trite that was Prometheus and how I've belittled this movie thoroughly prior to seeing it from a cam copy for free.

You seem to know better though and so, like Dolph Lundgren in Universal Soldiers, I'm all ears [smile]

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

You're accusing Houdini of being a fox shill??? 😂 I just met the guy and I know thats fucking hilariously ridiculous 😂

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Oh shid son!

You just backed up someone ol' Gastonian here doesn't like, that must mean you're a shill too!

*Banjo at the ready*

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzae_SqbmDE 😂

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Now you're talkin'!

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

As an alien movie, it's fine. As Prometheus sequel it's dog shit. You've obviously noted the very obvious flaws with character stupidity. Did war of the worlds teach us nothing? The time line is super shagged. Ignoring everything else(as the writer obviously expects us to) the movie takes place 20 years before alien. The fossilised remains of the engineer/spacejockey don't have enough time to be there. Fossilisation takes 10,000 years so it's not even close. Add to that there was a symbol in Prometheus that looked like everybody's favourite xenomorph. How did it get to be on a mural on lv223 if they weren't created until David got his hands on their goo?

There's only one way of saving this that I can think of, and that's that David found a blueprint to making the xeno. Xeno could have been made be the engineers years before, found them to be too dangerous and abandoned the project. David finds the records and then follows the instructions. It could also follow that the engineers made us as part of that project and that's why they were coming back to kill us.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I'm prepared to imagine that whatever happened on LV 426 might be sped up by environment elements we don't yet know of and so the 10K years it would normally take for fossilisation to take place on Earth could have happened a lot sooner (Especially to an untrained eye) but that still leaves us with the Prometheus mural which clearly shows our friendly neighbourhood xeno being around for at least 2k years prior to their landing on LV 223 which means xenos existed in the form we know from previous movies at that point.

Let's not even bring AvP into this where they've already found their way to Earth whilst Engineers were still visiting.

Another issue I think could be important is that David seems to want to rebel against his creators, this finds its way to Alien: Resurrection when Call talks about some models burning their modems. Personally I like it being part of the story but it will "Alienate" (Pardon the pun) some from the concept as that's seen as a weaker Alien movie by the majority.

As for the timeline, they're going to need someone who can really think outside of the box to pull it back together after the nonsense that was Prometheus. I think A:C did half of it alright but there's still a ways to go which a competent writer could have dealt with in one movie with high hopes for a sequel.

Let's see if Fox thinks throwing good money after bad will be a worthwhile cause after this has done it's DVD/Blu-Ray sales.

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

Well there is one other thing about fossilisation that we haven't touched on. And that's that fossils come from the ground, I believe the word fossil means dug up. Could be wrong about that though.

So if fossilisation can only occur in the ground, then it means Dallas was just a fud who didn't know what he was talking about lol. I can't remember exactly what he says, he could have said it "looks" like a fossil or something like that.

On the subject of avp, that's thankfully those movies aren't canon so we can give them the finger and it ignore them lol.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I think Dallas was talking out of his arse personally.

As for AvP - the rights to it are, and still are to this day, owned by Brandywine productions and so any inclusion of them in a film are canon to my mind. It's not fan fiction but a proper licensing of an intellectual property from its overseers.

Not comfortable I'm sure but that's what happens when you whore your goods around as if they hold any weight in reality.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Wasn't there a suggestion in Prometheus that the Engineers on LV 223 were all but wiped out by xenomorphs?

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

There's a symbol on a mural that looks like an alien. You could say that looks like a deacon, but the deacon still came from a human. So I think the only think that can possibly make sense is the following:

Millions of years ago a group of engineers came up with the idea to create the perfect organism. To accomplish this the broke down their own DNA and spliced it with different developing eco systems throughout the galaxy or maybe even the whole universe. So at some point the engineers realised they would have to make us as part of their master plan. So they come here and seed life on earth. Once it developed to a certain level they visit us and take people back to the the weapons factory on lv223. That's why theres a record of them visiting us throughout history and pointing it where they were taking people. With experiments they make a xenomorph. Maybe at this point they the ship out the eggs to somewhere for some unknown reason. Maybe one of those ships crashes on lv 426.

At some point they realise the mistake they made in making such a formidable creature they decide to kill it and all the ingredients, which includes us. As they are doing so the creatures break free and kill the engineers before they can launch the ship to destroy us.

The Prometheus arrives blah blah blah. Shaw and David leave for the engineers home world. David reads everything about the engineers and comes across the plan to make the alien. David appreciates the alien for its perfection and sees it as his obligation to make something better than himself which is in keeping with the what has come before. Engineer, human, android....

Now at this point there could be two reasons why he kills the engineers on the planet. It could be he read something about them that he didn't like, or it could be that he just wanted a great amount of biological material to start work on his "masterpiece". Whatever the reason he drops the goo.

To be continued....

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 7 years ago

One of those engineers ripped his head off as soon as it met him, didn't it? Maybe he killed them all simply out of spite because of that.

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

could have been, but in th opening scene of covenant david makes the point that he is superior to humans, and since humans made him, so it follows that if engineers made humans then they must be inferior to humans. The head ripping off would have played a part in much the same way that wayland and the other crew memebers of the prometheus treating him like shit would have played a part. Its about him not getting his deserved awe for being so superior. Like a kid at school with the coolest back pack getting bullied. David resents this, and resent s inferior life that treats him like hes a slave.

[–] Dallas (304) 7 years ago

Why he kills shaw is lost on me. There's only one reason why he might kill her and that to make her immortal like him in the DNA of the alien. Maybe?

And that's us all caught up with covenant. Now he goes off on an 8 year experiment binge to perfect his creation. What happens next is anyone's guess. If the crashed ship on lv426 isn't from the engineers ship, then it could be that in the next movie David comes across a new crew, or maybe some of the crew of the covenant wake up to fight David. At the end of that movie David is on his way back to earth with all the eggs he makes from the colonists. Fuck knows where he gets another engineer ship from, but he does. The stars of the next movie manage to make the ship crash, the end, the beginning of alien.

So there you go, over simplified version of events that could possibly make sense.