Character deaths
Has there ever been a movie where more characters idly stood around waiting to be killed in the face of danger? Unreal.
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MovieChat Forums > Alien: Covenant (2017) Discussion > Character deaths
There are a ton of crappy horror movies that do it featuring dumb teenagers. That Sir Ridley Scott is now making movies much like those is really sad.
I'm trying to go for an engaging, funny youtube channel so, if you have the time, take a look. Hope you enjoy what you see. Thanks in advance. A review of the movie here-https://youtu.be/fyYgj2Fpur0
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I didn't particularly like the movie, but I'm wondering which scenes you have in mind.
From what I remember, the real action began when the sick guy was taken to the med bay. If anything, there was waaay too much running around there, rather than thinking about what course of action is best. This panic and lack of analysis was what led to the ship blowing up. So, it was the very opposite of standing idly.
Then there was the attack of the aliens after the ship blew up. People were disorientated, but still there was a lot of shooting and fighting. Androids lost limbs back there. Again, not very idle.
Later, they went to the engineer structure and were told by David that it is safe there. As it turned out, he lied. However, at the time, they had no reason not to believe him. It is not difficult to imagine that having androids lie to people with an intention to cause harm is not something that people would expect. Also, staying out in the open at night, without shelter and with aliens running around would be just plain stupid. So, they followed him.
Then, aliens started to kill them off. They were caught by surprise, though, on account of David's deception. It is also worth remembering that they didn't have military training, so their sub-optimal teamwork is plausible. In fact, if they stood idly in a group, rather than look for each other at some point in the movie, many more could have been survived.
The last few scenes, showing the efforts of the main protagonist, where pretty action-packed, I would say.
Overall, IMO there are many issues with this movie, but I don't think that inaction on the part of the characters is one of them. Off the top of my head, what I didn't like most about this movie was that there was little suspense, little character development, the story was rather unoriginal and boring. Prometheus did better in all those respects, but still not as well as the first two alien movies.
The first guy who died in the ship, while the alien is coming out of him the dumb lady just stood there & watched it come out before she did anything and then it was too fast for her. And while it wasn't stupidity by not doing nothing, it was still complete idiocy when the other bitch went psycho and locked the first one in the medical room.
Also in the field they just kinda watched while that guy was torn up by another alien from the inside.
Later, I forget who it was but he knew David was lying by this time when David led him to the eggs in the cavern and the guy just stood there watching while it hatched and got him. And like I said, he knew by this point that David was not being truthful and probably had bad intentions. Also, Walter knew what was going on with David and instead of taking him out without letting him know he was onto him, he used the classic movie quote of something like, "I can't let you do that," before getting into a fight.
And the final four left back on the main ship didn't think to examine to see if the android with them was David or Walter at the end? No one saw the winner of their fight, not even the audience. Why is it so hard for morons in these movies to check their ships for aliens before they take a shower and leave a planet at the end?
Maybe not all were "idle" deaths but most of them seemed incredibly stupid. And yes, like about every other action movie the jerky camera was awful and I couldn't tell what was going on. I know, it's just a movie. But it was annoying. I actually haven't seen Prometheus yet but plan to soon.
As far as acting stupid goes, I agree with you on all counts. However, I think that the problem here might be much more generalisable.
Notice that for the characters in this movie, by design, the alien is supposed to be something new and unexpected. Thus, the basic mistakes that they make can, in theory, be justified by their shock and unfamiliarity with the alien. This is something that some viewers forget. The majority of the audience, on the other hand, are very familiar with the concept of the alien. What follows is that it might be annoying to see a new set of characters make essentially the same basic mistakes as the previous set of characters, which were also unfamiliar with the alien at the time. Those mistakes could very well fall within the realms of possibility, but since one has seen (more-or-less) the same mistakes being made before, it becomes annoying to see it again.
There is no easy around this problem when making a movie series. Arguably, it would be equally, or more, stupid to see a bunch of colonists act all smart and organised in the face of an unexpected and terrifying alien attack. IMO this was done very well in Alien 2, for example, where (1) the company doubted Ripley's story; (2) still they send a group of well-trained and well-equipped marines; (3) the marines just weren't enough; (4) a series of plausible and unexpected events happened that, again, made the characters desperate (e.g, too many aliens; the plane crashed; the reactor was damaged).
I get your point, but if my buddy is being torn up from the inside, and bloody, and changing color, and looks like he could be contagious with something mortally awful, I'm not going to sit there and see what happens, I'm going to either run or else shoot whatever the hell is coming out of him immediately. I just know that in real life, if I was ever on another planet where everything is unknown, I'm going to be super cautious and observe before interacting a lot. Not just regarding an alien emerging from a human but in terms of touching and breathing everything. Movies aren't perfect but I always like to place myself in their world while watching.
By the way I watched Prometheus last night and while I didn't understand everything completely, I did like it more than Covenant.