The numerous problems of A:C >>> meaty posts on the 1st page

[windebieste]

The splitting up stuff gets on my nerves and renders characters to slasher film cutouts.

You have two hostiles you know about running around that killed people already that you unloaded POINT BLANK ROUNDS INTO and couldn't bring down and you go wander around alone. 

I don't understand why this is a problem.  The whole team stayed together as a group during the entire night encounter with the Neomorph pair - Daniels even made sure that Oram joined them after witnessing the lander be destroyed.  David escorts them to his refuge - and they still travel as a group - to what they believe is a safe place.  With a big ass door.  ...and no windows.  Which means they're effectively inside a fortress. 

So it's perfectly reasonable for them to assume they were safe.

Safe enough to wander about the temple freely, alone.  They're not watching the movie.  They don't know a Neo is going to scale the balcony, or that David is a nutter, or that a nest of Alien eggs lies in waiting.  They're effectively inside a bunker, secure and safe from what they believe to be wild animals that can't get inside.

-Windebieste.

[Paranoid Android]

With a big ass door.

You mean the round thing David barely touches in order to open, which nobody actually bothers to close?

To quote Hicks: "I feel safer already".

So it's perfectly reasonable for them to assume they were safe.

In Aliens, when the characters were hiding in fear for their lives, they:
1. Got every map they could get their hands on in order to be familiar with the place they're hiding in.
2. Barricaded every possible entrance to the complex they could find.
3. Assumed the aliens might get in anyway, so they installed sentry guns at key junctions.
4. Assumed the aliens might get past the sentrys as well, so they had Hudson and Vasquez patrolling the complex with motion trackers and constant communication.
5. Monitored the area with security cameras.
6. Still didn't assume they were safe.

[Highland]

No reason for Daniels to suspect Walter was David.  Maybe she did have a slight suspicion, but she's too busy fighting aliens.  She does check out his hand.

As for people complaining about it being an obvious twist:  "duh".

Apart from David cutting his hair to look exactly like Walter and not seeing David die, sure.

I'm fine with the badie ending if David doesn't gloat about it, why would he bother?

Also if they wanted Daniels to be Ripley, then no way Ripleys getting in that sleep tube.

[Olde]

I'm fine with the badie ending if David doesn't gloat about it, why would he bother?

Oh, you mean why does David, an android, express human emotions? Yeah, that certainly couldn't be one of the major problems with this film. Not one bit...

[Corporal Hicks]

My main problem with the movie comes from the Alien's inclusion. You can really feel that the movie is a mash-up of Prometheus and "quick, let's Aliens into the mix to placate everyone!" It doesn't feel like it's done with love at all.

[Alien³]

Oh, you mean why does David, an android, express human emotions? Yeah, that certainly couldn't be one of the major problems with this film. Not one bit...

Thats the point, right?

David resents being made too human-like and humans are disturbed by his human traits.

[Olde]

David resents being made too human-like and humans are disturbed by his human traits.

Except an android can't feel resentment because it's a human emotion. Unless, as I said in another post, we're just going to take the Johnny 5 approach and say he can now feel love, joy, excitement, anger, and all that for no reason other than just because.

My main problem with the movie comes from the Alien's inclusion. You can really feel that the movie is a mash-up of Prometheus and "quick, let's Aliens into the mix to placate everyone!" It doesn't feel like it's done with love at all.

I don't think it would've been as bad if it weren't clearly used to answer a question that nobody wanted an answer to, which in turn cheapens its mysticism and appearance in a much better, classic movie whose influence knows no bounds.

[Corporal Hicks]

I don't think it would've been as bad if it weren't clearly used to answer a question that nobody wanted an answer to, which in turn cheapens its mysticism and appearance in a much better, classic movie whose influence knows no bounds.

Had it been something more in line with the concept of them being some ancient tool of destruction, engaging in warfare on some Giger-esque landscape, I really wouldn't have minded being shown the history of the Alien.

[Olde]

Had it been something more in line with the concept of them being some ancient tool of destruction, engaging in warfare on some Giger-esque landscape, I really wouldn't have minded being shown the history of the Alien.

Same. I don't discount the possibility that a history of the alien could've been cool, just what we got didn't cut it imo. I think that what you suggested could've been cool.

[Highland]

My main problem with the movie comes from the Alien's inclusion. You can really feel that the movie is a mash-up of Prometheus and "quick, let's Aliens into the mix to placate everyone!" It doesn't feel like it's done with love at all.

Basically, most people thought the Neos were a perfect cover. For me the Alien reveal should have been the end of the last movie in the prequels, but perhaps the people involved sensed this might be a last outing.

We should have been leaving the cinema with that "whoa! so that's how it happened" and not "ah...so that's how it happened"

That's twice now Scott or the writers couldn't help themselves. First time round it was the completely pointless Deacon scene.

[Jonesy1974]

My main problem with the movie comes from the Alien's inclusion. You can really feel that the movie is a mash-up of Prometheus and "quick, let's Aliens into the mix to placate everyone!" It doesn't feel like it's done with love at all.

Basically, most people thought the Neos were a perfect cover. For me the Alien reveal should have been the end of the last movie in the prequels, but perhaps the people involved sensed this might be a last outing.

We should have been leaving the cinema with that "whoa! so that's how it happened" and not "ah...so that's how it happened"

That's twice now Scott or the writers couldn't help themselves. First time round it was the completely pointless Deacon scene.

I think I would have preferred that as well. My only issue with Covenant was the last third feeling rushed and crammed in. That feeling isn't as strong after repeat viewings but that was my gut feeling the first time. It felt like they were edging the bets to keep the story self contained in case it ended up being the last one rather than being the first part of bigger story.

[Hide]

Opening


David, is in the details




David looks too much like Walter and not like his former self in Prometheus.








He looks older and heavier than Prometheus.
This confuses the audience and takes away the illusion that this is an artificial person.
You have to force your self to believe that this is an Android and not an actor that is getting older.
Fassbinder should had lost some weight and put on some make up to look
younger like David from Prometheus.





Many many years later after David is booted... The Androids look exactly like
this prototype of David in the opening scene of A:C, with the skin emulating a man
in his late 30s. Walter is also having the exact same weight and hairstyle with the first model.





The changing of David's hairstyle in Prometheus is probably there to support the idea that
David has a changing personality.

But the message isn't clear and the audience has to force themselves to believe
they are watching an Android and not an actor that simply got older with the years. 


We also see that from this cut


to this


Walter has put on his hood. Why? Why is he emulating a human behavior when
no human is near him? What is the message that the director wants to communicate?
That Walters are cool? Is this a reason an AI is pretending to be cool
when he is alone? Again, there is no feeling that he is an artificial person no matter
how hard Fassbinder tries to make his movements subtly mechanical.





MUTHER

Here MUTHER's voice sounds somehow sympathetic and not cold and terrifying.
What's the point of this change? How the director want us to feel?
Does he want us to have in mind that cool Walter has another cool AI to chit-chat? 
Is this a movie about how cool is to travel in space?






Colonists




We don't see the vast number of colonists that are supposed to be in the ship to care for them.
All we see is about 40 of them for a very small amount of time. A panoramic view of all of them
could have worked a lot better to care later for their lives.









Embryos.




Seeing the embryos in this form, makes us feel that they are completely expendable.
We don't care for them that much. What the director wants? To care for them or not to care?
If he wanted us to care for them then they should have been bigger and almost look like babies.
Seeing embryos in this form we feel that humans don't matter that much. Humans are expendable.

Fine, but why should we care later in the movie for their lives?
What the director wants? To care, not to care or to fear a future that human life doesn't matter?



More to come...

[SM]

Walter wears a hoodie, Muthur talks (she did have lines in Alien), and we didn't see enough colonists...?

[Jonesy1974]

OK, I'm confused about the colonists point? we see all the colonists who are not in Cryo-sleep, am I missing something here?

I didn't have an issue with how Fassbender looked in the film either, I watched Prometheus a few days before hand and at no point did I think wow he looks so different.

[SM]

We're told multiple times how many colonists there are.  Showing them all may have made for a nice rip-off of Avatar, but it wouldn't add anything.  We get a sense of how many there are at the end where we see seemingly endless chambers of cryotubes.