Alien: Covenant Has Wrapped Filming!

Started by Corporal Hicks, Jul 15, 2016, 09:53:32 AM

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Alien: Covenant Has Wrapped Filming! (Read 34,441 times)

CainsSon

CainsSon

#75
Quote from: Mr. Clemens on Jul 19, 2016, 07:52:36 PM
Quote from: Scorpio on Jul 19, 2016, 05:19:04 PM
I hope Waterston returns for sequels.  I'd rather see more of her than old Ripley or a grown up Newt.  From what I've heard, she's a well respected actress, even though I haven't seen any of her films.

She may just be the biggest surprise of Covenant.

Turns out I saw her in 'Manhattan Romance' a few weeks ago on Netflix without realizing who she was. She was fantastic. Highly recommended film, too. My enthusiasm for A:C just spiked in a major way.  ;D

I saw her in QUEEN OF EARTH and that PYNCHON adaptation, I can't recall the name of for whatever reason. She is exceptional. Very good with subtlety.

PRJ_since1990

Again, curious to see how this film will pan out. As fans, let's not put a schism between the Ripley lovers and haters. Everyone IS getting their wish... more Alien movies, with the premise of Blomkamp's Alien being a fitting end to Ripley's story while Ridley's films give us a lead up to Alien with (hopefully) memorable characters.

A strong female lead has been a staple of this series, even carried over to the AVP films. Don't expect much to change as of now, but do give the strong male support characters their due credit. Fassbender was great, love or hate Prometheus. Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson, Charles Dance and Charles Dutton are all very admirable and memorable in their respective roles. Ron Perlman...

CainsSon

CainsSon

#77
Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jul 19, 2016, 05:57:09 PM
Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Jul 19, 2016, 05:18:36 PMIf you want to have a strong female lead, bring back Ripley.

The constant, slavish devotion to Ripley is the worst thing that's happened to the series lately. They could really benefit from moving on and doing something different.

How did you like AVP, AVP-R and Prometheus? As of wrapping on this, COVENANT is the 4th entry in the franchise (or 2nd if you don't count AVP stuff, like I don't) without Ripley. People keep saying do something different without Ripley but it has yet to really work. Even Prometheus, which I like a lot more than most, struggles to find characters the audience invests in to the degree we invest in Ripley. I honestly never felt that connection to Hicks either. Maybe Newt just cause she clearly lived through some crazy shit (even more than Ripley really).

I could argue that there has yet to be a straight forward film Alien film without Ripley, but I'm not gonna lie, I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is they wrote themselves into corners. Frustrating corners for fans.
I think the solution is to wrte an overarching sequence for sequels that begin with some sort of continuation, and end of Ripley's story.
Her inclusion, at this point, unless Covenant is remarkably received, is the most reliable direction, sans A:R. And even the exception proves the rule there since she is one of the only good things about A:R.
I know people will say her inclusion in AR was ridiculous, and they'd be right, but try and imagine how terrible that film would be WITHOUT Ripley. Yikes.

BishopShouldGo

Considering half of the movies with Ripley suck, her inclusion or exclusion is not the problem. Good director. Good script. That's all you need. And easier said than done.

Do AvP and AvPR truly count? They really don't. They suck too much to count. And Shaw differs so so much from Ripley. All they share is a gender. Different goals and personalities.

XENOMORPHOSIS

Noticing the debate about the idea of giving Alien a male protagonist and the possibility of having a female protagonist in the Predator series, well as long as it doesn't lead to the fiasco of the 2016 Ghostbusters  :-

BishopShouldGo

There is no debate...the gender of the character doesn't matter. Story story story.

windebieste

Exactly.  'ALIEN' was originally written for any of the 7 characters to be either gender.  Imagine what a headf*ck a female Ash would have added to the movie?

Story, story, story.  Good writing will bring good characters.   Cliched and tired character tropes avoided, all the better.

-Windebieste.

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: AlienĀ³ on Jul 19, 2016, 04:13:17 PM
UPDATE WITH PHOTO!

https://twitter.com/AlienAnthology/status/755432036073140224

"Filming has wrapped. The next phase begins."



I wasn't far off in my prediction. I thought we'd see something the 18th, we get it the day later on the 19th.  :P

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Jul 19, 2016, 04:16:02 PM
Nice, Waterston reminds me a lot of Aliens Ripley.

Yeah, definitely getting some Ripley in Aliens vibe off that picture. I think it's the tank-top and weapon though.

Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Jul 19, 2016, 04:58:47 PM
Literally, every Alien-related film has been plagued by some sort of Ripley wannabe.  Clearly a strong female lead is part of the essence of an Alien film.  We need a film that actually brings back the real Ripley such as Blomkamp's Alien.

It's not just the films, it's the tie-ins too. The series is too bogged down in its connection to Ripley. There's a whole other universe out there. I really wish they'd stop trying to use Ripley or Ripley-alikes. It's about time we moved on from that. It's becoming a huge issue for the series.

Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jul 19, 2016, 05:11:52 PM
It came up in the podcast we did the other day, but they should really kill Waterston off in this. The female survivor trope needs to be switched up for a change.

I still hope this will be the case. Change things up! Though given it being a trilogy...I doubt it'll happen. :-\

Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Jul 19, 2016, 05:18:36 PM
It's not that the female lead role needs to be switched up.  It's that the Alien films need to stop being a self-parody.  If you want to have a strong female lead, bring back Ripley.  There's nothing like the real thing.  And then free the other films of the yoke of the strong female lead so they can explore a new originality.

We weren't talking necessarily making the lead a man but making it so the Ripley-alike isn't automatically the survivor. It's becoming far too predictable.

Quote from: CainsSon on Jul 20, 2016, 12:57:34 AM
How did you like AVP, AVP-R and Prometheus? As of wrapping on this, COVENANT is the 4th entry in the franchise (or 2nd if you don't count AVP stuff, like I don't) without Ripley. People keep saying do something different without Ripley but it has yet to really work.

All of which tried to have Ripley-likes. All 3 films attempted to go for strong female leads. It wasn't that they didn't work because they weren't Ripley, it's that they didn't work because they were poorly written/cast/performed. Weaver and Ripley's inclusion doesn't make it an autowin. We have Alien 3 and Resurrection to prove that. Now, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Alien 3 but it's not a good film. There's stuff in Resurrection I like but it's not a good film either.

Quote from: windebieste on Jul 20, 2016, 03:58:24 AM
Exactly.  'ALIEN' was originally written for any of the 7 characters to be either gender.  Imagine what a headf*ck a female Ash would have added to the movie?

Story, story, story.  Good writing will bring good characters.   Cliched and tired character tropes avoided, all the better.


And that wasn't even done for any deep meaning other than "they'd never see that coming!" I don't want to see it coming in Covenant or the other films! Give me a well written, well performed and well directed film, don't give me tropes.

P1NK8C1DBOOTS

CAN NOT WAIT!!!!! I personally loved Prometheus so I'm excited to see where this goes....

CainsSon

Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Jul 19, 2016, 05:18:36 PM
It's not that the female lead role needs to be switched up.  It's that the Alien films need to stop being a self-parody.  If you want to have a strong female lead, bring back Ripley.  There's nothing like the real thing.  And then free the other films of the yoke of the strong female lead so they can explore a new originality.

We weren't talking necessarily making the lead a man but making it so the Ripley-alike isn't automatically the survivor. It's becoming far too predictable.

Quote from: CainsSon on Jul 20, 2016, 12:57:34 AM
How did you like AVP, AVP-R and Prometheus? As of wrapping on this, COVENANT is the 4th entry in the franchise (or 2nd if you don't count AVP stuff, like I don't) without Ripley. People keep saying do something different without Ripley but it has yet to really work.

All of which tried to have Ripley-likes. All 3 films attempted to go for strong female leads. It wasn't that they didn't work because they weren't Ripley, it's that they didn't work because they were poorly written/cast/performed. Weaver and Ripley's inclusion doesn't make it an autowin. We have Alien 3 and Resurrection to prove that. Now, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Alien 3 but it's not a good film. There's stuff in Resurrection I like but it's not a good film either.

Quote from: windebieste on Jul 20, 2016, 03:58:24 AM
Exactly.  'ALIEN' was originally written for any of the 7 characters to be either gender.  Imagine what a headf*ck a female Ash would have added to the movie?

Story, story, story.  Good writing will bring good characters.   Cliched and tired character tropes avoided, all the better.


And that wasn't even done for any deep meaning other than "they'd never see that coming!" I don't want to see it coming in Covenant or the other films! Give me a well written, well performed and well directed film, don't give me tropes.
[/quote]

My point is that Ripley is reliable. She sells tickets. Her return sells tickets and it pleases fans. Of course ANYTHING with ALIEN in the title sells tickets and while I like Prometheus and am excited about Covenant, I would take a Ripley led film, on par with ALIEN 3 over those films ANY DAY.  I do not think PROMETHEUS is as good as ALIEN 3, apart from maybe a technical, film-craft perspective. I find ALIEN 3's use of subtext, art direction, score, Sigourney's performance and Fincher's direction to be the best in the franchise. Though I agree the script is a huge problem.
The point I am making is you already have films without Ripley. The AVP films - I don't count, but PROMETHEUS doesnt attempt to recreate Ripley in Shaw and people hate that film. Same goes for AVP 1. We already have films without Ripley and people don't like those either. 
How can we say, in the same breath, that Covenant and Prometheus don't excite you, but we dont want Blomkamp's film with Ripley because we prefer they move on without Ripley next. Thats a contradiction. They've moved on without her already.
If you have specific things you want to happen in the script, then just say, "I dont care about Ripley or Engineers, just give me more Colonial Marines and things blowing up." That's perfectly legit.
This was all in response to whether Blomkamp's Alien is worth getting excited for. And I don't think that the argument works to say move on without Ripley. We already did. Covenant is the 2nd film, at least, without her. Imagine A:R without her. That would be 600x worse than it is now. I stand by my statement that Ripley is the only interesting thing in that film.

Spidey3121

Spidey3121

#85
Ripley is reliable? The numbers disagree. Adjusted for inflation, each Alien film grossed less than the prior installment. Prometheus slots in third, & even AVP finishes ahead of Resurrection. That's not to say her return couldn't boost interest. Audiences love nostalgia! I disagree with Sigourney's sentiments however, that Ripley needs an ending. Alien 3 offered a perfect 1. No, it wasn't happy, but why does it have to be? I'm sure casual audiences would be willing to ignore it's existence though, but as well loved as Aliens was, or still is, I don't know how much interest they would have in a direct sequel 30-35 years later.

I liked Prometheus. It had it's flaws, but overall, I thought it was an ambitious film, & a good 1. I'm perfectly fine with FOX giving it's sequel priority over Alien 5. It has the chance to offer us something new, whereas I feel Blomkamp's film would run the risk of being a retread of Aliens. Ripley had her time, & I don't feel her character is essential to making a good Alien film. As mentioned by others, good story telling is.

Scorpio

Quote from: Spidey3121 on Jul 25, 2016, 01:27:44 PM
Adjusted for inflation, each Alien film grossed less than the prior installment.

That's true, and Alien 1979 didn't have any 'A-list' stars, it's major selling point being that it was a high concept, big budget sci-fi film in the wake of Star Wars.

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