Alien: Covenant Early Reactions

[salomonj]

Yeah, gore really doesn't jive well with me the older I get. No thrill, just disgust, or me just feeling indifferent to it, which isn't a nice feeling since watching people getting mutilated and such should be gut-wrenching to watch (no pun intended!) on all levels. It needs to be carefully handled and with great restriction and thought for it to work for me. I really hope that this gore hype we've heard concerning A:C is just hype and hype only. I really hope the movie will spare us frivolous gore.

Yeah, well, hate to burst rain on your parade, but...

Spoiler

This movie has some of the goriest scenes I've ever seen in a film outside of John Carpenter's The Thing. Frivolity with a capital F

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I like The Thing for what it is. That kind of gore just doesn't fit in with the Alien universe I like, even though A:R took a giant leap that direction. Gore also has a tendency to make things feel a little cheesy (in an incredibly morbid kind of way). I mean, the Chestburster sequence in the original is almost too much - it's carefully balancing on the tip of a scale. If it wasn't for the masterful top-notch acting, that legendary scene could've turned into another cheesy pulp sic-fi C-flick schlock moment that only gore fantasist would've appreciated.

Anyways... I haven't seen A:C yet, obviously. I just hope that the gore in the movie is more in the vein of ALIEN than, let's say, A:R or even AVP:R.

I found the gore in the 10 minute A:C clip to be very realistic to what was happening to the characters. If you thought the chestburster scene in the original is almost to much, I'm afraid your going to very much dislike the blood/gore in A:C.

[NickisSmart]

Well it is Ridley scott, he does visuals, and violence better thany anyone

Cameron did a good job in the gore side of things with Aliens, or Carpenter in The Thing. I think Covenant will be a fine addition to that shelf of gory horror film. Elevated, effective, and just as nasty as those films were in the gross-out department.

[BishopShouldGo]

There are only two instances of human blood in Aliens IIRC. Ferro and the chestburst right?

[Ragonk_Force]

There are only two instances of human blood in Aliens IIRC. Ferro and the chestburst right?

Pretty much. All the deaths, and or cacooning victims are off screen

[TizerisT]

I agree. Too many movies contain blood / guns / gore just for the sake of it. You don't need these things to tell a good story whether the genre is action, horror, whatever.
In fact most of the time it just lowers the movie artistically for me.

[MrH]

Will be in attendance at the world premiere tonight, however, embargo doesn't lift for a few days.

I have high hopes for this movie though and am eagerly awaiting being able to review it

[NickisSmart]

I agree. Too many movies contain blood / guns / gore just for the sake of it. You don't need these things to tell a good story whether the genre is action, horror, whatever.
In fact most of the time it just lowers the movie artistically for me.

But to leave gore out of a film intentionally doesn't necessarily elevate it, either.

In regards to Aliens, yeah, you only have two instances of human blood. But you have Ripley's nightmare, with the stretching skin (always gross), a man being burned alive, a guy's face being melted off with acid (much tamer when compared, oddly enough, to the face-melting scenes from Raiders or The Fly 2) and plenty of Android blood when Bishop is killed. Suddenly when we're dealing with "blood" that isn't red, or human, then it's not gross to us? Funny how that works, but it is a form of censorship (think: green blood pixels for the sprites in the T-for-teen versions of DOOM, on the GBA). Still blood, but not human, and not reminiscent of human, so, less offensive, or taboo, or gross. It's white paint, or milk, not blood.

Yet, it doesn't stop Bishop's "death" scene from being totally awesome. Great sound effects, and android gore. Probably my favorite "death" in the series, except Bishop, well, doesn't actually die. Perhaps that's another reason why it's not as vulgar to some? He can't feel pain like we do? It's not a sadistic scene, in that sense?

And then you have the garbage bags filled with maple syrup that constitute the Queen's eggsac, which Ripley pumps full of grenades. Aliens might not be the bloodiest film in the franchise, but it's full of slime, milk, and other fluids. Perhaps it shows some restraint in retrospect considering how runny the slime is on later xenomorph designs, but at the time, when Aliens was new, did it feel like they were using restraint, holding back--or was it meant to actually be what Hudson, in the film, calls "an express elevator ride to hell"? 

Also, in the 2004 commentary on Aliens, Cameron boasted that his version of the chestburster was nastier than Scott's. Hell, you can see it push through the colonist's ribs on its way out of her body. Pretty gnarly.

But you guys have a point, in that many deaths in the film occur off screen. Spunkmeijer, Wierzbowski, Hudson, Burke, most of the colonists, Drake, Deidreitch, Apone, Timmy, Newt's parents-- they all die offscreen. Furthermore, Newt is grabbed, offscreen, when she's in the water. Burke sabotages Ripley offscreen. The colony is destroyed offscreen. It's a good balance of showing us, and letting us imagine.

And it doesn't change the fact that the film is very gory and messy compared to many films that would excise the gore entirely to elevate themselves. It proves handily that a gory film can be a great one.

Will be in attendance at the world premiere tonight, however, embargo doesn't lift for a few days.

I have high hopes for this movie though and am eagerly awaiting being able to review it

Can you tell us if you dug it, with a smiley face, if you did?

[acidreign]

Some apparently positive reactions:

https://twitter.com/kyletague/status/860018290902482944

ALIEN COVENANT: Employs the best parts of PROMETHEUS to build a solid ALIEN film. Just enough tonal cheekiness vs self-seriousness to work.

https://twitter.com/yimmyayo/status/860021949388406784

Alien: Covenant was great!

*added quotes. Hicks.

[Corporal Hicks]

Will be in attendance at the world premiere tonight, however, embargo doesn't lift for a few days.

I have high hopes for this movie though and am eagerly awaiting being able to review it

Video review, I'm assuming? I'll see you down there!

Some apparently positive reactions:

https://twitter.com/kyletague/status/860018290902482944

ALIEN COVENANT: Employs the best parts of PROMETHEUS to build a solid ALIEN film. Just enough tonal cheekiness vs self-seriousness to work.

https://twitter.com/yimmyayo/status/860021949388406784

Alien: Covenant was great!

*added quotes. Hicks.

Fantastic! We've got some more reactions in the reactions thread! 

[Clowndog]

"Just enough tonal cheekiness vs self-seriousness to work."

This is a curious choice of words.

The only thing I can think of that this means is that Walter reacting atonally to the various horrific things going on around him will be played for laughs, even if only in a minor way, with Tennessee taking the reigns of the humour elsewhere.

[NickisSmart]

Well, Ridley is notorious for his sense of humor permeating otherwise-serious affairs. Just look at The Martian, or Matchstick Men. Maybe he's employing some of that trademark humor here, perhaps akin to Parker and Brett? Remember "that was a joke" bit from The Last Supper? Perhaps some "unintentional" comedy from the not-quite-so-human Walter?

[Ballzanya]

^ The leaked footage has Tenessee joking around and saying shit like "sugar tits" and stuff like that, so I'm guessing that constitutes some of the "tonal cheekiness".

[Darth Vile]

But you guys have a point, in that many deaths in the film occur off screen. Spunkmeijer, Wierzbowski, Hudson, Burke, most of the colonists, Drake, Deidreitch, Apone, Timmy, Newt's parents-- they all die offscreen. Furthermore, Newt is grabbed, offscreen, when she's in the water. Burke sabotages Ripley offscreen. The colony is destroyed offscreen. It's a good balance of showing us, and letting us imagine.

And it doesn't change the fact that the film is very gory and messy compared to many films that would excise the gore entirely to elevate themselves. It proves handily that a gory film can be a great one.

I think it was a clever move on Cameron's part to widen the audience for an Alien film. Aliens was much more mainstream and accessible than Alien, and the lessening of the 'gore value', and the increase in action was a big part of that... which isn't meant as an insult, as it was Aliens that gave it the ability to be a franchise.

Anyways... back to Covenant... 😊

[NickisSmart]

Indeed.

I never thought I'd hear the compound word "sugardick" in a triple A-blockbuster. Then again, Scott loves his saucy language though even he has to cut lines to keep studio executives from fainting:

Spoiler

viz. Fassbender's line to Penelope Cruz, "You have the most glorious pussy in Christendom."

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I'm really curious what people think of Tennessee and Ferris, and some of the sexier and more vulgar language in the film (which frankly wouldn't sound out of place at one of my family's family reunions). It's all a question of "does it work, in the film?" Hell, the dialogue in Aliens is totally different than Alien, I think, but, in that film, it works really well. I think, in Covenant, Scott's angling for that improvised, quick-and-dirty approach similar to Alien... except he's being much saucier in this film than in Alien. Alien felt so serious. I just have to ask you guys, when you can respond: Does the levity in Covenant work?

[Clowndog]

I'm perfectly happy with that sort of interpersonal tone between the characters to be happening within the context of the story but it will be something that might be difficult to make sound natural.

A more relaxed and unprofessional interaction between the characters would be expected, and even probably encouraged, in a colonisation mission that was being manned by married couples. They're going to need to create a community on their new world and so keeping it to a purely a working relationship type thing just wouldn't seem right. The crew in Alien were workmates, so while they can be jokey with each other they would still keep each other emotionally at arms length. Same goes for Aliens but with more camaraderie, they were basically colleagues in that film as well but in the military so there would be a more united sense to their interactions.

The real danger, as I said, is it ending up sounding forced. but we wont know if it ends up that way until seeing the film.