Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[Protozoid]

They really are tired complaints. Hating a movie because of one character who is onscreen less than ten percent of the time? Blaming a script you haven't read? These are nitpicks at best. At least the biologist had a motivation to be interested in an extraterrestrial organism. Kane had no such excuse, and the entire Alien series resulted from Kane's decisions. Milburn doesn't even impact the plot. Either condemn all the Alien movies, or realize that criticizing Milburn and Fifield (and Lindelof) is the wrong battle to fight.

Prometheus's problems, imho, come from the editing. It moved very quickly, too quickly for some to accept the premise or the decisions made by the characters, and left a lot of material on the cutting room floor that would have helped the characters and the story work better. They are contorted to structure to focus on a single protagonist, Shaw, when the ensemble approach better served the complex plotline, imo. E sequel then kills of that protagonist and makes the antagonist the central character, making the reediting of Prometheus pointless. Even that is a bit of a nitpick. Overall Prometheus was excellent.

[Jonesy1974]

The really are tired complaints. Hating a movie because of one character who is onscreen less than ten percent of the time? Blaming a script you haven't read? These are nitpicks at best. At least the biologist had a motivation to be interested in an extraterrestrial organism. Kane had no such excuse, and the entire Alien series resulted from Kane's decisions. Milburn doesn't even impact the plot. Either condemn all the Alien movies, or realize that criticizing Milburn and Fifield (and Lindelof) is the wrong battle to fight.

Prometheus's problems, imho, come from the editing. It moved very quickly, too quickly for some to accept the premise or the decisions made by the characters, and left a lot of material on the cutting room floor that would have helped the characters and the story work better. They are contorted to structure to focus on a single protagonist, Shaw, when the ensemble approach better served the complex plotline, imo. E sequel then kills of that protagonist and makes the antagonist the central character, making the reediting of Prometheus pointless. Even that is a bit of a nitpick. Overall Prometheus was excellent.

It's not just those two though. Most of the characters are badly written IMO. Janek, Holloway and Shaw are just as bad.

The editing doesn't help but the characters were just as big an issue.

I still like the film overall though.

[Protozoid]

Holloway isn't badly written. The drinking scene at the billiard table is the most carefully written scene in the entire film. That relationship is the most developed in the story. There were scenes written, and some filmed, that make almost all of the characters well-rounded. He just isn't likeable and the actor was a weak link in an otherwise world-class ensemble of actors. Restore Janek's monologue and he comes into focus as one of the best characters in the series. Shaw is a much more nuanced character in his first film that Ripley was after just Alien. There is a double standard at work, here. Shaw was not given four movies to develop. If she had, she might have had an amazing arc.

All of the Alien movies have characters who exist solely to make poor choices. All of them have characters who are arrogant and will be proven wrong before the end. Shaw had more of a true character arc in one movie than Ripley had in three or four. Being motherly reduced her to a female stereotype and wanting to die isn't a character arc. Sue doesn't evolve, she goes through ups and downs. She didn't fundamentally change like Shaw chose to.

People focus too much on whether characters make mistakes to judge intelligence. In the other Alien movies, wrong equals stupid or evil. That is not a legitimate reason to rank Prometheus below the others.

[Jonesy1974]

Holloway isn't badly written. The drinking scene at the billiard table is the most carefully written scene in the entire film. That relationship is the most developed in the story. There were scenes written, and some filmed, that make almost all of the characters well-rounded. He just isn't likeable and the actor was a weak link in an otherwise world-class ensemble of actors. Restore Janek's monologue and he comes into focus as one of the best characters in the series. Shaw is a much more nuanced character in his first film that Ripley was after just Alien. There is a double standard at work, here. Shaw was not given four movies to develop. If she had, she might have had an amazing arc.

All of the Alien movies have characters who exist solely to make poor choices. All of them have characters who are arrogant and will be proven wrong before the end. Shaw had more of a true character arc in one movie than Ripley had in three or four. Being motherly reduced her to a female stereotype and wanting to die isn't a character arc. Sue doesn't evolve, she goes through ups and downs. She didn't fundamentally change like Shaw chose to.

People focus too much on whether characters make mistakes to judge intelligence. In the other Alien movies, wrong equals stupid or evil. That is not a legitimate reason to rank Prometheus below the others.

I'm not talking about poor decisions though, I can accept them. It's about them behaving in a manner that doesn't sit right with the character.

I agree the billiard table scene is a highlight of the film but the flaw for me is how we arrived at this scene. After being on the planet for only 5 mins and only scratching the surface of discovery this guy chucks his toys out the pram and hits the bottle like a sulky 5yr old. That's poor writing for me.

Janek at one point spots another life form on the monitor and then when it disappears basically just says sleep tight boys I'm off to bed! I mean, really? His disregard for the lost crew members well being is quite astonishing and unrealistic.

I'm not even gonna start on Shaw because we don't have enough hours in the day.

I agree the film has some great actors but the characters are so badly written they don't feel real and that's a problem IMO

[BishopShouldGo]

Holloway isn't badly written. The drinking scene at the billiard table is the most carefully written scene in the entire film. That relationship is the most developed in the story. There were scenes written, and some filmed, that make almost all of the characters well-rounded. He just isn't likeable and the actor was a weak link in an otherwise world-class ensemble of actors. Restore Janek's monologue and he comes into focus as one of the best characters in the series. Shaw is a much more nuanced character in his first film that Ripley was after just Alien. There is a double standard at work, here. Shaw was not given four movies to develop. If she had, she might have had an amazing arc.

All of the Alien movies have characters who exist solely to make poor choices. All of them have characters who are arrogant and will be proven wrong before the end. Shaw had more of a true character arc in one movie than Ripley had in three or four. Being motherly reduced her to a female stereotype and wanting to die isn't a character arc. Sue doesn't evolve, she goes through ups and downs. She didn't fundamentally change like Shaw chose to.

People focus too much on whether characters make mistakes to judge intelligence. In the other Alien movies, wrong equals stupid or evil. That is not a legitimate reason to rank Prometheus below the others.

Thank you. No one is above making a stupid decision, not even scientists in uncharted territory.

And the billiard table scene might be my favorite scene in the Alien franchise. "We made you cuz we could." Perfection!

[bb-15]

Continuing the off topic (for this thread) discussion.

Ok... so thats an excuse?

Vickers hiring the two scientists is an explanation.

Then the movie should explain the viewer that she hired a bunch of idiots.

"Prometheus" does have dialogue which explains Vicker's view of the mission.
- Vickers thought Shaw's / Holloway's hypothesis about the Engineers was nonsense.
- So it turns out that Vickers hired two scientists who thought like she did; who also believed that the Engineer hypothesis was nonsense as shown in the crew briefing scene.

- As for characters in an Alien franchise movie making dumb mistakes, this is part of every Alien film because;
1. A character who does something wrong is a standard horrror movie trope.
2. Why are there characters who misjudge the situation / risks in movies with horror/killers? Because mistakes are often essential to the later deaths of people happening in the story.
It's a basic idea in these kinds of stories.
- And such wrong behavior can spill over to science fiction such as with "Jurassic Park' where 'experts' make one bad move after another.

- As for the plausibility of the behavior of Milburn and Fifield? In our world snake experts can get killed by snakes and airline pilots can get lost because they are distracted. 

Again the movie is too vague on their interests or their relation with Vickers. It would have been better if they had some sort of hidden agenda with vickers or something.

I understand the dislike for the more vague style of the story.
Ridley Scott can do this with his science fiction as he did with "Blade Runner". (Scott sometimes likes to make his SF stories vague so viewers can argue about it,)
Accepting that vague style or not is a personal taste thing.
- Some viewers want the entire story to be crystal clear.
- Others are bored with multiple explanations and want the plot to be more vague.

That dialogue is bat-sht crazy... Specially the way he brought it, and shows how horrid those 2 characters are written.

In a movie some people can act 'crazy' including scientists.
- One idea from the beginning of science fiction is the mad scientist. In SF 'mad' is = to 'bat-sht' crazy.
- In the Alien franchise; with "Alien", the science officer, Ash, does crazy, reckless things (like Kane eating with the crew) which sabotages the secret orders to get the creature to earth.
- With "Alien Ressurection" the scientists do an extremely risky experiment with the xenomorphs which sets them loose and a scientist while trapped by the Queen, tells Ripley bizarre, wacky things.
- Science characters can act this way in SF.

Deleted scene's do not count, since only fanboys seen these

AVPgalaxy is an enthusiast site where some people go over draft scripts in detail, post multiple photos of each film's production and can review every deleted scene (and all other Blu-ray extras).
- So, while you are not interested in that extra stuff, which is fine, there are lots of people here, like me, who are interested.

No. And it does. People should not need a fcking manual trying to watch Prometheus.  Srry...

* It all depends on the personal taste of the viewer.
I also understand that many people dislike "Prometheus" and that's fine with me.
- But on an Alien / Predator fan site like this, with includes the Alien franchise movies, you will find a few people who like "Prometheus" a lot.

Anyway, there is no absolutely correct personal taste.
I'm most willing to agree to disagree and move on.

[Salt The Fries]

They really are tired complaints. Hating a movie because of one character who is onscreen less than ten percent of the time? Blaming a script you haven't read? These are nitpicks at best. At least the biologist had a motivation to be interested in an extraterrestrial organism. Kane had no such excuse, and the entire Alien series resulted from Kane's decisions. Milburn doesn't even impact the plot. Either condemn all the Alien movies, or realize that criticizing Milburn and Fifield (and Lindelof) is the wrong battle to fight.

Prometheus's problems, imho, come from the editing. It moved very quickly, too quickly for some to accept the premise or the decisions made by the characters, and left a lot of material on the cutting room floor that would have helped the characters and the story work better. They are contorted to structure to focus on a single protagonist, Shaw, when the ensemble approach better served the complex plotline, imo. E sequel then kills of that protagonist and makes the antagonist the central character, making the reediting of Prometheus pointless. Even that is a bit of a nitpick. Overall Prometheus was excellent.

Holloway isn't badly written. The drinking scene at the billiard table is the most carefully written scene in the entire film. That relationship is the most developed in the story. There were scenes written, and some filmed, that make almost all of the characters well-rounded. He just isn't likeable and the actor was a weak link in an otherwise world-class ensemble of actors. Restore Janek's monologue and he comes into focus as one of the best characters in the series. Shaw is a much more nuanced character in his first film that Ripley was after just Alien. There is a double standard at work, here. Shaw was not given four movies to develop. If she had, she might have had an amazing arc.

All of the Alien movies have characters who exist solely to make poor choices. All of them have characters who are arrogant and will be proven wrong before the end. Shaw had more of a true character arc in one movie than Ripley had in three or four. Being motherly reduced her to a female stereotype and wanting to die isn't a character arc. Sue doesn't evolve, she goes through ups and downs. She didn't fundamentally change like Shaw chose to.

People focus too much on whether characters make mistakes to judge intelligence. In the other Alien movies, wrong equals stupid or evil. That is not a legitimate reason to rank Prometheus below the others.

My God, what two superbly written posts. I'm in awe and I really agree with you. Actually Holloway is a character who is drawn a lot better than Kane despite John Hurt being a world-class actor by the way.

[BishopShouldGo]

Yeah, Kane was just a slasher victim. We know way more about Holloway. All I remember from Kane is getting facehugged and his brilliant death performance. The rest is just banter and spacesuits.

[SM]

It's more than that, but because he doesn't blather on it's easily missed.

[tleilaxu]

Holloway isn't badly written. The drinking scene at the billiard table is the most carefully written scene in the entire film. That relationship is the most developed in the story. There were scenes written, and some filmed, that make almost all of the characters well-rounded. He just isn't likeable and the actor was a weak link in an otherwise world-class ensemble of actors. Restore Janek's monologue and he comes into focus as one of the best characters in the series. Shaw is a much more nuanced character in his first film that Ripley was after just Alien. There is a double standard at work, here. Shaw was not given four movies to develop. If she had, she might have had an amazing arc.

All of the Alien movies have characters who exist solely to make poor choices. All of them have characters who are arrogant and will be proven wrong before the end. Shaw had more of a true character arc in one movie than Ripley had in three or four. Being motherly reduced her to a female stereotype and wanting to die isn't a character arc. Sue doesn't evolve, she goes through ups and downs. She didn't fundamentally change like Shaw chose to.

People focus too much on whether characters make mistakes to judge intelligence. In the other Alien movies, wrong equals stupid or evil. That is not a legitimate reason to rank Prometheus below the others.

I'm not talking about poor decisions though, I can accept them. It's about them behaving in a manner that doesn't sit right with the character.

I agree the billiard table scene is a highlight of the film but the flaw for me is how we arrived at this scene. After being on the planet for only 5 mins and only scratching the surface of discovery this guy chucks his toys out the pram and hits the bottle like a sulky 5yr old. That's poor writing for me.

Janek at one point spots another life form on the monitor and then when it disappears basically just says sleep tight boys I'm off to bed! I mean, really? His disregard for the lost crew members well being is quite astonishing and unrealistic.

I'm not even gonna start on Shaw because we don't have enough hours in the day.

I agree the film has some great actors but the characters are so badly written they don't feel real and that's a problem IMO

Yeah I agree with most of this. I even thought Janek was part of a Weyland-Yutani conspiracy at some point when watching it for the first time, because it was hard to make SENSE of what was going on.
I didn't really have any problems with Shaw though, it was mostly, like, everybody else.
One of the scenes that keep grating me is when Janek's two co-pilots decide to kamikaze with him. First of all, it seems weird that give a futuristic space-ship they couldn't just use the ship's AI to crash it into the Juggernaut, but I can accept that there has to be a sacrifice, I can look over it, but why on earth are his two co-pilots just willy-nilly giving up their lives for no reason? That part still annoys me so much everytime I watch Prometheus.

[SM]

Janek alerted his crew to the lifeform reading which he believed was a glitch.  Don't see a problem.

Not having anyone monitoring the ground crew for the whole night was a bit dumb though.

[kwisatz]

It's more than that, but because he doesn't blather on it's easily missed.

Ja this essentially. Alien uses a way more nuanced and subtle method when it comes to characterization. Its so much harder to find (pure) stereotypes for the Nostromo crew members, though its not completely impossibe obviously.

Prometheus almost feels COMICesque in this department. It might not be undeliberated though, due to the different kind of audience these blockbusters of today are simply designed to appeal to.

[Jonesy1974]

Janek alerted his crew to the lifeform reading which he believed was a glitch.  Don't see a problem.

Not having anyone monitoring the ground crew for the whole night was a bit dumb though.

I know he says it's a glitch but that's just an assumption on his part, he's just so blasé about it all when they are in an alien environment they know little about and have already seen some weird shit. like you say, he just buggers off and stops monitoring them. It's not so much dumb as just not fitting the character of Janek.

The most frustrating thing about Prometheus is it's almost great. Just a few little tweaks would fix almost every issue in the film.

[SM]

It's a sporadic reading a kilometre away from the Millburn and Fifield.  I don't think it's a big deal for people who aren't aware they're in a horror film.

And I'm not sure it doesn't really fit the character.  He did take off and ram the Juggeraut without warning the other security guys on board. 

[Jonesy1974]

It's a sporadic reading a kilometre away from the Millburn and Fifield.  I don't think it's a big deal for people who aren't aware they're in a horror film.

And I'm not sure it doesn't really fit the character.  He did take off and ram the Juggeraut without warning the other security guys on board. 

Yeah there is that, and Vickers was a bit of a distraction for him and I cant blame him for that really.