Alien: Covenant will take place ten years after Prometheus

Started by 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯, Dec 30, 2015, 06:23:53 PM

Author
Alien: Covenant will take place ten years after Prometheus (Read 34,912 times)

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jan 06, 2016, 09:00:16 PM
Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 06, 2016, 08:48:16 PMCome on guys you can't honestly have wanted Spaihts draft more?

Absolutely. It at least made sense and had characters that weren't total morons.

Indeed. It wasn't perfect but it was certainly stronger than Prometheus.

whiterabbit

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jan 07, 2016, 08:32:33 AM
Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jan 06, 2016, 09:00:16 PM
Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 06, 2016, 08:48:16 PMCome on guys you can't honestly have wanted Spaihts draft more?

Absolutely. It at least made sense and had characters that weren't total morons.

Indeed. It wasn't perfect but it was certainly stronger than Prometheus.
Yea but it was a xeno smorgasbord. Aliens born and slaughtered inside of minutes but hapless humans. How could that possibly advance the franchise? It's been a while since I read though it but I can't see how the fail is any less than Prometheus.

You guys just wanna see those ultramorphs don't yea. >:(


Corporal Hicks

As I said, it wasn't perfect and we've said a few times it needed a good polish. It would have been awesome to see the Ultramorph but my preference of it comes from the fact that it's simply a more coherent script and the characters are better written.

HuDaFuK

Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 07, 2016, 08:50:18 AMYea but it was a xeno smorgasbord. Aliens born and slaughtered inside of minutes but hapless humans. How could that possibly advance the franchise? It's been a while since I read though it but I can't see how the fail is any less than Prometheus.

Every time anyone says they preferred Spaihts script the instant retort is "but the Aliens were too weak!", when we've said literally every time that the script needed tidying up to address that.

But even in it's unpolished state, it's still leagues better than the mess that we got.

whiterabbit

Oh, thought you guys actually meant that you would rather have the Spaihts script as is over Prometheus... wait a minute, by that logic Prometheus script could have been fixed too. So yea it is either or in this hypothetical choice. Lets just say Spaihts script was filmed as is. Would that still be better than Prometheus? Yea I know you guys love that Spaihts script more. So this is a rhetorical question.

Yea not arguing over which script was better as a movie but even tweaking Spaihts script doesn't make it all that more appealing.

HuDaFuK

Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 07, 2016, 09:27:46 AMOh, thought you guys actually meant that you would rather have the Spaihts script as is over Prometheus...

I would. Even as it is it's better.

Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 07, 2016, 09:27:46 AMwait a minute, by that logic Prometheus script could have been fixed too.

But it wasn't.

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jan 07, 2016, 09:30:46 AM
Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 07, 2016, 09:27:46 AMOh, thought you guys actually meant that you would rather have the Spaihts script as is over Prometheus...

I would. Even as it is it's better.

Indeed. Even with its weaknesses, Alien: Engineers is still better than Prometheus. All Prometheus' strengths were visual and they'd come across easily enough. Only difference between the 2 that Prometheus has over Engineers is David - and I wonder how much of that was purely Fassbender? I can't remember what Lindelof really did to the character. 

david8

No doubt Fassbender had a lot to do with it, but the characterization on script was just as interesting as it was portrayed. David's lines, idiosyncrasies and subtleties were made possible thanks to Lindelof's re-write of the character, in the Spaihts script he's just Ash 2.0. It took someone of Fassbender's calibre to bring such a nuanced character to life and I think Lindy deserves credit for it.

Primordial

david8, stop being a guest. I want be able to look at your previous posts, sign up !  ;)

david8

david8

#69
Yeah a bit too busy atm, I'm on my lonesome on some f**ked up planet  ;)

Flexserve

Covenant will feature retired senior engineers? and with all the technological advances... leather sandals?

Corporal Hicks

That's actually an image of the costume designer from the set of Prometheus.

CainsSon

CainsSon

#72
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jan 07, 2016, 09:35:30 AM
Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jan 07, 2016, 09:30:46 AM
Quote from: whiterabbit on Jan 07, 2016, 09:27:46 AMOh, thought you guys actually meant that you would rather have the Spaihts script as is over Prometheus...

I would. Even as it is it's better.

Indeed. Even with its weaknesses, Alien: Engineers is still better than Prometheus. All Prometheus' strengths were visual and they'd come across easily enough. Only difference between the 2 that Prometheus has over Engineers is David - and I wonder how much of that was purely Fassbender? I can't remember what Lindelof really did to the character.

I don't agree that either script was better. As much as I think Lindeloff was right in changing the style of the film away from the traditional Alien stuff and I liked the changes to David's character, I felt the Engineers only worked in the opening scene and that was true of both drafts. Their tech was out-of-universe. It doesn't match the world of Alien. The one thing that did work with their tech though, WAS in Spaihts draft. I hated the reason Weyland wanted to be there (eternal life) in Lindelof's draft, and thought the terraforming tech was a better idea... I also agree with the exclusion of LV426 but think the entire second half of Lindeloff's script was a giant mess. Lindelof was right with thinking I did not just want to see aliens killing people but he was wrong in thinking the Engineers were driving the second half of the script. He woke it up and didn't know what to do with it. There was no sense of wonder because the Engineer did nothing of interest.  Also of note is that in the Spaihts draft the characters were even more cookie-cutter. But overall I liked his sense of reasoning better. In Lindelof's draft the motivations of characters drive the plot up until Weyland and the Engineer are woken up and then they dropped the ball miserably.
In Spaihts draft the motivations of the characters is ruined by making David so villainous.

I can't come down on one side of the fence because the best draft was somewhere in between. Lindeloff got rid of too much and changed things that worked but he also got rid of a lot of the right things and changed NOTABLY the characters, for the better. Also both scripts got things wrong and didn't follow through on the Engineer stuff correctly. I think Spaihts version made the Engineers feel even more tacked on. Neither script integrated the Engineers well and that is the biggest thing Prometheus gets wrong. I wasn't interested in the middle section of either script and the ending of both sucked. The ending just sucked all around, I think.

Overall, I think the problem is simple and present with both versions: There are too many ideas without enough connective tissue. The entire thing needed to be simplified. I think Lindelof simplified some things rightly, and then introduced more things incorrectly.

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: CainsSon on Jan 12, 2016, 06:44:19 PM
I hated the reason Weyland wanted to be there (eternal life) in Lindelof's draft, and thought the terraforming tech was a better idea...

I liked that it was better reasoned in Engineers but I wouldn't have minded it Prometheus had it actually been setup. Like with Spaiht's having the upgrading humanity evidence.

QuoteI can't come down on one side of the fence because the best draft was somewhere in between.
...
Overall, I think the problem is simple and present with both versions: There are too many ideas without enough connective tissue.

That's fair enough and I can really see where you're coming from. I do agree that both versions had some aspects right and others wrong. I just think that Engineer's would have required less work to make it more solid.

CainsSon

CainsSon

#74
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jan 12, 2016, 07:18:59 PM
Quote from: CainsSon on Jan 12, 2016, 06:44:19 PM
I hated the reason Weyland wanted to be there (eternal life) in Lindelof's draft, and thought the terraforming tech was a better idea...

I liked that it was better reasoned in Engineers but I wouldn't have minded it Prometheus had it actually been setup. Like with Spaiht's having the upgrading humanity evidence.

QuoteI can't come down on one side of the fence because the best draft was somewhere in between.
...
Overall, I think the problem is simple and present with both versions: There are too many ideas without enough connective tissue.

That's fair enough and I can really see where you're coming from. I do agree that both versions had some aspects right and others wrong. I just think that Engineer's would have required less work to make it more solid.

I can agree with that. In fact, I think if Lindeloff had only made a few of the changes that he did, namely, having made David less villainous and developing the characters (maybe even a bit more), and limiting a great deal of the facehuggers and been-there-done-that stuff, while keeping the ponderous stuff more in the subtext... I think, basically he made the changes he needed to and then didn't know where to stop. I think having the Engineer DO something strange after he had been woken up, strange the way the opening was strange, I think that was key to making that last act feel in step with the rest of it, and neither of them figured that out. Instead, it was just - SURPRISE! He wants to kill us!! Only, that was as predictable as a chestburster scene getting tacked onto the end.

And what's really most head scratching about PROMETHEUS that the entire first 2/3 of the film seems so filled with strange, interesting, head scratching ideas to make us want more, as the intensity ramps up, and then the entire last quarter of the film, is predicable run of the mill crap.

I hope this film opens with someone saying "This will begin to make things right."

AvPGalaxy: About | Contact | Cookie Policy | Manage Cookie Settings | Privacy Policy | Legal Info
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Patreon RSS Feed
Contact: General Queries | Submit News