Alien Covenant - The unlikeable character(s)

Started by Inverse Effect, Oct 18, 2021, 07:50:04 PM

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Alien Covenant - The unlikeable character(s) (Read 8,664 times)

Inverse Effect

After re watching the movie, The thing that sticks out the most is how bad it seems the movie wants you to dislike the characters. I think the worst offender is the captain.

From the very beginning he comes off as being a prick. Calls himself a man of faith, and yet he doesn't allow for a proper funeral for the previous captain? Like? wtf? And then after watching somebody get their head bitten off, and David literally tell him not to kill the creature, he then proceeds to trust David and stick his head into a giant egg?

I like the movie, but omg the characters are terrible. The only two characters who are likeable and who i can remember the names to are Daniels and Tennessee. Everyone else are just random sacks of meat written to be killed off without any character development.

Kradan

Quote from: Inverse Effect on Oct 18, 2021, 07:50:04 PM
Calls himself a man of faith, and yet he doesn't allow for a proper funeral for the previous captain? Like? wtf?

I think that was the point though. Yes, he's man of faith but he lives in a society where religious people are being looked down on. So he tries to act as a "rational man", to do it "by the numbers". He worries that crew won't take him seriously as a new captain so he tries to assert his leadership right now and there by refusing to arrange for the funeral of late captain so the crew knows that his orders are not to be f**ked with

Quote from: Inverse Effect on Oct 18, 2021, 07:50:04 PM
And then after watching somebody get their head bitten off, and David literally tell him not to kill the creature, he then proceeds to trust David and stick his head into a giant egg?

Even though movie could've done a better job of conveying it, I take it as Oram being still cautious but albeit curious and eager to find out what's going on. And he didn't watch movie Alien - he couldn't expect giant spider creature to jump at his face

[cancerblack]

Quote from: Inverse Effect on Oct 18, 2021, 07:50:04 PM
Daniels and Tennessee

No, they're awful too. The only characters of any worth are both played by Fassbender.

Some Old Dude

And that's fine because they're the only two "characters" the film cares about. It's a valid creative choice, it's just not one I expect would have any particular appeal to most people, which I suspect Ridley knew and didn't care about in the slightest.

Kane's other son

In Alien the only really likeable character is captain Dallas. Parker comes close to stealing the movie but he's still a bit of an asshole and Ripley is by design stiff and remote until the climax.

SiL

The only person I would call unlikeable in Alien is Ash. Ripley just seems sensible.

Some Old Dude

Alien is the only film to make the characters feel like just ordinary people.

PsyKore

Covenant tries to portray most of the crew as ordinary people, like Alien,  but it comes across too forced for the most part. A lot of the banter as they approach the planet, for example, feels off and is even cringy at times. That said, I do still think Oram's character is one of the better ones in the film despite some logic flaws.

Drukathi

Drukathi

#8
Interesting topic. Here are my thoughts. About the worst characters - Daniels, Tennessee and his wife - Faris.

I like Oram. The execution was awkward, but he was right about that the ship repairing is much important than the funeral of nameless captain. Oram also was written  better than Daniels, and was some kind of Shaw's spiritual descendant. But the plot or maybe dumb (as always) suits forced Ridley to made the faceless Daniels mc. She has no personality and, tbh, the actor's play was weak and unconvincing. Tennessee - i'm in rage about this brainless "organism". He is annoying, he made a stupid things, he acts like a jerk. And of course -  Faris. She is a cowardly dumb hysterical life form. She kill Karine, which a better character than F. And she can't kill neomorph. She also blew up the lander. What wrong with people, which sent her to this mission? Even Lambert looks better to compare with Faris.

Kradan

Quote from: PsyKore on Oct 19, 2021, 11:17:17 AM
A lot of the banter as they approach the planet, for example, feels off and is even cringy at times.

Whole "your wife's tits" bit was super-cringe

Quote from: Drukathi on Oct 19, 2021, 12:00:11 PM
And of course -  Faris. She is a cowardly dumb hysterical life form. She kill Karine, which a better character than F. And she can't kill neomorph. She also blew up the lander. What wrong with people, which sent her to this mission? Even Lambert looks better to compare with Faris.

No amount of training could've prepared her to what happened. She saw her colleague vomit blood, she saw some alien creature litterally burrowing its way out of his back.  She didn't "kill" Karine - she tried to stop the infection. Granted, she got sprayed blood all over her face too but I don't think she was capable to think strictly rationally in that moment. And she couldn't kill neomorph 'cause damn thing was too fast and dodging her bullets. She blew up lander once again 'cause she wasn't thinking rationally and wanted to get rid of the damn thing before it gets to her too. She was scared, she panicked. That's it

razeak

I think Alien had all the characters feel the most real. The entire cast was great IMO. Aliens has some fodder characters, but even they felt distinct, save probably Weirzbowski, and Crowe.  The principle cast was excellent.

Drukathi

This explanation catch me for the first time. And I even argued with all people, which called Faris a dumb using your arguments. But with every watching the film I think that Faris was really irritating and pretty stupid.

I call it - Millburn's syndrome. The same situation like with Millburn from Prometheus, when he wants to pat the snake. We can accept context (cut out for some reason), we can even understand his actions without context. But after 167 times it lost all arguments.

[cancerblack]

Quote from: Some Old Dude on Oct 19, 2021, 06:13:11 AM
And that's fine because they're the only two "characters" the film cares about. It's a valid creative choice, it's just not one I expect would have any particular appeal to most people, which I suspect Ridley knew and didn't care about in the slightest.

No disagreement here.

Some Old Dude

Quote from: PsyKore on Oct 19, 2021, 11:17:17 AM
Covenant tries to portray most of the crew as ordinary people, like Alien,  but it comes across too forced for the most part. A lot of the banter as they approach the planet, for example, feels off and is even cringy at times. That said, I do still think Oram's character is one of the better ones in the film despite some logic flaws.

What little we get is fine. But it's crumbs. But if crazy old Ridley was intending to make a movie that was just David and Shaw on the engineer homeworld and then got told by the studio he had to go back to square one, I can feasibly see why he'd brush over all that stuff with the bare minimum.

Mind you I do quite enjoy Covenant, but I half wonder if it wouldn't have been better to let a solid horror director do a more traditional Aliens vs colonists movie on Planet 4 while Ridley did his Prometheus 2 instead of one film trying too hard to please everyone.

BlueMarsalis79

I wanted that film so desperately, I wanted it to force a interesting script out of such a confined scenario, alas it is not to be.



*Huge sigh*

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