Covenant, a "jumping off" point/new horizons?

[Magegg]

It could be rather disheartening to have the original creator of Alien to start doing things sometimes we don't agree with or feel don't fit with the series.

Personally, before Covenant I was under the idea that the whole Alien movie series (aside from AVP, of course, which was always a spinoff) was a more or less consistent series, and to be true I think there was an easy way to fix what I didn't like (namely, the retcon 'Alien 5' movie proposed by Blomkamp) to be more or less perfect.

But Covenant has been my sort of "jumping off" point in the sense I think I can't take seriously the movie continuity anymore. Mostly because of the clusterf they're doing with the mythos, changing at every moment the features and effects of the xenovirus, xeno's life cycle and their more than confusing 'origin' (the Deacon, the neoxenos, the classic xeno, it's all just confusing now).

Sadly, because of this being Ridley and because it doesn't follow such a strict continuity (and the first two movies) I don't think this could be retconned/'alternate-universed'/rebooted in a way it gets back to rails (IMO).
I can no longer take these movies seriously seeing all their inconsistencies, it rather makes me separate them even more to form my own headcanon.

The only good part of this is that, as I'm still a big fan of the franchise, it encourages me to do more research and reading about other materials, such as the novels, video games and comics (I loved the first Aliens comic volumes) to strengthen my preferred headcanon. I'm about starting with the reading of Fire and Stone. It's probably a better choice than spending years ranting or crying about the loss of the film series.
So, this might be a loser for the movie series (which I'm still going to watch and enjoy, but not to take seriously) but I'm still 100% on board with the franchise.

Anyone else feels this way after Covenant?

[whiterabbit]

Totally love pretty high brow fantasy/horror... even if it sort of f**ks up 30 years of assumptions.

[kwisatz]

My biggest gripe is how uninspired this film feels, starting with its premises.

Prometheus was endlessly flawed but you could feel the creative work that was put into the finished product. I feel that a 155-165 min cut would improve this film tremendously. Shaw maybe was sort of a woodcut-like character but Rapace managed to make her likeable and i somehow was engaged in her stony journey.

A:C feels like a movie with a script that was finished in under two months (from scratch) and we all know Ridleys work ethic. Some say its economical but you can also call it sloppy. And today in my mind he just doesnt have the creative capability any more that out of this sloppiness come moments of chaotic genius. More like a random mess. And this gets increased by the decision (i think its really FOX pulling the strings here) to get as far away from Prometheus and as close to Alien as possible. This just messes things up further to the point where you cant even call Prometheus and A:C connected films any more.

So here you have your random scifi horror shocker with nothing to add to your life than stuff you already seen regurgitated on screen directed by someone whos used to make 10 films in 5 years and thinks quality is no question of time. This may have worked when Scott was working on stand alone movies and was younger than 65, but trying to build up a whole franchise just takes more time (the story groups working for the Disney franchises etc.) and it demands a more more careful approach when it comes to things like visual continuation, story/character developement etc. Its really no surprise A:C is super f+++ up in this department, because there basically is no department.

I really appreciate that you try to give this topic a positive spin with the "the new horizons"-angle. I can say as a fan im desperately in need of something like that because thinking about A:C frustrates me on a SW prequel level and back then i was young and more resilient .