Scott: We are going to make another Alien movie

[reecebomb]

Ash was much more believable, perfect really.

Ash, of course, is my favorite of androids, but in all fairness, he is presented quite differently than David and Bishop. Pretty early in both the 86 and newer films the audience discovers David and Bishop are androids. So of course Ash is more believable / perfect, most of the movie time the audience believed he is a human, or had no reason to even raise the question if he is human.

Up until late in the film with the attack on Ripley, the film had never indicated that android technology even existed in that cinema universe. Ash is perfect because it was a perfect set up to deceive the audience. That element of surprise gives the Ash android a much bigger impact on the drama unfolding. His actual "android time" is quite minimal.

You're right but Ash was also believable because he din't have any magical abilities. Ash was great also how subtly nuanced his character was handled, again he was believable (i seem to use that word a lot when comparing prequels with Alien) but ultimately in the end he was not relatable a la a human being stuck in a artificial body, Ash was just a program designed by the corporation to gain the the corporation, all other priorities are rescinded. Alien Isolation retained that vibe, Bishop was a different matter but he was still very much believable yet the uncertainty with him was kinda there still. Unlike the Pinocchio David, not saying the arc of David isn't interesting but Ridley should have created a new franchise for his android fantasies or at least made his agenda fit better with the Alien films.

I don't think anythings wrong with the visuals, both planets had an eerie feel to me and I think the music, particularly in Covenant is excellent. The characters are no more npc than Alien in truth.

I do think the pacing is an issue but familiarity also has a big impact. My kids and mates tell me films like Lights Out and Mama are terrifying but when I watch them they barely register. I feel much the same way about Covenant as I do IT, I like both films and think they are good but neither work as horror movies for me. I've just seen it all before.

You're right that there's not anything wrong with the visuals, they are mostly adequate but if you're doing an official prequel to Alien, you need to go the extra mile. I think Prometheus was easily better looking film than Covenant, but Prometheus often looked too perfect, the perfect lightning with the perfectly lit faces, for me it took away from the atmosphere. And i'm unable to forget the image of Peter Weyland, he looked ridiculous, something that could have been easily avoided by casting an actor who doesn't need prosthetics to look old.  The visuals juxtaposed with the music produced atmosphere that was more Star Trek than Alien.

Covenant luckily went for more grimy look, good enough for a random sci-fi these days but undeniably subpar compared to earlier Alien films. Due to pacing and other factors, the better moments weren't able to make a proper impact. Then there were issues that could have been simply avoided like with Prometheus, for example the scene with David wiping out the engineers. I imagine the scene would have been more effective if the camera stayed with David and showed the genocide from above with David or not literally, but basically through the eyes of David, there wasn't any need to show close ups of the engineer, especially if you have a tight budget and are unable to make engineers look like they should. Than scene reminded me Exodus: Gods and Kings. In Alien films the camera existed physically, it never panned around like it would in a videogame. It does look epic and all when done right but they should have stayed true to the style of original films, otherwise it doesnt fit. Even a videogame (Isolation) understood that.   
Then there's this all cgi crap (more so in Covenant), that works against atmosphere if it looks like cgi and moves like a cgi.

The music is mostly good in Covenant when it's basically Alien rehashed, but i have problem with some of the new music that to me is not so bad on it's own but it's a bit tasteless to use music like that in an Alien film, liked the pulsating signal thingie during the backburster scene the rest of it was too basic that wouln't be out of place in a second rate tv series. Overall would have preffered something like Under the Skin. Jed Kurzel Babadook score was effective though.


The characters in Alien were believable, they weren't in prequels, simple as that.

I cant really agree with any of that tbh. Other than some of the Prometheus music did give me a star trek vibe and some of the characters in that film didn't work for me. We are on completely differently pages so best just to move along.

Ok, no problems with disagreeing, especially on the matter of music which can be highly subjective. But do you really thing Peter Weyland in Prometheus, the engineers in Covenant and the cgi xenomorphs were top notch?

Edit: forgot to add before that i could give a lot more examples why the atmosphere wasn't on par (yes, many of them could be considered nitpicks but it all piles up to make a subpar movie in the end) but one of the major reasons was due to missing the Giger factor discussed in another thread.

[Jonesy1974]

Ash was much more believable, perfect really.

Ok, no problems with disagreeing, especially on the matter of music which can be highly subjective. But do you really thing Peter Weyland in Prometheus, the engineers in Covenant and the cgi xenomorphs were top notch?

Peter Weyland was a distraction in Prometheus agreed. It didn't really bother me about the engineers in Covenant though, I think its so trivial but I understand that trivial matters become part of a bigger problem when a film doesn't work for you on the whole.

I thought the CGI was fine tbh. I know many people thought it was bad but nothing sticks out to me as being so and Iv'e watched the film dozens of times now. Some people are much more critical of effects than I am though, maybe its the eyesight!

[Huggs]

I'd say he was more than just a distraction. The prequels handled Weyland's character poorly, in my opinion. I figured him to be a very strong-willed and ruthless man, not interested in philosophical stuff. What the prequels gave us was more along the lines of some rich dude waxing philosophically about our creation and who's scared to death of...death. His final scene in Prometheus where he's got David asking for him to be saved was pathetic. I think his character deserved far better than that.

Had he been the age in Prometheus that he was in Covenant, and written to be an absolute jerk who crushed everyone that got in his way of obtaining the engineer's technology (not immortality), it would've added alittle more to the film. Wey-Yu wanted the xeno for its weapons division, this is what I figure weyland was like. I easily could've seen him wanting to take the engineers tech and pointing a gun at the head of anybody who had a problem with it.

But then you'd have two people with God complexes running around. Maybe David would've wound up killing him. A small set piece where Covenant Weyland and David are trying to kill each other would've been interesting. After all, david did say everyone wants their parents dead right? It would've given so much more meaning to that line had that been the case. Maybe if Weyland had been re-written that way, David's motives for being who he is would be based on more than a rampant AI, but character traits he learned from his "father". "Weyland never let anything stand in his way, neither will I".

[Biomechanoid]

You're right but Ash was also believable because he din't have any magical abilities. Ash was great also how subtly nuanced his character was handled, again he was believable (i seem to use that word a lot when comparing prequels with Alien)

Well, as I said, Ash is my favorite Android, but that doesn't mean I  think Fassbender and Henrickson did not give believable performances as androids.

Ridley should have created a new franchise for his android fantasies

Maybe from a dedicated fan base standpoint where us fanboys have played out well known fan fiction in our minds for years on end, I can see your point, but when it comes to the wider audience, aka the more casual audience, aka the overwhelming majority audience, I question whether that sticks in their crawl that Ridley strayed from the core of what makes the Alien universe iconic. I question whether that wider audience that outnumbers us dedicated fans 20-30 to 1 (wild guess), have that rigid narrow window many of the dedicate fans maintain.

[SiL]

Anyone who says "The Exorcist is about a possessed girl that vomits pea soup", obviously doesn't get it.  There are so much more layers than that.

Just like anybody who says "Alien is about a monster that kills people".

I guess the people that made Alien didn't get their own film, then. Thank God you're here to enlighten them!

[Scorpio]

Just look at all the essays written about the film, SiL.  The makers may say it's just a b monster movie, but they're being modest. 

The prequels handled Weyland's character poorly, in my opinion.

You may have missed the point of the character.  It's not John Paul Getty.

Guy Pearce did the perfect mix of idealism and arrogance.

[SiL]

Because there are layers and themes, mostly presented in the art and design of the film. We all know that.

Yet the story is still about a space monster murdering truckers. That's the core of the film, and everything is in service to that. That's what makes it simple.

Where you're getting the idea that simple means shallow, superficial, or inferior I don't know.

[Scorpio]

It started with a simple idea and built from that.

It's kind of absurd to just reduce it down to that, though, as I pointed out.

It's like a skeleton with no meat.

[Immortan Jonesy]

I reckon it is. Also that he was never much into horror to begin with, so I don't think he's kept up with the fact that modern horror audiences are eagerly consuming slower -- or at least more deliberately -- paced films.

I think, though, is that a bigger problem is he forgot the one key lesson that arguably makes any good horror film effective: keep it f**king simple. He's trying to scare audiences and pontificate on man's place in the universe and hold a discourse on artificial intelligence and it's just too much at once.

I'm not sure about that. Many of the greatest horror movies are about much more than just the scares, The Exorcist for instance. Maybe its more about the focus, what the primary goal of the film is. Ridley said he wanted to scare us but that doesn't really feel like his primary focus.

As much as I like them I agree though that Covenant and Prometheus aren't scary. Both films have moments of tension but as you say they don't build up any sense of dread and that's key to making a film truly scary. They don't take enough time to crank up the fear of the unknown and what is to come.

In addition, in the original film the Alien looks like a psychopathic killer more than a deadly wild animal. In fact, the monster approaches in a slow and extravagant way towards the victims before killing them, even showing a disturbing behavior.

[Jonesy1974]

I dunno, I see Alien as horror in its purest form same as Texas Chainsaw. Its designed to scare from start to finish. I know it has themes and subtext, much of which evolved during production but it's primary concern is to frighten the audience and nothing more.

As opposed to horror like The Exorcist or more recently the Babadook which are using horror to explore other themes.

[SM]

I reckon it is. Also that he was never much into horror to begin with, so I don't think he's kept up with the fact that modern horror audiences are eagerly consuming slower -- or at least more deliberately -- paced films.

I think, though, is that a bigger problem is he forgot the one key lesson that arguably makes any good horror film effective: keep it f**king simple. He's trying to scare audiences and pontificate on man's place in the universe and hold a discourse on artificial intelligence and it's just too much at once.

I'm not sure about that. Many of the greatest horror movies are about much more than just the scares, The Exorcist for instance. Maybe its more about the focus, what the primary goal of the film is. Ridley said he wanted to scare us but that doesn't really feel like his primary focus.

As much as I like them I agree though that Covenant and Prometheus aren't scary. Both films have moments of tension but as you say they don't build up any sense of dread and that's key to making a film truly scary. They don't take enough time to crank up the fear of the unknown and what is to come.

In addition, in the original film the Alien looks like a psychopathic killer more than a deadly wild animal. In fact, the monster approaches in a slow and extravagant way towards their victims before killing them, even showing a disturbing behavior.

https://78.media.tumblr.com/dd1654fb16f390b5a68f552a0366b668/tumblr_n80krkmiZ61s4nyfho3_r2_500.gif

There is also...

[SiL]

It's kind of absurd to just reduce it down to that, though, as I pointed out.

It's not in the least. That's entirely what the film is about. That's the story it's telling. It's not about rape, or artificial intelligence, or corporate politics, or maternity, or psychosexuality -- all of this is present, but they're all in service of a story about a space alien eating space truckers.

I dunno, I see Alien as horror in its purest form same as Texas Chainsaw. Its designed to scare from start to finish. I know it has themes and subtext, much of which evolved during production but it's primary concern is to frighten the audience and nothing more.

And that's exactly the film Scott referenced when they were making the movie. He wanted it to be Texas Chainsaw Massacre in space. He wanted to scare the shit out of people, and he did.

These days it's clear his interest is in the philosophical areas of the last two movies and not in delivering the scares. Not a problem in itself, but counter intuitive to his claim that he wanted to scare the shit out of people with Covenant.

[reecebomb]

I reckon it is. Also that he was never much into horror to begin with, so I don't think he's kept up with the fact that modern horror audiences are eagerly consuming slower -- or at least more deliberately -- paced films.

I think, though, is that a bigger problem is he forgot the one key lesson that arguably makes any good horror film effective: keep it f**king simple. He's trying to scare audiences and pontificate on man's place in the universe and hold a discourse on artificial intelligence and it's just too much at once.

I'm not sure about that. Many of the greatest horror movies are about much more than just the scares, The Exorcist for instance. Maybe its more about the focus, what the primary goal of the film is. Ridley said he wanted to scare us but that doesn't really feel like his primary focus.

As much as I like them I agree though that Covenant and Prometheus aren't scary. Both films have moments of tension but as you say they don't build up any sense of dread and that's key to making a film truly scary. They don't take enough time to crank up the fear of the unknown and what is to come.

In addition, in the original film the Alien looks like a psychopathic killer more than a deadly wild animal. In fact, the monster approaches in a slow and extravagant way towards their victims before killing them, even showing a disturbing behavior.

https://78.media.tumblr.com/dd1654fb16f390b5a68f552a0366b668/tumblr_n80krkmiZ61s4nyfho3_r2_500.gif

Agreed, that behaviour was reduced in the sequels but the animal with rabies completely missed the mark in Covenant imo. The alien in Isolation was was a but too animalistic as well (the stomping the sounds), being a videogame have it's limitations and it did have some dope and some graceful animations.

[Jonesy1974]

It's kind of absurd to just reduce it down to that, though, as I pointed out.

It's not in the least. That's entirely what the film is about. That's the story it's telling. It's not about rape, or artificial intelligence, or corporate politics, or maternity, or psychosexuality -- all of this is present, but they're all in service of a story about a space alien eating space truckers.

I dunno, I see Alien as horror in its purest form same as Texas Chainsaw. Its designed to scare from start to finish. I know it has themes and subtext, much of which evolved during production but it's primary concern is to frighten the audience and nothing more.

And that's exactly the film Scott referenced when they were making the movie. He wanted it to be Texas Chainsaw Massacre in space. He wanted to scare the shit out of people, and he did.

These days it's clear his interest is in the philosophical areas of the last two movies and not in delivering the scares. Not a problem in itself, but counter intuitive to his claim that he wanted to scare the shit out of people with Covenant.

Yep, id agree with that. The scaring the shit out of people statements were purely salesmanship and not all what he was interested in.

[Scorpio]

There is also...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvsCCgjCEAAA--p.jpg

'Jazz Hands', is that homosexual stereotype supposed to be funny?