Favourite film: Prometheus or Alien: Covenant

[Local Trouble]

Can't imagine any fan edit that's going to improve it.

[Kimarhi]

I can feel your anger which leads me to say fair enough😅

But just out of curiosity...is Prometheus part of your physical Alien movie collection?

I do have it.  But I usually collect any Alien related thing (that I don't already have) that I see.  I still have an Alien novel sitting ten feet away from me that I haven't read and I got it whenever it came out.  The one that came out after Charybdis. 

I actually don't mind the black goo when used in the EU, afterall it has been around already in the royal jelly, and was metamorphisizing people before it was cool (literally.....see Aliens Colonial Marines comic) but the problem with it on film is that it is MORE DANGEROUS than the Alien.  So it basically neutered the Alien even further than it already has been.  It regulated the Alien to a side threat. 

Kimarhi, have you tried one of the fancuts of Prometheus?

They changed my tune on the prequels

Look into my eyes

I can't let a fancut influence how I feel about the canonical version of the film.  Even if I did, and it was superior, it further shows PROFESSIONAL filmmaker incompetence.  No amateur should come out and release a superior cut of film over paid pros without there being serious questions about the pros effort in the original process. 

In short I couldn't watch it because if it was better I would rage even harder against Scott's pack in in and hijack the franchise azz. 

[Stitch]

In short I couldn't watch it because if it was better I would rage even harder against Scott's pack in in and hijack the franchise azz. 

I can understand that perspective. There are multiple fan cuts that definitely are better than the theatrical cut, though. It's a shame so much was unused.

[David Weyland]

Fancuts like the Chaos edition seriously improve Prometheus from what I see as a 6 to an 8

[Ingwar]

Both movies are very uneven. They have some great moments but also some bad stuff (more good than bad).

6.5/10 Prometheus
7.5/10 Covenant

I prefer Covenant not because is an Alien film (Prometheus is quasi-Alien) but because is better written. I love David's prologue (probably one of the best scenes in Alien series)/epilogue. Covenant's problem is pacing in third act and the third act itself.

Female protagonists in both are unfortunately not very likable. Janek and Tennessee are the real deal.
Holloway, Filfield and Millburn are douchebags. Cynical, immature scientists who behave like have never attended science classes.

Also, they shouldn't have cut opening scene with Elder Engineers and Engineer's monologue with David. Why wouldn't you include those scenes in the movie?

[Immortan Jonesy]

I can feel your anger which leads me to say fair enough😅

But just out of curiosity...is Prometheus part of your physical Alien movie collection?

I do have it.  But I usually collect any Alien related thing (that I don't already have) that I see.  I still have an Alien novel sitting ten feet away from me that I haven't read and I got it whenever it came out.  The one that came out after Charybdis. 

I actually don't mind the black goo when used in the EU, afterall it has been around already in the royal jelly, and was metamorphisizing people before it was cool (literally.....see Aliens Colonial Marines comic) but the problem with it on film is that it is MORE DANGEROUS than the Alien.  So it basically neutered the Alien even further than it already has been.  It regulated the Alien to a side threat. 

I guess the book you mention is 'Aliens: Infiltrator'. According to Hicks' review it is not very good. But what do I know! After all I'm not a very good Alien / Predator collector.👎😅

Oh and  yeah, I must admit one of the unwanted side effects of David creating the Alien is that said Alien is more like a de-evolution of black goo...since the Engineers' bioweapon is more effective than the Aliens. It's not like the Alien needs to be a biological weapon at all, but since canon says it's post-pathogen creation and engineered in order to destroy humans...

The comparisons to royal jelly are spot on, but it's also similar to the Alien spores from William Gibson's Alien³.

[Kimarhi]

At first I didn't like David developing the Aliens (and I would be totally cool if it was later revealed he was following anothers formula), but it does kind of fix a slight "plot hole" of the OT.  Facehuggers would have a hard time facehugging non humanoid lifeforms.  Yeah I know Alien 3 dog/ox but they never showed that facehugger attached because it would be difficult to show it with the way the hugger is designed. 

So it avoids the rage for the most part. 

The book is the one that immediately follows Charybdis with family members from all over the alien universe looking for what happened.  I'm too lazy to go see what it is atm. 

[judge death]

At first I didn't like David developing the Aliens (and I would be totally cool if it was later revealed he was following anothers formula), but it does kind of fix a slight "plot hole" of the OT.  Facehuggers would have a hard time facehugging non humanoid lifeforms.  Yeah I know Alien 3 dog/ox but they never showed that facehugger attached because it would be difficult to show it with the way the hugger is designed. 

So it avoids the rage for the most part. 

The book is the one that immediately follows Charybdis with family members from all over the alien universe looking for what happened.  I'm too lazy to go see what it is atm. 

Well the alien books like weyland yutani report, survival book etc tell that the facehugger releases a paralysis poison that knocks out the host in a second, so once it has the host knocked out it can attach however it want and we saw how tight those claws of it can hug into flesh and hold in place on the dog or Ox.

Then theres the theory that the facehuggers can adapt to fit its enviroment and hosts so can become bigger or get webbing like the super facehugger to be able to swim etc but its a very loose theory so far.

[Elmazalman]

Prometheus is an absolute dumpster fire

It does look pretty though, but that's not enough to save a film.

The best thing about PROMETHEUS was its making-of documentary - infinitely more absorbing and entertaining than the film ever was. A shame COVENANT didn't get the same 3+ hour documentary.

I wish Ridley Scott had 'rested on his laurels' when it came to the ALIEN films. The original is a classic / masterpiece and can't be beaten (imo).

[PsyKore]

I actually don't mind the black goo when used in the EU, afterall it has been around already in the royal jelly, and was metamorphisizing people before it was cool (literally.....see Aliens Colonial Marines comic) but the problem with it on film is that it is MORE DANGEROUS than the Alien.  So it basically neutered the Alien even further than it already has been.  It regulated the Alien to a side threat.

Yeah, I don't like that, too. And I feel like they were gonna lead up to David having something to do with the eggs on Lv-426. It looked like that Engineer in Prometheus was just gonna drop a load of black goo on earth.

[Cosmic Incubation]

I definitely agree with the point of the black goo being more dangerous than the Alien, and therefore kinda sidelining it.

But honestly I never had a problem with it otherwise. It's definitely used as a convenience item for writers a lot. But I forgive it, for the possibilities it adds, and expansion to the xeno/alien roster that it provides. I'm talking more so the creatures rather than the zombies (not really a fan of the Fifield zombie, other than the alternate version where they make him look slighty xeno-like, with the longer head). I personally always felt that the expansion on the xenomorph felt pretty stagnant. People either just made the same old drone/runner/warrior, or just made a xenomorph with slightly different traits of animals it spawned from, or just made them the same old design but a different color (they're xenos, but RED. how creative).

So I really appreciate the additions to the roster that the black goo has provided with the trilobite, hammerpede, deacon, neomorph, etc. And overall I feel that it offers more opportunities for creature diversity apart from the classic xenomorph lifecycle. Which is something I've personally always wanted to see in the series.

Not saying it's a perfect plot-device, but I've mostly enjoyed what it's provided to the series.

[Kimarhi]

I actually don't mind the black goo when used in the EU, afterall it has been around already in the royal jelly, and was metamorphisizing people before it was cool (literally.....see Aliens Colonial Marines comic) but the problem with it on film is that it is MORE DANGEROUS than the Alien.  So it basically neutered the Alien even further than it already has been.  It regulated the Alien to a side threat.

Yeah, I don't like that, too. And I feel like they were gonna lead up to David having something to do with the eggs on Lv-426. It looked like that Engineer in Prometheus was just gonna drop a load of black goo on earth.

This was my hypothesis as well. 

This is why I hate when they try to go back and turn over every single story plot point in films.  WHO CARES that David found the SJ ship and crashed it on lv426 by loosing the Aliens on the ship (or some other action......maybe the SJ stole the eggs and crashed after it broke containment, still doesnt' matter)?  It doesn't matter because that plot point is a dead one.  It leads nowhere past the OT and Res. 

You could have the whole lame, well on the other side of the galaxy, there were some eggs sent out, and the Aliens got out and did some crazy shit............but were eventually stopped at the goal line again before they spread.  We know they couldn't be that big of an event because Res scientist wouldn't have had to clone Ripley to get them.  Using such a plot point AGAIN stops them from being any sort of menace or a true threat. 

They've actually wrote themselves into a hole here.  The Alien is deadlocked to what it can do.  You can wait and have ARes era characters play around with new xenos somewhere (which would seem to be unpopular because the Ares era is an unpopular one), you can limit the "event" that sees them running around next time because of Ares, or you can start ignoring movies, which is childish imo.  And I don't care for ARes at all, but it just seems kind of petty and uncreative. 

OR you could make the black goo the threat. 

Prometheus just opened up a whole can of worms of dumb. 

[reecebomb]

Both are a mess in their own ways, but I'd rank Prometheus higher as it offers more eye candy and leaves some interesting options for a sequel:

Prometheus 4/10
Alien Covenant 3/10

These are considering they are a part of the Alien franchise, if these weren't related to Alien any way and viewed through a modern day sci-fi cinema lens, I'd put it as follows:

Prometheus 5.5/10
Alien Covenant 5/10

[Wweyland]

I like Prometheus a bit more, due to its epicness and novelty.
However, I thought the Alien: Covenant novelization was great and improved much over the movie.

[Kimarhi]

I'd do Prometheus a 4/10 and Covenant a 6.  Covenant is worse in that it had to follow Prometheus.  But it also suffers from the vibe that Scott did not want to make that movie and just kind of phoned it in. I was bored watching parts of Covenant, and I think Ridley was bored doing the whole movie.   

If only RBW had been offered to him sooner, I think a more grounded take would've been on the table then.  The idea is the minor problem of the movie (I will never like current writers hell bent motivation of wanting to explain EVERY single plot point in prequels/sequels), it is 90 percent to me the execution of it.  It is just goofy and sloppy as hell. 

I rate AvP and AvPR pretty low as well, but they are f**king VS movies.  Unless they handed Randy Stradley the reigns and said bring in your director, clean up your script, and go for it, it was always going to be mediocre.  It was like watching a live version of the later comics.  It was pretty much exactly what I expected, and about the limit of how good I thought it could be as a studio mandated production.

It wasn't Prometheus, with OG Director coming back dropping an absolute beastly trailer teasing new mysteries in the Alienverse and then fumbling the football before the play even started.  I had to legitimately rewind in my brain a serious movie telling me they got star coordinates off of a f**king cave painting.