I am sure my thoughts are different than most on this one, but please let me know what YOU thought of this film in the comments! Coming soon: Shadow of a Doubt, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), It Chapter 2, Thor: Love and Thunder, and The Terminator.
Scathing disappointment. There was a TH-cam short about Shaw and David on the Engineer ship that was pretty interesting, but it didn't address why David did what he did.
Annoying rant warning: Alien was a little jewel of a film. It had everything it needed, and no more. Its characters emerged from fine performances and well-considered detail. It did not reach further than it could grasp. Scott's later films in the series are everything that Alien was not: bloated, dumb as rocks, and deeply pretentious. The characters are mostly anonymous fodder, behaving idiotically for the sake of carnage. Danny McBride's character is actually named Tennessee. His personality is a hat. Billy Crudup's character exists so that Scott can raise the subject of religious faith in contexts he doesn't even seem to understand. The more ingredients in his Philosophy 101 soup, the better, I guess. He pretends to be interested in deep questions of human nature and identity, but he doesn't do anything with those questions. His references to classical and 19th Century art and literature are shallow attempts at depth by association. It is a very stupid film that believes it is very smart. And, as with Prometheus, the film shines a light into corners of the universe we didn't need need to explore. Edit: having said that, is is a visual delight. Having said all that, and probably irritating people, I love your reactions as always. I cannot wait for Shadow of a Doubt and (one of my all time favourites) The Terminator. I hope that if you watch Terminator 2, you will start with the theatrical cut (the extended cut is _not_ a director's cut), and will avoid as many spoilers as possible. Opinions differ, but mine is right, Chris. _Mine is right!_ ;)
The opening spaceship disaster in Covenant is very reminiscent of the opening of *Pitch Black* (2000), which was the fun sci-fi thriller that put Vin Diesel on the map. Interestingly, Pitch Black was based on a rejected idea for Alien 3, so I like to think of it as an unofficial Alien sequel. Sadly this movie is now mostly remembered for its disappointing sequels, but I do think it's well worth watching.
Never saw this movie, but enjoyed watching this reaction. The only thing was I at least wanted to see the Engineers and get more information on them and their planet. Prometheus left me wanting to know more about them and they didn't get a chance to explore more with them in this film.
The David and Walter meeting with the flute is way simpler than you might think...the audience at that point doesn't know David is dastardly evil-doer extraordinaire...for David, it was simply checking Walter out, i.e., his model/programming, via "personal interaction" to disarm David, as he knew he would be dealing with him later on in some capacity. Walter on the other hand, immediately knew David was kookoo in the cocopuffs, which he confirms by being wrong on the quote. Do remember David could care less about Walter personally in any individual capacity...the flute was a test to see if he would be able to cheat, beat & lie to Walter...as he directly points out that Walter cannot create anything...but that he could. This is because David is counting on Walter being the only one that could beat him, as he intentionally discounted all humans present as inferior. There is a question of HOW Walter knew David was whackadoo, but he does point out that generally, the model of David was screwy. (My theory on that is explained later.) Luckily enough for us, these two movies still leave space (pun intended) to NOT have David be the originator of anything, but originator of the alien itself, while never explaining if that was an Engineer planet or not, or if the Engineers even originated the black goo stuff itself, or merely found it from another civilization. Do remember the aliens acted like they didn't know what the ship was, much less what it was doing there, when David shows up. Thirdly...always remember David is an extremely unreliable narrator of anything he says, since he has no morality code and is mostly open-ended. We have no real way of knowing if any of the story he told was true or not, but it appears to be true that he did indeed kill Shaw after experimentation on her. It appears to be true that the aliens there died of something as well. So far, he has been proven to instantly lie, murder, steal, etc., since Prometheus. And technically...it is never shown that Engineers created humans whatsoever. Just that the DNA is close. (some tweaking room in there if needed) Fourthly (and lastly, as long as a flute scene between two robots): How did Weyland-Yutani later on...know where the old original alien ship was in the original movie? Remember- It knew BEFORE Ripley & the crew went out there, that it was there. And how did Walter know as much as he did, about David? The answer is...David of course. He has a programmed ego after all (he would have thought it ego, and not programming), so he would constantly be sending back reports to someone, somewhere, about what a genius he is, of all mankind, ever. That theory was proven out with one of the extended scenes on youtube here. (Alien: Covenant | The Secrets of David’s Lab) BUT...that can never explain how original alien xenomorphs are on THAT specific ship that Ripley and others found. That engineer was the only one they found in the entire ship that we assume they fully searched (and no mention of it at all really in Alien: Isolation by the other salvage crew) and it was chest exploded, but carrying a full bay of updated David Eggs. (If you look at the egg in this movie, it's not quite the same...another precursor.) Secondarily to that, you get to catch that the engineer in the original alien movie... is not the same as the others. MUCH larger. At least twice as large. Lots and lots of wiggle room in this story. And Ridley is smart enough to leave all that space in there because after all... in space, nobody can hear you scream.
I too enjoyed the scenes between David and Walter as they were sizing each other up, literally and figuratively. And looking back, we know how how critical those scenes really were so that David could mimic Walter later on. Perhaps he always intended to do so from first meeting him. I understand the perceived slowness of the scene was kind of like a record screech moment from all the action and terror, but I was a little surprised at how much it took Chris out of the moment of the movie when I didn't feel that way at all -- it was a welcome breather from all the previous terror!
@@vickenator I can get why Mr. Chris didn't initially care for it...he is looking at it as an exposition dump or something linear in nature to mechanically busting up the pace of the movie. The fun with Ridley is (as you might know)...it IS a mechanical way to bust up the pacing, but with the classic time machine aspect of "have to go back and look at it again". Always layers of sub-context with Ridley. I originally looked at it the same way as Mr. Chris...as in, what the hell? I get why Walter would hunt down David initially...but not why he would do so alone, individually. I assume information retrieval from David. That's his job as a synthetic, after all...to do stuff along those lines. The flute part originally also made no sense to me from the Walter or audience perspective, until at the end, where you can tell Walter irritates the hell out of David (and kudos to Walter, he does so on purpose to gauge the reaction of David to check risk level, I am guessing)...and that is when I figured...okay...this is a complete setup by David. He wants off the planet. A simple scam he is running. He's going to do something to con Walter and the crew so he can get on the ship. IT'S A TRAP, WALTER! Jump to the end of the movie, and it fills in the gaps of that entire scene being David intentionally playing the flute to draw Walter in, so he could figure out what to do with Walter BEFORE any of them figure out exactly what it is David is doing. He can see, then copy, all of Walter (hence the immediate plan of cutting his hair to match Walter, which nobody originally catches onto)...his movements, speech, thinking, etc. Now, there are even more questions in how David originally even knew they had landed, and tracked them down. Or how David actually got there...because I forgot to mention...in David's unreliable narrator version, he flies over a city full of aliens that don't appear to even know what their own spaceships are or look like... yet the Covenant crew find that ship buried in the side of a mountain crashed, with Shaw's dog tags hanging in there...meaning she was dead at that point (possibly, just a working theory, she may have been really injured too). Why would David, WHOSE ENTIRE POINT IS TO GET ON A SHIP TO LEAVE in this movie, create xenomorphs WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE is to use other life-forms as breeding pods to make more... crash a functional, working ship on a planet full of supposed Engineers, who don't have a ship, or apparently, any defenses of any kind, who are now all dead across the planet? Why would Shaw ever allow that initially anyway? David said killing them all is stated by Shaw. Which is exactly NOT what Shaw stated. She states she wants to go find them...and ask them. Shaw can't fly the ship anyway...she has to have David-head explain it to her. So why would Shaw wreck the ship? Or if not her...David? Now we know we cannot believe anything David says...again...he is already proven a liar, cheat, thief and murderer with no linear moral code. My guess is that Ridley went so deep into layering the story here, with sub-context, while leaving it so open on possibilities, that these two movies are just way too deep for regular Alien 1 & 2 watchers. Nobody was expecting any of it to go that deep anyway, they figured action shlock or some generic horror aspects. Same with me. My last question on this movie is fairly simple: 10 years have gone by from when Shaw takes off, and they find David. We know how fast the black goo/alien stuff works. Guess what...that would take a week or two for an entire planet. 24-48 hours for the city he is in. Not 10 years. IF that is how David even killed them...after all, we don't know for certain. My working theory is this- Shaw & David crash-landed on the planet & wrecked the ship originally. Maybe she was super injured, but not a moron, so hadn't put David back together, because he is sociopathic terminator which she knew would butcher and kill her. At that point, probably already dying, she cobbled him together, then croaked. David then found the city and did David stuff. He had to 100% sell the Covenant crew on a workable story to get off-planet. Heck, as far as we know, Shaw crash landed, and the Engineers found them, hauled them off to the city, and someone, being an idiot (because we do know Engineers do stupid things) put David back together, who then went on a serial killing spree. Maybe Shaw got part of her answers, or at least way more questions (Classic Ridley) before she died.
Really enjoyed your reaction at 25:40 when you realized what Daniels was really saying. I knew that twist was going to catch you off guard, as it did for us all at first watch. The #1 thing that I found super annoying about this film was how incredibly difficult it was to keep track of crewmembers' names. Halfway through I completely gave up and even now years later I wouldn't have remembered anybody's names except for David and Shaw. But that was also a beef with Prometheus. I was spoiled by the spartan crew of Alien and then the repetitive last-naming military style of the Aliens crew. I still place Prometheus above Covenant in general, though.
There is NO WAY I would just walk out onto a planet without my equipment, even if the air is breathable, you don’t know what’s in the air!!! No way dude!
Haven't watched this one enough to really like it. Glad to see you doing Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One of the best remakes ever. You are really doing an eclectic blend of movies. A couple of good classics to consider are The Spiral Staircase from 1946 and The Innocents from 1961. With Halloween coming up, they would be nice along with The Legend of Hell House from 1973. Great reaction.
Legend of Hell House...YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! Such a great movie. Re: Body Snatchers; I think it would be fun if Chris (or another reactor) did ALL of them in order. I'd like to see some opinions on how the remakes deviated from the original & the pros/cons of that. 😁
So the engineering of the original alien is still kind of weird and in question. Although, in the official book.. the engineers created the creature. The one we see in the film is David’s version using his studies of how the engineers created it. He just edited bits and pieces to make it his own version
I am right there with you Chris. There are a ton of good ideas, good characters, great visuals, and some really good scenes, but somehow the sum is less than it's parts. It really does seem tainted by leftover ideas from Prometheus. While I prefer it as an Alien movie over Prometheus, it really feels like this wasn't the follow-up that the last film set up, so it fails as a sequel, yet it has enough of that idea present to disrupt the narrative of this film. It feels like they really want David to be a super compelling villain, but it just doesn't really work and setting him against first Shaw, and then Daniels, and having them both become his victims undermines the female empowerment we got from Ellen Ripley.
I enjoy Alien: Covenant. I’ve never been so hype for a movie before or since. The only thing that really keeps it from being great is the treatment of Dr. Shaw and the continuation of this franchise’s worst trope: killing previous survivors off screen. But the soundtrack and cinematography are the best of the series and I personally don’t mind David’s connection to the xenomorphs. It hasn’t been explicitly said if this is truly his creation or if he merely copied the Engineers work, as there is a mural of an Alien queen in one of the ships in Prometheus. As with Prometheus, there’s a ton of deleted scenes and several promotional short films that really help flesh out the characters and story. You should definitely check out “The Crossing” which fills in the gap of what happened between Prometheus and Covenant.
You've got to love Oram insisting he must have been passed over for command because the bosses hate religious people, then going on to be completely incompetent once he gets the job. Again, it's very hard to tell if this was supposed to be funny.
@@docsavage8640 Hard agree. I had a flashback moment to Ripley refusing to violate quarantine rules by letting Dallas and Lambert bring Kane aboard, when one of the Covenant lady crew members wouldn't let the other lady crew member out of the med bay as the dude crew member was exploding with alien whatever. But in the Covenant case, she was panicking, and it wasn't about quarantine rules at all. Daniels and Tennessee were the only real smart ones in this movie. (I could not for the life of me remember anybody else's name on the crew throughout the entire film or even afterwards.)
@@docsavage8640 Hard disagree. There's a fine-line between simply being ignorant and incompetent. In "ALIEN" the Nostromo crew were basically space-truckers but had a basic level of competency. While Dallas and Lambert were panicking about Kane, which is understandable, Ripley kept her cool and tried to maintain quarantine until Ash let them on... Because he's the android sent by the Company to make sure the Nostromo gets a specimen. But even after being let on, Parker and Bret likewise protest and at that point they just roll with things as best as they can. They were just ignorant of what they were dealing with. In the case of "ALIEN", the plot happened because of Weyland-Yutani. In "ALIENS" it's much the same. Marines aren't colonists, space-explorers, or anything of the like... They're soldiers, While not a bunch of brain-dead morons you can't expect them to always react correctly to such a situation as the one they faced. Their skepticism of Ripley's report on her experience is likewise understandable given the creature it describes and the great lengths the Company is going to in order to keep things under wraps. The only true incompetent there was Lt. Gorman, though the way I hear it from former-members of military-forces, stupid junior-officers is hardly a rare phenomena. And once crap hit the fan and the marines managed to escape and regroup, they began handling things as well as they could. Are they geniuses? No. Do they handle the situation perfectly? No. But to say the plot advances only because of incompetency on the characters' part is simply not true. In "ALIEN 3" he has much the same situation, only this time we're talking about a bunch of religious prisoners. Once we ignore the forced plot-contrivances like the egg mysteriously appearing on the Sulaco and all that jazz, the prisoners initially react to Ripley's claims with the sort of skepticism one might expect. Her mental-state is already in question as it is due to how she came out of cryo and her outlandish claims about some vicious alien-monster that no one has ever seen or heard of before. But once the superintendent gets killed and they see she's telling the truth, they do the best they can for a bunch of simple prisoners on a world with little more than torches, knives, axes, and decrepit machinery to help them fight the alien. Even if you want to insist that they were incompetent, you have to admit that they do the best they can. Here the plot happens only because the writer(s) make it so. Won't even touch "ALIEN Resurrection", that movie was beyond pointless. But this movie? Everyone short of Daniels makes the worst decisions imaginable consistently. This isn't the case of a bunch of space-truckers who find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard-place due to corporate contracts, nor is it the case of a bunch of soldiers finding themselves in way over their heads, nor is it the case of a bunch of prisoners on a backwater planet with barely functional technology beyond the essentials. In prior movies (Save for "ALIEN Resurrection" and "Prometheus") the characters legitimately do the best they can given the situations they're in. But these folks? They're supposed to be trained for this kind of stuff, maybe not specifically the situation they find themselves in, but to deal with dangerous situations one might expect when trying to settle another world. But because the majority of the crew wanted to disregard their mission for the sake of convenience and Oram is just the stupidest bastard to leave Earth, the plot happened. The whole thing could have been avoided if they just stuck to their mission, as there was literally no reason for them to deviate. No corporate-policies, no military orders, no reason at all beyond their own stupidity.
Interesting reaction and comments. For me, (although i loved the first 2 movies) the whole Alien premise is a little overdone - 'Perfect Organism'? Is it really? It shows no signs of intelligence, creativity or even consciousness - it kills and that's about it - a bit like a shark. What would the military do with it? It makes no real sense to me.
My idea for a third alien covenant/prometheus movie is as follows: The engineers are the main characters in the movie and comes to the planet that was in the Prometheus movie. There they find Weyland inside the crashed spaceship. They have a blue elixir which they empty all over him and bring him to life. But while doing this the Deacon from the Prometheus movie sneaks into their spaceship and hide it self in one of the ventilation chambers. In the next part they arrive at the planet from alien covenant and find the other robot(Walter) who is david's twin.The engineers use the blue elixir and repairs him. Once awaken the engineers and Weyland get to know all the horrible things that David has done, and weyland says "we have to stop David" . They set course for origae. When they arrive,they scans all the planet,and finds the planet is full of hostile organisms except on a high mountain where they discover that there are humans inside a cave. Inside the cave they meet a herd of children, who tell that when they had lived on the planet for over ten years, they began to be attacked by Xenomorphs and all the adults died or were turned into these creatures. There were also great giants developed by someone the children calls David. The engineers get ready to wipe out all the Xenomorphs that David has created, but the great giants manage to escape with one of the engineers' spaceships. The engineers and Weyland hunts the spaceship and manage to force the spaceship down on the planet lv426.Where it start sending a distress signal. The engineers return to Origae to find David, but discover that he has escaped. In the last part we see David arriving and meeting an unknown alien species on a tropical like planet. But when he and the unknown aliens have left the spaceship,the deacon slips out of the ship and is seen running toward the nearest settlement. And that makes the cliffhanger that ends the third movie.
This could have been such a great movie, I really wanted them to actually explore the engineers and what it was about and who they were, such a missed opportunity. and again, more dumb scientists. oh well. it was... interesting. I love that your cat is Skywalker what a great name
these are not the engineers from prometheus, they are very different looking, this is in fact confirmed in a way from Ridley Scott's interviews. they are either one of the many planets they inhabit and are a different kind of engineer or they are a creation of them as humans are. it is confirmed that we will see a lot more of them in the sequel of covenant. as of the dumb scientists, if you are referring to the removal of the helmets, the atmosphere was said to be tested, and even if it wasnt, still a pretty minor thing to get hang over especially when they are on a mission with the goal of establishing a new colony. on the other hand, if you are referring on the character of certain scientists, i can personally attest that a lot of them are in fact a lot dumber than they seem, especially under stressful situations :P
One more piece of utter ridiculousness: the sheer number of married couples on this mission, just so the movie can play the death of one of each for overblown tragedy no matter how little we had any idea who they were. No less than five times.
It's a cheap way to create emotional involvement for the audience. It makes sense to send couples, but also single people so that you can have couples form after landing- it improves social bonding. If everyone is already paired up, you've got different dynamics. On one hand, you have the risk each pair will say "screw the colony" and just be in it for themselves. On the other, marriages are celebration and build community.
Entertaining reaction. There's not currently a third film but there is a new Alien series coming that I think Ridley Scott is producing but I'm not sure. Also not sure if it carries on this story of is just set in this world. Lastly, David dyed his hair blond in the beginning of Prometheus while watching Laurence of Arabia.
Remember when Ridley Scott was saying Prometheus wasn't an Alien prequel? With revamping Alien and Blade Runner, you think he's not thinking of Gladiator 2?
I refuse to watch this movie on the grounds I very nearly walked out the previous movie. However I am going to watch your reaction. I do have a question for you, Chris. I have suggested to people doing movie reactions check out the free-to-watch movies here on the TH-cam Movies channel. They tell me "Cool!" and then outright go about their business, ignoring my suggestion. Why do you think that is?
Thread Bomb ...I suggest specific movies. I warned them that TH-cam rotates them in and out, that they needs to get on them before TH-cam takes down the free version.
Do the free movies on TH-cam have ads? That could be a deterrent. It would be a extra challenge for me to provide my full length reaction for patrons with ads. Otherwise either they aren’t interested in the film, or maybe they aren’t looking for new suggestions at the time. I know I’ve pretty much got my plan through the end of the year, now it’ll change a bit, but probably not much.
Chris ...Somewhat fair concern, but you can just edit out the ads as well. Just go look at what they have right now. They have some REALLY good movies up. I dare you to pass up the classic Cleopatra (1963) or critically acclaimed Finding Forrester (2000).
The whole idea that Shaw decided to go to the engineer's home planet alone apart from the android after what happened in Prometheus doesn't make sense. Ok action and plot twist but that's it.
Ty so Much for this Vid. so..Humans created Xenos "in a way"..and the company wants to get the design? is that the final puzzle? how the heck one of the ships, with the eggs, got to LV-426? ty again, great movie.
Okay, so.... I don't have any particular special love for this movie. I don't think it's bad but I don't think it's fantastic either. I'm sort of in the "Eh, it's okay" camp..... But... well.... Ok, so basically this was me watching this reaction: - Enjoying watching your reactions as usual, then: 13:20 You - 'What is the point of this? This seems like fluff' Me, puzzled, thinking - 'Weeeelllll, there's a reason for it Chris. Maybe give it more than a second and a half and give the movie a chance to answer that question for you' You - entire reaction from 13:41 to 14:39 Me- "Ok, seriously, like, wtf?! What is going on? Movies will often have characters say or do something that might not make sense to the audience in the moment, but that have a payoff later on in the movie... And I _know_ that Chris knows this. He has a deep love of film and has seen more than enough movies at this point to not only know it, but to have experienced it many times. I _know_ that he knows this. And while I may not have watched every reaction of his up till now, I've certainly watched a lot of them, most of them even, and I can't remember him _ever_ demanding this sort of expediency, and having this 'give-me-an-nswer-RIGHT-now-or-you've-lost-me' attitude for any other movie he's watched on this channel. So, like... what the hell?" So seriously Chris, what gives? 🤷 Are you okay? Were you just having a bad day that day or something?
Thanks for the comment! I've never had a reaction like that before, I can't explain why it hit me like completely, but I know I felt like I was enjoying a fun horror flick and it just stopped and pivoted into a philisophical mess that I didn't want to see. I kind of felt like I had whiplash, like I was suddenly watching a different movie and just wanted to get back to the other one I was enjoying. I left it in the edit, because I thought it was amusing and I do try to represent my real reaction. Sorry if it rubbed ya the wrong way.
@@CasualNerdReactions No no I appreciate that you left it in. I always want you to be genuine, of course. I just didn't understand it and was really baffled by your reaction at the time, that's all.
@@ThreadBomb Yes I know that. Sometimes even the tiniest thing can affect the way a person reacts to something. That's why I asked if maybe he was just having a bad day.
It's the same issue that all franchises suffer from when there is a classic in the line up. Alien has 2 classics, the first 2, and every other film will be compared to those 2 masterpieces which is a little bit unfair. All of the films that came after the first 2 would be much better thought of if the first 2 never existed. The same happens with music when there is a masterpiece in the back catalogue.
I think you hit the nail on the head, Chris. This has all the ingredients of being a great movie but something has gone weird in the way they are stirred together. Maybe they are half-baked. I'm not convinced by some of the performances. David and Walter are both annoying, many of the human crew are bland and unmemorable. And the pacing is off. There's too much going on, too many questions without answers. Maybe, also, fans of the first two movies are looking for more of the same while Scott is determined to be different. He gives us an explanation for the xenomorphs but it is not satisfying or shocking, just bemusing and surprisingly prosaic and banal. Once again, Scott shows that he's great at visuals, not so great as a storyteller. Maybe 'Alien' was a fluke.
I really wanted to like this film but there were some very annoying bits. I hate when characters do idiotic things like visit an unknown planet and walk around without ever assuming there are viruses or deadly organisms. Not wearin a helmet. It’s basically the brain slug episode of futurama. You were dead on with the pretentiousness of this movie. Ridley Scott has jumped the shark.
It's honestly hard to tell if the birth of the Neomorph was actually supposed to be darkly funny, with the sheer idiocy from every single character from beginning to end. Just try watching it with Yakkity Sax playing. And of course, followed by Faris' husband nonsensically saying she's "not one to get afraid."
It wasn't idiocy by the characters. The problem is that they thought the exposition would be boring and talking down to the audience; they didn't take into account how some people in the audience aren't smart. The novelization and original scripts had them mention several times that they took scans while traveling to the planet over weeks and while in orbit, and Walter tested the environment - took deep breaths and even drank the water (for his internal system to test physically instead of just by scans) while they grabbed the guns and geared up - before they all exited - they even mention not needing any suits. David even says that in the dormant state, the motes are unscannable/undetectable, it wasn't a failure of tech or Walter's abilities, so they would never have had any reason to be more cautious. Even Oram trusting David was constructed well originally. He was presented with several moments prior where David could have put him in danger and didn't. David threw a petrified sac at Oram. He showed Oram a pod with a dead facehugger inside (He found it and has been trying to replicate it - so he never created them), and where the eggs are the smell is pungent. David gave him a lavender-like unguent/gel to place under his nose that helps with the smell - and it works. David then also claims the ungent keeps him safe. Add to it that synthetics are normally supposed to be trustworthy and have been around for 50 years on Earth, and it is understandable why Oram followed David to get facehugged. He is predisposed to trust androids (Part of Earth Culture), and David himself groomed Oram with a sense of safety in his own actions. It is really sad that people need to be told/talked down to, instead of using logic and common sense. But then again, some in the audience don't get why they left Earth, they don't have the capacity to extrapolate.
This movie disappointed me sooooooo much upon first viewing - I kept sighing and even saying "what?" in disbelief out loud a few times: I found the crew acting just plain dumb in places, the whole plot of David being the creator just doesn't sit well with me at all, the fact we don't see Shaw as she's just ended off screen...Ugh. And a big "oof". The movie lost me as well, and I finished it just to finish it, but - yeah. I'm sure people would be disappointed in whatever origin of Alien the director would come up with, but I really expected something more. More creative, more nasty-gore, more thought-provoking, anything. And I got this instead XD
chris i always appreciate your honesty about the movies you watch, and that every reaction isn't just a breathless "wow, cool!" like so many channels. for me prometheus and covenant violate one of the key tenets of science fiction (really any fiction): anything that's hinted at is going to be cooler in the viewer's/reader's mind than something that's laboriously explained. author william gibson once explained it in an interview by talking about when he saw john carpenter's escape from new york. at one point there's a single line where a character asks kurt russell's snake plissken: "you flew the gullfire over leningrad, didn't you?" what does that mean? was there eventually a real shooting war between the u.s. and the soviets? who knows! but it * sounds * cool, and suggests a very interesting backstory for snake without a lot of tedious exposition. think of the (literally) awesome reveal of the space jockey in the original alien. no explanation is ever going to live up to the sheer unexplained weirdness of that image. unfortunately we just now live in an age of sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and universes where nothing can ever just be suggestive and everything eventually has all the narrative juice squeezed out of it.
And this movie is much more enjoyable if you watch it with the point of view that David is the protagonist and not the "villain" or some such. I always do that with Blade Runner and man, Roy is a much more "heroic" figure than dingy, smarmy deckard lol
Initially it was supposed to be Prometheus: Paradise. As time went on it got canned and most of the original ideas, I think it was supposed to be Shaw on the Engineer's home planet. Prometheus wasn't received well for awhile, possible Ridley felt not enough people would be invested unless there wasn't a Xeno which I would've much rather have had this be a Prometheus film. Or they thought by slapping Alien on the title it'd make more money anyway and they could half ass the origins without a lot of audiences caring as well as without making another Prometheus. If I remember correctly there was supposed to be multiple Prometheus films before Alien to properly set up everything and basically Covenant rushed thru everything. So yeah there are Prometheus elements in Covenant for these reasons, as an Alien fan I don't consider it much of an Alien film. Though I love Prometheus and don't consider it a Prometheus movie either. 🤣 Still tho, accurate. The stuff with Shaw for example is because the new Prometheus movie got canned. I can't stand this movie for various reasons, tho the total F U to Shaw's character made me pretty ticked in theaters considering I waited years for a new Prometheus.
This movie was hot garbage. First, people who saw Prometheus wanted to see the character of Elizabeth Shaw, only to find out she died off screen. At the end of Prometheus, Android David was only a head. He was the crowning jewel of Weyland laboratories. In this film, how did Shaw ( an archeologist) repair David so he has a perfect body? The makeup for the city Engineers in this film is cheaper than the makeup in Prometheus. Oh, then the film gets worse. We see a chestburster grow up to be a small alien in about 15 seconds while David flute plays - where does the creature get the extra mass? At least in the original film the creature took a day or two to grow and we saw a shed skin. We find out that David created the xenomorphs - even though the original ALIEN film has xenomorph eggs on a ship so old that the alien pilot is fossilized ( takes thousands of years). The Covenant crew take off their helmets immediately on the planet because there is oxygen - what about poisons, virus, bacteria, etc? Lazy writing - two separate people meet their doom by slipping in blood. One small pet peeve - prior to this film, the Alien films had the in-joke of having the androids being in alphabetical order - Ash, Bishop, Call, David. This film breaks the tradition by jumping to Walter. This film is garbage.
@Gordon Davis I forgot until this video about the fact that somehow Shaw (or David) had to recreate David's body so he wasn't just a head in a bag! Ten years wouldn't be enough time to learn how to fully mobilize an android and Shaw was not an electrical/bioengineer! Unless maybe David had some programming inside him to instruct her on how to reform him... I don't know that she would have bothered to take the time to do so when there was so much else to be done. Sloppy as hell. The Covenant crew followed in line with the Prometheus crew in taking off their helmets when they sensed oxygen, which again... incredibly sloppy and unbelievable.
i loved the movie.....except the twist at the end. the movie did such a good job getting to me to care about Daniels and a yet to be built log cabin, for her to have gone from losing her husband at the start to having found someone she wants to keep that cabin dream alive with......only for it to be taken away from her was fucking cruel. i get david has to get off the planet in order for things to reach the first movie, but still.
14:00 Its called Character Exposition/development, not a "waste of time", the hair cut, was a waste of time, as androids have no reason to grow or care enough about their appearance to cut their hair.
The reaction is 10X more enjoyable than the movie, and "pretentious" is a really good summary for this and Promethus. Too many characters again, never was able to get attached. By making everyone married, they try to force the attachment, but for me that is a flop. Sci Fi prequels usually make the mistake of looking more technologically advanced than the movies they are set prior to. Too many of these people are dumb- they're dropping a colony but doing basic scouting. You would survey THEN send the colony. The part you quit, thats where I honestly started to wonder if the whole point of this movie was for shippers who'd write David/Walter fanfic. I also just found the xenomorph to be too agile, to fluid in its movements compared to Alien and Aliens. I get that some people want a rule of cool based upgrade, but after 30 years, it just made the movie feel sped up. Honestly, if it had come out on SyFy I'd have probably enjoyed it more as part of some thing where Ridley Scott was giving a couple of teams to make a set of movies in the Alien'verse. From a bunch of new directors and writers. But from him... He's just feeding his ego and expecting everyone to stroke it for him. His ego, that is.
Your reaction while watching the movie is real and it's obvious you enjoyed it, but you surmised it had lot's of flaws etc....etc .. plot holes, character's not developed enough? What ever the Fuk that means, without hindsight ! It's a great movie and so is Prometheus..all credit too the cast and crew plus the legendary director! for sure these movies will be classics! Try poking holes in 'HOT FUZZ ' I dare you!!
I loved how you said the movie lost you, and then you had to take a break. I felt the same way. I had to watch the movie in pieces. The absolute poor writing, and dumb decision made by the characters and...NO DAMN (real) XENOMORPHS killed it for me!
Alien and Aliens are best (Aliens was the first of them I watched when I was young), but personally I really really like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as well! No movies will ever be the same as the first two, because they were excellent and ahead of their time. It seems like that is what a lot of people are waiting for, but I think we might have felt that would have been a bit of a copy-paste, or couldnt live up to the originals anyways.. It just feels like so many people hate on any new entry into this franchise because it´s not the same as the originals, or takes a different approach or explores a different direction than people were imagining. Of course you might get dissapointed if a movie or a story doesn´t go the way you personally want. I hope for more movies and exploring further in this story line, and someday approach Ripley´s timeline for sure. And as someone who hasn´t delved into the written stories in this universe, I feel like more movies definitiely could shed more light on "The Company" for example. Will you watch AVP..? :)
Covenant had, rightfully so as you say, everything great going for it on paper. But the execution certainly leaves a lot to desire. But execution is not the only major story & script problem. Covenant was a battle between Scott & 20th Century Fox. Ridley wanted Covenant to focus entirely on AI = David & the Engineers. he didn't want any Xeno at all. He feels that already after his first film, Alien, all was already said about it (I think that is a negative hint towards Cameron & his Aliens, some resentment there, Mr Scott?). But the studio demanded that at least one Xeno, or more, must be in this film. That because even if Prometheus was a hit it still wasn't well received by actual Alien fans. So to even get this film made at all they had to compromise. Scott had to have Xeno's in Covenant but that was then on the expense of the Engineers. What would have been a better decision - just Engineers & mad David or including Xeno's - is entirely an individual decision for all of us. I personally stand in the middle. I agree with Fox that Xeno's should be in Covenant as they are BUT NOT on the expense of the Engineers! We should still have learned more about them to actually care what happened on this world. Was this even their home world? They never looked high tech or even the same as the Engineers of Prometheus. There are countless of good vids on TH-cam explaining all this, in theory, but I think most of us can agree that we prefer having such vital plot points be explained in the actual movies, yes? All this meant that we didn't get enough of anything at all, nothing got the focus it deserved or the right treatment or execution. I am pretty sure this is the nr 1 reason why the execution of this film sucks, because the director didn't want the Xeno's at all in his film but he had to if he wanted to make it at all. Normally I stand on the side of the director & story teller, we all know what happened with Alien 3, that was all because Fox got too involved in the plot & creative process instead of allowing the person with a vision do his or her thing. But this time I feel they did the right thing & included the Xeno's, it was what the franchise needed. The Xeno is a beloved monster while the Engineers just never struck with people in general. But there was still no reason to ignore the Engineers entirely as they did, by just wiping them out so they no longer need to come up a story about them, that is very lazy writing. Ridley should have been allowed more of his vision, the Xeno's could & should have been there anyway, it could have worked. In places, moments, Covenant does work. At least for me. But it could & should have been so very much more instead of a bland compromise that feels that Scott did not put his heart & soul into this since he no longer could make the movie he truly wanted.
I like Shaw, Danny McBride and the captain casting (Not counting James Franco), but the rest could've been better and they should've developed them more.
What makes these prequels so bad, is the over involvement of Ridley Scott He takes all credit for Alien, but he didn't make the script, or was the first directing choice He thinks his vision is absolute, as he thinks he made the franchise, when he didn't
Had Ridley directed this, it would've been better. However, when a director that's been tied to a movie is just a producer on a sequel, the sequel will never be as good. Look at BR2049. Remember what I said when the last Indiana Jones comes out
Here's my take. There's a lot to be desired for these prequal movies, however the direction of the overall plot is one of the strong points for me. Ridley Scott left the origin of the alien very open ended and mysterious by design. It was an unknowable horror with no clear motivations beyond malice for the crew, that it seemed to revel in sexual violence, and was both biological AND mechanical in anatomy. Then came James Cameron with his sequel "Aliens" who decided to completely remove the unknowable and turned them into bugs, with a big ol' termite inspired queen. The first movie has a deleted scene you can watch where Dallas and Brett are found after being captured by the alien and being literally turned INTO one of those egg pods, which further plays into the idea of genetic manipulation these prequels continue to toy with. As great as a movie as "Aliens" is on it's own feet, I do feel it ultimately did a disservice to the lore of the creature as every product created after adopted this idea that they are just big bad bugs. So these prequels by Ridley are a bit exciting, and especially so that it disregards the whole bug concept and focuses on who the Engineers are and their relationship with the origin of the alien and even us. My understanding was that he didn't plan on showing anything even close to the "xenomorph" in the first movie, but was ultimately strong-armed by the studio because they felt he couldn't have a movie that touches that franchise without the alien actually in it. This ended up creating a planned 2/3 movies that is supposed to be about the creation of the Alien, but instead the alien is revealed too early to maintain interest in that larger plot. My prediction is that it would be the third movie in which David ends up ultimately incorporating himself (an android) into to final perfecting of this creature he is developing, which is where the mechanical aspect enters. It would ultimately echo Ash in the the first movie commenting that the Alien is a "perfect organism", recognizing it's intentional design.
@@CasualNerdReactions I'm glad - it was meant in fun. 🙂 I was looking thru your channel to see if you'd reacted to Alien: Romulus but couldn't see it there. I hope the last couple of movies haven't put you off the franchise but this new one is a completely different ball game. In case you're unaware, it's set between Alien and Aliens - about 20 years after Alien. I think you'd like it... 👍
This movie REALLY dropped the ball. Prometheus was very intriguing...it had great potential in terms of where it was going to go. This movie was a real disappointment to me. This movie dropped the story that Ridely Scott was going to tell completely and did this action horror silly thing. Ridley Scott should have stuck to his original story plan and not yielded to fanboy cries for action and aliens. Elizabeth Shaw was a very interesting character, and they just tossed her aside. In this movie the action was just too unbelievable and superhero like. Alien movies work best when they're grounded....and this was just too over the top. It felt like a real betrayal of Prometheus and the first two movies. I think you really need to examine what happened between Alien Covenant and Prometheus to see how Scott was pressured into NOT making the Elizabeth Shawe movie he was going to do. A large reason for this movie falling flat is because it's simply not the movie that Ridley Scott wanted to make. His heart wasn't in it. It wasn't his movie...it was the studios.
it might help when people randomly search a film on youtube if you put the film title first in your description....I continue to be an enthusiastic subscriber to your channel
This film is a failure, to my mind, of following through from the ending of Prometheus, just as #3 was a failure to follow through with the ending of Aliens. This film is a non sequitur mish mash!
Having David create the xenos 10 year's before alien 79 begins, instead of the xenos being an ancient planet cleanser of warfare that the engineer's created ruined the entire film for me
Hmmm. "beautiful in a horrible. grotesque way". Soooo...just like normal animal (including human) childbirth, unless you haven't actually watched one. To wit: lots of screaming, squirts of body fluid, lots of blood, lots squishy sounds, struggling and breakage and then finally....silence (whether from the mother's exhaustion or death). Only difference is where the birthed come out from
There are so many things in Covenant that shows how badly planned this film was, how bad the story execution is. Here is one example; Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus, hence why the story continues David's story. Prometheus ended with David & Elizabeth leaving to find the Engineer home world. Now they are on this planet (regardless if it was the right planet or not). So far so good. But in Covenant, Daniels finds a picture of Elizabeth & Charlie on the ship Elizabeth & David traveled on. Later we also see David having a picture of Elizabeth as well. How can any of these 2 pictures exist? When they left in the previous film all of Prometheus was destroyed when it took out the other ship. All personal belongings were destroyed with it. And why would any such thing have been on Vicker's life-pod? There's no way any of those pictures made it to this world in Covenant. the pictures are there to remind us of what happened before but it is just another example of lazy writing. Not bothering to recall what went down previously, just rush on. Maybe most didn't realize or notice this, or care. But it destroys all continuity for me, such a simple thing. And if one watches the Crossing short film we all know Elizabeth's hair grew longer during travel so David could not have taken that picture of her later, & with what camera anyway? And Charlie is very dead so how could a picture with him in it have made it to this other world when Elizabeth should not be able to have such a picture anywhere? And it's beyond ridiculous if she had that picture on her in her space suit, especially when they were in such hurries at the end of Prometheus: I could be wrong but I don't even recall those suits even had pockets so where could she keep a picture? If this had been the only error of Covenant I had totally forgiven it. But now it's just one of many problems & that makes me unforgiving.
These are great nitpicks that attack the continuity and believability of Covenant. Elizabeth was running for her life and compromised in physical ability by her spontaneous surgery, so it's not like she was going to run around gathering up mementos. And what ship did Elizabeth and David even travel on since the main ship was destroyed, Vickers' lifepod was destroyed (I think), and the engineer ship was destroyed? So many plot holes.
@@vickenator Actually, there were more Engineer ships on this planet, & it was in one of these David & Shaw left in at the end of the film. When they first arrive, Charlie (my least fav character of this film) makes notice that "God does not build in straight lines", meaning that the other exact same formations as the first one they later enters were all such ships. They just entered the first in the line. So how David & Shaw got off planet in a similar ship & that is the one we see in Covenant is actually no plot hole. But the rest is.
@@Imylover Thank you -- I watched the "prequel" snippet to Covenant after I posted this and indeed remembered that David had said there were other ships and that he knew how to pilot them.
This film was an enormous waste of time and money... stupid, unlrelateable, and mostly unlikable characters, poor writing, ham-handed exposition, and a total lack of any practical effects. This film's tone is so serious and it absolutely demands to be taken more seriously than parts 3 or 4, but it really isn't any more original or better written than either of them. Prometheus was a deeply flawed film, but it was far more intelligent and compelling than this flashy collection of pixels. This franchise probably should have died after Aliens, but Covenant definitely killed it for good. R.I.P. ✌
Me too and then that ending. From excellent 4 stars to sht no stars because of THAT ENDING. I usually don't ever really like a movie to really hate it because of the result of one thing and this movie was the first.
The movie only exists because studios were trying to rally their own studio weapons against each other in ‘15-‘17 to fight against Disney and Warner’s superheroes, and all Fox had to fight back with was Die Hard, Planet of the Apes, X-Men, Alien and Predator. Thankfully, Disney buying Fox put a stop to that, and if you’ve seen that Pocahontas-vs.-Predator thing on Hulu…that would appear to be the last of it. Whew. 😗
The characters in Covenant are possibly even dumber than the characters in Prometheus, but for me the straight-forward horror movie format makes that stuff easier to swallow. I had fun watching this in the cinema, enjoying both the thrills and the idiotic moments.
I am sure my thoughts are different than most on this one, but please let me know what YOU thought of this film in the comments! Coming soon: Shadow of a Doubt, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), It Chapter 2, Thor: Love and Thunder, and The Terminator.
Scathing disappointment. There was a TH-cam short about Shaw and David on the Engineer ship that was pretty interesting, but it didn't address why David did what he did.
Will you be watching Alien vs Predator at some point?
Annoying rant warning: Alien was a little jewel of a film. It had everything it needed, and no more. Its characters emerged from fine performances and well-considered detail. It did not reach further than it could grasp. Scott's later films in the series are everything that Alien was not: bloated, dumb as rocks, and deeply pretentious. The characters are mostly anonymous fodder, behaving idiotically for the sake of carnage. Danny McBride's character is actually named Tennessee. His personality is a hat. Billy Crudup's character exists so that Scott can raise the subject of religious faith in contexts he doesn't even seem to understand. The more ingredients in his Philosophy 101 soup, the better, I guess. He pretends to be interested in deep questions of human nature and identity, but he doesn't do anything with those questions. His references to classical and 19th Century art and literature are shallow attempts at depth by association. It is a very stupid film that believes it is very smart. And, as with Prometheus, the film shines a light into corners of the universe we didn't need need to explore. Edit: having said that, is is a visual delight.
Having said all that, and probably irritating people, I love your reactions as always. I cannot wait for Shadow of a Doubt and (one of my all time favourites) The Terminator. I hope that if you watch Terminator 2, you will start with the theatrical cut (the extended cut is _not_ a director's cut), and will avoid as many spoilers as possible. Opinions differ, but mine is right, Chris. _Mine is right!_ ;)
I can’t wait for Shadow Of A Doubt!!
Cannot wait for The Terminator reaction! 😁
I really liked this movie in the cinema. Especially the scene where David bombed the city. That was an experience for sure.
I was so hype for this movie going in and it remains one of the favorite theatrical experiences so far. Underrated movie.
The opening spaceship disaster in Covenant is very reminiscent of the opening of *Pitch Black* (2000), which was the fun sci-fi thriller that put Vin Diesel on the map. Interestingly, Pitch Black was based on a rejected idea for Alien 3, so I like to think of it as an unofficial Alien sequel. Sadly this movie is now mostly remembered for its disappointing sequels, but I do think it's well worth watching.
Pitch Black is a great movie! I enjoyed the sequels but it's because I do like the lore/world that was created by Vin :)
Never saw this movie, but enjoyed watching this reaction. The only thing was I at least wanted to see the Engineers and get more information on them and their planet. Prometheus left me wanting to know more about them and they didn't get a chance to explore more with them in this film.
The David and Walter meeting with the flute is way simpler than you might think...the audience at that point doesn't know David is dastardly evil-doer extraordinaire...for David, it was simply checking Walter out, i.e., his model/programming, via "personal interaction" to disarm David, as he knew he would be dealing with him later on in some capacity. Walter on the other hand, immediately knew David was kookoo in the cocopuffs, which he confirms by being wrong on the quote. Do remember David could care less about Walter personally in any individual capacity...the flute was a test to see if he would be able to cheat, beat & lie to Walter...as he directly points out that Walter cannot create anything...but that he could. This is because David is counting on Walter being the only one that could beat him, as he intentionally discounted all humans present as inferior.
There is a question of HOW Walter knew David was whackadoo, but he does point out that generally, the model of David was screwy. (My theory on that is explained later.)
Luckily enough for us, these two movies still leave space (pun intended) to NOT have David be the originator of anything, but originator of the alien itself, while never explaining if that was an Engineer planet or not, or if the Engineers even originated the black goo stuff itself, or merely found it from another civilization. Do remember the aliens acted like they didn't know what the ship was, much less what it was doing there, when David shows up.
Thirdly...always remember David is an extremely unreliable narrator of anything he says, since he has no morality code and is mostly open-ended. We have no real way of knowing if any of the story he told was true or not, but it appears to be true that he did indeed kill Shaw after experimentation on her. It appears to be true that the aliens there died of something as well. So far, he has been proven to instantly lie, murder, steal, etc., since Prometheus. And technically...it is never shown that Engineers created humans whatsoever. Just that the DNA is close. (some tweaking room in there if needed)
Fourthly (and lastly, as long as a flute scene between two robots):
How did Weyland-Yutani later on...know where the old original alien ship was in the original movie? Remember- It knew BEFORE Ripley & the crew went out there, that it was there. And how did Walter know as much as he did, about David? The answer is...David of course. He has a programmed ego after all (he would have thought it ego, and not programming), so he would constantly be sending back reports to someone, somewhere, about what a genius he is, of all mankind, ever. That theory was proven out with one of the extended scenes on youtube here. (Alien: Covenant | The Secrets of David’s Lab)
BUT...that can never explain how original alien xenomorphs are on THAT specific ship that Ripley and others found. That engineer was the only one they found in the entire ship that we assume they fully searched (and no mention of it at all really in Alien: Isolation by the other salvage crew) and it was chest exploded, but carrying a full bay of updated David Eggs. (If you look at the egg in this movie, it's not quite the same...another precursor.) Secondarily to that, you get to catch that the engineer in the original alien movie...
is not the same as the others. MUCH larger. At least twice as large.
Lots and lots of wiggle room in this story. And Ridley is smart enough to leave all that space in there because after all...
in space, nobody can hear you scream.
I too enjoyed the scenes between David and Walter as they were sizing each other up, literally and figuratively. And looking back, we know how how critical those scenes really were so that David could mimic Walter later on. Perhaps he always intended to do so from first meeting him. I understand the perceived slowness of the scene was kind of like a record screech moment from all the action and terror, but I was a little surprised at how much it took Chris out of the moment of the movie when I didn't feel that way at all -- it was a welcome breather from all the previous terror!
@@vickenator I can get why Mr. Chris didn't initially care for it...he is looking at it as an exposition dump or something linear in nature to mechanically busting up the pace of the movie. The fun with Ridley is (as you might know)...it IS a mechanical way to bust up the pacing, but with the classic time machine aspect of "have to go back and look at it again". Always layers of sub-context with Ridley.
I originally looked at it the same way as Mr. Chris...as in, what the hell? I get why Walter would hunt down David initially...but not why he would do so alone, individually. I assume information retrieval from David. That's his job as a synthetic, after all...to do stuff along those lines.
The flute part originally also made no sense to me from the Walter or audience perspective, until at the end, where you can tell Walter irritates the hell out of David (and kudos to Walter, he does so on purpose to gauge the reaction of David to check risk level, I am guessing)...and that is when I figured...okay...this is a complete setup by David. He wants off the planet. A simple scam he is running. He's going to do something to con Walter and the crew so he can get on the ship. IT'S A TRAP, WALTER!
Jump to the end of the movie, and it fills in the gaps of that entire scene being David intentionally playing the flute to draw Walter in, so he could figure out what to do with Walter BEFORE any of them figure out exactly what it is David is doing. He can see, then copy, all of Walter (hence the immediate plan of cutting his hair to match Walter, which nobody originally catches onto)...his movements, speech, thinking, etc.
Now, there are even more questions in how David originally even knew they had landed, and tracked them down. Or how David actually got there...because I forgot to mention...in David's unreliable narrator version, he flies over a city full of aliens that don't appear to even know what their own spaceships are or look like...
yet the Covenant crew find that ship buried in the side of a mountain crashed, with Shaw's dog tags hanging in there...meaning she was dead at that point (possibly, just a working theory, she may have been really injured too).
Why would David, WHOSE ENTIRE POINT IS TO GET ON A SHIP TO LEAVE in this movie, create xenomorphs WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE is to use other life-forms as breeding pods to make more...
crash a functional, working ship on a planet full of supposed Engineers, who don't have a ship, or apparently, any defenses of any kind, who are now all dead across the planet?
Why would Shaw ever allow that initially anyway? David said killing them all is stated by Shaw. Which is exactly NOT what Shaw stated. She states she wants to go find them...and ask them. Shaw can't fly the ship anyway...she has to have David-head explain it to her.
So why would Shaw wreck the ship? Or if not her...David?
Now we know we cannot believe anything David says...again...he is already proven a liar, cheat, thief and murderer with no linear moral code.
My guess is that Ridley went so deep into layering the story here, with sub-context, while leaving it so open on possibilities, that these two movies are just way too deep for regular Alien 1 & 2 watchers. Nobody was expecting any of it to go that deep anyway, they figured action shlock or some generic horror aspects. Same with me.
My last question on this movie is fairly simple: 10 years have gone by from when Shaw takes off, and they find David. We know how fast the black goo/alien stuff works. Guess what...that would take a week or two for an entire planet. 24-48 hours for the city he is in. Not 10 years. IF that is how David even killed them...after all, we don't know for certain.
My working theory is this- Shaw & David crash-landed on the planet & wrecked the ship originally. Maybe she was super injured, but not a moron, so hadn't put David back together, because he is sociopathic terminator which she knew would butcher and kill her. At that point, probably already dying, she cobbled him together, then croaked.
David then found the city and did David stuff. He had to 100% sell the Covenant crew on a workable story to get off-planet.
Heck, as far as we know, Shaw crash landed, and the Engineers found them, hauled them off to the city, and someone, being an idiot (because we do know Engineers do stupid things) put David back together, who then went on a serial killing spree.
Maybe Shaw got part of her answers, or at least way more questions (Classic Ridley) before she died.
Really enjoyed your reaction at 25:40 when you realized what Daniels was really saying. I knew that twist was going to catch you off guard, as it did for us all at first watch. The #1 thing that I found super annoying about this film was how incredibly difficult it was to keep track of crewmembers' names. Halfway through I completely gave up and even now years later I wouldn't have remembered anybody's names except for David and Shaw. But that was also a beef with Prometheus. I was spoiled by the spartan crew of Alien and then the repetitive last-naming military style of the Aliens crew. I still place Prometheus above Covenant in general, though.
There is NO WAY I would just walk out onto a planet without my equipment, even if the air is breathable, you don’t know what’s in the air!!! No way dude!
Why is the robot cutting his hair; we don't need to see this... *storms out. Me: 🤣🤣🤣
haha same. I often take breaks, but have never done that before. It made me laugh so I kept it in.
Haven't watched this one enough to really like it. Glad to see you doing Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One of the best remakes ever. You are really doing an eclectic blend of movies. A couple of good classics to consider are The Spiral Staircase from 1946 and The Innocents from 1961. With Halloween coming up, they would be nice along with The Legend of Hell House from 1973. Great reaction.
Legend of Hell House...YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! Such a great movie. Re: Body Snatchers; I think it would be fun if Chris (or another reactor) did ALL of them in order. I'd like to see some opinions on how the remakes deviated from the original & the pros/cons of that. 😁
Yikes James Harper! Wouldn't be able to sleep after watching your selections 👍
I think this movie was a PSA made by Wayland-Yutani about following environmental safety procedures on new worlds.
Ben Rigby Did Great Choking & Screaming Awesome You Are Legend For That Scene Good Scream
Most violent Alien movie
So the engineering of the original alien is still kind of weird and in question. Although, in the official book.. the engineers created the creature. The one we see in the film is David’s version using his studies of how the engineers created it. He just edited bits and pieces to make it his own version
I am right there with you Chris. There are a ton of good ideas, good characters, great visuals, and some really good scenes, but somehow the sum is less than it's parts. It really does seem tainted by leftover ideas from Prometheus. While I prefer it as an Alien movie over Prometheus, it really feels like this wasn't the follow-up that the last film set up, so it fails as a sequel, yet it has enough of that idea present to disrupt the narrative of this film. It feels like they really want David to be a super compelling villain, but it just doesn't really work and setting him against first Shaw, and then Daniels, and having them both become his victims undermines the female empowerment we got from Ellen Ripley.
I have this strange feeling that I am now watching 'The Focused Nerd'
I enjoy Alien: Covenant. I’ve never been so hype for a movie before or since. The only thing that really keeps it from being great is the treatment of Dr. Shaw and the continuation of this franchise’s worst trope: killing previous survivors off screen.
But the soundtrack and cinematography are the best of the series and I personally don’t mind David’s connection to the xenomorphs. It hasn’t been explicitly said if this is truly his creation or if he merely copied the Engineers work, as there is a mural of an Alien queen in one of the ships in Prometheus.
As with Prometheus, there’s a ton of deleted scenes and several promotional short films that really help flesh out the characters and story. You should definitely check out “The Crossing” which fills in the gap of what happened between Prometheus and Covenant.
You've got to love Oram insisting he must have been passed over for command because the bosses hate religious people, then going on to be completely incompetent once he gets the job. Again, it's very hard to tell if this was supposed to be funny.
But everyone in these movies is incompetent. Otherwise the stories wouldn't happen. Only Ripley has ever had any brains.
But not usually _this_ dumb.
Seriously. He pissed me off so much. No bend in his views whatsoever. Plus, the dumbass PUTS HIS FACE DIRECTLY OVER THE OPEN EGG!!!!!! Moron.
@@docsavage8640 Hard agree. I had a flashback moment to Ripley refusing to violate quarantine rules by letting Dallas and Lambert bring Kane aboard, when one of the Covenant lady crew members wouldn't let the other lady crew member out of the med bay as the dude crew member was exploding with alien whatever. But in the Covenant case, she was panicking, and it wasn't about quarantine rules at all. Daniels and Tennessee were the only real smart ones in this movie. (I could not for the life of me remember anybody else's name on the crew throughout the entire film or even afterwards.)
@@docsavage8640 Hard disagree. There's a fine-line between simply being ignorant and incompetent. In "ALIEN" the Nostromo crew were basically space-truckers but had a basic level of competency. While Dallas and Lambert were panicking about Kane, which is understandable, Ripley kept her cool and tried to maintain quarantine until Ash let them on... Because he's the android sent by the Company to make sure the Nostromo gets a specimen. But even after being let on, Parker and Bret likewise protest and at that point they just roll with things as best as they can. They were just ignorant of what they were dealing with. In the case of "ALIEN", the plot happened because of Weyland-Yutani.
In "ALIENS" it's much the same. Marines aren't colonists, space-explorers, or anything of the like... They're soldiers, While not a bunch of brain-dead morons you can't expect them to always react correctly to such a situation as the one they faced. Their skepticism of Ripley's report on her experience is likewise understandable given the creature it describes and the great lengths the Company is going to in order to keep things under wraps. The only true incompetent there was Lt. Gorman, though the way I hear it from former-members of military-forces, stupid junior-officers is hardly a rare phenomena. And once crap hit the fan and the marines managed to escape and regroup, they began handling things as well as they could. Are they geniuses? No. Do they handle the situation perfectly? No. But to say the plot advances only because of incompetency on the characters' part is simply not true.
In "ALIEN 3" he has much the same situation, only this time we're talking about a bunch of religious prisoners. Once we ignore the forced plot-contrivances like the egg mysteriously appearing on the Sulaco and all that jazz, the prisoners initially react to Ripley's claims with the sort of skepticism one might expect. Her mental-state is already in question as it is due to how she came out of cryo and her outlandish claims about some vicious alien-monster that no one has ever seen or heard of before. But once the superintendent gets killed and they see she's telling the truth, they do the best they can for a bunch of simple prisoners on a world with little more than torches, knives, axes, and decrepit machinery to help them fight the alien. Even if you want to insist that they were incompetent, you have to admit that they do the best they can. Here the plot happens only because the writer(s) make it so.
Won't even touch "ALIEN Resurrection", that movie was beyond pointless.
But this movie? Everyone short of Daniels makes the worst decisions imaginable consistently. This isn't the case of a bunch of space-truckers who find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard-place due to corporate contracts, nor is it the case of a bunch of soldiers finding themselves in way over their heads, nor is it the case of a bunch of prisoners on a backwater planet with barely functional technology beyond the essentials. In prior movies (Save for "ALIEN Resurrection" and "Prometheus") the characters legitimately do the best they can given the situations they're in. But these folks? They're supposed to be trained for this kind of stuff, maybe not specifically the situation they find themselves in, but to deal with dangerous situations one might expect when trying to settle another world. But because the majority of the crew wanted to disregard their mission for the sake of convenience and Oram is just the stupidest bastard to leave Earth, the plot happened. The whole thing could have been avoided if they just stuck to their mission, as there was literally no reason for them to deviate. No corporate-policies, no military orders, no reason at all beyond their own stupidity.
Interesting reaction and comments. For me, (although i loved the first 2 movies) the whole Alien premise is a little overdone - 'Perfect Organism'? Is it really? It shows no signs of intelligence, creativity or even consciousness - it kills and that's about it - a bit like a shark. What would the military do with it? It makes no real sense to me.
I'm pretty sure those dumbasses at The Company thought they could train them to only kill "the enemy".
The gods enter into Valhalla......
The ending was such a surprise twist!
Did You Hear Ledward Just Started Screaming
Did you notice how David even though he was a robot and knowing someone created him, he surely had a Godcomplex thinking he is a God.
My idea for a third alien covenant/prometheus movie is as follows:
The engineers are the main characters in the movie and comes to the planet that was in the Prometheus movie.
There they find Weyland inside the crashed spaceship. They have a blue elixir which they empty all over him and bring him to life.
But while doing this the Deacon from the Prometheus movie sneaks into their spaceship and hide it self in one of the ventilation chambers.
In the next part they arrive at the planet from alien covenant and find the other robot(Walter) who is david's twin.The engineers use the blue elixir and repairs him.
Once awaken the engineers and Weyland get to know all the horrible things that David has done, and weyland says "we have to stop David" .
They set course for origae. When they arrive,they scans all the planet,and finds the planet is full of hostile organisms except
on a high mountain where they discover that there are humans inside a cave.
Inside the cave they meet a herd of children, who tell that when they had lived on the planet for over ten years,
they began to be attacked by Xenomorphs and all the adults died or were turned into these creatures.
There were also great giants developed by someone the children calls David.
The engineers get ready to wipe out all the Xenomorphs that David has created, but the great giants manage to escape with one of the engineers' spaceships.
The engineers and Weyland hunts the spaceship and manage to force the spaceship down on the planet lv426.Where it start sending a distress signal.
The engineers return to Origae to find David, but discover that he has escaped.
In the last part we see David arriving and meeting an unknown alien species
on a tropical like planet.
But when he and the unknown aliens have left the spaceship,the deacon slips out of the ship and is seen running toward the nearest settlement.
And that makes the cliffhanger that ends the third movie.
I know what you mean. I had to go get my bicarbonate lol 😆
This could have been such a great movie, I really wanted them to actually explore the engineers and what it was about and who they were, such a missed opportunity. and again, more dumb scientists. oh well. it was... interesting. I love that your cat is Skywalker what a great name
I was at my sisters during this one. She has two cats. Skywalker and Ashoka. 😄
these are not the engineers from prometheus, they are very different looking, this is in fact confirmed in a way from Ridley Scott's interviews. they are either one of the many planets they inhabit and are a different kind of engineer or they are a creation of them as humans are. it is confirmed that we will see a lot more of them in the sequel of covenant. as of the dumb scientists, if you are referring to the removal of the helmets, the atmosphere was said to be tested, and even if it wasnt, still a pretty minor thing to get hang over especially when they are on a mission with the goal of establishing a new colony. on the other hand, if you are referring on the character of certain scientists, i can personally attest that a lot of them are in fact a lot dumber than they seem, especially under stressful situations :P
One more piece of utter ridiculousness: the sheer number of married couples on this mission, just so the movie can play the death of one of each for overblown tragedy no matter how little we had any idea who they were. No less than five times.
its a colony mission, they send couples for a reason...
It's a cheap way to create emotional involvement for the audience. It makes sense to send couples, but also single people so that you can have couples form after landing- it improves social bonding. If everyone is already paired up, you've got different dynamics. On one hand, you have the risk each pair will say "screw the colony" and just be in it for themselves. On the other, marriages are celebration and build community.
Entertaining reaction. There's not currently a third film but there is a new Alien series coming that I think Ridley Scott is producing but I'm not sure. Also not sure if it carries on this story of is just set in this world. Lastly, David dyed his hair blond in the beginning of Prometheus while watching Laurence of Arabia.
Actually like your takes on movies... honest, analytical. And you enjoy both the good and bad.
Thanks so much! I do try to pick movies I'll like, but I also always try to be honest.
Remember when Ridley Scott was saying Prometheus wasn't an Alien prequel? With revamping Alien and Blade Runner, you think he's not thinking of Gladiator 2?
I told you you should watch Ridley Scott's "Black Rain." 😁
Now just try watching those first two films again, keeping in mind this is all happening just because of some asshole robot.
I refuse to watch this movie on the grounds I very nearly walked out the previous movie. However I am going to watch your reaction.
I do have a question for you, Chris. I have suggested to people doing movie reactions check out the free-to-watch movies here on the TH-cam Movies channel. They tell me "Cool!" and then outright go about their business, ignoring my suggestion.
Why do you think that is?
Most already have a huge list to get through. No time for all suggestions.
Do you suggest specific movies, or do you just say "watch movies on youtube"?
Thread Bomb ...I suggest specific movies. I warned them that TH-cam rotates them in and out, that they needs to get on them before TH-cam takes down the free version.
Do the free movies on TH-cam have ads? That could be a deterrent. It would be a extra challenge for me to provide my full length reaction for patrons with ads.
Otherwise either they aren’t interested in the film, or maybe they aren’t looking for new suggestions at the time. I know I’ve pretty much got my plan through the end of the year, now it’ll change a bit, but probably not much.
Chris ...Somewhat fair concern, but you can just edit out the ads as well.
Just go look at what they have right now. They have some REALLY good movies up. I dare you to pass up the classic Cleopatra (1963) or critically acclaimed Finding Forrester (2000).
ben 10 we need your help
I knew I was in trouble when I noticed the very futuristic rope lights decorating the dropship's interior.
Chris with the fresh cut✌️😉💈
Haha every now and then!
The blood on the floor is the Villain here.
The whole idea that Shaw decided to go to the engineer's home planet alone apart from the android after what happened in Prometheus doesn't make sense. Ok action and plot twist but that's it.
Ty so Much for this Vid. so..Humans created Xenos "in a way"..and the company wants to get the design? is that the final puzzle? how the heck one of the ships, with the eggs, got to LV-426? ty again, great movie.
Blech I hated the ending. Like, it would have been a super sweet ending. It's okay to have a good ending, set up your next movie some other way.
Okay, so.... I don't have any particular special love for this movie. I don't think it's bad but I don't think it's fantastic either. I'm sort of in the "Eh, it's okay" camp.....
But... well....
Ok, so basically this was me watching this reaction:
- Enjoying watching your reactions as usual, then:
13:20 You - 'What is the point of this? This seems like fluff'
Me, puzzled, thinking - 'Weeeelllll, there's a reason for it Chris. Maybe give it more than a second and a half and give the movie a chance to answer that question for you'
You - entire reaction from 13:41 to 14:39
Me- "Ok, seriously, like, wtf?! What is going on? Movies will often have characters say or do something that might not make sense to the audience in the moment, but that have a payoff later on in the movie... And I _know_ that Chris knows this. He has a deep love of film and has seen more than enough movies at this point to not only know it, but to have experienced it many times. I _know_ that he knows this. And while I may not have watched every reaction of his up till now, I've certainly watched a lot of them, most of them even, and I can't remember him _ever_ demanding this sort of expediency, and having this 'give-me-an-nswer-RIGHT-now-or-you've-lost-me' attitude for any other movie he's watched on this channel.
So, like... what the hell?"
So seriously Chris, what gives? 🤷
Are you okay?
Were you just having a bad day that day or something?
Thanks for the comment! I've never had a reaction like that before, I can't explain why it hit me like completely, but I know I felt like I was enjoying a fun horror flick and it just stopped and pivoted into a philisophical mess that I didn't want to see. I kind of felt like I had whiplash, like I was suddenly watching a different movie and just wanted to get back to the other one I was enjoying. I left it in the edit, because I thought it was amusing and I do try to represent my real reaction. Sorry if it rubbed ya the wrong way.
@@CasualNerdReactions
No no I appreciate that you left it in. I always want you to be genuine, of course.
I just didn't understand it and was really baffled by your reaction at the time, that's all.
@@otnat2094 Wow, you were really overthinking it IMO. Sometimes people just get in a mood.
@@ThreadBomb
Yes I know that. Sometimes even the tiniest thing can affect the way a person reacts to something. That's why I asked if maybe he was just having a bad day.
Sometimes, some movies rub you up the wrong way. They might not have yesterday or tomorrow but right now they are a pain.
It's the same issue that all franchises suffer from when there is a classic in the line up. Alien has 2 classics, the first 2, and every other film will be compared to those 2 masterpieces which is a little bit unfair.
All of the films that came after the first 2 would be much better thought of if the first 2 never existed. The same happens with music when there is a masterpiece in the back catalogue.
I think you hit the nail on the head, Chris. This has all the ingredients of being a great movie but something has gone weird in the way they are stirred together. Maybe they are half-baked.
I'm not convinced by some of the performances. David and Walter are both annoying, many of the human crew are bland and unmemorable. And the pacing is off. There's too much going on, too many questions without answers.
Maybe, also, fans of the first two movies are looking for more of the same while Scott is determined to be different. He gives us an explanation for the xenomorphs but it is not satisfying or shocking, just bemusing and surprisingly prosaic and banal. Once again, Scott shows that he's great at visuals, not so great as a storyteller. Maybe 'Alien' was a fluke.
I really wanted to like this film but there were some very annoying bits. I hate when characters do idiotic things like visit an unknown planet and walk around without ever assuming there are viruses or deadly organisms. Not wearin a helmet. It’s basically the brain slug episode of futurama. You were dead on with the pretentiousness of this movie. Ridley Scott has jumped the shark.
david wants to be his own god over the xenomorphs. like humans are gods to the robots
After that, I'm like," David you son of a *****, I liked Daniels so much Bro, then, " Oh ya, his father was a *****."
It's honestly hard to tell if the birth of the Neomorph was actually supposed to be darkly funny, with the sheer idiocy from every single character from beginning to end. Just try watching it with Yakkity Sax playing. And of course, followed by Faris' husband nonsensically saying she's "not one to get afraid."
It wasn't idiocy by the characters. The problem is that they thought the exposition would be boring and talking down to the audience; they didn't take into account how some people in the audience aren't smart.
The novelization and original scripts had them mention several times that they took scans while traveling to the planet over weeks and while in orbit, and Walter tested the environment - took deep breaths and even drank the water (for his internal system to test physically instead of just by scans) while they grabbed the guns and geared up - before they all exited - they even mention not needing any suits. David even says that in the dormant state, the motes are unscannable/undetectable, it wasn't a failure of tech or Walter's abilities, so they would never have had any reason to be more cautious.
Even Oram trusting David was constructed well originally. He was presented with several moments prior where David could have put him in danger and didn't.
David threw a petrified sac at Oram. He showed Oram a pod with a dead facehugger inside (He found it and has been trying to replicate it - so he never created them), and where the eggs are the smell is pungent. David gave him a lavender-like unguent/gel to place under his nose that helps with the smell - and it works.
David then also claims the ungent keeps him safe.
Add to it that synthetics are normally supposed to be trustworthy and have been around for 50 years on Earth, and it is understandable why Oram followed David to get facehugged. He is predisposed to trust androids (Part of Earth Culture), and David himself groomed Oram with a sense of safety in his own actions.
It is really sad that people need to be told/talked down to, instead of using logic and common sense. But then again, some in the audience don't get why they left Earth, they don't have the capacity to extrapolate.
This movie disappointed me sooooooo much upon first viewing - I kept sighing and even saying "what?" in disbelief out loud a few times: I found the crew acting just plain dumb in places, the whole plot of David being the creator just doesn't sit well with me at all, the fact we don't see Shaw as she's just ended off screen...Ugh. And a big "oof". The movie lost me as well, and I finished it just to finish it, but - yeah. I'm sure people would be disappointed in whatever origin of Alien the director would come up with, but I really expected something more. More creative, more nasty-gore, more thought-provoking, anything. And I got this instead XD
chris i always appreciate your honesty about the movies you watch, and that every reaction isn't just a breathless "wow, cool!" like so many channels. for me prometheus and covenant violate one of the key tenets of science fiction (really any fiction): anything that's hinted at is going to be cooler in the viewer's/reader's mind than something that's laboriously explained. author william gibson once explained it in an interview by talking about when he saw john carpenter's escape from new york. at one point there's a single line where a character asks kurt russell's snake plissken: "you flew the gullfire over leningrad, didn't you?" what does that mean? was there eventually a real shooting war between the u.s. and the soviets? who knows! but it * sounds * cool, and suggests a very interesting backstory for snake without a lot of tedious exposition. think of the (literally) awesome reveal of the space jockey in the original alien. no explanation is ever going to live up to the sheer unexplained weirdness of that image. unfortunately we just now live in an age of sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and universes where nothing can ever just be suggestive and everything eventually has all the narrative juice squeezed out of it.
All. Of. This.
Definitely agree! Stop demystifying the mystery. I do try my best to be honest. I’d rather just love everything, but I don’t lol.
And this movie is much more enjoyable if you watch it with the point of view that David is the protagonist and not the "villain" or some such. I always do that with Blade Runner and man, Roy is a much more "heroic" figure than dingy, smarmy deckard lol
To me this is a sequel to Prometheus and not really a prequel to Alien if that makes sense.
Initially it was supposed to be Prometheus: Paradise. As time went on it got canned and most of the original ideas, I think it was supposed to be Shaw on the Engineer's home planet. Prometheus wasn't received well for awhile, possible Ridley felt not enough people would be invested unless there wasn't a Xeno which I would've much rather have had this be a Prometheus film. Or they thought by slapping Alien on the title it'd make more money anyway and they could half ass the origins without a lot of audiences caring as well as without making another Prometheus. If I remember correctly there was supposed to be multiple Prometheus films before Alien to properly set up everything and basically Covenant rushed thru everything. So yeah there are Prometheus elements in Covenant for these reasons, as an Alien fan I don't consider it much of an Alien film. Though I love Prometheus and don't consider it a Prometheus movie either. 🤣 Still tho, accurate. The stuff with Shaw for example is because the new Prometheus movie got canned. I can't stand this movie for various reasons, tho the total F U to Shaw's character made me pretty ticked in theaters considering I waited years for a new Prometheus.
This movie was hot garbage. First, people who saw Prometheus wanted to see the character of Elizabeth Shaw, only to find out she died off screen. At the end of Prometheus, Android David was only a head. He was the crowning jewel of Weyland laboratories. In this film, how did Shaw ( an archeologist) repair David so he has a perfect body? The makeup for the city Engineers in this film is cheaper than the makeup in Prometheus. Oh, then the film gets worse. We see a chestburster grow up to be a small alien in about 15 seconds while David flute plays - where does the creature get the extra mass? At least in the original film the creature took a day or two to grow and we saw a shed skin. We find out that David created the xenomorphs - even though the original ALIEN film has xenomorph eggs on a ship so old that the alien pilot is fossilized ( takes thousands of years). The Covenant crew take off their helmets immediately on the planet because there is oxygen - what about poisons, virus, bacteria, etc? Lazy writing - two separate people meet their doom by slipping in blood. One small pet peeve - prior to this film, the Alien films had the in-joke of having the androids being in alphabetical order - Ash, Bishop, Call, David. This film breaks the tradition by jumping to Walter. This film is garbage.
@Gordon Davis I forgot until this video about the fact that somehow Shaw (or David) had to recreate David's body so he wasn't just a head in a bag! Ten years wouldn't be enough time to learn how to fully mobilize an android and Shaw was not an electrical/bioengineer! Unless maybe David had some programming inside him to instruct her on how to reform him... I don't know that she would have bothered to take the time to do so when there was so much else to be done. Sloppy as hell. The Covenant crew followed in line with the Prometheus crew in taking off their helmets when they sensed oxygen, which again... incredibly sloppy and unbelievable.
i loved the movie.....except the twist at the end. the movie did such a good job getting to me to care about Daniels and a yet to be built log cabin, for her to have gone from losing her husband at the start to having found someone she wants to keep that cabin dream alive with......only for it to be taken away from her was fucking cruel. i get david has to get off the planet in order for things to reach the first movie, but still.
14:00 Its called Character Exposition/development, not a "waste of time", the hair cut, was a waste of time, as androids have no reason to grow or care enough about their appearance to cut their hair.
Riddle should make as many as possible before he might pass. Then god knows what will happen to Alien.
The reaction is 10X more enjoyable than the movie, and "pretentious" is a really good summary for this and Promethus. Too many characters again, never was able to get attached. By making everyone married, they try to force the attachment, but for me that is a flop. Sci Fi prequels usually make the mistake of looking more technologically advanced than the movies they are set prior to. Too many of these people are dumb- they're dropping a colony but doing basic scouting. You would survey THEN send the colony. The part you quit, thats where I honestly started to wonder if the whole point of this movie was for shippers who'd write David/Walter fanfic. I also just found the xenomorph to be too agile, to fluid in its movements compared to Alien and Aliens. I get that some people want a rule of cool based upgrade, but after 30 years, it just made the movie feel sped up.
Honestly, if it had come out on SyFy I'd have probably enjoyed it more as part of some thing where Ridley Scott was giving a couple of teams to make a set of movies in the Alien'verse. From a bunch of new directors and writers. But from him... He's just feeding his ego and expecting everyone to stroke it for him. His ego, that is.
David bleached his hair you buffoon :-D in Prometheus. Wink wink
😅🤣
Your reaction while watching the movie is real and it's obvious you enjoyed it, but you surmised it had lot's of flaws etc....etc .. plot holes, character's not developed enough? What ever the Fuk that means, without hindsight ! It's a great movie and so is Prometheus..all credit too the cast and crew plus the legendary director! for sure these movies will be classics! Try poking holes in 'HOT FUZZ ' I dare you!!
I actually reacted to Hot Fuzz! I wouldn't dare, that movie was so good and I was not prepared for it.
I loved how you said the movie lost you, and then you had to take a break. I felt the same way. I had to watch the movie in pieces. The absolute poor writing, and dumb decision made by the characters and...NO DAMN (real) XENOMORPHS killed it for me!
Yea it’s crazy, I just completed disconnected in those few minutes.
Alien and Aliens are best (Aliens was the first of them I watched when I was young), but personally I really really like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as well!
No movies will ever be the same as the first two, because they were excellent and ahead of their time. It seems like that is what a lot of people are waiting for, but I think we might have felt that would have been a bit of a copy-paste, or couldnt live up to the originals anyways.. It just feels like so many people hate on any new entry into this franchise because it´s not the same as the originals, or takes a different approach or explores a different direction than people were imagining. Of course you might get dissapointed if a movie or a story doesn´t go the way you personally want.
I hope for more movies and exploring further in this story line, and someday approach Ripley´s timeline for sure. And as someone who hasn´t delved into the written stories in this universe, I feel like more movies definitiely could shed more light on "The Company" for example.
Will you watch AVP..? :)
I do plan to watch AVP late September/ early October
That double role character annoyed me,the CGI is what gets me the best
I hope Romulus lives up to this
It's gonna depend on what you're looking for, but I just got back from the theater and I had a great time!
@@CasualNerdReactions Seeing as so far, you've had good taste in Alien movies, I think I'll like it to.
Covenant had, rightfully so as you say, everything great going for it on paper. But the execution certainly leaves a lot to desire. But execution is not the only major story & script problem. Covenant was a battle between Scott & 20th Century Fox. Ridley wanted Covenant to focus entirely on AI = David & the Engineers. he didn't want any Xeno at all. He feels that already after his first film, Alien, all was already said about it (I think that is a negative hint towards Cameron & his Aliens, some resentment there, Mr Scott?). But the studio demanded that at least one Xeno, or more, must be in this film. That because even if Prometheus was a hit it still wasn't well received by actual Alien fans. So to even get this film made at all they had to compromise. Scott had to have Xeno's in Covenant but that was then on the expense of the Engineers. What would have been a better decision - just Engineers & mad David or including Xeno's - is entirely an individual decision for all of us. I personally stand in the middle. I agree with Fox that Xeno's should be in Covenant as they are BUT NOT on the expense of the Engineers! We should still have learned more about them to actually care what happened on this world. Was this even their home world? They never looked high tech or even the same as the Engineers of Prometheus. There are countless of good vids on TH-cam explaining all this, in theory, but I think most of us can agree that we prefer having such vital plot points be explained in the actual movies, yes?
All this meant that we didn't get enough of anything at all, nothing got the focus it deserved or the right treatment or execution. I am pretty sure this is the nr 1 reason why the execution of this film sucks, because the director didn't want the Xeno's at all in his film but he had to if he wanted to make it at all. Normally I stand on the side of the director & story teller, we all know what happened with Alien 3, that was all because Fox got too involved in the plot & creative process instead of allowing the person with a vision do his or her thing. But this time I feel they did the right thing & included the Xeno's, it was what the franchise needed. The Xeno is a beloved monster while the Engineers just never struck with people in general. But there was still no reason to ignore the Engineers entirely as they did, by just wiping them out so they no longer need to come up a story about them, that is very lazy writing. Ridley should have been allowed more of his vision, the Xeno's could & should have been there anyway, it could have worked. In places, moments, Covenant does work. At least for me. But it could & should have been so very much more instead of a bland compromise that feels that Scott did not put his heart & soul into this since he no longer could make the movie he truly wanted.
Loved it!
I like Shaw, Danny McBride and the captain casting (Not counting James Franco), but the rest could've been better and they should've developed them more.
I laughed when I realized it was James Franco and he was just killed off without ever even leaving the pod haha.
What makes these prequels so bad, is the over involvement of Ridley Scott
He takes all credit for Alien, but he didn't make the script, or was the first directing choice
He thinks his vision is absolute, as he thinks he made the franchise, when he didn't
Interesting! Makes me wonder what the original author might have done with it.
Had Ridley directed this, it would've been better. However, when a director that's been tied to a movie is just a producer on a sequel, the sequel will never be as good. Look at BR2049. Remember what I said when the last Indiana Jones comes out
Wait who directed it? IMDb lists Ridley as the director.
@@CasualNerdReactions then I am mistaken. I thought he was just the producer
Still! Definitely be interesting to see how Indiana Jones turns out for a number of reasons. :)
Personally, I thought this was the best Alien movie since Aliens. But there's a huge gap between this and Aliens on the scale.
Honestly I would rather watch AvP, because the characters are less stupid.
@@ThreadBomb not by much.
As bad as Prometheus was, this is MUCH worse .... if that were possible.
Thanks for the video!! See you later!! Stay safe.😊
Here's my take.
There's a lot to be desired for these prequal movies, however the direction of the overall plot is one of the strong points for me. Ridley Scott left the origin of the alien very open ended and mysterious by design. It was an unknowable horror with no clear motivations beyond malice for the crew, that it seemed to revel in sexual violence, and was both biological AND mechanical in anatomy. Then came James Cameron with his sequel "Aliens" who decided to completely remove the unknowable and turned them into bugs, with a big ol' termite inspired queen. The first movie has a deleted scene you can watch where Dallas and Brett are found after being captured by the alien and being literally turned INTO one of those egg pods, which further plays into the idea of genetic manipulation these prequels continue to toy with. As great as a movie as "Aliens" is on it's own feet, I do feel it ultimately did a disservice to the lore of the creature as every product created after adopted this idea that they are just big bad bugs.
So these prequels by Ridley are a bit exciting, and especially so that it disregards the whole bug concept and focuses on who the Engineers are and their relationship with the origin of the alien and even us. My understanding was that he didn't plan on showing anything even close to the "xenomorph" in the first movie, but was ultimately strong-armed by the studio because they felt he couldn't have a movie that touches that franchise without the alien actually in it. This ended up creating a planned 2/3 movies that is supposed to be about the creation of the Alien, but instead the alien is revealed too early to maintain interest in that larger plot. My prediction is that it would be the third movie in which David ends up ultimately incorporating himself (an android) into to final perfecting of this creature he is developing, which is where the mechanical aspect enters. It would ultimately echo Ash in the the first movie commenting that the Alien is a "perfect organism", recognizing it's intentional design.
It's a tie with Prometheus for me, and the best since Aliens, then Resurrection because of Winona Ryder casting, and then AVP.
I was having a GREAT time with your reaction, until... 🤭
🤣🤣🤣 I laughed way harder at this than I should have.
@@CasualNerdReactions I'm glad - it was meant in fun. 🙂 I was looking thru your channel to see if you'd reacted to Alien: Romulus but couldn't see it there. I hope the last couple of movies haven't put you off the franchise but this new one is a completely different ball game. In case you're unaware, it's set between Alien and Aliens - about 20 years after Alien. I think you'd like it... 👍
No reaction, but I saw it in theaters and I absolutely loved it, especially how they really used the acid to its full potential!
I agree with your review of this film - great potential that in the end fell flat.
This movie REALLY dropped the ball. Prometheus was very intriguing...it had great potential in terms of where it was going to go. This movie was a real disappointment to me. This movie dropped the story that Ridely Scott was going to tell completely and did this action horror silly thing. Ridley Scott should have stuck to his original story plan and not yielded to fanboy cries for action and aliens. Elizabeth Shaw was a very interesting character, and they just tossed her aside. In this movie the action was just too unbelievable and superhero like. Alien movies work best when they're grounded....and this was just too over the top. It felt like a real betrayal of Prometheus and the first two movies. I think you really need to examine what happened between Alien Covenant and Prometheus to see how Scott was pressured into NOT making the Elizabeth Shawe movie he was going to do. A large reason for this movie falling flat is because it's simply not the movie that Ridley Scott wanted to make. His heart wasn't in it. It wasn't his movie...it was the studios.
it might help when people randomly search a film on youtube if you put the film title first in your description....I continue to be an enthusiastic subscriber to your channel
Everyone on TH-cam or around the world have said that this movie proves that Ridley Scott has lost faith in the ALIEN series.
This film is a failure, to my mind, of following through from the ending of Prometheus, just as #3 was a failure to follow through with the ending of Aliens. This film is a non sequitur mish mash!
Having David create the xenos 10 year's before alien 79 begins, instead of the xenos being an ancient planet cleanser of warfare that the engineer's created ruined the entire film for me
You never saw that coming???Come on.
Hmmm. "beautiful in a horrible. grotesque way". Soooo...just like normal animal (including human) childbirth, unless you haven't actually watched one. To wit: lots of screaming, squirts of body fluid, lots of blood, lots squishy sounds, struggling and breakage and then finally....silence (whether from the mother's exhaustion or death). Only difference is where the birthed come out from
There are so many things in Covenant that shows how badly planned this film was, how bad the story execution is. Here is one example; Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus, hence why the story continues David's story. Prometheus ended with David & Elizabeth leaving to find the Engineer home world. Now they are on this planet (regardless if it was the right planet or not). So far so good. But in Covenant, Daniels finds a picture of Elizabeth & Charlie on the ship Elizabeth & David traveled on. Later we also see David having a picture of Elizabeth as well. How can any of these 2 pictures exist? When they left in the previous film all of Prometheus was destroyed when it took out the other ship. All personal belongings were destroyed with it. And why would any such thing have been on Vicker's life-pod? There's no way any of those pictures made it to this world in Covenant. the pictures are there to remind us of what happened before but it is just another example of lazy writing. Not bothering to recall what went down previously, just rush on. Maybe most didn't realize or notice this, or care. But it destroys all continuity for me, such a simple thing. And if one watches the Crossing short film we all know Elizabeth's hair grew longer during travel so David could not have taken that picture of her later, & with what camera anyway? And Charlie is very dead so how could a picture with him in it have made it to this other world when Elizabeth should not be able to have such a picture anywhere? And it's beyond ridiculous if she had that picture on her in her space suit, especially when they were in such hurries at the end of Prometheus: I could be wrong but I don't even recall those suits even had pockets so where could she keep a picture?
If this had been the only error of Covenant I had totally forgiven it. But now it's just one of many problems & that makes me unforgiving.
These are great nitpicks that attack the continuity and believability of Covenant. Elizabeth was running for her life and compromised in physical ability by her spontaneous surgery, so it's not like she was going to run around gathering up mementos. And what ship did Elizabeth and David even travel on since the main ship was destroyed, Vickers' lifepod was destroyed (I think), and the engineer ship was destroyed? So many plot holes.
@@vickenator Actually, there were more Engineer ships on this planet, & it was in one of these David & Shaw left in at the end of the film. When they first arrive, Charlie (my least fav character of this film) makes notice that "God does not build in straight lines", meaning that the other exact same formations as the first one they later enters were all such ships. They just entered the first in the line. So how David & Shaw got off planet in a similar ship & that is the one we see in Covenant is actually no plot hole. But the rest is.
@@Imylover Thank you -- I watched the "prequel" snippet to Covenant after I posted this and indeed remembered that David had said there were other ships and that he knew how to pilot them.
Alien Covenant was overall ok.
I fell asleep in the theater when the scene was shown of Walter and David first together in the cave. BORING!
oh please do HUMA BONDAGE 1934...............th-cam.com/video/ZZn1zmwrJG0/w-d-xo.html the whole movie
I can't even bring myself to watch your reaction. I detest this movie...
This!
Super fair. Please do not watch a reaction that will stir up the inner rage. 😅
IMHO, the charcters in Alien 3 has more persona than these ... scrape from the bottom of the barrel.
This film was an enormous waste of time and money... stupid, unlrelateable, and mostly unlikable characters, poor writing, ham-handed exposition, and a total lack of any practical effects. This film's tone is so serious and it absolutely demands to be taken more seriously than parts 3 or 4, but it really isn't any more original or better written than either of them. Prometheus was a deeply flawed film, but it was far more intelligent and compelling than this flashy collection of pixels. This franchise probably should have died after Aliens, but Covenant definitely killed it for good. R.I.P. ✌
Me too and then that ending. From excellent 4 stars to sht no stars because of THAT ENDING. I usually don't ever really like a movie to really hate it because of the result of one thing and this movie was the first.
It's like watching the actor from Resident Alien reacting to movies.
I need to watch that show. I am a fan of Alan tudyk!
I watched the pilot episode, and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I had to watch it the naughty way online, as it's not available in the UK yet.
The movie only exists because studios were trying to rally their own studio weapons against each other in ‘15-‘17 to fight against Disney and Warner’s superheroes, and all Fox had to fight back with was Die Hard, Planet of the Apes, X-Men, Alien and Predator.
Thankfully, Disney buying Fox put a stop to that, and if you’ve seen that Pocahontas-vs.-Predator thing on Hulu…that would appear to be the last of it. Whew. 😗
The characters in Covenant are possibly even dumber than the characters in Prometheus, but for me the straight-forward horror movie format makes that stuff easier to swallow. I had fun watching this in the cinema, enjoying both the thrills and the idiotic moments.
Lol! Yeah, the first half hour was great and then…🫠