I saw most of Alien Covenant again last night on the telly. After being blown away by Prometheus a few years back Covenant is growing on me each time I see it.
Essentially the Walter/ David show, Covenant at the very least makes clear the utter deadliness of the alien vases and the fear the Engineers had of these WMD.
Thinking about what might happen next, as David takes his cargo of prey to Origae-6, is problematic for me. Its essentially a non-human future with David presiding over a planet of monsters like his beloved Ozymandias and as such a bit predictable and tedious.
Androids and aliens alone aren't going anywhere really.
Where can such a storyline go without more and more of David's android insanity and a colony of beasts without any food?
Maybe they'll go forward for a new story.
Reading various online thingies about Scott 's actual plans there's talk of two canceled ideas called Awakenings, although I can't figure out when they would have set in the story arc.
There's also talk of Ridley coming back - Yay! - but again, where would Scott pitch the series' pin-up girl? She was a Ripley clone in Resurrection two hundreds after Alien, so where could a new Ripley fit in?
I'd like to see Ripley again, aged and perhaps world-weary, maybe even indifferent to a new Xenomorph threat. I'd like to see less of David/ Walter, although the origins of Ash and Bishop would be OK.
Will the creatures always be savages with insatiable hungers or could they become more intelligent and even speak? I suppose Scott and his crew have to riff like this to sound the water.
Where would you like to see the Alien films go?
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Ian Holm - Ash : RIP
Still collating I hope.
I always wanted to work on an Alien film and my swan song was an uncredited work-from-home stint at background props making fòr David's laboratory. True to form, you can't see any of my work in the final cut beyod some out of focus conical bells!
ReplyDeleteAs far as where the Alien films should go next,I'm afraid they lost me back at Resurrection!
Amazing production values can't paper over a paucity of solid storytelling!
Kudos on working on Covenant Looey! Fabulous!
DeleteI think the Dark Horse Alien comics had some pretty sound ideas, weyland Yutani created synthetic xenomorphs,to infiltrate hives and harvest a queens Royal jelly who then turned on his human masters and stayed in the hive- MJ Southcoast base
ReplyDeleteBlimey, 'harvest a queen's royal jelly', now that's an image MJ. Synthetic Xonomarphs? What like David and an Alien mixed together? A Dalien?
DeleteI enjoy the films (less so the 3rd and 4th instalments) and the idea of an omnipotent corporate power like Weyland and it's nefarious machinations is quite interesting. As has been rightly mentioned the production values are first rate but if more films were to go into production (and I assume they might as presumably they turn a profit ?) then I suspect it might plough the same furrow of colonists being picked off one by one. Maybe due to Covid19 we'll have a scenario where a lone space traveller is fighting for her life against the beasties both on a space craft and then the unknown planet it crashes into ?...
ReplyDeleteOh , and a pal of mine played one of the doomed Engineers in Covenant.
Fenton
Oh wow, an Engineer! How cool is that Fenton! Have you seen him in the film? Its quite grotesque what happens to them, but then again David is quite insane if that's the right word. Yes, post-Corona films will be interesting. maybe we'll see A L I E N: C O V I D!
DeleteSigourney Weaver is now 70 so I can't see her in another Alien movie. I think the franchise has just about come to an end. Including Alien V Predator and Rrequiem as part of the franchise IMHO 'Alien' and 'Aliens' are the only really good ones. Resurrection was a really good idea but had some terrible acting and stupid characters (Dan Hadeya I'm looking at you). Alien 3 I can't get over the rubbish British cast (sorry guys but you were) that takes me out of the movie, and killing off major characters that Ripley earlier rescued and survived 'Aliens', making her heroic actions in that movie mostly pointless. Prometheus has the dumbest crew and scientists ever. Cool ship though - come on Eaglemoss! Covenant kills off the main character from Prometheus (not counting David),has another stupid crew and looks like it kills off the main character at the end too. Does Scott really just want to make movies about David and how he is the creator of the Aliens? I really don't care anymore, apart from wanting a nice model of the Prometheus. ;)
ReplyDeleteIn space no-one can hear you make kits Yorkie! Yes, I agree about David. He's had his film. We need a new character to get our teeth into, preferably human. Maybe even a stable society rather than disasters in space, maybe a shake n bake colony that's settled and established, where a new Ripley emerges?
DeleteWilliam Gibson has written an alternative treatment if Alien 3, where the major characters survive the crash. Its available as an audiobook on Amazon. The whole franchise has evolved and mutated like the alien dna and become something unrecognisable. Scott seems to want to distance himself from the alien as monster and make man and his creations the real threat. Given Prometheus dodgy connection to the original film, Im not sure all the plotlines could now be resolved - how does a humanoid give birth to an octopoid, which in turn mutates further back into the semi humanoid Deacon at the end? The whole idea if alien as bioweapon is a bit tired now,too. I would like to see more of the Engineers backstory, but givennthat David conveniently wiped out a good portion of them, that seems unlikely. Covenant is a slow burner, at first I found it excessively gory, but it does grow on me, although the stupidity of the crew which was shown in prometheous ( the biologist petting an alien life form) is still annoying. The strangest part must be when the tiny emergent alien stands up from its birthplace and salutes david. So weird.
ReplyDeleteInteresting Wote. Do you get the sense that unlike Star Wars Alien has had its day? or has Star Wars fizzled out as well? They go hand in hand in my mind, mirror images of late Seventies space drama. I agree that the scout duo of scientists in Prometheus were very very irritating especially the angry geologist. His temper was such a drag. The other guy, dopey, was a ridiculous character petting the snake alien as you say. I'll have to watch out for alien salute at the end of Covenant, don't recall that. Is he its 'father'?
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