Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. Lame. I'm still looking forward to Bladerunner 2049 and sure hope that Ridley Scott has a much better script writer for Bladerunner 20149 than John Logan who worked on the script for this movie.

My Ratings:

Overall: 4/10

Visual Effects & Sci-Fi Special Effects: 9/10

Story/Script: 2/10

Acting: 5.7/10











Commentary:

The opening and original story premise was f'kin awesome. Peter Weyland creates a new type of synth, one with a turing AI and charges that Synth to help him find their creator. The AI Synths' name is David. Fast forward through Prometheus, and ten years after that to the Weyland colony starship Covenant in deep space enroute to a new system designated for colonization, Origae-6 . Onboard the Covenant ship is a synth named Walter. Walter is running the ship while the crew, and all 4,000 or so passengers are all asleep in cryo-stasis The Covenant struck by a random high intensity Interstellar flare which damages the ship and makes it necessary to wake up the 15 person crew to effect repairs.

This is standard, and a very nice sci-fi opening, the special effects were extremely well done, Ships interior camera shots gorgeously beautiful!!! If the rest of the movie went like this, it would have been the best Alien Movie ever, but then it started going downhill from there, and never stopped until it crashed straight into a concrete barrier and the movie was totally destroyed by the s*&^%$^ a%$ writers, who were hacks of the lowest order. Just about anyone on this forum could have written a better Alien movie, and well, ...should have.  

One of the crew members,m a guy named Tennessee who is out working on some damaged solar collector sails, successfully effects repairs to the sail, and then while returning to the ship receives a rogue radio transmission in his helmet.

I'm like, WTF? You have this huge 800M+ long colony ship with one of the most advanced sensors systems in known space, a sensor system that can detect planets that are not even broadcasting at many hundreds of light years, and determine whether or not the planet is hospitable for human life, and would be suitable as a colony world, and dude who has his Walmart spacesuit helm radio picks up this one rogue signal, that is not even a distress signal, by the way, its a snatch of a John Denver song.

lame, fkin lame. lame lame. lame. lame.

So the new captain of the Covenant , Captain Oram, (who was formerly the XO, because the original captain was the only crew member conveniently killed in the opening sequence when his cryo-stasis pod malfunctioned and incinerates him), so Oram unanimously decides to redirect the Colony ship to this newly detected world that was determined to be almost a perfect match for Earth, just because he (and the rest of the crew) heard this snatch of a John Denver song on some Walmart spacesuit helmet radio.

...I know right??? This would have been the most excellent place for the rest of the newly awakened crew to break into the ship's locker, get out the weapons, and force the idiot captain Oram immediately back into Cryo-stasis for endangering their lives, and the lives of the four thousand colomnists BY DIVERTING OFF PRIMARY MISSION TO DETERMINE THE SOURCE OF A JOHN DENVER SONG!!!!

...but noooooooo... The crew, charged with the safety of the ship, are sheeple, and meekishly obey the new captain, because the old captain is dead, and it is the captains fetish to find out just who in the f*&^ is broadcasting a JOHN DENVER SONG IN DEEP SPACE. At least one crew member tries to override him though, and that is the new XO, and her name is Daniels, the former wife of the recently incinerated captain.

For the records, I doubt any real Air Force, Army, Navy, or Marine Corps officer, would hesitate even a split second to shoot or otherwise airlock the retard who insists on overriding  an established mission directive to establish a new mission endangering everyone currently on the mission without even a secondary peer review, or to even establish new mission parameters, without at the very least checking back with HQ, ...but hey, they are out in space hundreds of not thousands of light years from any nearby friendly planet, so of course are under no obligation at all to follow any basic mission safety or communications protocols. WTF?

I was pretty much done watching the movie at this point, but stayed in the theater simply to witness the Alien carnage.

The movie didn't end well. The ending was just another cliched piss-poor hollywood story.

Michael Fassbender was almost able to salvage the movie playing in his dual role as David, the Synthetic son of Peter Weyland, and member of the Prometheus crew charged with finding the origins of their mutual creator, and Walter, the ships' Synth of the Covenant Colony Ship, who was charged with protecting the Covenant colonists, and crew. The remainder of the other actors, however, were unable to keep the acting chops up though, as not even a single one of them was able to establish a basic quarantine to isolate the uninfected ships crew members.

There was at least three other instances where the crew aboard the Covenant or aboard the planetary shuttle (which was destroyed by undiciplined small arms energy weapons fire inside the shuttle, after the firer deliberately broke an established quarantine)  or recovery transport could have safely brought the Covenant back on mission, and on its original mission directive, but nooooooooo.... the crew had to disobey both established mission parameters, as well as direct orders from their superior crew members. The only single crewmember who at least remained faithful and loyal to the ships crew, until the end, was Walter the Covenant synth.

I'm praying right now that Bladerunner 2049 is not being hacked up in the manner this movie was. Also the following six screenwriters should never be allowed to create a movie script again. mark them as thieves, because they just took my money, and didn't provide a satisfactory movie:

 
John Logan
Dante Harper
Jack Paglen
Michael Green
Dan O'bannon
Ronald Shusett

Well, my hopes weren't high anyway. But banning Dan O'Bannon himself? Wow.

I think BLADERUNNER whas a better chance of being good, it has an excellent director, who has yet to make a weak film and the original screenwriter is involved. Plus they have all the unused ideas from the Dick novel to draw upon.

Well, I went out today to see Alien: Covenant. If anybody wishes to spoil the ending for me that'll be fine as I fell asleep half way through.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;963564Well, my hopes weren't high anyway. But banning Dan O'Bannon himself? Wow.

Actually, Dan O'bannon and Ronald Shusett didn't write anything about this sequel.  The movie is credited as the following:

Screenplay by   

John Logan
Dante Harper

Story by   

Jack Paglen
Michael Green

I didn't see the movie, but my guess is it's "based on characters from" for the last two.  So those two shouldn't be blamed for this, unless you want to blame the creators of the original movie.  

Also, Dan O'Bannon died in 2009.

John Logan wrote the screenplays for Gladiator, The Aviator and Hugo, so he definitely has it in him.
Dante Harper has less of a reputation.

Of course, you never know when rewrites during filming and bad direction turn a scene terrible.

Quote from: JRT;963767Actually, Dan O'bannon and Ronald Shusett didn't write anything about this sequel.  The movie is credited as the following:

Also, Dan O'Bannon died in 2009.

Okay, they are off the hook then for this fiasco. Frkkin Aliens killing all the good writers. For the record I thought Alien and Alien II were simply awesome, and didn't care much for the rest of the movies. I didn't like Prometheus either. We will never get to the stars if idiots portrayed as this last interstellar crews in the last two movies perform at the level protrayed in the movies, violating established safety, quarantine, and communications protocols whenever it suits them. It owuld be much better if they were tight about adhering to protocols / operational procedures and then the Aliens got out and started seriously nailing them. That might even be scary!

That was the big problem with Prometheus.  The crew.  When a random group of space salvage chuckleheads encounter something alien, you expect dumb people to do dumb things.  When the world's richest man who owns the world's richest corporation builds the most expensive vessel in the history of earth to launch our first interstellar voyage to encounter new life...you'd think they'd get the best and brightest, or maybe the second best and brightest if the first was so socially maladjusted they are barely functional.

You didn't address my primary question, which is: What John Denver song was it? Annie's Song? Rocky Mountain High? Thank God I'm a Country Boy?

Quote from: CRKrueger;963768John Logan wrote the screenplays for Gladiator, The Aviator and Hugo, so he definitely has it in him.
Dante Harper has less of a reputation.

John Logan also wrote Star Trek Nemesis.

Quote from: Dumarest;964202You didn't address my primary question, which is: What John Denver song was it? Annie's Song? Rocky Mountain High? Thank God I'm a Country Boy?

Take me Home Country Roads

Quote from: CRKrueger;964003That was the big problem with Prometheus.  The crew.  When a random group of space salvage chuckleheads encounter something alien, you expect dumb people to do dumb things.  When the world's richest man who owns the world's richest corporation builds the most expensive vessel in the history of earth to launch our first interstellar voyage to encounter new life...you'd think they'd get the best and brightest, or maybe the second best and brightest if the first was so socially maladjusted they are barely functional.

If you go into Prometheus with the following mindset it all starts to make a sort of horrible sense.

The crew wasnt the best. They were intentionally not the best. They were meant to screw up one way or another and get infected. Much like with Aliens. The marines were selected to screw up and get infected.

So with Covenant that may be the case again. Sure sounds like it.

The question then is... why? Why does anyone want these things so badly? They are demonstratedly well past the ability to control or make use of as anything other than a depopulation bomb. Why the hell do they want a doomsday weapon so badly that they will blow bazillians in assets and work just on the off chance of one?

Was the Alien RPG any good or was it a mess? I have the Legendary Alien game and it is pretty awesome. Burke's Gambit also looks like fun.

Quote from: Omega;964540The question then is... why? Why does anyone want these things so badly? They are demonstratedly well past the ability to control or make use of as anything other than a depopulation bomb. Why the hell do they want a doomsday weapon so badly that they will blow bazillians in assets and work just on the off chance of one?

Something, something, bioweapons division, something, something.

I can get the idea of an unfeeling corporation willing to sacrifice people to get ahold of some critters that could lead to extremely powerful discoveries. But after the third or fourth? (I've lost track*) time it went pear shaped, it starts to get really predictable and stale of a story idea.

*Alien, Aliens, and Alien Ressurection. I think in Alien3, the corp only shows up at the end to try and scoop up whatever's left over.

Right, in Alien I got the impression it was just a general directive. Which makes sense. Whomever gets their hands on some alien tech might have a big advantage. Especially drive systems.

In Aliens though its just plain retarded. They want these things as bioweapons? Against who? They mention Xenomorphs as if encountering aliens has happened before. (And Sorry, No. Xenomorph was never the name of the aliens from the movie. Stupid fans just locked on a word stupidly. News at eleven.) So there may be some warring with something going on thats never been shown. They have a large military contingent so somethings out there that needs to be shot at alot and occasionally nuked.

In Aliens 3 its same ol same ol at the end. Yay bioweapon.

In Resurrection we finally get to see why trying to use these things is a blazingly moronic idea.

In the Dark Horse comics at least there was one reason given. The aliens produced a sort of royal jelly that acted as a super steroid. Relatively safe except for a small percentage of the population who have a reaction and flip out.