ALIEN / PROMETHEUS / COVENANT / ROMULUS - SPOILERS INBOUND!!

[Rubin Farr]

This seems kind of dumb, but a VFX artist has confirmed it was their intention

Spoiler

 

 

[Hail Sagan]

It was fine. After seeing Alvarez’ take on Evil Dead I pretty much got what I expected. 
 

Spoiler

I enjoyed the first and last quarter of the film. The excess of action, face huggers and xenomorphs took me out of it quite a bit in the middle. The scene where dude was going over the coms in the room full of those nasty, sound-sensitive critters probably was the worst offense in my opinion. It was just bad writing that could have otherwise provided some decent suspense if executed in a more realistic manner.

I thought the lead actress and the guy who played her bot did a good job, although with respect to the bot I also think the comic relief they were hoping to achieve with his character fell flat (at least it did completely in the theater I was in). Also, it is a horror movie and I do think in terms of the gory and grotesque Alvarez did as good a job here as he did in Evil Dead.
 

I’m sure a lot of people would disagree but I found the alien abomination at the end to be the most unnerving and genuinely creepy thing about the film. Hard shades of the old come to daddy video and after learning of Chris Cunningham’s connection to Alien perhaps it had some influence. Personally I think it would have been much fucking creepier if we got that thing early on wreaking havoc by itself instead of the army of what we expected in the middle of the film. I’m sure die hard fans would’ve fucking crucified him for something like that though after only showing a xenomorph corpse.

Overall it was fun and while I can’t stand Hollywood regurgitations of familiar IP I’ll give Fede Alvarez a pass once again. This wasn’t the RoboCop remake, or what this new The Crow remake looks like it will end up being I genuinely think the guy is passionate about these franchises and doesn’t want to do a shameless cash grab but come on dude, at this point write your own shit or adapt something new to film please.

 

7/10

 

 

[gnarlybog]

Yeah this was cool. Exactly as advertised, a contemporary remix of the first one.
Feels more like a rollercoaster ride than a work of art like the first movie, but I mean that in the nicest way possible?
 

Spoiler

There are a few images that truly wowed me (rain hanging out of the ship in space!!).
Love the idea of Rook's role in this. If I read it in a book, I would be all over it. But the execution — what the fuck were they thinking with that CGI/deep fake shit?
I assume they were aiming for an explicit uncanny valley thing, but it looked so bad. At least obscure it in dark lighting or shoot it from some other angles! but no, it was straight ahead in bright lighting. That was truly bizarre, ethics of necromancy aside...

 

[Rubin Farr]

Interesting, he really gets into the technical names for everything, what if the Xenos do predate the Engineers. Kind of fits the Biblical symbolism; Engineers are the Gods of this movie universe, and the Xenos are literally Devils. 

 

[xox]

On 8/22/2024 at 10:30 PM, mlon said:

Yeh, this isn't good film making sadly. Great world but bad writing. Could have been great though

Right! Exactly! You can easily see the way it could be better! … it’s a total mystery to me how they successfully manage to faqq things up!!! Talent in negatives! 

[Rubin Farr]

[milkface]

they always ask what is it and not how is it

[phudoshin]

Ok Ive  a lot to say about Romulus - spoilers!

 

Overall I'd give it 75% decent and better than Ridleys last 2 - mnostly because of production style, acting, and basic story: "heist movie turns into haunted house movie  in a sci-fi style" 

Spoiler

Major letdowns are:

 - the over-used dialog callbacks - get your own damn cool lines...

- the over use of visual/Action call backs - Rain/Ripley spacesuit, discovering a hive (it didn;t evenlook that good), the blue laser mist - didn;t even really enhance what its fuction was - it was just "there".., the here-show-guns-work stuff..cmon!  and tones of others. I liked the led/computer system callbacks.. makes sense, tjhe rust sprially port-hole doors, cools

- Ash/Brook

      -  look totally shit- laughable even, goody effects

       - no need for the same science robot character but i get why it was tempting.. i'd have prefered  anew science guy - the uniform would be enogh of  a nod with their own creepy but different dialog

       - and again.. no need for ripping off alien dialog

- that ending! I said to my friend going in "as long as they don;t have an alien/human hybrid like in Resurection"... holy fuck it was  that and WORSE somehow

    - it looks like shit - like a meth head. chris cunninhhamns jonny was better looking.. the wobbly mouth, uncanny valley crap

    - the black goo-to-egg-to-birth-to-adult was incrdibly rushed, clumsy and added an utterly unneccessary body-horror-schtick to the life-cycle mess that resurection and prometheu/covenant did already

    - old and tired its-not-over-yet suprise secodn ending bullshit

    - Rain counteracts the rush of deom[ression wioth a casual clib up a tether/rope? I don't think so

    - guess whos going out the airlock again! This happens in EVERY MOVIE except 3 but it that  relatively similar enough. BE DIFFERENT! We don;t need veryhing to be a fucking expectd trope!

The original alien!

 - WTF... the company picks it up ad we see it dead-agan on the spacestation - no clear reason how ti was killed this time btw.. just very sketchy and clumsy .... i find ti ok that they find it and sure it could have survived ripleys engine burn ... but it was not handled well

the nostromo pieces surivive?

 - not how nuclear self-destructs work

the rating

 - zero-to no gore and what there was was barely theres.. from the chest burster scene - very rushed and not that shocking.. the xray toruch was  a nice touch but.. expcted more , 

    als the the acid-death scene... just very lacking in satisfying nastiness

   -  not much else tbh

Not much xeno action

 - a few headshots , a little bit of xeno jumping, .. mostly just hanging about a bit waiting to be shot or something

The countdown

ok it was a bit diffent to "explosion in T minus whatever" but it was still a repeated trope we don;t need again

The Pod crash

it knocks the spacestation off course and conveninetly lands into a airlock? Pullease

Exposition: - by brook/andy-reboot was a little too forced

 

 

What i did like was

 - the basic world-building was cool. The Weyland Yutani world was touched on and the fact that there another non-android based crowd out there.. cool

- all the cast was fine especially rain and andy. the pregnanat characters was pretty silly though... an inevetiable-zero-dialiog victim 

- facehuuger swarms

- the chestbuster-to-pod lifecycle thing was an ok addition ... makes sense to me and a callback to alien directors cut that was ok

- the planet rings.. decent setting for the whole thing and very good visuals

- the pacing was perfect really -  although i was a  bit mixed up about where veryone is on the ship and the two-halfs thing

- the vibe/atmosphere/production/effects

- basis story was good and i liked when/where it was set.. leave rom for tons of world-building mvoies/series whatever

- The gravity-off acid avoidance was very clever 

- lots left to explore -  a prequel set on the space station? seqel to the new planet? Weyland yutani Vs rival planet? whats that commany like?  If they found the orgional xeno.. will they also find the queen from aliens? (albeit 30 years later)...

 

 

so It was mostly a good film

 

 

 

...mostly....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Caged Element]

31 minutes ago, phudoshin said:

so It was mostly a good film

 

 

 

...mostly....

 

 

[auxien]

7 hours ago, phudoshin said:

Ok Ive  a lot to say about Romulus - spoilers!

 

Overall I'd give it 75% decent and better than Ridleys last 2 - mnostly because of production style, acting, and basic story: "heist movie turns into haunted house movie  in a sci-fi style" 

  Hide contents

Major letdowns are:

 - the over-used dialog callbacks - get your own damn cool lines...

- the over use of visual/Action call backs - Rain/Ripley spacesuit, discovering a hive (it didn;t evenlook that good), the blue laser mist - didn;t even really enhance what its fuction was - it was just "there".., the here-show-guns-work stuff..cmon!  and tones of others. I liked the led/computer system callbacks.. makes sense, tjhe rust sprially port-hole doors, cools

- Ash/Brook

      -  look totally shit- laughable even, goody effects

       - no need for the same science robot character but i get why it was tempting.. i'd have prefered  anew science guy - the uniform would be enogh of  a nod with their own creepy but different dialog

       - and again.. no need for ripping off alien dialog

- that ending! I said to my friend going in "as long as they don;t have an alien/human hybrid like in Resurection"... holy fuck it was  that and WORSE somehow

    - it looks like shit - like a meth head. chris cunninhhamns jonny was better looking.. the wobbly mouth, uncanny valley crap

    - the black goo-to-egg-to-birth-to-adult was incrdibly rushed, clumsy and added an utterly unneccessary body-horror-schtick to the life-cycle mess that resurection and prometheu/covenant did already

    - old and tired its-not-over-yet suprise secodn ending bullshit

    - Rain counteracts the rush of deom[ression wioth a casual clib up a tether/rope? I don't think so

    - guess whos going out the airlock again! This happens in EVERY MOVIE except 3 but it that  relatively similar enough. BE DIFFERENT! We don;t need veryhing to be a fucking expectd trope!

The original alien!

 - WTF... the company picks it up ad we see it dead-agan on the spacestation - no clear reason how ti was killed this time btw.. just very sketchy and clumsy .... i find ti ok that they find it and sure it could have survived ripleys engine burn ... but it was not handled well

the nostromo pieces surivive?

 - not how nuclear self-destructs work

the rating

 - zero-to no gore and what there was was barely theres.. from the chest burster scene - very rushed and not that shocking.. the xray toruch was  a nice touch but.. expcted more , 

    als the the acid-death scene... just very lacking in satisfying nastiness

   -  not much else tbh

Not much xeno action

 - a few headshots , a little bit of xeno jumping, .. mostly just hanging about a bit waiting to be shot or something

The countdown

ok it was a bit diffent to "explosion in T minus whatever" but it was still a repeated trope we don;t need again

The Pod crash

it knocks the spacestation off course and conveninetly lands into a airlock? Pullease

Exposition: - by brook/andy-reboot was a little too forced

 

 

What i did like was

 - the basic world-building was cool. The Weyland Yutani world was touched on and the fact that there another non-android based crowd out there.. cool

- all the cast was fine especially rain and andy. the pregnanat characters was pretty silly though... an inevetiable-zero-dialiog victim 

- facehuuger swarms

- the chestbuster-to-pod lifecycle thing was an ok addition ... makes sense to me and a callback to alien directors cut that was ok

- the planet rings.. decent setting for the whole thing and very good visuals

- the pacing was perfect really -  although i was a  bit mixed up about where veryone is on the ship and the two-halfs thing

- the vibe/atmosphere/production/effects

- basis story was good and i liked when/where it was set.. leave rom for tons of world-building mvoies/series whatever

- The gravity-off acid avoidance was very clever 

- lots left to explore -  a prequel set on the space station? seqel to the new planet? Weyland yutani Vs rival planet? whats that commany like?  If they found the orgional xeno.. will they also find the queen from aliens? (albeit 30 years later)...

 

 

so It was mostly a good film

 

 

 

...mostly....

 

 

 

 

 

 

mostly?!?!? get your own damn cool lines…

Spoiler

good point on the ‘not much xeno action’ thing, v true & in and of itself not a BAD thing but it’s trying to sell itself as an action-y kinda vibe without much action…should’ve leaned more on the horror component of the original film + Alvarez’s strengths there…

 

Edited August 26 by auxien

[Goiter Sanchez]

Spoiler

I liked the Offspring hybrid monster at the end, they needed something new & surprising to show up and this thing was genuinely upsetting to witness. I am noticing extremely polarised opinions on its inclusion.

 

[phudoshin]

I'll never understand the continuing messing with human/xeno hybrid bollox. the whole point of the alien/aliens journey/thrall/exceitemnt/thrills  is that they are "aliens".. other creatures, in our universe, opearating at a whole other level.. vicious, tenatious, other, horrific ---but with a familar lifecycle egg/seed/chestbuster/pupae (now)/drone(solider)/queen that makes them somewhat familar but brutally horrifc 

I just thinks its super-lazy to go down the "mixing it with our dna for a hybrid" as this negates the alienness! of it all and justmakes it body-shocky, uncomfortable. I blame Alien4 and its just gone on to rediculess levels with  Prometheus/Covenant i feel... although i like a lkot of elements fo the films.

Bring back the singlar alien species, explore its lifecycle more, its space-faring abilities as hinted at with Romulosu opener, explore its "natural" origins, effects on other worlds/earth/hom,eworld etc.. the origion of Big Chap and all that jazz.  there could vene be other strains  as with wasps.. with various different specialities, clans like the books.. . happy to have more AvPs but done well. Exp;lore the jockey origins too .. the engineers were sort of ok i think but... prefer the avp comic theories instead

I just don;t need more hybrid crap.. let the xeno be a puire parasite on the biollogical level. it WORKS

 

[YELLOW]

Checked Romulus out last night, overall it was decent...not amazing. A solid haunted house type movie haha. I'm glad they leaned into the H.R. Giger sexual stuff a little bit more. The vaginal acid alien birth death scene was my personal highlight for "best kill"

[xox]

I don’t know what kind of Alien movie is this when im not planning to watch it ever again, but it must be awful!

[Rubin Farr]

[xox]

**searches through the fbi’s serial killer database**

[Rubin Farr]

[Rubin Farr]

 

[Scaramouche]

^ I can't wait for the bit when Sydney Chandler's character says "i prefer the term artificial person myself" 

 

 

Edited August 29 by Scaramouche

[xox]

 

On 8/29/2024 at 11:10 AM, Scaramouche said:

^ I can't wait for the bit when Sydney Chandler's character says "i prefer the term artificial person myself" 

 

 

''all those assholes and elbows in reebok shoes can look into my eye!!!'' 

[Rubin Farr]

 

[Hail Sagan]

I’m sure the music here isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but you might enjoy the psychedelic stop motion facehugger. If you ever wondered what a Frank Hennenlotter-directed reboot would look like this feels like a pretty solid approximation. 
 

 

[Soloman Tump]

Finally saw this today on the 9am viewing. Was quite a few people there to be fair! 

I enjoyed it. A few things annoyed me like Andy's line after shelling the xeno - should have just been "get away from her you.... " then a twitch of the face or something would have worked better. 

I quite liked his jokes, because they were bad and none of the characters laughed either. Worked for me.

The Rook CGI was awful at first but looked better when coming through the crackly monitors. I initially thought it was gonna be a Bishop model until they rolled him over. That would have been cool.  Having them both as chess piece names is cool too. 

A good addition to the franchise and I'm glad it's not a total cluster fuck. But it generally leant too heavily on the other films for it to stand up by itself. For me, there were zero memorable quotes from any of the characters that were not borrowed from other films.  And that's pretty sad. 

It looked great and sounded great, and I appreciate it for what it was. I'm glad I saw it at the cinema and I'm glad it's better than the prequels. 

 

[Caged Element]

1 hour ago, Soloman Tump said:

The Rook CGI was awful at first but looked better when coming through the crackly monitors.

That's exactly what I thought.

[Rubin Farr]