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Shaocaholica posted:So when can we stop spoiler tagging now that its out in the US. Not everyone can watch movies at Thursday-night day-before releases. Figure on Sunday/Monday.
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May 19, 2017 06:06
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Well, Alien Covenant is much better than I thought it would be, and the comforting thing for me, out of all of this, is that Alien 3 continues to be a giant turd that will forever inspire a delusional set of dorky revisionist film historians to spout off about its meager merits. That said, Alien Covenant is also undeniably clunky. All of the human characters are forgettable. Their interactions with each other fall flat, and fail to carry any substantial weight. When something bad happens to them, you won't care; when something good happens to them, you'll care even less. Adding to their insignificance, human banter is poorly written, making me appreciate Alien and Aliens that much more. On a similar note, the "space truckers" theme from Alien continues to be the gold standard for sci-fi horror films, because the characters in that film never felt phony; they react realistically to the terror that is unfolding before them, and their dialogue follows suit. Compare that to the crew in Alien Covenant, who have supposedly trained for this massive space colonization mission, yet flip out and act clueless at the first sign of trouble...even before the xenomorphs show up. Their emotional continuity from scene to scene, and consistency, seem way off. Switching gears to David, it pleases me to say that he's much better in this than he was in Prometheus, and I mean much better. Unfortunately, there are some moments between him and Walter that stink so bad they must have been crapped out of one of those terrible Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes that feature Data and his evil twin Lore. "I'll do the fingering," made the audience laugh really hard, and I sincerely doubt that was intentional. Also, can we knock it the gently caress off with David and the stupid flutes he's always playing in these movies? As for the real reason anyone buys a ticket to this film? The xenomorphs are quite good, and the ones early on are the absolute best, which is frustrating because they only stick around for 10-15 minutes. When they're on the screen, however, they steal the show. Later on, the big ones show up and they're fun, but they lack the creep factor the albino ones project. Alien Covenant is the 3rd best Alien film made, behind Alien and Aliens (take your pick as to which one is better), and is a sight better than Prometheus. Inexplicably, the atrocious score from Prometheus surfaces again, which might bring back unpleasant memories of that unfulfilling spectacle, but don't let that bother you; it comes and it goes. I also must admit that stale fart Ridley Scott let loose in 2012 smells a tad better with Alien Covenant adding a bit more fragrance to the David & Elizabeth saga. All in all, it's a solid B, and given that John Logan had his hand on the script it's a minor miracle we should all be thankful for. Oh, I almost forgot James Franco. He's loving awful in this, even though he's barely there. Early on, there's a scene of him recording some free-climbing GoPro bullshit that really worried me. How and why did Scott let this slide? Why did he even choose Franco? It's a really bad moment in the film, and the fake tears Katherine Waterston has to cry for him are terribly unconvincing. CDHiggs fucked around with this message at 06:34 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 06:28
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My review is that I have no idea what I just watched.
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May 19, 2017 06:33
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CDHiggs posted:"I'll do the fingering," made the audience laugh really hard, and I sincerely doubt that was intentional. My dude, that was entirely intentional.
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May 19, 2017 06:36
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Schwarzwald posted:My dude, that was entirely intentional. Was David talking about fingering a pussy? That's vibe I got from the snickering in theater, along with my own. Given what was happening in that scene (here's how to play a flute!), I don't quite get it.
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May 19, 2017 06:39
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There were a few fun callbacks to Prometheus, I like the return of those cool retro space suits they never got to use in the previous movie and how they later examined the suit helmet like it were the engineer's decapitated head. Others I'm forgetting right now too. Seeing the audi robot doing absolutely nothing made me laugh. I wonder what volkswagen paid for that. Maybe next movie weyland ships can be catered exclusively by pepsico and also be powered by intel inside. David and Walter were a both a joy to watch. Walter reminded me of the robots from Interstellar. The crew of the covenant seemed reasonably fleshed out given their limited screen time (watch the prologue clip 'last supper' before seeing the movie), but they don't seem very affected by the events happening to them. Daniels' action scenes were amazingly fun though. This film seems to really demystify the various aliens, they are pretty much just vicious animals at this point. One thing really bothered me, I don't see by what standard he could be considered devil-like by a character in this film. David has become a (crazed) naturalist hermit fighting an encroaching civilization. He isn't bothering twist the truth or play on hypocrisy/fantasy. The necropolis was more cozy than dire. I honestly think he was referring specifically to the decor. I didn't see anything wondrous like David activating the engineer's ship in Prometheus. I get the feeling that scenes centered around the crew's exploration of the planet were deleted given how jerky it was. Really hoping for the home release to flesh things out.
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May 19, 2017 06:43
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CDHiggs posted:Was David talking about fingering a pussy? That's vibe I got from the snickering in theater, along with my own. Given what was happening in that scene (here's how to play a flute!), I don't quite get it. Walter definitely got fingered.
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May 19, 2017 06:47
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Just got back from the movie. If I didn't have so much caffeine earlier in the day then I definitely would have fallen asleep about 25 min into the movie. I enjoyed Prometheus more than this even though Prometheus was a "bad" movie. Don't waste your money on this. Just wait until a lovely cam version comes out and watch that and then be thankful you didn't shell out 20 bones like i did to watch this movie
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May 19, 2017 06:50
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CDHiggs posted:Well, Alien Covenant is much better than I thought it would be, and the comforting thing for me, out of all of this, is that Alien 3 continues to be a giant turd that will forever inspire a delusional set of dorky revisionist film historians to spout off about its meager merits. Well said, gently caress Alien 3. Alien: Covenant was better than expected and I liked it more than Prometheus. Just like Prometheus it's utterly loving gorgeous, but the story is brought down by some characters being unlikeable and some making really stupid decisions. Like, holy gently caress the woman that manages blow up the landing craft (loooool, drat good engineering with your space vehicle, keep the weapons right next to the extremely volatile canisters that will nuke the whole ship). The film fails in making either Xeno scary, at all. It also doesn't help that there's no practical effects for any of them, only bad CGI. They're also super anemic and frail looking, it worked for the Neomorph, that thing was straight out of Bloodborne or something, but it didn't do it for me with the more traditional Xeno. Shout-outs to the baby dancing Xeno. Also what happened with the second Neomorph? Thankfully Michael Fassbender kicks a ton of rear end and David is terrifying so I guess the Xenos don't have to be but the twist at the end was too obvious but that just means more David for the next film and I'm down with that. I really liked David being the creator of the Xenos, basically repurposing the Engineer's black goo to make the ultimate life form of death out of spite of humanity. sigher fucked around with this message at 16:44 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 06:54
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There is exactly two good things about Covenant. Michael Fassbender owning every second he is on screen and some fantastic haunting imagery. The rest is pure poo poo and you are all loving insane.
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May 19, 2017 07:01
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Trump posted:There is exactly two good things about Covenant. Michael Fassbender owning every second he is on screen and some fantastic haunting imagery. The rest is pure poo poo and you are all loving insane. Well, that's exactly two more things than Alien 3 has going for it.
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May 19, 2017 07:04
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CDHiggs posted:Well, that's exactly two more things than Alien 3 has going for it. While I disagree, that doesn't make Covenant a good movie.
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May 19, 2017 07:09
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I went in wanting to see a prometheus sequal and I didn't get it. More like a TNG 2 parter. Previously on Prometheus...I liked the themes but overall its a mess. Whatever, lets start the nit picking. There was a surprising lack of tech compared to the LV-233 'installation'. Like they didn't have anything. Just stone. How was david able to do all that science stuff without space tools? Why were the engineers cheering when they saw the ship arrive? That whole mission was over 2000 years ago when they hosed up at LV-233. I suppose you could chalk it up to david phoning home ahead of time saying something about a home coming celebration. Alien grows way too fast. The neomorph in the grass is tiny when it bursts. Runs away for like 1minute and then its back and its as big as a dog. Same for the Alien in davids flat and the one on the Covenant. Bursts, the alarm goes off, daniels runs to medical and bam, full size. That's like maybe 2-4minutes.
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May 19, 2017 07:13
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Trump posted:There is exactly two good things about Covenant. Michael Fassbender owning every second he is on screen and some fantastic haunting imagery. The rest is pure poo poo and you are all loving insane. Ya the way assbender played an emotionless android was phenomenal. Not many actors can pull that off
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May 19, 2017 07:18
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People are going to like or hate this for the same reasons as they like or hate Prometheus, and that's more or less it. Dumb characters that are impossible to care about one way or the other, but Ridley is using them to make a point, play around with philosophy, and twist normal audience expectations while paying homage to tropes at the same time. Also body horror. Lots of that. Fassbender doing both David and his character from Frank was of course the highlight, because everyone else exists to be murdered.
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May 19, 2017 07:42
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With regard to the overall background philosophy of the prequel franchise, I have a feeling that there's a pretty good chance that the earlier guess that David will in turn be destroyed by some Xenos is correct, and that the overall arc is parallel to what happened with the Alien movie franchise itself. Ridley Scott is the creator, the franchise is the weird uncontrollable poo poo that followed his first film. My guess is that after he finishes the final prequel movie, he will cover himself with a pile of celluloid film from the Alien franchise and burn himself alive, bringing it all to a close.
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May 19, 2017 07:47
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Shaocaholica posted:I went in wanting to see a prometheus sequal and I didn't get it. More like a TNG 2 parter. Previously on Prometheus...I liked the themes but overall its a mess. Whatever, lets start the nit picking. The tech in the LV-233 outpost also just looked like rocks until you touch it. David uses rocks that light up and perform functions much like what was there in this. He also had access to everything that was on the his ship. The crowd is excited just to see a ship. It would seem things haven't gone well for their society over the last few millennia. The neomorph that comes back isn't the same one. The characters even call it "another one." The one in David's home bursts in the evening and is full grown around dawn. The one in the Covenant is implied to have burst during MUTHER's downtime, which was eight hours.
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May 19, 2017 08:31
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maybe the worst part of A:C is how poor a job it does of conveying time passing. like, it could really use some transititory environmental shots
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May 19, 2017 08:37
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"Let's trust that our bioscans don't include a trace amount of potentially lethal naturally-or-unnaturally-occurring chemical or pathogen in the air (so no need for sealed biosuits), study why there is absolutely no indigenous wildlife on a planet that should have SOME of it, and last but not least, it's amazing that we completely got rid of anti-gravity drone technology over the past ten years, isn't it? It's wonderful to commune with potentially-lethal alien flora and fauna up close and personal." I know, "Alien" movie and all, but this movie was BAD. It is the Alien movie for the ADHD generation. I've never seen a two hour movie be in such a hurry to be done and telegraph its twists so loving blatantly as to make it so no one feels dumb. At least Resurrection had the lab failures scene to genuinely *shock* us and make us CARE about something in an otherwise lovely movie. Also, kudos to Scott for putting in the potential "oh, I love ~Gawd~ so none of the now-normal atheist people don't trust me as captain" drama out there then doing *nothing* with it other than waste a perfectly-gifted Billy Crudup. This movie sucked and the only reason to like it is "yay, it's been five years since I've seen a Xenomorph in anything other than a video game." If that's enough, well, bully for you. Seriously, aside from Fassbender meets Fassbender, the best thing about this piece of poo poo is that we got to see James Franco get burned alive before he could gently caress things up more with his one note 'charming douchiness' he brings to every movie he's a part of. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 08:49 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 08:45
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I liked it, it has flaws and fails at creating a lot of suspense due to the movie being very predictable and containing maybe two plot twists, but I liked it. As others said, the visuals are impressive and Fassbender basically owning every scene is always great, I always found David to be the most interesting part of Promotheus and this holds doubly true for Covenant. One of the biggest disappointments is that while this movie is indeed a sequel to Promotheus you could feel like the poor reception that movie received made Scott play this one a whole lot safer and that he intentionally refrained for exploring many of the themes that were interesting in the first one, the movie basically refrained from asking any of the questions Promotheus raised and stuck much more closely to a simple horror movie narrative. But still, it is enjoyable. David seeking out to pretty much destroy all biological life was on point, seemed like a natural evolution for his character
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May 19, 2017 08:57
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alf_pogs posted:maybe the worst part of A:C is how poor a job it does of conveying time passing. like, it could really use some transititory environmental shots Yeah fair enough. I do think two seconds of thought reveals that time has passed, but it would be nice to feel it. If for no other reason than those moody time passage segments were some of the best parts of Ridley's earliest films. He's a bit too focused on making things move at a brisk pace these days. Segments that don't directly move the plot forward are excised, but I'd really like a minute to just be in these worlds he's created. The film just needs some space to breathe. I mean, they spent a whole terrifying sleepless night in necropolis, the audience should really feel that. It does feel like it occurs in the actual films running time though, even if dialogue and imagery suggest otherwise.
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May 19, 2017 09:04
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BIG HEADLINE posted:"Let's trust that our bioscans don't include a trace amount of potentially lethal naturally-or-unnaturally-occurring chemical or pathogen in the air (so no need for sealed biosuits), study why there is absolutely no indigenous wildlife on a planet that should have SOME of it, and last but not least, it's amazing that we completely got rid of anti-gravity drone technology over the past ten years, isn't it? It's wonderful to commune with potentially-lethal alien flora and fauna up close and personal." You seem hip and cool.
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May 19, 2017 09:10
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emanresu tnuocca posted:One of the biggest disappointments is that while this movie is indeed a sequel to Promotheus you could feel like the poor reception that movie received made Scott play this one a whole lot safer and that he intentionally refrained for exploring many of the themes that were interesting in the first one, the movie basically refrained from asking any of the questions Promotheus raised and stuck much more closely to a simple horror movie narrative. Well the next one is going to be set between when Shaw and David land on the planet and the events of Covenant. So there's still a helluva lot of scope to explore the Engineers, their society and all that other stuff from Prometheus.
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May 19, 2017 09:19
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Bugblatter posted:Yeah fair enough. I do think two seconds of thought reveals that time has passed, but it would be nice to feel it. If for no other reason than those moody time passage segments were some of the best parts of Ridley's earliest films. He's a bit too focused on making things move at a brisk pace these days. Segments that don't directly move the plot forward are excised, but I'd really like a minute to just be in these worlds he's created. The film just needs some space to breathe. yah; in the first alien ash hangs around watching monitors on the sulaco lander, nothing much happens but it gives the audience a chance to digest and build more tension / mood. it takes the characters a while to traverse the planet, too. i guess i agree with the "covenant is alien for adhd" description. but the things i enjoyed about the film far outweighed what i didnt like, so for me i find it a very enjoyable mess. violence, cool stoner ideas, good visuals... im down. keen for the directors cut
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May 19, 2017 09:20
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The new Alien movies seem to be about the end of human history, where due to their various intellectual failings and reliance on technology that has outgrown them in usefulness, the remaining humans are roughly as intelligent as talking cattle. The protagonist is David, since we are not even really afforded an opportunity to empathize with other characters. By the end, several of them die off-screen. Ultimately everything David says is proven correct. It also feels like a movie that was re-written several times and maybe Noomi Rapace didn't really want to do a second one for some reason, since killing off is an even harder left turn than Alien 3.
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May 19, 2017 09:39
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Bugblatter posted:
Considering the nature and themes of the alien franchise things have gone bad for them in the a not too bad way. Until David shows up of course. Given the Christian themes of the prequels I'd guess they had some kind of Tower of Babel allegory happen to them and the planets of their interstellar civilisation lost contact with each other and they regressed technologically.
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May 19, 2017 09:42
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I'm watching this tonight, I'm kinda looking forward to it being a bit poo poo.
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May 19, 2017 09:57
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dont even fink about it posted:The new Alien movies seem to be about the end of human history, where due to their various intellectual failings and reliance on technology that has outgrown them in usefulness, the remaining humans are roughly as intelligent as talking cattle. The protagonist is David, since we are not even really afforded an opportunity to empathize with other characters. By the end, several of them die off-screen. Ultimately everything David says is proven correct. She's in the prologue piece, and is getting a whole movie based on her and David. I think the studio just wanted more xenos, so had to skip the bit where there was no black xeno/Alien slasher movie stuff people missed from Prometheus. The way I look at it is: A lot of people whined about Prometheus not having Aliens. The next story to tell was obviously David and Shaw, but as they'd be the only two humans on a planet of Engineers, they figured they should get back to the stuff that people liked from the other Alien movies ie. facehuggers, wandering off alone, double jawed xenos etc. So they did the A New Hope thing and filmed the one that will let them film the others. Covenant will likely make good money and the next one is already under way, so they have the leeway to tell the real Prometheus sequel they wanted to tell in the first place. Cos like, David seems to have most things already figured out by the time the Covenant arrives; he has a gameplan and a philosophy that isn't affected much by the humans. At least, that's my reading of things.
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May 19, 2017 10:01
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Plavski posted:She's ... getting a whole movie based on her and David. Source that this is a thing anywhere near preproduction?
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May 19, 2017 10:21
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We can sit here all day and sperg over Ridleys latest musings, but every Alien film has followed the same structure of 'Arrive at haunted house, wander around, stick-face-in-egg, get killed'. Except maybe Alien 3, which I've heard is...loving awesome?
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May 19, 2017 10:26
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Paolomania posted:Source that this is a thing anywhere near preproduction? Ridley said it's written and he's ready to begin shooting this winter. No official studio word, but if Covenant performs as projected they'll probably give it the go ahead. He hasn't specifically said it follows Shaw and David, but it does take place between Prometheus and Covenant and he said Fassbender will star, so probably. Outside chance it's a separate thing with another Walter/David model, but highly unlikely. Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 10:31 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 10:27
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A video where someone breaks down a bunch of the wacky Alien varieties from the expanded universe: https://youtu.be/mUB8LOogkMY He misses a whole bunch but that's okay.
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May 19, 2017 10:49
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Are any of Ridley's less well remembered films worth watching? Specifically I'm thinking of stuff like Someone to Watch Over Me, Black Rain, and White Squall. I tend to really enjoy most of his movies, and in particular I thought Prometheus (obviously), The Counselor, Hannibal and Matchstick Men are really underrated. The only movie of his I haven't been able to get through is Exodus, which was a total slog. I don't think I could bring myself to sit through 1492 either.
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May 19, 2017 11:31
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:Are any of Ridley's less well remembered films worth watching? Specifically I'm thinking of stuff like Someone to Watch Over Me, Black Rain, and White Squall. I tend to really enjoy most of his movies, and in particular I thought Prometheus (obviously), The Counselor, Hannibal and Matchstick Men are really underrated. The Duelists is amazing and Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut is good but the film has a bad rep, mainly cos the theatrical was so poo poo.
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May 19, 2017 11:37
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Seconding The Duellists being well worth a watch. Black Rain is campy fun but very much of its time.
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May 19, 2017 11:41
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One of the complaints that people have, is one that I think is being misinterpreted. I don't think it was supposed to be a grand reveal that David switched himself with Walter. It's quite clear that he is not constrained by programming the same way as Walter, which is demonstrated when Walter fails to kill him and David just looks at him, knowingly. I just don't think it's supposed to be such a huge shock. If they had done that earlier, it would have been a lot more interesting to watch and guess as the film unfolds. However, I am likely wrong as a lot of stupid choices were made for this movie.
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May 19, 2017 11:43
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Walter is the Syrio Forel of Covenant. We didn't see him die! He'll come riding back in as a deus ex machina in three movies time, mark my words!
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May 19, 2017 11:46
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henpod posted:One of the complaints that people have, is one that I think is being misinterpreted. I think it is meant to be a twist for sure. It's obvious that it's going to happen as soon as David cuts his hair, and it's weird that no one asks him why he's done that. The next movie should reveal that David is still on the ship experimenting away on the colonist ship, arrive back on Earth.... right at the end of Alien Resurrection, with the Ripley clone and Winona Ryder. Okay, I know most hate that movie, but I kind of want to see this all come full circle. I don't know how much stock to put in Ridley claiming that the next movie will be set in between Prometheus and Covenant.
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May 19, 2017 11:55
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:I think it is meant to be a twist for sure. It's obvious that it's going to happen as soon as David cuts his hair, and it's weird that no one asks him why he's done that. I don't think it's weird, synths are very human and are designed to make humans comfortable by doing arbitrary poo poo that doesn't really serve them in any way, like wearing helmets and space suits, they probably just assume it's in his programming to make himself presentable once humans are around.
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May 19, 2017 12:02
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How on Earth are they going a have a full movie set between Prometheus and Covenant? David bombs the Engineers the moment they arrive. Is it going to be a two hour extended cut of that Crossing clip on YouTube? Fassbender and Rapace just talking about poo poo for 90 minutes or David alone on a dead planet ? Or both? Also, why does David even have hair that grows? Shouldn't it just be realistic wig or some GI Joe stuff? Or is he living tissue over metal endoskeleton so he can be a better infiltration unit? nexus6 fucked around with this message at 12:25 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 12:22
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