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Super Fan posted:Many of the complaints about Covenant are typically trite: a statement doesn't have to be novel to be true.
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May 26, 2017 01:23
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RedSpider posted:So the Novelization of Covenant by Alan Dean Foster is worth getting, no? I hope it's as good as the gremlins novelization Gremlins: The Novelization posted:"The galactic powers ordered the Mogwai sent to every inhabitable planet in the universe, their purpose being to inspire alien beings with their peaceful spirit and intelligence and to instruct them in the ways of living without violence and possible extinction. Among the planets selected for early Mogwai population were Kelm-6 in the Poraisti Range, Clinpf-A of the Beehive Pollux, and the third satellite of MinorSun#67672, a small but fertile body called Earth by its inhabitants."
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May 26, 2017 01:26
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lol the mogwai were from space? gently caress,.
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May 26, 2017 01:29
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As far as the characters in Covenant (and I sincerely apologize for always being a page behind): I thought they were pretty much fine. The protagonists were Daniels, Tennessee, and Oram, and they all got a pretty decent amount of development (I hope Daniels somehow gets to build that log cabin  ); Oram isn't the brightest bulb, but he's not really shown as being super competent or intelligent before the egg scene, and he's actively defied and treated as a blowhard by the rest of the crew. The rest are plain ol' redshirts, and their presence is a necessary evil if you wanna show some dudes getting hosed up by aliens without killing off all the protagonists.Toady posted:The reverse is true. Nah, there's no "true" when it comes to humor. Note that I'm not exactly jumping up CP's rear end for not laughing at the scene.
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May 26, 2017 01:29
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Nah, there's no "true" when it comes to humor. Note that I'm not exactly jumping up CP's rear end for not laughing at the scene. I mean that Alien's title sequence is three times as long as Covenant's.
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May 26, 2017 01:34
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Toady posted:I mean that Covenant's title sequence is a third of the length of the original film's. Meh, fair. I haven't seen the original film in a while (I sold my DVD ages ago with the rest of my collection, and I keep missing those Alien Day screenings) so my memory's off.
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May 26, 2017 01:35
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Just as a point of reference, here's part of a contemporary review of the original Alien:http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=950CEED61439E732A25756C2A9639C946890D6CF posted:"Alien" is an extremely small, rather decent movie of its modest kind, set inside a large, extremely fancy physical production. Don't race to it expecting the wit of "Star Wars" or the metaphysical pretentions of "2001" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." At its best it recalls "The Thing," though the Howard Hawks film was both more imaginatively and more economically dramatized. One thing about Covenant and Prometheus is that not only do they have the weight of expectation hanging on them, but also suffer because the original classic only became a classic after considerable digestion and reflection. So Ebert's review from the early 2000s is glowing in its praise, but you don't leave the theater having thought through it in the depth necessary to evaluate it on that level. That's not to say that it's wrong to not like Covenant or Prometheus, just that our reverence for classics is overstated and you might well be reacting to the genuine flaws that are politely not mentioned in the rush to praise a film should it becomes an acknowledged classic. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 01:48 on May 26, 2017 |
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May 26, 2017 01:36
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Lord of Booty wasn't trying to get up my rear end? 
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May 26, 2017 01:44
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Hodgepodge posted:Outside of Ash and Ripley, I've literally never seen a discussion about any aspect of the characterization in Alien outside of the details of the death scenes. You haven't paid attention then. Parker for example is interesting because he's the most blue-collar space trucker of the space truckers. He's the down-to-Earth guy who expects to get hosed over for a percentage even before it happens. it sure as hell isn't a coincidence that he's the only black guy on the crew. Brett fills this role a bit too but Parker's the one with more dialogue even before Brett dies. (Something the film acknowledges.) He's also openly antagonistic towards Ripley because Ripley is, it's worth remembering, the rule-follower. She almost abandons them outside (and is right to do so) and is basically the 'boss' that Parker hates. Yet she and Parker get a lot of development and dialogue together over the course of the movie which reflect and alter their relationship and it's Parker who saves Ripley from Ash. Ripley and Parker bounce off one another and a lot of the development Ripley gets also impacts Parker and vice-versa. Even if you're going to downplay the other characters in the film you can't downplay Parker and Yaphet Kotto gives a performance in the film right up there with Ash and Ripley's.
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May 26, 2017 01:47
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There is no film if our characters respond in rational ways. For me the over arching theme of the entire franchise is the danger of humanity's hubris. Taken through that lens most of their actions while "stupid" aren't exactly surprising or only for the plot. All of our protagonists outside of the smart lady are looking for shortcuts based on the assumption we're humans we've always handled business just fine.
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May 26, 2017 01:53
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ImpAtom posted:You haven't paid attention then. I'm perfectly glad to see it, I just haven't. The bit about percentages actually is really crucial to establishing the class dynamics of the film. There's a lot of banter between Ripley and the rest that show the resentment generated by relative authority in the workplace, and how gender and humor are deployed to both voice and ease those tensions. But on first blush? I'll refer you to the review I posted above, which opines that the roles other than Ripley and Ash could have been "written by a computer."
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May 26, 2017 01:54
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Well Oram didn't have to look in the egg and that girl didn't have to leave and poo poo could've still happened. So that's not a great defense. Like the Neomorph coulda attacked them later without anyone leaving, the spores could've still infected someone without them taking a smoke break or sticking their face in it, and Oram could've just been chased by a facehugger.
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May 26, 2017 01:55
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ImpAtom posted:You haven't paid attention then. This is a funny thing to bring up in the context of Covenant, as well, because Tennessee is pretty much "what if Parker was a white guy?" in his characterization and role in the story.
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May 26, 2017 01:55
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Hodgepodge posted:Outside of Ash and Ripley, I've literally never seen a discussion about any aspect of the characterization in Alien outside of the details of the death scenes. Of course, the generic complaints about characterization in this thread apply equally to the original, which received mixed reviews when it came out. The Guardian: "The others – Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright and Yaphet Kotto – do what they can faced by the swirling, well-drilled logistics of the piece. There's not enough writing for proper characterisation, not enough plot development for the mind as well as the senses to bite on." L.A. Examiner: "An overblown B-movie… technically impressive but awfully portentous and as difficult to sit through as a Black Mass sung in Latin … Alien, like Dawn of the Dead, only scares you away from the movies." Variety: "There is very little involvement with the characters themselves … A generally good cast in cardboard roles." John Simon: "Has the usual number of inconsistencies, improbabilities and outright absurdities characteristic of the sci-fi and horror genres. What is interesting, though, is its hostile critical reception, despite the excellent visual values, direction that is no more hokey than usual in such films, dialogue that (when it is decipherable) is par for the course, and acting that is generally superior. What earmarks Alien as a probable audience hit and certifiable critical flop is merely that the horror is more horrible than usual."
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May 26, 2017 01:56
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Hodgepodge posted:Just as a point of reference, here's part of a contemporary review of the original Alien: I really like the line, "At its best it recalls 'The Thing,' though the Howard Hawks film was both more imaginatively and more economically dramatized" which is some of the faintest possible damnation.
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May 26, 2017 01:59
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CelticPredator posted:Well Oram didn't have to look in the egg and that girl didn't have to leave and poo poo could've still happened. So that's not a great defense. But why does it matter how they get infected? Never taken a smoke break? Never stopped to look closer at something you don't quite recognize? It's all totally typical behavior for people. I don't see how by that measure any action to move the plot would be acceptable. Oram doesn't have to look but he's got faith the robot isn't out to gently caress everyone over, why is a chase sequence better? I feel like just because we've seen this same action in other films in the franchise doesn't/shouldn't change how these people without that knowledge would react.
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May 26, 2017 01:59
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The key to writing smart characters is not writing them as humans in real life, but characters who are as smart as the audience. We the audience knows not to look into an alien egg. A person in the fictional world may not, but as an audience member we know what's about to happen, which takes all the suspense out. Unless they subvert it. It's why The Walking Dead is such an abysmal piece of poo poo due to how incredibly dumb the characters are. I get it. Logic, humans are dumb in horrible circumstances, yada yada. But that's just not fun to watch in 2017. You know?
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May 26, 2017 02:03
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I don't think that's right. I think it has to be that a character's mistakes need to feel earned. They have to make sense from a characterization perspective even if it's something stupid. It's okay for people to be wrong, even wrong in catastrophic or stupid ways, as long as the audience understands that these people are stupid for reasons that make sense to the characters. If a film fails at that it ends up feeling forced and "this happens because of plot-stupidity instead of character-stupidity."
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May 26, 2017 02:06
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I would totally look in one of those eggs out of sheer curiosity. People on the internet would call me dumb, sure, but I'd have a gnarly death.
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May 26, 2017 02:07
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Green Room was terrifying because every character did exactly what the audience was thinking and STILL suffered for it.
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May 26, 2017 02:08
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The characters should act smart like astronauts and scientists are supposed to act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Nowak They should all have had diapers under their jumpers at least.
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May 26, 2017 02:09
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CelticPredator posted:The key to writing smart characters is not writing them as humans in real life, but characters who are as smart as the audience. I think it's less that the character's decisions themselves matter, and more that the amount of interiority they have matters. The audience will usually be able to buy a character doing something dumb if their thought process in doing so is made clear. Walking Dead doesn't give half a gently caress to do that because it's an absolute mess of a show without any creative vision; Prometheus and Covenant, meanwhile, I thought did just fine at this. We in the audience know not to look into an alien egg. Oram's common sense is telling him that, too, in the scene, which is why he hesitates before doing it. Oram, however, is primarily concerned with figuring out what in the hell is going on, and hears David out in spite of not trusting him, simply in the hopes of getting some kind of answer. WeedlordGoku69 fucked around with this message at 02:15 on May 26, 2017 |
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May 26, 2017 02:10
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For Green Room, I was definitely NOT thinking "oh hey, let me hand these guys our only gun without visually confirming that they aren't waiting on the other side of the door with a bunch of machetes."
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May 26, 2017 02:12
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Don't tell me you didn't think for a second that would be the safest option. If you didn't, fine, but the logic was perfectly sound. I ain't gonna stick my face in an weird rear end organic vagina flower thing. Or walk away while monsters are roaming. Once again I like the movie quite an bit and it didn't bother me, but I hate when people dredge up the old "but people are stupid!" Yes! But it's not fun to watch, it's frustrating.
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May 26, 2017 02:17
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ruddiger posted:For Green Room, I was definitely NOT thinking "oh hey, let me hand these guys our only gun without visually confirming that they aren't waiting on the other side of the door with a bunch of machetes." Green Room is a really funny movie to bring up in this discussion, and that scene in particular, because it explicates what I'm talking about perfectly. The characters in Green Room do a few smart things, but they also do a lot of not-particularly-smart things, and the movie justifies it really well by giving the characters interiority. The sequence you mentioned is preceded by a whole scene of the Ain't Rights trying to figure out what their best option is and eventually landing on giving up the gun, simply because every other option they entertain would either get them arrested for the murder they witnessed, or outright immediately killed by the Nazis; they do something that's not necessarily smart, but the audience is able to follow along with why they did it without the movie just stopping dead to go "HERE'S WHY HE DID A DUMB THING."
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May 26, 2017 02:18
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Sure and that's a good point too. Oram is dumb so it makes sense he does what he does. But we don't know much about that girl. I can't even think of her name.
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May 26, 2017 02:18
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handing the gun through the door was incredibly dumb. scared kids get a pass from me tho.
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May 26, 2017 02:22
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Oran's a man of wavering faith. Vulnerable? Absolutely. Dumb? He's only as dumb as the viewer's shallowed perception (why do you think it's the favored word of children and toddlers?).
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May 26, 2017 02:23
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you're right he's not dumb. we hear him speak many times in the film.
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May 26, 2017 02:25
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Groovelord Neato posted:handing the gun through the door was incredibly dumb. scared kids get a pass from me tho. Again, though, do they have literally any other options aside from "try to fight off a horde of Nazis with a single tiny handgun, a boxcutter, and that one guy's MMA skills" or "call the cops/wait it out until the Nazis call the cops and then immediately get the murder pinned on them by the Nazis?"
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May 26, 2017 02:25
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oh i meant more handing it directly like he did. what a gnarly as hell scene.
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May 26, 2017 02:25
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Haven't seen this movie yet, but people on my twitter feed being angry that it isn't about characters rationally maximizing their utility bodes well. Update: All the scenes they complained about were the best scenes in the movie
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May 26, 2017 02:33
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Again, though, do they have literally any other options aside from "try to fight off a horde of Nazis with a single tiny handgun, a boxcutter, and that one guy's MMA skills" or "call the cops/wait it out until the Nazis call the cops and then immediately get the murder pinned on them by the Nazis?" I mean, the Nazis are going to kill them either way. If I'm going to get murdered by Nazis, I would rather not give them my only loaded gun first. Like, I can't imagine being in that situation and thinking there is a possibility that they will let me walk out of there under any circumstances.
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May 26, 2017 02:35
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CelticPredator posted:Don't tell me you didn't think for a second that would be the safest option. If you didn't, fine, but the logic was perfectly sound. Yes, the police always leave murder scenes without even looking at the body that they showed up to look at, so of course we should trust these guys who just harbored the murderer of the young female corpse in the room. 
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May 26, 2017 02:37
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Okay guy.
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May 26, 2017 02:41
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if only the nazis had used a car and a mailbox.
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May 26, 2017 02:43
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Patrick Stewart has a very calming and kind voice.
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May 26, 2017 02:45
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ruddiger posted:Oran's a man of wavering faith. Vulnerable? Absolutely. Dumb? He's only as dumb as the viewer's shallowed perception (why do you think it's the favored word of children and toddlers?). The guy that goes into the spoopy dungeon with the large alien, flowering nutsacks that open up to expose their living flesh interiors and then peers into them isn't dumb? lol
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May 26, 2017 02:48
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Breetai posted:Note how a lot of the thread apologia is starting to stray into the territory of: I've seen some bad movies, and then learned about the movie's production history or alternate scenes and what could have been, and ended up softening on the movie considerably afterward. It's one of the thing I like about 'Alien3', not just that the Assembly Cut is loving awesome in its own right, but all the studio fuckery, multiple scripts, and other insanity that led to both the theatrical cut and the eventual Assembly Cut. That stuff is fascinating as hell, and makes me enjoy the movie even more as a result. RedSpider posted:So the Novelization of Covenant by Alan Dean Foster is worth getting, no? I'm about 60 pages in and so far it's pretty great. Oram is even more of a tone-deaf leader in the novelization.
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May 26, 2017 02:50
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Snak posted:I mean, the Nazis are going to kill them either way. If I'm going to get murdered by Nazis, I would rather not give them my only loaded gun first. Like, I can't imagine being in that situation and thinking there is a possibility that they will let me walk out of there under any circumstances. i mean that isn't really a good reason to go for the "gently caress IT JUST KILL US NOW" option and i don't think you can really begrudge the characters for wanting to avoid that option at all costs e: at any rate, whether or not you would do it is utterly beside my point, which is that the movie clues the viewer in on why they do it instead of it being seemingly random.
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May 26, 2017 02:54
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