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precision posted:Friend, have you heard of steampunk? Or Warhammer 40k? (Although a lot of that is just plain old Gothic)
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May 27, 2017 23:01
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The latest RLM video neatly summarizes this thread since Covenant came out; and the look on Mike's face how I feel about it.
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May 27, 2017 23:01
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Biomute posted:The latest RLM video neatly summarizes this thread since Covenant came out; and the look on Mike's face how I feel about it. Really stupid and incoherent?
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May 27, 2017 23:13
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Man. RIP Alien I guess. loving poo poo.
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May 27, 2017 23:22
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Snak posted:One of the things that I really liked about Covenant was how David was this Dracula-like figure. How he comes out of the night, drives away the wolves, and leads the weary travelers to his big spooky castle a great hall and giant table and poo poo. LesterGroans posted:Yeah, I loved the second act the most because of this. David as a creepy Dracula/Dr. Frankenstein figure is perfect, like you said, bringing them off the moors and into his old castle. It has this gothic vibe, which is unique to the series except for maybe Alien 3. Is Industrial Gothic a thing? It's the most overt example of the film subverting the 'fairy tale' imagery of Aliens (sleeping beauty and the good Christian knight are the same person) by making David into a wizard. Like, when we finally see him again, he emerges out of nowhere from the dark in a cloak and casts a torch that immediately sends the evil spirits scattering into the night. Then he brings them back to the lonely ruins where he's been studying the black arts and has magic lamps and poo poo. As Groans notes, this brings it thematically more in line with Alien 3. But even that film couldn't resist the quasi-messianic, optimistic ending. Here we actually see the protagonist 'go to heaven,' with ripe souls all hanging in wait for him, the beautiful, angelic choir he always wanted. Call me anemic, will you dad. I'll show ya. It's also Forbidden Planet, obvi, but where the robot and the master are the same figure.
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May 27, 2017 23:27
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I didn't really love this movie (my wife did though) but still I'm pretty shocked at the box office returns being so slim.
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May 27, 2017 23:32
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Ridley was unable to make movies more coherent than the AVP movies.
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May 27, 2017 23:36
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precision posted:Friend, have you heard of steampunk? No. (Yes. That makes sense.) Xenomrph posted:Or Warhammer 40k? (Although a lot of that is just plain old Gothic) No. (Yes, but I legitimately have no clue what it is or is about.)
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May 27, 2017 23:38
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precision posted:I didn't really love this movie (my wife did though) but still I'm pretty shocked at the box office returns being so slim. It is even more shocking how well GotG and Dead Men Tell no Tales are doing. I thought Covenant was at least going to do numbers similar to The Conjuring 2.
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May 27, 2017 23:39
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I mean, AvP is a very coherent film. Bland and uninteresting, but not incoherent, But Covenant is also very straightforward, and my misunderstanding of the flashback is the closest thing to "lack of coherence" that is in the movie. And I still wouldn't call it that.
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May 27, 2017 23:40
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Hodgepodge posted:This is a common reaction around here to discussion which actually does engage with the text instead of relying on stock phrases, and it's hilarious projection every time. No u
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May 27, 2017 23:44
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sir i think you will find that u bad
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May 28, 2017 00:04
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:Burke had indirect overall command of the whole operation until everything went to poo poo and he was caught trying to smuggle alien embryos. The protagonist literally points out that the mission is under military jurisdiction earlier than this, to which Burke concedes the point and starts using emotive arguments because he knows he has no actual authority. Please provide one example of any point in the movie where Burke issues an order that is followed or even seriously considered.
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May 28, 2017 00:22
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Breetai posted:The protagonist literally points out that the mission is under military jurisdiction earlier than this, to which Burke concedes the point and starts using emotive arguments because he knows he has no actual authority. Please provide one example of any point in the movie where Burke issues an order that is followed or even seriously considered. The operation being under military jurisdiction doesn't necessarily mean the company doesn't have ultimate control, it just means it delegates authority, and that it didn't delegate that authority to Burke.
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May 28, 2017 00:32
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Schwarzwald posted:The operation being under military jurisdiction doesn't necessarily mean the company doesn't have ultimate control, it just means it delegates authority, and that it didn't delegate that authority to Burke. Vagenda's argument was that Burke had indirect overall command.
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May 28, 2017 00:40
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Hodgepodge posted:sir i think you will find that u bad Nay sir I think it's you
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May 28, 2017 00:46
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So Covenant has taken in some 130 mil worldwide, with a production budget of 100 mil. That's a pretty big flop right? I mean, it was heavily marketed even here in Norway so the marketing budget must be like 200 mil.
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May 28, 2017 01:37
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I'm still hoping it will be a sleeper. I mean, I don't think it really had a chamce against Guardians 2, Baywatch, Pirates 5... Those movies are large, broad appeal blockbusters that people are gonna see with their friends and families in droves.
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May 28, 2017 01:54
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People want that Aliens film again basically. Something fun and filled with emotion and really well sketched out characters with great lines. I don't disagree. But that's not where Scott wants to take it.
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May 28, 2017 02:36
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Snak posted:I'm still hoping it will be a sleeper. I mean, I don't think it really had a chamce against Guardians 2, Baywatch, Pirates 5... Those movies are large, broad appeal blockbusters that people are gonna see with their friends and families in droves. yes I much prefer Thinking Man's Film "penis alien robot kiss 2"
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May 28, 2017 02:45
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I'm not saying it's a thinking man's film, it's just that those other movies are culturally mainstream in a way that Alien Penis Robot Kiss 6 is not.
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May 28, 2017 02:48
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Like I said before Fox is probably going to keep trying to make money off Alien movies forever. Which doesn't necessarily mean we'll get whatever Scott is planning, though it would be nice to see him tackle something else.
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May 28, 2017 02:54
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None of those are R rated and Covenant is.
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May 28, 2017 02:55
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I'm not surprised that the movie was not a success. The subtext is excellent, but the movie itself just kills its own engagement with the audience. I get that it's thematically and symbolically potent. But even when I tell myself how neat it is conceptually that David watches his own Alien movie, I just can't forgive how jumpy and choppy the last act is, how the neomorphs just disappear from the movie, or how badly the film wastes Oram's son. Like, I loved Oram, his whole schtick as being so spiritually insecure that he can't help but give in to temptation, and I love his chestburster scene. I felt like the movie had really earned the appearance of the alien, and had introduced it in a thematically engaging way, but then it just shows up for a CGI action scene where it is quickly dispatched, and the whole gravitas and significance the movie had built up through Oram's character was totally wasted. Another xeno shows up born from Some Guy offscreen and that's the alien that features in the big finale. Killing Oram's xeno in favor of a second chestburster twist was a terrible idea. How engaging would it have been if the rebirthed Oram snuck onto the Covenant, killed almost all of its crew only for Daniels to dispatch it by hitting it with that truck? How much it would have enhanced the concept of David watching his Alien movie if he was witnessing the child the audience actually gets to see him imprint with? It's tiny little minutiae like that, the mechanical aspects of the plot driving forwards, that doomed Covenant. If internet armchair film nerds were smart, which they're not, they could have correctly diagnosed this issue in Prometheus instead of complaining that "the scientists are idiots" or "muh xenomorph." Millburn and Fifield's actions are fine, but what isn't fine is that their subplot never dovetails back into the main thread of the film as much as it just terminates. When the crew encounters Millburn's corpse and the hammerpede, Shaw is already trying to bring the sickened Charlie back to the ship; when Fifield shows up, he kills some redshirts and then is killed by some redshirts. The scenes pertaining to those characters provide no thrust, they are dead air that happens to be thematically consistent with the parts of the movie the audience is actually engaged with. The most we get is that the characters have extra reasons to know that the black goo does nasty stuff. This is literally the only flaw with Prometheus, a movie I love dearly. Prometheus still works because the damage those scenes do is mostly limited to the second act, and the third act is really tight. Some posters, such as K. Waste and Toady, are dancing around this by dissecting the structure of Aliens without really doing the same for Covenant, and the sad truth is that Aliens is a masterfully structured example of escalation of tension from start to finish whereas Covenant is constantly undercutting itself in tiny little ways that add up, specifically in the third act. Also, David using the "perfect organism" bit was cute, but Daniels' use of quotes in the finale made me roll my eyes. That was exactly the kind of poo poo I was hoping wouldn't be in this movie. I was wrong, I was so wrong.
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May 28, 2017 03:04
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Hodgepodge posted:None of those are R rated and Covenant is. Fury Road. Deadpool. MajorB posted:
I'd argue that the Chestburster scene needed to happen earlier in the film, and that they needed to underscore exactly how much more of a threat the resultant Xenomorph was than the creatures that preceded it. Each protomorph you see kills 2 or 3 people, each Xenomorph you see kills 2 or 3 people, you're not really selling me on the whole 'this is the perfect refinement of all of David's work' thing here. Breetai fucked around with this message at 03:14 on May 28, 2017 |
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May 28, 2017 03:07
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CelticPredator posted:People want that Aliens film again basically. Something fun and filled with emotion and really well sketched out characters with great lines. I find this shameful. It's quite surreal how people just want an exact copy of Aliens with modern special effects; even going so far as retconning Alien 3 and Resurrection.
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May 28, 2017 03:13
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Honestly though, the weakest moments of Covenant are the parts where it is just another Alien movie- and unfortunately that's much of the third act.
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May 28, 2017 03:17
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RedSpider posted:I find this shameful. It's quite surreal how people just want an exact copy of Aliens with modern special effects; even going so far as retconning Alien 3 and Resurrection. I don't think they want Blomkamp's Alien, even though more people would be down for erasing those movies. The average opinion is the first two are classics, the rest are a garbage fire. I think people just want something that's a crowd pleaser instead of something with a lot going on. I'm mixed because I love Scott's prequel thing, but I do long for something that's actually fun to watch.
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May 28, 2017 03:21
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Tenzarin posted:Oops should of went with blompcamp! They are almost definitely crawling back to him and cutting all ties with Scott as we speak. It was Scott that put an end to that film anyway by throwing his toys out of the pram and saying he refused to share the universe with anyone. Fox executives loved the Bloomkamp vision but didn't want to swallow the money of cutting Scott's contract. They won't give a poo poo about that now.
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May 28, 2017 03:27
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CelticPredator posted:I don't think they want Blomkamp's Alien, even though more people would be down for erasing those movies. The average opinion is the first two are classics, the rest are a garbage fire. Being a crowd pleaser and having heady, rich subtext are not mutually exclusive concepts. Trite example, but The Dark Knight made over a billion dollars. Prometheus was a financial success. With some more polish towards its structural aspects in the screenwriting or editing stage, Covenant could have been the highest-grossing Alien film of all time, potentially because of its grand ideas. Structure without substance might be empty spectacle, but substance with no structure doesn't sell, and now we're all going to lose when Fox makes Neil Blomkamp's Aliums 2.
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May 28, 2017 03:28
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Yaws posted:It's like Magic School Bus! VVVRRROOOMMM!!!!! Lmao youre still mad
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May 28, 2017 03:33
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This is all weird to me since it looked to me like Scott was being reigned in with Covenant, relative to Prometheus. It's much more an entry in the Alien franchise whereas Prometheus has a closer connection to movies like Solaris and Forbidden Planet.
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May 28, 2017 03:33
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PriorMarcus posted:They are almost definitely crawling back to him and cutting all ties with Scott as we speak. It was Scott that put an end to that film anyway by throwing his toys out of the pram and saying he refused to share the universe with anyone. Fox executives loved the Bloomkamp vision but didn't want to swallow the money of cutting Scott's contract. They won't give a poo poo about that now. Oh yes, grandma Ripley and a frail Hicks fighting aliens in a time-traveling storyline is just what this series needs. Look at me guys, I'm a Blomkamp and Terminator Genisys fan.
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May 28, 2017 03:44
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PriorMarcus posted:They are almost definitely crawling back to him and cutting all ties with Scott as we speak. It was Scott that put an end to that film anyway by throwing his toys out of the pram and saying he refused to share the universe with anyone. Fox executives loved the Bloomkamp vision but didn't want to swallow the money of cutting Scott's contract. They won't give a poo poo about that now. its_happening.gif RedSpider posted:Oh yes, grandma Ripley and a frail Hicks fighting aliens in a time-traveling storyline is just what this series needs. Look at me guys, I'm a Blomkamp and Terminator Genisys fan. 
Clipperton fucked around with this message at 03:57 on May 28, 2017 |
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May 28, 2017 03:46
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RedSpider posted:Look at me guys, I'm a Blomkamp and Terminator Genisys fan. Hey, me too! I don't necessarily want to see Blomkamp's Alien though.
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May 28, 2017 03:49
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Maxwell Lord posted:This is all weird to me since it looked to me like Scott was being reigned in with Covenant, relative to Prometheus. It's much more an entry in the Alien franchise whereas Prometheus has a closer connection to movies like Solaris and Forbidden Planet. It could just be that it's up against stronger competition. The drop off is about the same as Prometheus suffered, but the initial box office is way worse. I don't know though, I can see GotG2 being a huge draw but I'm not sure if the new Pirates is good?
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May 28, 2017 03:56
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This movie should've been a subdued mashup of Dr Moreau and Pygmalion.
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May 28, 2017 04:23
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Hodgepodge posted:It could just be that it's up against stronger competition. The drop off is about the same as Prometheus suffered, but the initial box office is way worse. I don't know though, I can see GotG2 being a huge draw but I'm not sure if the new Pirates is good? I'm not really talking about box office since I don't know about that anymore. I'm just saying I'm not dissatisfied because this is a weird and unconventional film like Prometheus, but rather that it seemed very familiar. I am not sure Scott had as much autonomy here as before.
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May 28, 2017 04:36
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Hodgepodge posted:None of those are R rated and Covenant is. Baywatch is rated R.
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May 28, 2017 04:42
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Covenant has similar problems to Prometheus in that it swings wildly from great to terrible scene to scene, but it's less ambitious so even the "only themes matter" posters can't find as much to like.
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May 28, 2017 04:42
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