Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
Do you like Alien 3 "Assembly Cut"?
Yes, Alien 3 "Assembly Cut" was tits.
No, Alien and Aliens are the only valid Alien films.
Nah gently caress you Alien 3 sucks in all its forms.
View Results
 
  • Post
  • Reply
GoldStandardConure
Jun 11, 2010

I have to kill fast
and mayflies too slow

Pillbug

Monglo posted:

It's David at the end.
How hard is it to watch movies?

Given the number of "but where did the neomorphs go?" posts, really loving hard.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

That is a good question because we never see what happens to the other one. Because it was cut out of the film.

GoldStandardConure
Jun 11, 2010

I have to kill fast
and mayflies too slow

Pillbug

CelticPredator posted:

That is a good question because we never see what happens to the other one. Because it was cut out of the film.

We see two neomorphs get born.

One hatches in the lander pod, and runs away when it explodes, you see it escape. The other hatches from the security guy bursting out his mouth and then it fucks off into the grass.

The two neomorphs attack, and one gets punched in the face by Walter and shot to ribbons by the security detail, the other rocks up then runs away when Walter fires the flare.

The one that escapes follows them, kills Rose, and then gets lit up by Oram.

Two born, two killed.

Unless there was a third neomorph I didn't spot then welp, RIP me.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Edit: i rewatched the scene, I guess it does get shot and dies. Probably a last minute add to deal with the missing scene.

CelticPredator fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jun 19, 2017

GoldStandardConure
Jun 11, 2010

I have to kill fast
and mayflies too slow

Pillbug

quote:

The two Neomorphs attack the remaining crew members; one of them kills Ankor but is killed by the crew. David, who survived the Prometheus mission, rescues the crew and leads them to a city full of humanoid (Engineer) corpses.

taken from the plot summary on wiki

edit:

CelticPredator posted:

Edit: i rewatched the scene, I guess it does get shot and dies. Probably a last minute add to deal with the missing scene.

yeah i had read about the script changes etc, but I saw it on opening weekend and haven't watched it since and it was pretty clear to me that it died. So much so I got confused as gently caress at all the "but what of neomorphs?!" posts that I checked the wiki plot summary.

GoldStandardConure fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Jun 19, 2017

RedSpider
May 12, 2017

CelticPredator posted:

Edit: i rewatched the scene,

Where are you watching this?

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Google it.

Shanty
Nov 7, 2005

I Love Dogs
"Gothic" is a great description of Covenant, the sequel to the modern Modern Prometheus, Promethus.

Gorn Myson
Aug 8, 2007






I've been looking forward to this. Welcome back :)

Jonah Galtberg
Feb 11, 2009

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Ok.


Chapter 1: FRANCHISE THINKING HAS DESTROYED LITERACY

Alien Covenant is not a slasher movie. Daniels is not the protagonist. David did not create the xenomorphs. The film does not take place on 'the Engineer homeworld'. There is no twist ending.

Even from the very beginning, things have gone very badly awry. And this is because franchise thinking has destroyed literacy. In roughly a month since the release of the film, people have failed to write about the film at all. Instead, they write around it - write how the David character is familiar from an earlier film, and how the monster is familiar from another even-earlier film. The actual film, Covenant, is studiously ignored in favour of what people (pre-)supposed it to be. That is to say that Covenant was 'supposed to be' a slasher with a twist - because Alien was a slasher with a twist, and this is the same franchise. The influence of the 20th Century Fox corporation is such that, when shown a picture of a dog and told that it is a cat, audiences insist that it is a bad, bad cat. This thread is what happens when people are compelled to speak before the memes that they rely upon have been established. The result is vocal bafflement and aimless confusion. So: enough about what the film isn't. Let's start over.

Covenant is a Gothic Romance, and Walter is its protagonist. Though the word 'gothic' has been tossed around a few times, we should be clear: Covenant is not, precisely, a horror film. There are ghosts and monsters, but they are extensions of the setting. This is the same distinction Guillermo Del Toro made with regards to his Crimson Peak. It is a romance in a haunted world. And if the film is not particularly scary, it is because Walter is not a particularly fearful character - and the film is told largely (if not entirely) from his point of view. If it helps, consider it a supernatural romance a la Twilight.

After a prologue that functions as a dream sequence, the neutrino burst(!) awakens something inside Walter. And so, for the remainder of the film, we follow our protagonist as he literally grapples with his emotions and his capacity to do evil - literally wrestles with repressed aspects of his own design that are externalized as the David character. K.Waste was effectively the only person to note, so far, that Walter and David are aspects of a single character, and that this is fundamentally Walter's story. Covenant is Ridley Scott doing Wuthering Heights by way of Edward Scissorhands - or vice versa. It's about the demonic impulses of a dangerous-but-sympathetic android whose expressions of love are a threat. While Daniels is a protagonist, she is not the protagonist. She is a focal character, important to the narrative insofar as she is the object of Walter's fascination. He is always observing her, and subtly guiding her - especially at the end.

To repeat: the ending is not a 'twist ending'. If you are shown a bomb underneath the table early in a sequence, it is not a 'plot twist' when the bomb inevitably explodes or is defused. When Scott cuts away from the final rock/knife strike, we spend the remainder of the film waiting for the blow to land. We vacillate between the two possible outcomes (either David won, or Walter won), while anticipating the collapse of the waveform. This is a formal expression of Walter's decision-making process. So, put simply, the ending of the film is a classic suspense sequence. The fact that these two things are confused by even professional reviewers should be incredible. But, unfortunately, franchise thinking (and the associated hyperfixation on plot continuity over storytelling) has become all too familiar.

So, step back for a second, to a scene that everyone has seemingly ignored. After the opening titles, the film begins with a miscarriage scene. Walter takes an expired fetus from the drawer, and drops it into a container for medical waste. The whole shelf of fetuses seems to have been glossed over by everyone, even though this is key piece of characterization. But, by the end of the film, it should be clear that this expired fetus is Daniels' fetus - the one designated for her by the company, the one she was not yet even pregnant with, but would have had if things had not gone wrong. And this is of course not a regular fetus but a crystallized abstraction: each blue gem on the shelf is an ideal fetus, pre-screened, and perfected. And Walter pauses to contemplate this. This event is important to him. That's why it's in the movie.

See, while the colonists talk about their log cabins and other dreams of the future, what we are actually shown is the brutal fact (from MOTHER's perspective) that they exist only as hosts for this next generation of workers. The couples are each a simple mechanism for spreading MOTHER's influence: 1000 children for 1000 couples, mass-produced for the purpose. The imagery of the storage pods is direct from Matrix and THX 1138. So when Daniels asks Walter to help build her cabin, at the end of the film, she's badly misread the situation. Walter never intended to help build a cabin - hence his confused expression. Walter intends to be the cabin, to fill that role in Daniels' life. Being a surrogate 'husband' is what Tennessee is there for. Walter is thinking more abstractly, seeking to replace Daniels' miscarried dream-child.

In essence, Walter is reverse-engineering Daniels and Tennessee into the parents that he never had. The ideal of one perfect fetus per two adults is reversed into two perfect face-huggers for one robotic child. That is his dream for the future. So Walter the gives birth to a new couple, to take the place of his own deceased creator. And he's doing it out of love.

Ultimately, this is all a perversion of Alien, a BAD END where Ripley and Dallas survive and hook up after saving the corporation from the traumatic monster. It's consequently an unambiguous refutation of Aliens - an attack on James Cameron's liberal-utopian message, and Hollywood's ideological matrix of the production of the couple. It's an attack on the therapeutic narrative where Daniels must ostensibly 'overcome her trauma' (as Ripley did in Aliens) and return to normalcy as a good wife, a good mother, and a good worker.

That is the point of the film.

:bisonyes:

VideoGames
Aug 18, 2003

This was very entertaining. I always enjoy reading other perspectives from my own!

Why cookie Rocket
Dec 2, 2003

Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Ok.


Chapter 1: FRANCHISE THINKING HAS DESTROYED LITERACY

Alien Covenant is not a slasher movie. Daniels is not the protagonist. David did not create the xenomorphs. The film does not take place on 'the Engineer homeworld'. There is no twist ending.

Even from the very beginning, things have gone very badly awry. And this is because franchise thinking has destroyed literacy. In roughly a month since the release of the film, people have failed to write about the film at all. Instead, they write around it - write how the David character is familiar from an earlier film, and how the monster is familiar from another even-earlier film. The actual film, Covenant, is studiously ignored in favour of what people (pre-)supposed it to be. That is to say that Covenant was 'supposed to be' a slasher with a twist - because Alien was a slasher with a twist, and this is the same franchise. The influence of the 20th Century Fox corporation is such that, when shown a picture of a dog and told that it is a cat, audiences insist that it is a bad, bad cat. This thread is what happens when people are compelled to speak before the memes that they rely upon have been established. The result is vocal bafflement and aimless confusion. So: enough about what the film isn't. Let's start over.

Covenant is a Gothic Romance, and Walter is its protagonist. Though the word 'gothic' has been tossed around a few times, we should be clear: Covenant is not, precisely, a horror film. There are ghosts and monsters, but they are extensions of the setting. This is the same distinction Guillermo Del Toro made with regards to his Crimson Peak. It is a romance in a haunted world. And if the film is not particularly scary, it is because Walter is not a particularly fearful character - and the film is told largely (if not entirely) from his point of view. If it helps, consider it a supernatural romance a la Twilight.

After a prologue that functions as a dream sequence, the neutrino burst(!) awakens something inside Walter. And so, for the remainder of the film, we follow our protagonist as he literally grapples with his emotions and his capacity to do evil - literally wrestles with repressed aspects of his own design that are externalized as the David character. K.Waste was effectively the only person to note, so far, that Walter and David are aspects of a single character, and that this is fundamentally Walter's story. Covenant is Ridley Scott doing Wuthering Heights by way of Edward Scissorhands - or vice versa. It's about the demonic impulses of a dangerous-but-sympathetic android whose expressions of love are a threat. While Daniels is a protagonist, she is not the protagonist. She is a focal character, important to the narrative insofar as she is the object of Walter's fascination. He is always observing her, and subtly guiding her - especially at the end.

To repeat: the ending is not a 'twist ending'. If you are shown a bomb underneath the table early in a sequence, it is not a 'plot twist' when the bomb inevitably explodes or is defused. When Scott cuts away from the final rock/knife strike, we spend the remainder of the film waiting for the blow to land. We vacillate between the two possible outcomes (either David won, or Walter won), while anticipating the collapse of the waveform. This is a formal expression of Walter's decision-making process. So, put simply, the ending of the film is a classic suspense sequence. The fact that these two things are confused by even professional reviewers should be incredible. But, unfortunately, franchise thinking (and the associated hyperfixation on plot continuity over storytelling) has become all too familiar.

So, step back for a second, to a scene that everyone has seemingly ignored. After the opening titles, the film begins with a miscarriage scene. Walter takes an expired fetus from the drawer, and drops it into a container for medical waste. The whole shelf of fetuses seems to have been glossed over by everyone, even though this is key piece of characterization. But, by the end of the film, it should be clear that this expired fetus is Daniels' fetus - the one designated for her by the company, the one she was not yet even pregnant with, but would have had if things had not gone wrong. And this is of course not a regular fetus but a crystallized abstraction: each blue gem on the shelf is an ideal fetus, pre-screened, and perfected. And Walter pauses to contemplate this. This event is important to him. That's why it's in the movie.

See, while the colonists talk about their log cabins and other dreams of the future, what we are actually shown is the brutal fact (from MOTHER's perspective) that they exist only as hosts for this next generation of workers. The couples are each a simple mechanism for spreading MOTHER's influence: 1000 children for 1000 couples, mass-produced for the purpose. The imagery of the storage pods is direct from Matrix and THX 1138. So when Daniels asks Walter to help build her cabin, at the end of the film, she's badly misread the situation. Walter never intended to help build a cabin - hence his confused expression. Walter intends to be the cabin, to fill that role in Daniels' life. Being a surrogate 'husband' is what Tennessee is there for. Walter is thinking more abstractly, seeking to replace Daniels' miscarried dream-child.

In essence, Walter is reverse-engineering Daniels and Tennessee into the parents that he never had. The ideal of one perfect fetus per two adults is reversed into two perfect face-huggers for one robotic child. That is his dream for the future. So Walter the gives birth to a new couple, to take the place of his own deceased creator. And he's doing it out of love.

Ultimately, this is all a perversion of Alien, a BAD END where Ripley and Dallas survive and hook up after saving the corporation from the traumatic monster. It's consequently an unambiguous refutation of Aliens - an attack on James Cameron's liberal-utopian message, and Hollywood's ideological matrix of the production of the couple. It's an attack on the therapeutic narrative where Daniels must ostensibly 'overcome her trauma' (as Ripley did in Aliens) and return to normalcy as a good wife, a good mother, and a good worker.

That is the point of the film.

Too much bitching about "bad viewers," no major insights. It's no SMG Prometheus review. It's not his fault in some ways because Covenant doesn't really offer much to work with, still, 4/10.

Water Sheep
Jan 6, 2013

Gorn Myson posted:

I've been looking forward to this. Welcome back :)

Same.

Though in terms of "franchise", I do not think the thematic continuity with Prometheus can be overlooked. It's extremely important context (especially with the false Christian and the inexplicable chaotic destruction.)

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe
One thing I definitely agree with SMG on is the "twist" at the end. Hearing people complain(not so much in this thread but in general) that it was too obvious or that they called it out right away is pretty baffling, I guess they just aren't experienced with watching movies? It's clearly presented as a Touch of Evil-style suspense moment, not a twist that is supposed to take the audience by surprise. We're meant to know that it's David on the ship, and so we know the survivors are in danger but they themselves don't. It's classic suspense, it's basically the blueprint.

Monglo
Mar 19, 2015

Basebf555 posted:

One thing I definitely agree with SMG on is the "twist" at the end... We're meant to know that it's David on the ship, and so we know the survivors are in danger but they themselves don't.

SMG thinks it's Walter, not David. Why are you this bad at movies?

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Monglo posted:

SMG thinks it's Walter, not David. Why are you this bad at movies?

That's what I get for cherrypicking individual paragraphs instead of reading the whole thing. My bad, although the point I was making still stands.

Tenzarin
Jul 24, 2007
.
Taco Defender
My favorite twist of the movie is how they showed them fighting the alien on the ship in the commercials and in the movie its the last 5 minutes.

Why cookie Rocket
Dec 2, 2003

Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice.

Monglo posted:

SMG thinks it's Walter, not David. Why are you this bad at movies?

Of course he doesn't. I'm not a big SMG fan (aside from his read of Prometheus) but you're misreading his post.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Tenzarin posted:

My favorite twist of the movie is how they showed them fighting the alien on the ship in the commercials and in the movie its the last 5 minutes.

They showed it in the trailer



It happened in the film

Leave
Feb 7, 2012

Taking the term "Koopaling" to a whole new level since 2016.

CelticPredator posted:

They showed it in the trailer



It happened in the film

But they showed teh end of teh movie in the trailer!!!111!

Tenzarin
Jul 24, 2007
.
Taco Defender
Actually the part in the commercials where Daniels opens the door and aims up into the chains with the gun and screams never happens in the movie. It was there to make the commercial look more action like. And in that part of the movie they don't even try to shoot the alien.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Because that was made just for that ad, directed by Luke Scott.

Same with the Last Supper clip.

Monglo
Mar 19, 2015

Why cookie Rocket posted:

Of course he doesn't. I'm not a big SMG fan (aside from his read of Prometheus) but you're misreading his post.

SMG posted:

So when Daniels asks Walter to help build her cabin, at the end of the film, she's badly misread the situation. Walter never intended to help build a cabin - hence his confused expression. Walter intends to be the cabin, to fill that role in Daniels' life.

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 209 days!
His point is the same as KWaste's, which he explicitly refers to: the film rejects psychological realism with regards to David/Walter's identity at the end of the film. You can piece together that it should, in the literal sense, actually be David, but in the process you will miss what the film is showing you.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Yeah I hate that poo poo. It just feels so disingenuous.

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer
Can we get a Chris Nolan Alien film next?

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
BUT THE CGI waah waah waaaaah

edit: SMG's review was amazing. thanks. I needed that.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

I would like to see that.

thotsky
Jun 7, 2005

hot to trot

Neo Rasa posted:

Metroid Fusion
Samus is resurrected and is now part Metroid because having one implanted in her was the cause of her near-death. She's sort of down with this but also hates that this was done to her and makes sure to blow up a GF space station that's become host to a ton of genetically engineered Metroid-derived creatures...including a hideous clone of Samus herself!

Samus is healed by having the Metroid cell introduced to her body, it is not the cause of her near-death. She's all business about being a hybrid. The X, an unrelated alien race, are the ones to run rampant on the station, not the Metroids. The Samus clone is also an X, not a Metroid. There is a secret lab with Metroids in the game though.

thotsky fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jun 19, 2017

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

CelticPredator posted:

Because that was made just for that ad, directed by Luke Scott.

Same with the Last Supper clip.

The best part of that clip is James Franco's saying "I'm burning up" because he's sick and leaves before the party started. I know it was made to be a promo thing from the beginning but it's insane to me that they don't open the movie with it, it's awesome. Like open with that, the dream sequence, rest of movie. Fassbender's delayed semi-pun of "I've got your back." Oh my god it's amazing.

Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jun 19, 2017

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

It's a good scene! I'm excited to see a fan cut with all that back in the film.

Apparently the Crossing scene was in the film, but it was cut out during the last few months of editing.

Leave
Feb 7, 2012

Taking the term "Koopaling" to a whole new level since 2016.

Tenzarin posted:

Actually the part in the commercials where Daniels opens the door and aims up into the chains with the gun and screams never happens in the movie. It was there to make the commercial look more action like. And in that part of the movie they don't even try to shoot the alien.

Oh. Sorry. I don't remember the trailer very well, it seems.

Monglo
Mar 19, 2015

Hodgepodge posted:

His point is the same as KWaste's, which he explicitly refers to: the film rejects psychological realism with regards to David/Walter's identity at the end of the film.

Film doesn't do that, the film shows you that it's the character of David in the those scenes, not character of Walter, who are separate from each other as evidenced by every other scene in the movie. They even appear simultaneously in some, I'd say the film might be trying to tell us that they are not the same character.
I'm fine with people being insane and reading into a piece of art and finding whatever they see fit there, but don't say that it's the piece saying it - it's you who's saying it, cause you're insane.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Leavemywife posted:

Oh. Sorry. I don't remember the trailer very well, it seems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8LJSuO4aXA

This is not a trailer. It's a short film directed by Luke Scott.

Theotus
Nov 8, 2014

So, was the movie good?

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Monglo posted:

Film doesn't do that, the film shows you that it's the character of David in the those scenes, not character of Walter, who are separate from each other as evidenced by every other scene in the movie. They even appear simultaneously in some, I'd say the film might be trying to tell us that they are not the same character.
I'm fine with people being insane and reading into a piece of art and finding whatever they see fit there, but don't say that it's the piece saying it - it's you who's saying it, cause you're insane.

No.

The film explicitly does not depict the contrived series of events that take place off-screen such that David doesn't simply dispose of Walter, but replaces him. What you are talking about is plot. 'David and Walter are shown to be separate characters who are sometimes in the same room together.' What I'm talking about is how the filmmakers actually determined to convey this scenario, which is not of two 'completely separate people,' but identical twins who were designed to fulfill the exact same purpose.

There is absolutely no psychologically realistic reason that a single actor should have to portray both robots, or that this new robot should even look like the old robot at all. The point is that the characters are thematically joined, that they are dual aspects of the same personality. This is the sort of thing that superficial plot content can't explain, just as Scott deliberately doesn't show how Walter goes from being about to bash David's skull in, to David not only living but taking his form. These are formalistic choices which straightforwardly convey that David and Walter are explicitly not 'completely separate people,' but a dual representation of a single character.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Okay but they are separate people.

You can be metaphorical and literal. It's not one or the other. gently caress

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


CelticPredator posted:

You can be metaphorical and literal. It's not one or the other. gently caress

Of course. But keep in mind, if you aren't specific about what you're talking about, people can misinterpret you. And if people misinterpret you, you get the opportunity to correct them. It's what we call a virtuous cycle.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

How can you misinterpret what happened on screen?

It's beyond clear. It's insane to go against that to fuel your own reading. A reading should go with the film.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

CelticPredator posted:

How can you misinterpret what happened on screen?

It's beyond clear. It's insane to go against that to fuel your own reading. A reading should go with the film.

Nothing I have written goes against the film. Rather, it goes with it, and accepts implicitly that there is literally no/no literal explanation for how David replaces Walter. The motivations for this event are not 'logical,' extending purely from superficial plot mechanics.

It's the same reasoning behind dressing David like a wizard. It's both characterization, as well as a clear expression of themes through aesthetics. The merging-through-edit of David and Walter at the climax of Alien: Covenant does the same thing.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply