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I'm the guy who walked away from Covenant feeling duped by the marketing. I'll submit the caveat that I hadn't seen the full trailer, but going by the TV ads, posters, the re-using of the original "Alien" branding (it's actually kind of remarkable that until now each movie has had its own distinct logo) and the Xenomorph and Sigourney Weaver appearances on talk shows and the like, my impression was 20th Century Fox was screaming "yes we actually made the obvious ALIEN 2 that somehow this 40 year old franchise never really produced". During my viewing I think by the time the crew reached the ghost Engineer town I'd accepted that all the Alien poo poo was being saved for the end, but even granting the "alright, alright here's what you came for you dullard" climax (which honestly came off a little condescending to me) I felt the thing was a bait-and-switch. I'd argue it definitely had an effect on the box office, or at least that audiences weren't satisfied with the movie they got. Covenant was tracking for a $40+ million opening, and its first day takings seemed to confirm so - that it wound up missing that mark (and it wasn't even really close) rose eyebrows, and it collapsed by 70% the following weekend, and this pattern of conspicuously large drops was consistent with the movie's performance in other markets. Really, Covenant's total worldwide numbers aren't that bad in a vacuum, what's disappointing is the sense that the movie didn't meet its potential. It all points to toxic word of mouth, that people were sold on its presentation but the actual movie didn't meet their expectations.
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Jul 23, 2017 13:31
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 06:40 |
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I'd say the Newborn is a successful creature design because it really is this disgusting abomination that should not exist. My problem with it is... that it's this disgusting abomination that should not exist. Alien Resurrection is just a gross movie in general in a way that I don't think any other movie in the series is. The whole movie looks like it takes place in a sewer, the aliens look like cockroaches, the eggs look like giant gurgling turds, everyone (alien and human alike) is always covered in shiny sweat/slime/other liquids, the violence is the ickiest in the series (I can handle lots of blood, aliens popping out of chests, etc. But all the flying guts etc. in this movie started to make me queasy), everything looks like it smells like poo poo, and the cast themselves look pretty ugly (even though a number of them are attractive IRL) and the whole movie is just repulsive. I of course realize that this is all by design and I'm not asking Alien movies to be Mary Poppins, but Resurrection took the series in a direction I was just not ever interested in.
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Oct 19, 2017 19:33
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Yeah, Whedon's script reads like a Resident Evil movie. It ends with a fistfight between Ripley and the Newborn (who in this script resembled more the "licker" creature from the Resident Evil games than the end result) and eventually Ripley rips out the Newborn's tongue (which was still the rigid, secondary-jaw type of the other aliens) and jabs it in its forehead. I mean, it does sound like it could have been fun, but really trashy and stupid.
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Oct 20, 2017 17:24
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Xenomrph posted:I'm not familiar with that ending, the two I'm familiar with are the early draft that has the Newborn getting mulched by a futuristic harvester (and Gen. Perez's character suffers the movie Newborn's fate, and is sucked out of a hole in a window): I'm pretty sure it's the one contained in the Quadrilogy DVD box set.
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Oct 20, 2017 22:47
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I said earlier in the thread: I think the Newborn design is a very successful one. It's a loathsome abomination and that's exactly what the Newborn is supposed to be. I think people's (me included) actual issue with the Newborn is that it's just not a concept they were interested in for an Alien movie.
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Nov 28, 2017 20:23
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banned from Starbucks posted:Is that the movie where they went "This water looks too clear people with think it's CG, uh let's dump a bunch of milk and poo poo into it to cloud it up!" ? Yes it was
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Jul 30, 2018 01:57
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If I recall every last one of the unused Alien 3 scripts gave the creature some inexplicable new ability or characteristic that they'd apparently always had and just never bothered to show us before. I believe the Gibson script has them reproduce through spores. Also, despite the "on Earth everyone can hear you scream" none of the scripts take place on Earth.
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Aug 5, 2018 09:50
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I understand it's mostly a shorthand for certain aesthetic differences but I've always hated the idea of this big dichotomy between Alien 'horror' and Aliens 'action' (especially since to me Aliens is easily the scariest installment of the series). When you get right down to it, the only real difference between them is the number and size of the aliens and weapons.
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Aug 7, 2018 22:27
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ruddiger posted:the motivation of why a line like that exists in a sci-fi film. It was the 80s. You could say the words "human being" and "friend of the family" on prime time broadcast TV uncensored. You're right about why Hudson is the one saying that line, but I really doubt they considered it all that significant or controversial rather than just matter of course. No duh the obnoxious cocky marine would crack racial jokes amongst his friends, it's what that type of guy does.
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Aug 9, 2018 03:40
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I was once the laughingstock of the IMDB board for Aliens for suggesting that the Arcturians were an alien species. Yeah, the IMDB board patrons were notorious idiots and all, but lots and lots and lots of people simply don't buy that humanity has met any other intelligent extraterrestrial life in the Alien universe.
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Aug 12, 2018 04:14
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 06:40 |
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Outland is like they said, "Hey we have all these sets and props from Alien still lying around, why don't we just make another movie with this poo poo?"
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Oct 25, 2018 03:48
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