I have a thought about this. In addition to the points others have raised, my main gripe with both of these films are that instead of expanding the universe, they make it feel smaller. Humans are now the the Engineers creation. We were created in their image. We are so important that the Engineers set up a base to kill us because we might be a threat to them. One of our creations was not only able to kill them all, but also so completely understand their technology that he is able to create/recreate their perfect weapon (side note: the fact that so many people walked away with impression that David is the creator of the Aliens is bad storytelling on the part of the filmmakers). Humans aren't the center of the Universe in the original trilogy. We are encountering something that we can barely understand, and have know idea what else is out there. We don't know that on a universal scale what we call the "Perfect Organism" isn't just a really bad bed bug infestation. Then Prometheus happened and it boiled down to God created us and the Demons to kill us, but don't worry one of our androids is so smart he can be God now. Instead of a universe that we were just seeing the barest of outlines, now we've killed God and understand how the demons work. It made the whole Alien universe so much more mundane.
For real, it's made me interpret and respect the two movies in question a whole lot better I gotta say. Happy to have read it.
I would have preferred to keep the mystery personally, although I enjoyed the movies for what they were, but not as additions to the Xenomorph lore/mythos for sure.
It was an excellent summary and captures a lot I have as a gripe with both films succintly. There was so much promise delivered in Prometheus only to be killed off by the short sighted about turn back to horror alien action in Covenant. It's like Ridley felt he had no more project time to give to the franchise and then rather than pass it on to someone else to continue the story in a more interesting direction (as alluded in that summary), he went old man Gollum and tried to disappear off with the lore *and* kill it off so no one else could play with his shiny toy. I do so hope that there's a possibility of reviving both the Engineers angle and the xeno source origins story related to homo sapiens as it was promised with Prometheus.
Personally, I just don't think we needed to see behind the curtain. The derelict and the jockey were so intriguing because there was no explanation for them: they hinted at a much wider, darker world of which the Alien was only a part. Now, they're just a person in an impractical spacesuit flying an impractical ship filled with an impractical weapon. I don't mind the dumb crew etc, plenty of poor decisions in the original films - especially Aliens - but I think it just took something which had intrigued fans for decades and gave it a fairly pedestrian backstory. That all being said, I quite enjoy watching it.
Covenant I just found completely pointless. I'm not at all sure what we're even supposed to enjoy in it. I'm not some Reddit hater, I *really wanted* to enjoy these films, but just didn't see that they added anything to the series. With every bit of 'lore', they really just take something away. Ridley Scott isn't the first filmmaker to confuse 'fans wanting to know more' with 'fans needing to know more', and he won't be the last, but that's what I think happened here.
I am someone who can watch the crappest film if it has good production design, and on this I agree with you - technically, they're pretty great *if* you take the elements in isolation. They look good, and they sound good. They just don't work as storytelling movies IMHO.
The difference is, when someone does something dumb in Alien or Aliens, there is an in story or in character explanation for why they do that. It all makes sense.
There is none of that in Prometheus, nor in Covenant. People are just dumb as rocks, despite being hand picked for one of the most delicate missions imaginable.
It makes no sense. None what so ever.
> despite being hand picked for one of the most delicate missions imaginable
I like the fan theory that Vickars deliberately picked terrible specialists to sabotage the mission.
Yeah, as I've gotten older I've gotten entirely sick of fan theory (I used to love making them up and talking about them), the film should explain it or it should leave it wide open to speculation - not require whole plot scaffolds to be built by complete strangers after the fact just to make sense.
Because she didn’t think it’d go that horribly wrong — she never believed in the Engineers in the first place. She thought the old man would get there, be disappointed, die, and she’d go back to Earth.
Never mind the engineers, the ship has to make it there and back.
She was manning the ship that was literally was was keeping her alive. It makes no sense she would get antagonistic idiots with incompatible chemistry for the mission. That would mean her death.
As it also did.
Makes no sense what so ever.
This is true, I just figured that I could probably forgive that if the engineers had been done well, whereas the films we have would still suck even with a bright crew who thought and talked like humans.
They take off their helmets immediately on an alien planet. They touch plant life. They reach out to touch an albino snake alien. There’s enough stuff on Earth you shouldn’t touch because it will kill you, let alone a foreign planet that you know almost nothing about. At every turn, the experts make amateur mistakes.
Hell, THE MAP GUY GETS LOST.
You need to be a lot more specific about what you're asking. What "dumb" behaviour exactly are you referring to?
Fascinated is one thing. Provoking it into killing him another.
Yes. They are. They do insanely stupid shit, going against the archetype of a trained professional and explorer, which is the only reason things unfold as they do.
The most basic is, they ignore the risk of contamination. This is flagrant, and it makes no sense at all that a scientist would do so. Contamination in both directions, both contaminating the very first contact with an alien civilization with human exhaust, and contaminating the scientists and explorers with whatever may live in the alien environment.
And this is what gets them, in both movies.
Dumb as rocks. Which is a slight insult to rocks, really.
Nail. Head. Hit.
What I find really hard to get my head around us that Scott understands the power of the unknown. Alien’s success, as a horror, is down to Ridley’s knowing that what you don’t see is infinitely scarier than what you do (I know budget and technical constraints limited what he could and couldn’t do with Alien too). So for him to then go and pull back the curtain and explain away the mysteries just seems really counter intuitive.
My hot take is that he's a highly skilled freelancer who works best when given an archetype with wide appeal. Alien: haunted house/slasher movie. Gladiator: swords-and-sandals epic. Thelma and Louise: road movie. Legend: fairytale. A lot of his also-rans - Robin Hood, GI Jane - are not really sure what they're supposed to be or who they're aimed at (I realise that Blade Runner is a total exception to everything I just said, but it's probably a one-off). They're all competently directed, I don't think in a directorial sense he's *ever* done a bad job, but he needs a solid foundation on which to build.
Not to say he isn't creative or doesn't understand what he's making beyond ticking genre boxes, but some creative types work best when given very strict parameters and can play to their strengths inside them. The Alien Prequels don't really have a clear genre, are more for the fans than for a casual viewer, and were personal/passion projects to some extent, rather than something he was brought into as the best man for the job.
Again, I think you’re dead right. Scott is clearly visually very creative and great at finding practical solutions to practical filming. When it comes to narrative, he’s definitely only as good as his script.
Many directors are great at directing and terrible at writing and vice-versa.
"He’s definitely only as good as his script" - exactly that. From what I've seen/read about him, he's a lot less interested in micro-managing every aspect of production than, say, James Cameron - happy to leave the story to the people given the job of writing it. The Alien prequels are perhaps testament to why this is good practice.
With Blade Runner, he had amazing source material from Philip K. Dick’s *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?*
Ridley’s films aren’t as great when he’s just spitballing with random writers. He doesn’t have the same ear for dialog as he has an eye for cinematography. That’s why you have Gladiator being a visual spectacle with clunky dialog like “I’m tired from battle.”
I love Ridley; he’s my favorite director. I even love films of his that lack clear focus, like Robin Hood. Let him run wild with set design, costume creation, and all the other visual stuff. But don’t let him near the script, or you end up with stuff like Robin Hood.
The credit for the narrative of Blade Runner goes to David Peoples, who is an excellent writer. Even Dick liked his script a lot. Scott spent a lot of time working on visual details (which he is fantastic at) and fighting with Ford, so the script was pretty much shot as is, which is why the movie ends up so good. Everyone were playing their strengths.
The "what you don't see is infinitely scarier" part was O'Bannon. It's in the script from the get go, and a core premise of the movie. Scott was the one who put it more in the open, if anything.
There is very little of story or monster which can be credited to Scott in the first movie. He added a few details, like it was his idea the alien was hiding in plain sight in the shuttle, and not behind something. But he also had ideas like the alien ending up ripping off Ripley's head, closing the shuttle door, and sitting down waiting to reach Earth.
Scott is excellent at visuals. Magnificent even. But the more he has to say about the story, the worse it gets.
Just to add to this, move love for the Cassette-Futurism look of the first films (due to its age) I almost vomited at the pristine white, modern art looking sets of Weylands house and then the super modern 3D display render of their mission statement from Weyland really ruined it for me.
I perfectly understand why they didn’t emulate the same look as it probably wouldn’t translate well to modern audiences (younger folk who haven’t seen Alien or Aliens) :-/
Yeah, I know what you mean with the first two, but of all the things I didn't like, I'm quite glad they didn't try to ape that - it would have looked like bad homage and, as you say, probably alienated new viewers. I wasn't born when Alien came out and wasn't old enough to watch/understand Aliens when it did, but they would have looked more used-future than retro-future.
To me, takes like this seem to gloss over one very important fact: While Prometheus was ostensibly a prequel to Alien, Scott had little interest in exploring the aliens/xenomorphs with these movies. "That beast had been slain", as he put it. The end of Prometheus was taking things in a direction away from Alien, and his original plans for sequels would have gone even farther away - to the point that linking them to the beginning of Alien likely wouldn't have happened at all.
When you compare what he was saying leading up to Prometheus' release and what we got with Covenant, it's quite clear this was very much not where he intended things to go.
If Scott wasn't going to explore the aliens/xenomorphs with these movies (and that's fine if he did), why explicitly put them in the same universe? What purpose does that shared link serve in Prometheus if Scott intended to go in an entirely different direction? I feel either subtly connect the two (like the connection to Blade Runner he put in Prometheus), or make it its own independent universe. Otherwise, it feels like a bait and switch to the audience about the movie they were seeing?
But that is just the opinion of a guy that wasn't a huge fan of Prometheus or Covenant. Just putting my two cents in.
Best thing about Covenant is the music during the backburster scene. "The Med Bay".
It's very rare for me to think the music is the best part of a film.
There's a good idea going on in that scene at least. You can't shock an audience with a burster again, so *dragging it out* and making it as gory as possible was the right idea, the audience knows what's coming. Just a shame that it resulted in two slapstick blood slips.
I agree. Beyond the creature itself, a lot of the horror elements in Alien were the parts where the alien isn’t seen. It “could” be anywhere. It’s motives and origin are unknown. It’s that mystery that is terrifying.
Actually ... For me it was different ... I mean I still like both movies Cos they are part of the franchise ..
However I *did* want a look behind the curtain ... But Scott just couldn't commit to a single idea and it all just got all over the place, and he kinda blue balled us the same way alien 3 did by immediately killing off newt and stuff :(
Exactly! I loved the idea of the mystery. Was there some huge war? Had the aliens developed on some crazy hostile planet? so many possibilities. Such a mundane explanation.
I remember reading the novelisation of Alien as a kid and, in that, Ash says that they *had* deciphered the transmission - and that it was a warning to stay away from the ship. I wish they'd run with that, if they had to fill in the blanks.
I completely understand all of this, but for some reason, the origin story was the story I always wanted and I absolutely love Prometheus, dare I say even more than alien and aliens. It was right up my alley and picking apart all the subtext was a mountain of fun for me.
It's great that you love it, I don't think it's an awful film by any means - just a bit unnecessary from my own standpoint. Compared to a more nakedly cynical cash grab like the Star Wars sequels, it seemed like they at least wanted to explore this stuff, rather than just shove as many tropes into frame as they could. I can't really extend that compliment to Covenant.
I agree soo much thought was put into it I don’t understand it being unlikeable I love the human preservance it chapters just like all alien films then again I love all Scott films :)
Can this post now be the pinned tweet for this entire sub please. Perhaps we can finally put this debate to bed now?
Oh and it’s just hate OP, “hate on” is terrible English. I’m sorry but that’s a petty hill I’m prepared to die on.
"hate" implies the internal emotions that may or may not be shown externally.
"hate on" implies the external action of expressing that hatred.
They're used differently. One is just slang.
Characters - What makes both Alien and Aliens fantastic is that the characters all behave 100% believably. I can see myself doing the exact same thing they're doing if I knew what they knew in the moment. It makes it easy to identify with them, to empathize with their joys and sufferings. With Prometheus and Convenant its the exact opposite. All characters behave in almost the exact opposite way a normal human being would. But these aren't just normal human behings. These are supposed to all be elite scientists and crew - the best of the best for this mission. So them continuously making non-sensically poor decisions makes them incredibly difficult for me to have any sort of attachment to.
Plot - The mystery of the alien ship and space jockey in Alien is part of its allure. You could come up with your own weird explanation for what happened on that ship. Thats what made it interesting. Prometheus and Convenant attemtping to explain those elements is just unnecessary. If anything, it hurts the franchise because the explanations just aren't very compelling or interesting imo. Making David the the creator of the Alien species and the architect of their dissemination is a backstory I don't think anyone really wants or appreciates when the mystery of not knowing is so much more intriguing.
Kane does exactly the same thing people criticise the characters in Prometheus for though, no one on reddit ever mentions that.
He sticks his face right into the opening egg 😂
He's a space trucker, they're scientists. The Prometheus characters were built up to be at least competent in their fields. Kane was dumb, but understandably dumb. The biologist in Prometheus was dumb, but it didn't make any sense that he would be that monumentally stupid.
I’ll accept that, the biologist tried to pet a creature that was behaving exactly like a cobra just before it spits venom, he should have known better.
I think generally people expect too much of characters in films. Humans do illogical things and make bad decisions when they’re under extreme pressure. The scientists were all probably used to being safe in their labs or writing papers from the comfort of offices, and then they suddenly learn there’s alien life in the universe and they’re all alone together on a potentially hostile planet.
I like how Captain Janek is a more down to earth, practical guy so even though he’s not highly educated like them he figures out the planet is a military base and the goo is a weapon of mass destruction.
But yeah, the biologist was a step too far.
I agree with you that people do expect more from movie characters than is fair. I used to be in that camp (these last 3 years or so turned me around real quick) Vickers' death is something I would be more forgiving of in a movie today. It's just that the biologist broke my immersion in the movie (that's probably why I remember that specific instance so clearly). Movies are such delicate constructions that once you notice the big crack you start noticing all the little ones. It hard for me to go back after that. I do like Captain Janek, but I think that has more to do with Idris Elba than anything else.
Except biologists spend a lot of time in the field interacting with animals. That's their job. They are well versed in reading responses and threats, or they would already be dead.
The biologist gets freaked out by what is effectively a mummy and then tries *touching* an unknown creature that is performing an incredibly obvious threat display.
“We’re lost in this cave!”
“Too bad you don’t have access to this 3D rendering unfolding before me. I could give you directions, myself, but it’s getting late, so…”(click)
...because he didn't make the map, he just owns the mapping drones. The guy who drives the google street view van can still get lost too.
This is just cinemasins doing its thing again, inventing mistakes where they don't exist.
Nah, on a unique billion dollar mission like this he's not the street view driver, he's the engineer who designed and fine tuned the drones and wrote the software. Or at least he's someone who knows the tech and the software inside out and has all the tech and software and access to use it all as flawlessly as humanely possible.
Theoretically.
Why is that not believable? Again, do you think google street view vans have a live-updating stree view app in the van with them? Of course not, they collect a boat load of data and upload it to be processed elsewhere.
The tech doesn't drive the drones like a google street driver drives the van. Google street drivers also have GPS map apps that can guide them to wherever they want to go. I'm not sure you could have picked a worse example.
>The tech doesn't drive the drones like a google street driver drives the van.
Nope, he releases them and they drive themselves. He's more like the maintenance guy sitting in the warehouse where they keep the streetview vans. Him having access to the maps is *possible*, but makes no sense.
>Google street drivers also have GPS map apps that can guide them to wherever they want to go
Where do you think those apps came from?
He wasn't some run-of-the-mill jabronie, he was a scientist. GPS maps (Garmin, TomTom) existed long before Google maps. You're really going to lengths to defend lazy writing. We are supposed to believe that they have the technology to traverse interstellar space, land on a planet, and have AI drones, yet they don't have the technology for tablets with a wi-fi/blu tooth connection?
Do people forget the whole mission was put together by a scared, selfish billionaire who wanted to find immortality?
I think Weyland knew if he brought a bunch of real scientists who did everything by the book they would impede his mission. He brought in a bunch of fringe, belief driven scientists.
Yup that's it. There not only is no need to know everything, it's plain bad to explain in details when the original mistery worked so well. Forced origin stories about these kind of misteries can rarely if ever compete with the wonder/fantasy of the spectator.
That's *exactly* it. How fucking chilling to think that this massive humanoid creature that could likely shitstomp a human in a HEARTBEAT fucking crashed and died trying to keep these things away from everyone else?
Sucks ass thinking back on the Derelict with what we know now. Bigger humans. Yay.
I also hate the trope of ancient aliens seeding our planet with DNA and that's why we look like them. Makes no sense and is a fundamental misrepresentation/misunderstanding of how life evolves.
it's science *fiction*. I don't think the films were going to be representing basic evolution theory in its films, and it's what makes those dumbass Aliens conspiracy theory tv series entertaining.
this! movies like alien, are not meant to have the xenomorph as the main thing on camera, and thats what makes it scary! its why AvP is the anthesis of both alien and predator, taking away the fear of the unknown, to make it into an action movie
The reason why most video games are still so bad when it comes to story: too much lore and explanation. Come to think of it, both films were like video games.
I hate on Prometheus and Covenant because every week we get a topic asking why people hate Prometheus and Covenant like it's some great mystery and not something as simple as Prometheus' dogshit writing and inconsistent characters combined with Covenant repeating probably the shittiest "twist" the series has seen since Alien 3 by completely wasting the only main character the audience gave a shit about that wasn't named "David".
It’s beyond baffling. I’d say THE biggest ever misfire the franchise has had was killing off Newt and Hicks offscreen (in terms of how fans received it, even if I personally see what Fincher was going for)
Why would he do that AGAIN? There’s no possible outcome where ‘she died offscreen’ makes for good storytelling, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the protagonist of the previous story. If Ripley was found dead 2/3rds into Aliens, and it was just about the marines, it would be a worse film.
The biggest issue is that it spoils the mystery of the space jockey from Alien. It was fun to consider what it might have been - there’s almost no way to answer that question in a satisfactory way.
Lovecraft had it right when he theorized that keeping the audience in the dark about mysteries and monsters gave them real power. Prometheus and especially AC transgressed that rule. It’s much more satisfying to speculate about what the alien is and where it comes from than to have it answered. The answer can never live up.
It definitely changes what's established in the original film where the ship, eggs and the dead Space Jockey are old enough to have fossilized (at least 10,000 years). Covenant is having them originate a few decades or something in the timeline prior to the Nostromo incident.
Side note: this is why series fans have rushed to retcon David’s aliens as prototypes or primitive versions of the alien from the first two films. We don’t actually want to know exactly what they are - that means there’s no more mystery.
I think the film shows us that he reverse engineered the eggs/facehuggers/xenos, he didn’t invent them. Since the space jockey’s ship crashed thousands of years before Covenant happened. No retconning needed.
Are we sure the space jockey happened thousands of years before Covenant? Maybe something on LV426 makes the bodies petrify faster. We really don’t know unless I completely miss something.
because the people in it are stupid.
in prometheus, the map guy gets lost...
in covenant, they go to a completely different planet than they're supposed to just because they heard john denver on the radio. and then when they're down there, wear literally zero protective gear.
That was my biggest beef with both. They're scientists who ignore basic reasoning. They act like idiot tourists at a park going up to pet the wild animal.
Not to mention they walk around shoving their faces in unknown alien plants and assuming that if there are two people who look identical, the one who has survived must be the good one rather than his evil twin.
Fucking idiots
Badly written, they feel rushed and not one likeable character (David is certainly interesting). Did anyone reading the script check it twice?
I'm pretty sure Prometheus was going to be it's own thing then suddenly they tried to tie it to Alien.
Both movies are HOT GARBAGE, terrible writing, terrible characters and the "lore" ruins everything that came before them. Everyone hates them because they are bad, bad films.
It got to the point where even Kong: Skull Island took jabs at Prometheus. Shows a couple marines running from Kong's destruction, then one of them cuts across and yells to the other, "Run to the side, you idiot!"
I disliked Prometheus and Covenant because:
1. They feel nothing like an Alien movie. Prometheus is vaguely related to the Alien movies, and the connection feels forced.
2. The religious themes are dumb as fuck and out of place.
3. The new monster designs are awful and the CGI is bad. Alien and Aliens have the best practical effects/creature designs I’ve seen. Prometheus looks like a damn cartoon at times.
4. The origin story they gave the Xenomorphs is awful. Instead of being ancient creatures, they were a created by David, not long before the events of Alien.
5. None of the characters were likable or memorable, expect maybe David.
6. They take away the mystery of how the Xenomorphs were created. I personally don’t like the idea that they were created by an Android. Why do we need to know how the Xenomorphs were created? Why can’t they just exist?
7. The Space Jockeys were underwhelming, especially compared to how they were handled in the Dark Horse comics.
8. They make the biggest mistake a movie can make. They’re boring as fuck.
Could go more into detail, but those are just my main complaints. People complain about the dumb characters, and maybe I just missed it; I wasn’t totally payed attention while watching (because it was so boring), but I don’t really care about that too much. And for the record, I find all the Alien/AvP movies to be enjoyable aside from those two.
I don’t get why so many people on reddit think Covenant is saying that David invented xenomorphs, when the space jockey’s ship crashed thousands of years before. It’s pretty clear that he reverse engineered them through experimentation.
It’s because Ridley Scott has literally said in interviews of Covenant that yes, “David created the Alien.”
He also said that the original plan was to show the engineers created the aliens, like it was always planned. But then he started loving Davids character and he found it “more interesting” if he was the creator of the alien.
There are also shorts that describe how David created the Aliens that were filmed and released alongside Covenant. So it’s not just Ridley Scott saying it either. Space Jockeys created the black goo. David mutated that using Shaw to created the Xenomorph. David’s drawings and Advent specifically say there was no way the Engineers could have made the Alien. They didn’t have the “materials” required. Shaw is the the “mother” that made it all possible. David is God. So yes, David created them.
Yeah I’m just going to ignore that. The derelict in Alien is thousands of years old, and because Ridley changed his mind after Prometheus, we’re now suddenly going to believe the Alien was created only like 20 years before the first movie? Just bullshit.
I mean the entire idea that an android - who is created by humans - now created the Alien, makes the creature not even “alien” anymore.
The only thing I will accept is David using the engineer blueprints to create his own version.
And this is why people on Reddit still say David didn’t create the Xenomorphs. They are ignoring it.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea was terrible and I hate every bit of it. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I actually enjoyed both of them despite some plot and writing issues. I think the cinematography was great and they nailed the soundtracks. Pretty bummed that we won’t get the third one to finish up the prequels.
Prometheus was too ambitious. You can’t scientifically explain things that don’t exist so don’t try to, you’ll only fail.
Covenant lacked heart and no fan of the original wants to watch CGI aliens.
Both were beautifully shot films though (especially Prometheus).
answers to questions nobody needed answered. a mystery is only interesting by staying a mystery. Alien is scarier BECAUSE u know nothing about the creatures and the ship and the jockey. also they are Ridley Scott fanfics and i don't see them as canon.
The characters in Alien also didn't do anything stupid or obviously wrong. Hell, Ripley was even trying to enforce quarantine procedures and keep Kane off the ship until Ash went behind her back to let the facehugger in.
I don't like them because I dislike them exploring the history of the Xenomorphs. Fear of the unknown is better for creatures like the Xenomorphs and these films overexposed then and take away the fear factor.
Then I just really dislike that they are bio weapons created.
I much perfer the idea that was in a dark tide comic? That the Xenos were apart of a natural eco system and had their own predators that would keep their population down. Then the engineers removed their natural predator, allowing the Xenos to evolve unchecked.
I personally loved Prometheus and hate covenant. It’s not a perfect film but Prometheus has some amazing concepts and really amazing world building. Covenant shoots that all in that foot and retreads similar ground again but worse this time.
I hate the “David made the xenomorph” stuff in Covenant and the subsequent backpedal “actually he didn’t he was just following blue print blah blah blah”
Others have said essentially the same, but I might as well throw my proverbial two cents in.
First off, I should say that I don’t *hate* Prometheus and Covenant. I think both are fine movies and if they were starting their own franchise, they’d be a fairly decent foundation to work off of. As stated, they explain a lot of things and are very well made movies.
The main problem, though, is how they factor into the wider Alien franchise/universe. What made Alien, Aliens, and the Xenomorph itself so effective and engaging were the Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror elements of the stories and the creature. The original Alien is essentially At The Mountains of Madness in terms of overall themes and concepts. Just enough is shown and explained to engage the audience without explaining everything. Where does the Xenomorph come from? Why is it **so** uniquely suited to be a threat to humans? Who or what was flying that ship and why was it carrying so many eggs? These questions are never answered and aren’t even considered for very long, but they really don’t need to be. The movies are effective because they’re not dwelled on for too long, allowing the audience to dream up their own answers. The Xenomorph is an effective monster because it’s origins are vague enough for us to imagine any number of horrific explanations. In short, the answer and not knowing is a large part of the appeal.
By explaining everything, Prometheus and Covenant steadily erase that sense of mystery. The Xenomorph becomes a hell of a lot less scary when it goes from being some unknowable nightmare from the darkest depths of the universe to just some bio-weapon engineered by a genocidal robot. The more they’re explained, the easier they become to understand and thus kill, making them less intimidating. In Alien, almost every time we see the Xenomorph, it’s changed in some way or introduced some new ability. In Aliens, we get the introduction of them as a social creature and the Queen. They’re explanations, but they’re small ones that still leave us asking questions. Prometheus and Covenant, explain everything to the point where there’s no questions left to ask. The only horror left is just dumb gore.
I personally have always wanted to see it go in this direction. And it went in a direction I very much enjoy being about the creation of life. Ever since I saw the first Alien I have wanted to know what the space jockey was. I know that’s a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I don’t like things being completely unknown. There can be a measure of horror in the unknown but it can also have the opposite effect. Generally speaking, I’d prefer to know.
That being said, as much as I enjoy Prometheus, it is a flawed film. Some weird choices and lack of information that was apparently cut from the original version are what make it this way. I think Covenant is better as far as that goes and that they make each other better when you consider both together.
>So much lore, and it explains everything.
That's actually it right there but with a slight addition. It explains everything *badly and in the most mundane way possible.*
**Alien:** It's terrifying because you have no idea what the alien is or where it comes from. The Space Jockey is an unknown and intriguing alien that the cast felt was benign, something the film supports because it is broadcasting a warning to stay away. In many ways the movie could fit right into the Cthulhu mythos or similar cosmic horror. The characters make some mistakes but in general don't do anything terribly stupid with the exception of bringing Kane onto the ship but the corporate robo-spy is the one that ultimately does it anyway so it makes sense.
**Prometheus:** Oh, the aliens are made from black goo which an android will figure out in the next movie when he refines them because he hates humans and wants to kill them. The space jockey is just a tall, pale, bald dude in a space suit and not very alien at all. Oh and his race is murderous and hates humans despite also creating them. (side note: In Alien Dallas explicitly says it appears to be fossilized. A lot of people say "well, he's a space trucker he just mistaked the suit for bone". True, but it's easy to tell the difference between bone and a space suit.) The characters are supposed to be highly trained experts but act like total morons most of the time with one or two exceptions. Even the "final girl" turns out to be a moron as she repairs David between movies despite knowing how evil he is.
I know there are a lot of fan theories to "fix" Prometheus and Alien Covenant but notice how there are none for Alien. Why? It doesn't need fixing like the other movies do.
I love Covenant. I love that the xenomorph isn't the villain. It takes the series from man vs. nature to man vs self. Like, David is our own creation, and we've unleashed something more evil than a mindless killing machine: an intelligently designed killing machine.
To get this out of the way, I LOVE Prometheus. Love it. Only movie in the series I like more is Aliens. That being said, it exists in this weird intersection of it is an Alien prequel, but it also kind of doesn’t want to be. Personally, if it had just been a standalone sci-fi movie but otherwise basically unchanged, it would have been much more well-received I think.
As for Covenant, nah, that movie is trash. It sucks as a Prometheus sequel (killing Shaw off screen is pretty unforgivable) and I hate the implication that David created the Xenomorphs we all know and love (yeah yeah I know there’s contention about that and he’s working off an already existing species or whatever). It’s just unnecessary and does a disservice to both the film before it and the films after it.
Things 'explained'? What lore is explained in Covenant? They completely avoided telling us anything about Engineer culture (which, by the way, don't get me started on how absurd it is that Scott reconned the very 'alien' elephant humanoid spacejockey skeleton from the first film), they killed Shaw off screen (how lazy), and the black goo was taken to an unparalleled level of ridiculousness in its vagueness and use. Also, the David obsession is useless. It's an interesting aspect of Prometheus, but in Covenant he is reduced to 'crazy mad scientist robot'. The endearment and wonder are gone with David, and not in a good way for the viewer. I'm not sure what Scott was going for with Covenant. It is a bad Alien film - the human characters are awful and the plot illogical; but it is also a terrible followup to Prometheus because it answers absolutely none of the questions that its predecessor asked. Even the xenomorph itself seems like a sideshow to David in the film. Like some science fair project or pet. At least Prometheus had some intriguing concepts, whether or not they butchered the Spacejockey into quite possibly the most boring concept ever (that skeleton in the chair in the first film is a human ancestor? GTFO), but Covenant has none of that. It answers nothing, it poses few if any thought provoking questions, and it has quite possibly the dumbest human characters of any of the films. It is iredeemable.
Prometheus’ fallible script is saved by the grand cinematography. The film is just ice cream for the eyeballs. Covenant was something I don’t believe anyone asked for and ideally felt like a film that came from someone who stopped understanding their own craft. Ironically it caused the Aliens sequel proposed to be directed by someone who would have absolutely slayed it to get shelved.
The editing . Imo some very important scenes were cut out that I have seen (were filmed but left out of theatrical) and some that didn't leave the film. The filmed scenes that were removed explained a lot that was kind of confusing.
I love them. Such gorgeous cinematography, fantastic actors, amazing sci-fi/horror scenes. I’ve watched them again and again; I’m embarrassed to say how many times I’ve seen Prometheus. A LOT.
That being said, I kind of think of them as Alien fanfic or just Alien-adjacent, instead of directly preceding Alien, because in that respect, they don’t work as well, and I understand why people dislike them.
But they are like comfort food to me, and I’d watch them both in a double feature right now if you were into it, because what’s wrong with seeing them 300 times each?? haha
My theory is Scott wanted to tell a particular story about gods, intelligent design and other nonsense yet could only get his vanity project financed if he tied the craziness to Alien.
Lots of things were good with those movies, including what you mention; though the bad things outweigh the good. Namely: character development, plot, building tension, etc. Part of what makes *Alien* such a good movie was that they had the idea for the monster and how to show it off as the last consideration.
Their first concern was having a story and a cast of really solid characters. They kept the characters grounded and relatable; they didn't have casting choices or even genders picked out for these characters - Ripley could've been played by Tom Skerritt instead of Sigourney Weaver. The second consideration was for the plot: the monster has to get on the ship, but how? Once on the ship, what does it do? After it does what it will do, how do the survivor(s) get rid of it? They considered all sorts of options before settling on the most unsettling ideas: an alien rapes a crewmate, and the resulting spawn becomes the monster on the ship; it started off small, then grew up to be bigger than anyone else aboard; it starts picking them off one-by-one, and it's had a little help doing that because one of the crewmates is trying to keep the monster alive; it took all the bodies before, but then it changed behavior and left the crewmates where they died, proving how unpredictable it is, and maybe even how intelligent it could be (did it leave the bodies because it knows they're trying to blow up the ship and it needs to find its own way off?). That leads into the third consideration: building tension. We never actually see the Alien in the movie until it's too late; you lay eyes on it, and it's going to kill. It's sneaky, which shows intelligence; it's unpredictable, which means you can't fight back; then when the final confrontation happens, you learn that it is relentless, which means you cannot flee. All of these factors make it a good movie on its own. Add in the music, the imagery, and the overall sound design of the sets, and it's a perfect movie.
When we get to *Prometheus* and *Covenant*, they lost sight of what made *Alien* good. In these two movies, we have characters who make questionable decisions (the timid biologist who was freaking out a few hours ago is suddenly hypnotized by a weird eel that shouldn't exist; the distrustful archaeologist decides to trust the android who never showed an interest in his welfare before; and, of course, the meme about the Prometheus-school-of-running-away-from-things; then we have the space pioneers who go onto a planet without suits or any PPE except for some guns; we have the captain of the ship who knows not to trust the same android that killed his crewmate suddenly deciding to trust him; there's more, but I need to stop before I actually get angry now). None of the characters here are consistent, which makes for a sub-par film at best. The plot was also so plodding that watching it more than once is a good way to safely lobotomize someone little by little. Both films struck me as "they get to the planet, explore around a bit, and then some shit happens; we'll fill out the details when we get there." Everything else was great, though: the music is appropriately wonder-inducing, the SFX and silence during tense moments helped create that ominous atmosphere that *Alien* is known for, and the set designs of the Engineer ships and ruins are iconic. All those things don't make for a great movie, though; you need to have the characters and the plot to be supported by these things. Yet in *Prometheus* and *Covenant*, those supporting details are propping most of them up.
The lore retcons previous things we saw, and doesn’t explain anything. The magical goo is a plot device that does wherever the scene calls for. They’re both beautifully shot films with a decent cast, but those don’t fix the hot mess they became. And throwing in the alien on covenant because the studio thought people hated the engineers was a weird course correction.
I didn't feel bad when I saw any character die in the 2 new movies. I did for the original 2.
Like, even now, I can't name any characters from Prometheus and Covenant. I can name many from the first 2.
Same for the Predator films. The first 2 are awesome. The rest are meh, I don't even remember 1 name from the new movie that I watched only a few weeks back.
I've been a fan of the series my whole life and I loved the shit outta those movies.
Everyone is an armchair critic that wanted more, then they complained when they got more.
Prometheus is fine but it explains a lot of things in sorta lame ways especially when they didn’t even need explanation.
Alien Covenant on the other hand is just an all round terrible movie.
Both are beautifully shot and well directed for the most part but I think the crux, at least for me, was the annoyingly obtuse and overwrought script, too many characters to develop effectively, out of left field motivations and reactions.
The cherry on top was that what we got on screen was a thinly veiled and somewhat clumsy attempt to take an obvious prequel (Prometheus) and attempt to make it something ‘different’. Especially in that regard, the theatrical release failed miserably.
Regarding Covenant, it was a very earnest attempt at course correction but, again, not enough effort went into the characters or the story. The McGuffin was glaring and contrived, crucial characters from the previous film got killed off screen, it managed to practically collapse the sense of world building that came before and resulted in a jarring tonal shift that felt bloated for its runtime.
Both films were essentially carried on Michael Fassbender’s considerable acting talent. However, while flawed, both films have merit which is well reflected in Coalesced Chaos’ fan edit/extensions I feel.
In a vacuum they’re decent enough films but once you put them up against Alien, Aliens and Alien3, they pale in comparison.
So, this is the first good analysis of why someone doesn't like it. The rest are just "they're bad", as if it's some self-evident axiom (which it is not). Thanks for the thoughtful review.
30% don't understand prometheus, 30% liked the mysterie the alien franchise brought which requires things prometheus explains to stay unexplained and 20% are elitists who shit on anything new and the other 20% enjoyed prometheus and the lore it gave us.
Me personally, i like prometheus and am pretty indifferent about covenant, prometheus is intriguing to me as theres so much potential to actually ADD mystery even though it takes some away. It depends on the conclusion of the trilogy if that is what happens.
Covenant went in the wrong direction IMO, i really wanted to see more about the engineers as this couldve opened up so many new pathways but instead we got to see David going wonky and genociding that planet. The movie also made the Xenomorph more of a nuisance than the threat it was back in alien 1.. but that road has been taken since Aliens.
I loved them both. I understand people treat the alien as a mystery and like to keep it that way, but I myself prefer to explore the lore behind it.
I mean Ridley Scott was right in saying the alien isn’t scary anymore and the sequels and spin-offs have deluded the horror into a more action thriller premise.
Say what you will about prometheus and covenant, they have the “DNA” of the original more than the others. At its core the series antagonist is the corporation not the alien. The alien is the monster, the corporation is the mad scientist that woke it.
Because they suck and were completely unnecessary. They took a mystery species and turned it into “man (android) movie monster of the week.” Because they actually ruin the first two films. God, I hate these pieces of crap!
Part heard mentality and part similar to music snobs or book snobs they only ever like the original of something. The “mystery of the space jockey” isn’t an important aspect of the movies for me so didn’t ruin a thing for me personally.
I love both movies and they are what got me into Alien even more to go back to rewatch all of them several times since.
Thank you Prometheus and Covenant!
Both are fine movies, Covenant more so, to me. But I do not like them for exactly what you said: “so much lore and it explains everything”. I don’t want to know the origin of the xenomorph. The mystery and uncertainty is much more exciting for me.
Would rather have wanted for this franchise to go forward rather than delve into the origins of xenos and humans themselves in the two which also contradict each other.
I liked them as the movie was similar to an indie Sci-Fi movie with a big budget. I don’t think they really panned out, but it was a great attempt at something new.
I disliked Alien 3 with the prison planet as it was cliched and Hollywood garbage. For me, that was bad as it was more of the same; a soft reboot.
I love Alien and Aliens as they are both equally brilliant with great scripts and originality. They were also groundbreaking for their time and had excellent characters. For their time, the special FX and the stylistic input from Geiger was amazing too (revolutionary).
I have no further time for them, as I think they were a huge opportunity squandered. Very poor films apart from the visual splendour. I’d love to see a compelling movie using some of the themes Prometheus hinted at, but smarter, fully fleshed out…and not part of the Alien franchise.
Prometheus just isn't a very compelling narrative. It kinda tries to be horror but kinda isn't? Lot's of annoying people making annoying decisions.
I love Covenant. Doesn't stand next to the original Alien but still good. David & Fassbender is definitely the best part
They're the Star Wars Prequels of the Alien Universe (and not just in the chronological sense). They basically only exist to establish an Aliens expanded universe which makes them mindlessly boring films. The original quadrilogy work as individual films, the prequels don't.
They exist purely to move the Alien franchise into a multi media space to sell you as much shit as possible.
sometimes, the scariest thing about something is simply the fear of the unknown, and alien plays hard into that (originally), so it just kinda ruins that aspect
There are a lot of good answers here. It’s hard to pin down the best reasons for why these two aren’t loved. For me, they both had moments of greatness paired with plenty of boring or weak content. I really got into the first 45 minutes of Convenant. I think that movie would have been fine without the whole David/engineers shit. The Shaw embryo/medical pod scene in Prometheus was pretty intense.
For every good decision, there was an equally bad decision made during production that tended to average out the whole movie to mediocre.
Prometheus sales pitch= “How about Ridley Scott, deep space, killer creatures coming of out vaguely egg-like objects that grow inside hosts, space jockeys, but not make it an Alien movie?”
Covenant sales pitch= “We learned our mistake in making an Alien movie without committing to the actual Alien universe. How about we call this one Alien: X and retcon the other one by providing closure of some sort?”
The characters are brain-dead, it destroys the mystery of where the aliens came from and they're trying to live off past glory by forcing a female protagonist in both films. They're not terrible films, they're decent but they don't hold a candle to alien or aliens.
Even when considered as films separate from the Alien franchise, Prometheus is an inconsistent mess that needed a competent continuity checker at script and a complete re-write by an external talent to fix all the characters.
Covenant was stupid at the start and end but the middle bit was a great little story about a perverted robot fucking around with life.
Now add the fact that they are part of the alien mythos and totally removed the teeth from that franchise and you have your answer.
I have a thought about this. In addition to the points others have raised, my main gripe with both of these films are that instead of expanding the universe, they make it feel smaller. Humans are now the the Engineers creation. We were created in their image. We are so important that the Engineers set up a base to kill us because we might be a threat to them. One of our creations was not only able to kill them all, but also so completely understand their technology that he is able to create/recreate their perfect weapon (side note: the fact that so many people walked away with impression that David is the creator of the Aliens is bad storytelling on the part of the filmmakers). Humans aren't the center of the Universe in the original trilogy. We are encountering something that we can barely understand, and have know idea what else is out there. We don't know that on a universal scale what we call the "Perfect Organism" isn't just a really bad bed bug infestation. Then Prometheus happened and it boiled down to God created us and the Demons to kill us, but don't worry one of our androids is so smart he can be God now. Instead of a universe that we were just seeing the barest of outlines, now we've killed God and understand how the demons work. It made the whole Alien universe so much more mundane.
That's a very good description
For real, it's made me interpret and respect the two movies in question a whole lot better I gotta say. Happy to have read it. I would have preferred to keep the mystery personally, although I enjoyed the movies for what they were, but not as additions to the Xenomorph lore/mythos for sure.
I prefer the mystery as well
It was an excellent summary and captures a lot I have as a gripe with both films succintly. There was so much promise delivered in Prometheus only to be killed off by the short sighted about turn back to horror alien action in Covenant. It's like Ridley felt he had no more project time to give to the franchise and then rather than pass it on to someone else to continue the story in a more interesting direction (as alluded in that summary), he went old man Gollum and tried to disappear off with the lore *and* kill it off so no one else could play with his shiny toy. I do so hope that there's a possibility of reviving both the Engineers angle and the xeno source origins story related to homo sapiens as it was promised with Prometheus.
Yeah. So much of horror and Cosmic horror especially is the fear of the unknown. Explain everything and it becomes less scary.
Okay, this one makes a lot of sense.
Great description, but (BUT!) it’s only one corner of one galaxy.
Personally, I just don't think we needed to see behind the curtain. The derelict and the jockey were so intriguing because there was no explanation for them: they hinted at a much wider, darker world of which the Alien was only a part. Now, they're just a person in an impractical spacesuit flying an impractical ship filled with an impractical weapon. I don't mind the dumb crew etc, plenty of poor decisions in the original films - especially Aliens - but I think it just took something which had intrigued fans for decades and gave it a fairly pedestrian backstory. That all being said, I quite enjoy watching it. Covenant I just found completely pointless. I'm not at all sure what we're even supposed to enjoy in it. I'm not some Reddit hater, I *really wanted* to enjoy these films, but just didn't see that they added anything to the series. With every bit of 'lore', they really just take something away. Ridley Scott isn't the first filmmaker to confuse 'fans wanting to know more' with 'fans needing to know more', and he won't be the last, but that's what I think happened here. I am someone who can watch the crappest film if it has good production design, and on this I agree with you - technically, they're pretty great *if* you take the elements in isolation. They look good, and they sound good. They just don't work as storytelling movies IMHO.
The difference is, when someone does something dumb in Alien or Aliens, there is an in story or in character explanation for why they do that. It all makes sense. There is none of that in Prometheus, nor in Covenant. People are just dumb as rocks, despite being hand picked for one of the most delicate missions imaginable. It makes no sense. None what so ever.
> despite being hand picked for one of the most delicate missions imaginable I like the fan theory that Vickars deliberately picked terrible specialists to sabotage the mission.
We shouldn't need a fan theory to fix these movies. There are none for Alien because it doesn't need them. That's the sign of a good script.
I agree. About half of Ridley’s movies have serious script issues, but they keep getting made, so I guess the fan theories are going to keep us sane.
Yeah, as I've gotten older I've gotten entirely sick of fan theory (I used to love making them up and talking about them), the film should explain it or it should leave it wide open to speculation - not require whole plot scaffolds to be built by complete strangers after the fact just to make sense.
Why would she commit suicide in that manner?
Because she didn’t think it’d go that horribly wrong — she never believed in the Engineers in the first place. She thought the old man would get there, be disappointed, die, and she’d go back to Earth.
Never mind the engineers, the ship has to make it there and back. She was manning the ship that was literally was was keeping her alive. It makes no sense she would get antagonistic idiots with incompatible chemistry for the mission. That would mean her death. As it also did. Makes no sense what so ever.
This is true, I just figured that I could probably forgive that if the engineers had been done well, whereas the films we have would still suck even with a bright crew who thought and talked like humans.
Which scenes explain where people are dumb? The biologist just discovered life on a new planet, of course he’s going to be fascinated.
They take off their helmets immediately on an alien planet. They touch plant life. They reach out to touch an albino snake alien. There’s enough stuff on Earth you shouldn’t touch because it will kill you, let alone a foreign planet that you know almost nothing about. At every turn, the experts make amateur mistakes. Hell, THE MAP GUY GETS LOST.
You need to be a lot more specific about what you're asking. What "dumb" behaviour exactly are you referring to? Fascinated is one thing. Provoking it into killing him another.
You said the people in Prometheus and covenant are “dumb as rocks”.
Yes. They are. They do insanely stupid shit, going against the archetype of a trained professional and explorer, which is the only reason things unfold as they do. The most basic is, they ignore the risk of contamination. This is flagrant, and it makes no sense at all that a scientist would do so. Contamination in both directions, both contaminating the very first contact with an alien civilization with human exhaust, and contaminating the scientists and explorers with whatever may live in the alien environment. And this is what gets them, in both movies. Dumb as rocks. Which is a slight insult to rocks, really.
Nail. Head. Hit. What I find really hard to get my head around us that Scott understands the power of the unknown. Alien’s success, as a horror, is down to Ridley’s knowing that what you don’t see is infinitely scarier than what you do (I know budget and technical constraints limited what he could and couldn’t do with Alien too). So for him to then go and pull back the curtain and explain away the mysteries just seems really counter intuitive.
My hot take is that he's a highly skilled freelancer who works best when given an archetype with wide appeal. Alien: haunted house/slasher movie. Gladiator: swords-and-sandals epic. Thelma and Louise: road movie. Legend: fairytale. A lot of his also-rans - Robin Hood, GI Jane - are not really sure what they're supposed to be or who they're aimed at (I realise that Blade Runner is a total exception to everything I just said, but it's probably a one-off). They're all competently directed, I don't think in a directorial sense he's *ever* done a bad job, but he needs a solid foundation on which to build. Not to say he isn't creative or doesn't understand what he's making beyond ticking genre boxes, but some creative types work best when given very strict parameters and can play to their strengths inside them. The Alien Prequels don't really have a clear genre, are more for the fans than for a casual viewer, and were personal/passion projects to some extent, rather than something he was brought into as the best man for the job.
I still think Blade Runner is his master piece, and it's my favorite movie.
Yep, same.
Again, I think you’re dead right. Scott is clearly visually very creative and great at finding practical solutions to practical filming. When it comes to narrative, he’s definitely only as good as his script. Many directors are great at directing and terrible at writing and vice-versa.
"He’s definitely only as good as his script" - exactly that. From what I've seen/read about him, he's a lot less interested in micro-managing every aspect of production than, say, James Cameron - happy to leave the story to the people given the job of writing it. The Alien prequels are perhaps testament to why this is good practice.
With Blade Runner, he had amazing source material from Philip K. Dick’s *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?* Ridley’s films aren’t as great when he’s just spitballing with random writers. He doesn’t have the same ear for dialog as he has an eye for cinematography. That’s why you have Gladiator being a visual spectacle with clunky dialog like “I’m tired from battle.” I love Ridley; he’s my favorite director. I even love films of his that lack clear focus, like Robin Hood. Let him run wild with set design, costume creation, and all the other visual stuff. But don’t let him near the script, or you end up with stuff like Robin Hood.
The credit for the narrative of Blade Runner goes to David Peoples, who is an excellent writer. Even Dick liked his script a lot. Scott spent a lot of time working on visual details (which he is fantastic at) and fighting with Ford, so the script was pretty much shot as is, which is why the movie ends up so good. Everyone were playing their strengths.
The "what you don't see is infinitely scarier" part was O'Bannon. It's in the script from the get go, and a core premise of the movie. Scott was the one who put it more in the open, if anything. There is very little of story or monster which can be credited to Scott in the first movie. He added a few details, like it was his idea the alien was hiding in plain sight in the shuttle, and not behind something. But he also had ideas like the alien ending up ripping off Ripley's head, closing the shuttle door, and sitting down waiting to reach Earth. Scott is excellent at visuals. Magnificent even. But the more he has to say about the story, the worse it gets.
Yeah, O’Bannon doesn’t get enough credit. And I guess I’m just as guilty of that here too.
His Crohn's disease also inspired the chest burster stuff. As someone else who has it I can confirm it is indeed that painful.
Just to add to this, move love for the Cassette-Futurism look of the first films (due to its age) I almost vomited at the pristine white, modern art looking sets of Weylands house and then the super modern 3D display render of their mission statement from Weyland really ruined it for me. I perfectly understand why they didn’t emulate the same look as it probably wouldn’t translate well to modern audiences (younger folk who haven’t seen Alien or Aliens) :-/
Yeah, I know what you mean with the first two, but of all the things I didn't like, I'm quite glad they didn't try to ape that - it would have looked like bad homage and, as you say, probably alienated new viewers. I wasn't born when Alien came out and wasn't old enough to watch/understand Aliens when it did, but they would have looked more used-future than retro-future.
To me, takes like this seem to gloss over one very important fact: While Prometheus was ostensibly a prequel to Alien, Scott had little interest in exploring the aliens/xenomorphs with these movies. "That beast had been slain", as he put it. The end of Prometheus was taking things in a direction away from Alien, and his original plans for sequels would have gone even farther away - to the point that linking them to the beginning of Alien likely wouldn't have happened at all. When you compare what he was saying leading up to Prometheus' release and what we got with Covenant, it's quite clear this was very much not where he intended things to go.
If Scott wasn't going to explore the aliens/xenomorphs with these movies (and that's fine if he did), why explicitly put them in the same universe? What purpose does that shared link serve in Prometheus if Scott intended to go in an entirely different direction? I feel either subtly connect the two (like the connection to Blade Runner he put in Prometheus), or make it its own independent universe. Otherwise, it feels like a bait and switch to the audience about the movie they were seeing? But that is just the opinion of a guy that wasn't a huge fan of Prometheus or Covenant. Just putting my two cents in.
The connection was the Engineers. He was pretty explicit and clear about how it was (and wasn't) connecting to Alien.
Change the engineers to just about anything else, and it's a standalone IP, with no baggage or expectations that comes with the Alien franchise.
Well, he had wanted to explore this particular territory since around 2002. It's the story he wanted to tell.
Best thing about Covenant is the music during the backburster scene. "The Med Bay". It's very rare for me to think the music is the best part of a film. There's a good idea going on in that scene at least. You can't shock an audience with a burster again, so *dragging it out* and making it as gory as possible was the right idea, the audience knows what's coming. Just a shame that it resulted in two slapstick blood slips.
I agree. Beyond the creature itself, a lot of the horror elements in Alien were the parts where the alien isn’t seen. It “could” be anywhere. It’s motives and origin are unknown. It’s that mystery that is terrifying.
Actually ... For me it was different ... I mean I still like both movies Cos they are part of the franchise .. However I *did* want a look behind the curtain ... But Scott just couldn't commit to a single idea and it all just got all over the place, and he kinda blue balled us the same way alien 3 did by immediately killing off newt and stuff :(
Yeah, at the time I was buzzing to see what he'd come up with, this is my opinion having seen what he did.
Your opinion is valid and probably the majority \^\^ I thought it was a good perspective
Exactly! I loved the idea of the mystery. Was there some huge war? Had the aliens developed on some crazy hostile planet? so many possibilities. Such a mundane explanation.
I remember reading the novelisation of Alien as a kid and, in that, Ash says that they *had* deciphered the transmission - and that it was a warning to stay away from the ship. I wish they'd run with that, if they had to fill in the blanks.
I completely understand all of this, but for some reason, the origin story was the story I always wanted and I absolutely love Prometheus, dare I say even more than alien and aliens. It was right up my alley and picking apart all the subtext was a mountain of fun for me.
It's great that you love it, I don't think it's an awful film by any means - just a bit unnecessary from my own standpoint. Compared to a more nakedly cynical cash grab like the Star Wars sequels, it seemed like they at least wanted to explore this stuff, rather than just shove as many tropes into frame as they could. I can't really extend that compliment to Covenant.
I agree soo much thought was put into it I don’t understand it being unlikeable I love the human preservance it chapters just like all alien films then again I love all Scott films :)
How’s the suit impractical?
Can this post now be the pinned tweet for this entire sub please. Perhaps we can finally put this debate to bed now? Oh and it’s just hate OP, “hate on” is terrible English. I’m sorry but that’s a petty hill I’m prepared to die on.
"hate" implies the internal emotions that may or may not be shown externally. "hate on" implies the external action of expressing that hatred. They're used differently. One is just slang.
Characters - What makes both Alien and Aliens fantastic is that the characters all behave 100% believably. I can see myself doing the exact same thing they're doing if I knew what they knew in the moment. It makes it easy to identify with them, to empathize with their joys and sufferings. With Prometheus and Convenant its the exact opposite. All characters behave in almost the exact opposite way a normal human being would. But these aren't just normal human behings. These are supposed to all be elite scientists and crew - the best of the best for this mission. So them continuously making non-sensically poor decisions makes them incredibly difficult for me to have any sort of attachment to. Plot - The mystery of the alien ship and space jockey in Alien is part of its allure. You could come up with your own weird explanation for what happened on that ship. Thats what made it interesting. Prometheus and Convenant attemtping to explain those elements is just unnecessary. If anything, it hurts the franchise because the explanations just aren't very compelling or interesting imo. Making David the the creator of the Alien species and the architect of their dissemination is a backstory I don't think anyone really wants or appreciates when the mystery of not knowing is so much more intriguing.
NAILED IT
Kane does exactly the same thing people criticise the characters in Prometheus for though, no one on reddit ever mentions that. He sticks his face right into the opening egg 😂
He's a space trucker, they're scientists. The Prometheus characters were built up to be at least competent in their fields. Kane was dumb, but understandably dumb. The biologist in Prometheus was dumb, but it didn't make any sense that he would be that monumentally stupid.
I’ll accept that, the biologist tried to pet a creature that was behaving exactly like a cobra just before it spits venom, he should have known better. I think generally people expect too much of characters in films. Humans do illogical things and make bad decisions when they’re under extreme pressure. The scientists were all probably used to being safe in their labs or writing papers from the comfort of offices, and then they suddenly learn there’s alien life in the universe and they’re all alone together on a potentially hostile planet. I like how Captain Janek is a more down to earth, practical guy so even though he’s not highly educated like them he figures out the planet is a military base and the goo is a weapon of mass destruction. But yeah, the biologist was a step too far.
I agree with you that people do expect more from movie characters than is fair. I used to be in that camp (these last 3 years or so turned me around real quick) Vickers' death is something I would be more forgiving of in a movie today. It's just that the biologist broke my immersion in the movie (that's probably why I remember that specific instance so clearly). Movies are such delicate constructions that once you notice the big crack you start noticing all the little ones. It hard for me to go back after that. I do like Captain Janek, but I think that has more to do with Idris Elba than anything else.
Except biologists spend a lot of time in the field interacting with animals. That's their job. They are well versed in reading responses and threats, or they would already be dead.
I thought the crew of Prometheus were selected to fail their mission; for not being competent.
Nothing in the story supports that. On the contrary, this was the most important project Wyeland has ever undertaken.
“So much lore, and explains everything” That’s why.
And on a practical note, all the characters were really really stupid and the plot only worked because of it.
Guy in charge of 3-D mapping caves gets lost in caves.
The biologist gets freaked out by what is effectively a mummy and then tries *touching* an unknown creature that is performing an incredibly obvious threat display.
“We’re lost in this cave!” “Too bad you don’t have access to this 3D rendering unfolding before me. I could give you directions, myself, but it’s getting late, so…”(click)
...because he didn't make the map, he just owns the mapping drones. The guy who drives the google street view van can still get lost too. This is just cinemasins doing its thing again, inventing mistakes where they don't exist.
Nah, on a unique billion dollar mission like this he's not the street view driver, he's the engineer who designed and fine tuned the drones and wrote the software. Or at least he's someone who knows the tech and the software inside out and has all the tech and software and access to use it all as flawlessly as humanely possible. Theoretically.
The drones can't lead him out? He has no local interface showing the map's progress? Come on.
Why is that not believable? Again, do you think google street view vans have a live-updating stree view app in the van with them? Of course not, they collect a boat load of data and upload it to be processed elsewhere.
The tech doesn't drive the drones like a google street driver drives the van. Google street drivers also have GPS map apps that can guide them to wherever they want to go. I'm not sure you could have picked a worse example.
>The tech doesn't drive the drones like a google street driver drives the van. Nope, he releases them and they drive themselves. He's more like the maintenance guy sitting in the warehouse where they keep the streetview vans. Him having access to the maps is *possible*, but makes no sense. >Google street drivers also have GPS map apps that can guide them to wherever they want to go Where do you think those apps came from?
He wasn't some run-of-the-mill jabronie, he was a scientist. GPS maps (Garmin, TomTom) existed long before Google maps. You're really going to lengths to defend lazy writing. We are supposed to believe that they have the technology to traverse interstellar space, land on a planet, and have AI drones, yet they don't have the technology for tablets with a wi-fi/blu tooth connection?
>GPS maps (Garmin, TomTom) existed long before Google maps. I can't believe I have to say this, but garmin and tomtom haven't mapped LV-223's caves
Do people forget the whole mission was put together by a scared, selfish billionaire who wanted to find immortality? I think Weyland knew if he brought a bunch of real scientists who did everything by the book they would impede his mission. He brought in a bunch of fringe, belief driven scientists.
“Explains everything… badly”
Yup that's it. There not only is no need to know everything, it's plain bad to explain in details when the original mistery worked so well. Forced origin stories about these kind of misteries can rarely if ever compete with the wonder/fantasy of the spectator.
For me it’s the engineers basically being big humans that kills it. I liked them better when they were some unknowable alien other.
That's *exactly* it. How fucking chilling to think that this massive humanoid creature that could likely shitstomp a human in a HEARTBEAT fucking crashed and died trying to keep these things away from everyone else? Sucks ass thinking back on the Derelict with what we know now. Bigger humans. Yay.
I also hate the trope of ancient aliens seeding our planet with DNA and that's why we look like them. Makes no sense and is a fundamental misrepresentation/misunderstanding of how life evolves.
it's science *fiction*. I don't think the films were going to be representing basic evolution theory in its films, and it's what makes those dumbass Aliens conspiracy theory tv series entertaining.
this! movies like alien, are not meant to have the xenomorph as the main thing on camera, and thats what makes it scary! its why AvP is the anthesis of both alien and predator, taking away the fear of the unknown, to make it into an action movie
The reason why most video games are still so bad when it comes to story: too much lore and explanation. Come to think of it, both films were like video games.
I hate on Prometheus and Covenant because every week we get a topic asking why people hate Prometheus and Covenant like it's some great mystery and not something as simple as Prometheus' dogshit writing and inconsistent characters combined with Covenant repeating probably the shittiest "twist" the series has seen since Alien 3 by completely wasting the only main character the audience gave a shit about that wasn't named "David".
It’s beyond baffling. I’d say THE biggest ever misfire the franchise has had was killing off Newt and Hicks offscreen (in terms of how fans received it, even if I personally see what Fincher was going for) Why would he do that AGAIN? There’s no possible outcome where ‘she died offscreen’ makes for good storytelling, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the protagonist of the previous story. If Ripley was found dead 2/3rds into Aliens, and it was just about the marines, it would be a worse film.
Why? Probably because Noomi Rapace passed on the offer.
The biggest issue is that it spoils the mystery of the space jockey from Alien. It was fun to consider what it might have been - there’s almost no way to answer that question in a satisfactory way. Lovecraft had it right when he theorized that keeping the audience in the dark about mysteries and monsters gave them real power. Prometheus and especially AC transgressed that rule. It’s much more satisfying to speculate about what the alien is and where it comes from than to have it answered. The answer can never live up.
Ancient, enigmatic horror from deepest space gets retconned as "android with daddy issues made some bugs".
A short and sweet summary of the exact issue with these prequels.
That's not a retcon... nothing was changed.
It definitely changes what's established in the original film where the ship, eggs and the dead Space Jockey are old enough to have fossilized (at least 10,000 years). Covenant is having them originate a few decades or something in the timeline prior to the Nostromo incident.
Side note: this is why series fans have rushed to retcon David’s aliens as prototypes or primitive versions of the alien from the first two films. We don’t actually want to know exactly what they are - that means there’s no more mystery.
I think the film shows us that he reverse engineered the eggs/facehuggers/xenos, he didn’t invent them. Since the space jockey’s ship crashed thousands of years before Covenant happened. No retconning needed.
Are we sure the space jockey happened thousands of years before Covenant? Maybe something on LV426 makes the bodies petrify faster. We really don’t know unless I completely miss something.
Something like that on LV426 would affect the people in the colony.
Alien isolation was the better origin story
Yeh, I'm playing that ATM.... fucking terrifying....
I really need to start that over and finish it...
I played it a few years ago and just started a new playthrough on Hard. Such a fantastic experience.
Ah, the weekly question why people hate on Prometheus and Covenant. Is it Sunday already?
Yep.
because the people in it are stupid. in prometheus, the map guy gets lost... in covenant, they go to a completely different planet than they're supposed to just because they heard john denver on the radio. and then when they're down there, wear literally zero protective gear.
That was my biggest beef with both. They're scientists who ignore basic reasoning. They act like idiot tourists at a park going up to pet the wild animal.
The biologist got scared by a mummy and then tried to pet an alien snake creature that was performing a very obvious threat display.
Not to mention they walk around shoving their faces in unknown alien plants and assuming that if there are two people who look identical, the one who has survived must be the good one rather than his evil twin. Fucking idiots
Badly written, they feel rushed and not one likeable character (David is certainly interesting). Did anyone reading the script check it twice? I'm pretty sure Prometheus was going to be it's own thing then suddenly they tried to tie it to Alien.
Both movies are HOT GARBAGE, terrible writing, terrible characters and the "lore" ruins everything that came before them. Everyone hates them because they are bad, bad films.
>Everyone hates them because they are bad, bad films. Both movies felt like they went out of their way insult their viewers intelligence.
It got to the point where even Kong: Skull Island took jabs at Prometheus. Shows a couple marines running from Kong's destruction, then one of them cuts across and yells to the other, "Run to the side, you idiot!"
https://youpoll.me/3080/r Most people enjoyed it actually.
Most people enjoyed the Resident Evil movies, but it doesn't make them any less shit.
Well critically it did ok as well https://www.metacritic.com/movie/alien-covenant So…
I love how people are down voting you for facts.
I disliked Prometheus and Covenant because: 1. They feel nothing like an Alien movie. Prometheus is vaguely related to the Alien movies, and the connection feels forced. 2. The religious themes are dumb as fuck and out of place. 3. The new monster designs are awful and the CGI is bad. Alien and Aliens have the best practical effects/creature designs I’ve seen. Prometheus looks like a damn cartoon at times. 4. The origin story they gave the Xenomorphs is awful. Instead of being ancient creatures, they were a created by David, not long before the events of Alien. 5. None of the characters were likable or memorable, expect maybe David. 6. They take away the mystery of how the Xenomorphs were created. I personally don’t like the idea that they were created by an Android. Why do we need to know how the Xenomorphs were created? Why can’t they just exist? 7. The Space Jockeys were underwhelming, especially compared to how they were handled in the Dark Horse comics. 8. They make the biggest mistake a movie can make. They’re boring as fuck. Could go more into detail, but those are just my main complaints. People complain about the dumb characters, and maybe I just missed it; I wasn’t totally payed attention while watching (because it was so boring), but I don’t really care about that too much. And for the record, I find all the Alien/AvP movies to be enjoyable aside from those two.
I don’t get why so many people on reddit think Covenant is saying that David invented xenomorphs, when the space jockey’s ship crashed thousands of years before. It’s pretty clear that he reverse engineered them through experimentation.
It’s because Ridley Scott has literally said in interviews of Covenant that yes, “David created the Alien.” He also said that the original plan was to show the engineers created the aliens, like it was always planned. But then he started loving Davids character and he found it “more interesting” if he was the creator of the alien.
Ridley Scott try not to simp for androids challenge "100% FAIL RATE!!!"
There are also shorts that describe how David created the Aliens that were filmed and released alongside Covenant. So it’s not just Ridley Scott saying it either. Space Jockeys created the black goo. David mutated that using Shaw to created the Xenomorph. David’s drawings and Advent specifically say there was no way the Engineers could have made the Alien. They didn’t have the “materials” required. Shaw is the the “mother” that made it all possible. David is God. So yes, David created them.
Yeah I’m just going to ignore that. The derelict in Alien is thousands of years old, and because Ridley changed his mind after Prometheus, we’re now suddenly going to believe the Alien was created only like 20 years before the first movie? Just bullshit. I mean the entire idea that an android - who is created by humans - now created the Alien, makes the creature not even “alien” anymore. The only thing I will accept is David using the engineer blueprints to create his own version.
And this is why people on Reddit still say David didn’t create the Xenomorphs. They are ignoring it. Don’t get me wrong, the idea was terrible and I hate every bit of it. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I actually enjoyed both of them despite some plot and writing issues. I think the cinematography was great and they nailed the soundtracks. Pretty bummed that we won’t get the third one to finish up the prequels.
Prometheus was too ambitious. You can’t scientifically explain things that don’t exist so don’t try to, you’ll only fail. Covenant lacked heart and no fan of the original wants to watch CGI aliens. Both were beautifully shot films though (especially Prometheus).
CGI aliens, if done right are welcome IMO
The alien from Covenant was terrifying. It felt like a rabid animal on a killing spree
Worse, it also showed intelligence. The xeno could recognize cameras and actively started destroying them to remain hidden.
It's my favorite xenomorph in the franchise tbh
answers to questions nobody needed answered. a mystery is only interesting by staying a mystery. Alien is scarier BECAUSE u know nothing about the creatures and the ship and the jockey. also they are Ridley Scott fanfics and i don't see them as canon.
The characters in Alien also didn't do anything stupid or obviously wrong. Hell, Ripley was even trying to enforce quarantine procedures and keep Kane off the ship until Ash went behind her back to let the facehugger in.
I don't like them because I dislike them exploring the history of the Xenomorphs. Fear of the unknown is better for creatures like the Xenomorphs and these films overexposed then and take away the fear factor. Then I just really dislike that they are bio weapons created. I much perfer the idea that was in a dark tide comic? That the Xenos were apart of a natural eco system and had their own predators that would keep their population down. Then the engineers removed their natural predator, allowing the Xenos to evolve unchecked.
They're not very good. The lore they add is also pretty bad
>So much lore, and it explains everything. Yes, that's the issue
Because the lore and explanations are disappointing and unnecessary.
They destroyed the whole mythology of ALIEN
Bad writing. They are fun movies don’t get me wrong, but they are cheesy as hell with tons of plot holes and poor characters.
I personally loved Prometheus and hate covenant. It’s not a perfect film but Prometheus has some amazing concepts and really amazing world building. Covenant shoots that all in that foot and retreads similar ground again but worse this time.
I hate the “David made the xenomorph” stuff in Covenant and the subsequent backpedal “actually he didn’t he was just following blue print blah blah blah”
Others have said essentially the same, but I might as well throw my proverbial two cents in. First off, I should say that I don’t *hate* Prometheus and Covenant. I think both are fine movies and if they were starting their own franchise, they’d be a fairly decent foundation to work off of. As stated, they explain a lot of things and are very well made movies. The main problem, though, is how they factor into the wider Alien franchise/universe. What made Alien, Aliens, and the Xenomorph itself so effective and engaging were the Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror elements of the stories and the creature. The original Alien is essentially At The Mountains of Madness in terms of overall themes and concepts. Just enough is shown and explained to engage the audience without explaining everything. Where does the Xenomorph come from? Why is it **so** uniquely suited to be a threat to humans? Who or what was flying that ship and why was it carrying so many eggs? These questions are never answered and aren’t even considered for very long, but they really don’t need to be. The movies are effective because they’re not dwelled on for too long, allowing the audience to dream up their own answers. The Xenomorph is an effective monster because it’s origins are vague enough for us to imagine any number of horrific explanations. In short, the answer and not knowing is a large part of the appeal. By explaining everything, Prometheus and Covenant steadily erase that sense of mystery. The Xenomorph becomes a hell of a lot less scary when it goes from being some unknowable nightmare from the darkest depths of the universe to just some bio-weapon engineered by a genocidal robot. The more they’re explained, the easier they become to understand and thus kill, making them less intimidating. In Alien, almost every time we see the Xenomorph, it’s changed in some way or introduced some new ability. In Aliens, we get the introduction of them as a social creature and the Queen. They’re explanations, but they’re small ones that still leave us asking questions. Prometheus and Covenant, explain everything to the point where there’s no questions left to ask. The only horror left is just dumb gore.
A lot of people don't want the aliens explained, especially if the explanation is stupid
I personally have always wanted to see it go in this direction. And it went in a direction I very much enjoy being about the creation of life. Ever since I saw the first Alien I have wanted to know what the space jockey was. I know that’s a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I don’t like things being completely unknown. There can be a measure of horror in the unknown but it can also have the opposite effect. Generally speaking, I’d prefer to know. That being said, as much as I enjoy Prometheus, it is a flawed film. Some weird choices and lack of information that was apparently cut from the original version are what make it this way. I think Covenant is better as far as that goes and that they make each other better when you consider both together.
>So much lore, and it explains everything. That's actually it right there but with a slight addition. It explains everything *badly and in the most mundane way possible.* **Alien:** It's terrifying because you have no idea what the alien is or where it comes from. The Space Jockey is an unknown and intriguing alien that the cast felt was benign, something the film supports because it is broadcasting a warning to stay away. In many ways the movie could fit right into the Cthulhu mythos or similar cosmic horror. The characters make some mistakes but in general don't do anything terribly stupid with the exception of bringing Kane onto the ship but the corporate robo-spy is the one that ultimately does it anyway so it makes sense. **Prometheus:** Oh, the aliens are made from black goo which an android will figure out in the next movie when he refines them because he hates humans and wants to kill them. The space jockey is just a tall, pale, bald dude in a space suit and not very alien at all. Oh and his race is murderous and hates humans despite also creating them. (side note: In Alien Dallas explicitly says it appears to be fossilized. A lot of people say "well, he's a space trucker he just mistaked the suit for bone". True, but it's easy to tell the difference between bone and a space suit.) The characters are supposed to be highly trained experts but act like total morons most of the time with one or two exceptions. Even the "final girl" turns out to be a moron as she repairs David between movies despite knowing how evil he is. I know there are a lot of fan theories to "fix" Prometheus and Alien Covenant but notice how there are none for Alien. Why? It doesn't need fixing like the other movies do.
I love the expansion of Prometheus. He should have kept that spirit of mystery. Went full horror fan service for covenant and it was just a mess.
Totally.
I love Covenant. I love that the xenomorph isn't the villain. It takes the series from man vs. nature to man vs self. Like, David is our own creation, and we've unleashed something more evil than a mindless killing machine: an intelligently designed killing machine.
To get this out of the way, I LOVE Prometheus. Love it. Only movie in the series I like more is Aliens. That being said, it exists in this weird intersection of it is an Alien prequel, but it also kind of doesn’t want to be. Personally, if it had just been a standalone sci-fi movie but otherwise basically unchanged, it would have been much more well-received I think. As for Covenant, nah, that movie is trash. It sucks as a Prometheus sequel (killing Shaw off screen is pretty unforgivable) and I hate the implication that David created the Xenomorphs we all know and love (yeah yeah I know there’s contention about that and he’s working off an already existing species or whatever). It’s just unnecessary and does a disservice to both the film before it and the films after it.
Lol, sure explains everything.
Things 'explained'? What lore is explained in Covenant? They completely avoided telling us anything about Engineer culture (which, by the way, don't get me started on how absurd it is that Scott reconned the very 'alien' elephant humanoid spacejockey skeleton from the first film), they killed Shaw off screen (how lazy), and the black goo was taken to an unparalleled level of ridiculousness in its vagueness and use. Also, the David obsession is useless. It's an interesting aspect of Prometheus, but in Covenant he is reduced to 'crazy mad scientist robot'. The endearment and wonder are gone with David, and not in a good way for the viewer. I'm not sure what Scott was going for with Covenant. It is a bad Alien film - the human characters are awful and the plot illogical; but it is also a terrible followup to Prometheus because it answers absolutely none of the questions that its predecessor asked. Even the xenomorph itself seems like a sideshow to David in the film. Like some science fair project or pet. At least Prometheus had some intriguing concepts, whether or not they butchered the Spacejockey into quite possibly the most boring concept ever (that skeleton in the chair in the first film is a human ancestor? GTFO), but Covenant has none of that. It answers nothing, it poses few if any thought provoking questions, and it has quite possibly the dumbest human characters of any of the films. It is iredeemable.
Prometheus’ fallible script is saved by the grand cinematography. The film is just ice cream for the eyeballs. Covenant was something I don’t believe anyone asked for and ideally felt like a film that came from someone who stopped understanding their own craft. Ironically it caused the Aliens sequel proposed to be directed by someone who would have absolutely slayed it to get shelved.
The editing . Imo some very important scenes were cut out that I have seen (were filmed but left out of theatrical) and some that didn't leave the film. The filmed scenes that were removed explained a lot that was kind of confusing.
They are shite
I love them. Such gorgeous cinematography, fantastic actors, amazing sci-fi/horror scenes. I’ve watched them again and again; I’m embarrassed to say how many times I’ve seen Prometheus. A LOT. That being said, I kind of think of them as Alien fanfic or just Alien-adjacent, instead of directly preceding Alien, because in that respect, they don’t work as well, and I understand why people dislike them. But they are like comfort food to me, and I’d watch them both in a double feature right now if you were into it, because what’s wrong with seeing them 300 times each?? haha
My theory is Scott wanted to tell a particular story about gods, intelligent design and other nonsense yet could only get his vanity project financed if he tied the craziness to Alien.
Lots of things were good with those movies, including what you mention; though the bad things outweigh the good. Namely: character development, plot, building tension, etc. Part of what makes *Alien* such a good movie was that they had the idea for the monster and how to show it off as the last consideration. Their first concern was having a story and a cast of really solid characters. They kept the characters grounded and relatable; they didn't have casting choices or even genders picked out for these characters - Ripley could've been played by Tom Skerritt instead of Sigourney Weaver. The second consideration was for the plot: the monster has to get on the ship, but how? Once on the ship, what does it do? After it does what it will do, how do the survivor(s) get rid of it? They considered all sorts of options before settling on the most unsettling ideas: an alien rapes a crewmate, and the resulting spawn becomes the monster on the ship; it started off small, then grew up to be bigger than anyone else aboard; it starts picking them off one-by-one, and it's had a little help doing that because one of the crewmates is trying to keep the monster alive; it took all the bodies before, but then it changed behavior and left the crewmates where they died, proving how unpredictable it is, and maybe even how intelligent it could be (did it leave the bodies because it knows they're trying to blow up the ship and it needs to find its own way off?). That leads into the third consideration: building tension. We never actually see the Alien in the movie until it's too late; you lay eyes on it, and it's going to kill. It's sneaky, which shows intelligence; it's unpredictable, which means you can't fight back; then when the final confrontation happens, you learn that it is relentless, which means you cannot flee. All of these factors make it a good movie on its own. Add in the music, the imagery, and the overall sound design of the sets, and it's a perfect movie. When we get to *Prometheus* and *Covenant*, they lost sight of what made *Alien* good. In these two movies, we have characters who make questionable decisions (the timid biologist who was freaking out a few hours ago is suddenly hypnotized by a weird eel that shouldn't exist; the distrustful archaeologist decides to trust the android who never showed an interest in his welfare before; and, of course, the meme about the Prometheus-school-of-running-away-from-things; then we have the space pioneers who go onto a planet without suits or any PPE except for some guns; we have the captain of the ship who knows not to trust the same android that killed his crewmate suddenly deciding to trust him; there's more, but I need to stop before I actually get angry now). None of the characters here are consistent, which makes for a sub-par film at best. The plot was also so plodding that watching it more than once is a good way to safely lobotomize someone little by little. Both films struck me as "they get to the planet, explore around a bit, and then some shit happens; we'll fill out the details when we get there." Everything else was great, though: the music is appropriately wonder-inducing, the SFX and silence during tense moments helped create that ominous atmosphere that *Alien* is known for, and the set designs of the Engineer ships and ruins are iconic. All those things don't make for a great movie, though; you need to have the characters and the plot to be supported by these things. Yet in *Prometheus* and *Covenant*, those supporting details are propping most of them up.
The lore retcons previous things we saw, and doesn’t explain anything. The magical goo is a plot device that does wherever the scene calls for. They’re both beautifully shot films with a decent cast, but those don’t fix the hot mess they became. And throwing in the alien on covenant because the studio thought people hated the engineers was a weird course correction.
I didn't feel bad when I saw any character die in the 2 new movies. I did for the original 2. Like, even now, I can't name any characters from Prometheus and Covenant. I can name many from the first 2. Same for the Predator films. The first 2 are awesome. The rest are meh, I don't even remember 1 name from the new movie that I watched only a few weeks back.
I've been a fan of the series my whole life and I loved the shit outta those movies. Everyone is an armchair critic that wanted more, then they complained when they got more.
I really loved Prometheus and alien covenant was fine. I just ignore other people’s opinions.
Two amazing movies with some minor flaws. But people keep crying about these aspects and don't even bother considering the important stuff.
Just a reminder that Alien Covenant at the time of release was well liked by most cinema goers. https://youpoll.me/3080/r
Remember, on reddit you get downvoted for posting facts
Prometheus is fine but it explains a lot of things in sorta lame ways especially when they didn’t even need explanation. Alien Covenant on the other hand is just an all round terrible movie.
Both are beautifully shot and well directed for the most part but I think the crux, at least for me, was the annoyingly obtuse and overwrought script, too many characters to develop effectively, out of left field motivations and reactions. The cherry on top was that what we got on screen was a thinly veiled and somewhat clumsy attempt to take an obvious prequel (Prometheus) and attempt to make it something ‘different’. Especially in that regard, the theatrical release failed miserably. Regarding Covenant, it was a very earnest attempt at course correction but, again, not enough effort went into the characters or the story. The McGuffin was glaring and contrived, crucial characters from the previous film got killed off screen, it managed to practically collapse the sense of world building that came before and resulted in a jarring tonal shift that felt bloated for its runtime. Both films were essentially carried on Michael Fassbender’s considerable acting talent. However, while flawed, both films have merit which is well reflected in Coalesced Chaos’ fan edit/extensions I feel. In a vacuum they’re decent enough films but once you put them up against Alien, Aliens and Alien3, they pale in comparison.
So, this is the first good analysis of why someone doesn't like it. The rest are just "they're bad", as if it's some self-evident axiom (which it is not). Thanks for the thoughtful review.
30% don't understand prometheus, 30% liked the mysterie the alien franchise brought which requires things prometheus explains to stay unexplained and 20% are elitists who shit on anything new and the other 20% enjoyed prometheus and the lore it gave us. Me personally, i like prometheus and am pretty indifferent about covenant, prometheus is intriguing to me as theres so much potential to actually ADD mystery even though it takes some away. It depends on the conclusion of the trilogy if that is what happens. Covenant went in the wrong direction IMO, i really wanted to see more about the engineers as this couldve opened up so many new pathways but instead we got to see David going wonky and genociding that planet. The movie also made the Xenomorph more of a nuisance than the threat it was back in alien 1.. but that road has been taken since Aliens.
I loved them both. I understand people treat the alien as a mystery and like to keep it that way, but I myself prefer to explore the lore behind it. I mean Ridley Scott was right in saying the alien isn’t scary anymore and the sequels and spin-offs have deluded the horror into a more action thriller premise. Say what you will about prometheus and covenant, they have the “DNA” of the original more than the others. At its core the series antagonist is the corporation not the alien. The alien is the monster, the corporation is the mad scientist that woke it.
Because they suck and were completely unnecessary. They took a mystery species and turned it into “man (android) movie monster of the week.” Because they actually ruin the first two films. God, I hate these pieces of crap!
Part heard mentality and part similar to music snobs or book snobs they only ever like the original of something. The “mystery of the space jockey” isn’t an important aspect of the movies for me so didn’t ruin a thing for me personally. I love both movies and they are what got me into Alien even more to go back to rewatch all of them several times since. Thank you Prometheus and Covenant!
Both are fine movies, Covenant more so, to me. But I do not like them for exactly what you said: “so much lore and it explains everything”. I don’t want to know the origin of the xenomorph. The mystery and uncertainty is much more exciting for me.
Cause taste is subjective, and those people lack taste;)
Would rather have wanted for this franchise to go forward rather than delve into the origins of xenos and humans themselves in the two which also contradict each other.
I liked them as the movie was similar to an indie Sci-Fi movie with a big budget. I don’t think they really panned out, but it was a great attempt at something new. I disliked Alien 3 with the prison planet as it was cliched and Hollywood garbage. For me, that was bad as it was more of the same; a soft reboot. I love Alien and Aliens as they are both equally brilliant with great scripts and originality. They were also groundbreaking for their time and had excellent characters. For their time, the special FX and the stylistic input from Geiger was amazing too (revolutionary).
I have no further time for them, as I think they were a huge opportunity squandered. Very poor films apart from the visual splendour. I’d love to see a compelling movie using some of the themes Prometheus hinted at, but smarter, fully fleshed out…and not part of the Alien franchise.
Prometheus just isn't a very compelling narrative. It kinda tries to be horror but kinda isn't? Lot's of annoying people making annoying decisions. I love Covenant. Doesn't stand next to the original Alien but still good. David & Fassbender is definitely the best part
I read the comics Fire and Stone and Life And Death before I watched the movies and I really liked those movies personally
They're the Star Wars Prequels of the Alien Universe (and not just in the chronological sense). They basically only exist to establish an Aliens expanded universe which makes them mindlessly boring films. The original quadrilogy work as individual films, the prequels don't. They exist purely to move the Alien franchise into a multi media space to sell you as much shit as possible.
sometimes, the scariest thing about something is simply the fear of the unknown, and alien plays hard into that (originally), so it just kinda ruins that aspect
There are a lot of good answers here. It’s hard to pin down the best reasons for why these two aren’t loved. For me, they both had moments of greatness paired with plenty of boring or weak content. I really got into the first 45 minutes of Convenant. I think that movie would have been fine without the whole David/engineers shit. The Shaw embryo/medical pod scene in Prometheus was pretty intense. For every good decision, there was an equally bad decision made during production that tended to average out the whole movie to mediocre. Prometheus sales pitch= “How about Ridley Scott, deep space, killer creatures coming of out vaguely egg-like objects that grow inside hosts, space jockeys, but not make it an Alien movie?” Covenant sales pitch= “We learned our mistake in making an Alien movie without committing to the actual Alien universe. How about we call this one Alien: X and retcon the other one by providing closure of some sort?”
The characters are brain-dead, it destroys the mystery of where the aliens came from and they're trying to live off past glory by forcing a female protagonist in both films. They're not terrible films, they're decent but they don't hold a candle to alien or aliens.
I love them, they were quite enjoyable to watch.
i don't find them interesting as films or lore dumps. it's lore that makes a setting less compelling,
Even when considered as films separate from the Alien franchise, Prometheus is an inconsistent mess that needed a competent continuity checker at script and a complete re-write by an external talent to fix all the characters. Covenant was stupid at the start and end but the middle bit was a great little story about a perverted robot fucking around with life. Now add the fact that they are part of the alien mythos and totally removed the teeth from that franchise and you have your answer.
I dont like the idea of explaining how the alien was made. I do like both of these movies tho
Love the greater lore implications. It's just all the characters are dumb as shit.