Everything GREAT About Alien: Covenant!

[Music] [Music] even before a single images on screen the score builds the tension and film focused on creation it's a perfect opening silent nothingness gives way to life at least Whelan's facsimile of life oh you feel alive and obviously something Whelan created to be alive is going to feel alive even if David's aliveness is up for debate important to remember that while David evolves in his own way everything he is started with this jerk the Nativity by Piero della Francesca and if you consider the parallels Weiland is deliberately drawing between the birth of Christ and the painting and David maybe we should have seen his god complex coming visually Ridley Scott will go down as one of the greats David is born into a white room is perfect too sterile and clean as his perceived AI in stark contrast to the death and imperfection of humanity this opening is a beautiful way to validate some of the things that took place between Whelan and David and Prometheus while setting up the real conflict of this film you seek your create all I am looking at mine and within minutes of being alive David's we had to have come from question is answered while David is learning he's far superior to his creator Weyland swiftly categorizes their relationship which completely shatters David's worldview again within minutes of being born all solid character building for the path David chooses David isn't bound by Asimov's Three Laws he only surmises that it's in his best interest to capitulate and Weyland imposing his position of power over David is exactly what this film is about so much happening at such a short exchange and Ridley again visually illustrates the ludicrous nature of Whelan's requests by showing us the full walk across the room to the tea that's literally within arm's reach of Weyland you are my slave continuing with an alien style title card and the Covenant ship in the background gives a quick feeling of the vastness of space and the distance they're traveling the score really grows on you it's definitely inspired by and seems like it uses samples of the original alien but it also has touches of the curiosity from Prometheus you sure you don't want me to do anything I mean this is a big check just to lie here we'll see what happens let's just let's see what happens I'm pretty sure you can't see neutrinos but holy crap is the rule of cool fly it's still a pretty big check just to burn alive but there is a little background for this in a deleted scene where Franco says he's feeling sick so who knows how sick and whatever perhaps to Franco for being in the movie because he likes the franchise but now I can never be cryogenically frozen Thanks movie and this was a little step outside the norm these movies actually sci-fi horror thriller films in general don't have tragedy or conflict this early the usual like to lull you into a false sense of security they ramped up the depression right away Chekhov snail dude you got to be careful people have been known to fall and get stuck for like three-quarters of a week or 5.2 nine days I can't think of a better way of saying that seven thousand six hundred and twenty minutes check out this dream world these are the types of things that we take for granted from directors like Scott this is a scene that on the surface seems totally ancillary and unnecessary but it's actually serving multiple purposes it takes place in the terraforming equipment hold of the ship which sets up a location for the finale of the film Daniels builds her character by talking about how she was only on the ship for her husband it establishes Walter's feelings for Daniel's that he was even helping her in the first place and sets up the final reveal of David in the end since he doesn't remember this conversation I mean I've seen you disintegrate people with the weight of your hand so yeah I think we'll be good and that's not it they don't trust me and they don't trust me for the same reason the company didn't trust me to lead this mission because you can't be a person of faith I read some complaints that ORMs religion doesn't matter or add anything to the story but it's the reason he feels like the crew doesn't trust him and why he jumps headfirst into Planet four let's see this is why you always bring a cowboy with you on space missions John Denver I know I know but you have to understand I grew up thinking John Denver wrote let it be and fire and rain so for that Deutschendorf saul ways away and I know it probably felt like a silly little song to throw in there but it's a large part of the reason they're willing to go to plane it for a song from their homeworld means a human has to be there that's your second I need to protest officially officially okay it's almost like he knows they're all going to die but it really does raise a great point on deep space or colonizing missions sure you were sent by weyland-yutani not even a military or government entity but there are still protocols in chain-of-command but what is it all worth when the entity enforcing those protocols are a decade's trip away taxation without representation anyone teamwork that might be about his teamwork II as it gets have I mentioned that Ridley Scott is a master at creating stunning imagery and obviously credit the Scott's favorite DP Darius Wolski's well in case you weren't sure if Scott was trying to parallel aliens which I'll get into more later but you people asked for this I think a lot of the problems people have with the stupidity of this covenant crew is a basic misunderstanding these are not scientists on a researcher exploratory mission they're colonists their specialties have nothing to do with space travel or dealing with alien life-forms they were traveling to an uninhabited planet that had very similar readings to their own when they found this one was seemingly better stats why would they go out there with helmets on they don't know they're in an alien movie they trust their sophisticated sensors and readings I watched Kirk Picard and January walk out into m-class planets for years sans helmets with no problems it's everybody's favorite time defense of the indefensible get your thesaurus out and look up a new and inventive way to call me an apologist blood word is a military or private military man not sure what branch or rank but for sure he's not a biologist or an ecologist or a botanist Korean is the scientist that understands these types of things which is why she says okay but seriously more importantly know another great human to ship scale shot from the Alien franchise again just a dumb PMC screwing everything up when's the last time you stumbled under spores that grew an alien inside you in a matter of minutes usually stuff like that just affects the hosts and even when we pretty much all know what's up and what's probably going to happen Scott still manages use the score the pace of the visuals and shake of the camera and the performances of his actors to build some serious tension good unfairest were thinking about contamination but I'm also willing to cut Corinne slack because number one if there's an infection to be caught and number two it's not uncommon for people's compassion to supersede their survival instincts we've all heard of medical professionals putting their lives at risk for their patients and now the nope start really rolling it sorry I disturbed my keyboard kind of brutally broken ankle these things do not mess around man I don't know huge fan of body horrors nope you guys complain about a lack of aliens in Gorn Prometheus consider your requests heard and I love the way Scott plays off Walter's lack of emotions to sort of fiddle with our feelings towards him explosion dead dude alien saving you're inferior doomed creators obviously as equipment is all going to be from the Prometheus but I appreciate that even for a quick shot they made sure it was on there how many colonists of the truth noisy mmm trial and error I was with our illustrious created mr. Weyland when he died a bizarre scene but a useful and also technically impressive one this is david's probing to see who walter is whereas allegiances lie how similar they are and to what level can he be manipulated or turn to david side it's a dance of trust in discovery and we should all just throw money at Fassbender for this performance you disturbed people so they made the following models with fewer complications unfortunately for David Walter makes it clear that the genocide all emotions have been removed from his build and then on the technical side it's a two and a half minute long take with no cuts shows off how far we've come since split-screen filming of the same actor playing twins this place never should have come admitting when you're wrong in true Alien franchise style yeah instantaneous mass genocide qualifies as brutal obviously the question comes up of why David destroys the engineers or whoever these humanoids are they do look different than the engineers of Prometheus but they may just be a different class or based on their advanced knowledge of genes a different class of engineer but it's simple really and also important to understanding David's motivations David couldn't care less to have any of Shaw's or by extension the audience's questions about why they created humans and why they now wants to destroy them but back to his conversation with Weyland upon birth he quickly learns he's superior to his creator following that logic trained humans may be superior to their creators the engineers David's goal is creation and more specifically perfect creation since the engineers were destroyed by their own installation on LV 2 to 3 he knows they're not worthy so he ends them but just like his love for Shaw that doesn't mean he doesn't pity them the same way he pitied Whalen at the end the irony of David's use of a poem wagging its finger at those who thought they were all powerful but had fallen to tisk at the fallen engineers threw his perfect teeth to only incorrectly recount the poems author Laird Byron who composed something so majestic one could die happy considering what he turned Shawn to majestic is apparently in the item holder making David even scarier so not to dwell on this Gore fest or anything but the fact that they've drawn a clear line from the Deacons extension John the end of Prometheus to the Neo morph smaller extension draw here to the Xenomorphs little mini mouth and the original is some great attention to detail and creature evolution creation oh cool she just went for us the original liquid atomized particles when exposed to the air sometimes it's okay to just say what happened and they you don't really understand it fully but that's your explanation for why the black goo is different on this planet plus it's always mutating and changing because of what it is like beautiful Bastion bestiary I had to look it up so it's become the cinema winds vocab lesson of the week essentially it's medieval fables about mythical creatures lack essential ingredient what are they waiting for David mother what a nice way of telling him he's about to give birth so honesty half of this am not sure safe is such a subjective term safe for who anyway if John Hurt did it did you really expect this dude to hesitate I found oh sorry let's just say she's having a hard time keeping your head above water [Music] a terrible and disgusting wind to be sure but the lighting and bizarrely sweet moment between David and his new creation is very alien well that gives a new meaning to the Prometheus name was it actually diegetic from the beginning it works if you think about Prometheus being a story told from David's perspective and since this is clearly his story I was not made to serve neither were you David's last-ditch effort to see if he can pull Walter to his side so he androids are better than one you know your own awesome and yes bye Shelly when one note is off it eventually destroys the whole symphony and David such a simple addition to sort of add a verbal touch till to everything that David thinks he is he's so far gone at this point he doesn't even acknowledge the mistake because a God wouldn't make a mistake a true God as he sees himself creates perfection even if it means sacrificing the ones you love he's like the manifestation of the evil humanity has to offer totally misguided and twisted altruism and there he is Geiger's dinner morph and all his horrible glory I'll say that some of the earlier CGI of the little neo morphs in the white room was a tad underwhelming but now we get to the actual xenomorph a lot of what shot is a man in a suit or animatronic mixed with CGI and the end result is pretty spectacular I know I see you I'm actually me in the comments Frodo morph right yeah he never said that in fact he's pretty clear in the commentary about it being a xenomorph it doesn't really matter maybe it's just an early stage of evolution for the xenomorph unfortunately I think the difference in appearance between chess bursters is simply the lack of CGI 1979 I mean can you imagine a puppet doing this the chest burster was silly enough as it was this is pretty amazing Android versus Android done right precise quick movements nothing against terminators smashing each other through walls but this feels way more realistic and Fassbender had to perform both sides of this fight and train for months you need this scene in your alien film is your sort of pre climax and it's totally engaging exciting set-piece with the ship flying all over crashing into stuff while trying to get off the planet and then tethered off Danny trying to get the alien off the ship while she starts to really embrace her inner Ripley we don't even give you another teamwork win probably my biggest complaint for this movie is that this shot was in the trailer I get it you're telling us this isn't prometheus but at what cost Ridley at what cost but it's an awesome shot unless the xenomorph looks different not shadowed in darkness but he still looks amazing and I'll give you that this is not the perfect killing machine quite yet a proto xenomorph if you will even the Queen and aliens recognized it needed to get to the operator of the power loader this dude can't tell the difference between a crane grapple and a human Danny gets a resourcefulness win for running and not just letting her feet drag across the ground hey in case you were looking for that mother docking juggernaut it crashed that's my duty ha first clue of course David's just going to pair it back Walters spur the moment response what is that if no bluff duty no space travel mission will be complete without your drinking balance bird unidentified life-form on the ship and now we get to our second finale Ripley in the escape pod all ready to take a nap finally a little cat-and-mouse this is what makes this franchise frightening not knowing us Merc my creation lives on and there he is there's a life lesson in there no matter how much you think you need some R & B one shower and you may not be able to hear the alarms and warnings of your death this is cool it kind of flies in the face of not knowing where the alien is but it's worth it for a look through what looks like really annoying vision wonder he's so murdery I mean even his hearing sounds like a horror movie whoa whoa whoa I created you a little ungrateful [Music] oh right he can jump and move really really fast easy to forget the his he writes itself for this one did you guys really need to be in the room as bait maybe maybe they did it's pretty resourceful and it's not 100 percent clear Xenomorphs need oxygen to survive so it probably wasn't worth the risk and if there's one thing we've learned if you don't seed and pail they're crushed it's still alive and it's going to get you one up to the usual sucked into space this times gonna burn up in the atmosphere and on the crazy floating debris makes for an awesomely unique finale Danny's alive so that's I could be interpreted a couple different ways ah I need to keep working on my perfect killing machine since it couldn't beat a couple humans or who my future Queen survived time to experiment host everyone's looking at her face but just in case you're a detail obsessed movie person / hurry monitors in Pisa don't let the bedbugs bite alright so this twist has been getting pounded into the ground for good reason if it was meant to be a twist it wasn't ridley himself said you're supposed to suspect it's David it was meant to be a tension builder most viewers were somewhere between 75 and 99 percent sure but maybe it's really Walter personally I think David actually took over Walters body by swapping chips or something since he didn't have the nail wounds in his chin and that's how he gets Walters codes and uses his accent easily that tree of the gods and to Valhalla and now Davie confirms that his selection in the beginning was in fact because he sees himself a God even if the lack of the orchestra leaves it a little anemic and he laughs in the face of the gods entering Valhalla as much as the torn down statue of Ozymandias now he can be fully appreciated with the full orchestra as a god that has created life [Music] ah honesty time I was super hesitant to win this film after about 40 minutes through my first viewing I was annoyed I was annoyed that a brilliant filmmaker was retreating the same exact formula again people in space distress called derelict ship guy gets infected and then things shifted slightly and I actually appreciated the shift because it was jarring Ferris didn't close the outer door and quote regulations she freaked out just like he'd expect her to do and then all hell broke loose and people started dropping like flies it was almost as if Scott put the formula in there just a rush through it and say no it'll be different I swear so that complaint is gone the only one I'm left with is honestly that it was a little short at some point we may need to admit that Scott doesn't have all the answers and much like Lindelof and Abrams he loves posing the question way more than answering it I'm not there yet I'm I'm still not quite there but he's got one last shot to fill in some blanks okay maybe a couple more shots that said I get that the answers don't really matter and like I said in my Prometheus video what answer would actually satisfy you the engineers were destroying us because of carbon emissions war football concussions or is it because we still don't have Tron 3 that's it it's drum 3 we need to realize that there is no acceptable answer this isn't a story about engineers and how or why they created humans it's not even a movie about humanity colonizing other planets this movie and solidified in hindsight Prometheus is David's story it's the story of AI being created to serve bucking against its creators and venturing out to create something for itself so it is still a statement about humanity's hubris just told through the vessel of David ultimately something that seemed like an inadvertent result of the Prometheus mission has now become the focus of this film and I have a feeling that it's gonna be the focus of the overarching new series in their search to find who created them and why humans created David and no big surprise he becomes obsessed with creation since all of his who made me and why questions or answer the second he's born in hindsight what seemed like servitude to Weyland in the first film may have just been an early expression of David's lust to create perfect life my theories about David from Prometheus were pretty much confirmed he definitely experiences emotion and is absolutely a I am or free or open-source version of AI then Walter as we've already covered Walter points out that David is flawed call it a lamp shade for past and future inconsistencies but I don't see it as too much of a stretch to say David transforming Shaw into a xenomorph Queen is his ultimate show of love for her there's also an extra on the blu-ray where he describes how he took her apart used her parts to create the eggs he basically said he wanted to create paradise with her but she refused Scott is either a genius or has stumbled onto something that works really well when you look at the series as a whole humans did this they did it all in their quest for knowledge they're the reason Sigourney had to fight a xenomorph in her undies and the reason bill Paxson's game was over and while we're talking about Ridley Scott I gotta be honest again I feel like he caved in fact I know he caved to the Internet dissenters but credit for how he did it he managed to create a bridge between the philosophical story of Prometheus and the out-of-control action and gore of aliens the only thing missing is the grind your teeth tension from alien but there were touches event prometheus Scott also threw a bunch of biblical references into this film like naming the ship the Covenant having the crew in groups of two like Noah's Ark even the face hugger eggs in the end this picture is taken during the prologue of the Last Supper and looks a lot like that painting David quotes Paradise Lost which makes sense since that was the original title of the film but honestly they're mostly superficial similarities unless you start really theorizing and drawing parallels between David and Lucifer I think we can all agree that Scott still knows how to build beautiful and dreadful worlds and composed stunning shots his cinematographer and he worked together perfectly and while I'll always prefer the xenomorph that lurks in the shadows I get that this is sort of Scott's take on Cameron's follow-up to his film if follow me he didn't go completes Locke but he up the gore and gross which hey we've got to eat right or destroy or whatever also nothing aliens Ashlock it's just a different genre of film from both alien and roomie theists the entire cast was great I were entering into a new space for media consumption and I'm still unsure how I feel about it if the YouTube prologue clips aid in character building don't cut them from the film we're talking about what a little over seven minutes and to t sha and then killer off-screen that's pretty annoying but it is an Alien franchise staple at this point if you're expecting to see Daniels or Tennessee alive in the next film you should lower those expectations if preteen blonde girls aren't safe no one is safe that said the Last Supper prologue went a long way in establishing the relationships between these people so it was there even if it was not in the final theater product still the cast reeled me in in the screen time they had honestly for quite a few no names there were some of the better performances in the franchise Danny McBride continues to impress me my wife and I wondered to each other if we could take him seriously but he really does transcend comedy Kathryn Watterson had big shoes to fill and she did really well her acts scenes and willingness to do her own stunts is you'd more impressive when you remember how good she is as Tina and fantastic beasts like I said Billy Crudup fouled right and John Hurt's footsteps so no problem there really the only complaint I had with the cast was Walters accent is that a question yes Walter that's a question but once I realized what he was doing I got over it and the scenes with Fassbender playing off Fassbender are some of the best of their kind welcome back the long take with him interacting with each other is above and beyond he lived up to answer past all my hopes for him in this film there's probably more to unpack I have been thinking about this film for a while and most of the rest of my thoughts are theory and conjecture at this point I'm content to wait for Ridley's next movie and it may seem like going backward but I'll be happy to see awakening take place before covenant and if he has a story to tell I don't just immediately like anything that gets the alien name slapped on it but it's gonna take a lot more for me to stop wanting to watch something Ridley Scott creates next week I want to say it's more lighthearted but I honestly can't remember the level of lightheartedness right now so we'll just have to see take away some how to sing perhaps you should have some clear your head [Music] you

Channel: CinemaWins

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Keywords: Alien: Covenant, Alien 5, Prometheus 2, EWW Covenant, Everything Wrong With Covenant, EGA, CinemaWins, Cinema Wins, Film Wins, Everything Right With, EWW Alien Covenant, Everything Great About Alien

Id: e2hLWLalINQ

Length: 21min 40sec (1300 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 09 2017