Half in the Bag Episode 126: Alien: Covenant

half in the back I love talks movies in my underwear oh it's not a touch screen and it's not on lightning-fast VCR repair how can I help you uh-huh yes this is aha what mr. Plunkett is dead what is dead wrong your cake prices aren't cheap I'll look elsewhere good day sir Mike why would you do that for a second I had my hopes up that this nightmare was over that I could tell my friends and family that my fiance was dead and that I was only marrying him for the money and definitely not for elderly lusts I'm sorry Jay I can see how me shouting mr. Plunkett is dead may have done misleading however it was just the start of my sentence I simply ran out of breath you see mr. Plunkett referred me to this cake company and he said that they had cheap cakes I asked for a quote for a cake for a hundred people and they quoted me a price in excess of $20 that's ridiculous I could get cheaper cakes made in Rwanda why are we getting cake at all why are we inviting people I'm starting to get the feeling that you're doing all of this just to embarrass me hey speaking of embarrassing the elderly filmmaker Ridley Scott has a new film hmm he made it at the senior citizens home in the rec room oh that's cute yeah it's called alien covenant and it's a film about an alien covenant I believe I haven't seen it yet would you like to go watch this film and then talk about how terrible it was I'd love to do anything that would take my mind off of this [ __ ] wedding yeah I would be dreading that day too I would also dread going to see alien company but let's do it anyways come on yeah charity I don't have a kitchen finally someone explained what the black goo was with one simple sentence thanks David hi and welcome to alien covenant the new film from elderly director Ridley Scott they were going to let Neill Blomkamp direct alien movies but then Ridley Scott wanted to redeem himself after no one liked Prometheus now he made this and it was less weird and had things people knowing it like an alien on a spaceship so now people like him again and forgive him for letting damon lindelof write a script look out it's a xenomorph well it's time now to talk about alien covenant James what are your initial thoughts on alien covenant you know there was a part of Prometheus so they really had a problem with where when they're first investigating the caves and they're like oh this is breathable atmosphere and so everyone like [ __ ] immediately takes their helmets off and you're like you don't know anything else about it other than the air is breathable why would you do that in this movie they don't even bother with helmets I rewatched prometheus as did I last night actually in preparation for this and I think I liked it a little bit more than when I first saw it because I I kind of understood what they're going for a little better yeah oh that's the thing is I never felt like it deserves how much [ __ ] it got it has lots of problems but at least it felt like it was about something and that's more than I can say for this movie in a weird way it's a remake of alien well every alien sequels are remake of alien basically I know that but in a you know we have to fix what we did with Prometheus way because you have well I don't want to get into spoilers but [ __ ] [ __ ] let's just get the spoilers like it get them as spoilers everybody because you have an Android that goes nuts and they blow it out of an airlock at the end well and going into this one because people disliked Prometheus so much I was curious like is this going to be how much of a sequel to prometheus is this going to be is it going to be more of just like a prequel to alien and it's kind of both it is a pretty direct sequel to Prometheus on a like a literal story level and that there is a continuation of the events that happen at the end of Prometheus but it couldn't be farther from it and like a somatic level they completely abandon all that [ __ ] if we're in spoilers like the end of Prometheus like Shaw is going to go off and find the creators and find out why they want to kill us and I'm still searching oh she died off-screen I disagree we're abandoning that I disagree a little because they kept all their there as you called them heavy themes attempts at anything well know that it's it's it's like here's exactly what happened Prometheus was written by people who didn't quite know what what they were doing with the story I think they had some ideas they put it all out there and then again and then it fell apart this is smarter people trying to fix that as best as they can because they established the the creator and a father-son thing with who's the actor that plays old man Goldmember in Oh Guy Pearce Guy Pearce do you think in familias he look like Goldmember yes guys Pearce comes back as younger Goldmember and and is in this film and so you have that opening with with this is the David statue and he's the father and he's I Yuri my creators a creator thing there's lots of biblical references and the first one Shaw was the religious person who still had the cross and she chooses to believe there's the themes of faith and this one they slap it on the captain you got the faith for no reason you got the face I got assets we got to carry that theme over yeah and then there's there's lots of little little very subtle and some not so subtle biblical references so they kind of put all that and they all feel very surface level though like in Prometheus that's kind of what the movies about this one it feels like those elements are sort of put on top of a pretty generic alien remake it's it's an echo from Prometheus that has carried over and it sort of saved into blow it out the airlock is yes there's they're slowly whittling it down yes and underneath is the alien movie right on to get to the end which is get an alien back aboard the spaceship and takes a long time to get there yeah in fact it feels like a completely different movie at the last 25 minutes yeah well that's that's the thing is the last 20 minutes of the movie is is alien action that I guess people want those last 20 minutes of the movie are like the entirety of the original alien they're really alien really takes its time and it's slow and it has tension and things build in this movie all the aliens stuff in this movie I thought sucked there's no tension it's not particularly well executed it's just sort of there's the åland he's running around and they just rush through it all I thought Prometheus was a mess but I really in hindsight appreciate the attempt to do something different they didn't dig up Sigourney Weaver out of the crypts and I'd throw her in front of the camera like you do with like Indiana Jones and all these like Harrison Ford Star Wars bring back I'm solid yes to dust everybody off and put them in front of the camera they didn't do that with Sigourney Weaver they made totally new characters yes they're doing the backstory and the prequel thing and whatever that's the weakest stuff in the movie is that it has ties to Ailee at all and so Prometheus goes the entire movie without seeing an alien proper and and the weird blue guys and they follow Alexa and then and I think is it post credit or not post credit but it's like the story's over we paid to black and we stayed back up and there's the aliens and alien healing of proto alien total alien has been born from a giant squid raping the giant blue man yes and then you're like okay I don't know how that happened but it happened I guess is that the alien species now born no no because it's not quite a nail it's not quite as II no more no II know morph has not been made yet so I thought everything in this was pretty good up until they said we have to have a xenomorph on a spaceship the Michael Fassbender David robot from Prometheus he had his head put back on by Shaw so his head back on but apparently in the process of putting his head back on his brain went nuts I think just his particular model of robot was allowed to expand and create things remember the opening when he's like guy Pearce's teaching him how to play the we're telling you have to be inspired you have to do things have to create then they kind of took that away out of the robots because people thought they're too creepy and so that is the main plot thread is that David ends up going back to the prometheus planet with the blue men and wipes out their entire civilization with the black goo for no reason at all other than he's insane or he wants to find out how to create life himself yeah well if he keeps in a movie this movie keeps talking about how he's trying to create the perfect organism or whatever so that's I guess his motivation but it doesn't explain why he decides to kill all the engineers well the movie answers one of our questions from we're talking or talking about Prometheus video which as it turns out David was a secret [ __ ] yes yes I think he wiped out all the engineers because if they got landed on the planet they would come and rip his head off I just got a three patch yeah I would be elderly guy Pierce with his head and that to me was the most interesting stuff was that this robot has had a decade on this planet and he's futzin around the black ooze out there black ooze back it's floating on what is the black goo well it's exactly what we thought it was which is why it was so confusing and Michael Fassbender tells us that it's both a weapon and a tool of creation so when when people got it in them when he put the drip in the guy's drink yeah and uh Holloway in the first one and he turned into a monster man it just killed him and then the other guy it turned into monster man - but once it was in his ejaculate inside Shaw it turned into a baby right and created a little squid monster yeah and I think in Prometheus they show what they will worms touched touched in black goo they show up like oh yeah there's there's worms on the soil and those become a become those identical so it's like it could either do something or turn you into the toxic waste man from Robocop will do one of the two things [Music] sounds like thank you thank you for being clear about that yeah we still know where it came from but I guess whatever that was the [ __ ] blue men group created a baby they created I guess they engineered it they engineered it okay because remember when the in the opening Prometheus the one guy he ate it they drank it out of a little ceremonial cup not only health off of a cliff he falls into the yeah and then he wanted valves and then they show in detail you know do you like being created all of Earth's life being created and I was the premise of Prometheus was a blue man all over the galaxy they weren't populated planets but for some reason at the end of Prometheus we said we got to take all this black goo back to earth and use it again to wipe out the population because we messed up and then Shaw wanted to find out why they messed up once you wanna fight yeah what did we do that made him want to kill us yes well that was the lead-in and that's the thing good for me see it prometheus that whole movie feels like a setup for the next movie we will never find out why they wanted to go back because David exterminated the entire population yeah that would that be considered retconning they reckoned the story of Prometheus and that's my problem was like and I complained about this with Prometheus and it continues with this which is that there's all these convoluted like biological like this mixes with this and it creates this but then if that new creation mixes with this it creates this all this to get us to an alien to a xenomorph from alien they allude to it at the end of Prometheus and then in this movie David's like I was experimenting on Shaw and I created this thing and I could I used trying all these different experiments and then he just goes into a back room in this cave and he's like and here's alien eggs I made they're like what blow out the Queen like what so all this setup to explain to the xenomorph came from and we really don't even get it and that leads to the bigger problem which is who cares where the xenomorph came from the original alien I don't know if we mentioned this in a Prometheus video I don't even remember but the original movie alien the whole thing is that what the whole reason scary is because it's about the fear of the unknown it's not the fear of something alien the movie has multiple the title as multiple meanings we don't know where it came from doesn't matter that's what makes it creepy it's the problem with the simple and effective premise it's its jaws it's Halloween it's movies like that where it works as a simple premise but it does not have or need the room for expansion right I don't need to know more about Michael Myers or we don't need a jaws 2 or jaws 3 3d or a jaws 4 or does 5 what happened here yeah that's something the short-haired woman who is essentially the protagonist don't even know what her name is Daniels that her character's name like she has so little going on she was married or at least in a relationship with James Franco who's in the movie for two seconds like with Shaw you know her whole thing is she's obsessed with finding out about who created us because she can't create life herself she can't have a baby so that's sort of her motivation for everything so there's something there there's nothing to any of these people in this movie well Danny McBride wore cowboy hat his name is Tennessee because remember Dallas there's a character named Dallas smelly had a character named Tennessee the spaceship stuff but all the crew like heels all the different kinds of crew members and it just felt like been there down B yes they felt like done I've done that what I really liked I were to like the entire movie if it was just Michael Fassbender kissing himself teaching himself to play the flute yeah that stuff was that was verify likes I liked and Michael Fassbender is like Prometheus he's the best part of this movie yeah the two types of robots that are dramatically different and one that's a little unhinged and doing weird things and he's very advanced I noticed how it seemed like Michael Fassbender is doing Lance Henriksen impression a little bit yeah okay I'm talking like this yeah yeah so it seemed like oh that's the early tweak the model even though that character probably wasn't born yet but the guy the human version last Alex appears in alien 3 although he also appears in alien vs. predator somehow it's in present time why it's almost like this franchise is a giant mess oh is it remember that your she wasn't a sexy shower scene bizarre oh god why I'm in the movie because of a theme that you can put in the trailer it turns into like a cheap [ __ ] B movie or yeah I was thinking like a Friday the 13th movie or something breathing in the showers blood and yeah I'm gonna get you in the shower look at what yeah then you have this is like a heady religious themes and then you cuts to like later like Jack Frost tried in the film the shower really all that stuff with a Fassbender and the planet and it felt very star treky and then I was like oh eh oh there's an alien I forgot like I don't want a pretty badass robot fight the two Michael Fassbender is fighting each other was a good scene yeah so you got all those like like the too fast fenders I felt the Cain and Abel vibe like the lots of religious references now he references milton by saying it's better to rule in Hell than to serve in heaven which was from the original time on the film well yeah I guess at one point this movie was called alien Paradise Lost so which is an awful title and I'm glad they changed it what happened here yeah and then like I don't know if you noticed like one of the little little alien things that he had like made was like on a cross oh I didn't good stuff in there is drawings look like the Vinci artworks like very technical yeah that ending where I want say Shaw our new female heroine apparently like like empowered female warriors and spaces they're a dime a dozen really you're nothing special anymore there's always one of you on a spaceship just one of you there's nothing good about you I think the message of the movie is if you if you want to survive out in space and you're female make sure you have short hair yeah I kept thinking back to the first alien and how like quaint and dated it must feel compared to like the technology they can do today Oh sheriff bursting scene and like because Oshun aliens does the happy birthday surprise shot yes that misses my hair yeah how fast and deadly it is in this now did you feel you're the better question do you feel any tension whatsoever during any of the alien stuff in this movie the movie had me for a minute when that first guy who had got sick went back and they had him and those two women were on the little Lander not only had to get him in the quarantine room and he was like gross things were happening to him the fans like there was like some car oh yeah that stuff was pretty good and the movie like some of the gore in this it was kind of shocking it was very grisly which was nice it felt like two movies that collided it feels like a movie that's that's a perfect bridge between like trying to do weird god stuff with Prometheus and let's get back to thousands of just bursting aliens and people shooting at them yeah it felt like the bridge from that to that because this ends with spoilers ago but you look I'll watch their videos anymore ah this ends with David in control the ship he has 2000 people in cryosleep and a couple of facehugger eggs you know he's just going to experiment like crazy yeah and he has 7 years to do it before they get to Planet ooba-dooba the next film will be aliens galore CG classic xenomorphs galore on a colony space colony they all wake up though they won't remember what happened and they'll start bursting at the seams and aliens will be everywhere and it'll be a repeat of aliens they'll be air in the colony nah yeah or some [ __ ] like that will happen you now have you now finally have the seed that's planted that can spawn all the Xenomorphs and go at it no more half-measures no more little gray ones and little blue ones or weird ones that don't quite look like this either most gifted xenomorph back now is what the guys in the suit said 20th Century Fox office get their little marks back holy the interesting thing about the original I'll say the original for alien movies is that they all are essentially the same movie but what differentiates them is the the filmmaker behind it each one feels like a completely different movie even though story wise they're all basically the same thing and now we just get like Ridley Scott made another alien movie they're good look in movies they have great effects great sets sure but there's no tension which is important when you're making an alien movie I like I like that premise yeah the robot is just trying to play God essentially and they could have done something where Shaab Birth the Queen maybe she did they should her corpse is possible but that could have happened during the course of this movie you know where she's like she's he's got her tied up in the back room or something and she's like about to give birth to a queen and then she does yeah and then you know he's working on that in the background making the eggs and stuff while the people are just hanging out at Blue Valley City yeah resting and relaxing it's going tanning gambling going dancing sounds like a wonderful planet yeah yeah there there was a whole other side of the planet it was like Atlantis City yeah Big Blue Men was all this boring stone Jason that guys you guys what come on to the planets rest to fix your spaceship give me a week or so I'm gonna be in this cave doing some weird [ __ ] and then when I'm done everybody comes to cave heads I mean that's going on in the background with shock would have been kind of cool I don't know this movie is a lot to digest and I might be reactionary a little because there are some there were a lot of things I really liked but then it has that that movies have that studio mentality now all of them you gotta have the thing yeah well and I'm getting tired of it there's one of the story about a robot that experiments with weird biological life-form that that's the biggest disappointment with this movie is yeah there is like a kernel of an interesting concept at its core but it's focusing on the wrong things I know the thing is like there was a split second when we see the xenomorph where I was like because I like that creature as a you know as a design I think it's cool it was like oh it'll be kind of neat to see some more xenomorph stuff because I like as a movie monster I like it but then I just thought it was all handled so flat like the there's no like I said no attention to any of it very rushed very yeah I was rushed and there's no like you know build-up because the movies almost over so just sort of things happen there was no excitement at the end when they're trying to push it out of the ship like I just didn't care yeah yeah so folks act on because it was yeah the cool interesting premise Celt sort of pushed to the side to focus on the alien stuff and the alien stuff didn't work I thought there was enough of the David plot to to keep the movie floating on the wall as opposed to sinking you know what I mean the alien stuff ironically in an alien movie was what was dragging it down yeah see all inner doors [Music] this level [Music] Oh [Music] four meters so Mike would you recommend the alien covenants hard to say I always have a little caveat like I would recommend it to Grandma but if you love the xenomorph gonna watch it it's a final okay film yeah yeah [ __ ] it now to watch something different yeah Scott Scott's a movie you find your basement VHS tape it has Dolly Parton in it Wayne Newton what's he talkin about rodeo time with Dolly Parton to show us that it's supported on the VCR watch that Kenny Rogers in a Western what's this I never heard of this let's go out to that oh I forgot to ask you do you want to recommend the film to anybody you probably don't know you're such a snob that's not true or the ball is not that's the thing is this doesn't even like a terrible movie or anything I'm just so tired of it like they're running around hallways again and it just had a real case of like been there done that or I just didn't care yeah that's four that's four more Michael Fassbender I was he a whole movie about him doing weird experiments it's called shame well Jay it's time to fix more VCRs remember that talk about tired plotline a alien covenant felt refreshing okay I have to go to sleep now okay bye [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 2,136,843

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, best of the worst, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, alien, alien covenant, ridley scott

Id: klsy8PiscEw

Length: 26min 37sec (1597 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/HumanSieve]

I've hardly ever seen them be so indifferent about a movie.

[u/SinkFloyd]

Mike really sums up my reaction to the movie, there are ideas here that can work, there are a couple of stand out sequences, but it comes out very meh.

And as Jay points out, Ridley Scott really seems to have a lot of resentment toward 'Aliens' and seems content to ignore everything it contributed to the Xenomorph mythos (seriously, where does the Queen fit into all of this??).

[u/poetryrocksalot]

Question guys, if the Engineers invented the black goo or the aliens or whatever, how do they nof have a defense against if as a contigency plan? I mean they are the most advanced species how could they be so easily killed just like that?

[u/muddynips]

You can really see the fatigue with studio-influence in their recommendations at the end. It's getting harder and harder to condemn a movie specifically when it's the same problem every time.

[u/sandratcellar]

Lost it when they brought up their old Prometheus video, saying it turns out that David was a secret asshole all along.

[u/skilledwarman]

the worst part of all of this stuff is it still makes no damn sense when looking at the original. in the original there was an engineer dead so long he was a fucking fossil, there were xenomorph eggs all of the cargo hold, and they had xenomorph themed murals everywhere. so they already had the xenomorphs a long ass time ago.

[u/[deleted]]

deleted ^{What is this?}

[u/mikerhoa]

I'm surprised they missed what was in my opinion the most egregious plot hole of the movie:

Daniels stabs David in the neck with that nail necklace, yet at the end of the movie his wound is nowhere to be seen. He was literally within inches of her multiple times, sporting wounds identical to Walter's, but no nail wound. It would have completely given him away. Obviously he doesn't have a Wolverine-esque healing factor, so where did that wound go? The script just forgot about it.

[u/SuperiorTasteAward]

Where is the clip at 24:05 from?