Current Events > "A new Alien: Covenant prologue connects the film to Prometheus"

(+) Yeah! (+)

meingott posted...

Exactly. I loved it too. I think people disliked it for two reasons. 1) It didn't hold your hand and explain everything, so people who dislike filling in the gaps for themselves hated the movie. 2) It wasn't explicitly against religion or the concept of God, which is a theme that occurred throughout the film. Especially since Shaw is a Christian. To a lot of neckbeards on CE, that means the film is trash.

The film handled the religion aspect quite well. There is the scene, after meeting the Engineers, where David asks Shaw why she'd still wear the crucifix when she just learned her creator was another mortal race. Her response, perfectly, was "well who created them?"

I think the takeaway is that science and religion don't necessarily need to be in conflict. Even as we gain new information that completely changes our view of the universe, there will always be unknowns that science can't answer (perhaps yet, perhaps ever). Faith can certainly fit into that void.
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The Admiral posted...

meingott posted...

Exactly. I loved it too. I think people disliked it for two reasons. 1) It didn't hold your hand and explain everything, so people who dislike filling in the gaps for themselves hated the movie. 2) It wasn't explicitly against religion or the concept of God, which is a theme that occurred throughout the film. Especially since Shaw is a Christian. To a lot of neckbeards on CE, that means the film is trash.

The film handled the religion aspect quite well. There is the scene, after meeting the Engineers, where David asks Shaw why she'd still wear the crucifix when she just learned her creator was another mortal race. Her response, perfectly, was "well who created them?"

I think the takeaway is that science and religion don't necessarily need to be in conflict. Even as we gain new information that completely changes out view of the universe, there will always be unknowns that science can't answer (perhaps yet, perhaps ever). Faith can certainly fit into that void.

Yeah, and that's why a bunch of keyboard warriors hated it lol

darkphoenix181 posted...

in the begginning of the movie Satan makes mankind

cause you know it was the renegade engineer who sacrifices his body to seed life for humans

What? The Engineer at the beginning was not a renegade or Satanic figure. He made an incredible sacrifice (i.e. his own life) in an effort to seed whatever planet that was (there is no reason it needed to be Earth). This is apparently what the Engineers do, and they have seeded various systems across the galaxy with life.
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The Admiral posted...

darkphoenix181 posted...

in the begginning of the movie Satan makes mankind

cause you know it was the renegade engineer who sacrifices his body to seed life for humans

What? The Engineer at the beginning was not a renegade or Satanic figure. He made an incredible sacrifice (i.e. his own life) in an effort to seed whatever planet that was (there is no reason it needed to be Earth). This is apparently what the Engineers do, and they have seeded various systems across the galaxy with life.

the context was that he was a prisoner who did a crime and this was his punishment

like did you ever wonder why they named the movie
Prometheus?


The Admiral posted...

The film handled the religion aspect quite well. There is the scene, after meeting the Engineers, where David asks Shaw why she'd still wear the crucifix when she just learned her creator was another mortal race. Her response, perfectly, was "well who created them?"

which is a stupid respone for a guy holding a cross
the bible says God created man with his owns hands so if you find out a mortal alien did it then you should abandon Christianity
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darkphoenix181 posted...

the context was that he was a prisoner who did a crime and this was his punishment

That definitely wasn't the context. This explains it quite well.

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html

Let's begin with the eponymous titan himself, Prometheus. He was a wise and benevolent entity who created mankind in the first place, forming the first humans from clay. The Gods were more or less okay with that, until Prometheus gave them fire. This was a big no-no, as fire was supposed to be the exclusive property of the Gods. As punishment, Prometheus was chained to a rock and condemned to have his liver ripped out and eaten every day by an eagle. (His liver magically grew back, in case you were wondering.)

Fix that image in your mind, please: the giver of life, with his abdomen torn open. We'll be coming back to it many times in the course of this article.

The ethos of the titan Prometheus is one of willing and necessary sacrifice for life's sake. That's a pattern we see replicated throughout the ancient world. J G Frazer wrote his lengthy anthropological study, The Golden Bough, around the idea of the Dying God - a lifegiver who voluntarily dies for the sake of the people. It was incumbent upon the King to die at the right and proper time, because that was what heaven demanded, and fertility would not ensue if he did not do his royal duty of dying.

Now, consider the opening sequence of Prometheus. We fly over a spectacular vista, which may or may not be primordial Earth. According to Ridley Scott, it doesn't matter. A lone Engineer at the top of a waterfall goes through a strange ritual, drinking from a cup of black goo that causes his body to disintegrate into the building blocks of life. We see the fragments of his body falling into the river, twirling and spiralling into DNA helices.

Ridley Scott has this to say about the scene: 'That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.'

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Pogo_Marimo posted...

I liked Prometheus. I don't see what the issue people have with it is. Is it the expanding of the otherwise framework-setting of the original Alien movies that upsets people? I mean, it's not like Ridley has rushed the exposition of the franchise--It developed a little bit through the primary movies, and decades after he released Prometheus to fill out the story setting more.

The characters were fine. The exploration of the facility and visual direction were great. The story was interesting and thrilling. I dunno, I thought it was good. Not as gripping and thrilling as Alien, but what is?

In my opinion the Dark Horse comics and novels (at least back when I was reading them in the 90's and early 00's) did well in making stories to expand the use of the alien beyond what the films did before them and after, while still focusing on the star of the franchise; the alien. Concocting some random prequel origin story is just a more recent go to development in money making. Take a franchise, write a story about something that happened before the franchise's timeline and cash in. This personally feels like this is what Scott is doing. That is a personal opinion, and I am not angry that these exist, but even despite that, I can remember anything about Prometheus trying to be it's own thing, while desperately trying to connect to the franchise.

There have been some great stories written, like Music of the Spears of Salvation that would make great stand alone movies that really showcase the star of the franchise, in different situations. The biggest flaw the films did was take too long to move away from Ripley. And now instead of getting a good story that stands on it's own merit, we try some Anakin/Vader or Wolverine's memories were implanted backstory origin that doesn't give me any hope for the franchise's future. At least when it comes to the movies.
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The Admiral posted...

All right, so I re-watched the trailers and here is my take on what's happening.

The video in the OP shows what happens after the end of Prometheus. David learns of human compassion through Shaw and gains a new appreciation for them. While she is in cryosleep, he learns the ways of the Engineers and their apparent habit of committing mass genocide on worlds that do not develop as they see fit. He knows, from the first film, that they intended to wipe out all the humans on Earth. Wanting to prevent the destruction of humanity, he arrives at the Engineer home world unleashes their own weapon on them.

Now, this is when the other trailer begins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svnAD0TApb8

This trailer seems to take place on the same Engineer home world, where the new crew is attempting to start a colony. Why that world or how they found it? Don't know yet. However, David's actions have apparently wiped out all traces of animal life. In the part where they find the derelict, we can see them find David (or Shaw's) tags, so we know it's the same one. The biggest reveal, at 1:56, we can see thousands/millions of slaughtered Engineers (or whatever their people are called) in the same city circle from the end of the trailer with David.

Looks like the rest of the film is them dealing with whatever aliens are left who wiped out the Engineer race.

Great observations and analysis. Didn't catch that.
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I'm actually way more pumped about this movie now than I was before. Now that it appears to take place on the Engineer home world, after David unleashes the aliens on them, I'm very interested to see what happens.
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tbh part of why they might not really "expand" alien universe is because H.R. Giger is now dead
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BTW, David's words at the end before he launches the pathogen and presumably destroys the Engineer home world are:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Which is taken from the poem, Ozymandias, something that should be familiar to any Breaking Bad fan. The line fits perfectly. Here's the entire poem.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Bump for more Alien talk.
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darkphoenix181 posted...

tbh part of why they might not really "expand" alien universe is because H.R. Giger is now dead

Any new fiction now is expanding the universe to a degree. But the comics and novels kept to mostly what was already established with small things like warring clans of aliens in Hive or the introduction of royal jelly as a narcodic.

Giger pretty much abandon the franchise with Alien 3, not likening the quadraped alien. He didn't feel it was true to his original creation. Albeit it was O'Bannon's liking of his original piece that got him to wanting to make a creature similar to it and asking Giger to design it. Without O'Bannon's original characters and using Giger's art as a inspiration for his creature we might not have the alien.

Origin stories and prequels are just played out at this point in cinema. Take an established franchise, write some fanfic origin and sell it to a studio. And they'll buy it because people eat it up. Nothing remains a mystery anymore. Everything has to have an overly detailed and convoluted origin. I like Scott's work as a director and would rather see him tackle a great Aliens story, already written or not, than this self styled epitome of his.
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darkphoenix181 posted...

tbh part of why they might not really "expand" alien universe is because H.R. Giger is now dead

Uh, what? Giger designed the alien and sets, he didn't write anything.
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Giger hasn't really had anything to do with the Alien franchise in 20 years.

I really enjoy the expansion of the universe. I'm not really sure what's officially considered canon, however. I think the plans were to wipe out everything after Aliens (including Alien 3, Resurrection, and AVPs) from the canon, although the game Alien: Isolation is apparently official. I know Ridley Scott hates what James Cameron did with the creature in Aliens, so he kind of ignores those changes, even though I think Cameron's design/mythology is official.
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Pogo_Marimo posted...

The characters were fine. The exploration of the facility and visual direction were great. The story was interesting and thrilling. I dunno, I thought it was good. Not as gripping and thrilling as Alien, but what is?

The whole movie didn't make sense almost entirely throughout. Just watch this 4 min video. There was just so much that bothered me about this movie. It was bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0
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the comics (slightly out of date lore wise) actually explain it well.

They hate all other life. They are "offended" by it. so they developed bioweapons to fight against another enemy (usually the predators), which was the black goo/aliens, and made earth in order to use them as a sort of monster factory. But they fucked up and all but one died on that planet. The rest obviously abandoned such a dangerous weapon, which is why they didn't even bother going back for the bodies.
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