Alien: Covenant
I think they should rename this installment of the franchise
- Alien: Plot holes II
Since when has science fiction fallen from telling great,
suspenseful, sometimes menacing, stories to that of awful, synthetic, recycled,
and formulated video games? – Video games you don’t even play… just watch. I dunno.. but, I was all prepared to love the
movie. It held such promise.
Finally! An
explanation where the “architects” came from, why they created the toxins that
became creatures, and why these architects wanted to delete one of their finest
creations… humans. The Prometheus movie
starred breathtaking Swedish actress, Noomi Rapace (Girl with the dragon tattoo) as the kick-ass
plucky heroine (cuz, in modern sci-fi, you can’t have a movie without one, apparently)
at least had the functioning workings of a good science fiction story. Even with it’s many flaws… I’ll get to in a minute.
The prequel to that other kick-ass plucky heroine – Ripley
from the original Alien – Elizabeth Shaw gave us at least the basic
understanding about the aliens… where they came from, and how they somehow
became the menace of even their own creators.
She matures with incredible speed from obedient wife to Mr. Genius to
Ripley-ish alien-slayer, literally self-aborting the newly discovered pre-alien
fetus from her womb. Yikes!
There was an expectation at the end of Prometheus that Shaw,
lone human survivor and the head of evil-robot David would fly the architects’ craft out of the toxic atmosphere of LV-223
and get the answers to the questions: who are we? Did you create us? And, why would you want to destroy us?
Covenant really doesn’t answer any of those questions, and
is more a standalone movie than anything.
A ship carrying 2000 colonist
face a minor ship disruption (via “Passengers”)
and now awakens the crew to repair. On board, the latest android, Walter (Michael
Fassbender, doing double android duty as the evil David and the upgraded robot)
just a bit less creepy… detects a faint signal from a near-by planet.
Abandoning all protocol to get their colonist cargo to their
destination.. 11 years in the future, which would require to climb back into
their sleep pods… they decide to take a few weeks out of their way to
investigate the rouge signal (a woman singing “take me home country roads” by
John Denver… like anyone a hundred years in our future would remember JD).
I don’t know about you.. but if I were a colonist and I paid
for a one-way trip to say Alpha Centuria but found out the crew decided to land
me on Betelgeuse… I would be just a little pissed. I would ask for at least part of my money
back. Jus’ sayin’…
So off to this new planet they go off… an advanced team takes down a lander to
investigate. They eventually find the
crashed ship of Shaw…. And eventually the re-made David (looking very much Ziggy
stardust). David relates that Shaw died
in the crash.
Eventually, the advance crew falls victim to several
accidents… problems with spores (?) and suddenly are afflicted with horrible
beings popping out of backs, fronts, mouths..
Well, maybe this planetary heaven is more like hell. Meanwhile, a convenient ion storm approaches
and disrupts communication with the mother ship. (You would have thought the hurricane-force
ion storms would have been enough to negate the planet from “good choice to
colonize,” but there I go again…
overanalyzing)
The landing ship is blown up due to one of the infected
crew, and now the remainder of the away team must scramble for shelter, away
from the scary creatures trying to eat the crew. With the help of evil David, they find
shelter in the deserted last city of the “architects.”
The two robots meet face to face and David calls Walter
“brother.” Now, we know from Star Trek
Next Generation when Lar met Data and the same thing happens.. that’s bad
news. In any case, when the depleted
crew setup shop in the old city, as the mother ship sends down another vehicle
to hopefully pick up the crew.
This is where the Friday the 13th action happens
here. Each member peals off from the
group, only to be terminated by one of the ugly aliens. We meet a new beasty here… not much
explanation… other than it kinda looks like it’s covered in goo. Eventually,
Daniels (Katherine Waterston)
figures out that David is not quite right in the head circuitry ….. especially
when she finds the remains of Shaw on a table with her insides blown out.
David finds her out and tries to kill her (bad robot! Bad,
bad, robot!) only to stab him in the
chin. By then good robot Walter shows up
and they have a robot fight. Yeah!
As the remaining few team finally blast off of from the
planet, Walter seems to be no himself at all…
I’m sure you can figure out the rest of the story.
The end has Walter/David putting Daniels to sleep in her
pod, while putting a few of the
new alien embryos in status while tucking the
sleepy inhabitants back in their status before reaching their new home.
End movie.
So many plot holes… so little time.
I know there is a third film in the new franchise… and to be
honest with you.. I plan on skipping it.
Ridely Scott has fooled me twice on what should have been a knock it out
of the park movie.
After reading some of
the notes about the movie, maybe instead of spending so much time on (cool) Easter eggs (“Walter” and the date at the
beginning of the film is December 5 which is also the birthday of Walter Elias
Disney, for example).. maybe he should have spent more on the darn plot!
Rent this one when it comes out. Don’t waste your money…
Meanwhile, go check out the movie: 2010 (The year we make
Contact) the sequel to 2001… starring
Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren and Keir Dullea from 1998. So much better… when it comes to aliens, rouge computers and
far-flung space adventures.
