Alien: Covenant (2017, Ridley Scott) After Prometheus was released five years ago, the took was that the next chapter would follow the two surviving characters played by Michael Fassbender & Noomi Rapace back to the home world of the architects of the human race. However with Prometheus not doing as well as hoped and getting soft reviews plans have changed. What we have ended up getting is a messy hybrid of some of the ideas from the proposed Prometheus sequel and a much more familiar Alien film. This story follows the crew of a colony ship, bound for a remote planet who discover an uncharted habitable world that unfortunately contains some dangerous secrets and forces them to attempt a harrowing escape. The film is well enough made but not as visual a splendor as Prometheus was. The cast all do fair to good work with Danny McBride (Eastbound and Down) being the highlight. However the story is a real mess with heavy handed symbolism and characters that are under developed with mixed results on the design and set pieces. The computer generated aliens look good at times and not so much at others with their movements feeling too over the top and not grounded enough. For those who are fans of blood and gore, this one has plenty as well as some good tense moments but on the whole this film feels like a failure but they have another chance to get it right in 2019 with Alien: Awakenings. 4.5/10
like everybody dude, even Ridley called it a failure this week in an interview In other breaking news water is wet
shouldnt take too long to find... also its very common knowledge that the film did not preform as expected and thats why prometheus 2 was canned in favour of something more alien centric.. even on wiki they mention how it did not meet studio expectations at the box office. Well this is not where i read it but this article has an overview and segments of the interview http://www.darkhorizons.com/scott-dials-back-on-alien-sequel-plans/
I enjoyed Prometheus even though I certainly over hyped myself and the film didn't deliver what I was expecting. This may sound petty but you know what hurt the film for me most? Guy Pearce in some very unconvincing old man make-up. Every scene he was in just took me right out of the film. I would rather they had actually employed a 70+ year actor.
Just to confirm: in that link, Ridley does not refer to Prometheus as a failure or even discuss its box office performance (the writer of the linked piece does, however, whoever that is). What Ridley does do is refer to some fans' reactions. Remember, this is a sequel to Prometheus, a film that grossed over $270MM its production budget. That is not a failure. In fact, it was successful enough to warrant a sequel.
Production budget does not take into effect marketing budget, and all other budgets outside actually shooting the movie which could put it at a loss.
And gross BO does not take into home video/digital sales and rentals, or merchandising. If Prometheus were a "failure," how are we talking about a sequel?
We don't actually know what it grossed or didn't gross since we don't have the real numbers, but it was still a terrible movie if you ask me thus a failure haha. It's cool they are still making sequels for the fans, and I'll still check out Covenant although my hopes aren't high.
Ha ha, yes--that's my point: some fans' reactions to the story is one thing. Its actual performance is another.
My only real problem with Prometheus is that the deleted scenes included on the disc really need to be reinstated.
You do realize that you have to double the budget cos you only get 50-55% of the ticket price back and then there is marketing on top of that. The studio expected a lot more, it did well below expectations
a couple of the scientific procedure problems a lot of people complained about in prometheus rear their ugly heads in covenant, but that was the least of its problems. It still has some fun sequences. I watched the deleted scenes when the disc came out but i dont remember them
Reviews seem very mixed again for Covenant. My main gripe I had with Prometheus is that it never really felt as tense or frightening as Alien (maybe besides a couple of scenes towards the end). The trailer made it look like it was going to be an edge of your seat movie and it wasn't really so that's what let me down. Might be going to see Covenant tonight and have my fingers crossed it'll be enjoyable. I am very worried though.
There's a bootleg version in torrents where they have added some of the deleted scenes and also taken out the terrible ones.
