#4360018 - 05/29/17 10:17 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Ssnake
Virtual Shiva Beast
|
Virtual Shiva Beast
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Germoney
|
My main beef with Covenant is that the scientists don't behave like scientists, and the plot requires too many bad decisions being made by too many people in order to continue. - You land on a planet with breathable atmosphere to find the origin of a human song's transmission ... and they grab rifles?
The equipment that protects you against 0.001% of all deadly threats in an alien biosphere. - You land on an unknown planet with breathable atmosphere ... and you DON'T wear protection suits?
Seriously? The one piece of equipment that would protect you against 99.99% of all deadly threats in a species-compatible but presumably alien ecosphere? - You feel a sting in your ear/your nose. Soon after you feel ill - and you don't make the connection that you may have been infected by an alien organism, and alert the others, and be it just to request medical assistance?
- You meet a perfect copy of your synth as the source of the song's transmission after being confronted with a highly aggressive predator, walk through the charred bodies of a million human-like bodies, people are constantly disappearing, and you never question the motives of the AI?
- You just lost 30% of your buddies to horrible space monsters, and you walk away from the group to take a pee and to wash your face? That's your priority, really?
- You meet a perfect copy of your trustworthy synth in conditions that would turn every normal person's paranoia up to eleven, and you never test with whom you're actually speaking, or whether the evil twin could reprogram the good 'bot?
- You enter the creepy synth's lair, take a look at all his horrible fabrications, see him try to make friends with a horrid monster that just ate your friend's face, and, after he told you that in order to finish his research for the perfect organism he always needed one ingredient that wasn't to be had (because he was all alone with no human being on this planet), you trust his word that a "look at these disgusting eggs, it's perfectly harmless"?
Man, these people needed killin'. Even more so, the script writer, the director, and the studio execs who greenlit the project. In Alien 1-3 at least, the number of bad decisions was pretty low. Yes, an error was made occasionally, sometimes even just once, and the rest simply were consequences of that single or the few bad calls. None of the scientists in Prometheus behaved like an actual scientist. It is as if writing a concise story has become a lost art. Ridley Scott apparently isn't very good ad judging the quality of a script. Sometimes he gets lucky - more often in the past 30 years he does not.
|
|
#4360019 - 05/29/17 10:24 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Ssnake
Virtual Shiva Beast
|
Virtual Shiva Beast
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Germoney
|
How did David create the Alien when this was already a thing in Prometheus? I know there is a lot wrong with Covenant but this just seemed sillier than most. Well, assuming that the bioweapon was designed to adapt to different DNA and to yield a different creature, something that was being alluded to as early as in Alien 4 (which I hated, even though it was solid gold compared to the trash that was cranked out in the years after), without more than one human body he could only come so far. After all, this was the engineers' planet. Apparently they left the planet where they crashed with the Prometheus in the alien ship, flew back "home", and then he performed the genocide on the engineers. Obviously that would produce different xenomorphs, simply because of the different DNA. And David has nothing to feed on, for an Alien.
|
|
#4360038 - 05/29/17 01:28 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 4,465
Bib4Tuna
I will take you to Jabba
|
I will take you to Jabba
Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 4,465
NC, USA
|
The whole Alien as a engineered bio weapon by David kills other previous elements in the franchise -
- In Alien, they estimate the ship they discover with The Space Jockey and the eggs is thousands of years old. This seem to fit initially with the Prometheus premise, but now its just another hole.
-No development cycle from chestbuster to full Xenomorph as seen before. They don't even get the chestbuster right. Cue the diner dancing number in Spaceballs.
-Although not necessarily canon, the whole AvP series of books and movies, establishes that the Predators have been using the Xenos for thousands of years as a test for their skill as hunters.
-No queen. Why do you need a queen (or eggs...or facehuggers) if you have floaty goo? However...this seem like Scott squashing Cameron's take on the Xenos, as the queen was introduced by Aliens.
But the worse was Scott literally killing the mystery and the best element in Prometheus, which was the Engineers and their motivations.
He seem to have adjusted the movie based on audience feedback (like Lucas did with Jar Jar after TPM), and wanted to steer the direction of the plot mid-movie towards the horror elements in Alien. It all ends up messy and amateurish in the way it is done.
Last edited by Bib4Tuna; 05/29/17 06:41 PM.
|
|
#4360045 - 05/29/17 02:10 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Ssnake
Virtual Shiva Beast
|
Virtual Shiva Beast
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Germoney
|
Well, even then you still need someone...something to actually produce the eggs. The Alien Queen is a very concise idea to answer the obvious question where these eggs are coming from. Now he destroyed the queen concept, but put nothing in place to fill the plothole.
Also, I don't know about aliens in all shapes and forms. It's not as what was established by the first three movies wasn't scary enough. I might even tolerate the fourth film as clueless dabbling by military research facility bioengineers (with predictable outcomes), but only AFTER they are in contact with humans. These latest two abominations have great visuals and a gret soundtrack, but not only are they plot hole ridden and with less than impressive characters (I liked Liz Shaw, to Julia Ormond's credit), the stories themselves simply aren't very good. Whether the AvP films should be considered "canon" is a question for nerds. But, as bad as they were (compared to what they could have been), at least they didn't question the very foundation of the established Alien backstory.
The "Alien vs Predator" and "Alien Isolation" computer games were both leaps and bounds better in their storytelling, and they respected the original material. Ridley Scott seems to follow the terrible example of George Lucas, except that so far he refrained from tinkering with the old films. Hopefully he's not reading this. I don't want to give him ideas how much more destructive he could become.
Last edited by Ssnake; 05/29/17 02:12 PM.
|
|
#4360050 - 05/29/17 02:37 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,503
DM
Senior Member
|
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,503
Prague
|
I thought the idea of the xenomorph is that it takes new features from its hosts and adapts, hence the alien in Alien (1979) has the basic shape of a human, possibly for the first time. So as long as there is some insectoid creature in the alien's future then it will take that on and adapt yes? Or at least, that one branch of it.
Last edited by DM; 05/29/17 02:38 PM.
"They might look the same, but they don't taste the same."
|
|
#4360099 - 05/29/17 06:45 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 4,465
Bib4Tuna
I will take you to Jabba
|
I will take you to Jabba
Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 4,465
NC, USA
|
|
|
#4360884 - 06/01/17 12:13 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ssnake]
|
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 11,752
Vertigo1
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 11,752
Zeta Aquilae System
|
Well, even then you still need someone...something to actually produce the eggs. The Alien Queen is a very concise idea to answer the obvious question where these eggs are coming from. Now he destroyed the queen concept, but put nothing in place to fill the plothole.
Didn't David basically dissect Shaw and use her ovum and reproductive system to produce these new Alien eggs? Wouldn't that make her, in essence, the first "queen" for his variant of the xenomorph?
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” -Milton Friedman
Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat
|
|
#4361372 - 06/01/17 03:41 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 6,968
Jayhawk
Silastic Armorfiend
|
Silastic Armorfiend
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 6,968
Docking Bay 94
|
There needs to be an Amendment to the Constitution that makes it illegal for creators of iconic franchises to mess with their creation at some point, determined by a board of experts. For George Lucas, the specific point in time would have been 1981. BTW, fun fact, according to this guy here, Star Wars was meant to be a single, stand-alone movie. Only after the overwhelming success (which caught everyone, especially Lucas, by total surprise) were the sequels even considered. So the whole Anakin= Vader arc was an afterthought. I've read somewhere else that the "Episode IV" thing on top of the crawl was merely a nod towards the Flash Gordon serials, not a hint for an actualy, pre-planned, larger story arc. Ridley Scott strikes me to have the same frame of mind as Lucas before him: nipping and tucking at the franchise (which also started out as a stand-alone film) until it looks like a freak. So Scott remembered the deleted scene (must have been deleted for a reason, I assume) and "retcons" the whole franchise based (in part) on that? It would have probably been best to let the story rest after part 2. At some point, especially when doing prequels, you always run the risk to ruin the previous films by introducing plot holes, or make it all unnecessarily complicated by over-exposition. The origin of the Xenomorph is actually quite irrelevant to the plot of the original Alien, as well as to the sequel.
Why men throw their lives away attacking an armed Witcher... I'll never know. Something wrong with my face?
|
|
#4361377 - 06/01/17 03:55 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Jayhawk]
|
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
|
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
|
The origin of the Xenomorph is actually quite irrelevant to the plot of the original Alien, as well as to the sequel. Completely agree and the enigmatic derelict ship on LV426 just added that much more to the mystery and allure of the franchise. Some things are better left unexplained.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
|
|
#4362403 - 06/06/17 05:08 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Deacon211]
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,503
DM
Senior Member
|
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,503
Prague
|
I tend to agree that a little mystery goes a long way to making a movie a classic.
I, like many I think, always want answers to those enigmatic questions from my favorite movie worlds. But, if you are going to reveal the answers, you really need it to be a wow moment and not a meh one. Trying to explain everything seems to lose the magic somehow and make the extraordinary, ordinary.
BTW, the original Star Wars didn't have Episode IV in the crawl. It was added in later. The first re-edition I think? Maybe later. I still own a Laserdisc version of Star Wars in it's original release state.
"They might look the same, but they don't taste the same."
|
|
#4362417 - 06/06/17 06:26 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: DM]
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 6,968
Jayhawk
Silastic Armorfiend
|
Silastic Armorfiend
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 6,968
Docking Bay 94
|
I tend to agree that a little mystery goes a long way to making a movie a classic.
I, like many I think, always want answers to those enigmatic questions from my favorite movie worlds. But, if you are going to reveal the answers, you really need it to be a wow moment and not a meh one. Trying to explain everything seems to lose the magic somehow and make the extraordinary, ordinary.
BTW, the original Star Wars didn't have Episode IV in the crawl. It was added in later. The first re-edition I think? Maybe later. I still own a Laserdisc version of Star Wars in it's original release state. I would put that in a vault if I were you....at least as long a George is still alive.
Why men throw their lives away attacking an armed Witcher... I'll never know. Something wrong with my face?
|
|
#4362425 - 06/06/17 06:41 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Jayhawk]
|
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
|
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
|
I tend to agree that a little mystery goes a long way to making a movie a classic.
I, like many I think, always want answers to those enigmatic questions from my favorite movie worlds. But, if you are going to reveal the answers, you really need it to be a wow moment and not a meh one. Trying to explain everything seems to lose the magic somehow and make the extraordinary, ordinary.
BTW, the original Star Wars didn't have Episode IV in the crawl. It was added in later. The first re-edition I think? Maybe later. I still own a Laserdisc version of Star Wars in it's original release state. I would put that in a vault if I were you....at least as long a George is still alive. Along with any copies of the original theatrical release of "E.T."
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 06/06/17 06:41 PM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
|
|
#4367195 - 07/03/17 12:43 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,570
Mr_Blastman
Hotshot
|
Hotshot
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,570
Atlanta, GA
|
Saw the movie today, and it became a farce when...
a. Neutrino burst fried the ship.
b. Solar sails used in interstellar space to power the ship.
OKAY
Neutrino burst fries the ship? For real? I don't think so! Neutrinos are essentially non-interacting particles! Billions travel through the Earth daily! This is the biggest #%&*$# excuse I've seen a film use in a long time. For #%&*$#'s sake, if you're going to physics something, damn well know what the #%&*$# you are doing before you do it! Script writers failed hard here.
Solar sails... that was a huge WTF moment. There's not enough insolation in interstellar space to provide significant power through a solar sail. You know, the whole inverse square law thing. The ship would have used reactors, especially a craft of that size.
So barely into the film, it is full of pseudoscientific BS and that torpedoed any authenticity it had from there on out.
Did I hate the film? No. Did I get any enjoyment out of it? Yes. But it was far from perfect. I loved seeing the evil guy win. I thought it was fantastic the android wanted to be a god of his own. I did not care for the politically correct android kissing(totally not needed in the film and did not belong), nor did I care for how idiotic some of the characters were. But I enjoyed seeing an evil mastermind android carry out his sinister plan.
|
|
#4367200 - 07/03/17 02:03 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 19,581
Raw Kryptonite
Beat the Kobayashi Maru
|
Beat the Kobayashi Maru
Veteran
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 19,581
MS
|
I have yet to see the movie, but photon sail idea has been talked about and written about for decades. Personally, I find it difficult to picture photons doing what the wind does, but those that know a lot more than me seem to find it feasible. Or is what's in the movie something different? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160202-solar-sail-space-nasa-exploration/
·Steam: Raw Kryptonite ·MWO & Elite Dangerous: Defcon Won ·Meager youtube channel·Intel i5-9600K ·EVGA GTX1070 FTW 8GB ·EVGA CLC 120 Cooler ·16 GB Patriot Memory VIPER 4 3000MHz ·GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS PRO WiFi Mobo · CORSAIR CARBIDE AIR 540 case ·BenQ BL3200PT monitor
|
|
#4367208 - 07/03/17 05:21 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,570
Mr_Blastman
Hotshot
|
Hotshot
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,570
Atlanta, GA
|
Nah, it isn't used as a solar sail, and even IF a photon sail is used, they have a maximum effective range from a star before they become worthless, and this depends on the mass being "pulled" by the sail and the output of the star.
In Aliens, the sail was used to power the spacecraft's basic systems??????!?
Basically, there's a neutrino storm which fries the ship's electronics, and nukes one of the sails, and they have to fix the sail to restore power. Absolutely ridiculous in the context of the starship and the mission. Not to mention, neutrinos are electrically neutral...
|
|
#4415388 - 04/09/18 10:40 AM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Arthonon]
|
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
|
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
|
OK, resurrecting this old thread because I just watched it, and I have to say it's nice to see that everyone else has pretty much the same issues with it that I did. It's hard to believe something like that could get made, and more amazing that it has a "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm a huge Richard Wagner fan so I realized how sad it was that the main thing that excited me about the movie was the Wagner music that was played in the very beginning and end of the film.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
|
|
#4415707 - 04/10/18 05:25 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 10,560
Arthonon
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 10,560
California
|
Yeah, if that's the best thing you can say about a film, and that music wasn't even written specifically for it, it tells you how bad it was. On a positive note, I was really impressed with the vast majority of the special effects. I know that effects can be done well in most cases these days, but something about how they were done in both Prometheus and Covenant looked more real to me somehow.
Also, I agree on the question about how the last alien got on board. My girlfriend and I discussed that, and I had to rewind it to show her that the one on the platform was crushed, so we weren't sure where it came from. It just seemed like sloppy movie-making in general.
|
|
#4415711 - 04/10/18 05:32 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Arthonon]
|
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
|
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
|
Also, I agree on the question about how the last alien got on board. My girlfriend and I discussed that, and I had to rewind it to show her that the one on the platform was crushed, so we weren't sure where it came from. It just seemed like sloppy movie-making in general.
It absolutely was sloppy writing. I also went back and checked the previous several minutes before the ship leaves the planet and there is zero way an alien could have gotten inside. This is not like "Aliens" where you clearly saw that the alien queen was able to get inside one of the spaces between an engine and the fuselage and the queen had the time to get in since we saw the dropship get tangled with the metal debris before it finally took off.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
|
|
#4415727 - 04/10/18 07:47 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Arthonon]
|
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 702
Bohemond
Member
|
Member
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 702
Albuquerque, NM
|
Half face dude was the only one besides the captain to have a facehugger on him, if I recall correctly. Even if was only for a few seconds.
Thinking further, he had to be the host. Only Daniel’s, T, David, and he were on the planet and returned to the Covenant.
Last edited by Bohemond; 04/10/18 07:51 PM.
|
|
#4419579 - 05/08/18 01:33 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ssnake]
|
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,570
Mr_Blastman
Hotshot
|
Hotshot
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,570
Atlanta, GA
|
My main beef with Covenant is that the scientists don't behave like scientists, and the plot requires too many bad decisions being made by too many people in order to continue.
One of the primary rules of writing fiction well, professionally, is for plot progression not to require main or key characters to do stupid things, make stupid decisions or act stupidly. Covenant is a good example of why the rule is a rule. Another good example of deplorable writing violating this rule is the movie "Life."
Last edited by Mr_Blastman; 05/08/18 01:40 PM.
|
|
#4419587 - 05/08/18 01:54 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: Ajay]
|
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
|
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,384
Miami, FL USA
|
Both Ssnake and Mr_Blastman are absolutely correct.
Let's take the remake of "The Thing" as a perfect example of how to write a script.
You have a team of scientists and blue collar workers at a research site in Antarctica whereby none of them do anything that is completely out of character to the role they are playing. There's no way for the team to know that the dog they brought in has the alien host inside so they do the normal, expected thing and bring the dog to their facility and put him with the other dogs inside the kennel. After all hell breaks loose, everything after that has the team members trying everything possible to figure out what is happening and then you naturally have the paranoia set in between them of who might be infected and who is ok. The entire script had very believable and logical motivations for the characters.
This was severely lacking with both Prometheus and Covenant.
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 05/08/18 01:55 PM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
|
|
#4419665 - 05/08/18 08:47 PM
Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,503
DM
Senior Member
|
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,503
Prague
|
Let's take the remake of "The Thing" as a perfect example of how to write a script.
You have a team of scientists and blue collar workers at a research site in Antarctica whereby none of them do anything that is completely out of character to the role they are playing. There's no way for the team to know that the dog they brought in has the alien host inside so they do the normal, expected thing and bring the dog to their facility and put him with the other dogs inside the kennel. After all hell breaks loose, everything after that has the team members trying everything possible to figure out what is happening and then you naturally have the paranoia set in between them of who might be infected and who is ok. The entire script had very believable and logical motivations for the characters. I wish The Thing 2011 had followed that rule In fact, I really wish they had filmed it in context - an all-male cast filmed in Norwegian. It could have been awesome. And don't even get me started with the ridiculous sci-fi- meme of a derelict spaceship that just happens to be fully functional after all, I am truly sick of that
"They might look the same, but they don't taste the same."
|
|
|
|