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#4367200 - 07/03/17 02:03 AM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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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/


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#4367208 - 07/03/17 05:21 AM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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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...

#4375429 - 08/20/17 02:38 AM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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Ok I finally saw this tonight and I have one question.

How did a xeno get onboard the colony ship near the end of the film?

The guy who had half his face burned could not have been infected. The face hugger that got on him was almost immediately removed and even if he was infected there's no way the chestbuster could have grown so quickly into a drone.

I agree with Ssnake that just like Prometheus, this story required people making too many stupid mistakes in order to "work".

I give this movie a rating of 6 out of 10.


“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.”
#4375437 - 08/20/17 03:24 AM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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This is great.



“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.”
#4415277 - 04/08/18 03:53 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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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.


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#4415388 - 04/09/18 10:40 AM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Arthonon]  
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Originally Posted by Arthonon
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]  
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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.


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#4415711 - 04/10/18 05:32 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Arthonon]  
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Originally Posted by Arthonon


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.”
#4415717 - 04/10/18 05:44 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: PanzerMeyer]  
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Didn’t they show the guy with half his face burned off by acid dead in the med bay with his chest burst open? At least, that’s how I remember it playing out.

#4415720 - 04/10/18 06:22 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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We rewound that scene as well, and it looked like a woman on the floor instead of a man, but in either case, we couldn't figure out how and when they would have gotten it implanted. Which brings up another issue - the time things took to happen in this movie seemed way off from the original, but I guess that could be explained as some sort of "evolution" over time. Although, you'd think quicker would be better, so if it slowed down, it would be more like de-evolution.


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#4415727 - 04/10/18 07:47 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Arthonon]  
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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.
#4415750 - 04/10/18 10:50 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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That must be it, it's just that it was on him so briefly that it seemed like it wasn't enough time. In the original, I thought the face-hugger was on Kane for hours.


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#4416184 - 04/13/18 07:28 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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It did have to melt through the helmet Kane was wearing but the prospector in Aliens didn't have that problem. Maybe the virus in the air somehow sped up the process.

#4416194 - 04/13/18 09:05 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: DaBBQ]  
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Originally Posted by DaBBQ
It did have to melt through the helmet Kane was wearing...


Well, it had already gone through the face plate by the time that they pulled him out of the egg chamber, so the "melting" part can't have taken more than a minute (otherwise, asphyxiation) while planting the egg apparently took hours. But, it's pretty obvious the writers didn't give a damn about internal consistency, not within the film itself, let alone the established canon.

#4419579 - 05/08/18 01:33 PM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ssnake]  
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Originally Posted by Ssnake
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. smile

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]  
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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]  
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Originally Posted by PanzerMeyer
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 frown

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 smile


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#4419982 - 05/10/18 04:55 AM Re: The worst plot hole in Alien Covenant [Re: Ajay]  
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You may thank Forbidden Planet for that specific trope.

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