# Alien: Covenant opening next month **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464 "2017-04-28T23:35:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/41 "2017-05-30T05:29:29Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Nah, letting anything happen to the ship’s cat would have been really dumb. That’s at least nine years of bad luck. Honestly my biggest question on re-watch was: What do they do with the cat when everybody’s in hypersleep? Is he alone on the ship? Who scoops his litter?!! :eek: My friend joked that the cat had a little mini-pod to sleep in and sure enough, at the end of the film… ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/42 "2017-05-30T12:32:48Z")
I’m with others that think the movie was predictable and repetitive. Perhaps to be fair to the series, I should mention that I’ve only seen Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, and Covenant. But it all seemed so predictable and done better in previous films in the series (or even by other films entirely). I would have preferred either of these “twist” endings: [spoiler]1. It really is Walter. He’s still good, and the colony ship goes on to the designated planet. Their report back to Earth helps set up Weyland-Yutani knowing about the xenomorph in Alien. Reasonably happy end of film. 1. It really is Walter. He’s decided to answer David’s question (by the way, quoting Milton is just lazy) by somehow overcoming whatever safeguards are in his programming to become evil. It can be an open question whether David is still alive and on the planet or dead. At least this isn’t quite as predictable as it being David. [/spoiler] Anyway, where is “A kind world, if we are kind” come from? (Apologies if I mangled the quote.) It sounds too stilted to be anything other than a quote. (Frankly, I think it sounds like something that should be in The Tempest.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/43 "2017-05-30T12:38:38Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > I’m with others that think the movie was predictable and repetitive. Perhaps to be fair to the series, I should mention that I’ve only seen Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, and Covenant. But it all seemed so predictable and done better in previous films in the series (or even by other films entirely). I would have preferred either of these “twist” endings: > > [spoiler]1. It really is Walter. He’s still good, and the colony ship goes on to the designated planet. Their report back to Earth helps set up Weyland-Yutani knowing about the xenomorph in Alien. Reasonably happy end of film. > > 1. It really is Walter. He’s decided to answer David’s question (by the way, quoting Milton is just lazy) by somehow overcoming whatever safeguards are in his programming to become evil. It can be an open question whether David is still alive and on the planet or dead. At least this isn’t quite as predictable as it being David. > [/spoiler] > > Anyway, where is “A kind world, if we are kind” come from? (Apologies if I mangled the quote.) It sounds too stilted to be anything other than a quote. (Frankly, I think it sounds like something that should be in The Tempest.) Sounds like a good description of _Deathworld_, in the Harry Harrison novel of that name (the first in a trilogy), believe it or not: > [@](#): > > Everything on the planet is predatory, and capable of killing an unwary human instantly. All large animals are strong enough to destroy small vehicles. All small animals have neurotoxic venom. All plants are carnivorous, even if only by default—their victims fertilize their soil. All microorganisms consume insufficiently protected tissue as quickly as acids. On top of this, all the aforementioned life evolves so quickly that even Kerk and his Pyrran crew have to be retrained upon their return from Cassylia in order to survive. > **[Deathworld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathworld)** > > Deathworld is the name of a series of science fiction novels by American writer Harry Harrison, including the books Deathworld (first published 1960, serialized in Astounding Science Fiction), Deathworld 2 (1964, initially titled The Ethical Engineer and serialized in Analog) and Deathworld 3 (1968, serialized in Analog as The Horse Barbarians), plus the short story "The Mothballed Spaceship" (1973, written as part of a tribute to John W. Campbell). The central hero is a gambler who becomes invol... ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/44 "2017-05-30T17:06:10Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > . . . I watched _Alien_ earlier this week and the character development is virtually nil. There is no real reason to care about anyone on that ship. The characters also do some incredibly dumb things. Yet it’s one of the best movies ever made (IMO.) _Alien_ only ever tries to be one thing: creepy as all hell. And it succeeds, grandly. Even the rewatch was stressful, because the tension is non-stop, _even though nothing really happens for like the first half hour._ As best as I can tell, the only reason we even care about Ripley is because she’s not stupid. She is the universal everyman stuck in a shit situation and we can all see ourselves there, trying to think our way to survival in the midst of pants-shitting fear. Scott manages to accomplish this without giving us a shred of information about her backstory and a bare minimum of dialog. > > . . . I rewatch _Alien_ now and then, as it’s one of my favorite movies. It seems like it plays on a continuous loop on IFC, so why not. I’m always blown away by how many little things that Ash does which foreshadow that he’s the plotting bad android. Virtually everything he says, every little action he takes, is for the purpose of getting the bug on board and letting it feast on the crewmembers. I see something new and nuanced in his performance every single time I rewatch the movie. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/45 "2017-05-30T17:22:26Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > And it kind of humanizes her, doesn’t it? We all know it’s dumb, but we also know it’s the one other living thing she has left. Well, it’s where I came down on the issue, which is why I put the descriptor “dumb” in quotation marks. As for _Covenant_, TV Tropes does its usual bang-up job summarizing the progress of the Idiot Ball, and it’s passage downfield: > **[Alien: Covenant - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WhatAnIdiot/AlienCovenant)** > > Yes, the movie has so many What an Idiot! moments that this became the first movie ever on this site to have an entire page by itself. Spoilers unmarked. Tennesse and Ankor go EVA to repair the damaged solar sails. You'd expect: Tennessee and … I think that in the original _Alien_ the crew’s “stupidity” is much more “natural,” in that “space-truckers” on a bog standard commercial deep space tug are not suited, mentally, emotionally, by education, training, experience, or inclination, for dealing with the Xenomorph. Add in the “inside man” in the android Ash, working covertly against the crew, and I think the story flows quite naturally. Likewise with _Aliens_, where the Marine’s experience and capabilities works against them; they dismiss/underestimate the Xenomorphs because, in their experience, no such thing existed, and they were (overly) confident in their technology and firepower. Hilarity ensues. _Alien3_ and _Resurection_ seem to repeat the patterns of the first two movies. But with _Prometheus_ and _Covenant_ we have trained and skilled specialists, in their respective fields, _scientists_ and such, who should know better than space-truckers, Marines, or lifers on a penal colony, yet do incredibly stupid, reckless, and irresponsible things anyway. When they inevitably and all-too-predictably die by their own stupidity, I get a grim, smug, mildly annoyed, “I-Told-You-So” sense of satisfaction, and disappointment in the story. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/46 "2017-05-30T17:36:12Z")
Yeah, that’s actually a pretty compelling argument. Especially seeing TV Tropes lay it all out like that. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/47 "2017-05-30T19:18:41Z")
For a second I thought the thread title was **Alien: Thomas Covenant**. The protagonist wears a white gold ring and complains about being a leper while the aliens attack. He can’t help because he’s too conflicted with himself. Carry on… ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/48 "2017-06-01T18:50:28Z")
I thought people in this thread might enjoy [today’s Cracked article: > [@](#): > > Congratulations! We’ve reviewed your application and decided that you would be a fine addition to the crew of the Covenant, a colony ship that Weyland-Yutani is launching into space with 2,000 frozen colonists and over 1,000 embryos with the explicit intent of starting a new planet. We’re not sure how we’re going to make any money off of this, since we mainly specialize in building robots who are preoccupied with the purpose of their own existence and filling random rooms with priceless works of art for those robots to look at, but we’re sure whoever is in charge of this wacky experiment has something in mind. Maybe? > > Anyway, though this is a dangerous mission, we at Weyland-Yutani have the utmost confidence that you will survive and do us all proud, provided you follow these very specific guidelines. ]([http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-super-dumb-decisions-characters-make-in-alien-covenant/](http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-super-dumb-decisions-characters-make-in-alien-covenant/)) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/49 "2017-06-01T18:59:04Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I thought people in this thread might enjoy [today’s Cracked article:](http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-super-dumb-decisions-characters-make-in-alien-covenant/) It’s easily MST3k with a higher budget. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/50 "2017-06-01T19:03:11Z")
Hahaha, great. I actually liked the blood slippage, though. That’s the kind of realistic dumb-shit thing someone would do when terrified. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/51 "2017-06-01T23:20:32Z")
I see psychological profiles will be a thing of the past in the future. “Hey cowboy, wanna helm this colony ship?” “Sure you can take your wife as part of the crew. There’s no chance you’d choose finding her to your duty to the ship and the other 2000-3000 souls entrusted to you.” “Quarantine, smarantine! That’s just boilerplate the insurance adjusters make us throw in.” ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/52 "2017-06-04T20:24:52Z")
We saw it yesterday afternoon and liked it okay. We saw _Prometheus_ too and liked that okay, but that was five years ago, so there was something puzzling us. In this new _Aliens_, Did David admit to having released the weaponized alien virus on purpose back in _Prometheus_? Because that’s not how we’re remembering it, although admittedly we’ve not spent much of the past five years pondering over the movi ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/53 "2017-07-12T01:08:01Z")
Saw it at the dollar theater on a whim last night and my 15yo daughter leaned over and whispered “Daddy, these characters are so dumb it’s ruining my enjoyment of the movie.” ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/54 "2017-09-18T02:38:30Z")
I’ve never seen any of the Alien/s moves that came before this one, but got talked into watching this yesterday with someone who really wanted to watch the blu-ray. Are all the characters in the **Aliens** franchise this stupid? Okay, so they weren’t _quite_ as stupid as the crew in **Life,** but damn. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/55 "2017-09-18T13:37:57Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I’ve never seen any of the Alien/s moves that came before this one. Starting with what is considered one of the worst of the franchise probably wasn’t the best move. The first _Alien_ is definitely worth watching. They don’t act stupidly, but they are out of their depth. It’s structured pretty much like a horror film, but is very gritty and realistic. The second one, _Aliens_, is considered the best by most fans, and is very different, more of a military movie. They’re not so much stupid as cocky. I suggest you try to wipe your mind of _Alien: Covenant_ and go watch these two, maybe as a Halloween double feature next month. I am confident that you’ll get something out of them that will be worth your time. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/56 "2017-09-18T14:23:35Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I’ve never seen any of the Alien/s moves that came before this one, but got talked into watching this yesterday with someone who really wanted to watch the blu-ray. Are all the characters in the **Aliens** franchise this stupid? Okay, so they weren’t _quite_ as stupid as the crew in **Life,** but damn. The earlier Alien movies featured people who did dumb things because they were completely out of their element and utterly incapable of being able to deal with what they were facing. The latest two Alien movies feature people who are complete failures at the most basic requirements of their actual jobs before the Alien even shows up. ---
**Author:** ![speigel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@speigel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/speigel)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/57 "2017-09-19T17:25:25Z")
maybe if theres a directors cut, now that the DVD is out. we may get to see a better cut. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/58 "2017-09-21T23:26:09Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Saw it at the dollar theater on a whim last night and my 15yo daughter leaned over and whispered “Daddy, these characters are so dumb it’s ruining my enjoyment of the movie.” An hour or so into the film, my fetus daughter popped out of my wife’s abdominopelvic cavity and said exactly the same thing! ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/59 "2017-10-24T18:49:40Z")
I finally saw it last week. It was ok. I think I’d place it at a distant 3rd after Alien and Aliens. Slightly better than Alien3. I share the frustration of everyone at how dumb the characters were, but they were arguably less dumb than in Prometheus. The sad thing is that it’s _so easy_ to fix many of these problems with a little bit of writing. They already have a rogue wave that damages the ship. Instead of having them hem and haw over whether to stop at the close planet, just have the ship be disabled enough that they _can’t_ keep going to the original destination. A single line could also explain the lack of protective gear: they don’t have it because their planned destination had already been thoroughly vetted. Or it got incinerated in the fire. The other thing that I disliked, and they have done this in basically every bad Alien-related movie, is that the in-world timeline for growth of the xenomorphs is far too accelerated. In Alien, the facehugger stayed on for hours, and the bug came out hours after it fell off. It grew quickly, but only after finding the food stores. In Aliens, the delayed implantation/impregnation cycle is even a plot point, as Burke intends to take Ripley back in stasis. Covenant shows the captain get face-hugged into xeno into fully-grown in, what, under an hour? It also shows a facehugger successfully implant after a few seconds of attachment. But that one mysteriously takes longer to hatch. The inconsistency is dumb. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464/60 "2017-10-30T16:43:36Z")
I cosign all the complaints **Reply** put in spoiler tags. Plus the TV Tropes stuff, the inconsistencies **iamthewalrus** points out, and pretty much all the other complaints people had. I do disagree with most of you about earlier installments, though: I loved both the original _Alien_ and also _Prometheus_, and disliked _Aliens_ (I was appalled at the time that they made the sequel to a moody ‘70s sci-fi/horror film into a dumb ‘80s action shoot-em-up). > [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > At least the characters aren’t **SO DUMB** as the “scientists” in _"Prometheus_ were. You sure about that? I thought the captain’s gullibility was much worse. After all, he had already seen alien critters on a killing spree, while the scientists approaching the “snake” had not yet seen anything do anyone harm. What drives me nuts is that Scott apparently decided to “fix” a bunch of stuff people disliked about _Prometheus_, but he “fixed” the stuff I liked and doubled down on that “stupidity” flaw. Otherwise, it was mostly just a rehash of what happened in earlier movies. Bleah. I would love to know what this movie would have been like without all the audience and studio feedback that it needed to go back to action-horror with the same old xenomorphs. (The massive success of _The Force Awakens_ is killing any chance of originality in other franchise sequels.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-covenant-opening-next-month/785464.md?page=4)