Will Alien Covenant polarize?

Problem is both sides of the spectrum are having problems with the movie. Alien fans think the Alien element has been forced into the story. While Prometheus fans who expected to see more of the engineers or Shaw are very disappointed. However, those who liked David in Prometheus will have a great time.

Well, I won't divulge anythng, but I did get some solid inside info from a friend who knows I LOVE spoilers.

I'm going to just go into this movie Blank Slate. NO expectations, NO anticipations, and let it tell me about itself.
BUT I will be keeping solidly in mind that there is very likely a Director's Cut coming in the future given how rapacious FOX was regarding editing-time to rush it out the door. So knowing that, I'll overlook the choppy editing folks have been speaking of.

if i am being totally honest i think i will be disappointed after i watch A:C i say im keeping my feet on the ground as most of us by now know the flow of the film from all the evidence we have looked at.

there arent many opportunities for reveals. it was these reveals that got me so hyped for the film.

we all have our list but here is mine:

who are the elders?

are engineers 223 a creation of the elders?

what is the mural in prometheus about?

who is the bird faced character from the mural?

did this bird like creature have any involvement in the morphs original creation/egg?

what relationship do these beings have with the engineers 223?

now the A:C crew members cant answer any of these questions

shaw can but very small role

david can. however his initial conversation with the crew will be questionable as he may lie.

we havent seen any engineers 223 so far and it would probably be here when we got something.

so after prometheus my focus switched from the xeno who we all adore yet have seen a lot of, to the engineers and their mythology.

it seems as though ridley took the criticism to heart and thought :  you want aliens well you going get aliens.

my thinking now is that we will be left wondering. after our attention was turned to allow this expanded universe, then we may get an almost u-turn?

I think when Ridley says they want monsters, I'll give them to em. He is dodging changing the perspective of what pissed most people off of Prometheus. That is his bad decisions on characters doing stupid stuff and going sideways with stuff like Janek and vickers or weyland on the ship. He could have replaced those with better scenes to explain a little more or go deeper with engineer lore explained etc. To me lots of Prometheus was unnecessary angles with no payoff. Focusing too much on silly occult stuff or religion angles, idk. There were just too many cooks in the kitchen but Ridley had the final say on scenes like petting a space cobra or spending no time with David explaining what the engineer symbols tomb was. Oh well, I'll still watch this week and the week after to infinity likely. Alien1 just had an amaze balls script so Ridley did not need to hatchet n Frankenstein it. Alex, I'll take Covenant with simple explanations for $500.

Just got back from seeing Alien Covenant. Yes, it will polarize! I was hugely disappointment with Prometheus so went in to this with pretty low expectations. For a while things were looking really encouraging. I was enjoying it, even though I'd seen it all in the trailers! But then it just lost the plot totally. I mean really badly. I think Prometheus was quite ambitious & strayed too far from the path. Alien Covenant tries to get it back on track whilst still picking up some of the pieces from Prometheus. It fails on both counts. So the 'plot' is a sloppy miss mash of trying to fill too many holes & not really getting anywhere in the process. As ever with Ridley Scott the film looks amazing. Nobody could deny that. But there were times when I was utterly cringing in my seat, even more so than with Prometheus. Yes, the Alien is back. And many people felt this was missing from Prometheus. But it takes more than a couple of Xenomorphs to get this thing on track. I really think Ridley Scott needs to step away from this now. He's become to Alien what George Lucas became to Star Wars. Covenant is decidely average with a couple of amazing moments & many more utterly painful scenes.  

ninXeno426

Yes. I think there are going to be several types of detractors and supporters. The ones I count so far are:

Detractors

People who liked Prometheus more than Alien
People who are unwilling to accept the changes in assumed lore
People who feel there wasn't enough due diligence on the execution

Supporters

People who loved Alien/Aliens more than Prometheus
People who loved Alien/Aliens/Prometheus equally
People who love body horror

Looks like there will continue to be a large divide over the direction the overarching plot seems to be taking. Aside from that there will probably be smaller groups divided over other details.

I am waiting to see how I feel about the movie before deciding which side I'll stand on, but I will say, I support this film moving in more of an Alien/Aliens direction. Just so long as the next one moves back into the Prometheus vibe. I think the best bet is to alternate the between the Prometheus and Alien/Aliens styles. It would keep the larger epic established by Prometheus on track while keeping the attention of the majority (Alien/Aliens fans), which is where most of the funding for the future films will come from. Prometheus fans aren't going to be able to financially support these films by themselves.

I think Prometheus set up a real problem for Ridley and the sequels. Maybe it tried to be to grande to ever work. Alien Covenant has tried to follow this up whilst also trying to get back to its 'Alien' roots. For me the result is as disjointed and sloppy as Prometheus. I was at least hoping that Covenant would give me a few jumps, scares and edge of seat tension. There is none! Maybe because we have largely seen all this before. I agreed with Ridley, before Prometheus came out, when he said, 'the Alien is worn out as a shape'. I think he was right, more so after seeing Covenant. Another issue is that if you have seen the trailer you've pretty much seen everything this film has to offer. This seems to be a problem with most movies these days. But I was hoping that they had learnt from Prometheus that showing nearly everything about the film in the trailer is not really a cool thing to do. Best thing for me were the so called Neomorphs. They should have stuck with these aliens in Covenant. They were as ferocious and deadly as the most bad as Alien we've seen before. Didn't really need the Xeno shoe horned in here. It was just pure fan service. 

I love Alien and Aliens. Disliked Prometheus, would have been good if it hadn't had been part of the Alien franchise.

I genuinely thought Covenant was awful. Poor script, dialogue, no tension, mediocre acting, misplaced action sequences. 

Can we not get a good horror with a characters and acting as good as Alien? Or just close to it at least. Covenant felt like a spoof or a teen slasher in places.

QueenElizabethShaw I will likely be a supporter since I didn't care for Prometheus much. After AC I think I will be more receptive to a well written movie that eases up on the action and explores the Engineers. It will likely polarize- but the forum would get boring if everyone agreed- there wouldn't be much to say.

dk

"but the forum would get boring if everyone agreed- there wouldn't be much to say."

so true

@joylitt  "Alien fans think the Alien element has been forced into the story. While Prometheus fans who expected to see more of the engineers or Shaw are very disappointed. However, those who liked David in Prometheus will have a great time."

This sums it up perfectly for me. I honestly think the Neomorph would've been enough, I don't think the Xeno was necessary. I was extremely disappointed in the lack of Engineer & Prometheus lore.

I agree Covenant will polarise. I just walked out of my second viewing, and while I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as soon as the ending credits rolled both of the people I saw it with said "Man fuck this movie!"
I was like.... what? O.o

They both then said why weren't there more Aliens? I kinda LOL'd, and replied saying I wish there were less Aliens and more engineers. Neither of them have seen Prometheus yet either so it kinda made sense. They're more 'Aliens' fan boys I guess.

I contend that every movie in a "Universe" (e.g., Star Wars, alien, marvel, DC, John wick James Bond) polarizes its fans. Every movie is loathed and loved by its own passionate fanbase.

@QueenElizabethShaw

Hit the Nail on the Head, perfect response....

Indeed this movie will Polarize in many ways... The Bottom Line is that after seeing the Anticipation for Alien 5, which will give us Queen, Eggs, Face Huggers, Xenomorphs, Engineer Ships, Engineer Technology, Ripley, Hicks and Newt... and different versions of the Xenomorph and some Mutations/maybe Egg Morphing.

Compared to Prometheus 2 going off for Shaw (whos Character did not go down well with some) to get her answers, and to find out more who the Engineers are, why they created us, what their Agenda and Purpose, who they answer to... what other things have they created and maybe what was LV-223 all about... while stepping away from Alien.. so no Eggs/Xenos or Space Jockey explanation (as of yet).

FOX and Ridley just felt that more Fans wanted the Xenos back and cared not much for what Prometheus was doing..

Sadly the Movie was a Mess... as i will explain next..

Ridley liked some things from Prometheus, and he liked Fassbenders Role.. David was interesting, there was plenty to explore in how this Robot with many emotions would evolve.

So instead of having a Colony Ship end up at a Planet where there is no Robots.. but they just discover a Xeno threat.. would not work maybe to well. Maybe it could.. But Ridley would have wanted to bring Fassbender back and then its a case of do they have a new Robot... who again starts to go Haywire... because Ridley loved this Arc to David's Character.. but to just have another David and then this one turn out the same would be a Re-hash.

So Ridley felt that they had to go and explore David 8 from Prometheus, and well they cant just give ALIENS fans what they want and Ignore PROMETHEUS so they had to go the route of where David and Shaw was going, and to explore David's Character Arc, and the Black Goo as it was shown to be connected to the Xenomorph DNA.

They simply then had the Following 4 Problems..

1) They had to make us believe in the Characters, as one criticism of Prometheus was the lack of Character Development, so they chose to make it a Slow Burner build up more so than Alien, so we can be introduced to these Characters.. which the Last Super Prologue also was meant to help... but only helps those who have seen it.

SADLY this took up so much time, that by the time we get to the Planet and see our first encounters, the Neomorphs right until David Turns up....  so much of the Movie Running time has been taken up.... Up-to this Point the Movie was a 7.5/10 in the making.

2) Having a slow burn until we meet David, and how they want to give us a Alieny Movie, is a Problem because they cant just not explain how David is, for those who did not see Prometheus, and they cant just ignore it completely for those who did. And so they had to try and cover just enough to make some connections but never had the time to go deep into anything from Prometheus, due to Running time and also going to deep may PUT FANS Off because this is BILLED as a ALIEN movie... not Prometheus.

Prometheus was covered enough to pass by with hopefully the Alien Fans, and introduce those who did not know who David 8 and why he was there for.  Yet at the cost of letting down Prometheus Fans.

3) Brings us to Alien Parts... having already seen a Good portion gone in the Slow Burn to allow us to have better feeling for the Characters, and having to cover Prometheus parts to a small degree, did not leave much time to bring home any Alien Connections to fit within the Running time FOX would have aimed for which would have been up to 2.5 hours Total that would need to be trimmed to around 2 hours for Theatrical Release... So Now they had not much time to play with to introduce the Xenomorphs, which means for sake of Plot Device they had to drastically alter the Gestation and Growth Times (which could upset Alien Fans/Lore).

Then this means also we dont have much time to show these Xenomorph Scenes... it appears more was shot, but had to be cut back so as to shave time off to fit within the 2 hours... so the ALIEN connections was never done justice... including how now David is the creator of those Eggs on the Derelict... again going against Alien Lore, and then what Prometheus was showing.

4) To DISTANCE itself from Prometheus.. and push this as a ALIEN movie, the Marketing, Interviews and Trailers was pushed to Ram down our Throats.... LOOK ITS A ALIEN MOVIE!........ NO HONESTLY IT IS LOOK!!!

And Sadly this basically Gave away most of the Movie, and then those who was Aliens Fans etc... maybe wondering what we have not been shown... Sadly for them what we had not been shown was the Prometheus connections and Davids Arc... and the Alien Parts had pretty much all been Spoiled in the Trailers.